How to Read the Bible 2/2

OT Lesson: Isaiah 40:6-8 (NLT)

A voice said, “Shout!”
I asked, “What should I shout?”
“Shout that people are like the grass.
Their beauty fades as quickly
as the flowers in a field.
The grass withers and the flowers fade
beneath the breath of the Lord.
And so it is with people.
The grass withers and the flowers fade,
but the word of our God stands forever.”

NT Lesson: 2 Timothy 3:16-17 (NRSV)

All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.

Sermon

Introduction

Good morning and long time no see. I have been away for four weeks. I stayed in Korea for three weeks with Samuel while Hannah enjoyed her single life in America. While I was in Korea, it rained crazy everyday except two or three days. There were floods and landslides which killed almost thirty people. Definitely the climate changed and is still changing. Anyway, because of the bad weather, I had very limited outdoor activities with Samuel. But that was not too bad. As you may know, the whole purpose of the Korean trip was to let my son and mother spend some time together before my mother’s dementia gets too bad. So they stayed together in the house a lot, which served the exact purpose of the trip. I have a super wonderful memory of my grandmother, and I wish the same for Samuel. Anyway, for the last four Sundays, we had three wonderful preachers, with different preaching styles and different emphases. That is great and it must have been refreshing, like eating tasty treats. But the thing is you cannot live on treats. It is time for you to eat not that tasty regular meals. To recap, I was in the middle of Sola series, and finished Sola Fide and Sola Scriptura, and then I preached the first half of ‘How to Read the Bible’ as part of the Sola Scriptura. And today is the second half. Then I will finish up the Sola series: Sola Gratia, Solus Christus, and Soli Deo Gloria.

Bible is the Inspiration

Apostle Paul is one of the greatest theologians in history. He had great knowledge of the Greek language and philosophy as well as deep understanding of the Hebrew language and the Old Testaments. Plus his personal experience of repentance and conversion through the encounter with Jesus Christ made him a not only great but also unique theologian. Today he says that all Scripture, all the Bible is inspired by God. And I believe it is really important to understand what it means that God inspired. The inspiration is not a dictation. It was not like God was dictating while Moses and other prophets were taking dictation. Instead, God inspired them. For example, if something inspires, let’s say, five artists, nonetheless all their arts and works will be different because they are inspired, not copying each other. The arts can be similar in theme, but their expressions and details must be all different. They cannot be identical. If they are, we don’t say it inspiration but plagiarism. Because all Scripture is inspired, not dictated, each book has its own unique writing styles and emphases. But that does not mean that one book in the Bible is more divine than the other. They are all inspired by one and same God.

So we now know that the Bible is inspired by God. But here is a thing: the entire Bible is written in human language, and thus the Bible is inevitably subject to the imperfection and error. Not that the divine inspiration is imperfect, but the human languages, which is the vessel containing the perfect divine inspiration, is imperfect. Psalm 19 sings that the law of the Lord is perfect.1 Yes it is. The divine inspiration is absolutely perfect. Anything divine is perfect, but nothing human is perfect. And that includes the languages. No human language is capable of containing the great God one hundred per cent. When king Solomon determined to build the temple of God, he sent a letter to king Huram of Tyre for assistance with construction materials. In the letter, he confessed, “Who is able to build a house for God, since heaven, even highest heaven, cannot contain Him?”2 No matter how big and great the temple is, it cannot contain God because it is nothing but a human building. Likewise, no matter how awesome Hebrew and Greek languages are, they cannot contain God because these are nothing but human languages. Likewise our small human brains cannot understand God fully. Our small human lips cannot express God fully.

Thus, every time we read and interpret the Bible, we must admit and remind ourselves the possibility of we being wrong. God is perfect. The divine inspiration is perfect. But our human language is not perfect. The prophets were not perfect who implemented the perfect inspiration into written words. My small brain is not perfect. So there is a possibility that my understanding may not accurate. My lips are not perfect. So there is a possibility that my explanation may not accurate. We all need to admit this first before we read and interpret the Bible. But you may think, “I have better chance to be right than any other people,” as long as you don’t think like “I am absolutely right and perfect all the time.”

Correcting

Now we know that we are in danger of being wrong. Then what shall we do? Do we just stop reading the Bible out of fear of being wrong? It is the opposite. We need to read and study all the more. And the best way to do that is coming to the Saturday Bible Study. And whenever we find ourselves with wrong interpretation, we simply need to correct ourselves just as we repent we when sin. And that is what the Christian theologians did. 

One of the great blessings to us is the modern medicine, especially anaesthesia. Think about simple appendectomy without anaesthesia, or pulling your tooth out without numbing at the dentist’s. Can you imagine? Giving birth, as you know, comes with great pain which I will never understand how much. So around 1840s, some doctors and ladies tried the pain-free child delivery. And then there were great backlashes in England by the church. Many theologians and pastors preached angrily against the pain-free delivery because God purposely gave pain to women and thus giving birth without pain is against God’s will, and that those women will burn in hell. And indeed, God says to a woman in the Bible, “I will make your childbearing very severe; with painful labour you will give birth to children.”3 So do I also need to preach against the pain-free child delivery that all the mothers who used epidural during child delivery will burn in hell? Thankfully all those theologians and pastors changed their mind in 1853 all together all at once. It was because Queen Victoria gave birth to a child under anaesthesia in that year. There was no epidural back then, so she used chloroform. Anyway you all know what would happen if you preach ‘Queen burn in hell’ instead of singing ‘God save the Queen.’ So all of them changed their mind and began to preach it is also God’s will to avoid pains whenever possible men and women alike because God had put Adam to sleep before removing one of his ribs, which is same as anaesthesia. Personally I like the second interpretation of the Genesis story. So we, the Christian church, corrected ourselves with the better interpretation. And the church moved from misogyny to humanitarian.

The slavery was of course one of the hot debates long time ago. Pro-slavery people used to say that the slavery is God’s will and even apostle Paul wrote in his letter, ‘Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear.’4 But now nobody interprets the Bible in that way. Again, we, the Christian church in America, corrected ourselves with the better interpretation.

Divorce Case

Let’s talk about divorce. Traditionally the church did not allow divorce. King Henry VIII of England wanted to divorce his wife but the Pope did not allow it. So the king separated himself from the church in 1534 and made his own church, which is the Anglican church. The Episcopal church in America is part of the Anglican Communion. Anyway he was the king so he was able to split himself from the church safely, but many other normal people were simply kicked out of the church. That is not the story of couple hundreds of years ago. I met a senior lady in person who was divorced many decades ago not by her fault, but then was kicked out of the church. Interestingly enough, her ex-husband was not kicked out of the church even though he was the reason of divorce being a wife-beater and heavy drinker. She was from Indiana and still alive. The reason why the church traditionally and until recent stood strongly against the divorce is because Jesus strictly said no to divorce in Matthew 19, saying “anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.” These days, most churches are OK with the divorce. We do not kick out the members any more when they divorce. So are we not following the teachings of Jesus any more while we call ourselves as the followers of Jesus? What is funny in this chapter is the reaction of the disciples. When Jesus says strongly and sternly no to divorce, the disciples reacted and said, ‘What? If we cannot divorce freely, we’d better not marry in the first place!’ So obviously the guys back then wanted divorce more than the marriage itself. Why was that? Why did the guys desire the divorce so much? In the biblical days, women were not allowed to work. There was no job for women at all. Getting divorced for women means no income at all. And there was no social security. So for guys, divorce was the easiest and most effective means to control their wives. The threat was so real and when they say ‘I will divorce you,’ the wives hear it as ‘I’ll kill you.’

Divorce was also used as legal prostitution. The prostitution was illegal back then in the biblical days. If found, the women were stoned to death. The guys are safe but it was still a great shame—too risky for the socially well known people. What they did was this:  They marry an already divorced but still sexually attractive woman, enjoy her for a few years, and then let her go with the divorce certificate which Moses mentioned. Then other guy may do the same and taker her for a few years and then let her go again. Legally that was not a prostitution but functioned in reality as a prostitution. That is why and how the woman who met Jesus at Jacob’s well had five ex-husbands. So either way divorce was a very effective and legal way to abuse women sexually, emotionally, economically, physically, and every possible way. By saying no to divorce, Jesus was telling His disciples and us that we shall not abuse women. And that is why the disciples were all super upset. “What? I cannot abuse my wife? I cannot beat up my wife? Well then, I’d better not marry in the first place!”

Bible Study

I actually prepared a few more examples but it is time to finish up. When we cling on too much on the literal wordings and alphabets, we may fail to read between the lines in the Bible. So to read the Bible correctly, we need to know and understand the cultures and background knowledges of the Middle East at the biblical times. And that requires study, which is why you need to come to the Bible study Saturday morning 11:30. There is always free lunch. And also the Bible is the divine inspiration, not the dictation, we must try to see the big picture in the context, instead of hanging onto word by word. And as we discussed earlier, because we are not perfect, we’d better discuss in a group as often as possible with our minds open wide. And the last practical advice is this: when you read the Bible, try to read two or more versions together and compare them. The best combination is either KJV or NRSV on one side, and NIV or CEB on the other side.

Conclusion

Friends, the Bible is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work. So we must read the Bible for our own benefits. But at the same time, the Bible is thousands of years old book from far away country. So we must study the Bible to read it according to its original purpose, of which apostle Paul says that the Bible “was written for our instruction, so that by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”5 The purpose of the Scripture is love and hope. So let us read and interpret the Bible, and let us give each other the divine hope in the love of Jesus Christ our Saviour, who is the hope of the world, and who is the love itself. Amen.