Hermeneutics of Convenience (1)

Then Jesus said to them, “Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.” Matthew 16.6

Love wrongly focused
As we have seen, there are right ways and wrong ways of reading the Bible. The discipline of reading and interpreting the Bible is called hermeneutics. The name derives from Hermes, the ancient Greek god who was believed to bring messages to men. Just as there are right and wrong ways of reading the Bible, so there are right and wrong ways of interpreting it. We want to make sure we’re following proper guidelines as we seek to derive the message of Scripture for our lives.

As Augustine explained in his treatise, On Christian Doctrine, “There are certain precepts for treating the Scriptures which I think may not inconveniently be transmitted to students, so that they may profit not only from reading the work of expositors but also in their own explanations of the sacred writings to others.” Those precepts for interpreting Scripture, Augustine insisted, can be discerned from the Scriptures themselves, as well as in the writings of the best teachers and thinkers of the Christian movement.

From time to time, certain people choose not to follow those tested precepts of interpretation. Instead, they come to the Bible with an agenda, a conclusion in their minds concerning what the Bible ought to teach about a topic or practice, and then they set about the task of forcing Scripture to justify their own preferred view.

Augustine wrote of such a person that he should be angry with himself for twisting the Scripture away from its plain meaning, “For if he takes up rashly a meaning which the author whom he is reading did not intend, he often falls in with other statements which he cannot harmonize with this meaning. And if he admits that these statements are true and certain, then it follows that the meaning he had put upon the former passage cannot be the true one: and so it comes to pass, one can hardly tell how, that, out of love for his own opinion, he begins to feel more angry with Scripture than he is with himself” (emphasis added).

The “angrier” such a person becomes at Scripture, because it won’t go along with his agenda, the harder he twists it, and in more places, until it seems to be affirming his position after all – if only in his own mind.

We come to the Scriptures out of love for God and loving the time we spend with Him in His Word. We love to hear His voice, to meet Him in His glory, to grow in our salvation and be transformed into the image of Jesus Christ by the Word and Spirit of God, and to go forth loving God and others more truly as a result.

But if we come to the Bible loving our own views, opinions, or practices more than God and His Word, we will, in effect, hate the Bible whenever it disagrees with us, and we will twist and wrench and wrest and cajole the Scriptures into saying what we want to hear, rather than what they want us to hear.

Control freaks
The religious leaders of Jesus’ day were control freaks. Most of the real authority for ordering life and society had been taken away from them by the Romans. These leaders understood that, in many ways, they were puppets in the hand of Rome, to keep order as the Romans chose to define it. Their power was purely contingent upon the good pleasure of the Emperor or his civil lackeys and the military forces in Judea. The religious leaders lived in fear that the Romans might come and take away their place in the hierarchy of things (Jn. 11.45-48). The threat was real that the people might see through the façade of their status and pay more attention to Roman law than Hebrew Law. And where would that leave the leaders of Israel?

Over the years, therefore, the leaders of the Jews contrived to make themselves the focal point of Hebrew religion. They elaborated an extensive system of regulations and traditions, coupled with the threat of excommunication for dissenters (cf. Jn. 9), that was ostensibly designed to help the people practice the righteousness of God and avoid the temptations of Roman emperor worship and morality. The more the Jewish leaders proclaimed and enforced these “traditions”, the more two things began to happen.

First, the people began to feel oppressed under the heavy burden of a works righteousness, that was bringing joy, hope, and spiritual freedom to no one. Second, and perhaps more important, the promulgation and enforcement of these traditions tended to redound to the power and prosperity of the religious leaders themselves. Every new regulation or tradition involved some twisting of Scripture to advantage the place and privileges of the religious leaders – and, as often as not, to ensure their material prosperity as well.

Beware the Scripture-twisters
Jesus warned His disciples to “take heed and beware” of those who bring their own brand of leaven to the work of understanding the Word of God. The leaven of the Jewish religious leaders was making the Bread of God’s Word into a poisonous loaf that distracted people from true love for God and neighbor, confused them as to the overall reliability of God’s Word, and made those same leaders appear as the only capable interpreters of the Scriptures.

These religious leaders practiced what we might call a hermeneutics of convenience – an approach to understanding the Bible that denies the plain meaning of Scripture, invents deeper or more abstract meanings, seeks to force the glass slipper God’s good Word onto the ugly feet of step-sister theologies and practices, and, conveniently enough, “proves” the preferred ideas of those who indulge this practice.

Of such teachers and ministers, brethren, we do well to beware.

For reflection
1.  As you understand it, what are the primary factors to keep in mind as you approach reading and interpreting the Bible?

2.  What do we mean by “Scripture twisting”? How might you be able to tell when someone is doing this?

3.  What are the dangers of Scripture twisting? Why do you suppose people do this?

Next steps – Conversation: Have you observed any evidence of Scripture twisting in the Christian world of our day? Talk with some Christian friends about this question.

T. M. Moore

To learn more about understanding and using the Bible, enroll in the course, Introduction to Biblical Theology. It’s free and online, and you can study at your own pace or with friends. To learn more and to register, click here. This week’s study is Part 6 of a series on The Word of God, and is available as a free download by clicking here.

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Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.