Jack Pelham

What would a dishonest soul want the Bible to say?
And how would he twist it to his own satisfaction?

What would the impatient soul glean from its pages
Before he lost interest?
And what treasures would he leave in it undiscovered?

What would the bitter soul find in there,
With which to continue its bitterness?

And what would the cheery dreamer find in it
To prompt or fuel more of the same?

What would be found in it by those
Who block out whatever is scary,
Or by those who who want nothing but?

What would one find if he were the sort
To be convinced it must all be literal―
Or if he were the sort to think
It all figurative?

And what would be found by the soul
Who presumed it must all be about
His own life this very day?―
Or the one presuming it must all be
Wholly irrelevant to his life?

What would the soul find
Who thinks it a magic book,
Changing itself to be whatever
He needs in the moment?

And would would it be to the one
Who thinks that because his
Church institution has long understood it,
He need not understand it himself?

What’s to be found in the Bible by the tyrant
Or the scoundrel, who want to
Make use of others?

What by the bully
And the liar?

Or the haughty
Or the crushed?

What for the factious and divisive,
And for the untrusting?

What for the rebel
And the aloof
And the brazen?

What for those who are content
To have a mere form of godliness
That denies the real power of godliness?

What would the hypocrite make of it?
The insincere?
The coward?
The faithless?

The educated or uneducated?
The wise or the foolish?

And what kind of person are you?

There is no way that our personal dispositions and our strengths and weaknesses don’t play a role in how we interpret and understand the Bible. Even our temporary moods and our situational struggles can play an acute in our Bible interpretation in a given moment, or throughout a protracted season. Our experiences and our upbringing, our education and our worldview, our current load of busy-ness and distraction―these and so many other factors all go into the quality of the work we do when considering the meaning of the texts.

Yet this fact seems to be almost completely forgotten. If we’re like most, we think we know what the Bible means, not because we’ve studied it out and have weighed out the data, but because we think we know what it means. This or that interpretation seems reasonable enough to us, so we think it’s reasonable, even without looking for whatever reasons might be found to interpret it some other way. And we can be so unthinking about it that even when we say “Why not believe it this way?”, what we really mean is “Why not believe it this way.”

Just the first and second items mentioned in the poem above (dishonesty and impatience) are enough to wreck somebody’s Bible interpretation.

I have so much more to say about this―more than will fit into a single early-morning post. So I’ll leave you with one thought, and with a meme about what I call “Interpretation neglect”. Here’s the thought:

Whatever the Bible says―whatever is its truest meaning―whatever God himself wanted to have been said and written for the record―ask yourself this: What kind of person would want to believe that? Who would want to understand it exactly as it was intended? Who would want to embrace the truth message fully, without cheating or failing at it in any way? What kind of person would be amenable to the fullness of God’s message, and wouldn’t want to twist or spin or ignore or neglect any of it?

That’s the kind of person I want to be. And that’s no easy goal. It’s a very hard thing, indeed.

So here’s one more question: If somebody’s not yet that kind of person in this way or that―and none of us are perfect―aren’t they apt to be making some errors in how they understand the Bible here and there?

Obviously, yes. Yet who among the billions of Christians on this planet has a strong sense of awareness of the high likelihood that their understanding of the Bible is less than perfect? Do not our very institutions try to build in us a confidence that at least the organization (if not the individual) has got it all pretty much figured out correctly?

She is so tired of conflict
That she wants none of it―
Not even in the case
Of standing up for what is right―
And not even alongside her peers.

She is down for the count.

He has no purpose, it seems,
But to make a show of himself―
And no Plan B, it seems,
But to keep his distance from
Those who do not applaud.

In this society, Jesus is immensely popular for various reasons, while also being, hands down, the most misunderstood man in the history of this Earth.

Let me demonstrate for you the following schedule, rough-hewn from my own long-term observations of common religious behavior and sentiment. The first three items are from his deeds, and the fourth, from his demeanor, as popularly understood.

As it turns out, I do not have such great need of you
As would make sufferable to me the return
Of all the baggage that experience has shown
Comes inseparably with.

I’m all for self-awareness and responsible living, but if one believed all the memes one sees today, one might think that Jesus himself needed anger management counseling, based on all the times he got angry with people in the Bible stories. The memes would have us believe that any time something gets a rise out of us, it must be because we have a burr under our own saddle that needs to be removed. That is to say, that something is wrong with us.

Did Enoch walk to Heaven?
Or was it the fact that God sent for him
And had him drawn up there?

And when they built that tower
With the aim of getting up there themselves,
How did that Go?

And did Elijah get up to Heaven on his own?
Or was it not God who sent for him,
And had him drawn up there?

Call me crazy, but it’s starting to seem to me
That no one can go to Jesus in heaven
Unless the Father enables him.

 

⁴¹ At this the Jews there began to grumble about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” ⁴² They said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?”

⁴³ “Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered.

⁴⁴ “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day.”

John 6:44. NIV.

² My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? ³ And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.

John 14:2. NIV

So many want to make the first passage above about “conversion” or “salvation experiences”, but what if it’s Jesus saying that you can’t travel to Heaven on your own, and need God to have you drawn up there?

What should you expect, really,
When the father is himself
Aloof and irresponsible?

What is the refresh rate for one’s self-view?

For example, having lost weight, and having felt good about himself as a result, how much may one regain before it is reflected accordingly in the downturn of his self-related emotions?

Indeed, having felt good that he has adopted a higher standard in any matter, how long until he begins to realize his shortcomings with regard to that standard?

After observing humankind for some time, one might opine that for a great many humans, our greater concern in such matters is not the improving of ourselves, after all, but the improving of how we feel about ourselves. That is, it’s not in improving the reality of how we are, but our emotional attitude about it.

It’s as if we were addicted to the feelings of well-being, and willing to ignore or cheat reality, if need be, to keep it going. But there’s something more in play, since the feelings spike early after some perceived success, and wear off from then forward. Still, though, some manner of perception of the success remains―like a high-water mark after a flood. And so many of us, it seems, have a hard time averting our eyes from that mark when the actual waters recede.

The actual water levels were so important when they were on the rise―when we felt we were getting somewhere. But once we’ve peaked, it’s as if we switch over to another method of self-assessment, and it can take a very long time before we come to grips, either with a disappointing plateau, or an outright regression to some lower point.

And how curious this is about us―this bent toward the overestimation of our achievements, status, knowledge, skills, abilities, and performance!

It reminds me of a joke my grandmother would tell the shoe salesman about her shoe size: “I wear a 7, but this 8 feels so good, I think I’ll take a 9.”

Surely, she had worn a 7 at some point in time. But how long had that been, and how long will one cling to how it used to be before admitting how it is now? She was kidding, I think, having realized the humor in this particular human behavior.

Of course, people don’t only cling to what was better before; some cling to what was worse. They tend to gravitate their self-estimation toward the low-water line, even if they are doing better now. And this is just as twisted when viewed from a reality-based view. And if this weren’t enough of a challenge for us, I do believe we can simultaneously hold to different attitudes about the various areas of our lives, overestimating our status in the one thing while underestimating it in the other.

We all would do well, then, it seems to me, to think how life would be different if the refresh rate on our self assessment were higher. How much more quickly might we make corrections to our course if we were checking in with the compass more often?

The one was tortured from youth with false accusations.
Another with unmeetable demands.
Another still with overbearing disapproval.
And yet another with unjust violence.

They were tormented with withering correction,
With insolent criticism.
With irresponsible impatience.