"Mirror mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?" The Evil Queen loves to ask this question, because she is told in reply, "My Queen, you are the fairest in the land." Oh how she loves to ask this question. She is wonderful. She is beautiful. She is the most impressive in the land. Why wouldn't she want to go to the mirror daily, hourly to ask this question?
Something looks oddly familiar about this scene. People who run to something to see their own reflection and be told how good they are...hmm...where have I seen this before? Oh, yes, that's it, this is how many people are using their Bibles.
I can see the confused look on your face, so I'll explain. Many open their Bible's and read it, hoping and longing to hear exactly what they want to hear. They like the Bible so long as the Bible affirms their already preconceived ideas. They enjoy going to Scripture so long as it keeps aligning with their existing opinions. The problems begin when the Bible tells them something they don't like.
"Mirror mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?" When the mirror responds, "My Queen, you are the fairest here so true. But Snow White is a thousand times more beautiful than you," something changes. This infuriates the Evil Queen, because the mirror is supposed to only tell her what she wants to hear - that she is the fairest. The moment the mirror tells her something different, she is enraged.
The same thing happens with how many approach Bible interpretation. They have an Evil Queen hermeneutic. They read and affirm everything the Bible says, so long as it aligns with what they already believe. They love the Scripture, particularly the parts which affirms their existing presuppositions. But when they encounter something they don't like, they discard it. They throw away passages, doctrines, and truths because they don't match what they expected to hear when they came to the Bible. I read an article recently in which the author essentially promotes this very ideology.
There is a lot of talk about contextualization today. We should contextualize the message of the gospel and the Scriptures to people. I agree with this. We should definitely communicate the truths of the Bible to people in such a way that they understand them and grasp how to live them in our culture and era of history. However, we do not contextualize the interpretation of Scripture. Our job is to contextualize the application of Scripture. We do not change the meaning of Scripture to fit our culture's current sensibilities. That is not contextualization. Instead, we seek to understand what the Scriptures are saying to us, what the author of a particular passage meant by what they wrote. Then, and only then, can we take truths and contextualize them in our current culture and situations.
Contextualization is about application, not interpretation. First, we interpret Scripture rightly. Then we can contextualize application properly. Contextualizing the interpretation is Evil Queen hermeneutics. It is an exercise is making the Scripture say what you want them to, instead of letting them speak for themselves. Be weary of people who interpret the Bible like the Evil Queen. They love to quote Scriptures that tell them what they want to hear. But they are dangerously quick to discount, remove, and deny Scriptures that do not.
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Everyone is a bible interpreter. If you have ever quoted a verse or referenced something Jesus said, you are doing interpretation. The question is not whether we are bible interpreters, it is whether we are good interpreters.
Bible interpretation is the discipline known as hermeneutics. There is a right way of doing interpretation and a wrong way of doing interpretation. There are hermeneutic rules such as 1. always interpret Scripture with Scripture and 2. interpret Scripture in its proper context, and the often forgotten task 3. look for authorial intent. These and other principles are guidelines and guardrails to prevent the Wild Wild West of bible interpretation (see more on that here).
The Devil's Interpretation
The danger I want to warn us of, is reading the Bible like Satan. Satan knows the Bible. He likely has more verses memorized than you do, and me for that matter. Yet this does not mean that Satan rightly or correctly interprets Scripture. We saw Satan distort God's words in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3. God said one thing, Satan said something completely different. Man becomes the victim.
But perhaps the most clear example is found in Matthew 4. In Matthew 4 Jesus has just been baptized and is led into the wilderness by the Spirit. There he will be tempted and tried. Satan appears to Jesus after he has gone 40 days and nights without food. He comes and challenges Jesus to turn stones into bread. Jesus doesn't go for it. But then Satan moves to his next temptation, but this time he uses Scripture. In Matthew 4:6 Satan says to Jesus as they stand at the pinnacle of the temple, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, 'He will command his angels concerning you,' and 'On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.'"
Well there you have it, I guess Jesus has to jump. After all, Satan has shown from Scripture (Ps. 91:11-12) that Jesus should jump because angels will be there and will keep him from striking his foot. But Jesus doesn't jump. Instead, Jesus counters Satan's use of Scripture with another passage (Deut. 6:16), "Again it is written, 'You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.'" In other words, Jesus interprets Scripture with Scripture when he tells Satan he's not jumping off the temple. He shows that Satan's conclusions are invalid, because the passage is not quoted in context. Jesus exhibits here how Bible interpretation should be done.
Don't Use the Bible Like Satan
Unfortunately, many people today don't take heed to this example. Instead, countless thousands pluck Bible verses kicking and screaming out of their contexts to make or prove any point. However, this is not permissible. We don't have the option of using Scripture any ole' way we want.
One of the ways I have seen this developing in our culture is the use of passages like 1 Corinthians 13 and 1 John 4:8. In this former passage, we see Paul outline the way of love in the Christian life. He speaks to how love must accompany all of our actions. In the latter passage, we see John declare that anyone who does not love is not from God, because God is love. So these two passages, and a few others, are often tossed out in public square conversations, even in Christian-to-Christian conversation, to negate speaking out against sinful actions. These passages are used as an attempt to muzzle into silence a Christian who is speaking out against sin. The often heard retort is, "Well, I know you are saying that X is wrong, but the Bible also says that God is love, so I just think we should focus on loving people." Now don't get me wrong, loving people is important, but what that statement attempted to do is produce an action - in this case, silencing the believer who is vocalizing the sinfulness of an action - by using other passages of Scripture. Does this look familiar?
The Bible exhorts believers to stand for the truth. Interestingly, Jesus, the most loving of all humans to ever live, had no problem calling out sin. Yes, he loved people and was merciful, but he did not tap-dance around the issues of the day in order to win the crowds affections. Another fascinating part of this is the reality that the verses used from Paul (1 Corinthians 13) and John (1 John 4:8) come from guys who do the very thing (call out sin) that those who cite their verses are trying to urge against. For example, John, the same John who wrote that God is love, is also the same guy who wrote in the same book(!) the words of 1 John 1:6 "If we say we have fellowship with him (God) while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth." Or consider this doozy in 1 John 3:6 "No one who abides in him (God) keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him." As you can see, to use verses from these guys to promote this idea that we should not speak out against sin, is to be deceptively selective in choosing verses, because they do the very thing you are using them to silence others from doing.
It is not loving to remain silent when people are sinning their way straight to hell. It is neither loving or noble to silence believers who are daring to show courage in the face of a culture and church that are not. Yes, believers should be tactful and wise as serpents and gentle as doves in the way they approach speaking out against sin. But when believers are quoting Scripture to other believers to produce an action that the particular passage doesn't warrant, it's wrong. By the way, this is how the Devil does Bible interpretation. It is time Christians stop using Satan's glasses to read Scripture.
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Ah danggit, we've been duped!!
Go ahead and admit it, we fell for it. The joke is on us, and you know what, we deserve it.
What am I talking about, you wonder? I'm talking about the lie we bought when we fell for the idea that moral absolutes were a thing of the past that everyone had outgrown. You remember, don't you? Christians were lectured by everyone about how morals were not absolute, but varied from culture to culture. Remember the rhetoric? We can't impose our views on others, it is wrong. We were made to feel like the scum of the earth for projecting our "superior" moral standards on those who have the right to do what they think is right for them. It is their life, as long as they are not bothering us.
Do we all remember this narrative which circulated over recent years?
Now open your eyes and look where we are. The tables have turned. Those whose moral standards used to pace the culture, are now the one's having the absolute morality of the others pushed down their throats to point of asphyxiation. Like the revolutionary leader who stirs up the masses against the wicked king, only to become a harsher dictator once he's assumed power, so have the once "liberators" of tyrannical moralists become the tyrants themselves.
Proof In The Pudding
Take for example the upcoming Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. The games will be held in February and many Americans will compete against the best in other countries in all sorts of sports and events.
But in case you forgot, there was talk about the United States not participating in the Olympic Games. Do you remember why? Because in the summer of last year (2013), Russia passed a law against any public displays or expressions of homosexuality or distribution of information about homosexuality to children. Americans, especially news outlets, politicians, and activists (examples here, here, and here), were outraged at such bigoted, intolerant actions. They called for boycotts of the Olympics, even Russian vodka. Many took to the streets pouring out Russian vodka (that'll show'em!) to protest such laws. They could not believe anyone had the nerve to violate the moral ethic of approving and even celebrating homosexuality and the homosexual lifestyle. How draconian!
Interestingly, this Russian bill passed with a vote of 436-0. The reasons they stated for creating
the legislation was to promote traditional Russian values as opposed to
Western liberalism, which they see as corrupting Russian youth.
According to the American narrative, we should respect that, right? It
is their culture. That's what's right for them. Who are we to say what
is right for them? Who are we to impose our moral judgments over their
country?
Do you sniff the hypocrisy dripping from the American outcry? I thought we believed that morality was not legislated by any group of people, but rather it was relative to each culture? I thought what was good for them is good for them and what is good for us is good for us? Surely we are not inserting ourselves as Russia's moral police, right? After all, the same people upset over Russia's anti-gay laws would be the same people unwillingly to go to war over injustices like tyrannical governments killing its citizens. We don't want to be the world's policemen when it comes to saving lives, but if it comes down to who you can have sex with, then sure, we are there with our blue lights flashing and our sirens ringing.
Unbelievable, But Not Really
So let us say it together, "We. Were. Duped." They pulled one over on us pretty good. We were made to feel like the outdated grandpa who had longed lost his pulse on reality and "the way things are today," only to see those who tore down our belief in absolute morals, build their own version to stand from and cry the absoluteness of it.
The joke is on us, but I don't see any of us laughing.
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