Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes Part I

   

    I have not posted anything since December. Life has been really busy lately. I will give an update on my life on a later post. I just wanted to inform my readers on a book that I started yesterday. It is called Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes by E.Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O'brien. This is a new book that I picked up at the seminary.  Basically this talks about how we as a Western/American culture have taken certain passages of the Bible and misinterpreted them. I do not think any of these misinterpretations that the authors mention was done with evil thoughts, it is just sometimes we read our culture, experiences, and history in to Bible. Instead we should read the Bible in the context of the culture, experiences, and history of the people that it was originally written for. This has been an incredible book and I think that every Christian should read it. I am only about 70 pages into it but it has changed the way that seen certain passage of Scripture. Here are some examples:

   The book starts off with Eugene Peterson's theology of the "Laodicean spectrum of spirituality". This comes from John's address to the church of Laodicea of the message that God has for them in Revelation 3:15-17. "I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm-neither hot nor cold-I am about to spit you out of my mouth." In many sermons that I have heard, pastors describe our spiritual status as hot, cold, and lukewarm. Hot means someone has a zeal and love for the Lord. Cold means that you are lost. Lukewarm means that you are in the church, but you are not living in a way that is honoring to Christ. So basically this interpretation means that God wants us to have a zeal for him and he would prefer us to be lost than be a nominal Christian. However, this book states that the city of Laodicea had no water. There were no springs, lakes, or rivers. They received their water from two prominent cities. One of those cities was Colossae, which had fresh, cold water. The other city was Hierapolis, which had hot mineral water. The water came in through aqueducts. However, the water was lukewarm once it arrived in Laodicea. This is significant because in this context hot and cold are both good. God wants us to be either hot or good. He does not want us just to be in church, but be the Church. And he certainly does not want us to be lost. That is ridiculous.  These verses make more sense when read in the context of the the time and place that it was written.

 
Here is another example of Westerners misinterpreting Scripture. Numbers 12:1 says "Miriam and Aaron began to talk against Moses because of his Cushite wife, for he had married a Cushite." Now Cush is in the Southern Nile River valley. This means that Zipporah was an black skinned African. Since Western civilization enslaved black people and thought them to be inferior, they naturally thought the Hebrew believed that the Cushites were inferior because they were a "slave race". However, the Hebrews were the "slave race". They had recently escaped bondage in Egypt. The Cushites were respected as highly skilled warriors. In fact Jethro, Moses' father in law, was extremely wealthy. So, Aaron and Miriam had tension with Zipporah not because she was in a lower social class or they believed her to be inferior. If anything they probably felt threatened and intimated by her because of her wealth. Moses had not married down. He married up.

   There are more passages of this book that I will share later. This has been an amazing read.  One thing that the professors at Midwestern stress is that context determines meaning. The only way that Scripture can be read and fully understood is if you read it in context. When you are reading the Bible, I have found it helpful to read commentaries and reference books as you go. Take some time to research what you are reading, whether you think you understand it or not. We need to be careful about how we handle God's word. We simply can not get this wrong. Misinterpreting scripture can turn people away from the Gospel. Misinterpretations of scripture have played dark parts in Christian history. Remember that Context Determines Meaning.