Jim Elliff makes a terrific point in a very brief post. He encourages us to allow each passage of Scripture to speak for itself, each author for himself. Systematic theology is a wonderful and necessary discipline for the Christian faith, but perhaps we have been trained by it to over-harmonize texts and flatten the sharp edges of the scriptures.
Here is Elliff:
For instance, a man may read that he is to exert diligence in pursuing truths from God, but, on the other side his mind flies to passages that say God alone grants that understanding and unless God opens the heart, he is helpless to obtain any benefit from his diligence. So, the mind patches together a way both things are really one thing. But now you’ve ripped something away that the author intended to emphasize. He makes one point, but he purposely did not make the other point. He wasn’t writing a systematic theology, but was driving a truth home.
In some odd cases, the meaning of the first statement is turned on its head and all the potency is excised from the text by our propensity to blend all seemingly contrary thoughts together. As we read, we say, “Christ does not really mean we are to give up our possessions because in this place He says that some believers are wealthy.” So as we read we are denying the statement before we let it say anything to us. And, without intending to do so, we are telling ourselves and perhaps others that it would have been better if Jesus would have said something much more benign.
I think Elliff is exactly right. Remember, the Bible was not delivered to humanity on a fiery chariot from heaven, complete in 66 parts. Each book of the Bible was written, one at a time, from a particular author to a particular audience. Each of those books had real meaning in the minds of author and audience, even without a center column for cross-references. (And I’m not speaking about allusions to earlier texts that would have been clear to the original audience; I’m speaking only of parallel passages or texts that happen to cover similar topics or themes.)
Especially when it comes to application, we ought to receive the message of any given text with the full force intended by that author—even if that force feels out of balance with another part of Scripture. Why not just allow the perceived imbalance to simmer a little longer and spur us in a certain direction? We can always take more time later to examine other texts that speak complementary messages, that we may be prodded in a different direction.
Elliff’s brief piece is worthy of your time. Check it out!
Leave a Reply