Biblical Perspective
December 10, 2000
Dear Friends:
Isn’t is amazing how many battles of the American Civil War were fought in national parks?
This sort of comment might cause us to laugh, but it is amazing how many people approach the Bible with a twentieth century perspective rather than a first century (or earlier) perspective.
Just think of the word “church” in the Bible. How many people read it and think of the great gothic cathedrals that dot Europe or one of the white clapboard churches that occupy so many towns in North America? The fact is that the word in Greek is “ecclesia” and means the people, not the building. In apostolic times, they met in homes or in synagogues. They had no church buildings to speak of in the first century.
The word “saint” has taken a similar turn during the course of the last two thousand years. In Biblical terms, it means any and all believers, not a special class of “super believers.” Any true believer today is likewise a saint.
The issue is not a matter of semantics. Whether a person uses the word church or ecclesia is beside the point. What matters is the image conveyed to the mind of what the Bible is trying to tell us. The Bible is a book whose last inspired addition was just under two thousand years ago. It was written by Jewish men about primarily Jewish issues. Wresting the customs, times, idioms, etc. from their proper time and place and overlaying twentieth century context blurs even the most simple truths that the Bible presents.
In perhaps one of the more bizarre stories I have heard through the years, my mother-in-law was approached by a friend who knew she was a Bible student. She wanted to know what in the Bible would prevent her mother from traveling down to see her via airplane for the holidays. This woman’s mother was telling her daughter that something in the Bible would not allow her to come. After much thought, my mother-in-law realized that the verse was “pray ye that your flight be not in the winter.” (Matt. 24:20)
With this said, I do not mean to imply that the Bible does not have universal truths. It does. Nor do I wish to imply that one cannot come away with a fundamental understanding of what the book contains unless they are an expert in ancient Jewish rituals or customs. At the same time, we must not forget that the Bible has a proper context and that with careful attention, the true meanings of passages can figuratively leap from the pages into our hearts. If we are lazy students of the word, we will either come away with a false impression or not understanding what we read.
We are blessed with a culture and government that allows for unfettered access to the divine word of God (unless you happen to be in school). We don’t have to slink off to the sewers as they did in the first century. We don’t take our lives into our hands every time we pick up the book as they did in the Middle Ages. Not only that, but we have plenty of Bible study aids that are much more readily available to us than a Bible was to anyone before the eighteenth century.
Our only obstacle to unleashing the power of God’s word in our lives is honesty, time and prayerful effort.
Have a great week!
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