Growing up in the ‘90s, I loved it when my family took a special dinner trip to Sizzler: a buffet restaurant. The thing I instantly noticed was that you could choose exactly what you wanted to eat out of a wide range of foods. I loved the pasta, the soups, the fried potato skins, the cheese toast and especially the mix and match desserts! I preferred not to take too much from the salad bar though. At a buffet you can do that. You can take what you want and ignore what you don’t like. As a student of the Bible however, I’m increasingly disturbed to see people taking that same approach to Scripture—explaining away, ignoring or flat-out disobeying some sections, while holding tightly to others. It’s not an approach the Bible itself advocates.
In 2 Timothy 3:16, Paul wrote that “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” (italics added).
As a Seventh-day Adventist Christian the Bible is pretty important to me. After all, the very first fundamental tenet of my faith declares that it is “. . . the supreme, authoritative and the infallible revelation of His will . . . the standard of character, the test of experience, the definitive revealer of doctrines”.
How did the Bible get to be so important to Adventists?
The year was 1816. A farmer, war veteran and ex-deist named William Miller decided that he believed the Bible was true and so began a systematic study of its contents. He proceeded in his study with the intent to let “. . . the Bible serve as its own interpreter”.1 He observed that the teachings of churches and church leaders over the centuries had led Christianity down contradictory paths. Miller reasoned that if the Bible was from God then it must be able to be comprehended, without the need for a priest or scholar to explain it. He therefore resolved to use only a Cruden’s Concordance to assist him to find how key words were used in other passages when he came across a verse he didn’t understand. He believed any passage could be understood by studying the context or other places within the Bible. If a teaching was intended to be symbolic, the Bible would give the interpretation. If it was intended literally, it would be clear by reading around it. In other words, he espoused the idea that Scripture was a complete system of revelation, containing both the truth and the interpretive keys to understand it. Amazingly, he really made some remarkable progress when he stuck to these principles. Unfortunately, he broke his own rules and trusted other Christian commentators to determine his understanding of what the “cleansing of the sanctuary” meant in Daniel 8:14.2 By not searching to see what the phrase meant elsewhere in Scripture (eg Leviticus 16:19,20; Ezekiel 45:18) he made a critical error. What happened next made history and is one of the many reasons you are able to read this publication right now. We can save the story for another day, but suffice to say that by subsequently preaching his ideas (both correct and incorrect), he made a significant impact on the small group of people who would go on to found the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
I believe this idea that the Bible can be its own interpreter because God wants to speak to us all personally through His objective word is a significant theological contribution Miller has made to Adventist DNA. I also think the importance of this idea isn’t often understood or recognised.
I’m proud that almost all of our books and resources seem to be operating from the cultural assumption that even highly complex ideas in Scripture can be grasped by absolutely anyone who is willing to study the Bible for themselves. In terms of the role of leadership in interpretation, I think we view our pastors and scholars as an asset for understanding Scripture, but not as indispensable or authoritative in the way some other groups do. I believe we also have cultural and structural processes where we have freedom to disagree with leadership, creating theological accountability. This approach to the Bible has shielded us from a number of major theological pitfalls that have plagued large sections of the wider body of Christ over the past century.
I’m absolutely in love with the concept that we can all come to our Bibles humbly, honestly, prayerfully and with a willingness to be corrected. I love that we, as far as possible, can try to remove our pre-existing ideas, assumptions, expectations and thoughts about what we want Scripture to say to try to find the author’s intent. I love that we can examine key words and study the context and compare Scripture with Scripture to determine the underlying principle in the text and then apply it to our situation today. I love that we can dig for truth within Holy Writ as for hidden treasure and respond in obedience to its words. I love that we are all on a lifelong mission together to let the Bible speak for itself about God to our hearts at an ever-deepening level.
Because of that, you might understand my worry when I see some of us beginning to take steps away from this method and regressing to a “pick and choose” or “let someone else think for us” interpretive model. This takes many forms. For example, the huge surge in popularity of the American right wing is having an impact. Although we may find some solidarity with that movement around issues of freedom of speech, etc, it brings with it an overly simplistic, highly selective and often inaccurate approach to interpretation of the Bible that should make us very wary.3 On the other side of the religio-political spectrum, there are very influential voices amoung us calling for an increased use of gendered, ethnic or liberation-type theologies because of the way they call for action in the area of social reform. As positive as that may be, these systems also use the experience of marginalised communities as their primary interpretive lens.4 This inevitably transforms the main mission of God’s people from evangelism into a push for political and social change.
Progressive theologies often seek inclusivity, compassion and environmental stewardship which are all positive goals. Unfortunately, they approach the Bible in a way that is mostly metaphorical and elevates social justice and science to an equivalent or higher authority.5 Looking in another direction, the influence of the charismatic churches on the worship music of the wider body of Christ has begun to earn their theological resources a hearing too. Although they have produced many helpful books that show a deep passion for Scripture, we have to remember that in most of those churches the “. . . approach to the Bible is drawn through the filter of personal experience . . .”6 Particularly signs and miracles which are “proof” the gospel is true.7 We must choose to hold to Scripture alone as our authority and faith as both our way to salvation (Ephesians 2:8) and the final “evidence of things not yet seen” (Hebrews 11:1, NKJV).
In Acts 17:11 (NKJV), Luke describes those in Berea as being “fair-minded” when he says that “they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so”.
We have made a lot of mistakes as a Church, but I believe that the “Bible as its own interpreter” study method has kept us from going too far off track, or has at least brought us back to the path of safety when we have. The danger is that, if we allow our interpretive foundations to be eroded, our building will eventually shudder and crumble. This will be seen most dramatically in the area of mission. Without scriptural impetus and prophetic urgency, we will cease to do what we have been called and mandated to do (Matthew 28:18-20; Revelation 14:6-12). Without a solid biblical anchor, outreach will either completely cease or else be transformed into something that may appear virtuous to some groups but will lack any true spiritual power. What’s more, we will not see this disaster coming because we won’t have the framework to recognise the error seeping in. Without a passion for God’s Word, we won’t know it well enough to heed its warnings.
Bible study is not always easy. We do sometimes need to struggle with the texts that are uncomfortable for us. We need to work to understand author intent and context. We also need to surrender our own need for control. But God is beautiful and good and holy. If He has revealed something to us in His Word, then it is ultimately for our good. If it’s confusing, or seems contradictory, or doesn’t make God appear loving, that just means we still have study to do! We need to go deeper and deeper in prayer and encounter until we can understand it from a different perspective in the light of what Scripture itself reveals elsewhere. We need to treat all of what He has given us as good, not picking what we like and ignoring what we don’t.
When I go to a buffet today as an adult, I have to talk myself through making sure I take some healthy salad, as well as all the delicious carbs.
I hope and pray that as a movement we can continue to do the same with God’s Word.
- Schwarz and Greenleaf, Light Bearers, 30. ↩︎
- White, The Great Controversy, 324. ↩︎
- Whitehead and Perry, Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States, 33. ↩︎
- James Livingston, Modern Christian Thought Vol. 2: The Twentieth Century, 457. ↩︎
- Marcus Borg, Reading the Bible again for the first time: Taking the Bible seriously but not literally, 45, 160. ↩︎
- Anderson, To the Ends of the Earth, 139. ↩︎
- Anderson, 188. ↩︎
Daniel Matteo is an associate pastor at Wantirna church in Victoria.
