Magazine Article - February 2007

Michael Rusk writes:

Thank you for your welcome back to me after a three month Sabbatical. Particular thanks go the Ministry Team, to the Wardens, and the PCC for the work that has been undertaken in my absence. It is good to come back to discover that our churches have grown numerically with new people joining; that faith has been nurtured through Alpha and teaching programmes; and that a wide range of initiatives have taken place in my absence. Well done and thanks to all!

One of the key things – perhaps the key thing – which not only defines but shapes what kind of a Christian we are – is how we read the Bible. It is important not only that we read and love the Bible. It is just as important to determine how we read it. Much of the controversy both in the wider Anglican Communion and now within the Church of England itself ultimately hangs on this question. From the polemic in some sections of the church press, one could conclude that the Bible is no longer read in the Episcopal Church of the United States. Believe me, in ECUSA the Bible is read. Indeed often the same readings are read on the same day as at St. Peter’s and St. Paul’s. In November, for example, I was asked to preach on Luke 17.11-17 at Trinity Cathedral, Phoenix. The Bible story was about the ten whom Jesus healed of leprosy. If I had been taking a Holy Communion service in the parish that day, it would have been the same reading, and you would have got the same sermon! No, the issue at stake is the interpretation of the Bible.

There is one phrase that is bandied around about scripture that sums up for me all that is unhelpful in the cacophony of claims about what ultimately defines biblical orthodoxy. This is the insistence that the truth of scripture can be arrived at if we only would read the “plain meaning of scripture”. But consider how language works: if I say, “I wouldn’t touch him with a barge pole” and interpreted that by its “plain” meaning, what would I conclude? Well, the plain meaning would be that I was perhaps somewhere in the region of Foxton Locks and making sure my barge pole wasn’t touching that particular individual! But we know that isn’t what is meant by the expression at all and that to interpret it by its plain meaning is positively misleading. Similarly, the expression “I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it” has a plain meaning which involves physically crossing a bridge whether it is over a river or a railway line. Now, of course, you might use such a phrase while out on a walk, but most of the time you will use it when you mean that you will wait until the particular challenge actually presents itself. Once again the “plain meaning” of the phrase is more likely to mislead than to illuminate you with the truth.

God has entrusted His Word to human language in all its complexity and subtlety. The words of scripture come down to us through a long, and precarious history of copying from one manuscript to another. They need to be interpreted with sensitivity and wisdom – understood in their original context; read in their original languages and in accurate translations; and guided by the Holy Spirit invited to become alive and transformative for us today. There needs to be a humility and yet a confidence in our reading; an identification of wise exegetes and a willingness to accept that they are wise pointers in our search for truth. There needs to be a weighing up of the various promptings of scripture to discover within them the true spirit of Christ and to seek to apply that to the church of today. There needs to be a recognition, too, that everyone brings their own presuppositions and cultural conditioning to the text of sacred scripture. Some of our insights will throw fresh understanding on the text; other assumptions that we make will be challenged by it. A wise reading of scripture will not be undertaken just to reinforce a set of doctrinal beliefs that gives us our security (that just imprisons the text) but rather will provide a fresh, authentic, and always provisional dynamic reading of the text. Here our security is placed on God’s Spirit who leads us into all truth.

So as we pray for the Archbishops of the Anglican Communion as they meet in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania on the 12-19th February, may we apply ourselves to the sacred task of bible study. For if we take our stand on a wise interpretation of scripture, then the truth will not elude us. As we journey on, may the words of the psalmist becomes ours:

“Your word is a lantern to our feet and a light upon our path.”