Recommended Book Review: Hard Sayings of the Bible

 

Hard Sayings of the Bible

Walter C. Kaiser Jr.

InterVarsity Press

 

The Bible obviously has fantastic details embedded from Genesis to Revelation that makes us scratch our head and think: “Hey, what’s going on here?” The book is a well written guide against such difficulties. Upholding basic formula ‘Agreement and Disagreement are rest part’, this book can be of great help even to further investigation.

The Publisher’s preface puts it forward as, ‘the authors share the conviction that the Bible is God’s inspired and authoritative word to the church, but careful readers will observe that they do not all agree on the best solutions to certain Bible difficulties. This is as it should be. If everyone agreed on the best solutions to these questions, they wouldn’t be hard sayings.’

Whenever we come across any verses that gives hard pinch to our ears, we happen to spend time in its evaluation. The Bible verses are taken as inspired and authoritative but not every time straightforward in understanding and application. We need to understand the contemporary context, historical background, situation, immediate and broader application, and nature of the languages used without hurrying up packing our conclusion. The bible itself otherwise acts as a great barrier to those who are new in faith.

The book gives a threefold interpreting classification to help us understand hard passages in the best way:

Normative or Instructive texts: which declare the way things ought to be among the followers of Christ. They declare the vision or intention of the gospel without reference to particular problem situations. As such they transcend the contexts in which they are uttered and are normative for both individual and corporate Christian existence.

Descriptive texts: describe practices or actions in the early churches without any commentary. The sense conveyed in such texts is that what is described is perfectly acceptable or normal. The writer does not question the practice but rather seems to assume it as appropriate.

Problematic or corrective texts: which clearly deal with special situations or problems or misunderstandings in the Christian communities which are addressed. Here it is particularly important to understand as much as possible the situation which made the corrective, authoritative, apostolic word necessary for that situation.

The author adds further:

An important dimension of this threefold classification for the interpretation and understanding of a good number of our hard sayings is the matter of their interrelationships. If a corrective text’s admonition reflects the vision of the gospel articulated in instructive texts and is further confirmed by descriptive texts, then the particular teaching would undoubtedly be authoritative for the whole church in all times. On the other hand, if an apostolic word addressed to a particular setting does not conform to the way things ought to be (as revealed in instructive texts) and the way things normally are (as revealed in descriptive texts), then the inspired, authoritative word may very well be intended to deal exclusively with a specific problem and thus be limited to that and similar problems.

 

The book gives three probable reasons for the texts seeming harder to the reader:

First, we don’t understand them and needs addition of background information for clarification. In other instances, even scholars are not sure of author’s intended meaning. Hence, we can only make the best assumptions. In this case, theological dogmatism is boycotted. Perhaps, most of the questions emerging from the book of Genesis might fall into this category such as Creation days, sons of God marrying daughters of men, existence of Nephilim, Noahic flood, etc.

Second, Doctrinal difficulties is at peak. In this category, the teaching of one particular book appears to knock out the teaching of the other books on the particular subject. Sometimes, we may have misunderstood the author and when we fully grasp the theme, the conflict disappears. Other times, real conflict exists between author’s intended meaning and our own doctrinal understanding. The real issue is whether the Scripture be allowed to correct our doctrine, or is our doctrine the grid through which we will insist on understanding Scripture? Either Scripture or our doctrinal understanding is the Word of God. When they conflict, we find out which one we have actually accepted as our final authority. Perhaps, certain debates such as Predestination vs Free will, grace vs law, justification by faith alone or work, etc. might fit this category.

Third, we really don’t adore what the text says and it becomes hard to adore it! They are hard to obey, and we would rather they meant something else than they do. James 4:4 and 1 John 2:15 may be in this category for some people.

Today, we should not limit our question to: What does the Bible say? Rather it is wise to reform the question as: What, Why and How does the Bible say? Indeed, we may not understand every hard text in full extent but we can at least grab the theme of the texts even if we are left open to various possible interpretations. With all of the differences we happen to face, interpreting Scripture becomes the job of getting back into that ancient world and then understanding how it correlates with our world.

I agree with the author’s comment with regard to present day Cambrian explosion of theological confusion such as creation vs evolution, Calvinism vs other views, etc.:

The last stage of interpretation, however, is that of moving from the world of the New Testament into our modern world. Here we will have to be cautious. Some of the discussions and arguments Christians have had over the centuries were not issues in the first century. The New Testament authors will have nothing to say about such concerns. They may refuse to answer our questions. In other cases we may have to discover the principle that informs the author’s reasoning and apply it to our modern situation. But in most of the cases the real danger is in jumping too quickly into the modern situation. If we have not taken the time to grasp fully what the author of Scripture was trying to say, we will distort his message when we move into our modern period. But if we fully grasp it, we will be able to see where it applies, although it may apply in a different place than we thought at first.

Finally, the book has provided comments on hard passages starting from the Genesis to Revelation. Let the readers be reminded that nobody is obligated to agree with all the explanation but the book gives enough fuel to further survey and exploration.

 Thank you!