Getting to Know the Bible

Ralph D. Winter

Friday, September 17, 2004

To me there is nothing more spectacular or significant than getting to know the Bible better and better, and in a real sense it is that process which has been for me the most exciting thing in my entire lifetime.

I am getting to the place where I realize the importance of knowing that the Bible is not a dictated book like the Qu'ran or the Book of Mormon, but is a book written by “holy men of God as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. It is a book written through human beings for human beings.

1. In general it does not talk about things that were unknown to the writers or the readers. To point out that the Bible does not mention a subject, thus, is not a very important observation. That the Bible does not talk about the earth revolving around the Sun is not important. However, when Luther and Calvin, tried to find statements in the Bible that somehow would imply that a heliocentric solar system could not exist, that ultimately called not Calvin but the Bible into question.

When a recent author stated that “Christians believe the Bible teaches that the universe was created 6,000 years ago” he may be quite accurate. But if he had said, as I think he may have wished imply, that “The Bible teaches that the universe was created 6,000 years ago” in that case he might have been dead wrong. Note how injurious it is to the Bible's reputation if we interpret it incorrectly. People don't say, “The Bible does not say that.” They say, “The Bible must be wrong.”

2. In general what it does say is said not in a fantastic code which intends meanings additional to the plain meaning at the time it was said—no matter that Origen, that early genius, sincerely believed that every sentence in the Bible had three different meanings.

3. The Bible's use of language is generally not “technical” but normal. When it says in Isaiah 49:6 that the salvation of God is to go to the ends of the earth, its specific meaning is not literal. People at that time did not know we live on a planet hanging in airless space, governed in its movements by gravitational forces coming from an enormous “sun” 80 million miles away. No, the plain meaning intended back then by “the ends of the earth” was literally the ends of the fertile crescent, the end of the vast plain extending across the Middle East to the mountains of Afghanistan which are a backdrop to Iran, and to the mountains rising up in northern Iraq, and in Northern Syria. We can infer that if the salvation of God was to extend to the ends of the known world back then it means to the ends of the known world now. But that is an inference, not what it actually says.

4. On the other hand, it is perfectly obvious that the Bible is enthusiastic about human beings discovering more and more of God's glory as revealed in His Creation. Its existence in no way is intended to restrict us to the knowledge in its pages, but beckons us constantly to know more and more of his glory.

The fact that Jesus did not talk about germs—which not even Calvin and Luther knew about—does not mean that He wants us to be silent on that subject today. He is here today urging us to know more and more of the truth about the world that reveals His glory as well as the destructive works of Satan.

5. Lastly we must constantly remember that there is a huge difference between believing in an inerrant Bible and believing in inerrant interpretation. If someone has a different interpretation of the Bible from us, that does not prove they don't believe the Bible.

Now, if we go back to the Bible with these perspectives in mind, what new insights might we gain?