The First Goal Of A Bible Interpreter Is Making The Author’s Intent The basic Goal Of Bible Interpretation.
In this training, we will examine the history of interpretation and the negative consequences of interpretation that ignored this basic rule.
The Spanish philosopher Jorge Augustin Nicolas de Santayana, made the observation: “He who doesn’t learn from history is bound to repeat it” (Virkler 1981, 48). This statement echoes Solomon’s complaint that men tend to repeat the errors: “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there’s nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastics 1:9).
One group that has consistently been guilty of ignoring the errors of the past is Bible interpreters. As we will see in this historical overview, interpreters through the ages have repeatedly committed the error of ignoring the writer’s original intention. The tendency has been to replace it with a more mystical, official, or rational interpretation. We will note the many similarities in the methods of both Jewish and Christian interpreters.
When you finish this lesson you should be able to:
- Relate the fundamental error of biblical interpretation most often repeated throughout church history.
- Distinguish between the single interpretation and the multiple principles and applications that can be found in a Bible text.
- Defend the validity of making the author’s intent the ultimate goal of Bible interpretation.
Compare your own church’s method of Bible interpretation with the patterns presented in this Article.
demythologize
existentialism
Midrash
pesher
There is a proverb that states; to be free to sail the seven seas, you must make yourself a slave to the compass.
For centuries ancient sailors only travelled within sight of land for fear of becoming lost. Navigation was finally revolutionized with the discovery of the compass. Since a compass would only point in one direction, the sailors would be able to use it to cross oceans and successfully return home.
Like the compass, which only points north, the attention of the Bible interpreters should be “pointed’ at the original author’s interpretation. If not, interpretation will become best in a sea of objectivity. On the other hand, once it is accepted that the interpreter’s first goal is to find the original writer’s purpose, interpretation can go beyond a surface understanding into the joy of discovery in God’s word.
Although many Christian interpreters have recognized this truth, there is a significant example of both Jewish and Christian interpreters who directed their efforts to “every direction on the compass.” In case they searched for a meaning foreign to what the original author had intended.
Some looked for an additional, more “spiritual” meaning than the author had intended. Others were embarrassed by the supernatural character of the Bible’s message and moved in the opposite direction to harmonize the Bible with contemporary philosophy and culture. They ignored the author’s intention to search for a more “rational interpretation.”A third group sought to interpret the Bible in a way that supported their traditions and officially endorsed beliefs. Note these four major directions in interpretation on the compass below. As we study, you will see how these three misdirected goals in interpretation have repeated themselves through centuries of Bible interpretation both Jewish and Christen.
THE MISGUIDED GOALS IN JEWISH INTERPRETATION.
Upon their return from captivity, the Jews demonstrated a great desire to stay close to God’s Word and far away from idols. For years Bible interpretation was effective as they employed legitimate methods, including the use of cross-references to find the plain meaning of the text. The interest in God’s word kept the Jewish faith alive amidst the cultural influences of their pagan masters. However, by the line of Christ, much Bible interpretation had degenerated and was so slanted by human creativity, reasoning, and bias that eventually the “teachers of the Law” actually led the Jewish people to reject and crucify their Messiah. This colossal error was not due to any lack of interest in the Bible but to biased and erroneous interpretations of it.
In Search of A More Spiritual Meaning
The conservative Jews who zealously protected the Scriptures from copyists’ errors often disregarded caution when looking for unique interpretations of Scripture. They contrived interpretations the original author would never have recognized.
Scholars of the group from which the Pharisees originated prided themselves on strict attention to detail in interpretation. Although their goal seemed noble, these scholars decided that every detail of the text contained a secret meaning in addition to its natural sense. In this system of interpretation, the details were not important because they supported a larger truth in the passage. Rather, the passage was viewed as a string of pearls: each detail of grammar, repetition, or even the shape of a letter was valued for a hidden meaning of its own. They believed that because the text was divinely inspired each passage could have multiple meanings.
These overly zealous scholars speculated on “hidden truths” based on incidentals in grammar such as the “letter-numerical value” of individual words. In Hebrew, letters can also function as numbers. For example, the letters in the name Eliezer (Abraham’s servant, see Genesis 15:2), numerically add up to 318‚ the number m Abraham’s small army (Genesis 14:14). Based on this fact they would determine the “truth” that the servant was worth an army of servants (Terry 1890, 580).
It was not the attention to detail that caused these interpreters to err as much as their belief that a passage could have multiple interpretations. Although any narrative or teaching passage may incidentally teach multiple truths, these truths are secondary to the primary theme of the story or instruction. It is not wrong to recognize these “secondary truths,” but the interpreter should never sacrifice the major truth by overstressing & a minor one. To do that would, at best, dilute the purpose of the narrative; at worst it would obscure the divinely ordained message. This is the very accusation Christ held against the interpreters of His day who missed the message by overstressing minutia.
Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees. You hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices-mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law-justice mercy and faithfulness (Matthew 23:23).
Another group of interpreters in Christ‘s day who searched for the mystical meaning in the Scriptures were the mystics of Qumran. Qumran was a region near the Dead Sea where Jewish mystics had taken refuge from the ‘corruption” of the world. The word that characterizes their interpretation is pesher. A short form of a longer Hebrew phrase that means “this is that.”
As the phrase implies, these scholars superimposed current events over the Scriptures to find a secret meaning. They emphasized prophetic passages searching for historical references that corresponded to current events. Anything written by the prophet was assigned a wider meaning relevant to their community. For example, they decided that the Assyrians referred to in Habakkuk prophetically represented the Romans and teachers of righteousness were referred to as their leaders (Virkler 1981,51).
Amazingly, this same false method of interpretation continues to be practised in the Old Testament today. The actual historical event, person, or object in the Old Testament is ignored by the interpreter and becomes instead, a symbol for an interpretation that completely disregards the original meaning of the text. Old Testament history should be made applicable to current conditions, but not at the expense of ignoring its meaning “the historical context.
1. According to this section, a basic error of Jewish mystics in interpreting Old Testament passages was to
a) pay a great deal of attention to the details of a text.
b) ignore the details of a text and stress the main thought. _
c) treat details as having truth unrelated to the whole thought.
d) limit each passage to the original author’s intent.
2 The basic error of the pesher method of interpretation was
a) failure to apply the Scriptures to everyday life.
b) looking for a hidden meaning not intended by the author.
c) failure to believe that the Scriptures were relevant to their day.
d) searching for an intellectual rather than a spiritual meaning
In Search of an Officially Accepted Meaning
As interpretations of Scripture became increasingly complicated through human inventiveness, the entire process was eventually relegated to the “experts.” To protect the faith, the interpretations of these experts became authoritative. The study of Scripture was reduced to citing what revered leaders had said about the passage. Little by little these “interpretations by experts” became crystallized into the oral law and were accepted as equal in authority to the written Law. Milton Terry explains:
They scrupulously guarded against interpolations and changes, but at the same time. They gathered up traditions and constructed an oral law which in time came to have with them the authority equal to that of the sacred books (1890. 33).
Ultimately this oral tradition was written down and entitled the Midrashim or Midrash. It was composed of two parts: the first part included the commentaries on the Law called the Halakah, and the second part the more practical and homiletical comments on the general Scriptures called the Haggadah
Primarily in the Haggadah, the historical narrative passages suffered as legends and mystical interpretations were added and then accepted officially as the correct interpretation (sec 1 Timothy 1:4). One legend that typifies these traditions concerns the rock Moses struck in Exodus 17, which the “Jews determined was the same rock mentioned in Numbers 20. They concluded that the rock must have been carried with Israel in the wilderness wandering to serve as a portable drinking fountain (Kuyper 1978,4).
The conservative Jews of Christ’s day believed that the traditions surrounding the Law were equal to the Law. Some even asserted that the tradition had been given on Mount Sinai along with the Law. It is no wonder that Christ condemned these traditions that had replaced the Scriptures: “‘You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men.’ And he said to them: ‘You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God to observe your tradition’s” (Mark 7:8-9).
Although the wisdom of the centuries can act as a safeguard against extremes in interpretation (and only an arrogant foot would ignore the wisdom of church leaders of past generations), every Christian is responsible for his study of the Scriptures. Commentaries can never replace the toil of personal study, neither should the Bible be read under the unnatural glare of theological bias. No authority can replace the authority of the Scriptures. ‘
3, Circle the letter preceding each TRUE statement.
a A believer should never use a “man-made book to help him understand spiritual truth.
b A Christian can benefit from hearing other believers preach, but he will not benefit from Christian books.
c. If the leadership of the church correctly interprets the Bible, the individual study is not necessary.
d. A church doctrine or tradition should be subjected to testing by Scripture to prove its validity.
In Search Of A More Reasonable Meaning.
The tendency to twist the Bible to agree with human reason and current philosophies is not unique to the theological liberals of the modern church. Ancient Jewish interpretation was fraught ‘with its brand of liberals. The most famous was Philo, a scholarly Jew who lived in Alexandria. He was consumed with a need to vindicate the Scriptures before his Greek contemporaries by proving that Greek philosophy had been taught by Jewish prophets long before the Greek philosophers promoted it. He also saw many things he considered unworthy of God in the stories of the Old Testament and sought to explain them in a manner consistent with the rest of Scripture.
To do this, he borrowed a method used by Greek philosophers. When they found that the myths of Greek history clashed with current thought, they assigned them a new allegorical significance. Thus. The stories were valued not for their historical input but for the philosophical messages hidden behind the literal sense.
Philo treated the narratives of the Old Testament in the same way. For example, the life of Abraham became a grand metaphor that showed the quest of a philosopher’s true Wisdom. Leaving Ur of the Chaldeans represented his rejection of sensual understanding. On the Ventured to Haran, which means “holes” (signifying the emptiness of sensual knowledge). Finally, his marriage to Sarah (symbolizing wisdom) reflected his enlightenment to abstract Wisdom (Ramm 1970, 28)
Amazing to find Greek philosophy taught in the Bible centuries before the Greeks discovered it. If only Philo could have seen the same philosophy through the eyes of men centuries later he would have been embarrassed. And some Christian scholars of the 18th and 19th centuries would be equally embarrassed to see the result of their doctrines of some criticism that sought to make the narrative of the Bible more palatable to reason. The philosophy has been discredited but the Bible remains firm.
4, Circle the letter preceding each TRUE statement concerning Philo’s method of interpretation.
a. His primary error in interpreting the scriptures was ignoring the author’s meaning in favour of meaning more acceptable in his society.
b. He overemphasized the details of history and failed to seek deeper spiritual truths.
c. He depended on the official interpretations of scriptures; rather than seeking new meanings for his generation.
d. He was embarrassed by the literal interpretation of the scriptures; so he applied the Greek allegorical method of interpretation to the scriptures to make them more acceptable.
e. He claimed to find Greek philosophy taught in the Bible even before the Greeks had developed it.
THE MISGUIDED GOALS IN CHURCH INTERPRETATION
Remarkably, errors in Christian interpretation continued to follow the same three errors that were prevalent in Jewish interpretation. First, overly zealous mystics of the early church sought deeper levels of meaning, rather than being content with the author’s original intention. Second, there was a tendency to evaluate all interpretations through an official “doctrinal grid.” Third, the church began to reflect rather than affect its culture. Pagan philosophy flooded into the medieval church and modern rationalism infected modern doctrine.
In Search of A More Spiritual Meaning
(The Allegorical Method)
The second-century church was confused by the Old Testament; it just did not seem to fit with the teaching of the New Testament. (Especially the Old Testament narratives that appeared to condone immoral acts and placed God in an awkward light). The church fathers eagerly resolved to “make” the Old Testament into a Christian document. While their motives may have been pure, their error was outrageous.
Seldom has a sincere motive resulted in such confusion and detriment to the church. In any case, they added a “deeper, more spiritual sense” to the literal or historical meaning that we refer to as “allegorical interpretation.”
Clement of Alexandria was the first church father to use allegory as a means to “Christianize” and preserve the Old Testament. He felt that any passage could contain five levels of meaning: historical, doctrinal, prophetic, philosophical, and mystical. He determined that the historical or literal meaning was useful only for elementary faith, and all that seemed dark or immoral in the Bible simply served as an incentive “to transcend” the literal sense (Berkhof 1950, 20). This type of interpretation exposed the Bible to two dangers. One was that ingenuity would replace the divine message. For example, Clement claimed that the three days of Abraham’s journey to Moriah (Genesis 22:1-4) were respectively: the day of faith by sight, the day of his soul’s desire, and finally the day of spiritual understanding.
Mystical
Philosophical
Prophetic
Doctrinal
Historical
The other anger was that such a subjective system of interpretation would limit exposition to a privileged few. Clement even admitted this by writing. “Scriptures hide their true meaning so that we might be inquisitive and because it is not suitable for everyone to understand” (Virkler 1981, 59).
Augustine was one of the most famous interpreters to use the allegorical method. Unfortunately for the church, he felt every passage of the Bible could have four levels of interpretation. For example, a reference to the sea could simultaneously refer to a gathering of water, the scripture, the present age, the human heart, or even baptism. A reference to Jerusalem could be teaching something about the city itself, the church, the human soul, and the heavenly Jerusalem all at the same time.
A basic truth ignored by Augustine and other allegorists was that God did not inspire a message in a coded form that only spiritual mystics could decipher. While the meaning of a historical narrative is often not obvious, it is never secretive. The interpreter must always look for the single meaning of a passage within the text itself, not for mystical enlightenment that ignores the context.
The Emphasis on Experience over the Word.
The allegorical method fell into disrepute during the Reformation but spiritualizing remained an accepted method of Bible interpretation. When Reformation zeal gave way to deal formalism, some sincere Christians, called Pictists, sought a new freshness in their spiritual life by stressing an emotional, religious experience. Their spiritual fervour was praiseworthy and they contributed to a rejuvenation of true faith. At the same time, they tended to exalt the authority of personal experience over biblical revelation. The Bible was not disregarded, but the experience was elevated to a position equal to the scriptures (Wood 1967, 92). This mystical approach to interpretation is a first cousin of allegorical interpretation since both assume and accept a second meaning foreign to the natural, original meaning of the text. The authority of experience versus scripture still plagues the church. Many Evangelicals today ignore the simple meaning of scripture in their eagerness to find a personal “blessing.” Unfortunately, the allegorical method still finds its way into many pulpits, particularly in explanations of Old Testament story passages.
NOTE: What can you say, knowing that the ancient church fathers allegorized scripture to make the Old Testament artificially teach New Testament truth, and the Pietists allegorized it to teach their experiences. What is the common error for both?
Also, We have talked about the effect that “experience over the Bible” has had on the “next” generation throughout history. Do you see any parallels in the modern church? Record two in the comment box below.
In Search of an Officially Acceptable Meaning
To understand the error of the “official meaning,” that is, the meaning traditionally held by the Roman Catholic Church, we need to turn again to Augustine. He bears the distinction of being the father of the church’s allegorical interpretation method and the grandfather of the “officially approved” interpretations used in the middle Ages. His allegorical method of interpretation led to extreme spiritualizing of the Bible. This, in turn, made interpretation so subjective that it seemed necessary to control personal interpretation. As personal interpretation was supposed, the vitality that results when individual believers study God’s word for themselves was lost, as was biblical teaching from the pulpits.
Thomas Aquinas blatantly subjected the scriptures to the authority of tradition. He claimed that the church was the “custodian of the scriptures.” As such, it bears the true tradition (both oral and written) so that no passage can be interpreted in a way that conflicts with Roman Catholic doctrines.
Hugo of Saint-Victor reflects this false hermeneutic when he writes: “Learn first what you should believe and then go to the Bible to find it there” (Berkhof 1950, 23).
Over the centuries priests began to neglect Bible study, and by the thirteenth century, many doctors of theology had never even read the Bible.
Even in post-Reformation Europe, the system of “official interpretation” became popular, a serious Bible interpretation was replaced with a habit of ransacking the Bible for texts to prove pet doctrines. This problem still exists today as many interpreters go to the Bible to find what they want to believe rather than what they should believe.
In Search Of A More Reasonable Meaning Adaptation To Culture
Perhaps the worst error in the history of Christian interpretation is to twist or reject passages to make Scripture harmonize with current philosophy scholarly thought or cultural ethics. Marcion of Pontas, a second-century scholar is our first example. He rejected the entire Old Testament because it conflicted with the Gnostic ideas to which he adhered.
Other Christian scholars who twisted interpretation to conform to his cultural bias were Origen of Alexandria. This man used allegory as a tool for making the Bible more compatible with current thought.
The essence of his approach is seen in his interpretation of Exodus l:22—2: 10. In his view. Pharaoh represented the devil, and the male and female children represented the rational and animal qualities of mankind. Pharaoh wanted to destroy rationality (the thought process through which the soul seeks heavenly things), and by keeping the female alive, he intended to preserve the animal propensities in man. Pharaoh’s daughter represented the church by resisting her father the devil (Kaiser 1983. 199).
In short, Origen tried to make the Bible more “reasonable.” When the Scripture seemed to conflict with his ideal (by recording immorality or trivia). He merely changed their meaning with allegory.
Theory of Accommodation
The eighteenth century was known for the Enlightenment a movement characterized by rationalism. The rationalists believed that the human mind was the ultimate authority for determining truth. They felt that whatever could not be confirmed by reason or science was not true, since then it was thought that only what is reasonable is true, the miracles of the Bible (especially those of the Old Testament) had to be reevaluated. As a result, the historical details of a passage were placed on a lower level of authority than the theological truth taught in the passage. The Bible was regarded as a compilation of myths that represented spiritual truths. Somehow a biblical account could historically recount a lie and theologically present a truth.
An explanation for this paradox was called the “accommodation theory.” which held that the Bible writer wrote from his superstitious prejudice. And the ignorant point of view. The truth, its proponents said, could only be found by looking beyond the myths to their “core of truth.”
The accommodation theory holds that; the Bible
a) writers used myths to communicate spiritual truth so that their listeners could understand.
b) contains some truths that have been expressed in figurative language to accommodate the concept to the reader.
c) was written in human language to accommodate the limitations of mankind.
d) uses some expressions that are not scientifically accurate to accommodate the intellectual limitations of its audience.
Theory of Source Criticism
In the nineteenth century it became popular to believe that all things were in a constant state of evolution this was not only applied to nature by Darwin’s theory but also to the Bible interpreters who used the historical-critical method of interpretation claimed that the faith of Israel “evolved” through the years as Israel’s religious consciousness increased. They also believed that many books of the Bible that were attributed to one writer had been gradually added to by succeeding generations until they reached their present forms. The interpreter’s task, therefore, was to find the “evolution” of the “Jewish cult” from infancy and error to maturity. In response to this it should be noted that while it is true that the Bible message was given in the progressive stage, this does not imply that the progression was one of the errors to truth but one of partial to complete. It also does not imply that the original documents were amended through the years.
A famous name associated with this attitude is Julius Welhausen. Welhausen used the different divine names for God, grammatically patterns, and supposed contradictions in the book of Genesis to advance a theory of multiple sources. This was called “source criticism.” and it extended over much of the Old Testament and the Gospel. In essence, the modern interpreters of this persuasion viewed each Bible author as merely a copier of other works. He discounted the final products that appear in the Bible as he sought the content of the “original” sources. Source critics assumed that the meaning of a passage was in its sources (in the source copied) as much in its message of Bible books and undermine the authority of scripture.
The basic idea of source criticism is that;
a). the Bible writer was the primary source of the books he wrote and God did not inspire him.
b). many books of the Bible evolved as the Bible writer copied them from multiple other sources.
c). to understand the source of true religion one must look to his own experience as well as to the Bible.
d). the Bible, the source of our faith, is thought to be a product of the original author’s creativity.
Existentialism and Demythologizing the Bible
In the early twentieth century, the dominating philosophy among literal Bible interpreters moved from rationalism to existentialism. The existentialist who interpreted the Bible stressed the inner experience of the will, emotions and consciousness and did not accept anything as for certain including the Bible. To their credit, they did promote a more personal relationship with God than the rationalist, but they erred in putting their feelings (subject experiences) over the authority of the word of God. This is clear in the existentialist, view of ethics. They saw Jesus teaching as a positive ethical call to action but not as an absolute standard.
Coming out of the essentialist’s movement was a reasonable interpretation with the need for a subjective experience. Since he did not believe in miracles but did not want to reject the Bible entirely he claimed the miracles were simply an ancient literary device of using “myths “to convey truth. He claimed that the interpreters must” demythologize” (remove the myths) to text to find its true meaning. The “fall” was seen as a legend that demonstrated the weakness of all humanity. It was not seen as an actual historical account. A current hermeneutical principle that has some roots in the existentialist approach to scripture is called the New Hermeneutic. It is a reader-centred approach rather than a text centred approach. In this system, the question for the interpreters is not what does this text mean but what does it mean to me? the second question is valid but only as it is based on the answer to the first.
A common theme in all forms of searching for a more reasonable meaning is that human reason and thought are more authoritative than Scripture. The et is an interpretation that reflects the culture, needs, and bases of the reader rather than the original author’s intent.
The existentialist Is Characterized By A;
a) belief in the existence of a spiritual force to help man interpret the Bible
b) emphasis on an inner experience and rejection of absolute
c) stress what the Bible means rather than what it means to me.
d) removal of any myths contained in a Bible text before finding the truth that exists there.
12. When Rudolf Boltzmann spoke of demy theologizing the Bible, he was referring to the interpretation method in which the interpreters had to
a) believe that the Bible did not contain myths before he could interpret it correctly.
b) allegorize the Bible to understand how its truths fit into his culture and times.
c) recognize the myths taught in his society so these would not affect his interpretation of the Bible.
d) find a personal meaning behind myths that surrounded the truth given in the Bible.
The First Goal Of Biblical Interpretation.
We have seen that three major errors of Bible interpretation have recurred throughout history. However, in reality, they all shared the same error they stressed a meaning that was foreign to that intended by the authors. Let’s consider how looking for’ this singular meaning affects interpretation and review some examples of this method of interpretation throughout church history.
The Interpretation, the Principles, and the Applications
Imagine that you are present at the reading of a will that is worth a fortune for one person. Now imagine a courtroom full of people, each of whom claims that they will name him or her as the heir. the will cannot mean something different to each person. To determine what they will mean we have to determine what the author of the will intend not what the readers want the will to mean.
So it is with any book of the Bible; its meaning is singular (that intended by the author) or it has no meaning. The central error of interpreters throughout church history has been to miss the primary goal of Bible interpretation. That is to find the author s message to his original audience.
To say a passage has only one interpretation does not imply that the eternal principles and current applications of a passage cannot be numerous. Nor does it imply that there is only one way to reach a given text. Surely each culture and generation will teach it with varying emphases and differing approaches. It does mean. However, the significance of the text must be grounded on the intended meaning of the original author. As a tree’s trunk is the common source of the many branches and branches are the source of the leaves. So the single, original meaning of a text can produce many principles which in turn can be applied in many ways to our individual lives.
Let’s examine the difference between the interpretation, the principles, and the applications. The interpretation is singular. It is an understanding of what the original writer wanted to communicate to his original audience. Although no one can reclaim the message perfectly, it is the goal toward which all interpretive efforts must be directed. Once discovered, it is the foundation of all that is learned and applied from the passage.
Let’s look at an example from 2 Corinthians 2:5-11. As you read the passage, notice that it deals with forgiving a man who had been disciplined by the Corinthian church. Before rushing to make personal applications, you would want to recreate the original story as closely as possible. In just a few words I would suggest the interpretation is something akin to this:
Paul is writing to the Corinthian church regarding the immoral conduct of a member. He reminds church members that he has written to them earlier (Perhaps, 1 Corinthians 5), instructing that this man should be put out of the church. While the church was initially hesitant to excommunicate the offender, it is now just as reluctant to restore him to fellowship after his repentance. Paul is exhorting the church to forgive and love the repentant brother and receive him back into full fellowship. Without this acceptance, the devil could take advantage of the weak, unprotected saint to lure him back into sin.
This interpretation could be far more detailed, but it does serve as an example of finding the author’s intended meaning. From it, we can find various principles it teaches, but we will mention just two. First, the passage teaches that the church’s role in discipline is not to punish but to restore. Secondly, we observe that an inflexible attitude in a discipline provides the devil with an opportunity to recapture weak believers.
Note that these principles are true in every culture of the world and every generation of the church. But contrast, an application would deal with a specific person and details in your church. Is there someone you know who has been disciplined with the goal of punishment rather than restoration? Is that person willing to be brought back into fellowship but is still being rejected by the church? Does your church’s state-specific course of action verify that a person is genuinely repentant? These specific questions are examples of locally specific applications to the two principles mentioned above. Another would be to ask yourself if you have an unforgiving attitude toward another Christian who fell into sin and now seeks your fellowship. As you can see, the distinction between the principles drawn from an interpretation and the innumerable applications to these principles is that the latter translates the former into our living.
- 1. The following statements are drawn from a study of 1 Corinthians 5, Match each statement (left) with the choice that identifies it appropriately (right).
3a. Any member who sin fornication 1) Interpretation (summary of
must be taken from the church membership for at the author’s intent)
least six months and only restored after his proven
repentance.
4b. The pastor has the right to take away the salvation 2) Principle (universal and
of any errant church member.
1c. The unrepentant fornicator in the Corinthian church (1 Corinthians 5:11) had to be removed from the church body to promote his repentance and cleanse the church.
2d. A church body cannot allow an unrepentant fornicator to continue fellowship with the believers.
2e. A primary purpose for church discipline is to restore the errant person to fellowship with God.
The Single Sense Interpretation
We can look to the interpreting methods of Jesus and the apostles for correct examples of interpreting the Old Testament. Notice that Jesus made applications based on the “natural” (literal) sense of a historical event rather than on some remote allegorical sense (Mathew 12:40). Further, He encouraged the people to renounce the distorted traditions that were binding the scriptures (Mark 7:6-13). Also, He treated the characters in the stories of the Old Testament as actual people, not simply as imagined characters. For example, He referred to Jonah as a real person—not as part of a myth or parable (Mathew 12:39-4).
Following Christ’s example, the apostles treated the stories of the Old Testament as historical writings and their instruction as genuinely authoritative.
The early church fathers generally ignored the examples of Christ and the apostles except for a school of interpreters centred in Antioch, Syria. Led by a scholar named Chrysostom, this school promoted the “single sense” of scripture rather than the multiple senses of the allegories. By this, they meant that interpretation was limited to what the text said as opposed to imagining multiple levels of meaning.
The method these men used was labelled “grammatical” exegesis. This simply means interpreting in a way normal to the language (grammatically) and the original temporal and cultural (historically) context of the passage.
Unfortunately, the school received a bad name because some heretics were unjustly associated with the Antioch school. As a result, this legitimate method of interpretation was discounted through “guilt by association.” Bernard Ramm remarks that if the school had flourished the entire course of church history might have been different (1970, 48).
For twenty-five generations, the “grammatical-historical” method of interpretation was alternately buried under the mass of “mystical interpretations” or restricted by church decree. Finally, a monk named Nicholas of Lyra began to teach it again. One of his pupils, Martin Luther, rocked the Christian world with his rediscovery of the “single sense” method of interpretation.
Luther made this contention: “The literal [normal, singular] sense of scripture alone is the whole essence of faith and theology, and every portion of scripture can be interpreted in a simple, direct and indisputable way” (Wood 1967, 97). The backbone of Luther’s hermeneutic was that scripture was to be read in its natural sense and proper context. In his view, “We are to ascertain what the writer wished to say by interpreting his words according to the customary socially acceptable meaning of those words.”
John Calvin stated the same principle in different words. “It is the first business of an interpreter to let the author say what he does, instead of attributing to him what we think he ought to say” (Radmacher 1984, 48).
In general, mainline Evangelicals have followed the pattern of the reformers until today. Unfortunately, however, in the last few decades, even the evangelical churches have been challenged by advocates of a new system of hermeneutics who believe that what is important is the “idea” rather than the historical detail. They insist that the historical event is a myth that can be removed as one would peel off the skin of an orange to get the fruit.
With this tendency in mind, the church needs to reassert that the only valid goal of interpretation is to discover the author’s original sense. This alone can be the basis for stating principles that apply the scriptures appropriately to our lives. What we must never forget is that when we deliberately ignore the meaning the original writer intended we make the interpreter the ultimate authority. The result is mass confusion and as many interpretations as there are interpreters.
Biblical Interpretation.
We have learned that the interpreter must be godly as well as diligent and that he or she must believe that the Scriptures are divinely inspired. Nevertheless, all this is still not sufficient if one is not looking for a single meaning in each passage of the Bible the author’s intended meaning. In this lesson, we will examine the history of interpretation and we will see the negative consequences of interpretation that ignored this basic rule.
The Spanish philosopher Jorge Augustin Nicolas de Santayana, made the observation: “He who doesn’t learn from history is bound to repeat it” (Virkler 1981, 48). This statement echoes Solomon’s complaint that men tend to repeat the errors: “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there’s nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastics 1:9).
One group that has consistently been guilty of ignoring the errors of the past is Bible interpreters. As we will see in this historical overview, interpreters through the ages have repeatedly committed the error of ignoring the writer’s original intention. The tendency has been to replace it with a more mystical, official, or rational interpretation. We will note the many similarities in the methods of both Jewish and Christian interpreters who have favoured these approaches.
When you finish this lesson you should be able to:
- Relate the fundamental error of biblical interpretation most often repeated throughout church history.
- Distinguish between the single interpretation and the multiple principles and applications that can be found in a Bible text.
- Defend the validity of making the author’s intent the ultimate goal of Bible interpretation.
Compare your own church’s method of Bible interpretation with the patterns presented in this lesson.
demythologize
existentialism
Midrash
Pesher
There is a proverb that states; to be free to sail the seven seas, you must make yourself a slave to the compass. For centuries ancient sailors only travelled within sight of land for fear of becoming lost. Navigation was finally revolutionized with the discovery of the compass. Since a compass would only point in one direction, the sailors would be able to use it to cross oceans and successfully return home.
Like the compass, which only points north, the attention of the Bible interpreters should be “pointed’ at the original author’s interpretation. If not, interpretation will become best in a sea of objectivity. On the other hand, once it is accepted that the interpreter’s first goal is to find the original writer’s purpose, interpretation can go beyond a surface understanding into the joy of discovery in God’s word.
Although many Christian interpreters have recognized this truth, there is a significant example of both Jewish and Christian interpreters who directed their efforts to “every direction on the compass.” In case they searched for a meaning foreign to what the original author had intended.
Some looked for an additional, more “spiritual” meaning than the author had intended. Others were embarrassed by the supernatural character of the Bible’s message and moved in the opposite direction to harmonize the Bible with contemporary philosophy and culture. They ignored the author’s intention to search for a more “rational interpretation.”A third group sought to interpret the Bible in a way that supported their traditions and officially endorsed beliefs. Note these four major directions in interpretation on the compass below. As we study, you will see how these three misdirected goals in interpretation have repeated themselves through centuries of Bible interpretation both Jewish and Christen.
THE MISGUIDED GOALS IN JEWISH INTERPRETATION.
Upon their return from captivity, the Jews demonstrated a great desire to stay close to God’s Word and far away from idols. For years Bible interpretation was effective as they employed legitimate methods, including the use of cross-references to find the plain meaning of the text. The interest in God’s word kept the Jewish faith alive amidst the cultural influences of their pagan masters. However, by the line of Christ, much Bible interpretation had degenerated and was so slanted by human creativity, reasoning, and bias that eventually the “teachers of the Law” actually led the Jewish people to reject and crucify their Messiah. This colossal error was not due to any lack of interest in the Bible but to biased and erroneous interpretations of it.
In Search Of A More Spiritual Meaning
The conservative Jews who zealously protected the Scriptures from copyists’ errors often disregarded caution when looking for unique interpretations of Scripture. ITheycontrived interpretations the original author would never have recognized.
Scholars of the group from which the Pharisees originated prided themselves on strict attention to detail in interpretation. Although their goal seemed noble, these scholars decided that every detail of the text contained a secret meaning in addition to its natural sense. In this system of interpretation, the details were not important because they supported a larger truth in the passage. Rather, the passage was viewed as a string of pearls: each detail of grammar, repetition, or even the shape of a letter was valued for a hidden meaning of its own. They believed that because the text was divinely inspired each passage could have multiple meanings.
These overly zealous scholars speculated on “hidden truths” based on incidentals in grammar such as the “letter-numerical value” of individual words. In Hebrew, letters can also function as numbers. For example, the letters in the name Eliezer (Abraham’s servant, see Genesis 15:2), numerically add up to 318‚ the number m Abraham’s small army (Genesis 14:14). Based on this fact they would determine the “truth” that the servant was worth an army of servants (Terry 1890, 580).
AItwas not the attention to detail that caused these interpreters to err as much as their belief that a passage could have multiple interpretations. Although any narrative or teaching passage may incidentally teach multiple truths, these truths are secondary to the primary theme of the story or instruction. It is not wrong to recognize these “secondary truths,” but the interpreter should never sacrifice the major truth by overstressing & minor one. To do that would, at best, dilute the purpose of the narrative; at worst it would obscure the divinely ordained message. This is the very accusation Christ held against the interpreters of His day who missed the message by overstressing minutia.
Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees. You hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices-mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law-justice mercy and faithfulness (Matthew 23:23).
Another group of interpreters in Christ‘s day who searched for the mystical meaning in the Scriptures were the mystics of Qumran. Qumran was a region near the Dead Sea where Jewish mystics had taken refuge from the ‘corruption” of the world. The word that characterizes their interpretation is pesher. A short form of a longer Hebrew phrase that means “this is that.”
As the phrase implies, these scholars superimposed current events over the Scriptures to find a secret meaning. They emphasized prophetic passage searching for historical references that corresponded to current events. Anything written by the prophet was assigned a wider meaning relevant to their community. For example, they decided that the Assyrians referred to in Habakkuk prophetically represented the Romans and teachers of righteousness referred to their readers (Virkler 1981,51).
Amazingly, this same false method of interpretation continues to be practised in the Old Testament today. The actual historical event, person, or object in the Old Testament is ignored by the interpreter and becomes instead, a symbol for an interpretation that completely disregards the original meaning of the text. Old Testament history should be made applicable to current conditions, but not at the expense of ignoring its meaning “the historical context.
1. According to this section, a basic error of Jewish mystics in interpreting Old Testament passages was to
a) pay a great deal of attention to the details of a text.
b) ignore the details of a text and stress the main thought. _
c) treat details as having truth unrelated to the whole thought.
d) limit each passage to the original author’s intent.
2 The basic error of the pesher method of interpretation was
a) failure to apply the Scriptures to everyday life.
b) looking for a hidden meaning not intended by the author.
c) failure to believe that the Scriptures were relevant to their day.
d) searching for an intellectual rather than a spiritual meaning
In Search Of An Officially Accepted Meaning
As interpretations of Scripture became increasingly complicated through human inventiveness, the entire process was eventually relegated to the “experts.” IToprotect the faith, the interpretations of these experts became authoritative. The study of Scripture was reduced to citing what revered leaders had said about the passage. Little by little these “interpretations by experts” became crystallized into the oral law and were accepted as equal in authority to the written Law. Milton Terry explains:
They scrupulously guarded against interpolations and changes, but at the same time. They gathered up traditions and constructed an oral law which in time came to have with them the authority equal to that of the sacred books (1890. 33).
Ultimately this oral tradition was written down and entitled the Midrashim or Midrash. It was composed of two parts: the first part included the commentaries on the Law called the Halakah, and the second part the more practical and homiletical comments on the general Scriptures called the Haggadah
Primarily in the Haggadah, the historical narrative passages suffered as legends and mystical interpretations were added and then accepted officially as the correct interpretation (sec 1 Timothy 1:4). One legend that typifies these traditions concerns the rock Moses struck in Exodus 17, which the “Jews determined was the same rock mentioned in Numbers 20. They concluded that the rock must have been carried with Israel in the wilderness wandering to serve as a portable drinking fountain (Kuyper 1978,4).
The conservative Jews of Christ’s day believed that the traditions surrounding the Law were equal to the Law. Some even asserted that the tradition had been given on Mount Sinai along with the Law. It is no wonder that Christ condemned these traditions that had replaced the Scriptures: “‘You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men.’ And he said to them: ‘You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God to observe your tradition’s” (Mark 7:8-9).
Although the wisdom of the centuries can act as a safeguard against extremes in interpretation (and only an arrogant foot would ignore the wisdom of church leaders of past generations), every Christian is responsible for his study of the Scriptures. Commentaries can never replace the toil of personal study, and neither should the Bible be read under the unnatural glare of theological bias. No authority can replace the authority of the Scriptures. ‘
In Search Of A More Reasonable Meaning.
The tendency to twist the Bible to agree with human reason and current philosophies is not unique to the theological liberals of the modern church. Ancient Jewish interpretation was fraught ‘with its brand of liberals. The most famous was Philo, a scholarly Jew who lived in Alexandria. He was consumed with a need to vindicate the Scriptures before his Greek contemporaries by proving that Greek philosophy had been taught by Jewish prophets long before the Greek philosophers promoted it. He also saw many things he considered unworthy of God in the stories of the Old Testament and sought to explain them in a manner consistent with the rest of Scripture.
To do this, he borrowed a method used by Greek philosophers. When they found that the myths of Greek history clashed with current thought, they assigned them a new allegorical significance. Thus. The stories were valued not for their historical input but for the philosophical messages hidden behind the literal sense.
Philo treated the narratives of the Old Testament in the same way. For example, the life of Abraham became a grand metaphor that showed the quest for a philosopher’s true Wisdom. Leaving Ur of the Chaldeans represented his rejection of sensual understanding. On the Ventured to Haran, which means “holes” (signifying the emptiness of sensual knowledge). Finally, his marriage to Sarah (symbolizing wisdom) reflected his enlightenment to abstract Wisdom (Ramm 1970, 28)
Amazing to find Greek philosophy taught in the Bible centuries before the Greeks discovered it. If only Philo could have seen the same philosophy through the eyes of men centuries later he would have been embarrassed. And some Christian scholars of the 18th and 19th centuries would be equally embarrassed to see the result of their doctrines of some criticism that sought to make the narrative of the Bible more palatable to reason. The philosophy has been discredited but the Bible remains firm.
THE MISGUIDED GOALS IN CHURCH INTERPRETATION
Remarkably, errors in Christian interpretation continued to follow the same three errors that were prevalent in Jewish interpretation. First, overly zealous mystics of the early church sought deeper levels of meaning, rather than being content with the author’s original intention. Second, there was a tendency to evaluate all interpretations through an official “doctrinal grid.” Third, the church began to reflect rather than affect its culture. Pagan philosophy flooded into the medieval church and modern rationalism infected modern doctrine.
In Search Of A More Spiritual Meaning
(The Allegorical Method)
The second-century church was confused by the Old Testament; it just did not seem to fit with the teaching of the New Testament. (Especially the Old Testament narratives that appeared to condone immoral acts and placed God in an awkward light). The church fathers eagerly resolved to “make” the Old Testament into a Christian document. While their motives may have been pure, their error was outrageous.
Seldom has a sincere motive resulted in such confusion and detriment to the church. In any case, they added a “deeper, more spiritual sense” to the literal or historical meaning that we refer to as “allegorical interpretation.”
Clement of Alexandria was the first church father to use allegory as a means to “Christianize” and preserve the Old Testament. He felt that any passage could contain five levels of meaning: historical, doctrinal, prophetic, philosophical, and mystical. He determined that the historical or literal meaning was useful only for elementary faith, and all that seemed dark or immoral in the Bible simply served as an incentive “to transcend” the literal sense (Berkhof 1950, 20).
This type of interpretation exposed the Bible to two dangers. One was that ingenuity would replace the divine message. For example, Clement claimed that the three days of Abraham’s journey to Moriah (Genesis 22:1-4) were respectively: the day of faith by sight, the day of his soul’s desire, and finally the day of spiritual understanding.
Mystical
Philosophical
Prophetic
Doctrinal
Historical
The other anger was that such a subjective system of interpretation would limit exposition to a privileged few. Clement even admitted this by writing. “Scriptures hide their true meaning so that we might be inquisitive and because it is not suitable for everyone to understand” (Virkler 1981, 59).
Augustine was one of the most famous interpreters to use the allegorical method. Unfortunately for the church, he felt every passage of the Bible could have four levels of interpretation. For example, a reference to the sea could simultaneously refer to a gathering of water, the scripture, the present age, the human heart, or even baptism. A reference to Jerusalem could be teaching something about the city itself, the church, the human soul, and the heavenly Jerusalem all at the same time.
A basic truth ignored by Augustine and other allegorists was that God did not inspire a message in a coded form that only spiritual mystics could decipher. While the meaning of a historical narrative is often not obvious, it is never secretive. The interpreter must always look for the single meaning of a passage within the text itself, not for mystical enlightenment that ignores the context.
The Emphasis On Experience Over The Word.
The allegorical method fell into disrepute during the Reformation but spiritualizing remained an accepted method of Bible interpretation. When Reformation zeal gave way to deal formalism, some sincere Christians, called Pictists, sought a new freshness in their spiritual life by stressing an emotional, religious experience. Their spiritual fervour was praiseworthy and they contributed to a rejuvenation of true faith. At the same time, they tended to exalt the authority of personal experience over biblical revelation. The Bible was not disregarded, but the experience was elevated to a position equal to the scriptures (Wood 1967, 92).
This mystical approach to interpretation is a first cousin of allegorical interpretation since both assume and accept a second meaning foreign to the natural, original meaning of the text.
The authority of experience versus scripture still plagues the church. Many Evangelicals today ignore the simple meaning of scripture in their eagerness to find a personal “blessing.” Unfortunately, the allegorical method still finds its way into many pulpits, particularly in explanations of Old Testament story passages.
Note; The ancient church fathers allegorized scripture to make the Old Testament artificially teach New Testament truth, and the Pietists allegorized it to teach their experiences. What do you think is the common error for both?
Also, We have talked about the effect that “experience over the Bible” has had on the “next” generation throughout history. Do you see any parallels in the modern church?
In Search Of An Officially Acceptable Meaning
To understand the error of the “official meaning,” that is, the meaning traditionally held by the Roman Catholic Church, we need to turn again to Augustine. He bears the distinction of being the father of the church’s allegorical interpretation method and the grandfather of the “officially approved” interpretations used in the middle Ages. His allegorical method of interpretation led to extreme spiritualizing of the Bible. This, in turn, made interpretation so subjective that it seemed necessary to control personal interpretation. As personal interpretation was supposed, the vitality that results when individual believers study God’s word for themselves was lost, as was biblical teaching from the pulpits.
Thomas Aquinas blatantly subjected the scriptures to the authority of tradition. He claimed that the church was the “custodian of the scriptures.” As such, it bears the true tradition (both oral and written) so that no passage can be interpreted in a way that conflicts with Roman Catholic doctrines.
Hugo of Saint-Victor reflects this false hermeneutic when he writes: “Learn first what you should believe and then go to the Bible to find it there” (Berkhof 1950, 23).
Over the centuries priests began to neglect Bible study, and by the thirteenth century, many doctors of theology had never even read the Bible.
Even in post-Reformation Europe, the system of “official interpretation” became popular, a serious Bible interpretation was replaced with a habit of ransacking the Bible for texts to prove pet doctrines. This problem still exists today as many interpreters go to the Bible to find what they want to believe rather than what they should believe.
In Search Of A More Reasonable Meaning Adaptation To Culture
Perhaps the worst error in the history of Christian interpretation is to twist or reject passages to make Scripture harmonize with current philosophy scholarly thought or cultural ethics. Marcion of Pontas, a second-century scholar is our first example. He rejected the entire Old Testament because it conflicted with the Gnostic ideas to which he adhered.
Another Christian scholar who twisted interpretation to conform to his cultural bias was Origen of Alexandria. This man used allegory as a tool for making the Bible more compatible with current thought.
The essence of his approach is seen in his interpretation of Exodus l:22—2: 10. In his view. Pharaoh represented the devil, and the male and female children represented the rational and animal qualities in mankind. Pharaoh wanted to destroy rationality (the thought process through which the soul seeks heavenly things), and by keeping the female alive, he intended to preserve the animal propensities in man. Pharaoh’s daughter represented the church by resisting her father the devil (Kaiser 1983. 199).
In short, Origen tried to make the Bible more “reasonable.” When the Scripture seemed to conflict with his ideal (by recording immorality or trivia). He merely changed their meaning with allegory.
Theory Of Accommodation
The eighteenth century was known for the Enlightenment a movement characterized by rationalism. The rationalists believed that the human mind was the ultimate authority for determining truth. They felt that whatever could not be confirmed by reason or science was not true, since then it was thought that only what is reasonable is true, the miracles of the Bible (especially those of the Old Testament) had to be reevaluated. As a result, the historical details of a passage were placed on a lower level of authority than the theological truth taught in the passage. The Bible was regarded as a compilation of myths that represented spiritual truths. Somehow a biblical account could historically recount a lie and theologically present a truth.
An explanation for this paradox was called the “accommodation theory.” which held that the Bible writer wrote from his superstitious prejudice. And the ignorant point of view. The truth, its proponents said, could only be found by looking beyond the myths to their “core of truth.”
The accommodation Theory Holds That The Bible
a) writer used myths to communicate spiritual truth so that his listeners could understand.
b) contains some truths that have been expressed in figurative language to accommodate the concept to the reader.
c) was written in human language to accommodate the limitations of mankind.
d) uses some expressions that are not scientifically accurate to accommodate the intellectual limitations of its audience.
Theory Of Source Criticism
In the nineteenth century it became popular to believe that all things were in a constant state of evolution this was not only applied to nature by Darwin’s theory but also to the Bible interpreters who used the historical-critical method of interpretation claimed that the faith of Israel “evolved” through the years as Israel’s religious consciousness increased. They also believed that many books of the Bible that were attributed to one writer had been gradually added to by succeeding generations until they reached their present forms. The interpreter’s task, therefore, was to find the “evolution” of the “Jewish cult” from infancy and error to maturity. In response to this it should be noted that while it is true that the Bible message was given in the progressive stage, this does not imply that the progression was one of the errors to truth but one of partial to complete. It also does not imply that the original documents were amended through the years.
A famous name associated with this attitude is Julius Welhausen. Welhausen used the different divine names for God, grammatically patterns, and supposed contradictions in the book of Genesis to advance a theory of multiple sources. This was called “source criticism.” and it extended over much of the Old Testament and the Gospel. In essence, the modern interpreters of this persuasion viewed each Bible author as merely a copier of other works. He discounted the final products that appear in the Bible as he sought the content of the “original” sources. Source critics assumed that the meaning of a passage was in its sources (in the source copied) as much in its message of Bible books and undermine the authority of scripture.
The Basic Idea Of Source Criticism Is That;
a). the Bible writers were the primary source of the books he wrote and God did not inspire him.
b). many books of the Bible evolved as the Bible writer copied them from multiple other sources.
c). to understand the source of true religion one must look to his own experience as well as to the Bible.
d). the Bible, the source of our faith, is thought to be a product of the original author’s creativity.
Existentialism And Demythologizing The Bible
In the early twentieth century, the dominating philosophy among literal Bible interpreters moved from rationalism to existentialism. The existentialist who interpreted the Bible stressed the inner experience of the will, emotions and consciousness and did not accept anything as for certain including the Bible. To their credit, they did promote a more personal relationship with God than the rationalist, but they erred in putting their feelings (subject experiences) over the authority of the word of God. This is clear in the existentialist, view of ethics. They saw Jesus teaching as a positive ethical call to action but not as an absolute standard.
Coming out of the essentialist’s movement was a reasonable interpretation with the need for a subjective experience. Since he did not believe in miracles but did not want to reject the Bible entirely he claimed the miracles were simply an ancient literary device of using “myths “to convey truth. He claimed that the interpreters must” demythologize” (remove the myths) to text to find its true meaning. The “fall” was seen as a legend that demonstrated the weakness of all humanity. It was not seen as an actual historical account. A current hermeneutical principle that has some roots in the existentialist approach to scripture is called the New Hermeneutic. It is a reader centred approach rather than a text centred approach. In this system, the question for the interpreters is not what does this text mean but what does it mean to me? the second question is valid but only as it is based on the answer to the first.
A common theme in all forms of searching for a more reasonable meaning is that human reason and thought are more authoritative than Scripture. The result is an interpretation that reflects the culture, needs, and bases of the reader rather than the original author’s intent.
The existentialist is characterized by a;
a) belief in the existence of a spiritual force to help man interpret the Bible
b) emphasis on an inner experience and rejection of absolute
c) stress on what the Bible means rather than what it means to me.
d) removal of any myths contained in a Bible text before finding the truth that exists there.
12. When Rudolf Boltzmann spoke of demy theologizing the Bible, he was referring to the interpretation method in which the interpreters had to
a) believe that the Bible did not contain myths before he could interpret it correctly.
b) allegorize the Bible to understand how its truths fit into his culture and times.
c) recognize the myths taught in his society so these would not affect his interpretation of the Bible.
d) find a personal meaning behind myths that surrounded the truth given in the Bible.
thanks for joining this intense study. I shall stop here for now till the next update.
From this part of the world, It is all thanks and be rupturable, from pastor Godstrong.
IF YOU TRULY WANT TO LEARN HOW TO BUILD MONEY MAKING WEBSITES TO MAKE YOU RECURRENT PASSIVE INCOME, I AM SURE YOU NEED TO HEED TO MY ADVICE.
If you’ve been running about and thinking about leaving the online world as I did before coming into contact with WEALTHY AFFILIATE during black Friday. you’re darn lucky too, but only if you take action by starting immediately. Wealthy Affiliate (WA) is the greatest online platform to get started generating money online for free, even if you have no prior expertise. Build your WEBSITES, Build your FUNNELS, Use JAAXY KEYWORD Tool for free and Build your business today with SEO content and you will be able to swim on money tomorrow, just like many others in WA.
If you truly want to learn any make money skill online, JOIN HERE FOR FREE, Wealthy Affiliate is the place to be with maximum training and support if you want to build a successful business online. JOIN HERE NOW FOR FREE, and take a walkthrough. Wealthy Affiliate is no “SCAM” and is the place to be with all kinds of training and support. I am having success in my business while training with WA.
Thanks for visiting this site and please don’t leave without commenting below. GOD bless you real Good as you join this legit business platform and avoid SCAMS.
Coming across your website has just reminded me that I need to start reading my bible more often. I have completely neglected it and I feel bad about it. This is such a well-written article so thank you for this. I will be sure to share it with friends and family.
Sounds good to hear my friend. We do the things we do to make sure we provide the missing bridge between modern society and the Church. Historically, there have been attacks from every angle to make sure people sees the Bible as a kindergarten workbook.
thanks once more as I retire back to the WA family.