Inductive Biblical Thinking

¹⁷ And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights.  Jonah 1:17  [NASB]

Many years ago, I heard a skeptical preacher describe the history of Jonah as “a whale of a tale”.  However, rather than dismiss this as a story for the simple-minded, consider the following possibilities:

It was a miracle.  To argue that miracles don’t happen and that the story of Jonah is ‘unscientific’ misunderstands the limits of science.  By definition science is inductive.  After observing a particular pattern of events occurring for the thousandth time, the scientist can be reasonably expect that the same thing will happen on the thousand and first occasion.  Science has nothing to say about random events – let alone miracles.

Is it so hard to believe in a miracle done by an intelligent Being who is ‘out there’ somewhere?  A Being who could, if he chose, simply make a designer fish for a one-time event?

But, says the skeptic, I don’t believe in a God, much less in a God who does miracles.  Fair enough – so long as you recognize this belief in the non-existence of God is not ‘scientific’.  It is just a belief.  To ‘know’ the non-existence of God would require knowing everything there is to know about the universe and beyond.  The scientist should rather make an hypothesis and look for evidence of God.

It was good timing.  Every so often, the scientists discover a previously unknown sea creature.  These creatures have been there all along, and may even have been known by the ancients.  Unless and until we know about every creature in the depths of the ocean, we have to admit the possibility that some creature will be discovered that matches the description of ‘a fish like a whale’ which would be large enough to swallow a man.

Stranger things have happened.  The events written in the book of Jonah could very well have happened in a way that would satisfy any scientist – if they only were acquainted with an historic or yet-to-be-discovered sea creature.

In such a case, the miracle would be in the timing.  Just at the moment when Jonah is thrown overboard, expecting to drown; he is rescued by a fish.  Perhaps even a scientist should see in this evidence of a God.

– SSXG

³⁸ You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him. ³⁹ We are witnesses of all the things He did both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They also put Him to death by hanging Him on a cross. ⁴⁰ God raised Him up on the third day and granted that He become visible, ⁴¹ not to all the people, but to witnesses who were chosen beforehand by God, that is, to us who ate and drank with Him after He arose from the dead. ⁴² And He ordered us to preach to the people, and solemnly to testify that this is the One who has been appointed by God as Judge of the living and the dead. ⁴³ Of Him all the prophets bear witness that through His name everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins.”  Acts 10:38-43 [NASB]

I have just been reading a book in which the author addresses the feeling of dissatisfaction with his experience of Christianity.  Despite a knowledge of the word, despite time spent in prayer, despite involvement in Christian ministry, he felt distant from God.  He didn’t feel the joy and the passion he wanted to experience.

Furthermore, the author notes that we are emotionally broken people.  To a lesser or greater degree we are damaged by the sinful acts of other people in our lives, and by our own sinful acts.  This damage may hinder our relationship with God.

The answer the author gives is to encourage the believer to look to Christians from the centuries past – and to look to other Christian and even non-Christian traditions in order to find ways to experience God more fully.

My answer is to ask, “Isn’t forgiveness enough?”  The Bible spends little time on emotional healing as such – indeed this is one of the rare times in which demonic oppression is mentioned.  The element of ’emotional healing’ which is spoken of is the forgiveness of sins, which is mentioned over and over again.  In the scripture quoted above, the prophets made a point of stressing that he came to bring forgiveness of sins.

Being forgiven has the potential to lift a tremendous psychological burden from the shoulders of the believer.  Being forgiven brings reconciliation with God and the opportunity to enter his presence as his beloved children.  Being forgiven brings about the possibility of reconciliation with one’s fellow man.  Isn’t forgiveness enough?

Perhaps growing up in the faith, as I did, one thinks more highly than he ought to think about himself.  He would underestimate his own need of forgiveness – in which case his sense of joy would be deficient.  Unless it be the case that they have not understood the enormity of their sins, I cannot understand how there would be a lack of joy in the life of those who have been forgiven.

It is by faith that we grasp the truth that we are forgiven.  We who doubt the forgiveness of God, for whatever emotional or psychological reasons, will of course find it difficult to feel forgiven.  It is at that point that we must echo the words of the father who brought his son to Jesus for healing.  Immediately the boy’s father cried out and said, “I do believe; help my unbelief.”  Mark 9:24  [NASB]

As for our brokenness, when we get to the other side, we’ll experience healing in every area.  There will be no more tears – and we will have direct experience of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ…

– SSXG

⁹ If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  1 John 1:9  [NASB]

I’ve been reading a book recommended by a friend.  In this book, among other things, the author argues that Christians need Christian counseling and even mentoring because of psychological damage often resulting from our upbringing.

He specifically refers to the lack of a sense of being forgiven.  Christians who experience this often are driven by a desire to please God – to earn his approval – but never feel that they have done enough.  They may become legalistic, they may be almost frantic in their ministry or their good works, or they may become despairing to the point of depression.

One wonders, if this is such a profound problem of human nature, why it is that Christ and the apostles missed the opportunity of dealing with it in their speaking and their writing…  or did they?

Could it be that the answer is as simple as trusting God for our salvation?  Trusting God that when he says he forgives us that he does?  Could it be  that the psychological morass that many of us sink into is actually due to a lack of faith?

– SSXG

I Timothy 3:11 – a problem of translation.

There are times when a simple reading of the scripture in English is not enough.  Any English translation, which is a rendering in English of the original Greek from the New Testament, requires the translator to select a word which most closely corresponds to the Greek word.

Often there is a one-to-one correspondence between the words of one language and the words of another.  But what if this is not the case?  The following example is not hypothetical.  Note the discrepancy between the following translations in a section dealing with deacons:

¹¹ Even so must their wives be grave, not slanderers, sober, faithful in all things.    [KJV]

¹¹ The women likewise must be serious, no slanderers, but temperate, faithful in all things.  [RSV]

^11 [a]Women must likewise be dignified, not malicious gossips, but temperate, faithful in all things. (a) I.e.: either deacons’ wives or deaconesses.  [NASB]  

Note that the KJV speaks of the deacon’s wives, whereas the RSV speaks of women.  The NASB clarifies in the footnote, either deacons’ wives or deaconesses.

So here we seem to have a problem.  Wives?  Women?  Deaconesses?  Which is it?  Which translation is correct?  Why is there such a range of possible meanings?

The answer is simple – if not immediately helpful.  In the Greek language of the New Testament, γυναῖκας, as it is found in this verse, can mean either ‘woman’ or ‘wife’.  Thus Paul in writing to Timothy may be referring to the wives of the deacons, or he may be referring to women in their own right – in which case he is referring to women who are deaconesses.

So how can we know which is the correct meaning?  How can we know if Paul is referring to the wives of the deacons or to women in the role of deacons?  We have to look into the context and decide which of these ideas fits better with what Paul is saying.

When we do so, we note that Paul says nothing about women with regard to the role of the overseer.  If we were to argue that he is demanding of the wife of the deacon that she must have certain spiritual qualities, we might wonder that nothing is said about the wives of the overseers.

If, however, he were referring to women in the role of deacon, it may be that he left them out in a discussion of the role of overseer because he was not including women in that role.

It is this latter understanding that make sense to me.  In neither case, then, does Paul express expectations of the wives of those in leadership.  However, in the case of the deacon, Paul expresses his expectations of women who fill that role of leadership.

The foregoing explanation, while answering the meaning of the Greek, does not address the issue of what we are to understand by ‘overseer’ or ‘deacon’.  Nor does it provide a simple answer to the modern issue of roles of women in the church.  That would require thinking through other scriptures, which is not my intent in this discussion.

The moral of the story is this:  Thoughtful Bible study sometimes requires digging beyond the words as we read them in our English Bibles.

– SSXG