On one morning, while having my breakfast, my eyes caught sight of a feature article in the newspaper on a famous Indian mystic from a bygone age. What interested me was the fact that the mystic claimed to have read not just the Indian scriptures, but even the Christian and the Islamic ones too. It dawned on me that the little booklet I used to carry in my pocket, while in my high school, containing the sayings of Jesus was published by the organization this mystic later founded. My mind was set to think on how this man could study the Bible and see them as only one among the many scriptures dearly held by mankind. Reading further the newspaper article, the author explained the turning point in the life of this mystic. At one point of his life, it became clear to him that every scripture – whether Indian or Christian or Islamic, is basically saying the same message. In a mystical experience, he saw how everything blended so beautifully, creating for him a new worldview, in which he felt so one with every human being despite their religious beliefs. What followed was a life-long labor of a philanthropist mystic in teaching human beings to love one another. This partly answered my question as to how he could read the Bible the way he did. He read the Bible’s message of love and equated it with the message of love in other religions. However upon further thinking, I came across an interesting aspect of how people who come to these kind of conclusions, read the Bible. They read only the Gospels. They never quote what Paul or Peter wrote in the New Testament. If ever they do, it would again be some apostolic imperative to love one another. Thus the didactical core of the New Testament is largely ignored by these people. When that is done, it is so easy to turn the Gospels and the teachings of Jesus into a moral science text book.
Though this issue of people outside the church, reading the Bible like this, is a major one, I am more concerned at the same phenomenon happening inside the church. I know many Christians very personally who just read the Sermon on the mount alone in their daily reading of the Bible. Upon inquiring, the reply I get is, there is no passage like the Sermon on the Mount in the whole of Bible. They marvel at the high standards of Jesus for his followers and somehow are happy that they are “convicted” reading it. Merely reading a passage of scripture which informs us of our moral obligations and feeling “convicted” by it is not Christianity. There is another group of Christians who think the Gospels are superior to the Epistles. This group is mainly made up of Christian leaders. I remember meeting a pastor from a denomination heavily influenced by Keswick/Higher life theology, who told me to read the Gospels more than the Epistles. His rationale behind this exhortation was that the Gospels teach us how to live, whereas Epistles tell us how to do ministry and run a church. Thus according to him, for a layman like me, Gospels are more important. Some of these pastors pit Jesus’ teachings against that of Paul and make unnecessary judgments like Jesus’ teachings are superior to that of Paul etc. Finally there is a third group who build all their doctrine from the Gospels and other narrative passages in the Scripture, overriding clear teaching passages of the Bible. This includes both denominations which have built petty doctrines out of poor interpretation of some narrative passage and pastors who preach “imaginatively” from the narratives, a different “Christianity” every week. The latter group lacks any consistency in their beliefs as they preach one thing this week and another the next week, depending on their imaginative exegesis of the text before them. Bible study groups where no one preaches, but everyone just discusses what the text means to each of them also falls into this category. I remember my experience attending a mystical retreat where you were put to mystical sleep, asked to “feel” the text and note down our impressions of the text. Every single person felt different things from the one text which was read aloud. Invariably the passage that was read was narrative passages in the Gospels.
Where have we gone wrong?
The problem with all of these groups mentioned above is that we have forgotten one simple rule of hermeneutics, which was taught and practiced by the Reformers. That principle is : Historical narratives are always interpreted in light of didactic passages. In other words, to properly understand the Gospels, one needs the theology of the Epistles. I am not saying in any way that theology or doctrine is only found in the Epistles. However the writings of the apostles contain clearer statements on Christian doctrine, which is embedded for sure in the historical narratives of the New Testament. “This order of interpretation is puzzling to many since the Gospels record not only the acts of Jesus but his teaching as well. Does not this mean that Jesus' words and teaching are given less authority than the apostles? That is certainly not the intent of the principle. Neither the Epistles nor the Gospels were given superior authority over the other by the Reformers, though there may be a difference in the order of interpretation.”[1]
Thus those who merely read the Sermon on the mount, should know that all of Christian life is a life of saving faith flowing from a regenerate heart and thus everything written in the Sermon on the mount is to be seen as “faith working itself out in love”(Gal 5:6) for God and our neighbor. The Gospel and the gratitude it creates is thus inevitable for living the life described in the Sermon on the mount. Thus we should meditate much on Romans 3 and other passages which declare the glory of justification by grace alone, to have the proper motivation to live out the Sermon on the mount.
Again to say that Epistles are merely on doing ministry is to prove one’s own ignorance of the Bible. To pit Jesus against Paul is a tendency that emerged largely due to the rise of liberalism and the lack of confidence in the inerrancy and authority of Scriptures. “Since the erosion of confidence in biblical authority in our day, it has been fashionable to put the authority of Jesus over against the authority of the Epistles, particularly of Paul's Epistles. People do not seem to realize that they are not setting Jesus against Paul so much as they are setting one apostle such as Matthew or John over against another. We must remember that Jesus wrote none of the New Testament, and we are dependent upon apostolic testimony for our knowledge of what He did and said.”[2]
For, this principle of interpreting the narratives in light of the didactic, is a consequence of another hermeneutic principle which was dearly held by the Reformers owing to their heart-felt confidence in the authority of the Scriptures, namely the analogy of faith. The analogy of faith teaches that Scripture should interpret Scripture. In Romans 12:6 Paul says that each one was to exercise his gift of teaching, "according to the proportion of faith." The Greek word for proportion here is analogia, and hence the phrase analogy of faith. Thus Paul wants teaching in the church to be not according to anyone’s “imagination”, but in accordance with the truth revealed in the Scriptures. Thus our interpretation of any portion of Scripture should be in line with what the Scriptures teach as a whole. In keeping with this principle, it makes sense to interpret historical narratives in light of the didactic and obscure passages in light of clear ones. It should also be noted that when someone pits Jesus against Paul, they are forgetting the One Mind behind all of Scriptures – the Holy Spirit, the Divine Author of the Scriptures. "If the Scriptures be what they claim to be, the word of God, they are the work of one mind, and that mind divine. From this it follows that Scripture cannot contradict Scripture. God cannot teach in one place anything which is inconsistent with what He teaches in another. Hence Scripture must explain Scripture.”[3]
Thus to conclude, I want to exhort all Christians to read the Gospels. However if the Gospels are read without the theology of the Christian faith, clearly set down in the Epistles, we are reading it no differently than that Indian mystic who saw Jesus merely as a teacher of love and good works. A distinctly Christian reading of the Gospels would always be one which takes into account the clear didactic passages of the New Testament.
Footnotes
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[1] Dr. R. C. Sproul, Knowing Scripture, InterVarsity Press, 1977, P.69
[2] Ibid
[3] Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. 1, Introduction, Chapter VI, The Protestant Rule of Faith.
