Some thoughts on interpreting the epistles

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In "Some thoughts on interpreting the epistles" Jefferson Vann warns Advent Christians about the danger of obsessing over the details in the New Testament epistles.

If you still have a Bible made out of paper, take a look at the edge of the thing. You might notice that there is a section which has worn thin with use, and is a bit more dirty than the rest. The section covers the books from Romans to Jude. It contains letters written during the first century AD.

Traditionally, these letters are called the epistles. That word is not popular anymore, except in churches, and as a suggestion that a letter might just be too long because its author doesn't know how to be brief.

But in Christian churches, we love the New Testament epistles. We keep mining them for relevant teaching on theology, practical Christian living, and how we should function as congregations. We are devoted to those texts.

Alas, devotion can often lead to an unhealthy obsession. You cannot love someone too much, but you can love someone the wrong way. Sometimes our love of the epistles can cause us to abuse them. Like any genre of scripture, the epistles can be mismanaged.

I want to reflect today on some passages where the epistles discuss themselves, and hopefully glean some principles that might help us to avoid abusing them.

The verb ἐπιστέλλω (epistello) refers to the act of writing a letter. It appears three times in the New Testament.

"but that we should write them a letter telling them to abstain from things defiled by idols and from sexual immorality and from what has been strangled and from blood" (Acts 15:20 NET).

"But regarding the Gentiles who have believed, we have written a letter, having decided that they should avoid meat that has been sacrificed to idols and blood and what has been strangled and sexual immorality" (Acts 21:25 NET).

In the first two instances, the letters were written to clarify how Gentile believers should conduct themselves. How Jewish does a person have to become to follow the Messiah?

The short answer is "not very." In contrast to the Judaizers that Paul contended with, the believers in Acts downplayed the significance of the Jewish culture in determining how people should function as Christians.

The New Testament epistles were not written in a cultural vacuum. The questions people asked and the conflicts and problems they faced all came from their cultural context. One of the reasons the epistles exist is that cultures often clashed with each other. The letters the apostles wrote were attempts to sort out the mess.

As we read the epistles today, we cannot afford to ignore their original cultural contexts. The epistles are occasional documents. Often we abuse the statements in them by treating them as legal documents -- and assuming that they were intended to answer questions that have nothing to do with the problems the original authors were addressing.

"Now I urge you, brothers and sisters, bear with my message of exhortation, for in fact I have written to you briefly" (Hebrews 13:22 NET).

The epistles may seem like tomes to those of us who are used to email and instant messaging. But they are quite brief in comparison to other types of biblical books. We should use them as guides for understanding how we should live as Christians today. But we should also acknowledge that they will not answer all our questions. Nor will they address all the issues we will face. If we do find answers, they will be the right answers. But we should not force these ancient texts to speak on issues about which they did not speak.

The noun ἐπιστολή (epistole) occurs 24 times in 23 verses in the New Testament.

It is obvious that Paul takes his letter writing ministry very seriously.

"For even if I made you sad by my letter, I do not regret having written it (even though I did regret it, for I see that my letter made you sad, though only for a short time)" (2 Corinthians 7:8 NET).

"I do not want to seem as though I am trying to terrify you with my letters (2 Corinthians 10:9 NET).

"because some say, "His letters are weighty and forceful, but his physical presence is weak and his speech is of no account"" (2 Corinthians 10:10 NET).

From statements like this, one gets the impression that Paul had a reputation of laying it on thick in his letters, and conveying a different attitude in his face-to-face discipling.

Knowing this, it might be a good idea for those of us who are tasked with interpreting Paul today not to treat his statements as if they are new laws. In the past, we have been guilty of turning the epistles into legal codes. This is true in spite of the fact that many of the epistles speak out against legalism.

"And after you have read this letter, have it read to the church of Laodicea. In turn, read the letter from Laodicea as well" (Colossians 4:16 NET).

"I call on you solemnly in the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers and sisters" (1 Thessalonians 5:27 NET).

The fact that the epistles were occasional documents is balanced with the realization that they were intended to be shared outside those original contexts. If that were not true, the epistles would not have made it into the canon.

The epistles are part of the corpus that Paul calls "all Scripture" and they are "inspired by God and useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the person dedicated to God may be capable and equipped for every good work" (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

Peter points out that being part of the holy scriptures makes the epistles more likely to be abused, not less.

"speaking of these things in all his letters. Some things in these letters are hard to understand, things the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they also do to the rest of the scriptures" (2 Peter 3:16 NET).

Knowing this, it makes sense for us to use the epistles with caution. We should suspect any teaching that forces us to take sides when there are issues where one text seems to contradict another. When there is unanimous clarity, we can freely proclaim it. But when there is confusion and contention among scholars, we owe it as exegetes to reveal the different options.

One of the things I hope we can hang on to from our Advent Christian roots is a respect for all scripture. When the early adventists considered their theological options, they looked for evidence in the whole word of God. They were not content to side with tradition, even if it was the tradition of the majority. They dug deep. They looked beyond the slogans and cliches and when they found the truth, they proclaimed it -- even to their detriment. But they also learned to avoid some issues for the sake of evangelical unity. They bypassed some incidentals because they wanted to focus on the essentials. They had come from diverse backgrounds, but didn't want to be defined by their past. They had a coming Savior to proclaim.

The epistles can be a garden of nutritious fruit to sustain us in troubled times. They can also be a mine field. We should harvest them carefully.