CREEDE HINSHAW: Chainsaw’s no good sitting on a shelf

I taught a Sunday School class last week on how to approach interpreting the Bible. Some 30 class members asked incisive questions and offered trenchant observations out of their own experience.

The class had asked me to teach a lesson on “What the Bible Says About Homosexuality”, another topic of equal complexity. But I decided to initially teach methods of interpretation, promising to return the following week (this Sunday) to address their prior question.

Many individuals only dimly grasp their own approach to this holy book and probably overlook that disagreement over a particular verse or chapter is often traceable to divergent understanding of the Bible itself. So I wanted to help class members recognize how their understanding of the Bible influenced their interpretation of Biblical verses and themes.

As I began to teach I suddenly made a connection that had not previously occurred to me. I told them about a chainsaw my wife gave me some five years ago.

I had never operated a chainsaw in my life; therefore was rather afraid of it. The operating manual referenced a training video that was 45 minutes in length.

After I watched the video I was even more terrified. Probably because of potential lawsuits by ill-prepared users, the video instructor emphasized the words “death” and “dismemberment” in almost every other sentence, speaking those particular words with a macabre and menacing emphasis.

Following his recommendation I purchased safety goggles, a helmet, ear plugs and chaps, carefully setting them on the shelf next to the saw. But I never fired up the saw. Never even tried. Now my saw is in the shop so the carburetor can be replaced so maybe I can get up the nerve to use it.

How does this apply to interpretation of the Bible? What I wanted to guard against was giving class members so much information and so many caveats that in exasperation they would never read their Bible at all.

The United Methodist Church, following the Anglican tradition, confesses that the “Holy Scriptures containeth all things necessary to salvation…” (Article V, The Articles of Religion of the Methodist Church). This careful confession of faith allows adherents to treasure and interpret the Bible while approaching the meaning of the book from different starting points. What some people call biblical inerrancy or infallibility, for instance, is not a faith statement of the United Methodist Church or a claim scripture makes for itself.

It was apparent from our class discussion that the members of this class had a thoughtful, approach to the Bible, though some of them had more a more nuanced understanding of the scripture than others.

As the class drew to a close one member wisely observed that he approached scripture humbly so as not to set himself above these ancient words. It was a good conclusion to the lesson: only in the height of arrogance does one read this sacred book and glibly conclude that he or she knows better.

Email Creede Hinshaw, a retired Methodist minister, at [email protected].