“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
The quotation is often attributed to Mark Twain, although no one seems able to confirm that he actually said it. Ironically, that makes the quotation a pretty good illustration of its own point.
This is especially true when it comes to the Bible.
None of us is born understanding Scripture. We develop our understanding over time, based on what we have been taught, what we have heard in church, what we have experienced and, sometimes, what we assume the Bible must say. Once that understanding becomes settled, it can be difficult to reconsider it. Clarity is comfortable. Ambiguity is not.
Psychologists call one part of this confirmation bias. We tend to notice information that supports what we already believe and overlook information that challenges it. The Dunning-Kruger effect adds another wrinkle: the less we understand about a subject, the easier it can be to overestimate how well we understand it.
In other words, a little knowledge can make us very sure of ourselves.
That is why humility is essential when we read Scripture. In Philippians 2, Christ is our supreme example of humility. Rather than seeking his own advantage, he emptied himself, took the form of a servant and offered himself for our sake. If we are indeed following him, then we should aspire to that same humility, resisting selfish ambition and pride and regarding others as better than ourselves. What if that humility shaped not only how we treated people, but also how we interpreted the Bible? What if we approached Scripture willing to admit that we may have misunderstood something?
Consider the familiar saying, “God won’t put more on you than you can bear.”
Many people believe that sentence comes directly from the Bible. It does not.
The saying is usually connected to 1 Corinthians 10:13, where Paul writes that God will not allow us to be tempted beyond what we can bear and will provide a way out. But temptation is not the same thing as grief, illness, trauma, exhaustion or the many other burdens people carry.
In fact, Paul says something very different in 2 Corinthians 1. Describing his own suffering, he writes that he and his companions were “utterly burdened beyond our strength,” so overwhelmed that they despaired of life itself. Paul does not say, “It turned out we could handle it.” He says the experience taught them not to rely on themselves, but on God.
Sometimes life absolutely gives us more than we can bear.
That does not mean God has abandoned us. It means we were never intended to carry every burden by ourselves. We need the strength of God, the grace of Christ and the support of one another. Telling someone in deep pain that God knows they can handle it may sound encouraging, but it can leave them feeling as if they have failed when they cannot. A better response might be, “You should not have to carry this alone. I am here, and God is here.”
How do we avoid misunderstanding Scripture this way? We begin by remembering that context is king. We read a verse within its surrounding verses, those verses within their chapter, the chapter within the whole book and the book within the larger witness of Scripture. We also consider the historical and cultural world in which the text was written, along with the wisdom of faithful people who have read it before us, both ancient and modern.
This does not make reading the Bible easier. It makes reading the Bible more faithful.
Our August series, “Beyond the Surface,” is an invitation to read Scripture well: to become more confident opening the Bible, to interpret it responsibly and to allow it to form us rather than merely furnish us with information. Scripture is a gift, but receiving that gift requires patience, context and humility.
This Sunday, August 9, we will continue the series with “The Word within the word & The Word Made Flesh.” I hope you will join us as we look beneath the surface, hold our certainty a little more loosely and listen together for what God may be saying.
Perhaps the most faithful words we can bring to Scripture are not, “I already know what this means,” but simply:
“Speak, Lord. Your servant is listening.”
