reTHINK

re-exploring Christian teachings

Posts Tagged Interpretation

Pre-Flood Mysteries

Apr 3

Posted by Joseph Dindinger in Bible Study | No Comments

The antediluvian world, the world before the flood, is shrouded in obscurity.  Very few chapters are written about it in the Bible, five to be exact, and yet it was at least a period of two thousand years.  What happened back then?  How did people live?  What was the world like?  This period in history has long held impenetrable mysteries … until now.

Let’s take a brief journey through recent scientific discoveries and the history that they illuminate for us.  First, the biblical evidence:

Now no shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the LORD God had not sent rain upon the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground. But a mist used to rise from the earth and water the whole surface of the ground. Genesis 2:5-6 (NASB)

These verses speak of a pre-flood world where it never rained.  Instead of rain, a mist came up from the earth to water the ground.  But how is this possible?  Was the hydrologic cycle not working?  This cycle, described several times in the Bible, is the scientifically proven process that happens when water evaporates from the oceans and accumulates in clouds which then empty over land.  If it had never rained, then what was preventing this process? Read the rest of this entry »

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Interpreting Revelation: Questions for Preterists

Jan 29

Posted by Joseph Dindinger in Bible Study | 2 Comments

The most controversial book in the Bible would have to be Revelation.  Virtually every mature Christian I’ve talked to has a slightly different interpretation of this book.  Amazing how 1900 years after it was written, nobody seems to fully know what it means!  About a year ago I purchased a book by Steve Gregg called Revelation: Four Views.  It is a parallel commentary of Revelation, meaning, it displays a passage and then has four columns explaining the passage according to the four, main interpretations of this book: Historicist, Preterist, Futurist and Spiritual.  I have barely started the book and the only thing I can tell you is that I KNOW that I don’t know the correct interpretation.

Teachers in my church typically (or, almost always) are from the preterist persuasion.  In order to get a fuller understanding of this view, I am going to attend a class which starts next month and I read the teacher’s book in preparation.  The author is Andy Confer and the title of the book is Three Woes for Babylon.  After finishing the book, I am left with a pretty good understanding of the preterist position, but am also left with many questions that I hope will be answered in the class.  (I’d hate to bug the teacher about them, but I will.)  In the meantime, if anybody reading this blog has the answers, please comment. Read the rest of this entry »

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God of Fire?

Sep 28

Posted by Joseph Dindinger in Bible Study | 3 Comments

A good friend of mine recently posted a statement on his Facebook page about God sending people to Hell.  The gist of it went something like this: “… any God who would allow a horrible, nightmarish, place of eternal punishment containing people who simply believed the wrong thing arbitrarily, would be a terrible God.  Not even bad people deserve such a place from a just God … eternally.”

Interestingly enough, George MacDonald, my favorite author, repeatedly said similar things in his writings over a hundred years ago.  One of them is quoted below:

“If sin must be kept alive, then hell must be kept alive; but while I regard the smallest sin as infinitely loathsome, I do not believe that any being, never good enough to see the essential ugliness of sin, could sin so as to deserve such punishment. I am not now, however, dealing with the question of the duration of punishment, but with the idea of punishment itself; and would only say in passing, that the notion that a creature born imperfect, nay, born with impulses to evil not of his own generating, Read the rest of this entry »

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Incorrect Interpretation, Part VI (The End)

May 6

Posted by Joseph Dindinger in Bible Study | No Comments

In a well-written paper, author John Engler does a good job of explaining the standard interpretation of the Matthew 28:18-20 passage.  You can read his explanation of the verb/noun confusion in these verses here.  I think it is likely that his explanation is correct.  Nevertheless, I have a few concerns about the standard interpretation, which lead me to think the understanding where “baptism” means “overwhelming” or “soaking” is more likely.

First, the author doesn’t bring in anything that might suggest his explanation is questionable.  He states that “the English versions” translate the passage a certain way, but gives only the NIV and NAS as examples.  The truth is that some other versions (like the KJV) do not translate it in the same way.   He also never mentions that fact that the word “baptism” could mean anything other than our current understanding of the word.  This would not have been the case for a first-century reader of Matthew, and we need to take that into account when we interpret the passage.  The authors entire argument is based on the sacramental understanding of the word, so we will ignore that for now and see how the rest of the ideas stack up.

Second, the assumption is made that “baptising” and “teaching to obey” are steps that define (in part) what “discipling” the nations means.  However, if we look at the actual passage, it would make just as much grammatical sense to say that baptizing and teaching come after making disciples.  However, this doesn’t make sense doctrinally, so the author explains this by saying that baptism and teaching the Scriptures are “steps” in the discipling process.

However, if baptism was not taken to mean dipping in water, but rather teaching in depth, then the difficulty entirely goes away.  You could translate the text in this way:

…Therefore go and teach (as a rabbi teaches his disciple) the nations; overwhelming them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you…

Third, the autor concludes stating that the individual members of the the nations are the ones we need to make disciples of, baptize and teach.  Thus giving the standard interpretation of this passage, where the “individual” is read into the passage in order to harmonize it with a preconceived notion of what “baptism” in this passage means.

As a summary, let me recap both positions:

STANDARD UNDERSTANDING – Jesus tells us to “disciple” people from all nations by first teaching them everything He commands and then baptizing them in water, using specific verbiage.

ALTERNATE UNDERSTANDING – Jesus tells us to “overwhelm” the whole world with the Gospel of the Father, the Son & the Holy Spirit.

Let me state for the record that in my mind there is a good change that the standard interpretation is correct.  However, serious questions in the standard interpretation lead me to believe otherwise. (I have known to be wrong from time to time.)  Let me end with a quote from the Old Testament that may be a prophecy about the evangelization of the world that Jesus wanted:

For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.
Habakkuk 2:14

Added 6/13/10: One more fact that makes me lean toward the “alternate” understanding is that all through Acts (and the rest of the New Testament) we never see the disciples baptizing in the name of the “Father, Son & Holy Spirit”.  It is always in the name of Jesus, which leads me to believe that Matthew 28 is not giving instructions for how to baptize, because if it was, the disciples did not follow them, or at least the New Testament never records that they did!

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Incorrect Interpretation, Part V

Jan 30

Posted by Joseph Dindinger in Bible Study | 8 Comments

Has the Great Commission been Misunderstood? We are looking at the shocking possibility that we have misunderstood part of one of the most popular passages in all of the Bible: the Great Commission:

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Matthew 28:18-20 (NIV)

Last time we learned that the word “disciple” is actually not in the text, so “baptizing them” referrs to the nations, baptising the nations.  We are faced with the question, “how can you baptize a nation?” Well, what would happen if we use the word “immerse” instead of “baptize” like this Jewish translation does?

Go therefore and make disciples of all the Nations, immersing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Ruach haKodesh (Holy Spirit).

It is hard to baptize an entire nation, but you certainly can immerse (or as we would say, soak) a nation with a teaching!  You see, the word baptizo, in the Greek, can mean baptism, but it can also mean simply immersing something in liquid.  Baptizo was even used for dipping.  Could it be that the intended meaning is not that we should make disciples and then baptize them using the phrase “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit?”  If not that, then what?

Jesus’ command may simply be to teach (or disciple) all nations and immerse them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.  Biblical studies into usage of the “name” of God show that when God’s name is referenced, it is talking about His character.  About who He is.  When this passage talks about immersing people in His name, it very well might be saying to immerse them in Him!

A significant difference exists between this understanding and the way we have tried to obey this command.  By simply repeating the phrase: “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Spirit” as we baptize someone we may be missing the power of Jesus’ last command.  Maybe He wasn’t giving a formula for baptism.  Maybe He was telling us what to do to evangelize the nations.

Could it be that we have misunderstood Jesus’ words for centuries?  Could it be that He was not even talking about Baptism, but giving us a command to go out into the world and immerse it in His teaching?  That certainly seems to be the case when you apply grammar correctly.

Wow.  We’ll keep looking for misapplied passages next time.  Stay tuned!

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