thank you, and some further reflections
Note: This post was originally published on November 8, 2011, on my old blog, but I’ve put it here so I can link to it.
Thank you all so much for your encouragement after I posted on Sunday, both in the form of comments as well as through private emails. It means a lot to me!
An interesting discussion evolved about the post after a friend posted a link to the post on her Facebook page. I began to respond to some of the points there, but it quickly grew long so I decided to write a follow-up post instead.
One of the valid and insightful comments was regarding the idea that “at least” Mars Hill is following what the Bible literally says — and the commenter then mentioned the idiom, “Spare the rod and spoil the child,” as well as Ephesians 5:22, which says, “Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands as to the Lord.”
I really appreciate this comment, because part of what drew me to Mars Hill was the absolute certainty that we were going to follow the BIBLE, dammit, do what it says even if people don’t like it! People don’t have to like it! People can hate us! But we are going to take the Bible seriously! This attitude is just one more thing at Mars Hill that seems good on the surface and then gets twisted around and morphs into something that I think is unhealthy.
And…yeah. It’s good to take the Bible seriously. I grew up in a church where the pastor preached, systematically, verse by verse, through the Bible, and it was wonderful. So that certainty of reliance on the Bible was reassuring to me, an 18-year-old girl trying to figure out my life and beliefs apart from my mom’s for the first time.
If you’re gonna be a Christian, it seems obvious that you have to believe that Jesus’ death and resurrection actually happened. And I do. But to take every single word of command contained within the Bible literally? That’s a different matter entirely.
First, I’ll talk about the “spare the rod and spoil the child” statement. This is found nowhere in the Bible, and is instead taken from a 17th-century poem by a man named Samuel Butler, and is couched in the context of spanking as a sexual act. The Bible verse to which many turn when justifying corporal punishment is Proverbs 13:24, “Whoever spares the rod hates their children, but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them.”
My friend Crystal Lutton has written a wonderful exegesis of this passage and Proverbs 23:13-14, which says, “Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you punish them with the rod, they will not die. Punish them with the rod and save them from death.”
Her point is this. The Hebrew word for rod is the word shebet. A shebet referred to a large walking staff, a shepherd’s crook, or a king’s scepter. She says, “ As we see in the book of Esther, it is when the Shebet is extended to someone that they find life, but when it is spared, or set aside, it brings death. Make no mistake, the shebet is a very real implement, but the question is, ‘What does it mean when King Solomon speaks of the shebet?’”
Shebet did not refer to an instrument of beating. It was not a rod used to hit or beat. It was either a tool, used by a shepherd to guide his sheep, or a walking staff, used by a family leader, or a scepter, a mark of royalty and authority, used by a king.
Regarding the passage from Proverbs 23, she says, “A literal reading of this passage would read: Make sure to reason together with your child because if you strike him with your staff of authority he won’t die prematurely. If you strike him with your staff you will pluck the seat of his passions from the grave.”
So — I should discipline, guide, teach my child. That seems like a given! But these verses are in no way an imperative to spank or beat her, with a rod or my hand or a 1/4 inch piece of plumbing line.
There’s lots more info on Crystal’s website, including a breakdown of Hebrew words and their contexts in other locations in scripture, if you’re interested in delving in further to these passages.
The Ephesians verse — “Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands as to the Lord,” – is harder for me to deal with. I’m no theologian, and I don’t play one on the Internet. But I do know that in the verse previous to this one, we’re told to “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Some versions say, “Be subject to one another.”
There’s a book by Jeff VanVonderen called Families Where Grace is in Place. It’s been a huge catalyst for change in my life as well, and he explains these verses thusly. (I’ll do some paraphrasing now. The actual discussion of the verses is found in Chapter 7 of his book, pages 87-97.)
He believes that verses 18-21 have direct bearing on the following section. These verses talk about being filled with the Holy Spirit, and what that should look like in our (well, the Ephesians’) lives. The very next verse is the submit to one another verse, followed by the wives verse.
Quoting from page 92: “Here, for the sake of our understanding of marriage, I want to pay special attention to the phrase ‘be subject to one another.’ The word translated ‘being subject’ is the Greek word hupotasso. It means ‘to arrange yourself underneath.’”
He then goes on to explain that he believes verses 21 and 22 were also meant to be read together, and that in verse 22, the words “be subject” were not found in the original Greek. So then, the passage would first admonish Christians to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Then, quoting from page 93: “A literal reading of verses 21 and 22, then, would be, ‘being subject to [arranging yourselves underneath] one another, wives to their own husbands.’”
His conclusion is this, from page 93: “…he [Paul, in Ephesians 5 and 6] talks about what it means for two people to place themselves under one another. The conversation about submission only begins with wives in v. 22. So we cannot ignore what Paul has to say about husbands. If husbands are not to be subject to their wives too, then there is no ‘being subject to one another.’”
It’s certainly a revolutionary way of thinking, isn’t it? But it makes a lot of sense to me. Another great resource on this topic is What Paul Really Said About Women, by John Temple Bristow. Also, for even further reading, a good friend has written a book about Paul, and it’s due out soon, too. It’s called Jesus I Have Loved, But Paul?
Anyway. My point is that there is so much nuance and so much I don’t know about the Bible, despite reading it over and over again throughout my life. I don’t know Hebrew. I don’t know Greek. I cannot make these determinations myself about what the passages actually MEAN without understanding the words that were actually used.
I absolutely agree that prooftexting is bad. And that’s part of what frustrated me about Mark Driscoll’s argument in the video I posted previously. He pulls one verse, and bends its interpretation to be what he wants it to be. 1 Timothy 5:8: “Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”
This passage is speaking about widows and orphans, specifically, NOT about men and their wives and children. In the passage, there are references to households containing widows, people who have taken widows in. It seems to me that’s what the verse refers to when it speaks of its household: a larger circle of family that includes wives and children, but also widows and orphans and other family members in need.
Still, regardless, should men help provide for their families? Absolutely! But to say that this passage indicates that must mean they work outside the home while the wife stays home is bunk. Providing can mean many different things, at many different seasons of life. It DOES NOT have to equal man goes to work, woman stays home.
Overall, it seems to me that the core issue is taking all of the Bible literally. Do I believe the Bible is God’s Word? YES! But do I believe that means I need to take it literally? To beat my child with a scepter? To live in a tent while I’m having my period? To stone sinners to death? To gouge out my eye if it causes me to sin? Uh. No.
To me, it makes sense to look first at the context of the passage, then examine the words in their original language(s), perhaps with help from a friend. Then, finally, hold whatever conclusions I make up against the overarching Story of the Bible — the Story of God’s love, of Jesus’ redemption, of grace and hope.
The Bible is confusing. It’s contradictory. It’s difficult. It’s revolutionary. I don’t have to know everything, I don’t have to be able to answer every hard question or reconcile every contradiction.
But I believe it’s from God, the Story of his Love and Redemption through Jesus’ death and resurrection. I can live out that truth without knowing the answers to all of the hard questions.
