Another dichotomy in understanding and interpreting the Bible (more specifically, the authors of the canon and their styles of writing) came up in conversation the other day. I was talking with Sarah about something and she said something to the effect that she didn’t really care for the way Paul the apostle came across.
I began to jump to his defense (in my mind—always a wise thing not to be offended on the behalf of a man a couple of thousand years dead when talking with your girlfriend), but reconsidered. It struck me: I don’t like Paul sometimes either, but that has practically nothing to do with Paul and everything to do with my own issues. Most of you will not be shocked to find that I thought about Paul in terms of being a quintessential `T’ type on the Jungian typology scale—a thinker through and through, rational to the bone. Furthermore, I would say that John, the “disciple whom Jesus loved,” was a quintessentially `F’ type—a feeler to the core, however committed to right doctrine.
Both of these men were used to speak the truth of Christ by God, and it has been said of the book of Romans that the believer who understands it has a key to the interpretation of the rest of the whole canon. So what gives?
First, a bit of internal reaction. Sarah was saying that he came across as arrogant, as even pushy, perhaps. Well, no doubt, I’ve thought the same of him, to be honest. But this is because of a failure to recognize what he was doing—nothing that Paul or, for that matter, John, said was superfluous. When he was saying “I was a Hebrew among Hebrews,” for instance, his readers would have understood him to be making a powerful case for how Christ had taken over in his ambitions; it is especially pertinent, I think, in context of the rest of his letters, because of what he tells us Christ expects us to give up, as well.
Compare that to the way we are given to speak today. I once knew someone who used to say of herself that she was once extremely gifted in finding new and different ways to take a drug. She had since that point quit the practice, but when it came up in conversation, her face could have been said to fairly glow with pride in remembrance of her former self. Likewise, when I talk about my past, I have to watch my words and intentions very carefully so as not to put forth the impression that I am proud of having done the things that I’ve done. I think the secret here is that, well, we are. Put with brutal honesty, the flesh is proud of the things it’s done, and part of us bears the scars of past sin the way an old warrior might—that part of us everyone else sees is apparently humble and penitent, but I know that some of us, and perhaps all of us to some extent, struggle with pride that says, “Yes, I’ve done wrong, and no, I wouldn’t choose it again; but you haven’t the foggiest clue about the pain I’ve gone through to become the strong and Stoic person I am today.”
So if we read that little shadowy bit into Paul, it comes across as flagrant pride. We would never dream of knowingly phrasing something such that it gave away our pride at our past, or at anything else—but we recognize that in order for us to do so, we would have to be either ignorant of our own manner of speaking, or be so full of hubris that we didn’t care how we came across. If anything’s not up for debate, it’s the fact of Paul’s intelligence, whatever else might be called into question about his letters—therefore, we think, he must have just been so full of overweening pride that he couldn’t help but leak a little of it from his quill along with the gospel.
But this underestimates his experiences, his understanding, his sorrow, and his true drive for the gospel message; and it also gives us insight, if we are willing to bear it, into our own states of mind. You don’t get stoned and flogged to the point of death and back for pride; Spurgeon has said that the proud man is the one who enters the court of a king timidly because he would expect the same groveling from his own subjects, should they dare to approach him.
It should be noted in the interest of fairness that I have felt much the same for Paul, especially when feeling extraordinarily proud of myself, of course. But, due to the fact that he’s right, whether or not it comes across in a squishy, feel-good sort of way, I bow the knee to his wisdom. (It’s only when I really examine myself that I realize that I need bow the knee to Christ through Paul for the sake of wisdom, but not to the man himself, who was merely carrying out his mission unabashedly.)
On the other hand, I sometimes really have a problem reading John. What greater arrogance could one possibly have than to assign to oneself the position of “THE disciple whom Jesus loved” [emphasis mine]? I mean, my goodness, way to set yourself over and above everyone else there, Son of Thunder! And add to that the fact that he’s such a feeler—intelligent to the core, and clearly inspired, but bent on transmitting the message of love nontheless—and you get a little something in my own breast that wants to cross its arms and turn away. Read with pride in my heart, John comes across as I demonstrated to Sarah: eyes squinted, eyebrows slightly raised, holding up thumb and forefinger to my mouth, “God is”—take a deep drag on the imaginary blunt—”loooove, man.” Give me a freaking break, right? God is the master craftsman, God is the Almighty, God is the God who caught even Paul up to the “third heaven,” and He is even the Lover of one disciple in particular. Fine, fine. But don’t give me this touchy-feely stuff, eh?
Such is the effect of pride on our own reading of the Bible. When I am dealing with the personae of the individuals through whom the Holy Spirit penned Scripture, I am only frustrating my efforts at understanding: I’m reading the Bible like a novel and critiquing the style and structure of the sentences, and the whole point that God wants to communicate to me is lost beneath a torrent of my own emotional, self-imposed ignorance.
Has anyone else had this experience? Are there writers of Scripture whose personalities you, too, have been guilty of despising, and perhaps inadvertently the holy message they carry along with it?
Heavenly Father, help us appreciate the uniqueness of the gospel carriers’ personalities, just as you have crafted us to be more than carbon copies of our neighbors; let us not stumble in our flesh when truth is spoken in a way that may differ from what we would most have liked.
