Common Fallacies with Interpretation

                                                                I. Introduction

In this short post, I wish to briefly elaborate on some common interpretations of Scripture that I believe that people make. 

                                                               II.  Is this Bible Verse about Me?

One of the most common errors that people make with hermeneutics is sometimes assuming that every Biblical passage is about them. However, interpreting Scripture this way can be quite dangerous. Claiming that Jesus's turning of the tables in the temple justifies any professing Christian to move inside an ungodly church and do the same thing is nonsense. Since Jesus was without sin, He could control his anger in ways that others can't. 

Likewise, some will interpret passages in the Scriptures, such as the Hebrews killing all in their pathway (as they sometimes did in the Old Testament). But unlike the Hebrews, Christians today have not been commanded by God to wipe out all pagans as the Hebrews did in Joshua. 

Still, others will claim that the Old Testament is somehow irrelevant. Of course, this boils down to hermetic. Reformed Baptists generally will claim that infant baptism is unbiblical because they allege that infant circumcision was just for the Hebrews and not reinstated in the New Testament. As a point for their argument, they typically claim that something is only Biblical for us to practice if it is in the New Testament. On the other hand, Presbyterians will claim that infant baptism is Biblical because while infant circumcision was the practice of the Old Testament, infant baptism, they argue, is Biblical since the New Testament nowhere rescinded the Old Testament practice of pronouncing children of believers as part of the covenant. 

Interpreting Scripture, of course, means understanding who the book or letter was addressing, as well as the grammatical, historical, literary, and religious context of the text. It also means studying Scripture carefully, which usually takes more than just quoting one verse as if that alone destroys the opposition. Those who think it is easy to win a theological argument probably know nothing about theology. In Medieval universities, theologians would debate topics for hours and hours because they believed theology mattered. Saying only the gospel matteresis itself unbiblical as Jesus never said this, and Paul says far more throughout the New Testament than the proclamation of Christ as the risen Messiah. 

                                                                 III. Women and Evangelism

Tragically, it is now common in some of the Western churches to make claims about women that are not Biblical. For the past several centuries, there has been debate about the role of women in church, with Quackers historically having very different views on the subject than most other Christians. More recently, some Christians have been taught that women cannot even learn theology or inquire about matters of doctrine. Nevertheless, having a low contrasts with everything the New Testament teaches, 

Can women ever preach? Can women evangelize? Can a woman instruct others about what Christianity teaches about topics like the Trinity? What role do women have in ministry to the lost? 

These are questions that all Christians should consider. Hopefully, those asking these questions will appeal to Scripture to find answers. 

Whether or not women should be ordained is too extensive of a subject to discuss here. However, for now, there are several points I wish to highlight: 

1. In Acts 18: 18-28, Aquila and Priscilla corrected Apollos as he only knew the baptism of repentance, which preceded the baptism of the Holy Spirit given at Pentecost. Thus, Priscilla, though being a woman, evangelized others and not only evangelized but instructed on matters of true doctrine. The claim that women can only teach children or unbelievers issues of theology is unbiblical. In verse 26 of the same chapter, the two persons instructed Apollos in what they believed was correct theology. 

II. Some argue that women should not preach because there are no examples of women preachers in the New Testament. However, there is a quick fault with this reasoning. There are no examples of a sermon anywhere in the New Testament churches. While we see sermons done in the synagogues and open air, the New Testament nowhere gives instructions to us that the elders gave sermons to the churches. Lest some compare a pastor or preacher's sermons to the Pauline Epistles, the latter were inspired by God, and not simply sermons, but Scripture. The former, on the other hand, is not all Scripture but the opinions of a minister who lives two thousand years after the apostles. When I attended a Messianic Jewish temple some years ago, they read through the entire Book of Esther without breaking the text by ministers' explanations of the text. This was how it was done in the first-century church. Believers who read the letters of Paul and followed the Christian faith as it was known. Today, there are many practical reasons to give sermons, as many well-meaning Christians of the modern world don't often understand the religious, literary, grammatical, geographic, and historical context of the first century and before. Thus, sermons can be beneficial, but they themselves are nowhere found practiced in any of the New Testament era Churches and as helpful as they may be, they still reflect the non-infalaslbile minister preaching them. 

Indeed, all those in the post-Pentecost Church who are recorded as having preached were church clergy, including Philip the Deacon, also known as Philip the Evangelist (Acts 6: 5). 

But before I proceed to the next point, let me summarize my arguments from above. Since Priscilla and Aquila corrected Apollos in Acts 18, and since we have no Biblical reason to think that the practice of women's ministry is irrelevant for us now, we should conclude that women can teach others matters of doctrine. Secondly, there are no explicit examples of sermons in the churches of the first-century church. If we are to prohibit women from preaching on the ground that Scripture provides no example of them preaching, then we should also do the same for men. In short, there are no examples of either men or women preaching sermons in the New Testament Churches. None at all. And while I do not believe that women should preach sermons in churches, it is for different reasons than the ones that I am covering in this post. 

But what about the open air? True, in the New Testament, only men preached in the open air. But here is the catch. There are no examples in the New Testament of anyone after Pentecost preaching in the open air who was not clergy. John the Baptist preached before Pentecost, and his ministry, along with his baptism, was distinct after the Holy Spirit came upon the church in Acts 2, which reminded the former. In fact, later in Acts, all those baptized by John had to be rebaptized as their baptism was not a baptism for the remission of sins. 

Now, before someone takes me out of context, I'm not condemning laypeople open-air preaching. In fact, I support it. Implicitly, I believe that any Christian can do this in light of the great commission (Mark 16). My view is consistent. Those who say that women cannot preach because, for the reasons I mentioned above, though, are not. Either evangelism is interpreted as being exclusively for church clergy, or evangelism, including the task of open-air preaching, is meant to be permissible for all believers. To say that Evangelism is allowed for women, but preaching is only allowed for men, whether or not they have been ordained, has no backing at all in Scripture. 

And Scripture never says, ''All believers evangelize,'' but we know it's our example because this was New Testament practice. Scripture does not have to say for twenty-first-century churches to have deacons, but we know that we should because the churches in the New Testament had deacons. Likewise, Scripture doesn't have to specify if women can evangelize and disciple others now since this was the practice of the first-century church, and the New Testament gives us no reason to think that it was just for early believers. Hermeantuicxs isn't about ''Oh, Scripture doesn't command me to be ordained, and therefore I don't need ordination.'' Rather, we see every elder/presbyter in the New Testament ordained either directly by Christ or through one of the Aspoltes, showing that is the example for us today. The Bible never commands modern Christians to be baptized or receive the Lord's Table, yet we know that we should because everything taught after Pentecost in New Testament Christianity is the same standard for us to follow (except the composition of Scripture, which John explains ended in Revelation 22). 

Furthermore, practically speaking, there may be some good reasons for women not to preach open-air. By women doing this, it may endanger them (though it can be quite dangerous for men as well). But it is also dangerous for Christian women to support their husbands, brothers, or sons at all in evangelism in the streets. Again, consistency is needed. 

Ultimately, it seems best that only men evangelize in places where there may be danger. When safety is not an issue, men and women alike can and should minister to others---as was they example of first century Christianity. 

                                                                   IV. Reading into Scripture

Far too often, many modern people read into Scripture what they hope Scripture says. This is especially the case for liberals (though probably for true Christians as well). One of the greatest pieces of evidence of this is in how theistic evolutionists often interpret Genesis. 

Tragically, many Theistic Evolutionists read into Scripture what they believe is scientific. Thus, while this is not true for all, many Evolutionists already assume that Genesis 1 cannot rightly teach that God created the heavens and earth in six days. 

I find the wide acceptance of theistic evolution to be one of the saddest experiences of modern Christians. Catholic schools teach evolution, and evolution has gained great acceptance among many Anglicans. It is ironic that many liturgical Christians while claiming to revere the Fathers, would believe in evolution when the Fathers overwhelmingly taught six-day creationism. 

I respect Alister Mcgrath for historical theology, N. T. Wright for New Testament theology and history, and Scott Hahn for his books on Catholic theology, yet all are theistic evolutionists. Despite agreeing with the church fathers in some areas, they don't in all, which gives me further reason to insist that others' faith is more accurate when aligned with the fathers. I do believe that the wide acceptance of evolution among those in the Catholic Church has further added to the suspicions of creationists such as Ken Ham as to what Catholicism is. 

However, acceptance of evolution is not the only form of theological liberalism. John MacArthur strongly believes in artificial birth control, and his website lists no restrictions on it. Likewise, MacArthur believes that people can live in ''remarriage'' for the rest of their days and still enter Heaven. One of the differences between me and some of the Evangelicals is that unlike many of them I see how liberalism has affected all Christian Churches, while some of them pretend that all homosexuality or women's ordination is what makes people liberal. 

In general, whether it be the denial of the Eucharist as the literal Body and Blood of Christ or the need to carry out the great commission, theological liberalism is anything contrary to what Scripture and the church has always taught. 

                                                                          V. Conclusion

Pride is not worth one lacking knowledge. Only reading Baptists or Catholics out of one's fear of becoming anything else helps neither the individual nor Christendom at large. Rather than building blocks of pride against one another, Christians should engage in theological debates with the intent that we all grow in the faith.