We love our action heroes. Growing up, my siblings and I loved the “Journey to the West” adventure series. A few times, we feigned illness just to skip church and watch the weekly episodes. Diabolically, the weekly series streamed on Ghana Television was moved from its previous week-day slot to Sunday mornings at 11 am! The Monkey King was brilliant at Kung-Fu, but then he was pretty vengeful and disagreeable, at one point invading “heaven“ and picking a fight with even the heavenly residents!
Western movie stars were also quite famous among my peers. I remember a time when several of my schoolmates and I wrote to Van Damme and got an autographed photograph in return! We loved the Van Dammes, Rambos and Commandos. They captivated most of us with their strength and bravado. Today, a fresh set of action heroes continue to thrill millions.
Understanding preunderstandings
The norms depicted in movies we’ve seen, our family background, societal values and heritage form a powerful influence that impacts how we interpret Scripture. We call this preunderstanding. In this case, our cultural influence is the main force we contend with. For example, when we read Jesus’ words in in Matthew 5 where he says, “43 You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.‘ 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,“ we subconsciously contrast this with what prevails in our culture.
“How did Van Damme react to the bad guys who broke into his home and killed his wife and family dog?“ Our society says, “once bitten, twice shy“. So, even though Jesus says to forgive seventy times seven times (Matthew 18:22), we subconsciously set a limit to “loving our enemies“. If people offend us once or twice, it’s okay to forgive; but if they did it three or four times, that’s it – we’ll cut them off from mercy for the rest of our lives!
In our previous article, we encountered another subtle influence of our culture on Scriptural interpretation: filling in the blanks where Scripture is silent. We saw this in the assumption we make that Mary traveled to Bethlehem on a little donkey, although the Christmas narrative never mentions a donkey. It is not hard to see that this idea is suggested by the Christmas chorus “Little Donkey Carry Mary Safely on Her Way!“.
In their book, “Journey through God’s Word“, Duvall and Hays illustrate the cultural influences we bring to Scripture. What do you see when you picture Jonah in the great fish’s belly? Chances are, like me, you envision a rather big stomach large enough for a boat to fit in, with way more room for a large man and a little boy to also fit comfortably in rather than a squashed-up Jonah pressed against the digestive tract of the great fish. As Duvall and Hays point out, this image likely comes from the Pinocchio movie by Disney; which immediately fills in the blanks when we read the story of Jonah being swallowed by a fish.
Preunderstandings go way beyond our cultural influences, however. Other aspects of preunderstanding worth watching out for include previous encounters with the text, which tend to breed familiarity (the assumption that we know and understand the text already), and therefore limit our expectation to be impacted by the Biblical text in fresh ways). It can also take the form of preconceived opinions and ideas from sermons we’ve heard before, lyrics of gospel songs, stuff we may have picked up from Sunday school (children’s and youth services), jokes and other forms of literature besides the Bible.
Not all these influences may impact our study and interpretation of Scripture negatively; some may, in fact, be good. For instance, if you grew up in a loving family, with parents whose lives modelled the gospel in the way they loved, encouraged and disciplined you; and where siblings were respectful, caring and nurturing of each other, these may serve as good and beneficial cultural influences in your ability to grasp the concept of God as a loving heavenly father and the body of Christ as a family closely knit together by their Union with Christ. If, however, you experienced an unhealthy family relationship growing up, then that may in contrast, serve to hamper your view of God as a loving father, as outlined in Scripture.
Submitting to the Biblical text instead of standing over it
So, how should we approach Scripture, given all our preunderstandings? As we mentioned in the previous article, we must resolve to consistently come to God’s Word ready to submit our preunderstandings under God’s Word rather than letting it stand over it. Put another way; we must allow Scripture to critique our preunderstanding and not the other way around! As we grapple with Scripture, we must be prepared to allow it to change and modify our preconceptions in light of the plain teaching of Scripture.
Unlike our preunderstandings, there are things we need to bring along to our study of God’s Word. We call them presuppositions.
Biblical presuppositions
Presuppositions stand opposed to preunderstanding in that they do not change with each encounter with the Word. These presuppositions serve as foundations on which to build our study of the Bible. They include our faith in the God of the Bible, our relationship with Him, and what we believe about Scripture as a whole.
For example, we believe that:
1. The Bible is the Word of God. In it, God communicates of Himself and His will to us. Although God used men to bring them to us, they were carried along or taught by the Holy Spirit such that the words they produced are at one and the same time the words of each author and the exact words of God Himself. Therefore, Scripture carries all the authority God’s speech conveys (2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1:21).
2. The Bible is trustworthy and true. As Jesus himself attests, “Scripture cannot be broken“ (John 10:35). As God cannot lie (Numbers 23:19, 1 Samuel 15:29), so does every word of God prove true (Proverbs 30:5).
3. The Bible never contradict itself. Despite consisting of diverse books, it is a unified revelation. Although there are some ‘tensions‘ and a ‘mystery‘ to the Bible, that is to be expected, as God is way bigger than us, and our puny minds cannot always understand him. As Augustine points out,
“The Scriptures are holy, they are truthful, they are blameless… So we have no grounds at all of blaming Scripture if we happen to deviate in any way, because we haven’t understood it. When we do understand it, we are right. But when we are wrong because we haven’t understood it, we leave it in the right. When we have gone wrong, we don’t make out Scripture to be wrong, but it continues to stand up straight and right, so that we may return to it for correction.“
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