By Misreading the Scripture

By Misreading the Scripture I used to live in Colorado Springs, which is most known for the iconic mountain that is visible from everywhere in the city. It’s a fourteener (meaning it rises higher than 14,000 feet in elevation) called Pike’s Peak. So when I read Psalm 121:1, “I lift up my eyes to the mountains—where does my help come from,” I used to picture Pikes Peak and assume the Psalmist was looking at the mountains in Israel and was amazed by the power, majesty, and might of the glorious terrain. Maybe he was thinking, “If God can make these powerful mountains, my problems are small in his hands!” It’s a beautiful and true idea—that God is powerful and my problems are small in his hands—but that might not be what the Psalmist was thinking about. I discovered this during my very first seminary class in a building situated at the foot of Pike’s Peak. The professor, Dr. Dave, pointed out that in the Old Testament, there are numerous references to the “high places”—temples on the top of mountains where the foreign gods were worshiped. When the Psalmist looked at the hills, he could have been looking at these temples. If so, his proclamation of trust in the One True God of Israel was not about majestic mountains, but about turning away from idols. He also pointed out a few other ways this verse could be translated based on the cultural context in which it was written—a context that I had never considered before. Since that class, I’ve read quite a few books, and have been in numerous discussions about how reading the Bible is engaging in a cross-cultural experience. This means that there could be times when we misread the Scriptures—like me with Psalm 121, or more grotesquely, when the American South used Scripture to promote slavery in the 17-19th centuries. While God certainly can use Scripture to guide us, before we directly apply the Scripture to our lives, we’ve got to start by remembering first who the original audience was. Maybe you’ve heard the phrase, “all the Bible is written for us, but not all of the Bible is written to us.” This saying helps us recognize that each of the biblical authors had a primary audience they were writing to, and this lens should be explored before making a direct conclusion regarding our own lives. “If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:2).