Doctrines—Scattered, Smothered, and Covered
If you were to search for the most conservative, Bible-respecting fundamentalist groups in Christendom, and ask them to present Scriptures for various teachings on how one is to live or what to believe, you will invariably find a curious phenomenon: to get a full grasp on what one should do or believe to be righteous, one must hop across multiple books of the Bible. And this is not because of theological bias per se. You’ll notice the same phenomenon if you take a secular course on the New Testament, for instance. Just examine a tract from any “conservative” denomination, and look at each doctrine individually, and notice the Bible verses given to support it. Almost invariably, they will all be from multiple books of the Bible.[1]
Just a few examples of this should suffice. For the sake of this demonstration, I will avoid more general teachings on how to live pleasing to God, such as passages about being kind, or “putting death” what is earthly within us, which are found in many places, and are multifaceted. I’ll also avoid more specific teachings that are in fact found across multiple books, and are therefore far more likely to have been known to most early Christians. I’ll focus on teachings which appear to be important, very specific, but which are not found in many places, and are in fact missing from most books that teach the believer how to live.
Church Offices: Overseers and Servants
The qualifications of the offices of elders and deacons (from the Greek word meaning “servant”) is an interesting case. We see elders and possibly deacons in the book of Acts, which portrays itself as the story of the birth and growth of the church in the first century; and elders are found in other books as well—deacons not quite as often, at least not references that appear to refer to a specific office.[2] (Naturally, the term “servant” gets used a lot in a more general sense.) We have a handful of instructions or examples on the congregational office of elders/overseers: e.g., Acts 20:17, 28; Hebrews 13:17; Acts 15:6; James 5:14; I Peter 5:1, 5; I Timothy 4:14; note, however, even these passages each tell us something different about elders/overseers. However, we only find lists of qualifications for elders in two places; and an explicit list of qualifications for deacons appears in only one place, in I Timothy 3. In Acts 6, the word “deacon” is not even used; seven men were appointed to a task, and the apostles said that they should be “of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom.” If this was an example of the appointing of deacons, the qualifications given were certainly much briefer, and fundamentally different from the ones in I Timothy 3; nor does this passage explicitly call them deacons. Moderns might like to know what “full of the Spirit” meant; in Acts 6, were the men selected supposed to possess gifts of the Spirit?[3] This is only one of multiple potential questions raised by the ambiguity that permeates the entire Bible, which, despite is length, can be quite laconic.
Now let’s return to the qualification for appointing elders, found in the pastoral letters, I Timothy 3 and Titus 1, two young (at least Timothy was) church-planting preachers who not only preached, but do the actual appointing of the elders! These two lists are remarkably similar; however, there are a few substantive differences (apart from the potentially significant detail that Titus got no instructions for the qualifications of deacons). Both letters say that elders should have a good reputation, but 1 Timothy adds that their good reputation should also be among “those outside”, and then gives a reason why, not found in Titus. Maybe the most significant difference regards the elder’s children. Timothy’s letter says that a qualified elder must manage his household well, keeping his children in submission, whereas Titus’ says that the elders’ children must be believing! Those two are fundamentally different. They are not contradictory, but if we are to amalgamate them and claim that we must use both lists, then we confirm that neither Titus nor Timothy were given a complete list. After all, Titus would have only appointed elders whose children were old enough to believe; whereas poor Timothy might have “incorrectly” (according to Titus’ instructions) appointed elders whose children were too young to have believed. Modern believers may argue that earlier believers, before the completion of the New Testament, would have had people with the gift of knowledge and prophecy to clear up such details, but here we are looking at very specific instructions, ostensibly given to individuals! Was Timothy to take his instruction from an apostle and then ask for more clarification from each congregation’s members with such spiritual gifts of revelation? The very idea seems absurd.
As a side note, we’ve been looking at these rule differences from a Western perspective. As noted earlier, ancients of the Near East were more prone to view law as precedent, not statutory/comprehensive. Such a view could allow many to look at Timothy and Titus’ differing lists as good standards without seeing them as contradictory. Such an adaptable and flexible view of law might be acceptable to some moderns in some ways when trying to determine what made a man fit for the office of elder, which can in many ways be quite a subjective judgment. However, such a malleable view of divine instruction would be totally unacceptable for many modern fundamentalists who have interpreted quite extensive doctrinal systems from the wording of the New Testament. We’ll explore more the nature of a non-statutory view of law in following chapters.
Divorce
Now let’s turn to one of the more controversial topics: explicit teachings regarding divorce in the New Testament are only found in three of the gospels, and one of the letters of the New Testament. In the gospels, Jesus unequivocally contradicts the law of Moses. In Mark 10:9, he basically teaches that divorce is not permitted; verse 5 begins the explanation of why he contradicts Moses. Luke 16:18 agrees with Mark. However, Matthew 19:8, 9 essentially gives the same account, except in this one Jesus allows divorce in the case of fornication! This is even more interesting because when he gives the same teaching in Matthew 5:32, it’s only a few verses after he speaks against anyone who would relax any commandments of the law (vv. 17-12); but his instruction regarding divorce was basically an addition, which was also condemned by the law[4]. 1 Corinthians 7:10-15 at first prohibits divorce, not mentioning Matthew’s teaching that fornication is the only grounds for divorce. However, it does say that a believer is not “bound” (or enslaved) to a spouse who leaves.[5] And oddly, in verse 12, Paul gives his opinion that a brother should remain with an unbelieving wife, but this is not a command from the Lord! What is one to make of these handful of passages? When we go to the Hebrew Bible, thing’s get even more complicated. Not only did Moses allow divorce, but Ezra (10:1-3) commanded it when the people had broken the law[6] by marrying foreign women; but not only did they put away their wives, they put away their children.
Again, we are admittedly examining these rules from a Western, statutorily perspective. An alternative hermeneutic would be to view these as complementary rules (see the examination of Torah law in chapter 5). In other words, maybe Mark did not intend a total ban on divorce, but merely left off the “fornication clause” that Matthew gives us. And maybe they both left off the idea that a believer can leave an unbelieving spouse, which seems to be what 1 Corinthians 7 is saying. I have met very few fundamentalists who would accept such a seemingly fluid method of interpretation.
Let’s continue with this thought experiment. Since we’ve just noted that qualifications for elders includes being the husband of one wife, and deacons’ wives must be dignified, etc. (at least according to I Timothy 3), this would be a great place to point out a few more interesting passages referring to women. Romans 16:1 mentions Phoebe, a “deaconess/servant” of the church in Cenchreae. I’ve heard it argued that this did not refer to the office of deacon, merely the general term for servant. Okay, we’ll leave that there. Let’s now turn to verse 7, where some translations speak of Andronicus and Junia (a female name), who are known “to” the apostles; other translations render it “among”; if it’s the latter, then Junia is a female apostle. Again, we are discussing a word which has a general usage: “apostle” had the broad meaning “messenger”, and was used in the special case to speak of a particular office, individuals singled out to speak on behalf of Jesus.[7]
Salvation by Any Other Name
Apart from doctrines that are found only in a few places, some of the ones found in multiple places exhibit an incredible variety. One such collection of teaching deals with how to “be saved” from one’s sins and be in fellowship with God, which is surely one of the foundational teachings of Christianity, even if Christians have stark disagreements over what that entails. For the sake of focusing our argument and at least attempting to avoid theological entanglements, let us take as given for the moment that there may be tremendous variety across biblical documents, perhaps due to the depth of the subject, or because there are multiple ways required to please God, and because each section of Scripture has a different focus. So I’ll focus on what I think are the more glaring differences across Scripture.
Again, if you ask different denominations, you will get totally different answers regarding how to be saved, even and especially denominations which are Protestant. Consequently, each denomination cites different Scriptures, even to describe the gospel itself. You can see this by collecting tracts as well. Let’s just run through a quick list of only a few of the passages that explain who will be saved, beginning with the most quoted verse of the whole Bible: whoever believes in Jesus (John 3:16; compare Acts 16:22-34); whoever calls on the name of the Lord (Romans 10:13); whoever loves (I John 4:7-21); those who repent and are baptized (Acts 2:38; cf. Colossians 2:12 and Romans 6); those who confess and believe in Christ (Romans 10:9); not all who confess, but those who do the will of the Father (Matthew 7:21-23). And finally, the sermon at the end of Jesus’ career has an interesting conclusion. When Jesus preaches on the topic of how the goats will be separated from the sheep,[8] he seems to focus on one thing: how did you treat the least of these?
Note the vast differences between these passages. Yes, they can be harmonized if one assumes a figure of speech where necessary premises are omitted, which we in fact use all the time. We state a thing, without stating all the other necessary things for the statement to be true. If I tell my children that they’ll go far in life if they work hard, I’m emphasizing one thing in the moment I tell them this.[9] I am not saying that if they work hard they cannot be arrested for felonious activity, or that they cannot be fired if they lie to their boss, or that they cannot end up under a repressive regime that prevents them from enjoying the fruits of their labor—all if they just work hard. Working hard is not the only requisite for success. Likewise, I don’t think any of the other Bible writers would accuse Paul of omitting something when he said that all who call on the name of the Lord will be saved,[10] especially since the rest of Romans mentions other things required for salvation, such as belief; he also gives the “good news” special emphasis, which also is defined differently across Scripture. And I would be interested in hearing any cogent explanation of why Romans 6:4 does not mention a requirement of salvation.[11]
One of the frameworks for interpreting all these differences in the answer to “what must I do to be saved” is a concept called dispensationalism, which is popular among many Protestants. Dispensationalism is the concept that different parts of the Bible were meant for different people, and began to be particularly popular from the 19th century on.[12] This concept helps explain the modern Christian understanding that the Law of Moses was no longer followed from Acts onward,[13] yet it was during the life of Christ.[14] Some of dispensationalism’s intellectual descendants even went to a further extreme, called “hyperdispensationalism”, dividing up the New Testament itself into various “dispensations”. This is why you see some people claiming that Acts 2 was a gospel delivered to Israel, and is not the same gospel of Christians today. My point is not to untangle all these doctrines, but to point out that they would not be necessary had the Bible, and even just the New Testament itself, not said vastly different things related to what laws are required to be followed, as we’ll see in the following chapters.
As we noted in previous chapters, no one in the Bible had a Bible, at least not in the modern sense of the term. At least an entire generation probably went by after the death of Jesus before all of the books of the New Testament were written. Some congregations would have had some of the books/letters, other would have others, but not before around 50 CE, when Paul, possibly the earliest writer, began to write.[15] We do not have evidence that all 27 of the books were bound together, or even listed as canonical, until two or three centuries after they were written. If you lived in the second half of the first century, what do the “new” books you have access to (if any!) say about the most important Christian doctrines, like how to be saved?[16]
To give a full hearing to the Christian paradigm, the New Testament writers do mention that God gave people gifts at various congregations around the Mediterranean, such as prophecy and knowledge; some passages say that these gifts were given by the laying on of the apostles’ hands. This almost never comes up in secular or even religious discussions of the lack of a complete and ubiquitous canon in the first century. Paul did say that these gifts would pass away, when “the perfect” comes.[17] Thanks for being explicit once again, Paul…. To argue from a secular perspective that there’s no way that first century Christians could have had all of the doctrines of our complete New Testament is, therefore, to ignore a paradigmatic impasse (see appendix). After all, the Bible says they had prophetic knowledge. Of course the next question to pop up is “hey, if they had prophets, when did that stop? Why is it only the Bible now?” And why would only some Protestants be right in believing that truth is only found in text, and in their 66-book Bible, when the majority of the rest of Christendom does not believe this way?[18] But we will not go down that rabbit hole here.
But even if we assume that at least the early church had prophets/gifts of knowledge to clear up any doctrinal points, as many passages seem to suggest, this raises even more questions. For instance, as examined above, why did they need to call a council in Jerusalem to determine what laws applied to Gentiles?
Although we cannot be certain, by geography and time, when certain books (or prophecies/oral traditions) were available, it’s still a useful thought exercise. What would your New Testament say to you without, for example, the gospels, which many scholars tell us were probably written pretty late? Without, say, John 3:16, which is believed to be one of the last books of the New Testament written? If you were a Christian around 80 CE, would your congregation condemn all divorce (as some denominations still do), because they only had Mark and Luke, but not Matthew? Would the congregation at Corinth support the remarriage of a woman whose unbelieving husband left her, even if he lived a celibate life, because that congregation had Paul’s letter to them? (1 Corinthians 7:15) Would they allow a believer to divorce an unbelieving spouse for any reason? (v. 12)
I believe this thought exercise is important whenever someone makes an elaborate scriptural argument regarding some essential topic. Look at their citations, which books they come from, and ask 1) did believers need to know this in order to live right, and 2) would they have had enough Scripture to conclude such a thing? This is especially worthwhile for questions regarding the Mosaic Law, since the Torah was ostensibly the heart of YHVH’s prophetic message for centuries.[19] And they certainly didn’t have the New Testament to guide them. In fact, some of the New Testament recognizes that there must have been a pretty thick veil over the theological understanding of God’s people throughout the Hebrew Bible, since the New Testament adds so much to it.[20]
The reason why this thought exercise is so important is because you will often find theological arguments that hinge on connecting Scriptures across multiple books, many of which would not have been available to God’s people for most of their existence.
Where’s the Summary?
Another way to illustrate the scattered doctrines of the Bible is to try to find the passage of Scripture that gives a good outline of everything a good Christian needs to know. Of course this doesn’t exist, as far as I can tell. Some fundamentalists may point to a certain book or section of the New Testament that they believe encapsulates the concept, but my guess is that they would be at a loss to assert the rest of the New Testament doesn’t contain an essential teaching that doesn’t appear in the book or section that they said was enough on its own. I think any honest Christian would have to admit, when looking at the entirety of the New Testament, that essential Christian doctrines are not only scattered, but often found only in a few places. The Gospel of John, for instance, is a masterpiece, and is beloved among believers and secular scholars alike; I’ve even heard people say that if they were stranded on a desert island and could only have one book of the Bible, it would be John. Yet there are many key concepts you will not find in it. (See chapter 8 for more analysis of differences across the New Testament.) To cite just one example, the religious tradition in which I was raised cites such passages as Mark 16:15, and 16 and Acts 2:38 to prove that baptism is an essential command. Yet the strongest passage in John that might arguably allude to it is chapter 3, where Jesus tells Nicodemus that he must be reborn of spirit and water. Yet if that’s what Jesus had in mind, it does not fit the timeline of Acts 2:38, which is, according to the interpretation of some Christians, the first time baptism into Christ is commanded, as sort of a new dispensation. Even more interesting, Jesus upbraids Nicodemus, as a teacher of Israel, for not understanding this necessity; it would appear that Jesus is implying that Nicodemus should have known the concept from the Hebrew Scriptures. Interestingly, it would appear that the letter of 1 John is an expansion on this idea of rebirth.
Looking at the Hebrew Bible, too, which we’ll do in following chapters, one also cannot point to a single book and say “look, here are all the commands one needed to follow to keep the ‘Mosaic’ law.” As we’ll see, one has to go to different books to get all those laws, and some of them only appear outside the Torah!
Not a God of Confusion?
In Deuteronomy 30, we read that the law of God is not too hard, or unreachable, or difficult to understand. And yet, as we’ll see, even it has some confusing differences.
In the New Testament on the other hand, we see that sometimes people are expected to understand things that are admittedly hard. Jesus was particularly hard on Nicodemus for not understanding something which was not explicitly addressed in the Hebrew Bible; and this teaching that Jesus castigates him for not understanding is what many Christians believe to be one of the most seminal doctrines of Christianity, culminating in John 3:16, God’s accomplishment of the rebirth of the sinner.[21] Sometimes Jesus intentionally makes understanding something hard so that most people don’t get it, such as by using parables to teach, then only explaining them to his inner circle![22] The gospel itself is said to be a mystery.[23] And Jesus literally let people be run off by teaching something which was too hard for them, the doctrine that they must eat his flesh and drink his blood.[24] Imagine if they had taken him literally and then immediately obeyed…. In fact, the New Testament often claims to teach revelation that could have only been veiled from the prophets, and even angels, of old.[25]
What are we to conclude then? Fortunately, it is not my purpose here to try to find a unified theology in the Bible, only to try to understand the theologies of its authors. And this journey, at least for me, is fascinating, and even sometimes enlightening. Even if more questions are raised than answered, then maybe we’re even doing something right. When I look back at what I was taught growing up, where every question seemed to have an answer, I know now that I was quite blind. I’m not brilliant like Socrates, but at least now I can see at least some of my ignorance. Maybe one day I can approach his level of ignorance. Not having answers does not have to hurt.
“The need for certainty is the greatest need the mind faces.”
—Robert Greene, Mastery
For further reading, check out my book When Humans Wrote Scripture.
[1] After doing a few searches, I noticed a curious phenomenon: most Bible tracts today are very simple, and tend to cite one verse per point. I believe this reflects a shift away from an earlier period, when people cared more about doctrines, enough to join (or build) a specific denomination centered around them. The rise of churches without explicit denominational affiliation is also a sign of this shift. So here are the names of a couple of tracts from a particularly “conservative” group that still illustrate the point: “Basic Bible References”, by John M. Hurt, which you can find readable images of online, and “Pocket Bible Ready Reference for Personal Workers”, (what a mouthful of strange jargon) by Ernest Clevenger. Note that some Bibles also have a general list of teachings in the back, along with citations.
[2] It is often argued, at least in religious traditions of my area, that elders and deacons were not church offices per se, which begs the question why the pastoral epistles give qualifications for them. Even if they cannot be considered offices, I believe this section still makes sense, examining differing rules.
[3] See I Corinthians 12 for examples of gifts of the Spirit.
[4] Deuteronomy 12:32, at least from a Western view of law.
[5] The tract I cited above, “Basic Bible References”, ends the scripture reference at verse 11, basically ignoring 15, because in the denomination in which it’s used, the accepted teaching is that fornication is the only grounds for remarriage, not separation. Interestingly, the tract does cite Ezra 10:1-3, as this is often used as a prooftext to show that one cannot remain in an unlawful marriage, though I’ve never seen it used for “putting away” one’s children….
[6] Whether they in fact broke the law is examined in a later chapter.
[7] For special usage, see Matthew 10:2, Acts 1:25-26. For the general, “non-apostle” sense, see John 13:16, which is translated as “one who is sent”.
[8] The so-called Little Apocalypse, or Olivet Discourse, of Matthew 24 and 25. See 25:31-46.
[9] This is a syllogism employing enthymeme, if you’re interested in dissecting the logical premise behind this figure of speech. I just have one request: please don’t….
[10] Romans 10:13; Paul is quoting Joel 2:32.
[11] Of course, Reformed Theology would disagree with all of this, since in that paradigm there are no “requirements” on the individual for salvation, just God’s election.
[12] John Nelson Darby is often given credit as the person who invented the concept. However, the Bible itself supports some dispensationalism explicitly (e.g., Deuteronomy 5:3, Acts 17:30).
[13] I call it a modern Christian conception because Acts actually has several examples of followers of the Christ still following the law. More on this later, but if you’re interested in a very lengthy history of the first 1,000 years of Christianity in its original location, and just how Jewish it was, here is an excellent read: The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia—and How it Died, by Philip Jenkins. Another excellent and more focused study on the topic can be found in When Christians Were Jews, by Paula Fredriksen.
[14] There are many reasons for this shift, which are unfortunately beyond our scope here.
[15] I make an argument elsewhere that James and Jude also would have been written prior to the death of James, which some scholars agree with. See, for example, James the Brother of Jesus, by Robert Eisenman, ch. 1.
[16] You might think low literacy is a point that should be made here, but even the totally illiterate could hear Scripture read from a synagogue or congregation near them, if there was one near them. And if they went.
[17] I Corinthians 13:10. Some modern Christians, especially some Protestants, believe that “the complete” refers to the completed Bible. Some say it refers to Jesus coming, which I believe is a millennialist view. Take your pick.
[18] I am not arguing that consensus is evidence of truth. But it is a valid question: why would the majority believe it?
[19] Of course there were prophets, as well as other written documents cited by—but not included in—the Bible, but they’re a topic for another book.
[20] E.g., 2 Corinthians 3:13-4:3; I Peter 1:10-12
[21] John 3:1-15
[22] Matthew 13:10-17
[23] Romans 16:25
[24] John 6
[25] 1 Peter 1:10-12; it has also been argued that prophets like the one that gave us Isaiah 53 could not have known what they were writing, if the Christian application of it to Jesus is correct, unless it was revealed to them by special revelation.