As humans we have a tendency to hear what we want to hear and see what we want to see. Watch this video:
I wanted to title this something a bit more catchy like “Always look for the Gorilla” but I didn’t want to give you an unfair advantage in watching that video. I showed this video a few Sunday’s ago in church and about 80% of our congregation missed the gorilla. I made the point that in our Scripture reading we are not immune to missing gorillas.
We will see what we want to see in the text and miss many things. A discouraged husband will land on Ephesians 5:22-24 and gloss over verses 25-33. If he gets to verse 33 his focus won’t be on loving his wife it will be on how she isn’t respecting him. But what he is doing here is missing the gorilla. We can do this with every passage of Scripture.
In fact, we always view the Scriptures through our cultural lenses. This is what Richards and O’Brien mean here:
There is no purely objective biblical interpretation. This is not postmodern relativism. WE believe truth is truth. But there’s no way around the fact that our cultural and historical contexts supply us with habits of mind that lead us to read the Bible differently than Christians in other cultural and historical contexts. (Misreading Scripture With Western Eyes, 12)
Now some will conclude that because we are prone to miss the gorilla that we are never able to actually read the Scripture as it stands. That isn’t true either. The Spirit is able to illuminate our minds and our hearts to where we can see the gorilla. But the good Bible student will not simply assume that his/her first reading of the text is the absolutely correct one. The good student will pour over the Scripture over and over and over again looking for gorillas each time.
So, be aware of this and you’ll be a much better at not only reading the Bible but also at applying the Bible. It’s also a great idea to read the Scriptures within a community of other believers. Pastors, we might need this more than anyone. There is nothing unspiritual about laboring with others to really grasp the text you are going to be preaching on Sunday. Use others to help you spot gorilla’s in the text.
What’s even worse is selectively applying the Scriptures. For example, we are often baffled by how the Israelites could keep turning their backs on God as though we don’t do the same thing today. We think we are somehow better than they were. If the Israelites needed to repent and call on God, then we should be doing the same thing. Or we may be glad that we aren’t like the Pharisee who prayed to God that he was glad he wasn’t like the sinners, and completely miss that by so doing, we are just like that Pharisee. “There, but for the grace of God, go I.”