Playing Fast and Loose With Scripture: Historical Theologians

In one of my preaching classes in seminary, we were asked to write and preach three different sermons on the same passage: one in our own usual style, one in the style of 20th century Swiss theologian Karl Barth, and one in the style of 4th-5th century North African bishop Augustine.

This was an assignment toward the end of the quarter. First, we had spent several weeks reading Augustine and Barth’s sermons and other writings. We studied, compared, noticed themes, immersed ourselves in philosophies. 

We analyzed the ways each theologian approached scripture and the practice of preaching. We compared and contrasted these approaches with one another, and with the approaches we see in our modern-day churches.

I’ve been reflecting, here, on how reading and understanding the Bible is a complex thing. And on how the ways I read the Bible have changed over time—which, I think, is good. 

That preaching class (taught by Dr. Paul Bole, to give credit where credit is due)—and especially the chance to take a deep dive into Augustine’s mindset toward scripture—was an important part of this change. (Along with learning more about how the New Testament writers approached scripture, as well as a couple other things I’ll get into next week.) 

I want to share a bit of the journey with you.

Hidden, Allegorical Meanings

In my preaching class on Augustine and Barth, I learned that Augustine, after plenty of education in rhetoric and the like, read the Bible and found it a bit…simple. 

And so he decided there must be more to it than a straightforward reading. There must be hidden layers in the text. And it must be up to the preacher to seek and find these buried meanings, and to share what they find with their congregation.

For Augustine, this meant that lots of things in the Bible were actually allegories. Details that might seem like minor parts of a story come alive for Augustine in ways the original writers may not have intended or even imagined.

Among the theologians of the first few centuries of Christianity, Augustine was not alone in thinking this way. The world of scripture that Augustine and many of his contemporaries knew was a world brimming with life. Wild and free. Open to imagination. Inviting play. 

Camel, Belt, Locusts, Honey

When asked to write a sermon in the style of Augustine, I chose Matthew 3:1-17 as my text. It’s a text that describes John the Baptist, living out in the wilderness, preaching repentance and baptizing the crowds in the Jordan River.

I thought about the ways Augustine saw scripture as allegory. I reread some of his sermons for examples. (This was from a book called Essential Sermons: The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, in case you’re curious where one might find a thing like that.) I wondered what kinds of metaphors Augustine might see in Matthew’s story about John the Baptist. 

Matthew’s descriptions of John the Baptist’s appearance and diet stood out to me. Clothed in camel’s hair, leather belt around his waist, eating locusts and wild honey (Matt 3:4).

So I went bonkers and had a great time imagining some possible allegorical interpretations. I preached that:

• The camel—a large beast who couldn’t exactly fit through the eye of a needle (Matt 19:24)—represents the vastness of God. John wore clothing from the hair of this large animal to signify for us that there is nothing too large for our God. Clothe yourselves, then, with camel’s hair. Clothe yourselves with whatever small bit of faith you might have, faith in our very large and powerful God.
• The leather, in its durability, represents God’s perseverance and enduring love. Clothe yourselves with a leather belt, as John did. Clothe yourselves with the enduring love of God, that you too might take part in the enduring reign of God.
• The locusts represent forces of destruction. Every kind of destructive agent, every kind of locust, is swallowed up by God’s love and victory. When we trust in God, we too share in this eating of locusts, this destruction of all agents of destruction.
• The honey represents the sweetness of God’s promises. John subsisted on this honey. He did not put his hope in earthly things but in the honey that came from God. May we too subsist on this honey―on the word of God that tastes as sweet as honey in our mouths [Ezekiel 3:3].

It Just Matters That It’s True

Do I actually believe that Matthew had anything like this in mind when he described John the Baptist? For the most part, no, not really. I think these were just physical descriptions of John. Matthew was just telling John’s story, helping people visualize what it was like to be there in the wilderness while he was baptizing. 

The camel hair and leather belt were surely meant to evoke an image of the famous historical prophet Elijah (2 Kings 1:8). But beyond that, I don’t see much hidden meaning. Maybe the locusts and honey are just there to remind people that John was a weird dude living a wild life out in the wilderness, not doing the things most people did or eating the things most people ate.

Even so, the exercise of trying to preach like Augustine felt fruitful. Maybe Matthew didn’t think of the camel hair as representing God’s vastness, or honey as the sweetness of God’s words. And yet, maybe these things are still true. And maybe it’s still helpful to think about them.

I think Augustine would agree with this. It was his philosophy that a preacher should look for the deeper metaphorical meanings of a text—and if that preacher is wrong sometimes, it’s okay.

It’s okay if Matthew didn’t mean for locusts to represent agents of destruction. Because God’s ultimate victory over the agents of destruction is still true. It doesn’t have to come directly from this particular text. 

If a preacher reads something into a passage of scripture that isn’t really what the author intended, that’s okay—as long as it fits with a true message about who God is; as long as it encourages people to love God and love other people. As long as the message is a good one, it can be arrived at…freely.

A Great Cloud of Interpreters

I’m not exactly trying to say that everything Augustine thought was right and good, and therefore if he felt free to play fast and loose with scripture, so should we. There are plenty of parts of Augustine’s thinking I don’t love.

But it has helped me, as I read the Bible today, to know that the ways prominent theologians have thought about it have changed dramatically over time. The literal, Basic-Instructions-Before-Leaving-Earth, type of thinking was not the dominant type among the leaders of early Christianity. 

I’ve found it helpful to get a sense of the variety—the very great variety!—of ways the Bible has been interpreted over time. Not necessarily to judge which of these ways are better than others, but just to know that things like this change. There is and has always been a great deal of diversity in interpretation. 

When we read the Bible today, we step into this less-than-straightforward history and look to find our place in it. 

We don’t need to take a place someone else has already carved out for us. We can carve our own. And we can do so with the freedom of knowing that a great cloud of witnesses (Heb 12:1)—a great cloud of interpreters, if you will—with a wonderful, powerful variety of interpretations have come before us.