On a recent episode of “Bones”, Temperance
justifies Booth’s anonymous act of charity by quoting an abbreviated version of
the Love Verses from First Corinthians.
But instead of “love”, she inserted “charity”.
Charity is patient. Charity is kind. It doesn’t sing its own praise. It doesn’t keep score.
Which is all well and good. Except that the Love Verses aren’t about
Charity. They are about Love. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this. In fact, I raised a bit of a stink during a
Bible Study class when someone else tried to do this. The Love Verses are about Love, not Charity.
Maybe you could say Love and Charity are
interchangeable, but I won’t buy that either.
I myself used the Love Verses on my wedding
invitation, which is also a misrepresentation.
I knew it, but I did it anyway.
It’s a misrepresentation because the Love Verses
are about God’s Love for us, Agape love.
They could be used as a model for how we should love each other, which
was my justification for using them in my wedding invitation, but they are
about God’s unending, unwavering, nonjudgmental love for us, his terribly
flawed children, and viewing them as Agape gives them even more strength. Especially I think the one about not keeping
score.
We do this a lot. We take a piece of scripture out of context
or with liberal interpretation and we pervert the original meaning until it
says what we want it to say. Some verses
do stand on their own, but others need to be in context, or they can only be
properly understood when you know who they were spoken to or what the
circumstances were that Paul was addressing in that particular letter.
This is generally more scholarship than most
people have time for.
I myself have said “Judge not” when someone is
being catty about someone else. But the real
warning of the Judge Not verse is that God will use the same yard stick that we
use to judge others by when He judges us.
I watched a news program the other night which
featured a reporter spending a week end with the Westboro Baptists. He questioned one of their signs which said “Fags
are Beasts” and used 2nd Peter 2:12 as the basis for that
scripture. The reporter said I don’t
think that’s right, and the kid holding the sign, who seemed a little unsure to
me, said it was “an interpretation”.
That could cover basically anything. If I say 2nd Peter 2:12 says that
Apples are Oranges, I could justify that by saying it’s an interpretation, when
what I really mean is it’s a mis-interpretation.
For my thinking, if you have to go more than two
steps past the original meaning you’ve over interpreted the verse.
But be that as it may, let us look at 2nd
Peter 2:12. I wasn’t familiar with it,
so I looked it up. On my phone. I just love having a Bible in my pocket.
Second Peter, Second Chapter is about “False
Teachers and Their Destruction”.
This is the NIV version: But these people blaspheme in matters they do
not understand. They are like
unreasoning animals, creatures of instinct, born only to be caught and destroyed,
and like animals they too will perish.
Verse 10 says These People are those “who follow
the corrupt desire of the flesh and despise authority”. So maybe you could say that These People are
Homosexuals. Maybe.
But to get from Verse 10 to Verse 12, you have
to read Verse 11: yet even angels, although
they are stronger and more powerful, do not heap abuse on such beings when
bringing judgment on them from the Lord.
Interpret that how you will.
It is easier of course to just refute everything
the Westboro Baptists preach with one simple verse.
God is Love.
1 John 4:8
