BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION (1) Beyond What Is Written

How can the average Joe pick up a Bible, read it, and understand it? I ask this question in view of the many books that have been written about how to interpret the Bible. Many times, it appears to me, that men devise “rules of interpretation” to support conclusions they have already reached.

So we have principles such as “Command, Example, and Necessary Inference” (or CENI). To these we add the Law of Silence, the Law of Expediency, plus Generic and Specific Commands. Each of these principles and laws have exceptions and few (if any) apply them consistently.

In this post, I would like to examine one verse, which many use to provide Biblical support for what we call “The Law of Silence.” This is a principle, popularized by John Calvin as “The Regulatory Principle,” that says that when the Bible is silent about a thing, it excludes it. The verse is 1 Corinthians 4:6.

Now, brothers, I have applied these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, so that you may learn from us the meaning of the saying, “Do not go beyond what is written.” Then you will not take pride in one man over against another. [NIV]

And these things, brethren, I have in a figure transferred to myself and to Apollos for your sakes; that ye might learn in us not to think of men above that which is written, that no one of you be puffed up for one against another. [KJV]

I have applied all these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, brothers, that you may learn by us not to go beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another. [ESV]

The saying in the NIV & ESV, “Do not go beyond what is written,” or “not to go beyond what is written” is the focal point of this verse as support for the Law of Silence. Is Paul, in this verse, giving support to that Law?

I do not believe it is, for the following reasons.

First Reason: What the Rest of the Verse Says

In the verse itself, the Paul said the reason is that we not think of men higher than we ought to think. He does not want us to follow men or to exalt one man over another. He said he used himself and Apollos as examples so we can learn this lesson.

How can we learn this lesson from Paul and Apollos? To answer this question, we must look beyond this single verse to the context.

The context of the book, to this point, has been the importance of the unity of the body of Christ. Corinth was a church divided by quarrels because some were saying, “I follow Paul;” others said, “I follow Apollos;” still others said, “I follow Cephas;” some even said, apparently in a sectarian way, “I follow Christ” (see 1:11f).

Now when Paul said “I have applied these things to myself and Apollos,” he may be letting us know that the actual names have been changed in 1:12 to protect the people within the congregation whom others had actually chosen to follow. Paul, Apollos, and Peter were well-known people within the church. Peter was the Pentecost spokesman and one of the original apostles. Paul was the apostle who had established the church in Corinth. Apollos was an eloquent man mighty in the Scriptures who had worked with the church in Corinth. All of these men were united in their service to God in Christ.

In 1:13, Paul asked,”Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized into the name of Paul?” By this he meant to shame them into realizing that our salvation is not in men, but in Christ.

I remember in the late 1950′s the controversy over cooperative efforts between churches was in full swing, a controversy that led ultimately to a division between churches willing to cooperate and those who thought that congregational autonomy forbids joint-efforts. I was a student at Harding, and the leading magazines supporting each of those views provided copies of their weekly publications for students. I heard one student say something to this effect: “If Roy Cogdell is wrong, I will still follow him.” Even then, as a student, I thought that was a very foolish thing to say. Today, anything like that appalls me. It makes our salvation depend on a man, not on Christ.

Paul did not want the Corinthians to depend on him or Apollos. He wanted them to depend on Jesus, and none other. Later he would tell them, “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1). Paul was not the standard; Jesus is.

Second Reason: Paul Had “Written” How We Are to Regard Men

Did Paul mean “What is written” to refer to all of the Scripture – or to what he himself had just written? It could be either.

He had written several things, naming himself and Apollos.

For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not mere men? What after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe – as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The man who plants and the man who wters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building. – 1 Corinthians 3:4-9

So then, no more boasting about men! All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future – all are yours, and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God. So then, men ought to regard us as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the secret things of God. - 1 Corinthians 3:21 – 4:1

This, of course, is in addition to 1 Corinthians 1:12, already referenced above.

Paul had also cited several passages of Scripture, two of them with the often used formula, “as it is written.” This formula frequently introduces quotations from the Scripture. Even Jesus used it, perhaps most notably in His temptations by the Devil (See Matthew 4:1-11).

For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.” - 1 Corinthians 1:19

However, as it is written: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” – but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit. 1 Corinthians 2:9-10

The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man’s judgment:

“For who as known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?”

But we have the mind of Christ. – 1 Corinthians 2:15-16

These quotations from Isaiah 29:14; 64:4; and 40:13 respectively declare that man’s wisdom is not sufficient. Even wise, intelligent men are not capable of inventing what God prepares for those who love Him, nor does any man know the mind of God – except those to whom God reveals it.

Third Reason: The Secret Things Belong to God

Deuteronomy 29:29 contains a principle we need to heed. “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.”

God says what He says. Where He is silent, He has not spoken. Neither should we. If God does not speak about a matter, He has not said whether He approves it or disapproves it. At one time many said, “If God had meant Man to fly, He would have given him wings.” God said nothing about men flying. Did that mean He disapproved it? To affirm that it does would also mean that He disapproves of many things we do in worship, which we take for granted, but which God has not specifically addressed as approved or disapproved.

When God speaks to command one thing specifically, He does not allow substitution. However, when He makes no command, one way or the other, He is silent – and we do not need to fill His silence with our inferences.

What Thomas Campbell wrote in his Declaration and Address says it well:

That with respect to the commands and ordinances of our Lord Jesus Christ, where the Scriptures are silent, as to the express time or manner of performance, if any such there be; no human authority has power to interfere, in order to supply the supposed deficiency, by making laws for the church; nor can anything more be required of christians in such cases, but only that they so observe these commands and ordinances, as will evidently answer the declared and obvious end of their institution. Much less has any human authority to impose new commands or ordinances upon the church, which our Lord Jesus Christ has not enjoined. Nothing ought to be received into the faith or worship of the church; or be made a term of communion among Christians, that is not as old as the New Testament. – Thomas Campbell, Declaration and Address, 1st edition, 1809, pp. 16-17. [Emphasis added; italics original. - JS]

What is he saying? Do not go beyond what is written to require what God has not required or to prohibit what God has not prohibited. Have fellowship with all who “so observe these commands and ordinances as will evidently answer the declared and obvious end” of the Lord’s giving those commands and ordinances.

Does this respect the silence of the Scripture? I think it does. Does it use the silence of the Scripture as an opening to forbid things about which God is truly silent? I do not think it does. In fact, Campbell explicitly denied humans authority to make such additional requirements beyond what is said.

When God has spoken, accept what He has said without additional requirements as to when or how we are to do what He said do. If God has not spoken about a matter, we need to be silent and not pontificate about what God has not said.

Instead of worrying about what God meant by His silences, we need to focus on what He has said and do it. He has said so much about positive things we are to do, we need to be busy about teaching and doing those things. If we were to do that, we would avoid many foolish controversies, arguments, and quarrels (see Titus 3:9-11).

NEXT (2): Doctrine of Christ