Big Questions: What Is the Impact of My Interpretation on Others?

For the past week this exploration of the Big Questions that can make our Scripture reading more meaningful has been focusing on ensuring we leave our reading changed. So far we’ve framed that goal in terms of personal growth and development, and expanding in awareness, empathy, and love. Today we’ll tie these two themes together and return to a common theme on the blog, and look at the quality of the fruit our interpretation bears in the world. Today’s question is: What is the impact of my reading on the world around me?

This is an important not just because the need to bear ‘good fruit’ is a core teaching of the New Testament, but also because it requires us to move beyond our personal virtue and good intentions and evaluate our interpretations of the Bible, our theology as a whole, and the ways we live them out against their real impact in the world. For a long time Western philosophy — and Christian philosophy with it — has been focused primarily on virtue ethics; that is it’s understood ethics in terms of developing good qualities, and avoiding bad ones, in ourselves. We don’t want to get rid of that legacy: We are called to cultivate a virtuous life and good intentions do matter. But, at the same time, we, especially as Christians, are overdue in adding a dose of consequentialism into the mix. Consequentialism says that when it comes to morality and ethics, results matter. Or, to put it in New Testament terms, “a tree known by its fruit” (Matthew 12:33).

I’ve written so much on this theme over the years, I’m not going to repeat myself (in addition to the links above, see here, here, and here for more).

Now, like we did for the last two posts, let’s look at a few examples of how this question has worked in some of the studies I’ve done here over the years.

In the post last summer about Genesis 1.26-31’s proclamation that humanity is to have ‘dominion over the earth’, this question constrained any reading that might continue to promote the devastating impacts of human activities on the environment. It led us to conclude:

In this post, we’ve looked at some of the different ways biblical scholars have interpreted the human vocations to ‘subdue’ the earth and have ‘dominion’ over the animals. We’ve seen that, while these images do carry an adversarial connotation, this does not in turn justify an exploitative or abusive approach to our fellow creatures. Even if we are to rule over the Earth, we do so as regents or representatives of the true king, its Creator, and biblical ideals of kingship were always heavily constrained and oriented towards the just thriving of everyone and everything in the kingdom.

The very real challenge of the ecological crisis heightens that sense of responsibility towards other living creatures implied in these images, rather than the ‘power over them’ that has tended to guide historical interpretations in the West.

In the study of Hebrews 10’s extended metaphor of Christ as the high priest, which reminded us that the New Testament uses this analogy while also seriously critiquing the ideas of purity and sacrifice, the framing of this question concluded: “This reading promotes good fruit by reminding us that true religion does not rely on ritual, but is lived out in the form of transformed lives, relationships, and communities.”

And, in the study of Romans 1.18-31, it insisted that the very real and very serious bad fruit the rejection and vilification of homosexuality has had on queer people should give anyone real and genuine pause when interpreting and applying the text. I concluded there that my interpretation, which sees this passage as Paul harnessing a common anti-Gentile trope to further his general argument that Gentiles and Jews are all in the same boat before God:

can bear much better fruit in the lives of queer Christians than a strict, quixotic prohibition. As it happens, this also makes the passage newly relevant to straight Christians, since the questions of control and excess in sexuality that Paul asks here are just as applicable to them.

I am convinced that, not only is this an important question for us to ask ourselves when reading the Bible, it may even be the most important. The Gospel does not know enemies. The Gospel does not have victims. It is for the life and thriving of the whole world. If we come away from a text with an interpretation or application that points fingers, scapegoats, vilifies, or promotes violence against anyone, then it is a false reading.

A tree will be known by its fruit. And we will be too.