On Saturday night America lost the greatest defender in a generation of the original meaning of the constitution in Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Those will be huge shoes to fill.
I also will miss his razor sharp whit and creative ability to turn a phrase along with the way he would go after whoever was arguing before the court to defend a point rationally. Every time an opinion was delivered from the Supreme Court, I always wanted to see what Scalia had written because I knew his opinions would be rooted in the text of the constitution (i.e., textualism or originalism) instead of the prevailing cultural winds of our day (sometimes refereed to the “living and breathing document approach”).
That is a lesson that Christians and non-Christian alike need to learn when it comes to the Bible. The approach of Justice Antonin Scalia to the constitution is the same one we need for interpreting the Bible.
[Tweet “”Interpretation is one but application is many. We confuse this distinction at our own peril.””]
The meaning of a text does not change in every generation. It’s application can change given a new situation, but what the author intended to communicate–the unchanging principle–in the text does not.
Interpretation is one but application is many. We confuse this distinction at our own peril.
In their helpful book Journey into God’s Word, J. Scott Duvall and J. Daniel Hays remind us:
“our goal is to grasp the meaning of the text God has intended. We do not create meaning out of a text; rather, we seek to find the meaning that is already there.”
This is an important point I explore in my book Questioning the Bible. It boils down to a very significant question we all must answer when approaching the Bible—whose voice do I most want (and need) to hear? God’s or my own? If God really has spoken, then it is of the utmost importance that we try to discover what he has said because it is his voice that is authoritative and the source of life.
[Tweet “”Courageous, tough minded faith is needed now more than ever.””]
Antonin Scalia took his Christian faith seriously. Courageous, tough minded faith is needed now more than ever. I will leave you with the words this intellectual giant spoke in 2012:
“God assumed from the beginning that the wise of the world would view Christians as fools … and he has not been disappointed. … If I have brought any message today, it is this: Have the courage to have your wisdom regarded as stupidity. Be fools for Christ. And have the courage to suffer the contempt of the sophisticated world.”
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Article: How to Respond to the “That’s Just Your Interpretation” Objection
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