On Overreading a Bible Story

 

On Overreading a Bible Story

I participate in a weekly gathering with a few colleagues via Zoom. I value that group of friends and the brief time we spend together, albeit only virtually. However, I’ve noticed something that my friends, or at least a couple of them, are inclined to do. They love to read things into a Bible story that aren’t in the story. In our most recent meeting, we consider the story in Mark of Jesus calling the first disciples. It’s at Mark 1:14-20. In it, Jesus appears on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. He calls his first four disciples, all of whom are fishermen. In the story all four of them immediately drop what they’re doing and follow Jesus. In our discussion, my friends read various things into this little story that the story doesn’t say. They said these disciples probably didn’t completely abandon their trade as fishermen but returned to it from time to time. There is a story or two in the gospels that suggest that might have happened, but the story in Mark doesn’t say that. They talked about how these disciples, especially Peter, who, according to a different story had a mother-in-law, having to balance a commitment to family with a commitment to Jesus. Many of us have to do that balancing, but the story in Mark doesn’t say anything about these disciples doing any such thing. So often in our discussions, I find myself saying, “But the story doesn’t say that.”

Yes. Of course. It’s possible to read all kinds of things into Bible stories that the stories don’t say. None of the Bible stories is a novella that can address all of the questions a story might raise for us. Bible stories, and especially Jesus’ parables, are short. They’re mostly terse. They give us what the storyteller thought was important in making the point he wanted the story to make. The Parable of the Good Samaritan is a good example. In that parable, a son of a father who appears to be quite wealthy takes his inheritance in advance and goes off to a far country. They story tells us that he squandered his money there, but it doesn’t give us any more detail about what he did to squander it. I’ve heard people say he spent his money on prostitutes. Well, perhaps some men in his situation would do that, but the story doesn’t say that this character in the parable did it. We can make up any story we want about what this son did while he was away, but no matter what we come up with, the story doesn’t say that. Frankly, making up details of a story that the Bible doesn’t give us about the story may be a fun mind game, but that’s all it is. I really don’t see much point in it. It is overreading the story.

So what are we to do with Bible stories? First of all, we work with what the story gives us not what the story doesn’t give us. We look for the issues the story raises for us not for issues the story doesn’t raise for us. The story of Jesus’ call of the first disciples raises at least two important issues for us. One is the question of decision making. In the story, the disciples decide immediately upon meeting Jesus to leave their current lives behind and follow Jesus. It seems a strange thing for them to do so precipitously to most of us; but in the story, that’s what they do. The story leads us to ask: How do we make decisions? What factors do we consider? How much time do we take to make certain kinds of decisions? Those are important questions for all of us, and it is legitimate to use this little story from Mark to raise them.

This story raises another important question as well. In it, the four men whom Jesus calls to follow him immediately follow him. The story suggests that that means they got up and walked away with him, something we can’t do, not physically at least. Yet the story raises this important question: What does it mean to follow Jesus? Over the course of the gospels we learn, more or less, what it meant to Jesus’ disciples; but their experience can’t be our experience, not literally at least. So what does it mean to follow Jesus in our context? That is a vital question for every Christian, and it is legitimate to use this story from Mark to raise it. Yet it is not legitimate for us to read our answer to the question back into the story. That’s overreading the story.

Working with what is actually in a Bible story is often challenging enough. It doesn’t help us understand the story to read things into it that aren’t there. Bible stories often, perhaps mostly, raise questions for us rather than answer them. It is perfectly appropriate, needful even, for us to consider the questions a Bible story raises in and for our own context. That, however, is a very different thing from reading things into the story that aren’t in the story. We don’t know what the Prodigal Son did with his money. We don’t know why the beaten man in the Parable of the Good Samaritan was going to Jericho. Every Bible story raises questions about what isn’t in the story. Our call is to spend our time working with what is in the story. This contention of mine has led one of my colleagues to say I’m a literalist. I am nothing of the sort. I just want to use the text as the text actually is not as how we might wish it were. So let’s not overread Bible stories. They are plenty important and often plenty puzzling in their own right without us adding things to them that aren’t there.