Filtering the Text: When Tradition Overwrites Scripture
Filtering biblical text through modern Christian tradition that arose centuries after the New Testament era cannot honestly be considered when interpreting the passages in context. This teaching examines how that filtering happens and what it costs.
There is a distinction that lies at the foundation of all honest biblical interpretation: the distinction between what the text says and what the tradition says the text says. These are not always the same thing. When they diverge, honest interpretation requires following the text. Most people never follow the divergence far enough to discover how wide it actually is.
Biblical theology, by definition, comes from the biblical text, not from Christian history or the writings of Christians about the Bible. That sounds obvious. In practice it is one of the most difficult commitments a Bible teacher can maintain, because the tradition is everywhere and the pressure to conform to it is constant.
How Tradition Enters the Interpretation
Tradition enters biblical interpretation through several mechanisms. The most common is the commentary tradition: when a pastor studies a passage, he reads what respected scholars and commentators have said about it. If the commentators largely agree, the pastor tends to adopt their conclusion. If the conclusion has been repeated long enough, it begins to feel like an obvious reading of the text rather than one interpretation among several.
A second mechanism is the confessional tradition. Most denominations have confessions of faith that establish official positions on major doctrinal questions. When a passage touches one of those questions, the denominational position tends to function as the default reading. The pastor who preaches a different conclusion from the text than the one in his denomination's confession faces institutional pressure, regardless of the exegetical quality of his work.
A third mechanism is cultural familiarity. The way people have always understood a passage has a weight that pure exegesis cannot easily displace. When a reading has been embedded in hymnody, liturgy, devotional literature, and common Christian speech for generations, it feels like the plain meaning of the text even when careful examination reveals it to be a later overlay.
Where the Filter Distorts Most Severely
The filter distorts most severely precisely where the stakes are highest: the passages about divorce, remarriage, headship, submission, the nature of adultery, and the permanence of covenant. These are the passages where the traditional readings are most at variance with the grammatical-historical meaning of the text, and where the pressure to maintain the traditional reading is most intense, because the alternative conclusions are difficult for a large portion of the church's constituency to accept.
On divorce and remarriage: the traditional reading in most modern evangelical churches allows for divorce and remarriage under a range of circumstances. The grammatical-historical reading of Matthew 19, Mark 10, Luke 16, Romans 7, and 1 Corinthians 7 does not support that range. The traditional reading is a product of centuries of pastoral accommodation, not of careful engagement with what Jesus and Paul actually wrote.
On headship and submission: the traditional reading in most egalitarian churches treats Ephesians 5 as a mutual submission text that applies equally to husband and wife. The grammatical-historical reading of the passage does not support that conclusion. The wife is told to submit to her husband. The husband is told to love his wife sacrificially. Those are not the same instruction, and treating them as interchangeable requires importing an assumption the text does not contain.
The Standard That Governs This Platform
The standard this platform applies to every conclusion is the same: it must come from the biblical text, read in its ancient context, with its original vocabulary. It cannot come from what the tradition prefers the text to say. It cannot come from what the commentator found comfortable to conclude. It must come from what is written.
That standard will produce conclusions that diverge from tradition on several important questions. That divergence is not the goal. The goal is accuracy. When accuracy and tradition agree, no problem arises. When they diverge, this platform follows the text. Every time.
Glenn Braunstein is an independent Bible scholar with more than fifty years of study in the biblical text. Read more about Glenn.