The Surplus of Meaning
An Excerpt From My Book
Friends,
I’ve been writing a book for the last 2 years. I’m at 85 pages in Microsoft Word and about 28,000 words. It’s a 6 chapter book called “(Re)Thinking Everything” where I explore the topics of …
Hell.
LGBTQ Inclusion.
The Bible.
The Cross.
… and share how my thoughts on these 4 topics have evolved and changed over the years. It’s not a scholarly book and it’s probably not even a “theologically accurate” book. It’ll likely disappoint all of my seminary professors, raise the eyebrows of the theologians who are friends with me on Facebook, and tick off more than one Evangelical, stir the pot, and get my old tribe talking about how terrible I am (the ultimate goal, really).
On the first page is my favorite Dr. Seuss quote from “Fox in Socks” - “Take it slowly, this book is dangerous.”
… Because it is.
It doesn’t really answer any questions, but creates a whole bunch … it will most definitely afflict the comfortable and hopefully provide at least a little bit of comfort to the afflicted.
Anyways, I have 2 more chapters to write before it goes off to be published and tonight I’ve been working through an idea I wanted to share with you.
I’m working on the chapter about the Bible and talking about this idea created by a guy named Paul Ricoeur called “The Surplus of Meaning”. The idea, essentially, is that a text (such as the Bible) doesn’t contain 1 meaning, but several meanings AND those meanings only come to light as different types of people read the text through their own particular …
Lens.
Experiences.
Background.
Problems.
Etc.
In other words, since you and I come from vastly different life experiences, chances are pretty good that if we open up to the same parable of Jesus and study it for an hour, we’ll come away with somewhat different insights.
None of those insights would be wrong.
AND.
None of them would be more correct than the others.
INSTEAD, they would all right because they all stem from our experiences, which (ultimately) define our interpretations.
Anyways, in this part of the book I share an example of what this looks like from the Bible and I wanted to share it with you.
Enjoy, feel free to reply with your thoughts.
✌️
- Glenn || PATREON / BUY ME A COFFEE
In 1 Kings 5:3 King David’s son, Solomon, declares that, “because of the wars waged against my father David from all sides, he could not build a temple for the name of the Lord his God until the Lord put his enemies under his feet.” Similarly, in 1 Chronicles 22:8 God says directly to David, “you have shed too much blood and have fought too many wars. You are not to build a house for my name, because you have shed much blood on the earth in my sight.”
In both of these verses (written by 2 different people) we’re told that King David was not permitted to build the Temple in Israel because of the wars that were waged against him and the blood that he shed.
David was a warlord who led the Nation of Israel to one victory after another and along with those victories came death, murder, genocide – the constant shedding of blood; and God apparently didn’t want someone using their blood covered hands to handle the pieces of the temple that would house his Spirit.
Not too surprising, right?
However, if we flip over to the book of 2 Samuel (7:6) we see the same story of David wanting to build a temple for the Lord and even though God says “NO”, the reason for his “NO” is very different than what we find in 1 Kings and 1 Chronicles.
David approached the prophet Nathan and informed him of his desire to build a Temple for the Lord and Nathan told him to go for it, to do whatever he had in mind and promised that God would be with him.
Later, however, the Lord spoke to Nathan and told him to tell David not to build him a house for he (God) had “not dwelt in a house from the day he brought the Israelites up out of Egypt to this day. He had been moving from place to place with a tent as his dwelling.”
Perhaps God isn’t too excited about the idea of being placed into boxes by humanity? Hm. Maybe (as a side note), I wonder what temples you and I and the church try to build for God in an effort to …
House him.
Box him in.
Force him to conform.
… And I wonder if he’s just as resistant to be tamed all these years later by whatever theological and doctrinal Temples we attempt to construct?
Whatever the case may be, God then goes into a long description of the ways in which he would bless David and instead of David building a house for God, God promised to make David’s name into a great house that would last forever, for generations to come.
And so although God didn’t want David to build a temple, the author of 2 Samuel tells the story in a much different way than we see it being told by the author of 1 Kings and 1 Chronicles.
Right?
I mean, we have THREE different authors.
TWO of them tell the story in ONE way.
BUT.
The THIRD author, though, tells it in a very DIFFERENT, very UNIQUE, and very RADICAL way.
For the Biblical writers, the story of David’s desire to build a temple for the Lord had a surplus of meaning.
Didn’t it?
For the writers of 1 Kings and 1 Chronicles the meaning or lesson was that God didn’t want David’s bloody hands touching his house. Although David had much success as a military general who led his Nation to countless victories, the consequence of that success was that he wouldn’t be the one to head up the massive project of building God’s house.
For the writer of 2 Samuel, however, the fact that David had blood on his hands was a non-issue. Rather, all we find is a promise – a promise that instead of David building a house for God, God would build David himself into a house that would last forever and ever …
“The Lord declares to you that the Lord himself will establish a house for you … your throne will be established forever.”
So, which is it? Did God actually say he didn’t want David to build the Temple because of the blood on his hands? Or did God not really say that and only promise to make David’s name into a great and mighty house of its own?
Which story is the most accurate?
Is one more factual than the other?
Is one right and the other wrong?
OR.
Are both right? Does each contain some sort of truth? Should we take these 2 stories written by 2 different people and merge them into one so that we get a more complete picture?
I used to concern myself over these kinds of questions. I would obsess over the idea that the stories of the Bible were mostly literal and that the intention of each writer was to write down historical fact so that people in every generation after would know beyond a shadow of a doubt …
Exactly what God said.
Exactly what God did.
Exactly how God worked.
BUT.
What if that really wasn’t the intention of the Biblical writers? What if they weren’t as interested in writing down historical records as you and I understand historical records today, but what if they were after something different entirely?
I've been wanting to ask about the book, Glenn. Glad to know it's well under way.