3 Tips for Bible Study in a Post-truth World

Krisan Marotta: Good morning, this is Krisan Marotta, and you're listening to the Wednesday and the Word podcast. This is the podcast where we seek not only to understand what a passage of scripture means, but model how we figure that out. Today our topic is three tips for Bible study in a post-truth world. This is part of the series Bible Study 101, and you can find lecture notes for today's talk on the website at wednesdayintheword.com slash BS101-post-truth. The TED Talk, What to Trust in a Post Truth World by Alex Edmonds, got me thinking about Bible study in a post-truth world, and I'll put a link to that talk in the lecture notes. The Oxford Dictionary defines post truth as quote relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief. Now we might call it a fake news world. But it got me thinking, do we live in a post-truth Bible study world? Increasingly, sermons are heavy with stories and emotional appeals and light on critical explanations of the author's intent. Sermons today tend to read a passage and then jump immediately to application. Now, it's not necessarily that the application's wrong. The speaker may or may not have done great Bible study to reach those theories and to reach those stories and appeals. But increasingly speakers just don't model or show that work in their presentation. And when they jump immediately to application, it leaves listeners with little room for discernment. You really have to work to figure out how did they get there? What are they thinking? And therefore, is their application, are their stories right? Well, Bible study still involves asking a lot of hard questions, and I, for one, would like to see more of those questions discussed on Sunday mornings. Among several interesting points in the TED Talk that Edmonds make, he says, quote, due to confirmation bias, we never consider the rival theories because we're so protective of our own pet theory. I find that scripture echoes that idea. Scripture talks about belief being a matter of the will, that ultimately we believe what we want to believe. The first step towards saving faith is a willingness to believe the gospel might be true, and that principle also applies to Bible study. We have to be willing to believe that a different interpretation might be the best one. As good Bible students, we have to learn to ask questions of the text with the underlying assumption that our preferred answer might be the wrong one. So the questions are things like why would the author pick that word? Why not pick a different word? How does this idea relate to the previous idea? How does this phrase modify what he just said? Why would he make that point in this context? And so on. So we have to learn to approach the text with the purpose of looking for rival theories or interpretations. Rather than just seeking to confirm our own bias, to confirm what we already believe, we have to learn to ask questions even if we think we already know the answers. And then we learn to approach those answers with the humility to accept that it might be our answer, our favorite answer that's wrong. Edmonds also said, that's the second example of confirmation bias. We accept a fact as data. The biggest problem is not that we live in a post-truth world, it's that we live in a post-data world. We prefer a single story to tons of data. Now, stories are powerful, they're vivid, they bring it to life, but a single story is meaningless and misleading unless it's backed up by large-scale data. But even if we had large-scale data, that might still not be enough. It's the end of the quote. Again, like Bible study, it's not enough to support our chosen interpretation. We have to rule out the other possibilities. Edmonds explains with a study by a psychologist where the psychologist gave a set of three numbers to subjects and then asked them to figure out the rule that generated the numbers. And this really resonated for me because this is the process of Bible study. If the numbers are two, four, and six, then most of us would guess the rule is successive even numbers. So we might begin to test that theory and we'd propose four, six, eight. And if we learned, oh, four, six, eight also fits the rule, then we could get excited and keep testing with things like eight, ten, twelve, twenty, twenty-two, twenty-four. But if those are the only kinds of tests you do, you have only confirmed your theory, you have not proved it. As Edmonds explains, a better test would be four, twelve, twenty-six. Because it if that set fits the rule, if we learn yes, four, twelve, twenty-six also works, then we have eliminated the idea that the numbers have to be successive. And if four thirteen twenty-six fits the rule, then we've eliminated the idea that the numbers have to be even. Maybe they only need to increase. And that kind of testing is essential to Bible study. As good Bible students, we have to learn to test our interpretations with those kinds of hard questions, the questions that might eliminate them. So we ask questions, our purpose is to learn the rule of the author's original intent, we ask questions that challenge our interpretation, and then we have to revise them accordingly. So the goal is not just to confirm our pet interpretation, the goal is to prove it by eliminating the rival interpretations. But that kind of testing requires the humility to discover that it might be my theory that's the wrong one, which is something our confirmation bias finds uncomfortable. As Edman concludes, quote, indeed Thomas Edison famously said, I have not failed. I have found 10,000 ways that won't work. Finding out that you're wrong is the only way to find out what's right. So what have we learned? A story is not fact because it may not be true. A fact is not data, it might not be representative if it's only one data point, and data is not evidence. It may not be supportive if it's consistent with rival theories. Edmonds then concludes with three tips for living in a post-truth world. I'd like to offer three tips for Bible study in a post-truth world. Number one, approach every text with the assumption that you could be wrong. Attitude matters. A healthy dose of humility and the willingness to be wrong can go a long way toward being right. Two, when you get to the point where you're ready to consult commentaries, always check more than one. And I would recommend that you include both a classic work and a contemporary work, and that at least one commentary you you pick is one you are likely to disagree with. I have a couple of scholars that I routinely read their work, even though I know I'm going to disagree with them, because they challenge me to say, huh, have I proved that? I made that assumption, is that right? So the wider the viewpoint net you cast, the more likely you are to learn. And then third, hold both of these goals to learn what you believe and why, and to understand the other side well enough to know why it doesn't persuade you. So you want to learn not only what you believe and why you believe it, but you want to learn what the other options are and know why they fail to persuade you. Thank you for listening to Wednesday in the Word. This is the podcast that seeks to explain not only what a passage means, but shows you how to figure that out. If you've been blessed by this podcast, I would love to hear from you. You can email me through the website and I'd love to know what you've learned. Thanks to everyone who's rated and reviewed us on Apple Podcasts and other podcast platforms. It really is a practical way to raise the visibility of this podcast and help people find it. And of course, if you tell a friend, that is the most effective way to spread the word. So please tell a friend. Our theme music is graciously provided by Reggie Coates, my friend and favorite musician, and I encourage you to go listen to more of his music on heartfeltmusic.org. Thanks for listening today. I'm Krisan Marotta, and I hope you'll join me next week for Wednesday in the Word.