Since the very beginning of church history, there have been differences in how we interpret scripture that have led to various debates and divisions among followers of Christ.  Intelligent men and women have had honest differences over the years when it comes to how they interpret scripture.  It is inevitable that human beings won’t always see eye-to-eye on these matters. The question is: What do we do about it?  Can we find room for compromise with those whom we disagree?  Can we find common ground for the common good?  History would suggest the answer is a resounding: Sometimes!

I have recently read a book called Getting to Know the Church Fathers by Bryan M. Litfin that describes some of the history of the Early Church.  The book includes interesting details about theological debates that took place during the first 500 years of church history.  One of these debates came about in the 5th century AD and centered around the nature, character, and actions of Jesus Christ—theologians call this Christology. Today we take for granted the idea that Jesus is one being who is fully human and fully divine, in the 5th century, that idea was far from universally accepted.

By the 5th century AD, the idea that God existed as Trinity—God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit—was becoming the widely accepted as the correct—orthodox—way of thinking about God. So now the debate shifted to: if we accept that this Jesus really is God, then what is his exact nature?  Was Christ really human?  If so, how could he be equivalent to God?  Was Christ really divine? If so, how could he be born to Mary? In short: how could Jesus be both God and man at the same time?

As this debate raged, there were two main schools of thought that came into conflict, one based in Alexandria and one based in Antioch.  An important difference between the two schools was the way they interpreted scripture. 

On one side of the argument were the Alexandrians.  Alexandria was one of the more prominent cities in the Roman Empire and heavily immersed in Greco–Roman culture.  The teachings of Plato had a strong influence on how Alexandrian scholars viewed the world around them. In Plato’s view, the material world and the spiritual world existed as two separate entities.  The material world was “down here” where we live and the spiritual world was “up there” where the god’s live, and rarely did these two worlds intersect.  Theologians immersed in this worldview (e.g., Origen, Athanasius) prior to becoming followers of Christ naturally adapted it to their interpretation of scripture.  They tended to view scripture as sacred spiritual text set apart from the secular world.  Their main focus was on finding Christ in every passage they studied.  They tended to downplay the specific historic context of the passage in pursuit of deeper, hidden—allegorical—meaning.  So naturally, when the debate over Christology came about, they tended to focus more on divine aspects of Jesus and less on human aspects.

On the other side of the argument were the Antiochenes. Antioch was a prominent center of early Christian culture.  (You may remember that in the book of Acts, the Jewish followers of Christ were firsts called Christians at Antioch—Acts 11:26.)  The Jewish worldview was much different from that of Plato and the Greek philosophers.  God was not “up there” and humanity “down here”; rather, the material world and the spiritual world are seen as intimately intertwined.  Early Christian theologians influenced by this school of thought (e.g., John Chrysostom) viewed scripture quite differently than their Alexandrian contemporaries.  While they certainly still sought higher meaning in Scripture, they confined their search more to the specific historic context of the passage.  The Antiochene worldview saw God actively participating in the everyday events of human history so, the theologians of this school felt less need to extend the search for “deeper” meaning beyond the historic context.  Not surprisingly, when debates over Christology arose, these theologians tended to focus more on human aspects of Christ and less on divine aspects.

Cyril of Alexandria is the man most credited with helping to forge a compromise between these two competing schools of thought and biblical interpretation.  Cyril himself was Alexandrian in his thinking, but he was willing to compromise with his brothers from Antioch to find common ground for the common good.  The result of that compromise was a Christological doctrine that became orthodox theology and still holds today—Jesus is one person who is at the same time fully human and fully divine.

This is but one example from church history where differing interpretations of Scripture have led to disagreements.  We could certainly have discussed others—e.g., Catholicism versus Protestantism, Arminianism versus Calvinism, the list of competing isms could goes on and on right up to the present day …
In a sense, competing interpretations of Scripture, and of the Gospels in particular, have even led to differing views of what the “message of Jesus” really is.  Dallas Willard has eloquently summarized two opposing views as the Gospel on the Right and the Gospel on the Left. 

Willard says the Gospel on the Right interprets the Gospel as being primarily about personal salvation—i.e., going to heaven when I die. There is much less regard for social justice issues; after all, Christians will eventually leave this world for a better place so from that perspective the fate of this world matters less.  They at times resemble the Alexandrian interpretation of Scripture as they tend to downplay the specific historic context in favor of focusing on salvation and the afterlife. 

On the other hand, the Gospel on the Left interprets the message of the Gospel as being almost entirely about social justice and downplays issues of personal salvation and going to heaven. Much emphasis is placed on improving the quality of life for people living on our home planet.  Their here-and-now focus resembles the Antiochene approach to interpreting scripture.

These two interpretations of the “message of Jesus” have often seemed to stand at odds with one another, but authors like Willard, Brian McLaren, Jim Wallis (and many others) offer a different interpretation of scripture.  They suggest that the actual “message of Jesus” (and in fact what all of Scripture points toward) is the past, present, and future reality of God’s kingdom made present and available to everyone here and now in the person of Jesus Christ.

I suppose you could call this message of the Kingdom of God the Gospel in the Middle for it has the potential to bring many seemingly opposing viewpoints together to find common ground for the common good.  It recognizes that the Gospel has both personal and social dimensions. The Jesus we encounter in the Gospels was a person who seemed to strike a good balance between the personal and social.  He knew God intimately but he also actively worked to help others who were in need be they poor, oppressed, sick, otherwise lost. Jesus shows us that contemplation and action are not opposed to each other, but rather vitally dependent on one another. We cannot hope to successfully pursue social justice in our world unless we are firmly rooted in our own personal spiritual lives, and conversely our personal experience of God will lack something until we move beyond ourselves and engage issues of social justice.

How we interpret scripture is meant to be more than an academic exercise bantering about theological terms to impress our friends or refute our opponent’s position.  It should impact the way we live. I believe that was true for the ancient church fathers and I think it should be true for us. What we claim we believe must be made real by what we actually do!  And, in short, what we should be doing are the things that the Gospels tell us that Jesus and his followers did on a regular basis. In the words of Teresa of Avila:

Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
With compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.