How Not To Interpret The Bible

Bible study is an important thing to do. In fact it is so important that we need to take great care in how we study it other wise we may come to the wrong conclusions. One danger we need to avoid is wooden literalism, that is putting the letter of what is written above the spirit of what is written. Now for my story.

Last week I was in La Paz along with James to take care of some things that needed done. Every year we have to submit a report to the government about our activities, finances and so on as a religious institution. Well, the government did not like our report from last year so they sent us a love letter telling us what we did wrong. Ok. We responded with a letter, repented of our many failings and thought we had everything taken care of. But when we arrived in La Paz we discovered that the government had sent us another letter. Apparently they did not like my first letter. Specifically they did not like the fact that last year only two people (James and Jenny) were holding all four offices that our by-laws require. There must be four people holding four offices. Now the problem was that in 2008, James and Jenny were the only career missionaries on the field after Niki and I had gone on furlough. Our by-laws also specify that field officers must be accredited by the mission in the States and they tell us that only career missionaries are able to hold offices (which makes sense, to me). I had written and explained our situation that there had been only TWO people in the country and so they had to hold all four offices but that this year we had taken care of that situation since we were also in the county. So, we had our secretary write another letter explaining all that again. But we also decided that it would be a good thing for James and me to go and talk to the lady in charge. Which we did. In fact, it was the lady who wrote the letter who listened to my explanation. There were only TWO in the country and so it was physically impossible for FOUR different people to hold the offices. But that still did not satisfy her. Our by-laws say FOUR officers and FOUR there must be. Well she finally did acknowledge that we could not go back to 2008. I asked her what we should do in the future if we have a similar situation. Plan ahead, was the reply. (Of course. Why didn't I think of that?)

I'll leave it to you to figure out the moral.