Though it can be sometimes overwhelming, I take my job quite seriously. As a pastor, one of the facets of my job is to unfold and apply God’s Word into the lives of His people, no small task indeed. As such, I spend a significant portion of time not only reading the Word, but reading about the Word. Every once in a while, I am reminded of just how important this task is. Sometimes this will come by way of gleaning an unexpected insight. Other times, it will come from recognizing that a well-intentioned brother or sister (or myself) has somehow mishandled the Word.

Thinking over the times when I have personally been shown areas in which I’ve mishandled the Word, quite often it has been a direct result of reading my own presuppositions into the text. I think my errors have more often been reading more into a text than is actually there. We are all prone to this because, try as we might to be objective, we all have years of conditioning that shapes our reading of the text. Years which we must overcome.

I recently encountered an example of someone wanting a text to say more than it really does or at least something different than it actually says. I have been working through some material for our men’s Bible study and I was trying to think of ways beyond poor understanding/applications of submission/headship that well-intentioned Christians have actually muddied the waters of gender issues when I remembered this quote from John Elderedge:

Eve was created within the lush beauty of Eden’s garden. But Adam, if you’ll remember, was created outside the Garden, in the wilderness. In the record of our beginnings, the second chapter of Genesis makes it clear: Man was born in the outback, from the untamed part of creation. Only afterward is he brought into Eden. And ever since then boys have never been at home indoors, and men have had insatiable longing to explore.

As you can imagine, the fact that Adam was born outside of the Garden is used to justify the argument that men are naturally restless, that we need to be outdoors, we are born to be adventure seekers and all kinds of other “manly” arguments. While such notions may do much to sell books, they do little to promote sound exegesis and careful handling of the Word. The first time I read this, I considered this handling of God’s Word and I literally thought to myself oh no! Please tell me I’m not this careless.

The notions presented here bring with them all sorts of exegetical and theological difficulties. Did Adam want to leave the Garden in order to explore, which was itself the initial seat of God’s presence with man and woman? What about the motif of dwelling in a future heavenly city (Revelation 21-22, etc.)? Are men going to want to get outside of those walls? Am I supposed to tell my Christian brothers who don’t like to be outdoors that they are somehow less manly? Can we really frame our conceptions of masculinity based on notions of indoors/outdoors (an idea we’ll explore tomorrow)? Though I’m sure Elderedge meant well, he has clearly read more into the text than is there (It’s not my intention to pick on Elderedge, I am certainly guilty of such things as well, but this case is actually what prompted the thoughts behind this post, therefore, Elderedge gets today’s hot seat).

So what was God’s purpose in creating Adam outside of the Garden and then placing him? Though the text doesn’t provide a clear answer, there seem to be at least a couple of reasons. First, God was reinforcing Adam’s role as vice-regent. Though now is not the time or the place to expound on this, ancient gardners often quite literally held the reputation of kings in their green thumbs. Second, God was underscoring His role as Provider for His people, demonstrating that He alone could provide “paradise” for His people. Though there is more to say and other reasons, this is not my point.

My point, rather, is to remind myself, and possibly you, of the respect with which we must approach the Word. It is no small thing to expound the very words of God (2 Timothy 3:16). When we see how easy it is to mishandle the Word, we begin to feel the weight of Paul’s admonition to Timothy (2 Timothy 2:15): “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.”

Please pray for me because I not only feel the weight of this task but the depth of my own inability. May we all “rightly handle the word of truth.”

• Read Gospel-Centered Hermeneutics: Foundations and Principles of Biblical Interpretation by Graeme Goldsworthy
• Read How to Read the Bible For All Its Worth by Gordon Fee