One of the highlights of my job as a college and seminary president is regularly interacting with aspiring pastors at our weekly lunch-hour Table Talk.

The discussion invariably turns to matters of practical ministry in the local church. Questions about liturgy and the administration of baptism and the Lord’s Table, about the practical outworkings of our complementarian convictions, about requirements for church membership. Often, the question comes, “But is it biblical? Is it sinful to do things this way versus that way?”

Often, my answer comes back with, “This question belongs in the Prudence Bucket.”

Prudence Bucket

The Prudence Bucket is my way of referring to the reality that many aspects of local church ministry and life are matters of biblically informed prudence. In the words of both the Westminster Confession of Faith and the London Baptist Confession, “There are some circumstances concerning the worship of God, and government of the church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the Word, which are always to be observed” (1.6).

The category of prudence or wisdom is built on the distinction between principles and application. On the one hand, we have general principles, derived from general or special revelation. On the other hand, we have the application of those principles in particular, concrete settings.

Solomonic Wisdom

A classic biblical example of wisdom is Solomon. There was no verse in Leviticus that told him what to do when two prostitutes show up, both claiming to be the mother of one child. Yet by the grace of God, Solomon was able to wisely apply general principles of reality (for example, knowledge of motherly affection and grief) in a very difficult situation to reveal the identity of the mother. Wisdom consisted in rightly bringing the general principle to bear on that particular circumstance.

The book of Proverbs is filled with such general principles. What’s more, the book itself recognizes the need to apply the principles in different settings. The most obvious example is Proverbs 26:4–5:

Answer not a fool according to his folly,     lest you be like him yourself.Answer a fool according to his folly,     lest he be wise in his own eyes.

This juxtaposition assumes that there are times when we should follow the first, and times when we should follow the second. These are general principles that must be wisely applied in particular circumstances. Over the last two decades, I’ve come to appreciate the need for clarity on which issues are simple matters of obedience and disobedience, and which issues belong in the Prudence Bucket.

Anything Goes?

The Prudence Bucket allows us to distinguish decisions and practices that are directly unfaithful or disobedient from decisions and practices that are simply unwise and imprudent. This is important. Some people wrongly assume that putting a decision in the Prudence Bucket means “Anything goes.” But wisdom involves a spectrum or range of options. Applying the principle may take many forms.

Some decisions are outside the spectrum; that is, they violate the general principle itself. In that case, the decision is directly disobedient. But within the spectrum, faithful Christians may arrive at different conclusions. In such cases, we frequently share the same principles, but evaluate the circumstances differently. This leads us to make different concrete applications.

But even here, there is still room for criticism. We may still evaluate decisions inside the prudence spectrum as more or less wise, even while acknowledging that faithful Christians can disagree on such matters. But with this distinction in place, our criticism can be rightly calibrated to the issue in view.

From Simple to Foolish

Even more, thinking in the category of prudence allows us to see how someone moves from being unwise to being unfaithful. In the book of Proverbs, wisdom is the opposite not only of folly, but of simplicity. That is, the wise man is contrasted with both the foolish and the simple. What’s the difference?

The simple man is immature, inexperienced, and naive. He lacks wisdom, not because of willful choice, but because he’s not yet learned wisdom by experience or heeded the counsel of the wise. The book of Proverbs is written with him in view, so that he can grow up into maturity by walking with the wise.

The fool, on the other hand, is not merely naive; he is morally compromised. His folly is willful. Not only has he failed to heed the counsel of the wise; he refuses to listen to his own experience. He persists in his folly, even as he begins to reap the bitter fruit of his decisions.

Thus, we can see that wisdom and folly are not merely a spectrum, but also a trajectory. The simple man who ignores the counsel of the wise and doubles down on his folly becomes the fool destined for destruction. What begins as naivete becomes moral failure as we refuse to grow in wisdom.

Picking Your Problems

Frequently, prudence is a matter of picking your problem. In a finite and fallen world, we will always be faced with trade-offs and difficulties. As church leaders, called to lead together in a particular locale, many of our decisions involve selecting which problems we hope to address and which problems we hope to manage over the long term.

For instance, the decision to move to multiple worship services may enable greater growth. Two services allow more people to attend and potentially join the church. On the other hand, having multiple services also increases complexity, puts strain on pastoral resources, and poses challenges for community. Navigating the potential benefits and costs (both in the short term and the long term) is what prudence does.

The same might be said about the question of multicampus churches. Multicampus churches can essentially be a slow-motion church-planting strategy. They allow for stability during an extended launch period for a new church. On the other hand, they might create bureaucratic and administrative bloat as well as limit the possibility of genuine elder oversight of a particular congregation.

Or consider elements of a church’s liturgy. How frequently should we practice communion? When should it occur during the service? What method should be employed (passing of the elements vs. intinction)? Who should distribute the elements? At our church, we share the Lord’s Table after the sermon every week, and the pastors distribute the elements to the congregation separately. In doing so, we are attempting to apply a number of key principles that we hold: we want to magnify the importance of the Lord’s Supper as a means of grace, and thus we share it weekly. We place it after the sermon so that every sermon ends with the comfort of the gospel offered to God’s people. We distribute the elements separately because Jesus distinguished between the bread and the wine. And the pastors pass out the elements to communicate the role of the shepherd in feeding the flock (through the preached word and the edible word).

Principled Prudence

In all of these areas, we are seeking to wisely bring general principles to bear in concrete circumstances. While we know that there are other ways to apply such principles, we believe that ours is a good and fitting way, and our elders would commend such practices to others. We might even believe that certain other applications of similar principles would be naive or foolhardy. Nevertheless, because we keep such matters in the Prudence Bucket, we’re able to commend without insisting that ours is the only way, and to criticize without becoming quarrelsome.

What’s more, we’re able to reason together as a plurality of elders in order to wisely shepherd the flock of God that is among us, for their joy and for the glory of God.

As Christians face the fragmenting of some churches, denominations, and movements, many have turned to the concept of “theological triage” to help navigate the turbulent waters of doctrinal disagreement.

In a recent article, Scott Hubbard ably distills theological triage, drawing the basic category from Al Mohler and then using Gavin Ortlund’s book to distinguish four ranks or tiers of doctrinal difference:

First-rank doctrines are essential to the gospel itself.
Second-rank doctrines are urgent for the health and practice of the church such that they frequently cause Christians to separate at the level of local church, denomination, and/or ministry.
Third-rank doctrines are important to Christian theology but not enough to justify separation or division among Christians.
Fourth-rank doctrines are unimportant to our gospel witness and ministry collaboration. (Finding the Right Hills to Die On, 19)

Finally, Hubbard draws on Rhyne Putnam for three tests to aid in our discernment process:

The hermeneutical test: the clearer the Bible teaches a doctrine, the more likely it belongs on a higher tier.
The gospel test: the more central a doctrine is to the gospel, the more likely it belongs on a higher tier.
The praxis test: the more a doctrine affects the practice of a church, the more likely it belongs on a higher tier.

This basic framework is helpful. Still, it frequently leaves us with a puzzle concerning the second-tier issues. In most contemporary uses of theological triage, differences over baptism and differences over manhood and womanhood are both regarded as second-tier issues. In actual practice, however, there seems to be a substantive difference between these two issues. Organizations and conferences like The Gospel Coalition and Together For the Gospel treat these two issues differently. In both cases, baptismal differences are not regarded as barriers to participation, whereas differences over manhood and womanhood are. What might account for this difference (and others like it)?

Theoretical Triage: Thinking About the Body

I believe that further refinement of theological triage can clarify why we would treat certain second-tier disagreements differently than others. (Note: this refinement focuses on the theoretical side of triage. In application to any particular situation, there will be critical concrete and practical considerations in play as well.)

The language of triage is drawn from the field of emergency medicine. In keeping with this imagery, we can consider how we assess the life, health, and practice of the physical body, as an analogy for assessing the life, health, and practice of the body of Christ. (In principle, this same analogy could be used to assess the doctrinal health of an individual as well; for simplicity’s sake, we’ll focus on the church as a body.)

In doctrinal terms, certain doctrines (first tier) are essential for the life of the church. If you deny such a doctrine, you lack life; you’re outside the Christian faith. Other doctrines (second tier) are essential for the health of the church. If you deny such a doctrine, it doesn’t mean you’re spiritually dead, but instead that you’re spiritually sick. Finally, some doctrines (third tier) are essential for the practice of the church. These are matters which don’t directly bear on life or health but do relate closely to how we order and structure our churches, and thus there is need for significant alignment on these matters among members of a given church.

First Tier: Are You Alive?

Thinking in terms of bodily life, health, and practice enables us to identify why certain doctrines are “of first importance” (1 Corinthians 15:3). Paul uses that phrase to refer to the gospel by which we are being saved, if we hold fast to it. He refers specifically to Christ’s death for sin, as well as the historicity of his burial, resurrection, and subsequent appearances. To falter on such gospel truths is to “believe in vain.”

Thus, first-tier issues are matters of gospel significance. Manifest errors on or denials of such fundamental doctrines places one outside the Christian faith. We often summarize the basic gospel in terms of either God-Sin-Christ-Faith or Creation-Fall-Redemption-New Creation. Both of these reveal the foundational doctrines to be embraced and confessed in order to be Christian. The doctrine of the Trinity, the deity and humanity of Christ, his work on the cross and in the resurrection, and salvation by grace through faith are generally regarded as first-tier issues. To deny such doctrines is to fall short of the Christian faith completely.

However, often overlooked in our discussions of gospel issues are fundamental errors on the nature of creation, humanity, and sin. Such issues of anthropology (what C.S. Lewis referred to as the Tao, or the moral order of the universe recognized by all people) could also fall into the first-tier category. Paul explicitly says this when he mentions that “Christ died for our sins” as a matter of first importance. Similarly, the Bible points in this direction whenever it makes clear and manifest violations of the moral law grounds for excommunication from the church and exclusion from the kingdom (1 Corinthians 5–6; Galatians 5:22–23). These moral issues are not merely a matter of special revelation, but are universally known and binding through general revelation in creation and conscience.

But not only do such immoral practices place one outside the kingdom, but affirming and leading others to practice such things makes one a false teacher. Fundamental errors on the goodness of creation and the nature of marriage are treated as demonic teaching and departures from the faith (1 Timothy 4:1–5). The Bible condemns both those who accumulate such teachers to suit their own passions, as well as the teachers themselves (2 Timothy 4:3–4; 2 Timothy 3:6–9). Such people are disqualified from the faith and wander away into myths. And Paul’s condemnation of human sinfulness in Romans 1 not only pronounces judgment on those who practice what ought not to be done, but also those who “give approval to those who practice them” (Romans 1:32).

This means, in addition to the Trinity, Christology, and soteriology, fundamental errors about God’s good design in creation, about the basic nature of humanity, and about the identification of sin and violations of God’s moral law ought to be regarded as first-tier issues. Put more simply, some denials of natural revelation place one outside the kingdom.

Second Tier: Are You Healthy?

Moving down a tier, other doctrines are essential for the body’s health. In fact, the Bible frequently speaks of “sound doctrine,” that is, healthy doctrine. And this is where the use of the body metaphor further refines our framework. Health is not simply an on-off switch; rather health is a spectrum and allows for a range of injuries, illnesses, and diseases. In particular, it allows us to distinguish second-tier errors by relative seriousness, by internal spread, and by transmissibility.

First, consider the relative seriousness of certain errors. Some doctrinal errors are the equivalent of a broken pinkie finger; the body is not fully healthy, but the injury is relatively minor. On the other hand, a broken femur or spine is potentially life-threatening.

Second, consider also diseases and illnesses that spread throughout the body and cause one’s health to deteriorate over time. Some errors, like the broken finger, are relatively isolated; it has little bearing on the rest of the body. Other errors, like cancer, spread throughout the body and are life-threatening.

Third, consider the transmissibility of the illness. Neither broken bones nor cancer is contagious. But colds, flu, and other diseases are. As Paul says, some teaching spreads like gangrene throughout the corporate body (2 Timothy 2:17). Or, to shift to one of our Lord’s metaphors, some teaching is like leaven which spreads throughout the whole loaf (Matthew 16:6–12; cf. 1 Corinthians 5:6–8; Galatians 5:9).

We can bring these three features together in a variety of ways. Some errors are like the common cold; they may be contagious, but they are minor. Others are like Ebola: highly contagious and deadly. Thus, it’s not enough to simply identify a doctrine as second-order; we must also triage the seriousness of the error, its growth and tendency to foster further error, and its potential to spread to others.

Frequently the deadly doctrines identified in the first-tier have milder counterparts at the second-tier. Thus, certain modifications to the doctrine of the Trinity, while not in themselves fatal, nevertheless have a tendency to erode the doctrine over time and produce bodily illness. The same would be true for certain imprecisions and errors in Christology. And while full-blown Pelagianism is fundamentally in contradiction to salvation by grace through faith, various forms of semi-Pelagianism make the body ill. In contrast to outright doctrinal denial, we might think of this as doctrinal erosion.

“The inspiration, authority, and inerrancy of the Scriptures functions as an immune system that helps the body fight off infection.”

Additionally, we should consider how certain errors compromise the immune system. Initially the error might not have much direct effect on the body’s health. However, by weakening the immune system, such error turns minor colds into deadly illnesses. Denial of the Bible’s authority and trustworthiness is the most obvious candidate for compromising the immune system. As Paul notes in 1 Corinthians 15, all of the fundamental gospel truths are “according to the Scriptures.” Thus, the inspiration, authority, and inerrancy of the Scriptures act as guard-rails for other doctrines; Scripture functions as an immune system that helps the body to fight off infection.

Third Tier: What’s Your Diet?

Finally, certain doctrinal issues require agreement for practical purposes. Differences on such questions may not be straightforward matters of life or health, but simply matters of practice: for the community to function well, we will need practical alignment on these issues. We might think of these issues as differences in diet or workout regimen. Healthy people may differ on such questions and still be healthy. Many issues of church structure, liturgy, and ministry philosophy would fall into this category. As matters of wisdom and prudence, faithful Christians will differ, and even have distinct and separate churches or denominations, without regarding each other as dead or even sick.

Taking Our Vitals

With this refinement in hand, we can now return to the puzzle with which we began. If baptismal differences and differences on manhood and womanhood are both “second-tier,” are we warranted in treating them differently? The category of bodily health helps us to see why we not only may do so, but ought to do so.

Baptismal differences do matter. As a practical matter, a church will either baptize infants or not. And the differences do have some bearing on how we view the visible church. Nevertheless, such differences, in principle, can be isolated from the fundamental doctrines of the faith. Many paedobaptists and credobaptists frequently find themselves in near total agreement on the substance of the fundamental doctrines of the faith. Thus, it is no surprise that, armed with such substantial agreement, such paedobaptists and credobaptists have found themselves “together for the gospel.”

Differences over manhood and womanhood, however, are a different matter. Such differences are directly related to the doctrine of creation, the doctrine of man, and the doctrine of sin. Thus, errors on this doctrine have a greater seriousness.

Additionally, such anthropological error tends to grow over time, especially in the midst of a culture that is fundamentally confused about what it means to be human and hostile to God’s design in creation. Like gangrene, contemporary egalitarianism grows and spreads and leads to greater and more deadly error. The frequent move from egalitarianism to the affirmation and celebration of homosexuality is not so much a slippery slope, but simply what cancer does when left untreated. Tao-erosion frequently leads to Tao-denial.

“Errors on the Bible’s teaching on manhood and womanhood often compromise the body’s immune system.”

Finally, errors on this doctrine are frequently based on interpretive moves that functionally mute certain passages of Scripture and thereby gut the Bible of its authority. Thus, errors on the Bible’s teaching on manhood and womanhood often compromise the body’s immune system. Rather than being the standard by which our beliefs and practices are measured and corrected, the Bible becomes a wax nose that is twisted and put in service to our own passions and desires.

More To Be Said

There are many more issues to consider when engaging in theological triage. I have attempted one refinement to the theoretical framework by which we triage. In actual practice, many other considerations come into play: How pervasive is the error in your church? How influential are those promoting it? Are you dealing with false teachers or confused sheep? What are the particular pressures in your local context?

All of these questions (and more) need to be considered by a team of sober-minded elders as they seek to shepherd their particular flock. Nevertheless, finding clarity on the rationale for first-tier issues, while recognizing the spectrum of health within second-tier issues, will give us a better tool with which to perform the crucial task of teaching, correcting, rebuking, and training in righteousness.

Every week at our church, our worship service closes with these words:

We have been the church gathered for worship. We are now the church sent out on mission. In the words of Jesus, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

This Great Commission is grounded in the universal authority and personal presence of Jesus with his people. All authority is his, and he is with us always. And this authority and this presence is what authorizes and enables us to accomplish his mission.

The mission of the church is to disciple the nations, to call people to trust in Jesus, to follow Jesus, and to obey Jesus. This is the what of the mission, and it is globally focused. All nations are called to the obedience of faith. But what about the how of mission? How should we accomplish this commission to disciple the nations?

Jesus gives us the how in the two subsequent clauses: We disciple the nations by baptizing them and by teaching them to obey Jesus. Discipling by teaching makes intuitive sense. A disciple is a learner, and increasing obedience to the commands of Jesus represents the life of discipleship. But why include baptism as one of the fundamental means of accomplishing this mission?

“Baptism in the triune name represents entrance into the people of God.”

We commonly say that baptism in the triune name represents entrance into the people of God. But we ought to think more deeply about how we weave together baptism, the church, and its mission.

Called into the Invisible Church

In speaking of the people of God, we often distinguish between the invisible and the visible church, as well as the universal and the local church. These distinctions are not identical. The first distinction is based on visibility, on whether you can see it. The second is based on proximity, on whether the other members are near or far.

The church as universal and invisible is one body composed of all those, in every time and place, who are chosen in Christ and united to him through faith by the Spirit. This church is not yet seen with the eyes, nor felt by the hands, but known only by God. Indeed, the invisible church is created by the invisible effectual call of God.

In 1 Corinthians 1, Paul distinguishes between the external preaching of the gospel and God’s secret work in calling sinners to himself. Paul preaches Christ crucified, which is a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles (1 Corinthians 1:23). In other words, some who hear the external preaching of the word reject it. However, others — whom Paul identifies as “those who are called” — hear the word and see Christ crucified, not as foolish and a stumbling block, but as divine wisdom and power (1 Corinthians 1:24).

This internal (invisible) effectual call is accomplished by the secret work of the Spirit, working through the external (visible) preaching of the gospel. We call it effectual because it effects the new birth. It creates what it commands by calling forth faith in those whom God calls. The called embrace Jesus as Lord, Savior, and Treasure, and are thereby united to him. And not only to him, but to each other as one body, the invisible church.

Baptized into the Visible Church

The church as universal and visible is composed of all those who are baptized in the triune name and do not undermine that profession by any persistent errors or unbelief that destroy the foundation of the gospel. The visible church is created and sustained by the external call, by the preaching of the word and the administration of the sacraments.

The visible church then gathers together at a local level. The church as visible and local (often in many local manifestations) is composed of all those in a given area who agree to gather to hear the word of God proclaimed, to engage in corporate worship, to practice the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, to build each other’s faith through the manifold ministries of love, to hold each other accountable in the obedience of faith through biblical discipline, and to engage in local and world evangelization.

How then does baptism relate to these? At Desiring God and Bethlehem College & Seminary, we define baptism as follows:

Baptism is an ordinance of the Lord by which those who have repented and come to faith express their union with Christ in his death and resurrection, by being immersed in water in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. It is a sign of belonging to the new people of God, the true Israel, and an emblem of burial and cleansing, signifying death to the old life of unbelief, and purification from the pollution of sin.

“When we’re baptized, it’s as though we’ve been issued a passport that allows us to join the embassies of God’s kingdom.”

Drawing these threads together, baptism marks entrance into the universal and visible church and is a prerequisite for membership in the visible, local church. When we’re baptized, it’s as though we’ve been issued a passport that allows us to join the various embassies of God’s kingdom scattered throughout the world.

Once and for All

Though receiving the passport and joining the local embassy frequently occur in quick succession, it’s important to keep them distinct. Baptism doesn’t mark our entrance into the local church, but into the universal, visible church. Expressing it this way accounts for the fact that Christians are not re-baptized every time they join a new local congregation. Instead, their one baptism is recognized by all subsequent congregations as meeting this requirement for membership.

Now back to our weekly commission. Every week, the visible, local church gathers to hear the word of God proclaimed and to worship him in Spirit and in truth. And then, having been gathered, we are sent out on mission, scattered by the Spirit in the world in order to be salt and light. And as we do so, we mingle with members of other visible, local congregations. Often, we link arms with them as members of the universal, visible church, marked out by baptism and increasing obedience to Jesus.

And together we seek to preach the good news of Jesus to all people in hopes that through that preaching, Jesus will draw all nations to himself and unite us to himself and to each other by his Holy Spirit.

Picture yourself in a group Bible study. Your small group is studying the book of Ephesians, and you’ve made it to chapter 5. Someone reads aloud verse 18: “Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit.” Then Steve, the new guy, says, “Well, Paul clearly forbids getting drunk on wine. I’m just thankful that he said nothing about getting drunk on whiskey. That’s my favorite way to become intoxicated.”

We all intuitively recognize that Steve is mistaken. We might even think him absurd. But how do we explain his error? My guess is that we would say something like, “Steve, that’s not what the Bible means. Paul intended to prohibit all drunkenness, not just drunkenness from wine.” To which Steve might reply, “But that’s not what the Bible says. Paul mentioned wine only. I’m sticking to the text.” Or he might say, “That’s just your interpretation. I’m talking about what the Bible means to me.”

Learn the Habit of Reading Well

When people ask what I do for a living, I often say, “My job is to teach college students how to read.” This is only half a joke, because the reality is that our educational system and society has left many people incapable of reading well. That’s why, at Bethlehem College & Seminary, our approach to education centers on imparting to our students certain habits of heart and mind.

In all of our programs, we aim to enable and motivate students

to observe their subject matter accurately and thoroughly,
to understand clearly what they have observed,
to evaluate fairly what they have understood by deciding what is true and valuable,
to feel intensely according to the value of what they have evaluated,
to apply wisely and helpfully in life what they understand and feel, and
to express in speech and writing and deeds what they have seen, understood, felt, and applied in such a way that its accuracy, clarity, truth, value, and helpfulness can be known and enjoyed by others.

“You can’t say whether something is true or false, good or bad, until you first know what the something is.”

There is a certain order to these habits. Before you can feel appropriately, you must evaluate rightly. And before you can evaluate rightly, you must first observe accurately and understand clearly. Note this: evaluation depends upon understanding. Without clear understanding of what someone has said or written, evaluation is impossible, because you have nothing to evaluate. You can’t say whether something is true or false, good or bad, until you first know what the something is.

Meaning and Significance Are Not the Same

My own experience as a teacher suggests that there are many confusions and pitfalls around the question of “meaning” when we read a text. Consider this a crash course on the meaning of meaning.

Let’s begin with the Golden Rule: “Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them” (Matthew 7:12). When it comes to reading, we ought to practice Golden Rule Interpretation. That is, we ought to treat authors the way we want to be treated. No one wants his own words treated like a wax nose that a reader can bend according to his will. No one likes to have his words twisted into something he didn’t intend. When we speak or write, we mean something, and we want that meaning to stand — to be understood and respected as ours (even if others disagree with us). And so, given that’s how we want to be treated, we ought to treat authors the same.

To do this, we must distinguish between what the author meant by his words and the effects of his words on subsequent people and events. For clarity, let’s refer to the first as meaning. Texts mean what authors mean by them. The second we may call significance. The author’s meaning can be related to different texts, contexts, concepts, situations, people, places — anything you can think of, really.

Meaning and significance are distinct. Meaning is stable through time; significance may and does change. Meaning is about what authors do in public by means of words (as one theologian puts it). Significance is about the effects of those words on everything else. Meaning is fixed and bounded; significance is, in principle, limitless. When an author writes something, he means this and not that. But significance has to do with the relation between the author’s meaning and this, that, and the other.

With this basic distinction in hand, let’s consider four puzzles in relation to meaning: the source of meaning, the means of meaning, the levels of intent, and the boundaries of meaning. To aid in solving these puzzles, we’ll use Steve’s surprising interpretation of what the Bible says in Ephesians 5:18 as a test case.

Puzzle 1: Source of Meaning

The first puzzle has to do with the source of meaning. Note that I introduced the quotation as “what the Bible says.” But if we’re thinking carefully, we realize that this must be a form of shorthand. People say things, not objects. So when we say, “The Bible says . . .” what we (ought to) mean is, “Paul says (or God says) in the Bible . . .”

“Texts are not free-floating entities with autonomous meaning. Instead, authors are the source of meaning.”

Meaning, then, is a matter of the author’s intent. This is crucial to remember. Whenever we talk about meaning, we are talking about persons. Sometimes we say things like, “The text means what it says.” But this again is misleading. Texts don’t mean; only people mean. To put this another way, a text doesn’t mean what it says, because it cannot say anything; instead, it means what the author says. Or to say it in yet another way, if there is meaning, there must be a mean-er. Meaning exists only when someone has meant.

Thus, we stress that texts are not free-floating entities with autonomous meaning. Instead, authors are the source of meaning.

Puzzle 2: Means of Meaning

If authors are the source of meaning, what then are texts? Texts are the means of meaning, and therefore are absolutely crucial for interpretation. Stressing the importance of texts helps us avoid another confusion and solve another puzzle.

When we are interpreting a text, we sometimes say that we are looking to “get inside the mind of the author” and to “see what he wanted to do.” Now, this could be another form of shorthand, a way of stressing that we are interested in the author’s intention, and seeking to avoid usurping his place by imposing our own meaning on his text.

However, speaking like this could also be misleading. It could lead someone to think that the aim of interpretation is to somehow recover the author’s psychological state at the time he was writing. We might attempt to psychoanalyze him, and discover the hidden motives of his mind. So someone might try to discern what in Paul’s personal background led him to prohibit drunkenness in Ephesians 5. And because many recognize the impossibility of such a task, this mistake has sometimes led interpreters to abandon the idea that the author matters at all.

How, then, can we avoid this error? By stressing both the author and the text. The text is the public means by which an author accomplishes his purpose. As we said above, meaning is about what authors do in public by means of words. Note this: meaning is not about what the author wanted to do, or what the author tried to do, or what the author subconsciously attempted to do. It’s about what the author did do through his text.

Meaning, then, is a public affair, because through the text it is shareable and reproducible. The norms of our language establish the boundaries of what we can say. Within those boundaries, we select the appropriate elements (words, grammar, syntax, and more) and put them to use to accomplish our purposes. Someone who shares our language is thus able to discern our intent in what we’ve said. Authors are the source of meaning, and texts are the means of meaning.

Puzzle 3: Levels of Intent

Now we introduce an additional puzzle, having to do with the English word intent, which is potentially ambiguous. Consider the simple phrase “Do not get drunk.” When Paul writes this phrase to the Ephesians, we can see two different levels of intention. At one level, his intent is to exhort or issue a command. That’s what his words do. At another level, his intent is that his command be obeyed. That’s what he hopes his words accomplish.

But it’s important to keep these two levels distinct. The first level is entirely within Paul’s power. Assuming he writes clearly in a language his audience understands, he accomplishes his intent simply by writing, regardless of whether the Ephesians obey or not.

The second level is not within Paul’s power. While he may intend (in the sense of “hope for”) the obedience of the Ephesians, securing that obedience is not within his power. The first level refers to the force of Paul’s words — what he is doing in speaking at all. The second refers to the desired results of his words — what he is trying to accomplish by speaking. But these are distinct. The first level — issuing the command — is a matter of meaning; the second level — the Ephesians’ obedience or disobedience — is a matter of significance.

Puzzle 4: Boundaries of Meaning

The final puzzle has to do with the boundaries of meaning. Earlier, we noted that meaning is stable, fixed, and bounded. But how do we determine such boundaries? When Steve says that Ephesians 5:18 only prohibits getting drunk with wine, but has nothing to say about getting drunk with whiskey, how can we explain his error?

One way might be to focus on the logic of Paul’s statement. “Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery.” The word for indicates the ground on which the command is issued. And drunkenness is debauchery and corruption, whether it is caused by wine or whiskey or beer.

But even without the grounding statement, we can know our friend to be in error if we recognize that meaning is both explicit and implicit. When Paul explicitly mentions wine, he is using wine as an instance of intoxicating beverages. Wine is a type of intoxicating beverage that represents the entire class. Implicit within Paul’s statement is an etcetera; we might reproduce his full meaning as, “Do not get drunk with wine (and things of that sort), for that is debauchery.”

This is how communication works. We can’t say everything all the time. We can’t identify every instance of every type. And so, we frequently will the type of thing that we mean, and trust that, using language and shared context, our audience is able to discern the boundaries of our meaning.

How Good Readers Interpret

Much more could be said about meaning. But being a good reader means learning to think clearly about the task of interpretation. When we interpret, we are looking for the author’s intent or meaning. This original intent is distinct from the significance of that meaning to us. The author is the source of meaning, and the text is the means of meaning. Because the text is public, readers are able to attend to the author’s intention embedded in his words. And good readers attend both to the explicit and implicit dimensions of an author’s meaning.

The task of interpretation does not exhaust our responsibilities as readers, especially as Christian readers who are interpreting for ourselves or trying to help friends like Steve. As mentioned above, our school seeks to teach students to evaluate, feel, apply, and express what they learn from their reading. But none of those steps can happen apart from patient, persistent, humble observation and understanding — that is, hard work. And that hard work of good reading is not without great reward.

A number of years ago, a counselor friend of mine introduced a simple and accessible concept that he regularly uses in his practice. He calls it “felt reality.”

Reality is reality. It’s objective. It’s what’s actually happening. Felt reality is what’s happening from my vantage point. It’s reality framed by my own thoughts, assumptions, and emotions.

Reality and felt reality aren’t the same. Sometimes they align — what I think and feel fits with what is actually happening. Other times, my felt reality is out of accord with reality. In such cases, I might be believing lies, or framing reality wrongly, or overreacting. My perspective might be distorted by my emotions or my sinful desires or my own limitations.

Once my friend gave me the category, I found it to be incredibly fruitful in my own life and marriage and parenting and ministry. It gave me a way to speak about human experiences of reality — whether mine or another’s — without necessarily validating those experiences. In other words, it enabled me to acknowledge that I think and feel a certain way, without affirming that such thoughts or emotions were necessarily true or right or good.

“Getting felt reality on the table can be the first step in seeking to steward and shepherd our thoughts and emotions.”

Getting felt reality on the table can be the first step in seeking to steward and shepherd our thoughts and emotions so that they more fully align with God’s.

‘Cut Off from Your Sight’

Even more than that, the concept (though not the term) seems present in the Scriptures. Consider the Psalms. In the middle of Psalm 31, David pleads with God to deliver him from his distress. In doing so, he vividly describes what it’s like to be in the pit:

His eyes are wasted from grief. They’re heavy from crying; they feel like lead. He just wants to rest, but there is no rest (verse 9).
His soul is wasted. His body is wasted. There is a weariness that reaches to every part of David’s existence (verse 9).
His life is spent with sorrow and his years with sighing (verse 10). This is how it feels: “I’ve been here forever, and I’ll be here forever.”
His strength fails (and he knows he partially deserves it because of his sin), and his bones just waste away (verse 10).

David’s powerful emotional and physical responses are influenced by his perception of reality, of what’s going on around him:

His adversaries have made him a reproach to his neighbors. Everyone runs from him because they think his suffering is contagious (verse 11). “Don’t stand too close to David. Don’t let him breathe on you. You don’t want to catch what he’s got.”
He’s forgotten like the dead. People remember the dead — for a little bit. Then they’re forgotten. That’s how David feels. Dead and useless, like a broken vessel (verse 12). “What good am I?”
He hears the whispering of his enemies around him — terror on every side. The other shoe could drop at any minute. Every rock and tree is ominous. Every bit of news produces fear. The future is filled with the almost certain prospect of bad surprise (verse 13).

This is David’s felt reality, and he gives explicit voice to it in verse 22:

I had said in my alarm, “I am cut off from your sight.”

‘I Shall Never Be Moved’

But these aren’t the only feelings David has had. In the previous psalm, David describes different circumstances and therefore a different felt reality:

As for me, I said in my prosperity, “I shall never be moved.” (Psalm 30:6)

Notice the contrast. On the one hand: “In my alarm, I said, ‘I’m cut off.’” On the other hand: “In my prosperity, I said, ‘I’ll never be moved.’” In terms of content, these felt realities are exact opposites. But at another level, they display the power of felt reality in the exact same way.

Both circumstances of alarm and circumstances of prosperity led David to wrongfully exalt his felt reality. In Psalm 31, when he was alarmed, when all the walls were closing in, his felt reality was “It’s over. I’m done. God has abandoned me.” In Psalm 30, when he was living the high life, when he prospered and everything he touched turned to gold, his felt reality was “I’ve made it. I’m immovable and unshakable. God will never test me.”

These are two very different places, but they showcase the same confusion of felt reality and actual reality. In both cases, David was so overwhelmed by his felt reality that he made what he felt into what is. But it wasn’t. Felt reality is not the same as reality.

Facing Our Felt Reality

How then can we face our felt reality? Granting that our feelings and perceptions can be out of accord with what is truly the case, what can we do?

First, we can recognize the crucial connection between our felt reality and our self-talk. David didn’t just feel; he expressed his feelings in speech. And his words reinforced his felt reality.

Words are powerful. What we say shapes the way we view ourselves and our circumstances. Our feelings often reveal our unstated assumptions, our hidden beliefs, and the unrecognized stories by which we make sense of our lives. And then our words give voice to these feelings and reshape or reinforce — for good or ill — who we are and how we see ourselves.

Second, we see the importance of bringing our felt reality to God. David doesn’t muzzle his feelings; he lays them before the Lord in prayer. Whether or not his felt reality corresponds to actual reality, he eventually brings all of it before God, in hope that God will act and speak to him in his prosperity and in his pain.

So too with us. It does no good to hide our felt reality from God. He sees it already. Our task is to unveil before him, to take off the silly mask that we wear and be as honest as we can be in his presence. And the category of felt reality really helps us here. We can both be honest and humble. We can say, “I feel this way” while also saying, “But I don’t know if my feelings are right. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and then lead me in the way everlasting.”

“We not only can bring our felt reality to God, but we can submit our felt reality to the truth of God.”

Finally, bringing these together, we not only can bring our felt reality to God, but we can submit our felt reality to the truth of God. Recall again the two examples of felt reality from Psalms 30 and 31. “In my alarm, I said, ‘I’m cut off.’” “In my prosperity, I said, ‘I’ll never be moved.’”

Hear David’s words in Psalm 31:14, right after he describes his felt reality: “But I trust in you, O Lord; I say, ‘You are my God.’” This is David submitting his felt reality to the truth of God. He brought his felt reality to God, and now he speaks to himself and reasserts the truth of who God is for him.

Speak Reality

With God’s help, we can learn to do the same. We can learn to be honest with God, to ask him to bring our hidden assumptions and unseen narratives to light.

In my alarm, I said, “I’m cut off from your sight.”
In my prosperity, “I’ll never be moved.”
In my grief, “God has forsaken me.”
In my pride, “I’m thankful that I’m not like other men.”
In my envy, “God doesn’t love me like he loves others.”
In my suffering, “No one understands what I’m going through.”
In my despair, “It will never end. It’s hopeless.”

These are the sorts of statements we make in the midst of our trials and our triumphs, out of our passions and our pain. Listen to them, and then bring those feelings and that speech to God, and learn to say something else.

“I trust in you; you are my God. I’m not cut off.”
“I’m not unshakable.”
“You’ve not abandoned me.”
“Have mercy on me, a sinner.”
“You do love me.”
“You do understand.”
“This trial will end. There is hope.”

Many people know C.S. Lewis as the author and creator of Narnia. A slightly smaller group know him as a remarkably effective Christian apologist. An even smaller group appreciate him as a scholar of medieval and Renaissance literature. Fewer recognize him as a prophet of civilizational doom. But he was.

In a number of essays, in his lectures on The Abolition of Man, and then in his novel That Hideous Strength, Lewis clearly, patiently, and methodically identifies and warns his readers about an existential threat to Western civilization, and indeed to humanity as a whole.

This threat is a pernicious error that enables tyrannical power and totalitarianism. It’s a fatal superstition that slowly erodes and destroys a civilization. It’s a disease that can end our species and damn our souls. Lewis calls it “the poison of subjectivism.”

Doctrine of Objective Value

Until modern times, nearly all men believed that truth and goodness were objective realities and that human beings can apprehend them. Through reason, we examine and study and wonder at reality. When our thoughts correspond to the objective order of reality, we speak of truth. When our emotional reactions correspond to the objective order of reality, we speak of goodness.

Lewis refers to this as the doctrine of objective value, or, in shorter form, “the Tao.” The doctrine of objective value, Lewis writes, is

the belief that certain attitudes are really true, and others really false, to the kind of thing the universe is and the kind of things we are. Those who know the Tao can hold that to call children delightful or old men venerable is not simply to record a psychological fact about our own parental or filial emotions at the moment, but to recognize a quality which demands a certain response from us whether we make it or not. . . . And because our approvals and disapprovals are thus recognitions of objective value or responses to an objective order, therefore emotional states can be in harmony with reason (when we feel liking for what ought to be approved) or out of harmony with reason (when we perceive that liking is due but cannot feel it). (Abolition of Man, 18–19)

Poison of Subjectivism

The poison of subjectivism upends this ancient and humane way of viewing the world. Reason itself is debunked — or we might say today that reason is deconstructed. Instead of the human capacity to participate in the eternal Logos, reason is simply an epiphenomenon that accompanies certain chemical and electrical events in the cortex, which is itself the product of blind evolutionary processes. Put more simply, reason is simply an accidental and illusory brain secretion.

“Under the influence of this poison, moral value judgments are simply projections of irrational emotions.”

Under the influence of this poison, moral value judgments are simply projections of irrational emotions onto an indifferent cosmos. Truth and goodness are merely words we apply to our own subjective psychological states, states that we have been socially conditioned to have. And if we have been socially conditioned in one way, we might be socially conditioned in another.

Education Old and New

Lewis thus refers to the apostles of subjectivism as “conditioners” rather than teachers. Under the old vision of reality, the task of education was to “train in the pupil those responses which are themselves appropriate, whether anyone is making them or not, and in making which the very nature of man consists” (22). Teachers accomplished this through initiation; they invited students into the same experience of reality in which they lived.

The new education merely conditions. Having removed all objective value and consideration from reality, they are “free” to shape and mold future generations into whatever they want. Having seized the reins of social conditioning, they will condition for their own purposes (wherever those happen to come from) and with little or no regard for the constraints of custom, tradition, truth, or goodness. Lewis concisely describes the difference in the old and new education:

The old dealt with its pupils as grown birds deal with young birds when they teach them to fly; the new deals with them more as the poultry-keeper deals with young birds — making them thus or thus for purposes of which the birds know nothing. In a word, the old was a kind of propagation — men transmitting manhood to men; the new is merely propaganda. (24)

How Subjectivism Conditions

Lewis shrewdly demonstrates the subtlety of conditioning in his fiction. In Orwell’s 1984, O’Brien forces Winston to confess that 2+2=5 under the threat of having his face eaten by rats. In Lewis’s That Hideous Strength, Mark Studdock is conditioned with both carrots and sticks, lures and threats. He is enticed chiefly by social pressure, as his conditioners work on his desire to be “on the inside,” his “lust for the Inner Ring.” Accordingly, they work on his fear of being left out, cast out, and ostracized. Social pressure, more so than direct threats of physical violence, are the tools of Lewis’s conditioners.

In this, Lewis was remarkably prescient. Who among us can’t recognize the impression-shaping propaganda in social-media algorithms, in Twitter bans, in the cancellation of YouTube channels? What we hear and say daily, what we scroll past and click through, what we see and come to assume — all of these are meant to condition us by detaching us from the Straight, the True, the Good, even the Normal. Such conditioning is meant to aid the sinful human tendency to suppress the truth in unrighteousness.

Richard Hooker, the English Reformer and a hero of Lewis, once wrote of the destructive effect of ungodly customs.

Perverted and wicked customs — perhaps beginning with a few and spreading to the multitude, and then continuing for a long time — may be so strong that they smother the light of our natural understanding, because men refuse to make an effort to consider whether their customs are good or evil. (Divine Law and Human Nature, 43)

The poison of subjectivism removes the ordinary checks to such error and evil by denying that good and evil objectively exist at all. And yet, because we live in God’s world and not the world of our fevered imaginations, we can’t escape the pressure of the objective moral order, pressing upon us both from our conscience and from the Scriptures.

Our Cultural Insanity

The result, as Lewis again so ably highlights, is a kind of absurd tragi-comedy. It would be funny if it were not so sad. In Lewis’s memorable words, “In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful” (27).

As prophetic as Lewis was in his warnings, not even he seemed to have imagined the insanity that subjectivism would lead to. While he clearly saw that such poison would infect our sexuality, the most twisted form that he portrayed was the grotesque femininity of Fairy Hardcastle. But compared to the demented debauchery of the modern LGBTQ+ movement, Miss Hardcastle seems almost quaint.

What’s more, Lewis thought that the practical need for results in the hard sciences would limit the infection of subjectivism when it comes to research. But in the twenty-first century, we are witnessing technological and scientific advances employed in the service of subjectivism. Some of the latest “advances” in medicine are used not to heal, but to maim; not to restore the body to its proper function, but to mutilate the body and render it impotent or barren. In a literal fulfillment of Lewis’s warning, “We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”

Readiness Is All

What then can be done to stave off civilizational doom, the end of our species, and the damnation of souls? Books could be written (and have been written) in answer to that question. But a simple answer runs like this: we can cultivate communities that, by the grace of God, love God and the objective order that he has made, and are ready to act in a world poisoned by subjectivism.

“We can cultivate communities that, by the grace of God, love God and the objective order that he has made.”

Such communities include churches where the good news of Jesus is faithfully proclaimed in word and deed, where refugees from the world are welcomed in the name of Jesus, and where apostles of the world are refuted by the word of God. These communities include families that glory in God’s goodness in manhood and womanhood, that seek to live fruitfully on God’s mission in the world, and that raise children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

These communities include schools that love the truth and do the good, that explain reality without explaining it away, that seek to form students into mature Christians who live with resilient joy in the midst of this broken world.

Such is the need, and the hour is late. But the readiness is all, and our God is still in heavens, and he does all that he pleases.