Those Who Misread Scripture and Those Who Teach It Proudly

Admonition 25. Those who do not rightly understand the words of the sacred law, and those who understand them rightly but do not speak them humbly, are to be admonished differently. Those who do not rightly understand the words of the sacred law are to be admonished to consider that they turn a most healthful drink of wine into a cup of poison for themselves, and with a surgeon’s knife give themselves a deadly wound, when they destroy what was sound in themselves with the very thing by which they should have cut away, for their health, what was diseased. They are to be admonished to consider that Holy Scripture is set as a kind of lamp for us in the night of this present life; and when they do not understand its words rightly, they get darkness from light. But a perverse bent of mind would not drive them to understand it wrongly unless pride first puffed them up. For since they think themselves wise beyond everyone else, they scorn to follow others to a better understanding; and to wring a name for learning for themselves from the unskilled crowd, they work hard both to overturn the right views of others and to establish their own perverse ones. [a]

That is why the prophet says well, “They have ripped open the pregnant women of Gilead, so that they might enlarge their border.” For the name Gilead means “a heap of witness.” And since the whole congregation of the church together serves by its confession as a witness to the truth, Gilead not unfittingly stands for the church, which bears witness by the mouth of all the faithful to whatever is true about God. Further, souls are called pregnant when, out of divine love, they conceive an understanding of the Word, so that, if they come to full term, they may bring forth the understanding they have conceived in the showing forth of their works. And to enlarge their border is to spread abroad the fame of their reputation. So they have ripped open the pregnant women of Gilead so that they might enlarge their border, because heretics, by their perverse preaching, kill the souls of the faithful who had already conceived something of the understanding of the truth, and spread a name for learning for themselves. The hearts of little ones, already big with the word they have conceived, they cut open with the sword of error, and so, as it were, make themselves a reputation as teachers. So when we try to teach such people not to think perversely, we must first admonish them to shun empty glory. For if the root of pride is cut off, the branches of false assertion dry up as a result. They are also to be admonished to take care that, by breeding errors and discords, they do not turn into a sacrifice to Satan the very law of God that was given to prevent sacrifices to Satan. That is why the Lord complains through the prophet, saying, “I gave them grain, wine, and oil, and I multiplied their silver and gold, which they sacrificed to Baal.” For we receive grain from the Lord when, in the more obscure sayings, the husk of the letter is stripped away and we perceive in the marrow of the Spirit the inward meaning of the law. The Lord holds out his wine to us when he makes us drunk with the lofty preaching of his Scripture. He gives us his oil too when, by plainer commands, he orders our life gently and smoothly. He multiplies silver when he supplies us with eloquent words full of the light of truth. And he enriches us with gold when he makes our heart shine with an understanding of the supreme splendor. All these things heretics offer to Baal, because by a corrupt understanding of them all they pervert them in the hearts of their hearers. And from God’s grain, wine, and oil, and likewise from his silver and gold, they offer a sacrifice to Satan, because they twist the words of peace to promote the error of discord. So they are to be admonished to consider that when, out of their perverse mind, they make discord from the commands of peace, they themselves, by the just judgment of God, die by the words of life.

But those who understand the words of the law rightly, yet do not speak them humbly, are to be admonished, on the other hand, to examine themselves in divine discourses before they put them before others. Otherwise, while they follow up the deeds of others, they may leave themselves behind; and while they think rightly about all the rest of Holy Scripture, they may fail to attend to this one thing: what it says against the proud. For he is a poor and unskilled physician who wants to heal another’s disease while he does not know the one he himself is suffering from. So those who do not speak the words of God humbly should certainly be admonished that, when they apply medicines to the sick, they must look to the poison of their own infection, so that they do not die themselves while healing others. They ought to be admonished to take care that their manner of speaking does not clash with the excellence of what is spoken, and that they do not preach one thing with their words and another with their outward bearing. Let them hear, then, what is written: “If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God.” If, then, the words they speak are not their own, why are they puffed up over them as though they were? Let them hear what is written: “As from God, in the sight of God, we speak in Christ.” For the one who speaks from God in the sight of God is the one who both understands that he has received the word of preaching from God and seeks through it to please God, not men. Let them hear what is written: “Everyone who is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord.” For surely, when he seeks his own glory in the word of God, he invades the right of the giver; and he is not afraid at all to put the one from whom he received the very thing that is praised below his own praise. [c]

Let them hear what is said to the preacher through Solomon: “Drink water from your own cistern, and running water from your own well. Let your springs be scattered abroad, and divide your waters in the streets. Have them for yourself alone, and do not let strangers share them with you.” For the preacher drinks from his own cistern when, returning to his own heart, he first listens himself to what he has to say. He drinks the running water of his own well if he is watered by his own word. And in the same place it is well added, “Let your springs be scattered abroad, and divide your waters in the streets.” For it is right that he should drink first himself, and then flow out over others in preaching. To scatter springs abroad is to pour the power of preaching outward on others. And to divide waters in the streets is to give out the divine words among a great multitude of hearers according to the character of each. And because the desire for empty glory usually creeps in when the word of God runs freely to the knowledge of many, after it was said, “Divide your waters in the streets,” it is rightly added, “Have them for yourself alone, and do not let strangers share them with you.” Here he calls evil spirits strangers, of whom it is said through the prophet in the words of one who is tempted, “Strangers have risen up against me, and strong ones have sought my soul.” So he says, “Divide your waters in the streets, and yet have them for yourself alone.” It is as if he had said more plainly: You must serve outwardly in preaching in such a way that you do not join yourself to unclean spirits through pride, for fear that in the ministry of the divine word you let your enemies share it with you. So we divide our waters in the streets and yet possess them alone when we pour out preaching outwardly far and wide and yet in no way court human praise through it.