Our Tuesday morning Crossroads group that meets on Zoom has begun studying the life of Joseph in the Old Testament. If you remember the story, Joseph came from a complicated family. His father Jacob had children by four different women, all of whom he lived with at the same time. The mothers of his children were Jacob’s cousins, Leah and Rachel, whom he married, and their maids (slaves), Zilpah and Bilhah. It sounds shocking to our contemporary standards of morality, but men at that time often had multiple wives and concubines, and slavery was common. Women were little more than property.

Even a cursory study of the Bible reveals the importance of one of the principles of Spelunking Scripture, namely, distinguishing cultural conditions from God’s eternal truth. Not every cultural condition in the Bible reflects God’s purposes. Multiple wives, and concubinage, and slavery, and the objectification of women are definitely not a part of God’s design for human life. Yet, some of the leading characters in the Old Testament, and even in the New Testament, participated in practices of their times that now we recognize as cultural rather than divinely inspired.

Sadly, some churches, even today, fail to distinguish cultural conditions from God’s intentions. The two largest Christian groups in the United States, the Roman Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention, do not believe women are qualified to be pastors. They confuse the culture of the Bible, which relegated women to subservient positions, with God’s design. Similarly, for centuries, many Christians believed slavery was condoned by God because it was common in the Bible. They even cited isolated verses, such as Paul’s instructions to slaves to obey their masters, as justification for slavery.

That confusion illustrates another important principle of Spelunking Scripture, namely, not all verses or passages of the Bible are of equal value. Clearly, some verses/passages of Holy Scripture are more important than others.

In the Introduction to my book, Spelunking Scripture: The Letters of Paul, I note how passages of scripture have been (mis)used to justify slavery and the subjugation of women and the condemnation of persons of a different sexual orientation. This misuse is the result of failing to distinguish cultural conditions from God’s purposes and failing to recognize that some parts of scripture are more important than others.

Another principle of Spelunking Scripture is moving from “what” to “so what.” In Spelunking Scripture we move from what does the text say to so what does the text mean. It’s not enough to know what the Bible says. We move beneath the surface to seek to discover what it means for our lives.

The family of Joseph was a mess, but God brought such good out of the disfunction that Joseph (and his sons) and his brothers became the patriarchs of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Jesus was descended from their lineage through another Joseph who was the husband of his mother Mary (Matthew 1:16).

Yes, studying the Bible is complicated, but by employing the principles of Spelunking Scripture we can explore beneath the surface of important passages to discover their meaning for our lives.