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Chapter 7: "What would you do in real life?" Let's pretend for a moment that we're not talking about interpreting Scripture. Instead, let's suppose that we are talking about interpreting a letter you received from a friend. How would you clear up ambiguous passages in his letter? I know what I would do: I would write him and ask him what he meant. Wouldn't you do the same? Now, the Bible is a real book, written by real people living in a real world. Paul was a real man, and the Corinthians were real people.
What do you think the Corinthians did if some of the things in Paul's letter were not clear to them? What would you or I have done? We would have asked Paul what he meant, wouldn't we? In the course of my title work, I frequently read deeds and other documents that are ambiguous or self-contradictory. What do you think I'd do to interpret these statements? Well, if the parties to the documents are still living, I often ask my client to contact the parties to the deed and ask them what they meant.
That is simply common sense. A person doesn't need a law degree to know to do that. It's what you would do in the same circumstance. So if the Corinthians did not understand what Paul meant, they asked Paul to explain it. But more than likely, they understood exactly what Paul was talking about. Why? Because Paul was communicating to them, not to us. For there to be communication between two persons, there must be what we lawyers call a meeting of the minds.
That is, the mind of the speaker and the mind of the hearer must be united.
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