l 'THE SYNERGY PRINCIPLE in BIBLE STUDY' John ben Wilhelm
(A must read for serious Bible scholars)
The SYNERGY PRINCIPLE: aka The Synthesis Principle
One of our major safeguards against either misinterpreting or misapplying verses in achieving correct scriptural understanding is the “Synergy Principle”, which is the interaction of verses that when combined produce a total effect that is greater than the sum of the individual verses.
The Bible has within itself a system for identifying error and arriving at the correct understanding scripture provides. The Bible was written by 40 different human hands over a period of 1400 years. It consists of 66 separate books, combined into one unified document. Subjects covered by the bible never occur in isolation. References to any given subject can usually be found in many places, all over the Bible.
This makes it very difficult to alter an idea in a single verse. To be effective, one would have to alter every verse where the idea appeared. This is not practical as there are virtually thousands of Bible sources all over the world which would have to be changed to support the individual verse one wanted to affect. By restating his message in a number of places by different writers, who wrote at different times and in different places and who frequently never even knew each other, God provided a protection against tampering with the fundamental aspects of his message. In fact the bible provides a precept that for any important matter to be established, it must be supported by a minimum of two or three witnesses. (2 Cor. 13:1)
The synergy principle in a nut shell says the “the whole is greater than its parts” This may be seen to apply in a unique way to the Bible, when it comes to correctly understanding a given verse.
A single scripture may be seen in different ways by different persons and they may derive an understanding from it that may not be in harmony with what the bible as a whole imparts. On the other hand, knowing what the entire Bible conveys about a subject in that verse enables us to apply God’s own unified viewpoint.
For one example where applying the Synergy Principle can be seen to foster fuller and more accurate Bible understanding:
If we read Deut. 4:24 ASV where it says; “For Jehovah thy God is a devouring fire, a jealous God”. We are left with a distinctly negative picture of the God we are expected to worship. Our impression of him, if it was based on this single verse leads us to form a very “hard, stern and unlovable picture of a God, difficult to love and adore.
However, when we read on, just a few verses later (intermediate context) in verse 31, we are told “Jehovah your God is a merciful God”. Well, this paints a slightly different, still somewhat confusing picture.
However, when we apply the “synergy principal”, and explore verses which divulge ‘what God is’, taking us all over the Bible, this is what we find:
NAB 1 John 4:8 Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love.
YLT Psalm 54:4 Lo, God is a helper to me, The Lord is with those supporting my soul,
NJB Psalm 116:5 Yahweh is merciful and upright, our God is tenderness.
NKJ Acts 10:34 Then Peter opened his mouth and said: "In truth I perceive that God shows no partiality.
NJB Psalm 7:10 God is a shield that protects me, saving the honest of heart.
LXE Psalm 7:11 God is a righteous judge, and strong, and patient, not inflicting vengeance every day.
RSV Psalm 62:8 Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us. Selah
DRA Psalm 45:2 Our God is our refuge and strength: a helper in troubles, which have found us exceedingly.
DBY 1 John 1:5 And this is the message which we have heard from him, and declare to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
ESV Psalm 84:11 For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.
ESV Psalm 68:20 Our God is a God of salvation, and to GOD, the Lord, belong deliverances from death.
NJB Zephaniah 3:17 Yahweh your God is there with you, the warrior-Saviour. He will rejoice over you with happy song, he will renew you by his love, he will dance with shouts of joy for you,
DBY Hebrews 6:10 For God is not unrighteous to forget your work, and the love which ye have shewn to his name, having ministered to the saints, and still ministering.
NAB 1 Corinthians 10:13 No trial has come to you but what is human. God is faithful and will not let you be tried beyond your strength; but with the trial he will also provide a way out, so that you may be able to bear it.
ASV Psalm 99:9 Exalt ye Jehovah our God, And worship at his holy hill; For Jehovah our God is holy.
ASV John 4:24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship in spirit and truth.
DBY Ecclesiastes 5:2 Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thy heart be hasty to utter anything before God: for God is in the heavens, and thou upon earth; therefore let thy words be few.
GNV 1 Corinthians 11:3 But I will that ye know, that Christ is the head of euery man: and the man is the womans head: and God is Christs head.
DRA Mark 12:29 And Jesus answered him: The first commandment of all is, Hear, O Israel: the Lord thy God is one God.
BBE Daniel 2:47 And the king made answer to Daniel and said, Truly, your God is a God of gods and a Lord of kings, and an unveiler of secrets, for you have been able to make this secret clear.
ESV Daniel 9:14 Therefore the LORD has kept ready the calamity and has brought it upon us, for the LORD our God is righteous in all the works that he has done, and we have not obeyed his voice.
BBE 2 Chronicles 2:5 And the house which I am building is to be great, for our God is greater than all gods.
BBE Job 36:26 Truly, God is great, greater than all our knowledge; the number of his years may not be searched out.
NLT Job 36:5 "God is mighty, yet he does not despise anyone! He is mighty in both power and understanding.
ESV 1 Corinthians 14:33 For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints,
BBE Psalm 75:7 But God is the judge, putting down one, and lifting up another.
DBY Romans 8:33 Who shall bring an accusation against God's elect? It is God who justifies:
GNV Psalm 18:30 The way of God is uncorrupt: the worde of the Lord is tried in the fire: he is a shield to all that trust in him.
LXE Psalm 7:11 God is a righteous judge, and strong, and patient, not inflicting vengeance every day.
ESV Galatians 6:7 Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.
NJB Acts 17:30 'But now, overlooking the times of ignorance, God is telling everyone everywhere that they must repent,
One can easily see how examining more of the verses in the Bible which tell us “What God is” dramatically and completely changes the picture we got from Deut. 4:24 ASV where it said; “For Jehovah thy God is a devouring fire, a jealous God”, a picture painting him in a very limited negative light according to our human understanding.
If that single verse, had been faithfully translated precisely as written, it would have been an accurate description, just not the whole picture. You see that verse, as translated in the American Standard Version ASV quoted here, also contains some confusion inherent with the way it was translated.
The “devouring fire” is clearly metaphorical for something “all consuming" however, an inadequate meaning chosen by the translators for the Hebrew root word קַנָּֽא kaw-naw' distorts the correct meaning of the verse.
In Hebrew Kawnah can mean either ‘jealousy’ in the sense of envy (envious) or ‘zealous’ in the sense of being (ardently active, devoted, or diligent).
Applying the “synergy principal” showed us that ‘God is love’. A further consideration of the values the Bible holds for ‘love’ is found at 1 Cor. 13:4 where we are told that ‘love’ is not envious.
NRS 1 Corinthians 13:4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant
Since God cannot lie and the Bible is God’s word, we can readily see a better choice for the translation would have been ‘zealous’ rather than ‘jealous’ for the word ‘kawnah’ in Deut.4:24.
A valid concern is that if any part of the Bible is deemed incorrect, then it is all subject to doubt and dispute. We share this concern, as should all Bible students. However we view the Bible as God’s word. Therefore, we oppose any attempt to label anything in Scripture as “wrong”. What is wrong is always one of two things: 1) our interpretation of what the Scripture really means, and/or 2) our interpretation of reality (either through science, experience, intuition, etc.)
The Synergy principle demands that in obtaining correct understanding, one must apply several levels of context to what one reads. The first is immediate context. That is; one must consider what the words immediately preceding and proceeding the verse imparts to the meaning of the verse addressed. Then one must consider intermediate context. That is what else the book which contains the verse adds to its meaning. Finally as a third step one must consider what the Bible as whole says about the subject being considered.
There is divine principal behind the Synergy Principle which prevents anyone from twisting meanings scriptures intend to convey. That is “God Cannot Lie” (Titus 1:2).
This means if one has a correct understanding and the verse was accurately translated, one will not find another place in God’s inspired word where that verse either contradicts itself or is contradicted by other verses. When it appears to us that there is a contradiction with a previously understanding we may hold, we can be sure it is our understanding which is defective, and not Gods word which cannot lie.
The fact that God cannot lie, whether in scripture or in true science should move us to raise a warning flag when we are confronted with an understanding that contradicts either one of these, regardless of the source. Both innate honesty and god given logic tells us, if we are mistaken, holding on to a previous misconception can only offer us adverse consequences as a reward. Whereas embracing the truth will, as Jesus said at John 8:32; “set you free”
Foremost among the freedoms Jesus implied with his words is the freedom to accurately know God and his will for us according to “accurate” knowledge found in his own word the Holy Bible.
(A must read for serious Bible scholars)
The SYNERGY PRINCIPLE: aka The Synthesis Principle
One of our major safeguards against either misinterpreting or misapplying verses in achieving correct scriptural understanding is the “Synergy Principle”, which is the interaction of verses that when combined produce a total effect that is greater than the sum of the individual verses.
The Bible has within itself a system for identifying error and arriving at the correct understanding scripture provides. The Bible was written by 40 different human hands over a period of 1400 years. It consists of 66 separate books, combined into one unified document. Subjects covered by the bible never occur in isolation. References to any given subject can usually be found in many places, all over the Bible.
This makes it very difficult to alter an idea in a single verse. To be effective, one would have to alter every verse where the idea appeared. This is not practical as there are virtually thousands of Bible sources all over the world which would have to be changed to support the individual verse one wanted to affect. By restating his message in a number of places by different writers, who wrote at different times and in different places and who frequently never even knew each other, God provided a protection against tampering with the fundamental aspects of his message. In fact the bible provides a precept that for any important matter to be established, it must be supported by a minimum of two or three witnesses. (2 Cor. 13:1)
The synergy principle in a nut shell says the “the whole is greater than its parts” This may be seen to apply in a unique way to the Bible, when it comes to correctly understanding a given verse.
A single scripture may be seen in different ways by different persons and they may derive an understanding from it that may not be in harmony with what the bible as a whole imparts. On the other hand, knowing what the entire Bible conveys about a subject in that verse enables us to apply God’s own unified viewpoint.
For one example where applying the Synergy Principle can be seen to foster fuller and more accurate Bible understanding:
If we read Deut. 4:24 ASV where it says; “For Jehovah thy God is a devouring fire, a jealous God”. We are left with a distinctly negative picture of the God we are expected to worship. Our impression of him, if it was based on this single verse leads us to form a very “hard, stern and unlovable picture of a God, difficult to love and adore.
However, when we read on, just a few verses later (intermediate context) in verse 31, we are told “Jehovah your God is a merciful God”. Well, this paints a slightly different, still somewhat confusing picture.
However, when we apply the “synergy principal”, and explore verses which divulge ‘what God is’, taking us all over the Bible, this is what we find:
NAB 1 John 4:8 Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love.
YLT Psalm 54:4 Lo, God is a helper to me, The Lord is with those supporting my soul,
NJB Psalm 116:5 Yahweh is merciful and upright, our God is tenderness.
NKJ Acts 10:34 Then Peter opened his mouth and said: "In truth I perceive that God shows no partiality.
NJB Psalm 7:10 God is a shield that protects me, saving the honest of heart.
LXE Psalm 7:11 God is a righteous judge, and strong, and patient, not inflicting vengeance every day.
RSV Psalm 62:8 Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us. Selah
DRA Psalm 45:2 Our God is our refuge and strength: a helper in troubles, which have found us exceedingly.
DBY 1 John 1:5 And this is the message which we have heard from him, and declare to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
ESV Psalm 84:11 For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.
ESV Psalm 68:20 Our God is a God of salvation, and to GOD, the Lord, belong deliverances from death.
NJB Zephaniah 3:17 Yahweh your God is there with you, the warrior-Saviour. He will rejoice over you with happy song, he will renew you by his love, he will dance with shouts of joy for you,
DBY Hebrews 6:10 For God is not unrighteous to forget your work, and the love which ye have shewn to his name, having ministered to the saints, and still ministering.
NAB 1 Corinthians 10:13 No trial has come to you but what is human. God is faithful and will not let you be tried beyond your strength; but with the trial he will also provide a way out, so that you may be able to bear it.
ASV Psalm 99:9 Exalt ye Jehovah our God, And worship at his holy hill; For Jehovah our God is holy.
ASV John 4:24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship in spirit and truth.
DBY Ecclesiastes 5:2 Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thy heart be hasty to utter anything before God: for God is in the heavens, and thou upon earth; therefore let thy words be few.
GNV 1 Corinthians 11:3 But I will that ye know, that Christ is the head of euery man: and the man is the womans head: and God is Christs head.
DRA Mark 12:29 And Jesus answered him: The first commandment of all is, Hear, O Israel: the Lord thy God is one God.
BBE Daniel 2:47 And the king made answer to Daniel and said, Truly, your God is a God of gods and a Lord of kings, and an unveiler of secrets, for you have been able to make this secret clear.
ESV Daniel 9:14 Therefore the LORD has kept ready the calamity and has brought it upon us, for the LORD our God is righteous in all the works that he has done, and we have not obeyed his voice.
BBE 2 Chronicles 2:5 And the house which I am building is to be great, for our God is greater than all gods.
BBE Job 36:26 Truly, God is great, greater than all our knowledge; the number of his years may not be searched out.
NLT Job 36:5 "God is mighty, yet he does not despise anyone! He is mighty in both power and understanding.
ESV 1 Corinthians 14:33 For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints,
BBE Psalm 75:7 But God is the judge, putting down one, and lifting up another.
DBY Romans 8:33 Who shall bring an accusation against God's elect? It is God who justifies:
GNV Psalm 18:30 The way of God is uncorrupt: the worde of the Lord is tried in the fire: he is a shield to all that trust in him.
LXE Psalm 7:11 God is a righteous judge, and strong, and patient, not inflicting vengeance every day.
ESV Galatians 6:7 Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.
NJB Acts 17:30 'But now, overlooking the times of ignorance, God is telling everyone everywhere that they must repent,
One can easily see how examining more of the verses in the Bible which tell us “What God is” dramatically and completely changes the picture we got from Deut. 4:24 ASV where it said; “For Jehovah thy God is a devouring fire, a jealous God”, a picture painting him in a very limited negative light according to our human understanding.
If that single verse, had been faithfully translated precisely as written, it would have been an accurate description, just not the whole picture. You see that verse, as translated in the American Standard Version ASV quoted here, also contains some confusion inherent with the way it was translated.
The “devouring fire” is clearly metaphorical for something “all consuming" however, an inadequate meaning chosen by the translators for the Hebrew root word קַנָּֽא kaw-naw' distorts the correct meaning of the verse.
In Hebrew Kawnah can mean either ‘jealousy’ in the sense of envy (envious) or ‘zealous’ in the sense of being (ardently active, devoted, or diligent).
Applying the “synergy principal” showed us that ‘God is love’. A further consideration of the values the Bible holds for ‘love’ is found at 1 Cor. 13:4 where we are told that ‘love’ is not envious.
NRS 1 Corinthians 13:4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant
Since God cannot lie and the Bible is God’s word, we can readily see a better choice for the translation would have been ‘zealous’ rather than ‘jealous’ for the word ‘kawnah’ in Deut.4:24.
A valid concern is that if any part of the Bible is deemed incorrect, then it is all subject to doubt and dispute. We share this concern, as should all Bible students. However we view the Bible as God’s word. Therefore, we oppose any attempt to label anything in Scripture as “wrong”. What is wrong is always one of two things: 1) our interpretation of what the Scripture really means, and/or 2) our interpretation of reality (either through science, experience, intuition, etc.)
The Synergy principle demands that in obtaining correct understanding, one must apply several levels of context to what one reads. The first is immediate context. That is; one must consider what the words immediately preceding and proceeding the verse imparts to the meaning of the verse addressed. Then one must consider intermediate context. That is what else the book which contains the verse adds to its meaning. Finally as a third step one must consider what the Bible as whole says about the subject being considered.
There is divine principal behind the Synergy Principle which prevents anyone from twisting meanings scriptures intend to convey. That is “God Cannot Lie” (Titus 1:2).
This means if one has a correct understanding and the verse was accurately translated, one will not find another place in God’s inspired word where that verse either contradicts itself or is contradicted by other verses. When it appears to us that there is a contradiction with a previously understanding we may hold, we can be sure it is our understanding which is defective, and not Gods word which cannot lie.
The fact that God cannot lie, whether in scripture or in true science should move us to raise a warning flag when we are confronted with an understanding that contradicts either one of these, regardless of the source. Both innate honesty and god given logic tells us, if we are mistaken, holding on to a previous misconception can only offer us adverse consequences as a reward. Whereas embracing the truth will, as Jesus said at John 8:32; “set you free”
Foremost among the freedoms Jesus implied with his words is the freedom to accurately know God and his will for us according to “accurate” knowledge found in his own word the Holy Bible.