Determining How Bible Passages MAY BE USED
In his classic 544 page work, Prophecy Viewed in Respect to Its Distinctive Nature, Its
Special Function, and Proper Interpretation (revised edition, 1865) reprinted as The
Interpretation of Prophecy, Patrick Fairbairn systematically laid out
distinct principles for interpreting Old Testament prophetic passages.
Are there criteria
like those for the interpretation of prophecy that govern the legitimate uses
of Scriptures? Is there some framework
that encompasses and defines how Scripture ought to be dealt with, one that
excludes certain categories of use? Are
there principles laying out proper and improper uses of scripture?
These questions are
related to purpose – Why is this information given and how ought it to
be directed? What would constitute
inappropriate use? Do categories of use
such as moral or practical lessons
from the lives of Joseph, David, Daniel, etc. without reference to the story of
redemption constitute wrong use of Scripture?
Is there anything wrong with stand-alone Bible lessons?
This discussion is
framed by what the Bible is and is for in contrast to what it is not and is not
for.
CENTRALITY
OF REDEMPTION1
What is it about a
message that makes it distinctly Christian? Does it stand alone as points of
organizational or behavioral wisdom, financial guidance, marriage counseling,
or ethical teaching, as an island in a sea of islands, or does the instructor
convey its vital connection to the Bible and its God?2 If
he does, does he integrate the message with rest of Scripture or does he tack
it on in a perfunctory manor?
What is a
Christian? Whether clergy or laity, are
not Christians products of the Gospel as well as ministers of the Gospel? Is not the foundation of the Church the truth
relayed by the apostles and prophets - meaning the Word of God laid down in the
New Testament era (Eph.2:20), “the
faith [body of doctrine] that was once delivered [completed cannon] for all the saints” (Jude 3) about Christ our founder (Heb.2:10)?
The White Horse Inn weekly
program has an advertisement for Westminster Seminary,
Presbyterian and Reformed
Publishing Company is dedicated to publishing excellent books that promote
biblical understanding and godly living as summarized in The Westminster
Confession of Faith and Catechisms. http://prpbooks.com/ A P&R add in World magazine advertising From Famine to Fullness, The
Gospel According to Ruth has an endorsement by D.A. Carson, “One of the most urgent needs of the church
is to grasp how the many parts of the Bible fit together to make one ‘story
line’ that culminates in Jesus Christ.”
The Message of Acts in the
History of Redemption by Dennis
Johnson, 1997, is another example of this.
In the introduction to his 1982
book, Preaching with Purpose, The urgent Task of Homiletics, Jay Adams
writes, “That, with…very few-notable
exceptions, preachers need to change what they are doing is not a point that I
shall argue. If you are of the mind
that, on the whole, preaching in
In the preface to his 1990
book, Truth Applied, Application in Preaching, Jay Adams quotes Haddon
Robinson’s 1980 book, Biblical Preaching, “Many homileticians have not given application
the attention it deserves. No book has
been published devoted exclusively, or even primarily to the knotty problem
raised by application.”
In chapter 1,
My inquiry does not
address application only, but the way passages are spoken about and how the
teacher is directing us to think about them.
Are the passages really making the points you are driving for or are you
making them say what you want even though you’re not twisting them? In other words, even if your observations
from passages are accurate and principles are actually derived from them, even
if the illustrations and examples are true to the text, what is it about the
passage that ought to impress people - be better, do more, and work harder for
Christ? Instead, shouldn’t it be
something that draws hearts to God through Christ?4
What is more practical than this?
“Biblical
theology…seeks to allow the Bible’s message about God to come through in the
way the Bible tells it…We need the approach of biblical theology to enable us
to see the significance of individual sections or texts of the Bible for what
they are…to prevent us from falling into the prevalent error of using texts as
springboards for sermons and lessons on almost anything other than the original
significance of the text…as Christians, we can no longer come to the Old
Testament as if we were pre-Christian Israelites. Our faith-quest for the truth of the Bible
begins with our relationship to Jesus Christ…who is consistently presented in
the New Testament as the one who can be understood and known only as the
fulfillment of the Old Testament…we no longer have the option to read the Old
Testament as if we didn’t know to whom it is leading, or as if Jesus had not
come. We, as Christians, now read the
Old Testament with the prior knowledge that it is about Jesus.”6
“What did Paul mean…’I decided to know
nothing except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified’? [1 Cor.2:2]…Paul repudiates the worldview of the pagan, the
philosopher, and even the Jew who attempts to get a handle on reality apart
from the truth that is in Christ. ‘We
proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the
gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ [is] the power of God and
the wisdom of God’ (1 Cor.1:23-24). The reason for this Christ-centeredness
is so that the faith of his readers ‘might not rest on human wisdom but on the
power of God’ (1 Cor.2:5). This means that the only appropriate way to
respond to God’s revealed power and wisdom is by being focused on the person of
Christ. Elsewhere [1 Cor.1:17, 24;
Rom.1:16] Paul defines the power of God as
Christ and His Gospel.”5
In
Chapter 2 of Preaching,5
Goldsworthy discusses what the Bible
is under the headings:
The Bible is > the Word of the One God
the One Word of God
the Word of God about the One
Way of Salvation
the One Written Word of God
about the One Way of Salvation
Therefore a Book about Christ
“There is often a failure to think through how the link between the people and events
of the Old Testament are to be made with us…This failure leads to some major
defects in preaching…the tendency to moralize on Old Testament events,
or simply to find pious examples to imitate.”5
One aspect of the
misuse of Scripture “is the propensity…to
separate the matters of ethics and godly living from their roots in the Gospel.” In “a
series on ‘the marks of the mature church’…Various qualities were set forth as
what one should expect to find in the truly mature church. The implication
was that we as a congregation needed to be more diligent in producing these
marks of maturity. What was missing was the way these texts belonged in the New
Testament context of the exposition of the Gospel. The
primary focus became law, not Gospel…Without the Gospel all exhortations of
the New Testament become not just law, but legalistic…Good exegesis of a
limited text turned the text into law without any visible grace.”5
Application of the
truth of God’s word to the hearer “can
only be achieved in terms of the Gospel.”
Since we are all legalists at heart, preaching often shifts to exhortation that plays to that legalistic
tendency within us. My son, Kevin,
made the comment about services he was attending, “Even though grace is taught,
it still feels like law.” [see the 3rd section of Cultural Mandate…Commands http://pop.eradman.com/] Because “the Gospel is
the theological center of the whole Bible,” “proper interpretation of any part
of the Bible requires us to relate it to the person and work of Jesus.” “Expository biblical preaching is always an
exposition of the Gospel and its implications.”5
“All the dimensions of the Gospel of Christ
are present in Old Testament form, that is, as prefigurations
or foreshadowings of that which is given its final
expression in Jesus of Nazareth…the New Testament presupposes the Old and thus
we do not grasp as well as we should the meaning of the New if we sever it from
the Old. The Old Testament, in so many
ways, gives us the texture of the Gospel.
It shows us in great detail what it is that Jesus achieves in His death
and resurrection. We must read the two
Testaments as a unit if we are to avoid an irrational cleavage of understanding
of Christian existence into an Old Testament form and a New Testament form.”6
On the other hand, Goldsworthy
cautions against erring by trying too hard - forcing the analogies as “mistaken
zeal to find Christ in all Scripture” in approaches to typology “by using…free association of ideas…When
this spurious approach was applied to the directions for building the
tabernacle, every detail prescribed by God was seen to speak somehow of
Christ. The wood of the ark represented
His humanity, while the gold overlay represented His divinity…The problem with such an approach is
that it does not inquire into the real relationship between the texts in
question and the fulfillment in Christ.”
“Such wild typology” “is really allegory.”5
In reaction to such typological excesses (uncontrolled allegory), some scholars
have so narrowly restricted the criteria of types as to greatly reduce their
usefulness in interpretation. Our
concern should not be so much with the occurrence of the word “type” as with “how the New Testament authors made the
connection between their contemporary situation and what had gone on before in
the Old Testament…typology is neglected because the word in the New Testament
is tied to only a few actual examples…we are not dealing merely with scattered
examples, but with a broad pattern.”5
WHAT SCRIPTURE IS FOR
Ephesians contains a lot of
instruction on our behavior as Christians.
Much of it presses
us to change, “become7 kind to one another” (4:32), “become7 imitators of God” (5:1). In what is usually
considered a practical section governing various relationships, Eph.5:21-6:9, the relationship of a
husband to his wife and visa versa is spoken of as an analogy of Christ’s
relationship to the church (5:23-30). In verse
32, the “mystery” of the union of Christ and His bride is not put in
terms of an analog of marriage, but as the fundamental reality which
marriage is meant to portray. Even here,
amazingly, unexpectedly, the focus is on redemption and what flows from
it (v.25-27).
“Above all,
apostolic preaching must be Christ-centered…Yet, Christ centeredness in
preaching must not be reduced to portraying Jesus as example…there is a
distinctive apostolic way of being Christ-centered, and it is this hermeneutic
that places appropriate checks on the preacher’s hyperactive
imagination…Apostolic preaching is redemptive-historical…It emphasizes the
organic unity of the history of redemption…Integral to this approach is careful
attention to biblical typology and an openness to seeing typological
connections between Old Testament persons, events, and
institutions…Redemptive-historical preachers oppose the moralistic,
particularly the exemplaristic, preaching of biblical
historical narratives…The indicative mood…precedes the imperative…’The
indicative implies or entails the imperative’ [p.51,
seems to assume the apostles are not serving as examples for us in addressing
ethical conduct and applying truth to particular situations, which they do a
lot]…How can contemporary preachers
preach ‘nothing but Christ’ and at the same time preach the whole Bible…Paul
preached nothing but Christ because he knew Jesus to be the supreme revealer of
God the creator and the only reconciler of God’s people…Preaching Christ is
preaching the fulfillment of God’s redemptive plan for history…God has chosen
to tie His self-revelation to the outworking of His saving plan in the history
of redemption…Hebrews sees Old Testament persons, institutions, and events
(outlines) pre-embedded by God in Israel’s history, now fulfilled (filled in)
by reality in Christ…the Old Testament prophets themselves treat earlier
redemptive acts of God as typological.” Him We Proclaim
– Preaching Christ from All the Scriptures, 07 by Dennis Johnson
“…the sermon
cannot do any good unless there be a savor of Christ
in it.” C.H. Spurgeon
[see NEW COVENANT Theology http://pop.eradman.com]
----------------
1. [see The Key to the Bible, sessions 1 & 2 http://pop.eradman.com/] “Redemption”
is not set against or in contrast to “the Glory of God.” Doing so would create an unnatural and
inappropriate division as is sometimes done between faith and works. After all, all God’s works redound to
His glory because everything He does in creation, redemption, and judgment is
perfect and right. His works and ways
show Him to be wonderful and beautiful.
The way some people speak of the
Glory of God as His main purpose, you’d think God was peeking around every
corner, looking for ways to show off and gain recognition.
2. This is not to
imply that every single message must have a 5 minute segment explaining its
connection to the rest of Scripture. But
some such tie-in is needed
for continuity’s sake for each given body of work such as a book or a
series of messages on a given topic. The
point or emphasis or focus of the message ought to be an expression of true
Christianity and stated as such as opposed to pragmatic principles,
psychological insights, or anything else that can be classified as wisdom – not
that such things should be excluded. Is
your message so neutral that it can be used by any religious or self-help
group, seen on Oprah or heard on NPR, or is it definitively
Christian? [See NPR interview with John Piper http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Interviews/1678_The_NPR_Tsunami_Interview/]
3. It has been
said that there is a desperate need to be taught the practical use of
Scripture. I’m not so sure. To borrow a phrase from another of Adam’s
books, “The Scriptures Are Practical” - the doctrines themselves are inherently
useful to make the heart strong toward God.
What people need is to learn how to read and understand the Bible. For Christians, renewing the mind is a
spiritual discipline, an essential exercise they must engage in
themselves. A little meditation on God’s
word goes a long way toward receiving down-to-earth here-and-now benefits (such
as quieting the heart before God under adverse circumstances). In a way, like giving a child something they
could obtain by working, telling people outright what they should be
discovering for themselves by thinking through Scripture bypasses a whole host
of real benefits. Like the illustration
of working in order to have or achieve, much character improvement is derived
through the work and waiting process, and appreciation for the thing will
always be greater. [see http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2009/01/getting-theologically-humiliated/] Without question there is benefit from
gathering as a body, teaching, help, guidance, and encouragement, but to what
end if not to move us to seek to know and follow Christ ourselves. It always comes down to this.
4. The 2008 theme
for The White Horse Inn discussions was “Christless
Christianity.” http://www.oneplace.com/ministries/the_white_horse_inn/
5. Preaching
the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture, 2000 by Graeme Goldsworthy
6. Prayer and
the Knowledge of God, 2003 by Graeme Goldsworthy
7. ginomai
- change of status or condition resulting in a new status or condition