How to Read the Bible
[This essay first published in Notes on the Times, the journal of the Alexis de Tocqueville Society.]
How do you read the Bible? That may seem like an odd question. What do you think the Bible is? What is it for? Is it a collection of stories with a moral point? Is it a book of doctrine, the basis for a systematic articulation of what you believe? Is it a book of solutions to the problems you face from day to day? Or is it far more than all of these?
Most of us are familiar with all the Sunday School stories of the Old Testament. We’ve all heard the stories of biblical “heroes” like Joseph, Joshua, Gideon, Esther, David, Daniel, Shadrach, Meschach, Abednego, and many others. All too often, however, these scriptural accounts are treated simply as stories, and the application drawn from them usually has something to do with how we’re supposed to follow the example of these brave people and be courageous, steadfast, faithful, and the like. The closest thing to a theme that most evangelicals see in these stories is “How to do great things for God.” This misses the point. The Bible is far, far more than a collection of stories. It is the record of what God has really done in history. There is one grand theme running throughout all of Scripture, and the point of the stories of the Old Testament can’t be properly grasped unless we understand the theme and read them with it in mind.
The way to understand the theme that ties all Scripture together is what many theologians call the redemptive-historical perspective. Put simply, the entire Bible is God’s revelation of the story of His work throughout history to redeem a people to himself from sinful humanity, for the sake of His own glory. The point, the end, the focus of all of Scripture—Old Testament as well as New—is Christ. This means that every time we open the Bible and read a passage, we should ask ourselves how it fits in to this one grand theme. It is the point of all of Scripture, and, no less importantly, every part of Scripture.
To make clear how this affects our understanding of Bible stories, let’s look at a few, first as they’re normally interpreted, and then from a redemptive-historical perspective. First, consider the story of Gideon in Judges 6-8. A common reading of this passage portrays Gideon as a hero who did great things for God. Preachers and teachers who miss the point of this story make Gideon out to be a courageous man of God whom God used because of his faithfulness and strength. Look at the passage again, though—Gideon was a sniveling coward who tried crazy games with fleeces and dew to get out of obeying God. Gideon’s story points to Christ in that, just as God used the weakness of Gideon’s character to accomplish an amazing thing, God accomplished the greatest thing of all through the greatest weakness of all—the suffering and death of Christ on the cross.
This wrongheaded reading leads to other problems in interpreting the passage. When interpreting the divine drinking game that God uses in 7:1-8 to whittle Gideon’s force of ten thousand down to three hundred, many teachers will explain this by telling a story about how the men who lapped with their hands to their mouths were the best warriors, men who were alert and looking around, as if they were some sort of über-Marines. This entirely misses the point, and it is an interpretation that isn’t at all supported by the text. The point of the drinking game was to select not a certain kind of men, but a certain number. God was using this apparently arbitrary method to make sure, by using a ridiculously small force to gain victory, that there was no way the Israelites could boast in their own strength or take credit for the victory. Look at the tactics Gideon uses—you don’t need über-Marines to bang pots and wave torches.
A second example is the story of Esther. Like Gideon, the common evangelical reading of the book of Esther makes much of Esther’s character, her courage in going to the king, and her faithfulness in responding to Mordecai’s charge. This also makes for problematic application. We read the words “Who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?” and, trying to understand what the passage means for us, we conclude that we too have been placed in our position at Patrick Henry College “for such a time as this,” that is, to be raised up as Christian leaders in America and return our culture to Biblical principles. More generally, the common evangelical reading of this passage looks at Esther’s struggle with her fear of the king, Mordecai’s admonishment of her, and her subsequent conviction and resolution in chapter 4, and, asking what application we might draw from the passage, conclude that we should follow Esther’s example by trusting God, fearing Him rather than men, and seeking out and following fearlessly His will for our lives.
Again, this reading misses the point of the passage and the entire book of Esther. When we read Scripture, we must take care that any lessons, conclusions, and applications we draw come from and are supported by the text itself. Therefore, while individual verses can certainly be instructive and provide a wealth of insight, every verse and passage must be considered in its overall context. The reader must ask questions such as “What is the overall argument or point of this book of the Bible? How does this passage fit into and support the whole? How does this book fit into the overall biblical story of God’s amazing work in history? Knowing that Christ is the apex of the Biblical story, how does this passage and this book point to Christ?”
Calvin Seerveld, in his How to Read the Bible to Hear God Speak, describes the redemptive-historical method of reading Scripture this way:
This redemptive-historical reading that sees the whole story of the Bible while studying individual passages should transform your understanding of the stories of Gideon and Esther, as well as your reading of the rest of Scripture. While it might be appropriate to see examples for our lives in the character of these two people, the overwhelming emphasis in both of these passages is not on the protagonists, but on God. These are two of many passes in both Old and New Testament describing how God used miserable, sinful, weak, culturally marginalized people like a cowardly farmer from the lowest caste in society and a female slave to work His will in history.
The immediate point of both of these stories is God’s mighty acts to preserve His chosen people against their enemies. The longer-range point of these stories is Christ, for Christ is the Creator, Sustainer, Redeemer, and King of His people. Before the foundation of the world God set His plan to choose, redeem, and preserve a people to Himself, that they might be a light to the nations and the instrument of His salvation of the whole world. He did this for His own glory, and he tells us in His Word how he has done it, continues to do it, and will persist in doing it until the day when the Kingdom of God is consummated in Christ and all the world sings His praise. This is the point of all Scripture, and keeping it in mind is how we read the Bible rightly—redemptive-historically.
How do you read the Bible? That may seem like an odd question. What do you think the Bible is? What is it for? Is it a collection of stories with a moral point? Is it a book of doctrine, the basis for a systematic articulation of what you believe? Is it a book of solutions to the problems you face from day to day? Or is it far more than all of these?
Most of us are familiar with all the Sunday School stories of the Old Testament. We’ve all heard the stories of biblical “heroes” like Joseph, Joshua, Gideon, Esther, David, Daniel, Shadrach, Meschach, Abednego, and many others. All too often, however, these scriptural accounts are treated simply as stories, and the application drawn from them usually has something to do with how we’re supposed to follow the example of these brave people and be courageous, steadfast, faithful, and the like. The closest thing to a theme that most evangelicals see in these stories is “How to do great things for God.” This misses the point. The Bible is far, far more than a collection of stories. It is the record of what God has really done in history. There is one grand theme running throughout all of Scripture, and the point of the stories of the Old Testament can’t be properly grasped unless we understand the theme and read them with it in mind.
The way to understand the theme that ties all Scripture together is what many theologians call the redemptive-historical perspective. Put simply, the entire Bible is God’s revelation of the story of His work throughout history to redeem a people to himself from sinful humanity, for the sake of His own glory. The point, the end, the focus of all of Scripture—Old Testament as well as New—is Christ. This means that every time we open the Bible and read a passage, we should ask ourselves how it fits in to this one grand theme. It is the point of all of Scripture, and, no less importantly, every part of Scripture.
To make clear how this affects our understanding of Bible stories, let’s look at a few, first as they’re normally interpreted, and then from a redemptive-historical perspective. First, consider the story of Gideon in Judges 6-8. A common reading of this passage portrays Gideon as a hero who did great things for God. Preachers and teachers who miss the point of this story make Gideon out to be a courageous man of God whom God used because of his faithfulness and strength. Look at the passage again, though—Gideon was a sniveling coward who tried crazy games with fleeces and dew to get out of obeying God. Gideon’s story points to Christ in that, just as God used the weakness of Gideon’s character to accomplish an amazing thing, God accomplished the greatest thing of all through the greatest weakness of all—the suffering and death of Christ on the cross.
This wrongheaded reading leads to other problems in interpreting the passage. When interpreting the divine drinking game that God uses in 7:1-8 to whittle Gideon’s force of ten thousand down to three hundred, many teachers will explain this by telling a story about how the men who lapped with their hands to their mouths were the best warriors, men who were alert and looking around, as if they were some sort of über-Marines. This entirely misses the point, and it is an interpretation that isn’t at all supported by the text. The point of the drinking game was to select not a certain kind of men, but a certain number. God was using this apparently arbitrary method to make sure, by using a ridiculously small force to gain victory, that there was no way the Israelites could boast in their own strength or take credit for the victory. Look at the tactics Gideon uses—you don’t need über-Marines to bang pots and wave torches.
A second example is the story of Esther. Like Gideon, the common evangelical reading of the book of Esther makes much of Esther’s character, her courage in going to the king, and her faithfulness in responding to Mordecai’s charge. This also makes for problematic application. We read the words “Who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?” and, trying to understand what the passage means for us, we conclude that we too have been placed in our position at Patrick Henry College “for such a time as this,” that is, to be raised up as Christian leaders in America and return our culture to Biblical principles. More generally, the common evangelical reading of this passage looks at Esther’s struggle with her fear of the king, Mordecai’s admonishment of her, and her subsequent conviction and resolution in chapter 4, and, asking what application we might draw from the passage, conclude that we should follow Esther’s example by trusting God, fearing Him rather than men, and seeking out and following fearlessly His will for our lives.
Again, this reading misses the point of the passage and the entire book of Esther. When we read Scripture, we must take care that any lessons, conclusions, and applications we draw come from and are supported by the text itself. Therefore, while individual verses can certainly be instructive and provide a wealth of insight, every verse and passage must be considered in its overall context. The reader must ask questions such as “What is the overall argument or point of this book of the Bible? How does this passage fit into and support the whole? How does this book fit into the overall biblical story of God’s amazing work in history? Knowing that Christ is the apex of the Biblical story, how does this passage and this book point to Christ?”
Calvin Seerveld, in his How to Read the Bible to Hear God Speak, describes the redemptive-historical method of reading Scripture this way:
[This] approach begins by listening for the specific story at hand, the way mother and dad would read it to you at bedtime, while you keep your ears peaked for literary accents of the piece that carrry in-between-the-line overtones and nudge you toward the most significant points of revelation. Then you search out the history-making context of what went on and watch it take shape in the light of the whole Bible. Finally you wrestle yourself to stillness and listen, hear what the Word is telling, overwhelming you, of God’s marvelous dealings with humankind in God’s creation, headed for glorious completion.
This redemptive-historical reading that sees the whole story of the Bible while studying individual passages should transform your understanding of the stories of Gideon and Esther, as well as your reading of the rest of Scripture. While it might be appropriate to see examples for our lives in the character of these two people, the overwhelming emphasis in both of these passages is not on the protagonists, but on God. These are two of many passes in both Old and New Testament describing how God used miserable, sinful, weak, culturally marginalized people like a cowardly farmer from the lowest caste in society and a female slave to work His will in history.
The immediate point of both of these stories is God’s mighty acts to preserve His chosen people against their enemies. The longer-range point of these stories is Christ, for Christ is the Creator, Sustainer, Redeemer, and King of His people. Before the foundation of the world God set His plan to choose, redeem, and preserve a people to Himself, that they might be a light to the nations and the instrument of His salvation of the whole world. He did this for His own glory, and he tells us in His Word how he has done it, continues to do it, and will persist in doing it until the day when the Kingdom of God is consummated in Christ and all the world sings His praise. This is the point of all Scripture, and keeping it in mind is how we read the Bible rightly—redemptive-historically.
posted by Jeff at 8:19 PM
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