Let the Reader Understand: A Guide to Interpreting and Applying the Bible by Dan McCartney & Charles Clayton

Author:Dan McCartney & Charles Clayton [McCartney, Dan]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781629951645
Publisher: P&R Publishing
Published: 2014-09-07T04:00:00+00:00

UNDERSTANDING THE BIBLE ON ITS OWN TERMS

So far in this chapter, we have focused on grammatical-historical exegesis, the task of discovering the meaning that a specific text would have had at the time it was written. But since God is the ultimate author of the Bible as a whole, it is also necessary to discover what God is communicating in a particular text by relating that text to the whole Bible.

WHEN SCRIPTURE USES SCRIPTURE

The most obvious application of this principle is when one passage actually refers to another. If the NT quotes an OT text, to understand what the NT writer is saying, one must go back and see what the OT passage was saying in its original context. This will usually clarify and elucidate what the NT writer is saying. Very often a NT writer will quote only a short excerpt from a passage in Scripture, expecting his readers to know the content of the entire passage. For example, Matthew 3:3 and Mark 1:3 quote Isaiah 40:3 to describe the significance of John the Baptist (Luke 3:4–6 quotes a bit more of Isaiah). Looking at the whole passage of Isaiah 40:1–11 shows what was so exciting to the gospel writers. And of course Isaiah 40 is the beginning of the prelude to the great “Servant of the Lord” prophecy of Isaiah 42–55, which is climactically fulfilled in Christ. But even if the NT writer quotes a text rather fully, looking at its larger context can still lead to valuable insights. First Peter 3:10–12 gives a rather extensive quotation from Psalm 34:12–16, and at first blush this seems to do little more than give the advice that we should live peaceably with everyone. But the quotation occurs in a context in 1 Peter that deals with Christian suffering. A look at the entirety of Psalm 34 shows that it too is concerned with suffering, putting that suffering in the context of God’s hearing his people and delivering them from suffering. Peter would have expected his readers to know this, and to see the relevance of the Psalm to his exhortation.

This principle also works the other way: if one is looking at an OT text that is referred to in the NT, it is important to see how the NT writer used the passage; this will often indicate how the OT passage may be Christologically focused and ecclesiologically applied. When we read Genesis 2:2–3, we learn that God’s finishing of his creative work established the divine pattern that led to the hallowing of the seventh day. But we might not see the connection to the Israelites’ typological entry into the Promised Land and the final entry into the eternal rest of the true people of God, if it were not for Hebrews 4. Hebrews gives us a better understanding of the meaning of God’s rest on the seventh day in Genesis.

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