How to Read The Bible for All Its Worth by Gordon D. Fee

Author:Gordon D. Fee [Fee, Gordon D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Christian Life - General, Spiritual Growth, Spirituality
ISBN: 9780862019747
Publisher: Scripture Union Publishing
Published: 2005-02-15T05:00:00+00:00

1385:38-42) is, in fact, the ethic of the kingdom--for this present age. But it is predicated on God's nonretaliatory love for us; and in the kingdom it is to be "like Father, like child" (see Matt 5:48). It is our experience of God's unconditional, unlimited forgiveness that comes first, but it is to be followed by our unconditional, unlimited forgiveness of others. Someone has said that, in Christianity, religion is grace; ethics is gratitude.

Hence Jesus' imperatives are a word for us, but they are not like the Old Testament law. They describe the lived-out love of our new life as God's loved and redeemed children--a love that is not optional, of course!The Narratives

The narratives tend to function in more than one way in the Gospels. The miracle stories, for example, are not recorded to offer morals or to serve as precedents. Rather, they function as vital illustrations of the power of the kingdom breaking in through Jesus' own ministry. In a circuitous way they may illustrate faith, fear, or failure, but this is not their primary function. However, stories such as the rich young man (mark 10:17-22 and parallels) and the request to sit at Jesus' right hand (mark 10:35-45 and parallels) are placed in a context of teaching, where the story itself serves as an illustration of what is being taught. It seems to us to be the proper hermeneutical practice to use these narratives in precisely the same way.

Thus the point of the rich young man story is not that all Jesus' disciples must sell all their possessions to follow him. There are clear examples in the gospels where that was not the case (cf. Luke 5:2730; 8:3; Mark 14:3-9).

The story instead illustrates the point of how difficult it is for the rich to enter the kingdom precisely because they have prior commitments to mammon and are trying to secure their lives thereby. But God's gracious love can perform miracles on

The Gospels: One Story, Many Dimensions

the rich, too, Jesus goes on to say. The Zacchaeus story (luke 19:110) is an illustration of such.

Again, one can see the importance of good exegesis so that the point we make of such narratives is, in fact, the point being made in each gospel itself.

A Final, Very Important Word

This word also applies to the prior discussion of the

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