Reading the Word of God in the Presence of God E-Book

Vern S. Poythress

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

Biblical interpretation is typically viewed as concerned with understanding the human author's intended meaning. However, for Christians, the Bible is first and foremost God's Word and must be understood in that light. Helping Christians approach the Bible with God in mind, this book sets forth a more nuanced approach to biblical interpretation that pays attention to both the human and divine origins of these sacred texts. Whether it's reviewing the three basic steps of interpretation or emphasizing the importance of paying attention to the Christ-centered character of both the Old and New Testaments, this book is a much-needed resource for the church as it wrestles to defend the authority of Scripture in our increasingly relativistic world.

Leseprobe

READINGTHEWORD OF GODIN THEPRESENCE OF GOD

A HANDBOOK FOR BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION

VERN S. POYTHRESS

Reading the Word of God in the Presence of God: A Handbook for Biblical Interpretation

Copyright © 2016 by Vern S. Poythress

Published by Crossway 1300 Crescent Street Wheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

Cover design: Studio Gearbox

First printing 2016

Printed in the United States of America

Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Single verses, short phrases, and single words have been cited from the Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB), King James Version (KJV), New American Standard Bible (NASB), and New International Version (NIV).

All italics in Scripture quotations have been added by the author.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-4324-1ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-4327-2PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-4325-8Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-4326-5

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Poythress, Vern S.

Reading the word of God in the presence of God : a handbook for biblical interpretation / Vern S. Poythress.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4335-4324-1 (tp)

1. Bible—Hermeneutics. I. Title.

BS476.P688 2016

220.601—dc232015005319

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

LB    26  25  24  23  22  21  20  19  18  17  16

15  14  13  12  11  10  9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1

To my wife, Diane

Contents

Cover PageTitle PageCopyrightDedicationTables and IllustrationsPart IINTRODUCTORY PRINCIPLES FOR INTERPRETATION1 Foundations for Interpretation2 Principles for Interpreting the Bible3 Complementary Starting Points for InterpretationPart IISIMPLE STEPS IN INTERPRETATION4 Three Simple Steps in Interpretation5 The Three Steps as Perspectives6 Correlation: Comparing PassagesPart IIIISSUES WITH TIME7 Transmission8 Original Contexts9 Original CommunicationPart IVISSUES WITH AUTHORSHIP10 Dual Authorship11 Difficulties with AuthorshipPart VISSUES WITH LANGUAGE12 Basic Linguistic Structures13 Understanding Linguistic Subsystems14 Units in Contrast, Variation, and Distribution15 Meaning16 Figurative Language17 Words and Concepts18 Discourse19 Genre20 Using CommentariesPart VIREDEMPTIVE-HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION21 The History of Redemption22 Christocentric Interpretation23 Typology24 Additional Stages Reflecting on Typology25 Varieties of Analogies26 Varieties of Types27 Antitypes28 ThemesPart VIIASSESSMENT29 Hermeneutics Outline in Detail30 Alternate Paths of Interpretation31 The Fulfillment Approach32 Boundaries for InterpretationPart VIIIEXAMPLES33 Proverbs 10:134 Psalm 4:835 Amos 1:3ConclusionAPPENDICESAppendix A: Redeeming How We InterpretAppendix B: Secular Views of MeaningAppendix C: Interpreting Human TextsAppendix D: Redeemed Analogues to Critical MethodsAppendix E: Philosophical HermeneuticsBibliographyGeneral IndexScripture Index

Tables and Illustrations

Tables

2.1Comparing Treaties and Covenants

4.1Three Steps: Observation, Elucidation, and Application

7.1Aspects of Verbal Communication

21.1Perspectives on God’s Plan for History

27.1Applications to Individual and Community, Now and in the Future

Illustrations

4.1Three-Steps Worksheet

4.2Three-Steps Worksheet, Filled Out

18.1Tree for Rhetorical Analysis

18.2Tree for Rhetorical Analysis, with Prominence

23.1Clowney’s Triangle

23.2Clowney’s Triangle for the Sin Offering

23.3Clowney’s Triangle for David and His Men

24.1Clowney’s Triangle with Application

24.2Clowney’s Triangle for the Sin Offering, with Application

24.3Clowney’s Triangle for David and His Men, with Application

25.1Christ as Mediator

25.2The Mediatorial Functions of Christ

31.1Fulfilling Old Testament Examples

31.2Fulfillment and God’s Character

Part I

INTRODUCTORY PRINCIPLES FOR INTERPRETATION

1

Foundations for Interpretation

This book is a practical handbook to help people grow in skill in interpreting the Bible. It illustrates the process of interpretation by considering the stages through which a Bible student may travel in the course of studying a passage in the Bible. Even beginners can use the early stages of our approach (up through chapters 4–6), because we have designed the explanations to make sense to beginners and to be usable. In later chapters we add more complexity, so that beginners can continue to advance. As more details are added, pastors and advanced students may also find helpful insights.

Our approach should also interest experts, because it differs from what has become standard among many biblical scholars (see appendix A). We endeavor to appreciate how communion with God forms the central axis in every stage of interpretation—the beginning, the middle, and the end. We want to interpret the Bible in a way that has its basis in the Bible itself, in the Bible’s instruction about loyalty to God. Both beginners and more mature students can profit from thinking through how to interpret the Bible more faithfully.

This handbook shares much with biblical interpretation that took place in the Reformation and before. The Enlightenment and its fruits have resulted in additional benefits through common grace. But much that has taken place in the modern West has corrupted the process of interpreting the Bible. We must rethink how we work, rather than passively accept the standards and procedures that are now common in the academic world in the West. At the same time, we can profit from positive insights found in modern thinking about interpretation. This handbook has endeavored to use both ancient and modern insights, but only after sifting good from bad, and placing positive insights in the larger framework of a biblically based worldview.

Loving God

So let us begin.

Jesus indicates how we ought to live with wholehearted love for God:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets. (Matt. 22:37–40)

If we love the Lord our God with all our heart and soul and mind, we will be interested in learning more about him. And the Bible is the primary source for knowledge of God.1 Thus, loving God motivates serious study of the Bible. When we study the Bible, we should be loving God in the midst of our study. What implications does loving God have for the way we study the Bible? Amid our studying, we will be asking God to enliven our hearts, to enliven and clarify our minds, to sanctify our attitudes, to teach us, and to empower us to receive and obey what we study. We will also be praising him and loving him and enjoying him and marveling over who he is amid every aspect of our study. We will be repenting of sins when the Bible reveals how we have sinned.

So what does it look like to study in this way? We will endeavor to work out details in good time. But first we need to consider briefly some foundational questions: the nature of love, the nature of God, our own nature, and the nature of our needs. These are deep questions. We will consider them only in a brief way, leaving it to other books to work out the foundations in a more thorough way.2 We are condensing our discussion of the foundations so that we can give more attention to how their implications work out in the actual practice of Bible study.

The Centrality of Love

First, let us consider the centrality of love in responding to God. In addition to what Jesus says about love, the apostle Paul indicates that all the commandments of God can be summed up in the second of the two great commandments, the commandment to love your neighbor as yourself:

for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. (Rom. 13:8–10)

For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Gal. 5:14)

In a sense, God is our closest “neighbor,” so this commandment implies loving God as well as our human neighbors.

God’s will can also be summed up in the first and great commandment, to love God, because loving God implies loving your neighbor as well:

If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother. (1 John 4:20–21)

The Bible also indicates that if we love God, we will keep his commandments:

For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. (1 John 5:3)

If you love me, you will keep my commandments. (John 14:15)

Among the commandments is the commandment to love your neighbor. So it makes sense that loving God is the “great and first commandment.” By implication, it encompasses all the other commandments of God and sums up our entire duty to God. Therefore it also sums up our duty when we interpret the Bible.

Redemption

How can we love God with all our heart? In our fallen condition, as children of Adam, we are in rebellion against God and in slavery to sin: “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin” (John 8:34). At heart, we hate God rather than loving him. God himself has to rescue us. That is why he sent Christ into the world:

In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. (1 John 4:9–11)

Other books explain God’s redemption through Christ.3 Here, we will explore how his redemption affects our interpretation of the Bible.

God as Trinity

We can love God only if God himself empowers us. This empowerment begins when we are born again through the Holy Spirit:

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, “You must be born again.” (John 3:5–7)

This principle is confirmed by other verses that indicate that God takes the initiative:

We love because he first loved us. (1 John 4:19)

Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he [Christ] has poured out this [the Holy Spirit at Pentecost] that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. (Acts 2:33)

The Holy Spirit empowers us to love: “The fruit of the Spirit is love . . .” (Gal. 5:22). Loving God leads in turn to communion with him: “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him” (John 14:23). Jesus says that both he and his Father will dwell with anyone who loves him. In the context of this verse, he also indicates that the Holy Spirit will dwell with believers (v. 17). Communion with God is communion with the one true God who is three persons and whose communion with us takes place through the mediation of the Son in the power of the Holy Spirit.4 This communion takes place only with those who belong to Christ, who are united to him by faith.

Since the Bible is God’s word, his own speech to us,5 his speech functions as one way in which he has communion with us. Through his word, God works sanctification: “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17). God’s communion with us always harmonizes with his own character. We have communion with our Trinitarian God. So we can think about how his Trinitarian character affects our communion with him.

As we have indicated, when we are united to Christ and trust in him, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit come to dwell in us, and this indwelling expresses God’s communion with us. The work of the Holy Spirit is particularly prominent in this indwelling. Romans 8, in teaching about the Spirit’s indwelling, calls him “the Spirit of God” and “the Spirit of Christ” (Rom. 8:9). The Father and the Son make their home in a Christian specifically through the Holy Spirit.

We experience fellowship with Christ as we are buried and raised with him, according to Romans 6:3–11. We experience his lordship and control both through his commandments and through having his work applied in our lives. By God’s work we begin to love him and to express our love in faithful obedience.

The lordship of Christ over our lives expresses the lordship of God the Father as well. God the Father, as Creator and sustainer, represents the ultimate source of authority. He makes moral claims on our lives. His claims have relevance when we are studying the Bible.

Perspectival Triads

The lordship of Christ has implications for the process of interpretation. John M. Frame, by meditating on the biblical teaching on God’s lordship, has summed up the nature of God’s lordship using three overlapping themes: authority, control, and presence.6 He uses and expounds these themes in understanding God’s lordship over all creation and all history. But the themes also apply to God’s lordship over the lives of believers. When we have communion with God through Christ, we experience his lordship as he applies Christ’s work of salvation to us.

Frame also indicates that the three categories of lordship reflect the work of the three distinct persons of the Trinity. Authority belongs to the Father, control to the Son, and presence to the work of the Holy Spirit.7 Since, however, the three persons of the Trinity indwell one another, and since they all act in all of God’s works in the world, the three categories of lordship function as perspectives on one another, rather than being separable. And even though we can associate one distinct person of the Trinity more closely with one category, all three persons are active in all the aspects of lordship.

Each perspective on lordship points to the other two and presupposes the other two. For example, if we start with the perspective of control, we can see that God’s control implies control over my location and my heart, which means that God is present with me. Control implies control over standards for authority, and so implies that God has ultimate authority. If we start with presence, we are dealing with the presence of God, who also makes present his moral standards, and therefore makes present his ultimate authority. His power to be present represents a form of power and therefore of control.

The interlocking and interpenetration of the perspectives on lordship reflect the inexhaustible mystery of the Trinity, which we can never understand completely. God understands himself completely because he is God (1 Cor. 2:10). We as creatures can understand truly and genuinely, as God gives us ability and reveals himself through Christ. But we never come to understand him exhaustively and we never dissolve all mystery. The mysteries concerning God only deepen as we deepen our understanding. They should stir up our awe and praise, rather than frustration.

When God acts, he expresses his authority, control, and presence. All three—authority, control, and presence—come to expression when he speaks to us in Scripture. So these perspectives on lordship describe how we have communion with God in our reception of Scripture. By specifically thinking about these perspectives as we read, we may stir up our hearts to praise and to stand in awe of him, and at the same time remind ourselves that Scripture contains mysteries. The ultimate mystery of God himself always remains.

We can further explore what it means to listen to Scripture by using a second triad of perspectives, namely the triad consisting in the normative, situational, and existential perspectives. John Frame has developed this second triad of perspectives for analyzing ethics.8 The normative perspective focuses on the norms for ethics, which are summarized in God’s commands. Parts of Scripture with explicit commands are further explained and deepened by the surrounding Scriptures that contain other kinds of communication. The situational perspective focuses on our situation, and asks how we may best promote the glory of God in our situation. Loving our neighbor offers one way of glorifying God. So as an aspect of the situational perspective, we may ask how we may best express love for our neighbors and how we may best help and bless them. Finally, the existential perspective focuses on the people in the situation and their motivations. The primary motivation should be love.

These three perspectives, when rightly understood, interlock and reinforce one another. Each functions as a perspective on all of ethics. Rightly understood, each not only points to the others but even encompasses them. For example, the normative perspective starts with God’s commands. But God’s commands include the command to love, and so this perspective tells us to pay attention to motivations and attitudes. Thus it encompasses the existential perspective, which focuses on motivations and attitudes. Next, suppose that we start with the existential perspective. We start with the emphasis on loving God. If we love God, we will keep his commandments, and so we also have to pay attention to the commandments, which involves the normative perspective. Loving our neighbors means paying attention to how we may bless them in their circumstances, and so leads to the situational perspective on their circumstances. If we start with the normative perspective, the commandments of God imply that we should pay attention to the circumstances in order to act wisely. So the normative perspective leads to the situational perspective.

In sum, we may profitably consider Scripture using Frame’s perspectives, because Scripture itself invites us to reflect on aspects of God’s lordship and aspects of our obligations to God.

Unity and Diversity in Humanity

To appreciate more fully what it means to listen to God’s word in the Bible, we have to consider who we are as recipients of God’s word. So let us consider our humanity. The reality of God’s Trinitarian nature has implications for our understanding of humanity. We are made in the image of God (Gen. 1:26–27). God is one God in three persons. He has unity and diversity in himself. We as human beings are creatures, not the Creator. But we also have unity and diversity, though unity and diversity operate on a different level and in a different way than with God himself. (For example, we do not have the ultimate mutual indwelling or “coinherence” belonging only to the persons of the Trinity in their relation to each other.)

The unity of humanity consists in the fact that we are all human—we are all made in the image of God, and we share common ways of thinking, speaking, and acting. But we also show diversity. Each of us is a distinctive human being, unlike anyone else in details. Sin makes diversity contentious, but a certain kind of harmonious diversity was present with Adam and Eve before they sinned. And redemption brings back harmonious diversity: diversity in the church blesses every member of the body of Christ. The church is one body with many members (1 Corinthians 12). We have a diversity of gifts, which in their diversity bring health and growth to the one body (see also Eph. 4:1–16).

This diversity among human beings expresses itself in how we understand the Bible. We find ourselves at different stages of growth. Not everyone pays attention to exactly the same verses or the same aspects of the verses. Not everyone understands with equal depth or acuity. We can also see diversity in the human authors of the Bible. The four Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—have fascinating differences in emphasis. They have four distinct human authors, though we should be quick to add that it was God who raised up these four authors in their distinctiveness, and the distinctions express God’s will and receive God’s authorization. The Gospels did not arise merely from human individuality, in a way independent of God.9

Unity and diversity show themselves in our study of Scripture as well. Some people memorize more Scripture than others. Some people find themselves drawn to the Psalms, while others pore over Matthew or Romans or Revelation. God equips some people with gifts of teaching (Rom. 12:7; 1 Cor. 12:28–29; Eph. 4:11), and they explain Scripture to others or write commentaries that help others. Some people have the gift of helping (1 Cor. 12:28; see Rom. 12:7), and their practical acts of helping bring home the implications of Scriptural passages that talk about practical service.

When all the people in the church are following Christ, all their efforts work together to build up the church, which is the body of Christ (1 Cor. 14:12; Eph. 4:12–16). But the church as a whole suffers when some members suffer (1 Cor. 12:26). This interaction of unity and diversity expresses God’s plan for the church and for the members in the church—for every Christian believer.

The unity and diversity in the church have a role when we consider studying the Bible. We have already mentioned the gift of teaching. Teachers play a leading role in guiding the whole church into understanding the Bible more deeply and faithfully. Not everyone is a teacher, so we have a diversity here. The whole church profits from godly and gifted teachers, so the church has a unity as well. All believers grow in knowing Scripture in common ways, because the Bible is the word of God, from the Father through the Son in the power of the Holy Spirit. Believers share doctrines in common (Eph. 4:5: “one Lord, one faith, one baptism”).

But we meet diversity as well. In the first century of the church, and in some cultures of the world even today, some of the believers cannot read, or do not have access to a printed Bible of their own. They rely on hearing from others, perhaps as the Bible is read in a church meeting or as they listen to a radio or a TV or a recording that has a reading from the Bible. Even in situations where believers have access to the Bible and other aids such as concordances, Bible atlases, and commentaries, we must reckon with diversity in the body of Christ. Not everyone will read and study according to the same exact pattern.10

Means of Growth

The Bible prescribes one central “method” for learning: Christ himself is “the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). Christ is the “method.” But of course he is a person, not a mechanical list of steps. When we hear the word method, we may think of a fixed series of steps that guarantees a particular outcome. For example, we follow the instructions for putting together a new bookcase; and if we follow them carefully, we obtain a finished bookcase. Or, the recipe for cooking muffins leads to tasty muffins.

Christ as a person is actually the opposite of having a “method” in this sense, because we cannot reduce the person of Christ to a mechanical method, nor can we as human beings guarantee beforehand merely by our own will or power that we will always be faithful to Christ and his lordship as we study his word. Precisely because we do not have a simple, fail-safe “recipe” for interpretation, a recipe that would work independently of our religious commitment and our spiritual health and our moral obedience, it is all the more important that we affirm that Christ is the way. He is the way to eternal life, the way to understanding God. We may add that he is also the way to understanding Scripture, because we need him and the power of his Spirit to arrive. We can never reduce any human person, let alone Christ, to a list of steps. Personal interaction creates rich relationships, including surprises.

God has made the world with regularities in it. We have regular ways of multiplying numbers. People, as we said, are much richer, and the text of Scripture is much richer, but here too we may speak of regularities. Scripture itself indicates that the word of God, now contained in Scripture, has been designed by God himself as a key means for our growth in knowing him:

Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. (John 17:17)

For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. (John 17:8)

Your word is a lamp to my feet

and a light to my path. (Ps. 119:105)

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. (2 Tim. 3:16–17)

Accordingly, theologians have described reading and listening to Scripture as a means of grace. A means of grace is a means or a path by which God gives grace and blessing to those who seek him. The study of Scripture stands alongside other means of grace: prayer, the sacraments (baptism and the Lord’s Supper), and fellowship with God’s people. All the means of grace reinforce one another.

In addition, we may say that God has established ways for engaging the means of grace that Scripture itself is. Because of what Scripture is, God has established ways or paths that believers may travel to receive and absorb Scripture properly, in communion with God who gave it and who continues to speak it. We must only add, to balance what we have already said, that the ways and paths for studying Scripture offer a unity amid the diversity of different readers and reading strategies. We do observe a diversity in human reception of the Bible. But there is also a fundamental unity in how people ought to approach the Bible: they should all submit unreservedly to God who speaks. Neither unity nor diversity reduces to the other; but at their best they presuppose and fortify each other.

In short, Christian growth begins by being born again by the Spirit of God. It continues as we grow in holiness and in conformity to Christ. One of the main means of spiritual growth that God uses is the Bible, which is his word.

1 The Bible comes to us in contexts that the Lord has given us in his providence. The contexts include many modern contexts: our social contexts, our previous spiritual history, our personal struggles, our church, words from Christian friends, the preaching that we hear in church, and the other means of grace (such as prayer and the Lord’s Supper). Each of these contexts can function at times as either a help or a hindrance (we can even pray or receive the Lord’s Supper in a disobedient way). We cannot here explore all these influences in detail.

2 There are many resources. I would refer readers especially to Vern S. Poythress, God-Centered Biblical Interpretation (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1999), and then to other books that John Frame and I have written (see bibliography).

3 See especially J. I. Packer, Knowing God (Downers Grove, IL: Inter­Varsity Press, 1993); John M. Frame, Salvation Belongs to the Lord: An Introduction to Systematic Theology (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2006).

4 Vern S. Poythress, Logic: A God-Centered Approach to the Foundation of Western Thought (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2013), chapter 15.

5 See Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield, The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible, ed. Samuel G. Craig, with an introduction by Cornelius Van Til (Philadelphia: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1948); John M. Frame, The Doctrine of the Word of God (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2010); J. I. Packer, “Fundamentalism”and the Word of God: Some Evangelical Principles (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerd­mans, 1958).

6 John M. Frame, The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1987); John M. Frame, The Doctrine of God (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2002), 21–115.

7 John M. Frame, “Backgrounds to My Thought,” in Speaking the Truth in Love: The Theology of John M. Frame, ed. John J. Hughes (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2009), 16.

8 John M. Frame, The Doctrine of the Christian Life (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2008); an earlier and shorter explanation can be found in John M. Frame, Perspectives on the Word of God: An Introduction to Christian Ethics (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1999); Frame, “Backgrounds to My Thought,” 16.

9 Vern S. Poythress, Symphonic Theology; The Validity of Multiple Perspectives in Theology (reprint; Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2001), 47–49.

10 On the use of multiple perspectives from multiple human beings, see Poythress, Symphonic Theology.

2

Principles for Interpreting the Bible

We could develop a whole book-length discussion of doctrinal principles that we ought to presuppose as we study the Bible. But in this book we intend to move quickly toward practicing biblical interpretation. So we will explain some important principles only briefly, leaving it to other books on theology to develop these principles more extensively1 and to show how they spring from the Bible’s own view of God, man, and its own role.

God Speaking

The Bible is God’s speech in written form. So we should think about what it means for God to speak. God’s speech has several forms.

1. God speaks eternally in the Word, the second person of the Trinity (John 1:1). God the Son is the Word spoken. God the Father is the speaker. John 1:1 does not mention the Holy Spirit explicitly, but other passages (for example, Ezek. 37:10, 14) compare the Holy Spirit to the breath of God taking his word to its destination.2

2. God speaks to create and to govern the world. In Genesis 1 we see repeated instances where God speaks to bring about his work of creation:

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. (Gen. 1:3)

By the word of the LORD the heavens were made,

and by the breath of his mouth all their host. (Ps. 33:6)3

God’s speech continues to govern the world in providence:

he [the Son] upholds the universe by the word of his power. (Heb. 1:3)

This speech displays the authority of God the Father, the control by God the Son who is the Word, and the presence of the Holy Spirit (who in Gen. 1:2 hovered over the face of the waters).

3. God spoke orally to human beings, in theophanies (Gen. 17:1; Ex. 20:18–19) and through prophets as his spokesmen (Ex. 20:19, 21).

4. God wrote his word. He did so directly with the tablets at Mount Sinai, which were “written with the finger of God” (Ex. 31:18). Later, he committed his word to writing through human spokesmen who did the actual writing (Deut. 31:24–26).

5. Finally, at the climax of history, God spoke through the incarnate Son (Heb. 1:1–2).

6. God now speaks to us through the Bible, which God has given us as the permanent deposit of his word. John 21:25 indicates that not all God’s spoken words have been recorded in Scripture:

Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.

In accordance with the pattern established in Deuteronomy 31:9–13, 24–29, God has provided for the gradual accumulation of a group of authoritative texts, written with his authority, that would serve for the permanent guidance of his people. The Bible is the completed collection of these infallible texts. It is called the canon of Scripture, because it is the standard for our instruction.4 It is God’s permanent communication to us.

Three Aspects of Speaking

God’s communication involves God as author, the Bible as the text that he communicates, and us as the recipients. In the archetypal communication of the Word of God in the Trinity, we have God the Father as author, God the Son as the Word communicated, and the Holy Spirit as the one associated with the destiny of the Word. These three aspects of communication coinhere, and can function as perspectives on one another. No one aspect can be strictly isolated. Likewise, when God communicates to us in Scripture, the three aspects function like three perspectives.5 If we start with God as author, his intention in authorship leads to paying attention to the text of the Bible and to the recipients. He intended to write the text that was produced, and he intended to address the recipients to whom his communication was directed. So both text and recipients belong to his intention. If we start with the text, its interpretation requires that we pay attention to God as author. And the text addresses recipients, sometimes directly (Galatians goes to the Galatian churches), but always at least indirectly, by way of implication.

We can accordingly consider interpretive principles that focus on God, on the Bible itself, or on the recipients. But these three foci are not strictly isolated. All of them have implications for all three aspects of biblical communication.

God

If we are going to appreciate what God says, we must know God and grow in knowing him. What we know about him feeds into our understanding of what he says.

1. God is Lord over all things. So we must take into account his lordship as we study. We may use Frame’s triad of authority, control, and presence as one summary of his lordship.

2. God is Creator, while we and everything else in the world are creatures. The Bible makes a distinction between the Creator and his creatures. God as Creator is Lord, while his creatures are subjects and ought to submit to his lordship. This distinction implies that we must listen to God when we read the Bible, and not imagine that we can listen merely to our own ideas that arise while reading. Some false religions claim that each human being is really divine in his core. If this were so, we could gain understanding merely by listening to this inward, allegedly “divine” self. But that is antithetical to God’s way that he reveals in Scripture.

In sum, the Creator-creature distinction leads to rejecting pantheistic mysticism, where readers think that they are themselves divine and listen for the “divine” within them rather than really listening to the Bible. We should also reject Platonic reminiscence, which says that knowledge consists in remembering what the soul already knows from eternity past. We reject rationalism, which makes our own rationality the final standard for sifting what we will accept in the Bible. We reject autonomous hermeneutics, which says that we must first work out how we interpret texts using our own autonomous ideas, before we come to any particular text.

3. God is immanent. He is present in the whole world. He is also especially present, with his offer of redemption in Christ, as we read Scripture. Much modern thinking assumes or alleges that God (if there is a God) is absent when we read Scripture. But he is not, and it makes a difference. We meet God, not merely a text that substitutes for God.

4. God has planned history and brings about his plan in time (Eph. 1:11). History has purpose, and God has designed in particular that our study of the Bible should have a purpose. The Bible serves his goals, not whatever goals we may devise out of our own hearts. In particular, we are not supposed to be studying the Bible merely to acquire information, but for our spiritual good—for our salvation. We are looking forward to “new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (2 Pet. 3:13). God gives us the Bible as a means that aids us and empowers us in moving toward that goal.

The Bible

Now let us consider some basic principles about the Bible.

1. The Bible is God’s own word, so that what the Bible says, God says.

2. God governs the whole world through his divine speech, which specifies and controls what happens (Heb. 1:3). The Bible indicates that God speaks to govern the world, but we do not hear this speech; we only see its effects (for example, Ps. 33:6, 9; 147:15–18). The Bible, by contrast, is the word of God, designed by God to speak specifically to us as human beings. All divine speech, whether directed toward governing the world in general or directed toward us as human beings, has divine character. In particular, it displays God’s lordship in authority, control, and presence.

3. God speaks his words to us in covenants (Gen. 9:9; 15:18; 17:7; Ex. 19:5; etc.). A “covenant” is a solemn, legally binding agreement between two parties. In this case, the two parties are God and human beings. In the Old Testament, God’s covenants with human beings show some affinities with ancient Near Eastern suzerainty treaties.6 These treaties show five elements, which also appear either explicitly or by implication in God’s covenants in the Old Testament (table 2.1):

Table 2.1: Comparing Treaties and Covenants

Hittite Suzerainty Treaties

Exodus 20

Identification of the suzerain

“I am the LORD . . .” (Ex. 20:2)

Historical prologue

“who brought you out of the land of Egypt” (Ex. 20:2)

Stipulations

The Ten Commandments (Ex. 20:3–17)

Sanctions (blessings and curses)

“The LORD will not hold him guiltless . . .” (Ex. 20:7; see also v. 12)

Recording and passing on

“the two tablets” (Ex. 31:18; Deuteronomy 31)

These five points have correlations with John Frame’s triad for lordship, the triad consisting in authority, control, and presence. The identification of God proclaims his transcendent authority, and the stipulations as norms imply his authority over the people. The historical prologue shows how he has exercised his control in past history. The blessings and curses indicate how he will exercise his control in the future. His identification also proclaims his presence, and the recording and passing on of the covenantal words imply his continuing presence with the people.

4. All the Bible is the covenantal word of God. That is, the idea of covenant offers us one perspective on the Bible. The New Testament proclaims the gospel concerning the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ. The apostle Paul characterizes his entire ministry as a ministry of the “new covenant” (2 Cor. 3:6). So all of Paul’s writings are covenantal words in a broad sense. At the Last Supper, Jesus inaugurated “the new covenant” (Luke 22:20; 1 Cor. 11:25). The other apostles and New Testament writers function to convey the words of the new covenant to us.

When the Bible uses the word new to describe the new covenant, it clearly presupposes an older one. The new covenant fulfills the Abrahamic covenant (Gal. 3:7–14) and the Davidic covenant (Acts 2:30–36), but the Mosaic covenant is principally in mind when the New Testament implies a covenant that is “old” (Heb. 8:8–13). The Mosaic covenant also contains, in Deuteronomy 31, explicit instructions for preserving canonical covenantal documents and explicit instructions about future prophets (Deut. 18:18–22). The entirety of the Old Testament consists in divinely authorized additions to the initial Mosaic deposit, so it fits into the covenantal structure inaugurated with Moses. The entire Old Testament is covenantal in character.

Thus both the New Testament and the Old Testament can be viewed as covenantal in a broad sense. Indeed, the traditional names, in which they are called “Testaments,” signify their covenantal character (“testament” is a near synonym for “covenant” in later theological usage, which builds on Heb. 9:15–16).

Accordingly, all the Bible shows the character of God’s lordship, including authority, control, and presence. As usual, the three aspects of lordship are perspectivally related. They interlock, and they imply each other. The interlocking implies that we cannot neatly separate them. We cannot have God’s presence without having him affect us in control, and without having him speak specifically in authority, especially through stipulations. This interlocking excludes wordless mysticism, according to which a deeper union with God goes beyond words and ignores them. Certainly our fellowship with God in Christ, through the Spirit, includes matters “too deep for words” (Rom. 8:26). But that does not mean that words become devalued. The apostle Paul uses plenty of words in Romans.

Likewise, we cannot have the authority and stipulatory meanings of Scripture without God’s presence and without the effects of his control. This interlocking excludes a merely academic or informational treatment of Scripture. The Scripture contains information—plenty of it. But when we meet the information, we are also meeting God in his presence and control. We are truncating the fullness of Scripture if we deny God’s presence. Any alleged “scientific” treatment of Scripture, which claims to aim at mastery and control of its meanings rather than submitting to fellowship with God in his presence, already denies and undermines its actual character.

5. The Bible is a single book, with God as its author. It does of course have multiple human authors. But its unity according to the divine author implies that we should see it as a single unified message, and should use each passage and each book to help us in understanding others. Because God is faithful to his own character, he is consistent with himself. We should therefore interpret each passage of the Bible in harmony with the rest of the Bible.

6. The Bible is God-centered. It not only has God as its author, but in a fundamental way it speaks about God as its principal subject. It does so even in historical passages that do not directly mention God, because the history it recounts is history governed by God.

7. The Bible is Christ-centered.7 Covenants mediate God’s presence to us, and at the heart of the covenants is Christ, who is the one mediator between God and men (1 Tim. 2:5). Christ, as the coming servant of the Lord, is virtually identified with the covenant in Isaiah 42:6 and 49:8.8 In Luke 24, Jesus teaches the apostles that all of the Old Testament Scriptures are about him and his work (Luke 24:25–27, 44–49). Understanding how the Old Testament speaks about Christ is challenging, but in view of Jesus’s teaching it cannot be evaded. Fortunately, we have the New Testament to aid us. It contains not only teachings that help us to understand the Old Testament as a whole, but many quotations from the Old Testament that illustrate Jesus’s claims in Luke 24.

8. The Bible is oriented to the history of redemption. God caused the Bible’s individual books to be written over a period of centuries. God’s later speech builds on earlier speech, and further unfolds the significance of his plan for history. God’s redemption takes place in history. Christianity is not merely a religious philosophy, a set of general truths about God and the world. At its heart is the gospel, the good news that Christ has come and has lived and died and has risen from the dead, and now lives to intercede for us. God has worked out our salvation by coming in the person of Christ and acting in time and space. The message of what he has done now goes out to the nations (Matt. 28:18–20; Acts 1:8).

9. Christ’s first and second coming are central to history. God’s work of redemption came to a climax in the work of Christ on earth, especially in his crucifixion, death, resurrection, and ascension. Christ now reigns at the right hand of the Father (Eph. 1:20–21). We look forward to the future consummation of redemption when Christ returns.

10. God’s work of redemption interweaves word and deed. We see this interweaving even during his work of creation:

Word: God said, “Let there be light.”

Deed: And there was light.

Word: And God saw that the light was good [similar to verbal evaluation]. (Gen. 1:3–4)

Word: “Let us make man in our image . . .”

Deed: So God created man in his own image, . . .

Word: And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply . . .” (Gen. 1:26–28)

Likewise, Jesus’s words interpret his deeds and vice versa:

If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me; but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father. (John 10:37–38)

In the book of Acts, the miracles and the growth of the church help unbelievers to grasp the implications of apostolic preaching, and vice versa:

Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed to them the Christ. And the crowds with one accord paid attention to what was being said by Philip when they heard him and saw the signs that he did. For unclean spirits, crying out with a loud voice, came out of many who had them, and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed. (Acts 8:5–7)

The Recipients

Some of the books of the Bible indicate that they were originally written to particular recipients, such as the church at Corinth, Philippi, or Colossae. But God, who knows the end from the beginning (Isa. 46:10), also had us in mind:

For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. (Rom. 15:4)

We enrich our understanding when we keep in mind both sets of recipients. For both the original recipients and the larger body of the people of God, several principles hold true.

1. Man made in the image of God. We are made in the image of God, so that we have the capacity for understanding God, both through general revelation in the world that God made (Rom. 1:18–25; Ps. 19:1–6) and through the special revelation in Scripture.

2. The fall. The fall into sin has corrupted mankind, so that in deep and complex ways we evade and fight against what God says.

3. Redemption. God provided in Jesus Christ the definitive and full remedy for our rebellion. Through the Holy Spirit he applies this remedy to those who trust in Christ for salvation.

4. The presence of sin. Though believers are renewed by the Holy Spirit (John 3:1–8), those who remain in this life still have sin in them, and sin distorts their response to God, including the mental and intellectual aspects of their response.

5. Continued growth. Within this life we grow in sanctification but never reach sinless perfection. We continue to stand in need, corporately and individually, of biblical teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness (2 Tim. 3:16–17).

6. Interaction of foci. Our growth in communion with God includes growth in knowing God and knowing the Bible as his word. In this growth, we profit from interaction between three interlocking foci: (1) theology, as a summary of the teaching of the Bible as a whole; (2) interpretation of individual passages of the Bible (sometimes called “exegesis”); and (3) hermeneutics, the study of principles for and practice of interpretation.9 Troubles can arise if we absolutize any one of the three foci, refusing to let it be informed by insights from the others.

Traditional Roman Catholicism provides an example concerning the danger of absolutizing theology. Certain church pronouncements, namely deliverances of councils and ex cathedra deliverances from the pope, have become within Roman Catholicism irreformable pieces of theology. Their irreformability produces the danger that particular passages of Scripture no longer have their own voice but get molded automatically into conformity to preexisting theology. (Of course, if a person actually believes the Roman claims about its infallibility in doctrine, this conformity seems to him to be a good thing. But if, as I believe, the claims of infallibility are wrong, they are also disastrous for biblical interpretation.)

We might think that spiritual health can be enhanced only by promoting attention to individual passages. And if everything were healthy in our use of individual passages, that would be true. But sin can creep in here as well. For example, Arians have appealed to John 14:28, “the Father is greater than I,” to conclude that the Son of God is only a creature and not the eternal God. But such an interpretation is not correct. Other passages of Scripture, including John 1:1 and 20:28, protect us from erroneously interpreting this one passage, because those other passages indicate that Jesus is fully God. From these passages we derive our overall theology, which summarizes the teaching of the Bible. Good theology leads us to reject the Arian interpretation of John 14:28, and to look at the passage more carefully to see what it really means in the context of the Gospel of John. Jesus is speaking about his submission to the Father in carrying out the work of redemption on earth (note the first part of 14:28, and verse 31). Verse 28 is thus not speaking about the nature of Christ’s divinity as such, and is quite compatible with the theology of the rest of the Bible.

As an example of dominance by hermeneutics, we may take the case of Rudolf Bultmann. Bultmann worked out a complicated hermeneutics of “demythologization,” which led to finding only a message about existential authenticity in the New Testament. His hermeneutical system was destructive not only because of its distorted conclusions, but also because it threatened to be irreformable. Any biblical teaching that challenged it was reinterpreted before the challenge could be seriously weighed.

We have considered more extreme examples of theological dominance, exegetical dominance, and hermeneutical dominance. But the dangers afflict us all. In more subtle ways, any of us can “read in” his favorite theology where it does not really belong. Or we can uncritically accept a certain traditional or comfortable interpretation of a particular text. Or we can refuse to ask critical questions about our hermeneutical principles and practice.

Because we are sinners, and because sin has a tendency to make excuses and conceal itself, we cannot always easily detect subtle sins. They even creep into our practice of studying the Bible. Studying the Bible works fruitfully for us when we are ready to listen to all three aspects—theology, exegesis, and hermeneutics—and let them correct each other. In doing so, we need to have the Lord give us the humility to see sins and failings quickly. But of course there is an opposite danger, a danger to which the modern atmosphere of “tolerance” may tempt us: we might use an appeal to “humility” to excuse ourselves from standing boldly for the truth when we need to. Who will deliver us from these twin sins? Ultimately, only Jesus our Savior (Rom. 7:24–25).0

7. Human relationships. God designed us to live in human relationships as well as in relationship to him. Accordingly, we learn from others, including unbelievers (who receive insights by virtue of common grace). This learning aids us in our own understanding of the Bible (though we must be cautious, because sin infects both us and others).

8. Tradition. Our learning from others includes learning from past generations. The Bible itself is infallible in its teaching; later generations are not. We must sift through the views of later generations using the Bible as our standard. But the later generations and their teachings should not be ignored. People through many generations have received gifts from the Spirit. And other generations and other cultures are valuable to us because they may help us to see the limitations that belong to the culture and the assumptions with which we have grown up. The wisdom of past generations is tradition. Tradition can be both a blessing and a curse. We receive a blessing when we profit from the wisdom of previous generations:

Hear, my son, your father’s instruction,

and forsake not your mother’s teaching. (Prov. 1:8)

On the other hand, we can be cursed when we give uncritical allegiance to tradition, and cling to it when it is in tension with God’s word:

So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God. (Matt. 15:6)

For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers. (Gal. 1:13–14)

9. Use of human resources. The principles concerning tradition apply when we use lexicons, grammars, commentaries, dictionaries, and other resources to help in interpreting the Bible. The resources offer help because they contain wisdom from the past. They can also on occasion ensnare us, because they may be corrupted by sin and its intellectual effects. In subsequent chapters we will often include at the end of the chapter a list of further resources. Readers need to recognize that even the best human resources may contain subtle deficiencies. And sometimes the deficiencies are more serious. Any human resource must be used with care, and with an understanding of its fallibility.11

1 Poythress, God-Centered Biblical Interpretation (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1999), contains a sketch of such principles, but it could be further expanded. John Frame’s Systematic Theology (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2013) expands on doctrinal principles.

2 Vern S. Poythress, In the Beginning Was the Word: Language—A God-Centered Approach (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2009), chapter 2.

3 See also Psalm 148:5–6; Romans 4:17; 2 Corinthians 4:6; Hebrews 11:3; and 2 Peter 3:5.

4 On the canon, see Herman Ridderbos, Redemptive History and the New Testament Scriptures (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1988); and Michael J. Kruger, Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012).

5 Poythress, In the Beginning Was the Word, chapter 4.

6 Meredith G. Kline, The Structure of Biblical Authority (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerd­mans, 1972).

7 Edmund P. Clowney, Preaching and Biblical Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerd­mans, 1961); Clowney, Preaching Christ in All of Scripture (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2003); Clowney, The Unfolding Mystery: Discovering Christ in the Old Testament (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1988); Dennis E. Johnson, Him We Proclaim: Preaching Christ from All the Scriptures (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2007).

8 Vern S. Poythress, Logic: A God-Centered Approach to the Foundation of Western Thought (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2013), chapter 15.

9 These three foci have a correlation with the normative, situational, and existential perspectives, respectively. Systematic theology, as a summary of what God says, sets forth norms for our belief and action, and so naturally correlates with the normative perspective. Individual passages offer themselves within the pages of the Bible as an aspect of our situation, and so have a correlation with the situational perspective. Hermeneutics describes how we go about growing in theology and in understanding individual passages, and so has a correlation with us as persons who have the task of interpretation. It has a correlation with the existential perspective. As usual, the three perspectives interlock and interpenetrate. When understood expansively, theology can become a perspective on all of our study of Scripture; and the same holds for exegesis and hermeneutics.

10 Vern S. Poythress, “Christ the Only Savior of Interpretation,” Westminster Theological Journal 50 (1988): 305–321.

11 More about the deficiencies of some present-day resources can be found in the appendices in this book, and then in Vern S. Poythress, Inerrancy and Worldview: Answering Modern Challenges to the Bible (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012).

3

Complementary Starting Points for Interpretation

Now we begin to consider in more detail ways in which we may study the Bible. We consider both simple approaches and those that are more complex. The simple approaches of reading and listening are important, both because they form the starting point for more complex reflections and because people with all levels of skill can practice them. The Westminster Larger Catechism emphasizes reading Scripture and especially listening to preaching:

Q. 155. How is the Word made effectual to salvation?

A. The Spirit of God maketh the reading, but especially the preaching of the Word, an effectual means of enlightening, convincing, and humbling sinners; of driving them out of themselves, and drawing them unto Christ; of conforming them to his image, and subduing them to his will; of strengthening them against temptations and corruptions; of building them up in grace, and establishing their hearts in holiness and comfort through faith unto salvation.1

In addition to reading and listening, we should include Bible memorization and meditation, which Scripture itself encourages.2 Psalm 1 says of the blessed man,

His delight is in the law of the LORD,

and on his law he meditates day and night. (Ps. 1:2)

Similarly,

I have stored up your word in my heart,

that I might not sin against you. (Ps. 119:11)

I will meditate on your precepts

and fix my eyes on your ways. (Ps. 119:15)

This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. (Josh. 1:8)

People in the Western world have become so busy and so surrounded by a barrage of information that most of them no longer memorize passages or books of the Bible, and they do not know how to slow down to meditate. There is no easy solution for this deficiency. People must come to grips with what is important in God’s eyes, and reorder their time and priorities accordingly. Memorization is work, but it is spiritually profitable in the long run.

Three Perspectives on Interpretation

Let us now consider ways of studying the Bible that involve more explicit focus. As we saw, God calls on us to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matt. 22:37). The commandment applies to all our life, and so by implication to all our study of the Bible. We may love and serve God as we study, or we may fail to love and serve him. Study is an ethical task. God is Lord, and our study is subject to his norms. We can use Frame’s three perspectives for ethics that we introduced earlier, namely the normative, situational, and existential perspectives.

The normative perspective leads naturally to focusing on the Bible’s teaching as a whole, because that teaching as a whole gives us our norms. The norms include communication in the form of commandments, commandments that demand our obedience. But other kinds of