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The Tightrope of Bible Application

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For a few months I’ve been writing on the importance and the process of determining the author’s main point in Bible study. And one reason we should care about the main point is because of how dramatically it affects the way we apply the Bible.

To explain this further, I recently wrote for the Logos blog a piece called “Legalism, License, and the Tightrope of Bible Application.” Here is a taste:

So you want to apply the Bible to your life, do you?

That’s wonderful news, since the Lord Jesus (Matt 7:21–27) and his apostles (Jas 1:22–25) want you and me not only to hear the word but also to do it. But what should that “doing” look like?

Sometimes people warn of the danger of creating behavioral rules to either attain or maintain God’s favor. And at other times, people warn of cheap grace, where the gospel’s freedom is misunderstood to mean repentance is unnecessary. The tug-of-war between these perspectives may cause Bible application to feel like crossing a lava pit on a tightrope.

Both sets of warnings are on to something; the dangers on either side are real. And both sets of dangers may have the same solution: holding fast to the main points of biblical texts.

In the piece, I show how holding fast to the author’s main points provide a safeguard against drifting into either legalism or license in our application of Scripture. I’d love to know if you find my case persuasive.

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Guidance for Psalms

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Ian Hamilton wants you to know 3 things about the Psalms.

  1. The book of Psalms was written over a period of one thousand years.
  2. Approximately 40 percent of the psalms are laments.
  3. The Psalms are all about God’s promised Messiah-King, Jesus Christ.

In only a few minutes, his brief article will provide a wealth of guidance to help you grasp the big picture of this glorious book of poems.

The Psalms portray the life of faith with searing honesty. They poignantly remind us that the pattern of death and resurrection that was etched into the holy humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ is the pattern that the Holy Spirit seeks to replicate in the lives of all God’s children. The book of Psalms is a divinely inspired songbook that reflects the highs and lows, the triumphs and tragedies, of God’s covenant people over a millennium. John Calvin described the Psalms as “an anatomy of all the parts of the soul.” Let us sing the Savior’s songbook, lest we risk impoverishing our worship and robbing ourselves of the rich spirituality contained within its songs.

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How to Respond When People Treat the Bible Like a Code to Crack

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I really appreciate this recent piece by Mark Ward entitled “The Secret Meaning of YHWH.” He responds to a widely shared social media post about how each Hebrew letter has a particular “meaning,” leading the posted to identify the meaning of the Lord’s name as “Behold the nails in my hands.”

When such “deeper” or “secret” meanings of Scripture get circulated, how ought we to respond? How does one evaluate or rebut such claims?

Ward’s primary approach is to show what sort of absurdity results when the method is applied to other biblical words or sentences. By this method, God’s title Adonai must mean “Ox door serpent hand.” And the secret meaning of Genesis 1:1 is “The house’s head ox had a tooth in his arm—marked with a house head ox, in fact. And an ox goad in the window had a hand on the water ox. But, mark well, the window tooth also had a water arm, a water hook, and an ox mark window. Ox heads are papyrus plants.”

Ward show us how to respond to such theories with grace and kindness—along with a strong dose of reality. Remember that studying the Bible is not code breaking.

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Guidance for 1 & 2 Kings

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Caleb Cangelosi explains three things you should know about 1 & 2 Kings.

  1. The book of Kings was written during the exile to explain why Israel and Judah were in exile.
  2. Kings isn’t just about kings; it’s also about prophets.
  3. Elijah wasn’t a fearful, self-pitying prophet in 1 Kings 19.

That third thing will help with just one chapter of the book, but it’s a good reminder of how we love to give gold stars. Let’s not be so quick to condemn (or glorify) Bible characters until we’ve considered all the evidence of their nuanced portrayals!

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Recapitulation in Revelation

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Jim Davis and Skyler Flowers argue that the book of Revelation doesn’t have to be so difficult and mysterious if we would only grasp the author’s use of recapitulation: a literary device where the same event is addressed repeatedly from different angles or perspectives.

Revelation isn’t meant to be read merely as a chronology of fantastic events. It should be seen as one set of events repeated seven times, each with increasing intensity. Revelation is apocalyptic—a genre defined by images, symbols, and references to the Old Testament and John’s ancient world. It’s intended to help the churches to whom it’s written see the world in a different way.

Their analysis is worth considering, though I concede that they don’t provide much evidence for the presumption of recapitulation. What do you think? What evidence is there in the book itself to suggest the author is or is not using the device of recapitulation?

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God’s Kingdom in Obadiah

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As the shortest book of the Old Testament, Obadiah may not receive as much love as some of the better-known heavyweights. But it has much to teach us about the kingdom of God.

In particular, according to Jeffrey Stivason, this dense book shows us that God’s kingdom is an opposed kingdom, a victorious kingdom, and a gracious kingdom. Stivason’s reflections on these themes in Obadiah are well worth your time.

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Is the Bible Suitable for Children?

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Amid calls to censor the Bible and remove it from school curricula, John Stevens proposes that the problem is not with the Bible but with what and how we instruct our children. Here is a taste:

The real question is whether God intends [the sexual and violent bits of the Bible] to be kept from children. I suspect that we are shaped more by a romantic vision of childhood that owes more to Rousseau than Scripture, and Victorian notions of childhood innocence. In most of the world, and certainly, in Bible times, children were familiar with harsh reality and the simple ‘facts of life’ from a much earlier age. After all, families shared a single room and yet there were multiple children! Kids on farms know a lot about sex.

God commanded parents to teach the Law to their children and make it part of daily life. They were to talk about it. This includes the vulgar and violent parts, which are crucial to the identity shaping of the people of God. The Bible does not shy away from reality. Most of the time God’s people lived in threat of violence & in proximity to idolatry with its sexual immorality. The Bible is not sentimentality but realism. It is the fallen world seen red in tooth and claw. Israelite children were not to be isolated from this, but taught how to live faithfully in it and resist its temptations…

I think we need to be on the front foot and stop hiding reality from our kids, but truly teach them the Bible (in an age-appropriate way) and not shy from preparing them for the real world.

Stevens’s argument is well worth considering. As a father, I enjoy reading some children’s Bibles to my children. But I have always sought to give them a steady diet of the entire Bible.

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How to Develop a Culture of Bible Study in Your Church

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The Logos Word by Word blog recently published a piece I wrote entitled “How to Develop a Culture of Bible Study in Your Church.” In the post, I encourage church leaders to have a method, train a few, raise their expectations, set them loose, check in, and reproduce.

Here’s a taste:

There is one question I receive more than any other when Christians discover I’m involved in a collegiate discipleship ministry: What materials or resources do you use?

I appreciate the eagerness behind the question, as folks generally aim to improve their own efforts to make disciples of Christ. But sadly, my answer doesn’t usually satisfy the inquirer.

The Bible. We use the Bible to make disciples.

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Dangerous Approaches to Application

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Here is a thoughtful piece by Ty Kieser called “Potential Dangers of ‘Applying Scripture to My Life’.” In it, Kieser explores three faulty assumptions that can make the practice of application go very wrong.

  1. I should start with me and my questions.
  2. The Bible is (primarily) a collection of principles.
  3. The goal of reading the Bible is improving my life.

Kieser makes some excellent points that ought to be considered. It is for many of the same reasons that I generally avoid the question of “How do I apply the Bible to my life?” and frame application more as “How does the text instruct me to change?”

I might quibble with a little of Kieser’s rhetoric. At times it sounds like he believes we shouldn’t change personally but only get swept up in the Lord’s story. But by the end, he clearly wishes change for God’s people as they draw closer in relationship to him. But that really is but a quibble, as I would heartily cheer the sort of application he wishes for more of.

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