Knowable Word

Helping ordinary people learn to study the Bible

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The Argument of Hebrews 3:1-6

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I appreciate Mike Leake’s reflection on Hebrews 3:1-6, where he walks through the passage’s argument in plain language. Take a gander.

When I read Hebrews 3:1-6 I tend to get that glazed over look on my face. It’s not that I don’t understand the words or even the structure of the sentences. The overall point is pretty simple; namely, Jesus is greater than Moses. But when I’ve read it I’ve always felt like I was missing something.

Why is the author of Hebrews telling us this? How does this serve his argument? I know that Jesus is better than Moses, but what is all this talk about building a house?

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Jen Wilkin on Improving Bible Literacy

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I appreciate this interview with Jen Wilkin on how to improve Bible literacy in our churches and why it is so critical that we do so.

Wilkin describes how she gained a vision for learning from the Bible herself instead of getting drowned in waves of opinions from others. Then she challenges us all to consider how to better train our own children in our families and churches:

Wilkin flatly rejects the notion that deep knowledge of Scripture is best left to adults and “experts.” “A child who is capable of reading is capable of reading the Bible,” she insists. “Children need early exposure to the Scriptures because they need to see them as a familiar friend. Reading the Scriptures to them—and then, of course, having them read them themselves—are all formative practices. Sometimes we think children should only read (the Bible) if they can understand everything they’re reading,” she says, but “we underestimate their ability.”

This is why Wilkin advocates for young students doing adult-type Bible study. “If high schoolers are capable of doing calculus and physics, they absolutely are capable of grappling with a line-by-line study of the Bible.”

The full article gives many more details on Wilkin’s background and vision for training others to study the Bible. Check it out!

Binding and Loosing in Matthew 16:19

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The Logos blog has a helpful piece from Murray J. Harris on the meaning of the terms “bind” and “loose” in Matthew 16:19. When Jesus entrusts to Peter the “keys of the kingdom,” along with the authority to bind and loose, to what is he referring?

Whenever evangelists affirm that all those who repent and believe in Jesus Christ have their sins forgiven, they are declaring that such people are “loosed” and have entered the kingdom. In this declaration, they are dramatizing on earth the standing verdict that heaven (= God) has already made. Similarly, those who remain unrepentant unbelievers are “bound,” and the kingdom is shut against them. Heaven has already affirmed this truth, for “salvation is found in no one else” than Jesus the Cornerstone (Acts 4:11–12).

Harris makes his case from the context of Matthew and other ancient Jewish literature. He models good contextual work to help answer a thorny question, and he draws useful implications for what this does and doesn’t mean for churches and church leaders today.

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The Context of the Great Commission

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Erik Raymond has a thoughtful piece entitled “The Context of the Great Commission is a Miracle.” He combines a number of helpful OIA skills: context, observation, overcoming familiarity, and head and heart application.

Sometimes we get discouraged about the mission. We don’t see the results we’d like. The sting of rejection lingers. The footsteps of apostasy haunt us. The seemingly unanswered prayers fatigue us. Looking through natural lenses, we could conclude the gospel is not working. Thinking like entrepreneurs or fishermen, we might conclude it’s better to pack up and go home. Maybe we should do something else.

But this is thinking naturally, not supernaturally. Remember the context of the Great Commission. Everyone was ready to go home after Good Friday. That’s the point. Christ rose from the dead and surprised everyone. He changed the whole narrative. He’s alive, ruling, reigning, and unstoppable.

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Applying Ecclesiastes in a Secular Age

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Kevin Halloran has an excellent piece called “Why Our Secular Age Needs Ecclesiastes,” where he masterfully applies the wisdom in this book in many specific and practical ways.

This world is desperate for answers to life’s fundamental questions. What is life about? Why is life so unjust? Why does work have to be so toilsome? How can I be happy when the world seems pointless?

The spirit of the age recommends both finding meaning inward, i.e. we create our own meaning in life; and outward, meaning comes from advancing in our careers, accumulating possessions, and pleasurable experiences…

Phil Ryken calls Ecclesiastes in jest “the only book of the Bible written on a Monday morning.” Ecclesiastes at times even seems to contradict other parts of Scripture. (Chew on 1:17–18 or 4:1–3 for a bit.) But what Solomon captures are the paradoxes of living in a fallen world. At the same time, we can enjoy the goodness of God’s creation (Genesis 1:31) and groan as we live in its post-fall futility (Romans 8:20–23).

Our secular world groans as well but doesn’t know where to find hope. Secular solutions only exacerbate the problem, leaving us wanting.

Halloran then walks through the many things addressed in Ecclesiastes that simply aren’t “enough,” so he can lead us to the one thing that is. In the process, Halloran shows us how to apply an Old Testament text to modern people.

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Young Moms and Bible Reading

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Abigail Dodds has a wonderful piece at Desiring God called “Young Mom, You Can Read the Bible.” She speaks of the advice she received that never quite worked out: To make sure she woke early before the children in order to spend time with the Lord in his word. While such advice is not bad, it is not for everybody.

Perhaps forsaking the physically necessary (and often-too-few) hours of God-ordained nighttime rest isn’t a sustainable solution for your problem of inconsistent or nonexistent Bible reading. So, what is the solution? First, you must know your desperate need for God’s word every day. Then you must recognize that God’s word is more precious than you could imagine, and your ideals about how to read it are less precious than you might imagine.

She goes on to speak of the many opportunities to make use of brief, scattered moment through the day.

Reading God’s word is something that can be done with children around. It can be done with a baby in your arms. It can be done through your husband reading the Scriptures aloud to you over the dinner table. It can be done in the morning, afternoon, or night.

When you’re a mom of very young ones, an important tool you need to keep yourself fed with God’s word through those very short (yet very long) years is flexibility in how you read, along with consistency that you read. Be flexible about how you read God’s word, and be unwaveringly consistent that you read it.

There is much wisdom here. Check it out!

Let the Imbalances of Scripture Speak for Themselves

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Jim Elliff makes a terrific point in a very brief post. He encourages us to allow each passage of Scripture to speak for itself, each author for himself. Systematic theology is a wonderful and necessary discipline for the Christian faith, but perhaps we have been trained by it to over-harmonize texts and flatten the sharp edges of the scriptures.

Here is Elliff:

For instance, a man may read that he is to exert diligence in pursuing truths from God, but, on the other side his mind flies to passages that say God alone grants that understanding and unless God opens the heart, he is helpless to obtain any benefit from his diligence. So, the mind patches together a way both things are really one thing. But now you’ve ripped something away that the author intended to emphasize. He makes one point, but he purposely did not make the other point. He wasn’t writing a systematic theology, but was driving a truth home.

In some odd cases, the meaning of the first statement is turned on its head and all the potency is excised from the text by our propensity to blend all seemingly contrary thoughts together. As we read, we say, “Christ does not really mean we are to give up our possessions because in this place He says that some believers are wealthy.” So as we read we are denying the statement before we let it say anything to us. And, without intending to do so, we are telling ourselves and perhaps others that it would have been better if Jesus would have said something much more benign.

I think Elliff is exactly right. Remember, the Bible was not delivered to humanity on a fiery chariot from heaven, complete in 66 parts. Each book of the Bible was written, one at a time, from a particular author to a particular audience. Each of those books had real meaning in the minds of author and audience, even without a center column for cross-references. (And I’m not speaking about allusions to earlier texts that would have been clear to the original audience; I’m speaking only of parallel passages or texts that happen to cover similar topics or themes.)

Especially when it comes to application, we ought to receive the message of any given text with the full force intended by that author—even if that force feels out of balance with another part of Scripture. Why not just allow the perceived imbalance to simmer a little longer and spur us in a certain direction? We can always take more time later to examine other texts that speak complementary messages, that we may be prodded in a different direction.

Elliff’s brief piece is worthy of your time. Check it out!

Tips for Interpreting Old Testament Narrative

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Colin Adams offers 10 tips for interpreting Old Testament narratives.

  1. Try and grasp the overall point of the book.
  2. Read in big chunks – narrative often tells you ‘a little, in a lot.’
  3. Narratives tell you what happened, not what SHOULD have happened.
  4. OT narrative is first and foremost about God: his holiness, grace, salvation and justice.
  5. Moralise…but not too much.
  6. Repetition is a clue to what the passage is about.
  7. Don’t get bogged down in what the narrative DOESN’T tell you.
  8. Place names and people names are always important.
  9. When the writer’s “point of view” is revealed, you’ve just found gold.
  10. The New Testament ultimately fulfills whatever narrative you are in and is the supreme ‘commentary’ on your passage.

He illustrates each point briefly from the book of 2 Samuel. Check it out!

Why Memorize Entire Books of the Bible

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Andrew Davis has a lovely piece about “Why I Memorize Books of the Bible.” I confess that, though I’m a believer in memorizing lengthy portions of text, I have never memorized an entire book. But Davis makes me want to. Why?

  1. The rewards of Bible memory are measureless.
  2. Bible memory gets harder with age.
  3. Bible memory clarifies the beauty of Christ.
  4. Bible memory has built a city of truth within me.

Check it out!