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Reading the Bible Today Without Losing the Benefits of Reading Like the Ancients

August 25, 2021 By Peter Krol

I haven’t read Reading the New Testament as Christian Scripture, but I appreciated this interview with its authors. In it, they speak of some of the differences between how we read the Bible today and how the ancients used to read it. We’ve certainly made many great gains in our understanding. But there remain some strengths of yesteryear we ought to be careful not to lose.

Every culture and age has particular insights and blind spots. This applies to biblical interpretation as well. In the West we’re a few hundred years into particular modes and habits of reading the Bible, what we can call modernist hermeneutics. Modernist hermeneutics serve us well in providing a depth of historical background, insights from literary analysis, and a focus on hearing the human author’s intent. But modern approaches to interpreting the Bible often fail to read theologically, canonically, and tropologically (for moral formation). Believing interpreters will also seek to interpret the Bible in these latter ways, but the modern hermeneutical commitments are ironically contrary to these good reading habits.
Premodern interpreters operated with different priorities and sensibilities when reading Scripture. Theological, moral formative, intra-canonical, devotional, and homiletical interpretations were seen as primary and ultimate because this is why God has given Scripture to his people—to shape us to be like him, to be holy as he is holy.

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Show, Don’t Just Tell

August 20, 2021 By Peter Krol

It’s a key principle of educational philosophy: Show, don’t just tell. Communicating ideas is a good thing. But it’s even better if you can show your work, present persuasive argumentation, explain it clearly, and illustrate it vividly. The show-don’t-just-tell principle has many applications for teachers and leaders of all stripes. And I would like to zero in on one particular application of the principle to any who seek to teach the Bible: Show them how you arrived at your conclusions so they can repeat the process for themselves.

crop unrecognizable woman holding vase with pink ranunculus — Photo by Алекке Блажин on Pexels.com

Last week, I suggested that the best response you can hope for from those to whom you teach the Bible is, “What a great text, that shows me our great God!” Now I propose that one of the most important means for producing such a response is to show your work, and not merely tell them your conclusions. Here are some examples.

You can tell them that God loves them. Or you can show them the “for” in John 3:16 and show them the logical connection in the verse between the first clause and the second clause. Now they can forever see for themselves that God sent his son, not because he was mad at the world, but because he loved it.
You can tell them that the Christian life is hard, but that it will be worth it. Or you can show them the context of Romans 8:28, how the “good” all things work together for is the “good” of conformity to the Son’s image (Rom 8:29)—which is a promise not of a healthy and wealthy life, but of crushing pain yielding to resurrection glory (Rom 8:17-25).
You can tell them the story of God’s great power demonstrated over Egypt in nine plagues. Or you can show them the structure of three groups of three plagues, each group with a unique emphasis, proving Yahweh to be the judge, the divider of peoples, and the destroyer of worlds. Once you have shown them this structure, they won’t be able to un-see it when they read these texts in the future.
You can tell them that chapter divisions are not part of the inspired text and should be taken with a grain of salt. Or you can show them Isaiah’s repeated refrain that clearly links the four stanzas of Isaiah 9:8-10:4 into a single poem, forcing us to read the text across the chapter break. “For all this his anger has not turned away, and his hand is stretched out still” (Is 9:12, 17, 21; 10:4).

Now I am not saying that Bible teachers should show all their work. There are always more observations to be made than can be included in a sermon or Bible study. We can’t include everything, and we ought not explain everything that happened to excite us in our preparation. One key principle I communicate when I train teachers is this: Do only as much observation as you must do in order for them to see how what you’re saying is rooted in the text. As soon as they have seen it from the text, move on. Explain it. Illustrate it. Show them Jesus. Apply it.

But sadly, teachers often show too little of their work. They may move their people to tears or inspire them to take drastic action. But ask those people after the sermon or discussion why they should take such action, or how this Scripture moved them so, and too often they can’t explain it. It just “is.”

Let’s show them a better way.

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Does Proverbs Over-Promise?

August 18, 2021 By Peter Krol

Jim Davis has a brief but wonderful piece on this crucial question: “Does the Book of Proverbs Over-Promise?” Proverbs appears to offer extensive assurance of health and wealth, which some have taken almost as an assurance that we can manipulate God. In response, many others make the error of claiming that proverbs offer not promises but only probabilities.

Davis navigates this unfortunate state of affairs with a level-headed approach to the text.

To say the Proverbs are probabilities (rather than promises) is not false. It’s partially true. The sober, the cool-tempered, and the diligent will usually experience health and wealth more than the drunkard, the hot-tempered, and the lazy.
But only seeing the Proverbs as probabilities for wise decision-making minimizes what God wants for his people. He’s calling us closer to him. The conditions to these statements are that we trust in the Lord (3:5), fear the Lord (3:7), and honor the Lord (3:9). If they were merely probabilities for right living, why link them in any way to our relationship with God?

I’ve reflected on this very question myself on a few occasions. And Davis’s piece is worth your time as you consider it further.

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Review: The Visual Word

August 16, 2021 By Ryan Higginbottom

The Visual Word is an unconventional project. The book is the work of author Patrick Schreiner and illustrator Anthony Benedetto, and it attempts to add a visual element to written overviews of the books of the New Testament.

You may wonder how a visual component would be helpful in such a situation—this was exactly my question! Schreiner is professor at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and he describes himself as a visual learner. “I find that I can grasp things and remember them better if I can see them. If they are arranged spatially. Students have had similar experiences in my classes” (page 10). When teaching, he found that his whiteboard sketches during class helped his students. This book is an attempt to reproduce, in part, a version of that classroom experience.

The Physical Object

The book itself is beautiful. (Moody Publishers kindly sent me the hardcover version in exchange for an honest review.) At 8.5×11 inches, it is larger than most books. I gather this was necessary to fit all the designs and illustrations on the page.

The pages themselves are also striking. Navy blue and gold are used throughout the book, and the book designers did an excellent job coordinating Bible themes and genres with colors.

Without being any sort of artist myself, I can see the highly skilled hand that produced the illustrations. Each drawing itself is more the size of an internet avatar or an icon—a small circle with a picture inside. The illustrations are the result of arranging many such drawings on a page along with brief words and phrases, connecting them with lines, and producing a visual aid to understanding each book.

I’m not sure how well I described this; to get a clearer picture, take a look at the sample pages the publisher has made available.

The Writing

Schreiner’s aim in his writing is something we at Knowable Word certainly appreciate.

First, I believe one of the most important things to do when reading the Bible is to read it contextually. For most, this means historical context. This is vitally important, but this book focuses on the literary context.[…]To read well, readers must follow the flow of an author’s argument. (The Visual Word, page 10)

For the most part, the book hits its mark. For example, the way Schreiner wrote about the book of 1 Peter gave me a clear, bird’s eye view of Peter’s purpose in writing and the flow of his argument through the book. This is exactly what I’d want from a resource like this.

There was at least one curious decision in these outlines. Schreiner takes all of John’s epistles (1, 2, and 3 John) together. After expressing in the introduction a desire to highlight the literary context of each New Testament book, it puzzled me to see topics from 2 John and 3 John simply attached to similar sections in 1 John.

The Illustrations

While Benedetto is obviously adept as an illustrator, I must confess that I didn’t get as much out of the spatial representation of the outlines as some of Schreiner’s students did. I acknowledge that this may just be me and the way my brain processes and absorbs information, indicating no weakness with the book at all.

Most of the illustrations seemed like standard, top-level outlines of Bible books, written perhaps in rows or columns instead of in standard outline format, with some accompanying icons. Some of the arrangements of the words and pictures were hard for me to follow. With a few exceptions, the illustrations did not add a lot of value to the book overviews for me.

A Valuable Resource

Despite my hesitance in the previous section, I found this book to be a helpful resource. Along with videos from The Bible Project (from which Schreiner admits to takings some cues), I envision using this volume to remind me of the big-picture structure and argument of New Testament books.

You can buy this book at Amazon or directly from Moody Publishers.

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What Response are You Going For?

August 13, 2021 By Peter Krol

As a Bible teacher, I believe I have failed if my students’ chief reaction is, “What a great teacher!” While it makes me feel great in the moment, it does little to help others to know God through the Lord Jesus Christ. A better reaction would be, “What a great God!” This would reflect a proper honor toward the Lord whom I seek to represent when I teach his word.

But follow me for a moment. At the risk of sounding unduly provocative, let me propose that there is another response that would be even better than “What a great God!” And that is the response, “What a great text!” And less I be misunderstood, let me expand on what I mean, because a fuller expression of this best reaction would be, “What a great text that shows me our great God!”

If all people get from my teaching is “What a great speaker,” then I have sadly made the teaching more about me than about the Lord. And believe it or not, if all they get from my teaching is “What a great God,” then I may still have put myself at the center. Because if I’m not careful, they will have to return to me time and again in order to behold how great their God is.

But if their response is “What a great text (that shows me our great God),” then I have succeeded at equipping the saints. You see, I don’t want them to remember only how I made them feel, or how inspired they were. I don’t want them to remember the stories I told or the personal application I drew for them. No, I want to teach in such a way that people can’t help but see the presented Scripture text in such a clear way that they will never be able to read that text again without seeing the chief message pop off the page for them. I want them to gain confidence that, when they study this passage, they can arrive at the same conclusions I have presented to them. I want them to trust that, when they study this passage, they can meet with the same God I have showcased before them. I want them to expect that, when they return to this passage in the future, they will be able to apply the same message in new and fresh ways to address whatever new circumstances they have come to face since they sat under my teaching.

In other words, I don’t simply want them to be fed or inspired by what I tell them. I want them to be equipped by my example to feed themselves and gain ongoing inspiration with the help of God’s Holy Spirit. This requires me not only to proclaim the truth, but also to show them how I arrived at that truth. If my methods are not transparent to them, they will never be able to imitate them. And if they can’t imitate them, they’ll be like scientists attempting to replicate my published lab results. If they can’t replicate those results on their own, they are likely to eventually question the validity of my conclusions altogether.

This goes not only for preaching, but for teaching Sunday school, leading a small group, and even leading family devotions. What response are you going for?

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What Does “All Israel Will Be Saved” Mean?

August 11, 2021 By Peter Krol

In Romans 11:26, Paul makes a statement that has baffled interpreters for generations: “And in this way all Israel will be saved.” New Testament professor Jared Compton has attempted to explain the key phrase, “all Israel will be saved,” in this brief piece.

Compton approaches the topic through a series of four interpretive questions:

What does he mean by “saved”?
What does he mean by “Israel”?
What does he mean by “all”?
What does he mean by “will be”?

To be frank, I would probably disagree with Compton’s answers to a few of these questions. But I’m eager to link to his article anyway because he models some excellent Bible study skills in the process of seeking to answer his (insightful) questions. He engages with the text. He observes carefully. He reckons with the context of Paul’s argument in the chapter and this section of Romans.

Even if I might disagree with a few of the answers, based on further observation and investigation of the same text, I have much trust that Compton would be a fellow with whom one could have a productive debate on such things. One who isn’t committed to a particular theology despite the text, but one who may arrive at a set of theological conclusions precisely because of the text. I am happy to send you his way to consider his careful handling of this challenging topic.

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Context Matters: We Bless You in the Name of the Lord

August 6, 2021 By Peter Krol

Perhaps you’ve heard it as a greeting or call to worship: “The blessing of the Lord be upon you! We bless you in the name of the Lord!” (Ps 129:8). Or if you haven’t heard it in such a setting, I suspect it is not difficult to imagine hearing it in such a setting. A simple internet search takes me quickly to a slide with this verse superimposed over a pastoral background image.

Now while it is fully consistent with scripture to pronounce God’s blessing on God’s people, this particular blessing comes in a rather unexpected setting. If we read the Bible’s poetry as we read other poetry and not as a fishing hole for motivational sentiment, we’ll see that some familiar expressions take on a deeper meaning than we originally thought.

The Blessing

Of course, the Bible often tells us of God blessing his people, even from the very beginning (Gen 1:28). He commands the high priest of Israel to pronounce his blessing (Num 6:22-27). In their lowest moments, the people long for this very blessing (Ps 80:3, 7, 19). The apostles often conclude their letters with such words of blessing (e.g. 2 Cor 13:14).

So the pronouncement of a blessing, either in greeting or as a call to worship, is a right and proper thing to do. But let’s not allow that fact to prevent us from reading Scripture as coherent literary texts. Let’s not ignore the context.

Psalm 129

Psalms 120-134 are a collection of “songs of ascents,” which pilgrims to religious feasts may have sung on their climb to Jerusalem for national feasts. As one of those poems, Psalm 129 meditates on the lives on those pilgrims who have suffered under deep affliction. This affliction seems incongruent with the life of blessing promised in Yahweh’s covenant. “Greatly have they afflicted me from my youth, yet they have not prevailed against me” (Ps 129:2).

Ps 129:4 is the turning point, where the poet remembers Yahweh’s righteousness, which requires him to fight back against wicked oppressors. The rest of the poem pronounces not blessings, but curses on those who would dare oppress Yahweh’s people. “May all who hate Zion be put to shame and turned backward!” (Ps 129:5).

And observe the entirety of Ps 129:8: The final curse is that, regarding these oppressors, nobody will ever look upon them and pronounce Yahweh’s blessing on them.

Nor do those who pass by say,
‘The blessing of Yahweh be upon you!
We bless you in the name of Yahweh!’

Conclusion

The irony of the greeting-card use of Ps 129:8 is that the statement “We bless you in the name of the Lord” is the very thing the poet does not want people to say. He wants those who hate God’s people to go without hearing such words or receiving such a blessing. And when we ignore the context, perhaps we fail to grasp the profound point that there is a time and a place not to bless. Instead, we can set our hope in the Lord Jesus to show up once again and set right everything that has gone wrong.

For more examples of why context matters, click here.

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We Need the Hard Texts

August 4, 2021 By Peter Krol

J.A. Medders has a wonderful piece for preachers entitled “Pastor, Your People Need the Hard Texts.” While he’s speaking to those who speak regularly from the pulpit, his point applies just as well to those leading small group studies. And to those studying God’s word for themselves, who are inclined to skip the weird or uncomfortable parts of the Bible.

Medders focuses on the disturbing narrative of Genesis 38, which includes sexual deviance, deceit, abuse, and neglect. We tend to be much more comfortable with Genesis 39, where the good guy resists the wiles of sexual temptation. But we need the grisly reality of Genesis 38 just as much.

The story of righteous Joseph ghosting Potiphar’s wife is no stranger to podcast feeds and pulpits. But if we aren’t careful, we could fall into the heinous error of communicating only one situation of sexual sin—a man resisting the advances of a woman—and then inadvertently paint women as the reason sexual sin happens. There’s a reason why #ChurchToo exists. We need a wide-angle lens for identifying sexual sin. And Genesis 38, in context with Genesis 39, shows us the sexual sin of men—Onan and Judah—and the sins of abuse and neglect that Tamar endures.

This is quite important stuff. Check it out!

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Psalm 103: Everlasting, Steadfast Love Toward Those Who Fear the Lord

August 2, 2021 By Ryan Higginbottom

Some psalms are on everyone’s list of favorites. Some have memorable lines; some capture just perfectly what we are feeling but couldn’t put into words.

Sometimes we love these psalms—or portions of these psalms—without looking at them carefully. Today we’ll take a close look at Psalm 103.

Bless the Lord!

Psalm 103 begins with a repeated, jubilant call to bless the Lord (Psalm 103:1). Why should we bless him? There are many, many reasons (Psalm 103:2).

The list of “benefits” that David writes is glorious.

who forgives all your iniquity,
who heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit,
who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
who satisfies you with good
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. (Psalm 103:3–5)

What is true of the one who is blessed by the Lord? He is completely forgiven, thoroughly healed, redeemed, crowned with love and mercy, satisfied with good, and renewed in his youth. That sounds pretty good! It’s fitting that David calls “all that is within [him]” to “bless his holy name” (Psalm 103:1).

Merciful and Gracious

In the second portion of Psalm 103, we learn more about this Lord whom we should bless. David tells us not just what God has done, but who he is.

At the heart of this portion of the psalm (Psalm 103:6–14) is a description of God that appears in multiple places in Scripture.

The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. (Psalm 103:8)

The theme of God’s steadfast love is also apparent later in this section.

For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him. (Psalm 103:11)

The rest of this section explains the meaning of verse 8. He does not repay us according to our iniquities (Psalm 103:10). He removes our transgressions from us (Psalm 103:12). God is compassionate toward us like a father toward his children (Psalm 103:13). Part of his compassion is shown in remembering our frame, that we are dust (Psalm 103:14).

We need to observe the text carefully. God does not show compassion to everyone; he shows compassion to those who fear him (Psalm 103:13). Fearing the Lord is also a requirement for receiving God’s steadfast love (Psalm 103:11).

From Everlasting to Everlasting

The third portion of this psalm is short but presents a profound contrast. Man’s days are brief, like grass or a flower of the field. They are fragile and can blow away in the wind (Psalm 103:15–16).

There is a fabulous connector at the beginning of verse 17: but. In contrast to the brevity of man’s days, David writes that “the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting” (Psalm 103:17). In the flow of this section of the psalm, the subject of this clause is surprising. If man’s days are finite, we expect to read that the Lord’s days are infinite. But David emphasizes that the Lord’s love is everlasting! He comes back again and again to God’s love.

This section of the psalm reiterates the bounds of God’s steadfast love. It is for those who fear him (Psalm 103:17). Those who fear him are marked by keeping his covenant and doing his commandments (Psalm 103:18). This is all God’s prerogative, of course, since “his kingdom rules over all” (Psalm 103:19).

Bless the Lord!

Psalm 103 ends with another call to bless the Lord. Though the psalm begins with a personal, internal call to the soul, it ends with a summons for all creation—including our souls—to bless the Lord.

God’s obedient angels should bless him (Psalm 103:20). All his ministers who do his will should bless him (Psalm 103:21). Even all his works should bless the Lord (Psalm 103:22).

Application From a Favorite Psalm

This is a psalm of exultation, rejoicing in who God is for the people of his covenant. David calls himself and all of creation to meditate on God’s unending love. What is David’s main point in writing this psalm?

God abounds in everlasting, steadfast love toward those who fear him. So, bless the Lord!

As we wrap up, what are some possible applications? I know that I need to grow in the fear of the Lord, and I can help my Christian friends grow in this fear as well. I can also search for any false ideas about God’s love that I might believe and replace them with the truths from this psalm. Finally, I can call others to bless the Lord with me, rejoicing in all his benefits and his great compassion.

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Identifying Stanzas in Lamentations

July 30, 2021 By Peter Krol

For a number of years, I have been following Joe Carter’s excellent Bible reading plan: Read an entire book of the Bible 20 times. Pick another; read it 20 times. Repeat. I just finished working through Lamentations, which was surprisingly refreshing. As my wife just had a baby, I don’t have time to compose a full interpretive walkthrough just yet. But I’d like to comment briefly on the book’s literary units.

Lamentations seems quite straightforward, with five main poems, matching the five chapters in our English Bibles. This seems all the more straightforward when you learn (perhaps from a commentary or study note) that the first four chapters are all acrostic poems in Hebrew, where each verse (or, in the case of chapter 3, every three verses) starts with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

In fact, my initial take on the book labeled the five chapters with the following headings:

Grief
Loss
Wrestling
Shellshock
Appeal

But David Dorsey, in his masterpiece The Literary Structure of the Old Testament, makes a compelling case for recognizing an additional structure superimposed over the acrostic structure. Upon reading the entire book in one sitting, day after day, I observed that the poems ebb and flow with periodic shifts in the pronouns. For example, chapter 1 begins in third person (“the city … she … her … Judah … Zion … Jerusalem” — Lam 1:1-11) but shifts to first person exactly halfway through, as the people express their groaning (“I … my … me … my” — Lam 1:12-22).

I hadn’t yet sat down to map out the shifts and consider how they might affect the structure and flow of thought. But I was not surprised when I read Dorsey’s analysis pulling it all together. By collecting the pronoun-shifts into the main stanzas, Dorsey (p.251) identifies 13 sections (perhaps we’d consider them lengthy stanzas?) in the book, which match up in mirror-image pairs:

she—Zion—is desolate and devastated (Lam 1:1-11)
- I—Zion—was betrayed and defeated (Lam 1:12-22)
  - he—Yahweh—has caused this in his anger (Lam 2:1-8)
    - they—princes, maidens, nurslings, children, mothers—suffer (Lam 2:9-12)
      - you—Zion—should cry out to God (Lam 2:13-22)
        he—Yahweh—has afflicted (Lam 3:1-20)
        CLIMAX: Yahweh’s great love! (Lam 3:21-32)
        he—Yahweh—afflicts humans (Lam 3:33-39)
      - you—Yahweh—to you I cry out (Lam 3:40-66)
    - they—princes, maidens, nurslings, children, mothers—suffer (Lam 4:1-10)
  - he—Yahweh—has caused this in his anger (Lam 4:11-16)
- we—the people of Zion—were betrayed and defeated (Lam 4:17-22)
we—the people of Zion—are desolate and devastated (Lam 5:1-22)

The heartbreaking poetry of Lamentations is quite moving, and it gives us a vocabulary for our own losses and laments. And the book’s structure greatly helps us to recognize the book’s overall message, which is one of profound hope in the midst of the deepest suffering. Even when the king who was supposed to save is himself wrecked (Lam 4:20), the law and the prophets have failed to provide the life and direction you need (Lam 2:9), and the place where God and man are supposed to be able to dwell together in peace is no more (Lam 5:18)—there is a big “but” writ large across time and space:

But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of Yahweh never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. (Lam 3:21-22)

The structure gives us every reason to look to the book’s center for the key message, which just might become a hinge for our perspectives on dark situations. As Ryan put it, when he explained why the context of Lamentations 3 matters:

We should remember the steadfast love of the Lord every day, but we need reminders most when we feel it least. When we’re tempted to lose heart, when our souls are cast down, we need to remember what God is really like.
Join the author of Lamentations. Recall the mercies of God throughout history and in your own life. Remember that he is your portion. Wait for him; he will have compassion according to his abundant, steadfast love.

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