Helping ordinary people learn to study the Bible
If you’d like a brief explanation and defense of the traditional Christian doctrine of dual authorship, check out this excellent piece by Robert Cara.
Who wrote the Bible? Yes, God did. He is the divine, ultimate, and primary author. But in His providence He used humans, the secondary authors.
The proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel (Prov 1:1).
Who better to comment on the details of earthly existence than Solomon, the son of David, the king of Israel? As the man Solomon, he had exceptional God-given insight and understanding. As the son of David, he had the promise of a kingdom for God, a special relationship with God, and steadfast love from God. As the king of Israel, he had both power and unparalleled wealth. These three resources – God’s wisdom, God’s promise, and great wealth – made Solomon uniquely qualified to compose proverbs.
Solomon asked God for “an understanding mind to govern” God’s people so he could “discern between good and evil” (1 Kings 3:9), and the Lord promised to honor Solomon’s request (1 Kings 3:12). On account of his wise judgment, all Israel “stood in awe of the king, because they perceived that the wisdom of God was in him to do justice” (1 Kings 3:28).
Solomon’s God-given wisdom surpassed that of all the sages of the East and of Egypt (1 Kings 4:29-31). This means he was smarter than Confucius and cleverer than the Buddha. He spoke 3,000 proverbs (about 900 of which are in the book of Proverbs), and his songs were 1,005 (1 Kings 4:32). He spoke of many details of life, such as trees, birds, reptiles, and fish (1 Kings 4:33). International students from every corner of the globe competed for a seat in his classroom (1 Kings 4:34). Solomon was both more prolific and more elegant than any other scholar of his day because he had direct access to the mind of the Lord of heaven and earth.
The Lord himself promised to build up and sustain Solomon in his wisdom. First, he promised him a kingdom. Speaking to Solomon’s father David, God said, “When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom” (2 Samuel 7:12). Second, he promised to have a special relationship with Solomon: “I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him” (2 Samuel 7:14). Third, he promised to love him to the end: “My steadfast love will not depart from him” (2 Samuel 7:15).
Notice how these first two resources (God’s wisdom and God’s promise) are connected. Solomon could have all the wisdom in the world, but without the promise of God to sustain him, it would all be for naught. Imagine studying for a test. You can learn every fact and formula. You could even memorize a transcript of every word your teacher spoke in class. These actions might impart wisdom to you. But if you get no sleep the night before the exam, you will have no power or ability to recall and apply everything you learned. So God’s wisdom gave Solomon the raw insight he needed, and God’s promise gave Solomon the beautiful power of follow-through.
King Solomon had an annual income of 666 talents of gold (1 Kings 10:14). (This amount only takes into account his base salary; adding in tax revenue and investment income would push the figure even higher. See 1 Kings 10:15.) Translated into modern American currency, Solomon’s annual income was in excess of $1.5 billion.[1] To put this figure into perspective, note that Portuguese soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo (the world’s highest paid athlete) made only $260 million in 2024. In fact, the top 10 highest paid athletes combined still didn’t make as much in a year as King Solomon. It would be difficult to find anyone in our generation comparable to Solomon in his wealth.
The point of this little economics lesson: What could you do with all that capital? If Solomon lacked for anything, he could acquire it. If he wanted to try something out, it was his. He had access to the best technology, education, public safety, athletics, arts & entertainment, food, hobbies, and service that the world could offer him. Whatever his eyes desired, he did not keep from them.[2] Solomon explored every aspect of the created world with his wisdom, and he carefully examined it for every ounce of value. He now provides his experience—both positive and negative—of every delightful thing in a collection of wise sayings.
In conclusion, Solomon was abundantly qualified to take on the role of the sage of Israel and of the world. He had every possible resource at his disposal, and God gave him both the insight and the power to evaluate it wisely. His credentials are sufficient to the task of imparting wisdom.
[1]Some readers won’t be able to hear anything else I write until they know how I arrived at this figure. This footnote is just for you. The New Bible Dictionary (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1962), p.1234 states that 1 ancient talent equals approximately 30 modern kilograms. Therefore, 666 talents = 19,980 kg. On August 8, 2024, 24-karat gold was worth USD $77,451/kilo. Therefore, 19,980 kg of 24-karat gold = $1.55 billion. (Affiliate link)
[2]Ecclesiastes 2:10. Even if, as some claim, Solomon were not “the Preacher” of Ecclesiastes, it would appear that the Preacher at least aims to connect his spiritual authority with Solomon’s reputation (see Ecclesiastes 1:1).
David Mitchell has a thoughtful piece where he begins to make a theological and philosophical defense of the need to understand the Bible within its historical context. In other words, why do we expend so much energy to grasp the Bible’s authors, their original audiences, and the circumstances under which they wrote? Is all that really necessary to understand what the Spirit has to say to us today?
Yes. Yes, it is quite necessary.
The philosophical and theological reason for reading in context is because the Bible is a serious and intentional text. Something written simply to entertain or amuse may not require paying attention to context in quite the same way—although the upheaval of context might be part of such a text’s ability to entertain. However, something written with a serious intention, whether to convey information or change people’s behaviour, always needs to be understood according to a context. That could be the context created by the narrative and/or a context created by the historical moment being spoken into (in the case of a letter).
The Scriptures were not written simply to record stories for their own sake nor to entertain. They were written for the purpose of changing the minds of those who read them. This is abundantly clear in certain places (for e.g. Jn 20:31). But theologically, we believe that all the words of Scripture were written by God’s Spirit for his people. They are meant to both inform us—ultimately of Jesus Christ—and change our behaviour (for e.g. 2 Tim 3:16–17; 1 Pet 1:10–11; 2 Pet 1:20–21). Yet we also know that they are human documents, not transcendent of history, but records of it and within it (e.g. Luke 1:1–4; 1 John 1:1–3). Taken together, as both a divine and human document, the word of God for us should be read according to the moments that it addresses.
Mitchell then provides some examples from a variety of genres, showing how good contextual work does not hinder contemporary application but makes it all the stronger.
Over at the Logos blog, Robert Elmer provides a helpful overview of who wrote the Bible. He lists and explains what we know about the human authors of every book of the Bible. Then he highlights how some books of the Bible describe the Bible itself (interacting with other books).
Elmer’s writing is plain and clear, and his overview provides a good summary of the big picture with respect to these questions.
Daniel Rowlands suggests that one context we ought to keep in mind when reading the Bible is the context of the whole Bible. We can do this because, though the books of the Bible were written by various human authors, they were also written by the singular divine author.
Here is a taste:
The word of God in the Bible comes to us through human writers. We find the humanity of the writers in variations of vocabulary, idioms, structure, and style. For example, there is the difference between the exquisite Hebrew poetry and varied vocabulary of Isaiah and the straight-forward narrative of Joshua. Similarly, in the New Testament there is the difference between the complex and elegant Greek of Hebrews and John’s more elementary Greek. We can detect the presence of the human authors throughout all of Scripture.
On the other hand, and at the risk of sounding obvious, we ought not neglect the divine author, God himself. Here, the incarnation of the Son of God in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Word become flesh (John 1:14), is a helpful analogy for understanding the human and divine together as one.
John Piper continues his extensive series of videos modeling observation and interpretation of the Bible. In a recent episode, he began to address the opening verses to 1 Peter.
https://vimeo.com/137981364
Piper shows a few things very well:
It can be helpful to use resources outside the text (such as book introductions in study Bibles) to learn the historical background. But it’s even better to look within the text itself.
In yesterday’s post we considered who the primary audience of Proverbs was. Why bother?
The main reason is because, although the Bible was written for us (1 Cor 10:11), it was not written to us. Every book of the Bible was written by a particular person, for a particular group of people, in a particular situation. We put ourselves in danger of misunderstanding the text if we don’t first understand these historical circumstances. We must put ourselves in their shoes.
Imagine if I showed you a letter in which I wrote the sentence “You’re making me go crazy.” How would you read that line if you knew I had written the letter to my child? To my employee? My neighbor? My wife? My pet snake? A customer service rep at a store from which I made a significant purchase?
At the office where I work, we maintain a quote board for just this purpose: to catalogue the random statements which, removed from any context, become hilarious. We have entries on the board like:
When it comes to studying the Bible, let’s keep the original audience in mind. Otherwise, we can miss the point. For example:
Whenever you approach a book of the Bible, make sure you find out who the original audience was (as much as is possible) and do your best to put yourself in their shoes.
We just finished examining a bit of Solomon’s biography and credentials for authoring the book of Proverbs. We saw that God’s wisdom, God’s promise, and great wealth qualified him for this task.
How did I come up with these principles?
The main idea here is that the narrative books of the Bible often give us key information to help us interpret the didactic (teaching) books. We learn about Solomon’s story from the books that chronicle his life. As I studied those sections, I began to draw connections to the Proverbs. Especially helpful was 1 Kings 3:1-15, where Solomon asks for wisdom, and 1 Kings 4:20-34, where Solomon demonstrates his wisdom.
We can follow this same procedure for other parts of the Bible.
I’m sure you get the idea. When you study books of the Bible, first try to understand the author’s life situation and character. The Bible itself can help you do this.
