Mar
23
How Does the Bible Teach Us?
One of the books I’ve been reading lately is Decision Making God’s Way by Gary T. Meadors. It has some good stuff in it and, as usual, I keep an eye out for sections that might make good articles in themselves. So, this week I have an excerpt that talks about, you guessed it, the ways by which the Bible teaches those of us who read it.
The section in question — about three pages worth in the book — is presented within the chapter “Is Every Example in the Bible for Me?”. But, even outside of the specific study on “finding God’s will” and “decisionmaking”, it makes for a great mini-review on how followers of Jesus Christ should find and/or extract biblical teaching during regular reading and studying of God’s written Word.
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The Bible was written over a fifteen hundred-year period (about 1450 B.C.E. to C.E. 100). It was addressed to the people of God in what we now view as two distinct audiences, Israel and the church. How do Christians today draw guidance from a book written over such a long and diverse period with different recipients in the minds of the authors?
Second Timothy 3:16 states, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.” Such a statement calls for us to determine how to utilize the total Bible, both Old and New Testaments, in our worldview and values development. In order to do this, we need a view of how the Bible as a whole teaches us, as well as an understanding of how we construct our own views on applying its teaching in our situations.
The Bible teaches us by providing a record of how God has dealt with his people throughout redemptive history up to about C.E. 100. Its record contains historical narratives, laws and commands, inspired poetic reflections, and other literary genres. Christians view the teaching of the Bible as authoritative for life and practice, faith and duty. Christian communities all recognize a progression within Scripture that defines how the Bible’s teaching is to be interpreted and applied to succeeding generations both within and beyond the period of Scripture production. Yet not all communities agree on how past teaching applies to the present community. Views range from a naive total continuity, everything applies now as it did then, to a severe restriction of gleaning applicable teaching from only a few of Paul’s Epistles. As you might expect, the better approach is to be found not in the extremes of the continuum but in a reasoned understanding of the nature of the record of redemptive history.
Biblical teaching is both observed (descriptive material) and obeyed (prescriptive material) on the basis of how a faith community understands the normative nature of any given passage. A normative text is one containing a command or exhortation that transcends time and audience and universally requires the obedience of all God’s people. A command such as “do not steal” is timeless. A command not to intermingle two kinds of cloth, however, is considered to be limited in its application, because it addresses certain issues within a limited time and culture. The task of biblical interpretation is to determine what is or is not a normative teaching. It is helpful when both testaments give the same command, but it is not required that the New Testament repeat normative truth of the Old Testament. The laws of incest illustrate this fact in that the New Testament does not repeat what is evident to all. There is a good deal of unity in the church about what is normative, but various traditions do debate certain details.
The Christian community develops biblical teaching at three levels: direct, implied, and creative constructs. There are passages that speak directly to an issue but have a limited shelf life, such as “Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk” (Exod. 23:19) or “Greet one another with a holy kiss” (Rom. 16:16; 1 Cor. 16:20; 2 Cor. 13:12; 1 Thess. 5:26). There are also passages that all perceive as transcending time and culture. Examples might include terse and direct commands such as “do not lie,” “do not steal,” “do not commit adultery,” or perhaps Paul exhorting communities to turn from idols to Jesus. Most readers sense the difference between teaching that has a normative ring to it and statements designed for a limited time period.
There is also a level of implied teaching, which can be called upon to represent crucial areas of theology. For instance, no text in the Bible states there is a Trinity, but Christian scholars agree that the concept of Trinity correctly represents the “plain” teaching of the Bible about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. When we bring modern questions to the Bible, it is often the implied teaching of Scripture to which we appeal. Issues such as abortion, euthanasia, and spousal abuse illustrate the need for this kind of interpretation from the Bible.
The third level of teaching is the development of creative constructs. This is the larger-picture type of teaching. Theological leaders within Christian communities look at the whole Bible and argue for a certain macro view of biblical teaching. That is, they create systems of theology that they believe account for the whole Bible. Calvinism, Arminianism, covenantalism, dispensationalism, millennialism, views of counseling, and such are creative theological constructs that various believing communities argue best represent the whole teaching of Scripture. When one decides upon a system, the tendency is to read the details of the Bible from that viewpoint.
Many Christians operate with the assumption that a surface reading of the Bible combined with “what it means to me” provides accurate information to guide our lives. Unfortunately, this simplistic approach demeans Scripture and robs the reader of its treasures. Life is not simple. Developing a biblical worldview and values set is not simple either. Understanding the broad concepts of the nature of the Bible’s teaching and how we construct that teaching into a model advances our ability to use Christian discernment.
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Make sense? I have heard or read other Christian teachers communicate these hermeneutical principles, and I’ve even touched on them in my writing. But, I thought Meadors did a nice job of summarizing the ideas here.
