Our Approach to Scripture

The following is a excerpt from a piece I wrote on Biblical theology:

We must also approach Scripture with a few essential understandings as to its nature. I will briefly outline three that seem foundational: First, God’s revelation is progressive. Contrarily, Islam understands that the Qur’an was revealed to Mohammed all at once, miraculously lowered down from heaven in Arabic. Conversely the sacred texts of Buddhism are confined to the lifetime of a single man. But the Bible was not written in a moment, or even in a single lifetime. As was mentioned before the Bible was written over 1500 years, as God progressively revealed more and more of himself and His story. This is because the Bible, as we’ve already said, isn’t the revelation of a systematized confession, but the revelation of redemption. And God’s redemption, the salvation of his people, occurs both in history and over the course of history. A large span of time separate God’s act of creation from his future act of new creation. In between these, humanity falls into sin and God acts to save sinners and then to explain those saving acts.  We can point to the exodus and conquest of Canaan; the exile and then return of Israel; and ultimately the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Bible is both the record of God’s saving acts and the explanation of them and therefore of necessity has a progressive historical character. In summation this just means that we are to understand that the knowledge of God has developed over the time that Scripture was inspired.

Second, God’s revelation is not only progressive, it is fundamentally historical in character. So, for example, the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ are objective events in history that not only reveal something about God and redemption, but actually accomplish redemption. The Bible, therefore, is not merely a story told by humans about God’s salvation of them, it is a story enacted and then explained by God about God. There is a evident God-centered focus in all of this as God objectively and concretely invades human history and acts to redeem His people to his own glory. Thus in biblical theology we speak of redemptive history.

Third, there is an organic nature to this progressive revelation of God and his redemptive plan. It doesn’t simply proceed like a construction site, which moves from the sketching of a blueprint to finished building in a linear fashion. Rather it unfolds and develops from a small seed to fully grown tree. In seed form, the minimum and beginning of saving revelation is given. By the end, that simple truth has revealed itself as complex and rich, multilayered and profoundly beautiful. It is this character of revelation that’s going to aid our understanding of the typological character of Scripture, the dynamic of promise and fulfillment, and the presence of both continuity and discontinuity across redemptive history. Great theological truths are frequently nestled into these paradoxes and developments.

Now that we have spent some time defining the Bible we are confronted with a problem. How can we be sure that we’re reading and understanding the story rightly? For that matter, how can we be sure that we’re reading and understanding the various independent parts of the story and principles correctly? Let’s set aside for a moment the unbelievable idea that we could actually understand the mind and purposes and, therefore, the word of God. The opportunity to think God’s thoughts after him. Yet how can we be confident that we can accurately understand the words of a Hebrew prophet like Isaiah living and writing 2,700 years ago? Aren’t words, human words, much less divine words, incredibly slippery and malleable? Isn’t the meaning of a text an incredibly subjective idea? I mean, unless an author is present to tell us what he meant, who’s to say that one interpretation of a text is better or more accurate or more faithful or more meaningful than another? These are questions punctuated by post-modern thought but have been appropriately asked throughout history.

If you’re at all familiar with current discussions of hermeneutics ¹ you’ll know that, these days, many are quite skeptical about our ability to know with any precision what an author meant when he wrote something, unless we have direct access and ability to speak with that author. Primely this because the author’s intent is what is being sought for. Therefore distance and discontinuity between author and reader in language and culture, historical context and even personal experiences, it is said, effectively cuts the reader off from any opportunity of knowing objectively and certainly what the author meant. For some, this is a fearful idea and for others, it’s been cause for celebration, namely because we are not required to submit to Biblical authority. For them, the loss of what we call the “author’s original intent” means that finally make texts to mean what we want them to mean. Clearly such advances are less devious than this characterization but if motives are examined, my experience has been that it is not far from the root of their actions. Often at the center of any ‘painting of subjectivity’ over the Biblical text is a desire to maintain a cultural preference over a desire to know and live God’s model. Blatant examples of this can be examined in the departure from Biblical headship, true repentance and conversion, and church discipline. All of which are clearly laid out in Scripture but seem untenable in the context of our cultural norms.

All of this brings me back to the question I posited earlier. If the Bible is a story with God as its author, but a story whose component parts are texts written by appointed, inspired men in different languages, cultures and historical periods, how can we be sure that we’re reading the story correctly? Is there even such a thing as a correct reading? Some Biblical dialogue that beings with questions like, “What does this text mean to you?” seems to suggest that there is not.

Conversely I will assert that every text has one intention,² precisely because God, who created this world, our brains, and thus our ability to use language, is himself a speaking God. It was God who created us in His own image with rationality and language such that language can accurately convey meaning from one mind to another mind. God has proved this, not only by acting in history, but also by choosing to use human language to authoritatively deliver his commands and interpret His own actions. We see this again and again on the pages of Scripture, “Thus says the Lord.” God gives Adam audible commands and holds him accountable for failing to obey His words. God not only sends the ten plagues against Pharaoh, he speaks to Moses and Aaron explaining what He is doing. Furthermore He points out that He has hardened Pharaoh’s heart. After escaping Egypt God not only parts the Red Sea, but He explains what He’s about to do and why. God not only makes Israel into a nation, He speaks audibly to the whole nation from Mt Sinai telling them so.

The instances could go on, but perhaps most clear example is the incarnation of Christ himself. When God chose to definitively reveal himself once and for all, he didn’t send angels or dramatic signs and wonders in the sky. He became a man and spoke to us in a language that people could understand. As the author to the Hebrews put it, “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by His Son.”³ And to further punctuate the point and make it absolutely clear that we should listen to God’s Son, not once but twice the Father spoke from heaven, first at Jesus’ baptism, and then again at his transfiguration. Peter confirms this truth:

For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased, we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain. And we have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

(II Peter 1:16-21)

The only consistent conclusion that we must make is that words, when placed in sentences and paragraphs, convey meaning. And not just any meaning. They also have the ability to convey the meaning of the author who constructed the sentence and the paragraph, as a reflection of his authorial intent. As readers of words, and particularly as readers of God’s Word, our privileged obligation is to read in such a way as to recover and understand the meaning the author wanted to communicate.

Soli Deo Gloria,

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