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Truth (or, how to really read the Bible)

Wednesday, 07 January, 2004

In response to my post on angels, Philip wrote:

How do you determine if its true or not.

If its in the Bible then its true? Or if Jesus said it then its true? where do you draw the line for finding the truth?

I guess I've come to regard this stuff as being really basic but perhaps it's because I've been hanging around ECU for too long. This is really what our work doing MTS is all about: teaching people how to read the Bible properly so that they can know the truth for themselves and not rely on other humans and not rely on tradition. Over and over again, I recite 2 Timothy 3:16-17:

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.

(Except I usually recall it in the NIV.) Perhaps it is also pertinent at this point to quote Jeremiah 31:31-34 too:

Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

—because I'm trying to show that the Bible can be clearly understood on its own terms by ordinary common people; it doesn't have to be “interpreted” to them through the mouth of a priest or through centuries of tradition. In addition, because it is “God-breathed”, it does have a meaning—it does have a purpose—and that meaning is not something we can make up for ourselves or impose on the text.

That said, there are, however, principles to keep in mind when reading the Bible (funny enough, this is all the stuff that we taught our Strand 1 group at National Training Event). Why are there certain principles? Because otherwise you could get it wrong. The principles are pretty obvious—it's stuff that you'd probably do with any piece of literature but maybe you wouldn't think to do it with the Bible. Spelt out, they are:

Exegesis

This involves looking at the bits and pieces that go to make up a passage. It's not just about word-meanings but is also about the structure of sentences, paragraphs, chapters and the text as a whole. When engaging in exegesis, it is useful to look for:

• unusual or common words and the way they are being used;
• repeated words or ideas (what does the author spend the most time talking about? What is his intention?);
• connectives (eg. however, therefore, although) which indicate movement of thought or argument;
• progressions (general statements to details, logical relationships, cause and effect, questions posted and answers given, etc.); and
• literary highlighting (contrasts, comparison, illustrations, quotes from and allusions to the Old Testament).

In addition to this, it is also useful to look at:

• the historical context:
• Who are the people mentioned in the passage?
• Where are the places mentioned?
• When was the passage written?
• Where was the passage written?
• Who was the passage written to/from?
• When is the passage set?
• Why was it written?
• the cultural context:
• What people groups are involved in this passage? (What do you know about the different people groups? eg. the Israelites, the Philistines, the Edomites, etc.)
• What difference does this make, knowing this?
• What distinguishes their cultures?
• What language was this passage written in?
• the political context:
• Who is in power at this time?
• Which country dominated which?
• the type of literature used:
• narrative (eg. Genesis): What is the main action or event?
• letter/epistle/discourse (eg. Romans): What is the main idea or argument?
• poetry (eg. Psalms): What is the main emotion or experience?
• apocalyptic (eg. Revelation): What is the main image or symbol?

because all these will assist the exegetical process.

Biblical theology

This is basically asking, “Where are we up to in the flow of the Bible?” What part of the Bible storyline is involved? If it's an Old Testament passage, how does it point to Jesus or how has it been fulfilled in Jesus? If it's a New Testament passage, what does it tell us about the unfolding plan of God's salvation which is centred around Jesus?

In The How and Why of Love, Michael Hill writes:

If we do not engage in doing biblical theology we might end up giving the wrong value and significance to the content of the various stages. For example, without understanding the progressive structure of the Bible we might conclude that Christians still have to offer animal sacrifices and worship at the temple in Jerusalem. Biblical theology is vital in the process of understanding the Bible as a whole and on its own terms. (p. 52.)

Systematic theology

This involves the study of the important topics of the Bible (eg. Christ, sin, judgement) which, though true for all time, are progressively revealed throughout the Bible in bits and pieces. These bits and pieces are then collected together to form a more complete picture. Systematic theology is heavily reliant on Biblical theology because otherwise we will put the bits and pieces together in an inappropriate way. To refer again to Michael Hill:

Suppose, for example, we wish to have a fuller picture of the nature and character of God. If we neglect the first two stages of exegesis and biblical theology and move straight to the task of systematic theology, we can take bits and pieces about the nature and character of God and put them together in our own way. Without the controls of a biblical theology we might conclude that there were three Gods, or that there was one God who wore three different masks at different periods in salvation history. We would not be forced to formulate the doctrine of the Trinity, the belief that there is one God and three Persons, if we ignored the second stage of the process. (ibid.)

And now, back to angels ...

I've got my question, “Do guardian angels exist?”—that is, does every single individual have an angel of their own who looks after them? In order to answer this question, I have to look at all the passages in the Bible that refer to angels. I have to fit these passages into the context of the Bible story to see how they are portrayed. It's a little more complicated in the New Testament because the word for “angel” (angelos) can also mean “messenger”. Only then can I gain a full picture of who angels are, what they are like, what they do and whether this research actually answers my question. So far, in the reading I've been doing (which hasn't been very studious, I do admit), I see nothing that supports the fact that there are individual guardian angels for every single one of us like in The Screwtape Letters. The Acts 12 passage mentions something like it but the words come out of the mouths of men and the idea is not substantiated in other passages of the Bible. So that's why I'm rejecting it.

Until I'm proven wrong, of course.

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