My future father-in-law purchased a new bible on Saturday. It’s published by the folks at ‘Way of the Master’ and is titled ‘The Evidence Bible’. (incidentally, Kirk Cameron – who many will remember from that wonderfully entertaining TV show back in the 80’s ‘Growing Pains’ – preaches regularly on this site since becoming a Christian. Cameron has also starred in the ‘Left Behind’ series. A good article on the theology of the ‘Left Behind’ series can be found here).
The ‘Evidence Bible’ is not so much a ‘study bible’ – with little commentaries about the passage you are reading – but an interesting mix of commentary and ‘facts’; scientific evidence and facts which prove the existence of God or what not from the passage. The translation is dubbed the ‘Contemporary King James’ – so I assume the author took the KJV and contemporised it a little… :P I flipped over to 1 Samuel 17 to find out what comments would be made on this story.
I have generally found study bibles to be most unhelpful in this particular chapter as the general comments centre around the fact that David had great faith in God to defeat Goliath, therefore we must emulate that faith to defeat the ‘Goliath’s in our lives’. Whilst this is actually a minor point to the passage we should really see the bigger picture – God raising up an unlikely deliverer to rescue His people (which points us, in the end, to Jesus – the unlikely saviour of the world who would save us by dying on a cross). So what do I find in the comments for 1 Sam 17 in ‘The Evidence’? Well, to my pleasant surprise I don’t find any reference to ‘us being like David’. What I did find, though, was a bit of a weird link between this passage and reference to the NT. A footnote was made on verse 40, quoted here:
Then he took his staff in his hand and chose five smooth stones from the brook and put them in his shepherd’s pouch. His sling was in his hand, and he approached the Philistine. (my emphasis on five)
And then a link is made to Ephesians in which Jesus built his church up through five disciplines/things. I thought to myself, “Gee…that’s a bit weird. The only thing linking these two passages together are the fact that five things are chosen. It’s weird because if David picked up five stones, which are symbolic for five pillars of faith (or something like that)…then which stone was it that brought down Goliath?” But that’s not the point right now, the point is when I raised this with Shte1’s dad we had a discussion about the pros and cons of this bible as well as about bible interpretation. I told him my thoughts on why I thought this bible’s comments may be misleading, he came back with the point that it’s only my interpretation versus the author’s interpretation.
But is it really just about interpretation? Or is there something more at stake when considering biblical theology and its place in our personal understanding of God’s word in the Old Testament? Consider these points:
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If we interpret various bits of the OT as though they are personal messages to you or I, then what is our measuring stick so that we know our interpretation of a passage is correct? One interpretation for one person…one interpretation for another? This type of preaching leads to the problem that passages are interpreted arbitrarily. So I’ll have no problem teaching that we are to have David’s faith in order to beat our Goliaths (in 1 Samuel 17) and then teach that we shouldn’t be like David when he lies to a priest (in 1 Samuel 21). When you think about this, preaching in this way starts to unravel because there is no solid foundation upon which your interpretation of a passage rests – it’s really up to you and what spin you can put on the application.
- The author of a passage had a particular emphasis and motive for writing it. So our interpretation of a passage should at least be in line with what the original author intended. For OT authors we obviously take the step further – because we are not Jews – and we do that by looking ‘through the lens of Jesus’. How has Jesus death and resurrection changed or added to the meaning of this OT passage? But back to authorship – we should pay close attention to what has been said and what will be said (context, context and context) because this will give us proper clues as to what an author intended.
- For instance – the book of Judges is set before the books of 1 & 2 Samuel. It’s a messy period in Israel’s history because it deals with Israel’s cyclical and constant disobedience as well as God’s graciousness in saving Israel through a line of judges. However, what most people don’t know is that the book was written well after this period (possibly during the exile?) and serves to illustrate this point for Israel – the kingship was doomed to fail even before it started. We can immediately see, then, that the book of Judges is not about a series of unrelated events and short stories, but a big billboard sign pointing us towards the fact that a human king will fail, but God will not.
- Compare that thought with a sermon I heard about in which the preacher took the story of Samson and preached the good points about Samson and how we could be like that also.
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Jesus was a biblical theologian.
In Luke 24 when Jesus was resurrected he met two of his disciples walking along the road to Emmaus. The disciples couldn’t understand why Jesus had to suffer and die, so Jesus (the disciples didn’t know they were speaking to Jesus at the time) opens up the Old Testament and shows them how it all points to himself (imagine the lesson that would have been taught!).
Soon after this meeting on the roadside he met with his disciples and also opened up their minds to scripture – to reveal that the whole Old Testament all pointed towards him.
- So if Jesus was a biblical theologian, then shouldn’t our preaching be in submission to that also? If not, then the OT should be treated as a whole series of loosely connected events, some of which prophesies about Jesus, but mostly are unrelated stories about Israel, God, and allegorical lessons that we can draw from them. But if we treat the OT like Jesus did, then we would see much stronger connections at play…and an unfolding plan which will only serve to bring greater glory to God.
It’s incredible, it’s exciting! When you do more reading about biblical theology you start to see that all those confusing bits really do make sense. Otherwise you can be left with a great deal of confusion and disappointment when confronted by an OT passage.
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