This week’s “Wednesday Word” is a summary of Dr. Wellum’s second session in his series, The Bible’s Big Picture, given on Sunday, September 20, 2009.
How do we read the Bible on its own terms? That is the question we sought to answer this week. At the heart of the answer to this question is the crucial issue of how we are to be biblical in our reading and applying of Scripture and how we can be more faithful in our handling the Word of truth. In attempting to answer this question we unpacked the statement: In order to read and apply Scripture on its own terms we must do so according to what Scripture claims to be and how it comes to us. Let us look at these two areas.
First, in terms of its claim, Scripture says that it is nothing less than God’s Word written through the agency of human authors. Given this fact, we are to read all the diversity of Scripture in terms of an overall unity centered in our Lord Jesus Christ, seeking to know the mind and heart of God. Second, how does Scripture come to us? It comes to us through the agency of human authors over time. Just as God’s plan of redemption does not happen all at once, so God’s interpretation of his mighty acts of redemption does not happen all at once. Instead, God discloses himself through human authors, progressively over time, and as such, we need to read Scripture in terms of its unfolding plan. This last observation entails that when we read Scripture we must always ask these three questions in order to place texts of Scripture within their overall context.
1. What is this specific text saying to us as we pay close attention to what God is communicating to us through the human authors? This demands that we follow a grammatical-historical reading of the text, seeking to know what the author intends, tied to the kind of literary form used.
2. Where is this specific text in the unfolding plan of God? Since Scripture comes to us progressively over time, texts must be understood in light of what has preceded them. What this entails for us is that we are always careful to read any text in light of previous texts so that we understand more and more the mind and heart of God.
3. Where is this text now in light of the entire revelation of God now centered in the coming of Jesus Christ? Given the fact that we now live in the age of fulfillment, we must always read and apply any text in light of Christ. To not do so is ultimately to misunderstand Scripture. In this sense, we need a grammatical-historical-canonical reading of Scripture. It is only in this last context that we truly discover what God is making known to us in a more complete and full sense.
Illustrations of why this is important abound and we looked at a number of examples to emphasize this point. For example, within Genesis, one cannot understand the Abrahamic covenant apart from placing Genesis 12 in light of Genesis 1-11. Or, as we see in the NT, it is important to place certain texts in the overall storyline of Scripture as Paul does in Romans 4 and Galatians 3. Unless we do, we will misunderstand Scripture and not apply it correctly to us today (for more examples listen to the lesson). Next week we will begin to develop the Bible’s overall storyline under the larger headings of creation, fall, redemption, and new creation. Our goal in this entire series is not only to know Scripture better, but in our lives and ministries, to know our great God and glorify him in all that we say and do.