Worldview

Another day, another Gospel Coalition article that I can’t help but comment on. Today’s issue is with an article entitled, “How To Go Deep into Bible Study without Getting Lost”. The author, Ryan Martin, presents 3 main ideas, 1) Words are flexible and contextual, 2) Details can distract from the flow of a text and 3) An individual text doesn’t need to carry the whole weight of Christian theology. By the first one, he means, words can mean different things in different contexts and its important to understand the context of a word or passage before we can figure out what the meaning of the word might be. He uses the example of the English word ‘trouble’ and how that word can be used to mean very different things, depending on the context. By the second, he means, “don’t lose the forest through the trees”. We can have a tendency to zoom in to break down specific words or small phrases, and miss the main message of a book or epistle. The third is a little bit of a stretch, but it seems like a variation on “don’t lose the forest through the trees” – he is exhorting his readers to appreciate the nuance and diversity of voices and perspectives within Scripture and not try to oversimplify things. Overall, not a bad directive – especially his comments about trying to make a single verse or passage carry the entire story of theology.

I would like to add one more to his list, and I would make it the first bullet point – before all of the recommendations about words, context and exegesis. The bullet point would look something like this:

1)      Spend some time learning about the worldview of the ancient authors and hearers of Scripture, namely, first century Jews – inasmuch as possible, read Scripture through that lens.

While it is true that the Bible is a collection books, letters and poetry – it was also written by Jews, for Jews and to Jews (in large part). God refers to himself as the ‘God of Israel’ and the ‘God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob’ many times. Jesus, born into a Jewish family and trained as a Jewish Rabbi, was thoroughly Jewish. The vast predominance of the early church, immediately following Jesus’ death, was Jewish. All of the Apostles were Jewish – Paul, who wrote a good amount of the New Testament, was Jewish AND a Pharisee, which is to point out that he was highly trained in Hebrew Scriptures (the Tanakh) and an expert in Torah. There is just no getting around the fact that what we call ‘Christianity’ is really a thoroughly Jewish hope. So, it makes sense that the first order of business would be to make an effort to understand what the Jewish/Hebraic worldview was, what their cultural hallmarks were, and what certain ideas meant to them, so that we might approach Scripture with that lens and not impose on it our 21^st century worldview, American cultural hallmarks and modern, post-enlightenment ideas.

This Age/The Age to Come

As it turns out, understanding the Hebraic worldview isn’t really that difficult of an undertaking, though it does involve effort. Plenty of very smart people have done a lot of the heavy lifting already, historians and theologians alike. They talk about fairly simple concepts like the Hebrew view of time being simply two ‘Ages’. This age, encompassing all of human history up to this very moment and ‘the Age to come’, starting at the moment The Kingdom of God is reestablished on the Earth. Why would that be the separating moment? Because Scripture says that the dead will be raised (Daniel 12:2, Isaiah 26:19, 1 Cor 15:51-54) and all will have their moment to stand before the King and all will hear either, “Well done, good and faithful servant” or “depart from me you evildoer” (Acts 17:31, Joel 3:2, Hebrews 9:27). Put another way, the ‘fate’ of all humans who have ever lived is the same. At a time appointed by God the Father, we will all stand before King Jesus and in that moment will hinge our existence, either to eternity with God, or eternity of punishment. I tell you – writing these words makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up because of how sobering it is to think about!

Invisible Does Not Mean Immaterial

Another simple aspect of their worldview is that invisible doesn’t mean immaterial. Most of us no longer believe that Heaven is harps and babies, floating on a cloud and praising God forever. I’m thankful to know that we have at least gotten beyond that. With that being said, there are still plenty who believe that Jesus is some kind of ghost-like being, or that God is a formless spirit. They view Heaven as being somewhere else, or they believe that God will outright destroy this entire existence (the planet, the solar system, etc) and create something new. These, seemingly, were not the views of a 1^st Century Jew (or an ancient Hebrew for that matter). Even from early Genesis, we read, “Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day and they hid…” (Gen. 3:8). God walks! He was also obviously real enough to be hidden from. Here’s a few more:

“The Lord is in His holy temple; the Lord’s throne is in heaven; his eyes behold, His eyelids test the sons of men.” (Psalm 11:4)

“The Moses went up with Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy elders of Israel, and they saw the God is Israel; and under his feet there appeared to be a pavement of sapphire, as clear as the sky itself.” (Exodus 24:9-10)

“Micaiah said, “Therefore, hear the word of the Lord. I saw the Lord sitting on His throne, and all the host of heaven standing by Him on His right and on His left.” (1 Kings 22:19)

“I kept looking until thrones were set up, and the Ancient of Days took His seat; His vesture was like white snow and the hair of His head like pure wool.” (Daniel 7:9)

Eyes, eyelids, feet, sitting, taking a seat, having a left side and a right side – all of these things seem to suggest that God has a form, and from the sounds of it, a recognizable form because these witnesses were able to describe it. Not only that but they are consistent across time, from the beginning Scripture to the end.

Land and Offspring

God promises to Abraham and his descendants a land inheritance FOREVER. Genesis 17:8 says, “The whole land of Canaan, where you now reside as a foreigner, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God.” There is also a vignette in Genesis 13, where Lot and Abraham go their separate ways, where Abraham is standing in the land of Canaan (the promised land) and God says, “Lift up your eyes from where you are and look north and south, east and west. All the land that you see I will give you and your offspring forever.” (Gen. 13:14-15) It is not only that God promised Abraham SOME land somewhere, but that He promised Abraham land that Abraham could see with his own eyes, at the time when he was living. How can God give the land of Israel to Abraham if the earth itself is destroyed? The issue of resurrection is also wrapped up in this – Abraham must have believed that God was capable of resurrection. We see first his obedience with Isaac (Isaac was the promised child, the offspring that would become the fulfillment of God’s promise) and when it comes to inheriting the land, Abraham knew he would die before the promises that God made to him were realized. Therefore, if God is not faithful to his land promises to Abraham, what assurance do we have? Furthermore, what reason is there to believe in our resurrection if he doesn’t also raise Abraham and fulfill his promises to him and his descendants?

Modern Exegesis

Bringing it back to the beginning – the obvious importance of all of this is in understanding. How do we interpret what we are reading? Context matters, as Ryan Martin pointed out in his article, but even more basic than context, is knowing what the worldview of the readers/listeners was, in order to separate what is important from what isn’t. Take my blogpost from yesterday, as an example, where I discussed the phrase, “render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar and render unto God what belongs to God.” Earlier in that exchange, Jesus asks to see a Roman coin and is handed a denarius. The question he asks after looking at the coin is LOADED with meaning, but to our eyes and ears, it looks like he is asking a rhetorical question. He asks, “Whose image and inscription is this?” At a basic level, yes, it is a rhetorical question – but the words “image” and “inscription” would have brought something to mind; and not only to the minds of his direct audience (Pharisee and Herodian leaders) but also to others in the crowd. The coin Jesus was looking at was stamped with the image of Caesar and had words on it that read, “Tiberius Caesar, Worshipful Son of the God, Augustus.” On the back it read, “Pontifex Maximus,” which means, "High Priest."

On the coin, we have an image of Caesar claiming to be a ‘son of the God Augustus’; a graven image, if you will. That brings to mind the first commandment, “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.” I am heavily relying upon a commentary I found for this so in talking about the inscription, I will just quote my source at length:

“Jesus' use of the word "inscription" alludes to the Shema. The Shema is a Jewish prayer based upon Deuteronomy 6:4–9, 11:13–21 and Numbers 15:37–41 and is the most important prayer a pious Jew can say. […] Observant Jews take literally the command to bind the words upon their arms and foreheads and wear tefillin, little leather cases which contain parchment on which are inscribed certain passages from the Torah. Words of the Shema were to be metaphorically inscribed in the hearts, minds, and souls of pious Jews and physically inscribed on parchment in tefillin, on doorposts, and on city gates. […] In short, Jesus means to call attention to the Shema by using the word "inscription" in the counter-question as His appeal to scriptural authority for His response.”

The totality of this interaction that Jesus has can only be fully understood and appreciated when you have not only the words and context, but also the eyes and ears, metaphorically-speaking, of the people who heard Jesus speak these words (worldview). Obviously we can’t definitively say that all of this would have occurred to them, but neither can we say that it did not. What we end up with at this depth, however, is in line with the overall message of Scripture. I covered that in my last post so I won’t cover it here.

My point with all of this is that while context and nuance can help you understand what is being said in some particular passage or verse, the fundamental worldview that underlies those passages and verses, and understanding what that worldview is, is equally as important to know and understand, to ensure that the exegesis of a passage aligns well with the overall themes and message of Scripture.