Poythress Reading the Word of God in the Presence of God

A Handbook for Biblical Interpretation
1. Auflage 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4335-4327-2
Verlag: Crossway
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 464 Seiten

Biblical interpretation is typically viewed as concerned with understanding the human author's intended meaning. However, for Christians, the Bible is first and foremost God's Word and must be understood in that light. Helping Christians approach the Bible with God in mind, this book sets forth a more nuanced approach to biblical interpretation that pays attention to both the human and divine origins of these sacred texts. Whether it's reviewing the three basic steps of interpretation or emphasizing the importance of paying attention to the Christ-centered character of both the Old and New Testaments, this book is a much-needed resource for the church as it wrestles to defend the authority of Scripture in our increasingly relativistic world.

Vern S. Poythress (PhD, Harvard University; ThD, University of Stellenbosch) is Distinguished Professor of New Testament, Biblical Interpretation, and Systematic Theology at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he has taught for four decades. In addition to earning six academic degrees, he is the author of numerous books and articles on biblical interpretation, language, and science.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Poythress, Vern S.

Leseproben

2

Principles for Interpreting the Bible

We could develop a whole book-length discussion of doctrinal principles that we ought to presuppose as we study the Bible. But in this book we intend to move quickly toward practicing biblical interpretation. So we will explain some important principles only briefly, leaving it to other books on theology to develop these principles more extensively1 and to show how they spring from the Bible’s own view of God, man, and its own role.

God Speaking

The Bible is God’s speech in written form. So we should think about what it means for God to speak. God’s speech has several forms.

1. God speaks eternally in the Word, the second person of the Trinity (John 1:1). God the Son is the Word spoken. God the Father is the speaker. John 1:1 does not mention the Holy Spirit explicitly, but other passages (for example, Ezek. 37:10, 14) compare the Holy Spirit to the breath of God taking his word to its destination.2

2. God speaks to create and to govern the world. In Genesis 1 we see repeated instances where God speaks to bring about his work of creation:

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. (Gen. 1:3)

By the word of the LORD the heavens were made,

and by the breath of his mouth all their host. (Ps. 33:6)3

God’s speech continues to govern the world in providence:

he [the Son] upholds the universe by the word of his power. (Heb. 1:3)

This speech displays the authority of God the Father, the control by God the Son who is the Word, and the presence of the Holy Spirit (who in Gen. 1:2 hovered over the face of the waters).

3. God spoke orally to human beings, in theophanies (Gen. 17:1; Ex. 20:18–19) and through prophets as his spokesmen (Ex. 20:19, 21).

4. God wrote his word. He did so directly with the tablets at Mount Sinai, which were “written with the finger of God” (Ex. 31:18). Later, he committed his word to writing through human spokesmen who did the actual writing (Deut. 31:24–26).

5. Finally, at the climax of history, God spoke through the incarnate Son (Heb. 1:1–2).

6. God now speaks to us through the Bible, which God has given us as the permanent deposit of his word. John 21:25 indicates that not all God’s spoken words have been recorded in Scripture:

Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.

In accordance with the pattern established in Deuteronomy 31:9–13, 24–29, God has provided for the gradual accumulation of a group of authoritative texts, written with his authority, that would serve for the permanent guidance of his people. The Bible is the completed collection of these infallible texts. It is called the canon of Scripture, because it is the standard for our instruction.4 It is God’s permanent communication to us.

Three Aspects of Speaking

God’s communication involves God as author, the Bible as the text that he communicates, and us as the recipients. In the archetypal communication of the Word of God in the Trinity, we have God the Father as author, God the Son as the Word communicated, and the Holy Spirit as the one associated with the destiny of the Word. These three aspects of communication coinhere, and can function as perspectives on one another. No one aspect can be strictly isolated. Likewise, when God communicates to us in Scripture, the three aspects function like three perspectives.5 If we start with God as author, his intention in authorship leads to paying attention to the text of the Bible and to the recipients. He intended to write the text that was produced, and he intended to address the recipients to whom his communication was directed. So both text and recipients belong to his intention. If we start with the text, its interpretation requires that we pay attention to God as author. And the text addresses recipients, sometimes directly (Galatians goes to the Galatian churches), but always at least indirectly, by way of implication.

We can accordingly consider interpretive principles that focus on God, on the Bible itself, or on the recipients. But these three foci are not strictly isolated. All of them have implications for all three aspects of biblical communication.

God

If we are going to appreciate what God says, we must know God and grow in knowing him. What we know about him feeds into our understanding of what he says.

1. God is Lord over all things. So we must take into account his lordship as we study. We may use Frame’s triad of authority, control, and presence as one summary of his lordship.

2. God is Creator, while we and everything else in the world are creatures. The Bible makes a distinction between the Creator and his creatures. God as Creator is Lord, while his creatures are subjects and ought to submit to his lordship. This distinction implies that we must listen to God when we read the Bible, and not imagine that we can listen merely to our own ideas that arise while reading. Some false religions claim that each human being is really divine in his core. If this were so, we could gain understanding merely by listening to this inward, allegedly “divine” self. But that is antithetical to God’s way that he reveals in Scripture.

In sum, the Creator-creature distinction leads to rejecting pantheistic mysticism, where readers think that they are themselves divine and listen for the “divine” within them rather than really listening to the Bible. We should also reject Platonic reminiscence, which says that knowledge consists in remembering what the soul already knows from eternity past. We reject rationalism, which makes our own rationality the final standard for sifting what we will accept in the Bible. We reject autonomous hermeneutics, which says that we must first work out how we interpret texts using our own autonomous ideas, before we come to any particular text.

3. God is immanent. He is present in the whole world. He is also especially present, with his offer of redemption in Christ, as we read Scripture. Much modern thinking assumes or alleges that God (if there is a God) is absent when we read Scripture. But he is not, and it makes a difference. We meet God, not merely a text that substitutes for God.

4. God has planned history and brings about his plan in time (Eph. 1:11). History has purpose, and God has designed in particular that our study of the Bible should have a purpose. The Bible serves his goals, not whatever goals we may devise out of our own hearts. In particular, we are not supposed to be studying the Bible merely to acquire information, but for our spiritual good—for our salvation. We are looking forward to “new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (2 Pet. 3:13). God gives us the Bible as a means that aids us and empowers us in moving toward that goal.

The Bible

Now let us consider some basic principles about the Bible.

1. The Bible is God’s own word, so that what the Bible says, God says.

2. God governs the whole world through his divine speech, which specifies and controls what happens (Heb. 1:3). The Bible indicates that God speaks to govern the world, but we do not hear this speech; we only see its effects (for example, Ps. 33:6, 9; 147:15–18). The Bible, by contrast, is the word of God, designed by God to speak specifically to us as human beings. All divine speech, whether directed toward governing the world in general or directed toward us as human beings, has divine character. In particular, it displays God’s lordship in authority, control, and presence.

3. God speaks his words to us in covenants (Gen. 9:9; 15:18; 17:7; Ex. 19:5; etc.). A “covenant” is a solemn, legally binding agreement between two parties. In this case, the two parties are God and human beings. In the Old Testament, God’s covenants with human beings show some affinities with ancient Near Eastern suzerainty treaties.6 These treaties show five elements, which also appear either explicitly or by implication in God’s covenants in the Old Testament (table 2.1):

Table 2.1: Comparing Treaties and Covenants

Hittite Suzerainty Treaties

Exodus 20

Identification of the suzerain

“I am the LORD . . .” (Ex. 20:2)

Historical prologue

“who brought you out of the land of Egypt” (Ex. 20:2)

Stipulations

The Ten Commandments (Ex. 20:3–17)

Sanctions (blessings and curses)

“The LORD will not hold him guiltless . . .” (Ex. 20:7; see also v. 12)

Recording and passing on

“the two tablets” (Ex. 31:18; Deuteronomy 31)

These five points have correlations with John Frame’s triad for lordship, the triad consisting in authority, control, and presence. The identification of God proclaims his transcendent authority, and the stipulations as norms imply his authority over the people. The historical...