HRB.Chapter7.docx

The “Then and There” Meaning and the “Here and Now” Meaning As we know from everyday life, communication can be hard work, both for the writer and the reader (or speaker and listener). It is easy to misunderstand what someone else writes or says. Bible students, too, often misinterpret passages. Let...

The “Then and There” Meaning and the “Here and Now” Meaning As we know from everyday life, communication can be hard work, both for the writer and the reader (or speaker and listener). It is easy to misunderstand what someone else writes or says. Bible students, too, often misinterpret passages. Let’s use an absurd example to illustrate this. Once upon a time in a Bible study far, far away, two men were arguing about what kind of vehicle Jesus used when he rode into Jerusalem (Matthew 21). The first man argued that Jesus drove a Dodge product, because verse 7 says he rode in on a Colt and Dodge makes a car called a Colt. The second man argued that Jesus drove a Ford because Colt has four letters and so does the word Ford. He argued that Colt was a special code word that really meant Ford. Which of the two was right? The first man made the mistake of thinking that Jesus lived in twentieth-century America. As silly as this sounds, many people make mistakes very similar to this because they fail to realize that Jesus was a first-century Palestinian Jew who spoke to people of that region and time. The second man made the mistake of thinking that the Bible is full of secret codes, where numbers and animals and events hide secret meanings that only a few “insiders” know about. Again, this sounds very silly, but it is an approach to Bible study. We will see a symbolic use of numbers in apocalyptic writing,1 but no such secret codes exist. Oscar Feucht (Learning to Use Your Bible, CPH, 1969) offers three basic questions to ask when studying the Bible: What does the passage say? What does the passage mean? What does the passage mean to us’to me? What Does the Passage Say? The first of these questions asks us to read the text carefully. Do we know what all the individual words mean? After all, words can sometimes mean many different things, depending on usage and context. Take the word cat as an example. When you use this word, you probably refer to a domestic house cat’small, furry, and friendly. But cat can also refer to the large predators of Africa and Asia such as lions, tigers, and leopards. We can also use the word cat figuratively, as it was in the 1960s, to refer to someone of a particular attitude and dress (a “cool cat”). Words can also have technical meanings in addition to their everyday meanings. We can use the word prayer to illustrate this point. Normally, prayer refers to our communication with God. But in some states, in legal contexts, prayer refers to the amount the plaintiff is seeking from the defendant in a lawsuit. A particular writer may also use a word or a group of words with one specific set of meanings in mind. For example, look at the verb to save. This word means to rescue and can be used to describe various kinds of rescues. If a man is rescued from a ship or a woman is rescued from a fire, we can use the word save to refer to that rescue. But what about those times when Jesus says, “Your faith has saved you”? Does He mean someone has been healed because they believed in Him, or does He also mean they have been rescued from the Law’s condemnation on Judgment Day because they believe in Jesus? In Luke 8:48 Jesus says, “Your faith has saved you”2 to a woman who was healed when she touched His robe. He says the same thing to a leper who has been healed in Luke 17:19 and to a blind beggar he has healed in 18:42. It would seem that when Jesus says, “Your faith has saved you,” He means, “Your faith has made you well,” which is the usual translation of Luke 8:48. (See page 95.) However, when Jesus says “Your faith has saved you” to a sinful woman in Luke 7:50, no physical healing at all had taken place. Jesus forgave her sins, which means the rescue she received from Him was a rescue from the Law’s condemnation on the Last Day. She has been saved from damnation. This may well be what Jesus primarily has in mind in the other passages in Luke as well. The faith those people had in Jesus saved them from God’s judgment against sinners; as a token of that, they were healed of their diseases as well. The question “Do we know what all the words mean?” may look easy on the surface. At times, however, further study (such as applying the principles from Part One) will provide deeper insights. To avoid the mistake of the man who thought colt referred to an automobile made by Dodge, we need to learn that words can have a variety of meanings. To tell what an author means by a particular word, we must trace his use of it throughout his writings. Do we know what the text says? At times Bible students overlook this basic step. Some say, for example, that Saul changed his name to Paul when he was converted. They may even claim that this change to Paul (a Latin word meaning “little”) indicated his newly found humility. However, the book of Acts contains no record of such a name change. Jesus confronts Saul and converts him in Acts 9. Luke (the author of Acts) does not call him Paul until Acts 13:9, on the first missionary journey some 14 years after his conversion. Very likely Saul had the name Paul from birth, one of three Latin names a Roman citizen would normally have. In any event, no textual evidence indicates that he acquired it at his conversion. Let’s not skip the first step of Oscar Feucht’s Bible study advice! If we do, we can easily miss material in the text or imagine things that never really took place.3 What Does the Passage Mean? The second step is interpretation: what does this passage mean “then and there”? The answer to this question may involve some research into the historical or cultural background of the passage being studied. We can look at Matthew 1:18–19 for an example. Read these two verses and answer the following questions: What is the relationship between Mary and Joseph at this time? Why is Joseph called her husband? What does it mean when Matthew writes, “Before they came together”? What qualities of Joseph do the words righteous man emphasize? If they are only engaged, why does Joseph have to divorce her? Matthew begins the section by noting that Mary was engaged (betrothed, pledged to be married) to Joseph when she became pregnant. In our culture, engagement is a verbal pledge usually accompanied by the giving of a ring. A second ring is given at the wedding ceremony. The practice in first century Palestine was quite different. A written contract bound engaged couples. Thus, the betrothal period (a minimum of nine months and a maximum of one year) was very formal and was legally binding. This also explains two other details in the story. Since they were bound by this engagement contract, they could be called husband and wife, though they could not live together. If they chose to nullify the engagement contract, they could do so. We call this divorce. This text illustrates a problem that comes up from time to time in Bible study. Matthew knows first-century Jewish laws and customs. So do his original readers. Matthew wrote in Greek, which his original audience read. We live 2,000 years removed from that time and half a world away from it. And as for Greek, very few of us know it well enough to be able to read it and understand it. This means that we must do homework when reading various parts of the Bible. This second step of Oscar Feucht’s advice can challenge us. Matthew makes it clear that Joseph did not father the baby Mary is now carrying. He writes “before they came together,” an expression that refers to sexual intercourse. At the end of verse 20, we may describe the situation like this. Someone other than the man to whom she is engaged has caused Mary to become pregnant. Bound by engagement contract, the same laws that applied to married people apply to her. The Old Testament penalty for adultery4 is death, and so Mary should be stoned according to the law (see Leviticus 20:10). However, the Romans rule Palestine at this time. They do not permit a local people to try capital cases, reserving the “right of the sword” for themselves.5 In Roman law adultery was not a capital crime. Therefore the Jews cannot stone an adulteress. The rabbis decided that if they could not execute a woman for this crime, she must be regarded the same as dead. So they required that the husband divorce his adulterous wife. Now, Joseph is a righteous man. This description means that he keeps the law (see Ezekiel 18:5–9). As a righteous man (one who keeps the law) he will divorce Mary, that is, void their engagement contract. Joseph’s plan for the divorce reveals his character. Instead of making a public display of Mary, making sure that no one in their small village of Nazareth would blame him for the pregnancy, he plans to divorce her quietly, without a lot of fanfare. In short, he risks public embarrassment in order to minimize the shame that (he thinks) Mary will have to endure. What have we learned about discovering the “then and there” meaning of this text? Joseph and Mary are engaged, a legally binding relationship. Mary becomes pregnant (through the miraculous activity of the Holy Spirit). Thus, in the eyes of the law she becomes an adulteress. In reality, she is a virgin, but Joseph doesn’t know this yet. Joseph is a law-abiding man and will do what he is required to do, but reveals a noble character by deciding to divorce (nullify the engagement contract) Mary quietly. As we can see, it sometimes takes work to put ourselves in the shoes (or sandals) of the original readers of the Bible. The various Bible study tools help us do this, but Bible study is really a lifelong adventure. There’s always something “just around the corner” that may help us understand a passage with which we have previously struggled. As we look for the meaning of the text, we often look for Bible teachers who can help us. As we do so, we need to remember that not everyone who stands up and says, “This is what the Greek (or Hebrew) means” is right. Human beings are often wrong. However, someone who has spent his or her life in the Word can very often help others understand the Bible better. Note what happened to Apollos when he arrived in Ephesus. He was a learned man with a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures and taught about Jesus accurately. He was a great Bible teacher and evangelist, but he didn’t know about Christian Baptism. So Priscilla and Aquila, a wife and husband team, instructed him more fully about the Christian faith (see Acts 18:24–26). No matter how much we know, there’s always room to grow in the faith! What Does the Passage Mean to Us’to Me? We now turn to Oscar Feucht’s third question, “What does the passage mean to us’to me?” People answer this question in two ways: It means whatever I want it to mean. Stay as close to the original meaning as possible. To illustrate these ways of answering the question, look again at Matthew 1:18–19. Some who interpret the text to mean whatever they want it to mean have concluded that God condones sexual activity before marriage but after engagement. They base this on the use of husband for Joseph, Mary’s fiancé. If a husband may be intimate with his wife, and Joseph (who is only engaged) is called a husband, then God must approve intercourse between engaged couples. So the logic goes’logic based on a faulty answer to the question of what the passages means to our lives today. To apply a passage to our lives accurately, we must stay as close to the original meaning as possible. Looking at Matthew 1:18–19, we discover that God gave us this text to relate Mary’s virgin conception of Jesus by Holy Spirit. Matthew also explained why Joseph did not divorce Mary in spite of the fact that he was a righteous (law-abiding) man. As was the custom of the day, Mary and Joseph did not engage in sexual activity prior to their wedding. In these two verses we see God at work, fulfilling His promise to send a Savior, born of a virgin (Matthew 1:23). God accomplishes salvation without any human help, even at the initial stage. We may learn from these verses that God is at work in the world and in our lives to accomplish His will, our salvation (as Paul says in 1 Timothy 2:4). God is at work in Mary’s life, in Joseph’s life, and in our lives to bring people to faith through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This is true even when the events of our lives create problems (premarital pregnancy in the case of Mary) or challenge our Christian character (a pregnant fiancée for Joseph). God works all these things for the good, that is, for the salvation of His people (Romans 8:28–30). When we read a passage in Scripture, we want to remember to ask and answer the first two questions before we apply a section of the Bible to our own lives: What does the passage say? What does the passage mean? What does the passage mean to us’to me?