So you have followed the first two steps in interpretation, “Observation” and “Interpretation.” You have sought to determine what the text “meant” in its original context, to its original readers, as intended by the original author, exploring what some call the “first horizon” of biblical interpretation. You have studied difficult words, outlined your passage as part of your thought flow analysis, and looked at historical-cultural background issues.

You have approached the task of interpretation prayerfully and laid aside your own presuppositions (by an act some call “distancing”) in order to be able to perceive what is there in the biblical text (practicing what Schlatter termed a “hermeneutics of perception”) rather than imposing your own meaning onto the text. You’re almost done. Yet the most critical, and arguably the hardest, part of the interpretive task remains: the application of the text to yourself and your students or audience.

How do you apply the message of a given biblical text to today? Different answers have been given to this question. Perhaps one of the most common popular conceptions is that every text of Scripture applies to every person (and does so straightforwardly). But clearly, there are problems with this approach. When Paul tells Timothy to bring his coat and try to come to him before winter, how do you and I apply this command? Or how do we apply the passage in the Book of Acts narrating poor Eutychus’s fall from the window sill during one of Paul’s long preaching sessions? And what about passages that deal explicitly with Israel prior to, or during, one of their exiles, threatening them with divine punishment or promising restoration? Surely we are not in the same situation today, and so any possible application can be indirect at best. This may not ingratiate me with some of you reading this post, but in my opinion it is fairly evident that not every passage of Scripture applies equally to every person today (or at any time of church history), and this does not necessarily entail a low view of Scripture. It is simply an issue of the original context being important and making a difference in application.

Others have argued that while not every passage can be applied “literally” or “directly,” we can determine the underlying, timeless principle at stake by a process they call “principlization.” Apart from the verbal monstrosity created here (“principlization” is not recognized by my spellchecker and is not found in my dictionary, and I, for one, hope it’ll stay that way), I doubt that “principlization” can solve all our problems when it comes to interpretation. It is hardly the magic cure it is made out to be. To give but one or two examples, what is the principle underlying some of the examples given above? That we should help old men who are imprisoned for the faith, especially in the winter time? That we should eschew lengthy bouts of preaching, especially close to midnight when young people are in the audience? The list could go on.

Fortunately, of course, in many cases application is considerably more direct. Many commands in Scripture, such as the need to forgive one another, to love one another, and to show compassion toward others apply directly to us. (Though even there, I would argue, it matters to understand the original context and reason why the command was given and who it is to whom the command is applied today.) In short, I believe the epistles are easiest to apply because of the convergence, at least to a significant extent, between the original and the contemporary audience: in both cases, we are dealing with believers in the church age, those who have the Holy Spirit but who need to grow in Christ and learn to walk in a manner worthy of their calling. This, incidentally, makes the Gospels more difficult to apply, because there we are dealing with individuals—including even the twelve apostles—who were not yet regenerate and who did not possess the indwelling Holy Spirit. (Sorry, but you can no longer use Peter’s denials of Jesus or Thomas’s doubts as excuses that it is OK for you to engage in these kinds of things as well.)

Part of the difficulty in applying Scripture, then, is the fact that there may be, and often will be, a difference in the original context and audience and the contemporary one. To give but one example, how adequate is it to exhort one’s audience today when teaching from the Book of Hebrews that they must not turn back to their old ways but embrace Christ and live for him? No one in our audience will likely be tempted to go back to the old covenant system—most of them will not be Jews!—or practice animal sacrifices, and so on. I dare say that if that is our application, it will largely miss the mark (though by God’s mercy, his Word will still do its work, since it is living and active and sharper than a two-edged sword, Heb. 4:12). So what we must do, I submit, is recognize that there is a difference between the situation of the original and the contemporary audience and make allowance for this difference in fashioning our application in such a way that it is appropriate for our modern audience, even if that means that our application will be more indirect. In the present scenario, we may want to talk about the dangers of nominalism or presumption, or the like.

The purpose of this post is not to settle the issue of application once and for all, nor is it to provide specific guidelines for proper application. It is simply to sound a note of caution and to challenge all of us to recognize, first, that application is the most critical, albeit the hardest, part of the interpretive process, and, second, that application must proceed in a judicious and nuanced way. Only if we face some of the unique challenges faced by application will we be workers who need not be ashamed, rightly handling God’s word of truth (2 Tim. 3:16).

What do you think? I’d love to hear your thoughts on how to apply Scripture properly as we teach and preach the Word.

Dr. Köstenberger is currently working on a book on biblical interpretation, with the tentative title, Invitation to Biblical Interpretation.

Technorati Tags: Interpretation, hermeneutucs, Bible,

Would you say that you have a good marriage? Some of you might answer this question in the affirmative (hopefully your spouse would, too); others might acknowledge that there remains a lot of work to do before you would claim to have a good marriage.

But why aspire to having a good marriage in any case? Just to be able to feel good about having a good marriage? And what does it mean to have a “good marriage”? When is a marriage a good marriage? If it is better than most other marriages of the people we know?

I submit to you that “Do you have a good marriage?” is the wrong question to ask. A better question to ask would be, “Does your marriage glorify God?” Is yours a God-glorifying, God-honoring marriage?

Rather than viewing having a good marriage as an end in itself, or using a human, relative standard of comparing our marriages with those of others or with some ideal set up by some popular current book on the subject, the goal of a God-glorifying marriage grounds the relationship with our spouse where it ought to be grounded: in the eternal, sovereign plan of God.

What, then, is a God-glorifying marriage, according to Scripture? Among other things, it means this:

(1) Both spouses are growing in Christ (“in all things grow up into him who is the head, that is, Christ,” Eph. 4:15)—not just the husband (husbands have a God-given responsibility to nurture their wives spiritually, Eph. 5:25–28) or just the wife (a sad reality in many marriages where the husband is spiritually passive).

(2) Both spouses exhibit fruit, both physically (children) and spiritually (they are engaged in Christian service, individually and jointly). For a couple to be fruitful and multiply is at the very heart of God’s purpose in creation (Gen. 1:26–28), and we should not sinfully put self above having and bringing up children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (or consider adoption if a couple cannot have children).

(3) The marriage is between Spirit-filled disciples of Christ (Eph. 5:18) who are committed to his Lordship and authority over all things. He is the center of God’s plan, not them, or even their marriage (Eph. 1:10). A truly God-honoring marriage does not (ultimately) focus on the family; it focuses on God in Christ.

In a marriage like this, the husband and wife are too busy growing in Christ and serving him in tandem, and with their family, than to ask, “Do we have a good marriage?” A good marriage they have, but not because having a good marriage is ultimately their aspiration, but because anything we do in life that seeks to bring honor and glory to God (including how we conduct our marriage) will result in blessing.

May God be increasingly glorified in our marriages, for his greater glory and for our good.

For a full-fledged treatment on marriage and the family within God’s overarching purpose in Christ see God, Marriage & Family (Crossway, 2004).

Technorati Tags: family, marriage, Bible, God

The apostle Paul wrote thirteen of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament and left an indelible mark on the Christian church. Apart from his nine letters to churches (most of which he had planted himself), he also wrote four personal letters, one each to Philemon and Titus and two to Timothy, his foremost disciple. While Paul’s first canonical epistle, the letter to the Romans, provides us with a weighty expression of the apostle’s theology, it is 2 Timothy that builds in intensity toward a climactic exhortation in an effort to secure the church’s future beyond the apostolic era.

As what turned out to be Paul’s final letter to Timothy nears its conclusion, the apostle issues his final charge. “I give you this charge” is a solemn introduction for the even more solemn phrase “in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom” (see 2 Tim 4:1). The present appeal exceeds all previous ones in solemnity, intensity, and urgency. As Timothy discharges his duties as Paul’s apostolic delegate and in keeping with Paul’s own practice (2 Cor 5:9–11), the apostle wants him to be ever mindful of the reality of God and the certainty of Christ’s return.

Paul’s concluding charge to Timothy is this (leading off a series of five imperatives in the Greek): “Preach the Word” (on “the Word,” see 1 Tim 4:12; 5:17). Timothy has been thoroughly grounded in the “holy writings,” the Scriptures (2 Tim 3:14–17); it is the same Word—God’s Word (2 Tim 2:9), the “word of truth” (2 Tim 2:15)—he is solemnly called on to preach (cf. Rom 10:8; 1 Cor 15:2). Notably, this preaching is not limited to edification of believers (2 Tim 4:5). It entails imparting to his hearers sound doctrine rather than telling them what they want to hear.

Timothy’s primary motivation must not be to please people; he must take his cue first and foremost from God’s word. As John R. W. Stott says, “We have no liberty to invent our message, but only to communicate ‘the word’ which God has spoken and has now committed to the church as a sacred trust.” Is God’s Word preached in our churches today? We must proclaim the Word rather than merely catering to people’s “felt needs” or using the pulpit as a platform for pursuing our own personal agendas.

Paul adds, first, that the preacher must proclaim the Word whether this seems popular at the time or not (eukairōs akairōs, an oxymoron; Mark 6:21; 14:11; cf. 2 Tim 4:3). This defied both Jewish and Greco-Roman wisdom. The Old Testament preacher wrote that there is “a time to be silent and a time to speak” (Eccl 3:7). Conventional Greco-Roman rhetoric held similarly that the speaker carefully discern whether certain forms of address are opportune in a given situation or not.

According to Plato, “a knowledge of the times for speaking and for keeping silence” is crucial (tēn eukairian te kai akairian; Phaedrus 272A). All the more startling is Paul’s exhortation to Timothy to preach the word even when his audience may not be receptive (some say the reference is merely to Timothy’s own personal convenience, but this is unlikely). Judging by the book of Acts, this was also Paul’s own practice. In the end, it is not the preacher’s task to predict his audience’s response, only to be faithful to his calling. As Theodore of Mopsuestia writes, “Every occasion constitutes an opportune time for preaching.”

The above material is adapted from Andreas J. Köstenberger, “2 Timothy,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 12 (rev. ed.; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006), 592–93.

Technorati Tags: Pastoral Epistles, Paul, preach, Scripture

There are some purists who hold to a form of textual autonomy according to which only the text is relevant for interpretation and the use of background information is anathematized. Most, however, find the use of background information helpful, and at times even vital, in making sense of a particular biblical passage or entire book.

The case for a judicious use of background information has not been helped by the excesses of those who overplay background, at times to the extent that the explicit message of a given text is set aside in keeping with a supposed piece of relevant background information.

But just because background information is abused or misapplied does not mean that it cannot, and should not, be used and applied responsibly and appropriately. To the contrary, this, too, would seem to be part of what Paul calls “accurately handling the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15).

In my classes on biblical interpretation I talk about the hermeneutical triad—history, literature, and theology—which provides a proper framework for understanding a given book or text of Scripture, each in its place, and in proper balance and proportion, lest distortion occurs.

A case in point is 1 Corinthians 1–4, where Paul addresses divisions in the Corinthian church that apparently center on the Corinthians’ worldly view of leadership, and even more specifically their approach to rhetoric. The prevalent (Sophist) style of rhetoric involved impressing one’s audience with one’s credentials at the very outset; flattering one’s hearers with polite remarks about their city; and even letting the audience choose the speaker’s topic.

By contrast, Paul asserts that he came with neither eloquence (seeking to impress his audience; 1 Cor. 1:17) nor with man-made wisdom (1 Cor. 1:18–31) in order not to detract from the cross of Christ as the demonstration of the power and wisdom of God. This is why Paul determined to know nothing except Jesus Christ, and him crucified (1 Cor. 2:2).

I submit that it is only if we understand the prevailing rhetorical mood in first-century Corinth that we are able to appreciate fully Paul’s argument in 1 Corinthians 1–4. In fact, the interpretation of this unit of Scripture is a prime example where background transcends mere “background”—in 1 Corinthians 1–4, “background” (contrasting approaches to rhetoric) is the actual issue dividing Paul and the Corinthians.

As an aside, reading this passage makes one wonder just how appropriate it is for some in our day to postulate eloquence and wisdom as the cornerstones of “classical” Christian education. How can this be so when Paul in 1 Corinthians 1–4 explicitly states the exact opposite, that is, that he did not come in wisdom and eloquence (1 Cor. 2:1, 4)? And did Moses come to the ancient Israelites with wisdom and eloquence?

Other examples besides 1 Corinthians (including chapters 7–16) where the knowledge of background information is critical in interpretation include the books of Colossians (a syncretistic heresy); Hebrews (an attempt by some to retreat from Christianity back into Judaism); and 1 John (an early form of gnosis that later developed into full-orbed Gnosticism).

Typically, the type of background information distilled in so-called “introductory matters” (i.e. data such as authorship, date, purpose, etc.) is treated at the beginning of commentaries, sermons, or Bible studies. I submit that this is inadequate. Rather, we need to integrate relevant matters of background and historical-cultural context into a thoroughgoing reading and interpretation of Scripture.

To be sure, as mentioned, the use of background information has been given a bad name by some who have applied it fallaciously or excessively, but this does not make matters of historical background dispensable.

The biblical texts did not originate in a vacuum; they were part of a real-life context. This context, in turn, is often not intuitively familiar to today’s readers but needs to be carefully reconstructed and recreated by responsible background work.

It is my firm belief that a balanced application of all three elements of the “hermeneutical triad”—history, literature, and theology—will produce interpretations that are superior to surface readings of Scripture (or even mere “textual” readings) apart from the historical-cultural context in which Scripture came to be written.

For a good resource on Bible backgrounds, try the Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary.

Technorati Tags: Bible, hermeneutics, Scripture