Unit 1 Reading Guide God's Plan for Salvation the Big Picture Essay

Introduction

At BioLogos, we believe the Bible is God's inspired and authoritative word, from Genesis to Revelation. It tells a single, overarching story: how God created the world good and fabricated people in his epitome; how people rejected God; how God fabricated a covenant with the people of Israel; how, through the decease and resurrection of his Son Jesus Christ, God has graciously redeemed broken and sinful people from every tribe and linguistic communication and people and nation and has adopted them into his family; and how God'south kingdom is breaking into our globe, making all things new.

The Holy Spirit bears witness to the truth of this "big story" of the Bible in the hearts and minds of Christian believers. We believe that the Holy Spirit uses Scripture to bring most conviction of sin, repentance, and organized religion. Everyone who picks upwards a Bible tin can read information technology profitably, regardless of culture and didactics level.

That said, the Holy Spirit does not provide an unambiguous interpretation of every given text. Every fourth dimension we read the Bible we accept to translate what we read. Interpreting just ways making sense of a text—it is non a special skill reserved for difficult passages. The ways we become near making sense of the Bible volition be influenced by our frames of reference and cultural expectations. Sometimes these can interfere with our power to hear the intended meaning of the biblical authors.

Keeping in mind the origin of the Bible and overall purpose of Scripture tin can help orient our expectations every bit nosotros read. When reading a particular text, we should consider the author'south intentions, literary forms and conventions, language, and cultural background of the original audience.

The Origin of the Bible

The 66 books of the Protestant Bible contain various types of literature and were written in 3 unlike languages (Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic) by dozens of authors from diverse cultural backgrounds and walks of life over many centuries. The One-time Attestation writings were penned and compiled over a period of almost 1,000 years; the New Attestation writings span peradventure 100 years. Hundreds of years passed between the writing of the last book of the Former Attestation and the first book of the New Testament.

While many writings were understood to be authoritative by Christians in the first century A.D., it took hundreds of years for the early church to sort through the diverse body of writing related to the Christian move and finalize the canon of authoritative writings that comprise the Bible today (and there remain differences betwixt the Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox canons). The many versions and translations of the Bible available today reflect centuries of scholarship and collaboration amidst Christians of diverse traditions.

The Purpose of Scripture

Scripture is not intended as a moral guide book or a collection of propositions to believe. Its purpose is to reveal God'south plan and purposes throughout human being history. According to the Campaigner Paul, "All scripture is inspired past God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good piece of work" (ii Tim. 3:16-17, NRSV). (Paul refers here to the Old Testament scriptures, only Christians sympathize this verse to apply to the New Testament also.) Amidst the most of import objectives, Scripture is "able to instruct yous for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus" (vs. 15).

What Is the Writer Trying to Do? What Literary Forms and Conventions are they Using?

When we interpret a passage, offset we have to identify what an author is trying to practise. Sometimes authors want to tell what happened or will happen; sometimes they desire to explicate or describe something; sometimes they want to give instructions about how to do something; and sometimes they want to requite an exhortation or command.

All languages and cultures have ways of communicating these kinds of intentions. All the same, languages and cultures embed these intentions in different literary forms. These literary forms have certain conventions or rules that people within a certain culture and time recognize and easily translate. Simply moving from 1 culture to another, from in one case to another, or from ane linguistic communication to another, nosotros may find that both the literary forms and the conventions inside the forms are dissimilar than what we expect or hands recognize.

The literary forms and conventions associated with the aboriginal Hebrew psalms, a fifteenth-century Japanese haiku, an eighteenth-century English sonnet, and a 20-start-century American rap vocal are very different, even though all could be classified as poetry.

Some literary forms that nosotros find in the Bible, like apocalyptic literature, do non fifty-fifty exist in another cultures. Some linguistic conventions in the Bible, like the structure of acrostic poems, or wordplay and puns may exist obscured or lost in translation. Some literary conventions in the Bible may be unfamiliar, like using numbers symbolically, framing narratives in pericopes (pocket-size units), or using doublets for emphasis.

No ane should expect to be able to pick upwards a Bible and perfectly interpret unfamiliar literary forms or immediately recognize the significance of unfamiliar or obscured conventions that contribute to the overall significant. That is why we turn to the expertise of scholars and translators who accept extensively studied the cultures and languages of the Bible. They can besides help us identify areas where our own cultural expectations about literary forms and conventions may interfere with our estimation of the Bible. For instance, the Bible definitely records history, but the literary forms and conventions information technology uses are different than what we may wait from our experience of reading histories in our own language, civilization, and fourth dimension.

What Kind of Language is Being Used?

In addition to identifying an author's purpose and knowing something about the literary class and conventions they are using, part of estimation is agreement how an writer uses language. Some of our human being communication is fairly straightforward, but much of it relies on the hearers drawing inferences that are non made explicit by the sum total of the definitions of the words.

Also, much of our linguistic communication utilise is figurative in some manner, or is not meant to be taken "literally." Think back to high school English language class and all those vocabulary words you had to learn: simile, metaphor, hyperbole, euphemism, synecdoche, litote, idiomatic expression. The Bible has examples of all of these kinds of figures of speech communication.

To further complicate things, words themselves can have figurative senses. In Greek the chief sense ofpoimen is shepherd, "someone who cares for sheep". The secondary, figurative sense is "the leader of a church". When Jesus says "I am the Good Shepherd" in John x:14, he is using the primary sense ("literal" significant) of shepherd in a metaphor that speaks figuratively about his love for his people. In Ephesians four:11, Paul lists some roles in the church that include shepherd (the secondary or figurative sense, "pastor"), just using that discussion does non mean we should interpret the passage figuratively; it is a very straightforward list.

Figurative language tin testify upwards anywhere; information technology is not bars to certain literary forms. A poem can use very straightforward language, and a history can employ lots of imagery and figures of speech. We cannot make pronouncements well-nigh whether language is being used figuratively or not simply based on the literary form of a text. Plainly, the process of interpretation can be complex and multi-faceted.

What was the Cultural Groundwork of the Original Audience?

To have the Bible seriously, we also demand to consider whom the author was writing to: the Bible was writtenfor us, only notto us. Cultural norms, symbolism, and the audience's familiarity with Scripture may all contribute to the way in which Scripture has been written and understood. For case, the long lifespans of the patriarchs in the Old Testament likely had greater symbolic significance to the ancient Hebrews than we currently understand. The ages are all multiples of five with seven or 14 added occasionally, suggesting a rhetorical meaning.

An example of cultural significance in the New Attestation is found in the story of the prodigal son as described in Luke xv. A straightforward reading of the parable—disregarding the context—teaches us about the love and forgiveness of a father toward his son, and consequently about God's beloved toward his children. However, when the story is considered in its cultural framework, the reading is much more profound.

According to New Testament scholar Kenneth Bailey, the Jewish son not just acted disgracefully by asking for his inheritance, but he farther debased himself past squandering it. The son'south behavior warranted aKezazah, or cut off ceremony, upon his return.¹ This ceremony would have included rejection past the village and an angry confrontation past his father. Furthermore the son would have had to beg for permission to railroad train for a job in the next village.

Instead of this harsh and inhospitable reception, a loving and merciful homecoming awaited the son. As before long as the begetter saw his son returning, he raced to see him. This is besides a significant item since men of the father's age and distinction in Middle Eastern culture always walked in a irksome, dignified way. Past running, the father took on the shame and humiliation due his prodigal son. He and so kissed his son, gave him his all-time robe, and called to take the fatted calf slaughtered for a banquet.

When Jesus originally told this story to a Middle Eastern audience, it is likely that they would take understood the father's love in a deeper way than modern-day readers. As this example shows, filtering a Scripture passage through an sensation of the original audience and its culture can greatly aggrandize our understanding of the passage.

How And then Should We Translate Genesis?

Christians today are strongly divided on how to read the early chapters of Genesis. For that reason, perhaps here more than than about anywhere else in the Bible, we need to become aware of our tendencies to interpret with 20-first century ideas and questions in mind.

Scholars in the BioLogos community translate the early chapters in Genesis in a variety of ways, and there are many articles on our website revealing this diversity of thought. However all share a commitment to the authorisation and inspiration of Genesis and a method of interpreting Genesis that tries to recover what the original audience would take understood.

BioLogos understands the early capacity of Genesis equally describing real events through largely figurative language, consistent with the way other ancient Nearly Eastern literature described events. Past faith nosotros believe Genesis istrue, though its purpose is to reveal God and his programme for humanity, not to communicate blank facts about scientific discipline or history as we think of them today.

Conclusion

Christians believe the Erstwhile and New Attestation Scriptures are divinely inspired and administrative. The Bible is non simply a piece of work of literature, just for readers of organized religion it is living and agile. Information technology is the most important way in which God speaks to his people.

Advanced grooming is not necessary to profit from Bible reading—God speaks to all of us through Scripture—simply the body of Christ includes experts who tin help us empathize it improve.

While disagreements abound about how all-time to interpret diverse Scripture passages, we can rest in the fact that our conservancy does non depend on attaining perfect knowledge. Every bit Christians our faith is grounded in Jesus Christ—non in the perfect interpretation of Scripture. Yet salvation is not the cease of the Christian experience, simply the beginning: delving deep into Scripture can assist us run into God'due south larger plans and purposes for restoring cosmos and dwelling amidst his people.

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Source: https://biologos.org/common-questions/how-should-we-interpret-the-bible/

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