Monday, February 13, 2012

rightly dividing the word of truth part 4

rightly dividing the word of truth part 4

Me, sitting with legs crossed, making eye contact “how are you guys doing this morning? Okay?  (okay sign)  Good?”  (thumbs up)  Slouching with hands in my pockets, “Have I offended you this morning?”
  • Slouching - Considered rude in most Northern European areas
  • Hands in pocket - disrespectful in Turkey
  • Sitting with legs crossed - offensive in Ghana, Turkey
·         Avoid eye contact to show respect - In Japan, Africa, Latin American and the Caribbean
·         The OK gesture in America and England is given to mean everything is OK, well or good.  In Latin America and France it is considered an insult, similar to giving someone the middle finger.
·         The thumbs up sign in most American and European cultures meaning things are going according to your plans or something you approve of. However, the going good sign translates into a rude and offensive gesture in Islamic countries.
What is acceptable or good in one culture may be inappropriate or offensive in another culture.
Or even within our own culture, here in America, what was considered acceptable at one point in history may be unacceptable, inappropriate or offensive at another point in history.  For example, consider slavery.  At one point in our American culture, it was a cultural norm for black people to be enslaved by white people.  But today, we don’t consider that good or acceptable, but cruel, inappropriate and offensive.
So in light of cultural differences today and the fact that even in the short history of America, norms have changed drastically in just a few hundred years, imagine how those factors of culture and history contribute to our understanding of the Biblical text which, J.I. Packer said originated as “occasional documents addressed to contemporary audiences.” 
Consider how the historical/cultural context of the original Biblical audience drastically differs from ours.  We are about 2000 years removed from the NT audience, and perhaps as much as 3500 years from the OT audience and we come with a western frame of mind to a text written by those of an eastern mind frame.  Historical and cultural differences abound.
This brings us to an important hermeneutical principle: historical-cultural analysis.  This means that we need to consider the cultural and historical context of the original audience.
Last week we stressed audience relevance; the bible is for us, but was not originally written to us.  Thus, in most cases we cannot simply take a verse from the Bible and apply it directly to ourselves.  To borrow from the illustration in Grasping God’s Word, we are separated from the Biblical audience by a river.  That river is made up of culture and customs, language, situation, economy, politics, covenant and a vast expanse of time.  This morning, we will look at some examples of historical and cultural context and the necessity to consider those contexts in order to rightly divide the word.
Before we do that, I’d like to read a few quotes from the authorities.

Grasping God’s Word (pp 99-100) “God did not dictate most of the Bible in the first person.  He did not say ‘Because I’m God I will speak directly to everybody in all times and cultures.’  Instead, God (the ultimate source) spoke through the human writers of Scripture (the immediate source) to address the real-life needs of people at a particular time in a particular culture.  That is how God chose to speak…Since God spoke his message in specific historical situations (i.e., to people living in particular places, speaking particular languages, adopting a particular way of life), we should take the ancient historical-cultural situation seriously.  The bottom line is that we cannot simply ignore “those people living back then” and jump directly to what God wants to say to us.  Why not?  Again, because the way we listen to God (our interpretive approach) must honor the way God chose to communicate.  We should not be so arrogant and prideful as to think that God cared nothing about the original audience but was merely using them to get a message to us.
                The truth of the matter is that each passage of Scripture was ‘God’s Word to other people before it became God’s Word to us.’  God cared deeply about the original hearers and spoke to them within their own historical-cultural situation…This leads us to a crucial interpretive principle: For our interpretation of any biblical text to be valid, it must be consistent with the historical-cultural context of that text.


Virkler | Hermeneutics (p77) “The meaning of a text cannot be interpreted with any degree of certainty without historical-cultural and contextual analysis.”

(p 78) “…unless we have a knowledge of the writer’s background, supplied through historical-cultural and contextual analysis, our tendency is to interpret his writings by asking, “What does this mean to me?” Rather than “What did this mean to the original author?”  Until we can answer the latter question with some degree of certainty, we have no basis for claiming validity for our interpretation.”

That’s powerful.  I could go on quoting and quoting, but all of these authors essentially say the same thing:  Consider the historical cultural context of the original audience; without it, our interpretation has no validity. 

Let’s look at some examples from the Bible.

Mark 14:12-16 12 On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, when it was customary to sacrifice the Passover lamb, Jesus’ disciples asked him, “Where do you want us to go and make preparations for you to eat the Passover?”
 13 So he sent two of his disciples, telling them, “Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him. 14Say to the owner of the house he enters, ‘The Teacher asks: Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ 15 He will show you a large upper room, furnished and ready. Make preparations for us there.”
 16 The disciples left, went into the city and found things just as Jesus had told them. So they prepared the Passover.
Have you ever wondered about this passage?  I remember reading through this and thinking, really?  I like precise directions.  Go into the city?  The city is big.  Any part of the city?  A man carrying a water jar?  That’s all you’re going to give me?  Why not, at the corner of avenue A and 4th street, you will find a man wearing the following garments, whose name is Joseph?  Why not more details?  I have to remember, I’m coming at this from the perspective of a 21st century middle class, white male in America.  What I don’t realize from my perspective is that Jesus gave them more information than it would seem. 
This is where historical-cultural analysis comes into play.
In ancient Palestine, carrying water jar was generally considered the work of a woman so, normally, no man would be seen carrying a water jar.  That explains how the disciples of Jesus’ day would have known which man without getting his name and clothing.  At that point in history, there was a cultural norm for women to carry water.  A man carrying the water was an anomaly, something that would have been a clear sign to those men of that time, in that culture.  Historical cultural analysis makes sense of what is otherwise puzzling.
Knowing this doesn’t really change your life, does it?  It makes sense of the historical account.  Whether we know this detail or not, we know that the disciples found the house, ate the Passover and Jesus was betrayed and crucified which is far more important than knowing about women and water jars.
However, there are cases in Scripture in which applying or failing to apply historical-cultural analysis will affect how you and I live as individuals and how we operate as the church.
For example, (in bulletin) look at- 2 Corinthians 13:12 Greet one another with a holy kiss. 
Let’s consider this text 2 ways: 1) without historical-cultural analysis & 2) with it.
First, without:  Now, forget everything we have discussed in the past few weeks.  Forget context.  Forget audience relevance.  Forget about historical cultural analysis and don’t be objective, just presuppose with me that the bible is God’s love letter to you.  Every word on every page is directly from God to you.  What, then, is God telling you to do, here?  He is telling you to greet one another with a holy kiss.  With this approach, we either obey God’s decree or we don’t.  Either we start greeting one another with a holy kiss, like a good Christian or we keep walking in disobedience to God.  I didn’t see anybody in here greet one another with a kiss.  Nobody greeted me with a kiss this morning.  With this approach, we are just a lukewarm church who doesn’t take the bible seriously.
Now that we have looked at the problem of approaching this text apart from utilizing our hermeneutical principles, let’s employ the principles of audience relevance and historical cultural analysis. 
The question we are ultimately seeking to answer is: Are we, as 21st century American Christians to greet one another with a holy kiss?  When Paul wrote the letters to Corinth, was he mandating that the kiss was to be the official form of greeting for Christians in all cultures for all times?  That’s a valid question.  It’s in the Bible, which we believe to be divinely inspired and authoritative.
As we said in the beginning, that which is appropriate in one culture may not be in another.  A kiss may be an appropriate greeting in one culture and completely inappropriate in another culture.  We also said, this isn’t God’s love letter to me.  Though divinely inspired, this is part of a letter from Paul to the church in Corinth, a culture in which it was appropriate to greet one another with a kiss.
By the time Paul wrote, kissing had been an acceptable form of greeting for centuries.  We even see it as a culturally accepted greeting in the OT: 1 Samuel 20:41; 2 Samuel 20:9 as well as in the days of Jesus: Matthew 26:49; Luke 7:45.  Paul could not have been commanding Christians to start kissing each other as the official form of Christian greeting—they were already doing so! Rather, it seems that Paul was applying Christian principles to the existing and widespread cultural practice of kiss-greetings by urging them to keep their greeting holy. He was requiring holy kissing. He was telling Christians to make their kiss-greetings a sanctified activity—set apart for, or in line with, proper Christian living. He was instructing them, “Since you kiss, when you kiss, make it holy—greet one another with a holy kiss.”
So should we as 21st century Americans greet one another with a holy kiss?  Probably not.  It’s not a cultural norm.  While kissing was a normal means of greeting in their culture, the cultural norm in America for greeting is a handshake or the fist bump or even a high five or a hug.
Thus, if we apply the text by way of precept, we should also seek to keep our normative greetings holy – in other words, I shouldn’t shake someone’s hand and start rubbing on it caressing it in some provocative way.  If I hug, it should be done appropriately, with another woman, cautiously, friendly, but not too friendly.  If I hug another woman, extensively whispering sweet nothings in her ear, rubbing her back, that’s not a holy hug.  That’s moving into the realm of inappropriate and probably sinful.
This passage is a perfect example of how our lives are affected by our application of this principle of historical cultural analysis.
There are several issues in the Bible that are affected by the application of cultural analysis.
·         Should women wear head coverings in the church?  The Bible says so. 1 Cor 11:2-16
·         Should women talk in church?  The Bible says they shouldn’t. 1 Cor 14:34
·         Should women teach?  The Bible says they shouldn’t. 1 Tim 2:12
·         Should women braid their hair or wear gold jewelry?  Bible says no. 1 Pet 3:3
·         Should Christians own slaves?  The Bible tells us how to treat them. Eph 6:9
Historical cultural analysis impacts our interpretation and application of these verses.  In other words, it is clear that our approach cannot simply be: the Bible says so.
As the scholars and experts have pointed out, we have no grounds on which to say our interpretation is valid if we fail to honor the historical cultural context of the original author and audience.
Our next principle is: investigate idioms.  This is directly related to historical-cultural analysis  (don’t read too much into the word investigate – it’s there for alliteration)

Elliot E. Johnson | Expository Hermeneutics (p 187) “The obstacles of vagueness and ambiguity are complicated in biblical hermeneutics by Semitic idioms that are common to Hebrew and even biblical Greek but foreign to the intuitive thought of a modern Western reader.  An idiom is a normal usage to the native speakers of the language.”
Roy Zuck | Basic Bible Interpretation (p 165) “An idiom is a figure of speech which is an expression peculiar to a given language or to people in a certain geographical location. 
Mildred L. Larson | meaning based translation “an idiom is “a string of words whose meaning is different than the meaning conveyed by the individual words”
We have idioms in our culture.  We say them, know what they mean and think nothing of them.
·         Raining cats and dogs
·         Let the cat out of the bag
·         Cat got your tongue?
·         It was a piece of cake
·         Beat around the bush
·         Bend over backwards
Just as we have idioms in our culture, the biblical authors had idioms in their culture and used them as they wrote the Scriptures.  I’m sure you can imagine how idioms can pose an issue for us, reading 2000 years later, in another culture, in another language.
Imagine if you time traveled back 2000 years and walked up to one of Jesus’ contemporaries wearing a pair of Nike Air Jordans.  You’ve got a translator with you because you don’t speak ancient Hebrew or Aramaic.  Jesus’ contemporaries told your interpreter to tell you, “I like your sandals.  How much did you pay for them?”  You then tell your interpreter, “They cost an arm and a leg.”  They then look at you very strangely because you have both arms and both legs.  In 21st century America we have this idiom, “cost an arm and a leg.”  What we mean by that is it costs a lot.  While that’s an idiom in our culture and we know exactly what is meant by that, to literally translate costs an arm and a leg in another culture means you had to give up an arm and a leg to pay for that thing.
Let’s look at some examples of idioms in the bible.
1 Kings 19:19-21 19 So Elijah went from there and found Elisha son of Shaphat. He was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen, and he himself was driving the twelfth pair. Elijah went up to him and threw his cloak around him. 20 Elisha then left his oxen and ran after Elijah. “Let me kiss my father and mother goodbye,” he said, “and then I will come with you.”
   “Go back,” Elijah replied. “What have I done to you?”
 21 So Elisha left him and went back. He took his yoke of oxen and slaughtered them. He burned the plowing equipment to cook the meat and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he set out to follow Elijah and became his servant.
Have you ever read this and wondered, “WHAT?”  You and I see that phrase, “What have I done to you?” and perhaps think of a number of ways to interpret it.
 According to the Bible Knowledge Commentary (p 529) “The unusual reply, What have I done to you? Is an idiom meaning, “Do as you please” or “What have I done to stop you?”  
Roy Zuck | Basic Bible Interpretation concurs in his section on idioms, (p166) “Elisha asked permission to kiss his parents good-bye.  Elijah agreed to his request and asked, ‘What have I done to you?’ That question seems peculiar until one realizes it is an idiom meaning, “what have I done to stop you?’ or in other words, ‘Please go ahead; you have my permission.’”
So you can see how a Hebrew idiom in its literal form can be confusing to us.
Let’s look at another in Matthew 6.
Let’s say that I read Matt 6:23 But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.  What is to keep me from applying it in this way, “Anika scoot back from the TV or your eyes will go bad.  You know the Bible says if your eyes are bad your whole body will be full of darkness and the Bible equates darkness with evil.”
While there may be practical wisdom found in not sitting too close to the television in order to prolong and preserve one’s eyesight, that is not what Jesus is teaching in Matt 6:23.  Failure to consider context and culture will result in a misapplication of the text.
Let’s have another go at it in context.  Matt 6:19-24 19"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
So the context is “People shouldn’t find their treasure in material possessions, but in that which has eternal significance” Look what He says next:
22"The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. 23But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
Now this bit about good eyes and light, bad eyes and darkness.  He continues:
 24"No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.  It seems that he returned to the context of the significance of earthly treasures versus heavenly treasures as he speaks of serving either God or money.  Isn’t it odd that we would have this teaching about the eyes sandwiched in between those?
We need to remember audience relevance.  Jesus was speaking to Israelites 2000 years ago, not you and me in 21st century America.  We need to analyze the culture.  In that culture, just as in our culture there are idioms.
According to Jeff Doles | The Kingdom of Heaven on Earth: Keys to the Kingdom of God in the Gospel of Matthew  (p44)
"If your eye is good" is a Hebrew saying that means, "if you are generous."
A good eye speaks to generosity.  An evil eye or a bad eye speaks to stinginess: “if your eye is bad” means “if you are stingy or greedy”  So here, Jesus is warning against a lack of generosity which makes a lot of sense based on our context of finding treasure not in earthly possessions which pass, but in that which is eternal.
Jesus is basically saying: “People shouldn’t find their treasure in material possessions, but in that which has eternal significance.  You should be generous with regards to material things, not stingy.  You can’t serve 2 masters; you can’t serve both God and money.”  If you’re stingy, chances are, you are serving the god of money; if you’re generous, chances are you are serving God.
So again, failure to grasp the meaning of the text to the original audience most often results in misapplication.  Jesus Words here have nothing to do with sitting too close to the television and ruining your eyesight.
There is a chasm between us and the original audience that needs to be crossed with a precept that is a cross-cultural timeless truth – as true for Jesus’ original listeners as it is for us.  Having a good eye for us means that you don’t wear contacts or glasses, for them it means you are generous.
Investigate idioms!!!
HOW??? Outside sources.
Milton Terry, in his work Biblical Hermeneutics, on page 120, says “The old rule, therefore, that ‘Scripture must be interpreted by Scripture,’ is a most important principle of sacred hermeneutics.”  He goes on to explain that historical passages will likely be paralleled with other historic passages, prophetic with prophetic, etc.  Then he says, “Nor should we overlook the fact that almost all we know of the history of the Jewish people is embodied in the Bible.  The apocryphal and pseudepigraphal books and the works of Josephus are the principal outside sources” (p 120).  Principal sources.  We certainly have more sources than did Milton Terry when he wrote this (orig pub in 1890).  So we do use outside sources, but the bible is our primary source of interpreting the bible and the outside sources should be limited to aiding in our grasp of the historical and cultural settings, etc. 
Great sources include:
·         Bible dictionaries
·         Bible handbooks
·         Old & New Testament Surveys
·         Commentaries
o    Robert Mounce
o    Douglass Moo
o    Gordon Fee
o    N.T. Wright
o    James Jordan
o    D.A. Carson
o    R.T. France
o    Keil & Delitzsch
o    Online www.bible.cc
o    Online sources***
Be careful with commentaries.  Don’t let a commentary (which is essentially an interpretation) govern your objective assessment of the text.  You interpret scripture with scripture, in context, being objective.  After you arrive at an interpretation based on exegesis, sure, see what commentaries say, but don’t rely on them to interpret the scriptures for you.
Compare commentaries.
Compare online sources and be careful – any goofball out there can post anything online.
Idioms at http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/ www.ncfgeorgetown.com  Church in Georgetown, Texas. Reformed church Georgetown, Texas preterist church Georgetown Texas. Pastor David Boone. Full Preterism. Covenant Eschatology. New Covenant Fellowship Georgetown. Page House 10:00 am Loving God. Loving Others. Realized eschatology fulfilled eschatology  Preterist church Austin Texas.  Bible church Austin Texas Second coming of Jesus Christ
As we move further and further into this series and explore the interpretive process, you may find yourself being discouraged or feeling like the Bible is losing relevance or excitement.  In light of that possibility, I’d like to close with a quote from Grasping God’s Word that I find very encouraging.
Grasping God’s Word (p 105) “Historical-cultural context includes information about the author and the audience – their background, circumstances, and relationship – as well as geographical, social, religious, economic, and political elements connected to the passage.  Some people are convinced that background studies are tedious ways of making the Bible less relevant.  We have found the opposite to be true.  When we take time to understand the context, the passage comes alive and explodes with relevance (sometimes more than we can take).  We are able to see that God was speaking to real people struggling with real life and that He continues to speak to us.”
Our sermon audio and video files can be found at www.ncfgeorgetown.com/media.html

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