Session Four
Scripture: Selected
Date: October 11, 2008
Speaker: Sean Higgins
I remember Dr. MacArthur spoke at one of my very first seminary chapels. He was describing a conversation between himself and an attendee at a recent Bible conference, as the gentleman asked MacArthur, “What book do you get all your information from?” We all laughed, of course, since the answer is obvious. And yet, how many of us think if we just had the right resource, the “magic” book of answers, we would be better equipped to understand the Book.
Too many Christians put themselves in the hands of teachers of the Book, or books about the Book, rather than the Book itself. Much excellent material is available from many good Bible teachers. But this seminar hopes to train people how to understand and depend on the Book, not on teachers of the Book.
Martin Luther said of those who read secondary resources instead of Scripture:
We are like men who study the sign-posts and never travel the road. The dear (church) fathers wished by their writing, to lead us to the Scriptures, but we so use them to be led away from the Scriptures, though the Scriptures alone are our vineyard in which we ought all to work and toil. (quoted in Legacy of Sovereign Joy, p. 38)
As we discuss collecting tools for Bible study, I do not have in mind secondary helps. Instead, I want to give you tools for rightly dividing your copy of God’ Word, using only God’s Word, that will work with any verse, any paragraph, and any book of the Bible.
One of the best and most brief urgings to Bible study I’ve ever read is a chapter in John Piper’s book, Brothers, We are Not Professionals titled, “Brothers, Let Us Query the Text.” In it he says,
We must form the habit of being systematically disturbed by things that at first don’t make sense. Or to put it a different way, we must relentlessly query the text. (p. 74)
He goes on,
But several strong forces oppose our relentless and systematic interrogating of biblical texts. One is that it consumes a great deal of time and energy on one small portion of Scripture. We have been schooled (quite erroneously) that there is a direct correlation between reading a lot and gaining insight. But, in fact, there is no positive correlation at all between the quantity of pages read and the quality of insight gained. Just the reverse for most of us. Insight diminishes as we try to read more and more.
Insight or understanding is the product of intensive, headache-producing meditation on two or three propositions and how they fit together. This kind of reflection and rumination is provoked by asking questions of the text. And you cannot do it if you hurry. Therefore, we must desist the deceptive urge to carve notches in our bibliographic gun. (p. 75)
So what we’re talking about here is learning an approach to any book or passage that will help us discern the author/Author’s intention.
So what kind of questions can we throw at a passage? This is not as difficult as you may think. There are standard, easy to remember, orderly questions you can ask of anything you read (including the Bible) that will help you increase your reading/studying comprehension.
You will never be disappointed if you ask the 5WQs:
Most of the time, the answers to these questions are found in the text or its context, and require no (or minimal) additional resources to answer correctly. Like the police during a crime investigation, reconstruct the original scene by asking these questions.
Ask Who? Who is the author? Who is/are the original recipients? Who are the characters in the story and how are they described? You may need to check the beginning or end of a book. Knowing that Peter wrote about following Christ’s example of submission, even to unjust authority, is significant because he was an eye-witness.
Ask What? This is a broad question, but basically covers what is happening in the story? What are the details of the event or about the subject?
Ask When? When did the story take place? When did the author write it? Was it before or after Jesus?
Ask Where? Looking at a map, for example, tracing the Exodus or creation or Jesus’ ministry is helpful. Think about the Fertile Crescent. Think about the Samaritan woman Jesus spoke to (John 4:1-42).
And ask Why? On a broad level, why did God want [this] passage in the Bible? Why did the author write this sentence? Why did he put a “therefore” at the beginning of the verse?
Read the passage over and over (repeatedly). Read it in different translations. Read it out loud. Read it multiple days in a row. If you must, use a Bible dictionary to get some historical or geographical or biographical context. But always come back to the book or passage and find the answers to the 5WQs there.
The basic 5WQs are good. But there’s more than that. And sometimes, those questions may not be specific enough to produce answers. So what else can you do? What do you do when you’re stuck and frustrated?
Martin Luther was frustrated as he studied the Bible in Wittenberg in 1518. This is a good story.
I had been captivated with an extraordinary ardor for understanding Paul in the Epistle to the Romans. But up till then it was…a single word in Chapter 1 [v.17], “In it the righteousness of God is revealed,” that stood in my way. For I hated the word “righteousness of God,” which according to the use and custom of all the teachers, I had been taught to understand philosophically regarding the formal or active righteousness, as they called it, with which God is righteous and punishes the unrighteous sinner.
Though I lived as a monk without reproach, I felt that I was a sinner before God with an extremely disturbed conscience. I could not believe that he was placated by my satisfaction. I did not love, yes, I hated the righteous God who punishes sinners, and secretly, if not blasphemously, certainly murmuring greatly, I was was angry with God, and said, “As if, indeed, it is not enough that miserable sinners, eternally lost through original sin, are crushed by every kind of calamity by the law of the decalogue, without having God add pain to pain by the gospel and also by the gospel threatening us with his righteous wrath! Thus I raged with a fierce and troubled conscience. Nevertheless, I beat importunately upon Paul at that place, most ardently desiring to know what St. Paul wanted.
At last, by the mercy of God, meditating day and night, I gave heed to the context of the words, namely, “In it the righteousness of God is revealed, as it is written, ‘He who through faith is righteous shall live.‘” There I began to understand [that] the righteousness of God is that by which the righteous lives by a gift of God, namely by faith. And this is the meaning: the righteousness of God is revealed by the gospel, namely, the passive righteousness with which [the] merciful God justifies us by faith, as it is written, “He who through faith is righteous shall live.” Here I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates. Here a totally other face of the entire Scripture showed itself to me. *Thereupon I ran through the Scriptures from memory…
And I extolled my sweetest word with a love as great as the hatred with which I had before hated the word “righteousness of God.” Thus that place in Paul was for me truly the gate to paradise.
(Quoted in Piper, The Legacy of Sovereign Joy, pp. 90-92)
The Reformation came about because Luther “beat” on Paul and “gave heed to the context.”
He told his students that the exegete should treat a difficult passage no differently than Moses did the rock in the desert which he smote with his rod until water gushed out for his thirsty people. (Piper, Legacy of Sovereign Joy, p. 95).
And when Luther preached through Ecclesiastes a few years later, Luther described the difficulties.
Solomon the preacher is giving me a hard time, as though he begrudged anyone lecturing on him. But he must yield. (quoted in Piper, p. 96).
So I want to give each of you some observation sticks, that you can always carry with you (for any book, any passage, any paragraph, any sentence) to beat it like a piñata and get everything out of it you can. Even if you’ve swung and missed before, let’s get the sticks back in your hands and try again.
Four Observation Sticks
Order refers to the arrangement of things in relation to each other according to a particular sequence or pattern; concerned with things preceding and following one another, such as the sequence of events or flow of thought. As we consider order, we ask, Is it significant that this comes before that? Why is this mentioned here?
This stick applies to much more than lists of things. It applies to entire books. For example, most of the epistles, especially the Pauline epistles, follow a pattern of indicative then imperative; things to be believed then things to be done. Our conduct is very important and cannot be dismissed simply because we’re saved by faith. The point is that when we properly understand the truth about faith, that truth has consequences on our behavior.
Romans 12:1 comes to mind. The letter hinges on “Therefore” in verse 1. It turns from the theology of righteousness by faith to the conduct of those who are righteous by faith. But the truth of how we’re saved and even our unity with Christ and our security in Him provide the platform for obedience.
For that matter, even though Romans is about the gospel—the good news, Romans 1:18-3:20 spotlight the bad news, the wrath of God, the condemnation of pagans and “moral” people and Jews and everyone. The bad news comes first and then the good news. The sequences is important.
On a smaller level, as we looked at in 1 Peter 2:2, and the command to long for the pure milk, there is something required before that. The prerequisite is to deal with sin.
Pay attention to cause and effect, to “if…then” conditions.
One OT section that always stands out to me in regard to its order is Proverbs 26:1-16. There is an ugly litany of problems with fools in verses 1-11. That’s a bad picture. But there is someone even worse than a fool. Look at verse 12.
Do you see a man who is wise in his own eyes?
There is more hope for a fool than for him.
Verse 13 seems to move us on to an altogether different character, the sluggard.
The sluggard says, “There is a lion in the road!
There is a lion in the streets!”
As a door turns on its hinges,
so does a sluggard on his bed.
The sluggard buries his hand in the dish;
it wears him out to bring it back to his mouth.
Then look at verse 16.
The sluggard is wiser in his own eyes
than seven men who can answer sensibly.
The fool is bad. The wise-in-his-own-eyes guy is worse than a fool. But a lazy man is seven times worse than the wise-in-his-own-eyes guy.
Keep your eyes on the context. Beat the passage to see what drops out.
Proportion concerns the relationship of one thing to another in terms of quantity or size, how much or how little attention or space is devoted to it. A good map shows the proportion of space, scaled to size, in order to give you an idea of the distance between points. Looking for proportion in Scripture will give you an idea of the importance of a particular person or subject from the author/Author’s point of view.
And like order, the proportion stick works on a book, a section, and paragraph levels.
When I introduced the book of Genesis and considered the point of the entire book, it was very instructive to see that, even though creation and the fall come first (order) and are foundational, chapters 12-50 are devoted to only four generations. There are four major events in chapters 1-11, spanning over 2000 years. But creation is covered in two chapters. The entrance of sin and death is covered in only one chapter. But 39 chapters deal with God creating a people for Himself. The amount of space Moses devoted to the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph compared to the amount of space devoted to the God of the heavens and earth, demonstrates that God is primarily eager to show Himself off through sovereign, gracious salvation even more than omnipotent, intelligent creation.
The fact that there are four gospel accounts stands out about the person and work of Christ.
Proportion is also important in individual passages. The fool is bad in Proverbs 26:1-11, really bad. Three chapters on God’s wrath is bad (Romans 1:18-3:20). That Solomon collects a chapter full of thoughts all connected with the dangers of temptation is telling in Proverbs 5, in a book otherwise dominated by short statements.
Repetition, repeating something that has already been said or written, the recurrence of an action or event, or term or idea is more than just a preacher’s work, it is a biblical work. It is a way to make sure your point gets across. When you say something again, that has already been said, it isn’t always a sign of senility, it’s a sign of emphasis.
For Solomon to use the word vanity 38 or so times in Ecclesiastes is not vain. He’s setting the sense of the book. When Moses says six times, “It was evening, then it was morning, the [X] day,” he’s leaving no room for interpreting anything other than 24 hour days. When a Proverb like 18:8 is repeated verbatim in 26:22 (The words of a whisperer are like delicious morsels; they go down into the inner parts of the body.), pay attention. When almost every verse in the longest chapter/Psalm in the Bible sings the benefits of the Bible in Psalm 119, don’t say that the point of a verse is something else. When Moses uses toledot 10 times in Genesis, he’s focusing on God’s work in people.
Don’t run and hide just yet. I know as soon as “grammar” comes out people get scared. I know. I was one of them for most of my life. My was was/is an English teacher, and I didn’t know (didn’t care) the difference between 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person until I was a sophomore in college. I was failing Greek, a required course to graduate in biblical studies, and had to learn some basic English before I could get a handle on foreign languages.
If you want to rightly divide your copy of God’s Word, you must be able to identify some basics of grammar. The building blocks of any particular sentence are as important as any character in an email address: forget one, get them out of order, and it will be wrong.
Learn some parts of speech (see the included pages). Learn about verb tenses: past, present, or future tense. Learn the mood of the verb: a statement, a command, or a question. Identify the person, whether it is I/we, you/you all, or he/she/it/they. Determine the voice: active or passive. And always, try to find the main verb.
Learn about conjunctions, whether they are coordinating ideas (and), contrasting (but, or). Learn about purpose (so that) and result (therefore) clauses.
Learn about prepositional phrases (a prepositional phrase is anything a squirrel can do with an acorn and a tree: put it on, bury it under, take it around, push it through or in, throw it over, etc.) By definition, prepositional phrases modify either a thing or a person or an action. Because they modify, they cannot be the main point.
You don’t need to become an English expert, but you should learn to recognize some standard grammatical structures. I like to say, “Friends don’t let friends forget grammar.”
So let’s look at one final example that puts all of these things together in Colossians 3:18-4:1.
An emphasis on:
Start with order. The husband/wife relationship is first, and in fact, is the linch pin of the household. If spouses aren’t fulfilling their roles, it is likely to make a negative impact on all the other relationships.
On a bigger level, the household responsibilities come after putting off and putting on personal responsibilities (3:5-17). Even just the paragraph before, putting on kindness, being richly indwelt by God’s Word, and being thankful are important parts of a wife, husband, parent, child, servant, and masters.
And, the personal and household responsibilities do se the stage for our witness to the world in 4:2-6. Your family is a light amidst this dark culture. All those things come out of the piñata when you look for order.
How about proportion? Look at how much space is devoted to the slave/servant compared to the amount of attention given to each of the other five roles. Whatever the precise reason, you can’t ignore the importance when you beat it with that stick.
How about repetition? In almost every role, explicit mention of Christ is made. Of course, the preeminence of Christ is the theme of the entire Colossians letter, obvious as early as 1:15-20. He is to be preeminent in our thoughts (3:1-4), preeminent in our conduct (3:5-17), and preeminent in our homes. The repetition knocks a lot more out of the piñata.
And the grammar? Seven (two to servants) imperatives/commands, not suggestions. Various modifying phrases fill out the how of the what of the who?
The point is, there is a lot to beat out of this passage if you are patient, walk through it slowly, and carry the right observation sticks. Learning is a discovery process, and the process takes time and effort.
You should practice asking and answering the 5WQs. (I recommend writing out the answers until you get in the habit of thinking that way.)
Give yourself enough time to beat the piñata. Start early, stay up late. Don’t wait to gather up the left over candy.
You owe yourself (and your students) this kind of headache-inducing work. Don’t run to others, most of them didn’t hit the piñata with the right sticks anyway, or they hit it once and moved on to another one. Hit the passage until you’re arms are tired, then hit it some more.
Honestly, sometimes the hardest thing to do is just sitting down in the chair and picking up the pen. And that’s how Dr. MacArthur finished that same seminary chapel, by giving us his key to Bible study success: keeping your rear in the chair until you’re done.
By the way, this kind of approach, this kind of study, lends itself to meditation, memorization, and ownership, let alone accuracy). Get to know the passage, get up with it, walk around with it. It’s going to change you more than quick reads or peace-meal secondary resources together, which will also tempt you to make food for others that you yourself haven’t tasted.