Category: Hermeneutics

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He Gave Us Fiction

We are made storied creatures. We are bound by a story; we are anchored in a narrative. This world in which we live and move and have our being is God’s world, and God has given this world a narrative structure. It’s all one big story. We have to understand the word of God within that story.

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Confessionalism Promotes Academic Integrity

Doesn’t being “confessional” mean that certain kinds of questions are, by definition, verboten? Wouldn’t that in turn mean that academics in those institutions have to sacrifice the “science” of biblical and theological study upon the altar of confessional consistency? Not at all. I believe the opposite is the case.

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Paul was not a Theologian

Paul was not a theologian, he was a pastor. Paul’s theological endeavors are secondary to his pastoral purpose; he uses theology to address and resolve pastoral problems.

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The Beginning of Things tells you Stuff: Determining Genre

This entry is part 3 of 3 in the series Ordinary Bible Reading

Pay careful attention to the opening section of any discourse. The first five minutes of a movie, the first chapter or so of a novel, the opening introduction of a sermon, the first paragraph of a newspaper article—all of these “first moments” are specifically designed to orient you to the thing that you are reading or hearing or watching. Remember, authors generally want to be understood, and because they want to be understood they want to set you up to read well.

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The Problem with Reading the Bible Verse-by-Verse

This entry is part 2 of 3 in the series Ordinary Bible Reading

Over the years we have trained ourselves to read the Bible in an unnatural way, so we’re going to have to break some bad habits. We are trained to read the Bible verse-by-verse, but in keeping with the “ordinary reading principle” we need to change our habits. We should ordinarily be reading the Bible paragraph-by-paragraph or, even better, book-by-book.

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The Bible isn’t Just Extraordinary, It’s Also Ordinary

This entry is part 1 of 3 in the series Ordinary Bible Reading

In other words, while the Bible is always extra-ordinary, it is such through the use of the ordinary ways that human beings speak to one another. It is supernatural revelation that God has given in natural language. The Bible is special and unique, but it is not special and unique in this way, that is, in the manner by which it communicates truth to human beings. That’s why the Westminster Standards go on to describe the meaning of the Bible as accessible “through a due use of ordinary means” (WCF 1.7).

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Seeing New Things in Old Texts: More Tips for Exegetical Inquiry

This entry is part 4 of 5 in the series Exegesis without the Languages

After multiple readings, we can get “stuck in a rut;” we grow content with our prior understanding of the text and are unable to see things anew. One way to see the text differently is to see it from a different angle. Deliberately switch your reading posture (both figuratively and possibly literally).

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Save Time: Stop Doing Word Studies

Word studies are a favorite tool of Biblical exegetes, but usually aren’t worth the time. Why not? Because either (1) the work has already been done for you, or (2) what you are trying...

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Real Questions: What does “the” mean?

This entry is part 1 of 6 in the series Real Questions

The point: when translating from the Greek, these subtleties won’t always show up in translation. That’s why it probably feels “low impact.” But such questions are worth thinking about because, though subtle, the rhetorical and semantic functions are different in many contexts.

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Why the NLT is Good, actually

As a working guideline, then, I propose we evaluate translations on the basis of three criteria. A good translation (1) has a well-defined, well-reasoned, and useful translation philosophy, (2) applies that philosophy consistently over the “many parts and various ways” God has spoken to us in his word (Heb. 1:1), and (3) uses the “best of what’s around” to understand the original Hebrew and Greek text. The NLT gets an “A” in all three of these categories, as I will establish in a bit.