Chapters 11, 12, 19, 20 Summaries
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Chapters 11, 12, 19, 20 Summaries
Jackson Million
Scripture and Interpretation
Dr. Trent Lambert
Feb 12, 2024
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Chapter 11
In this chapter it discusses the different levels of meaning contained in the bible. It opens with a story showing how easy it is to over spiritualize the text. Spiritualizing can be easy because oftentimes we presume that the text has some “deeper meaning” and something that can only be revealed through symbolism or another literary device. With this we run into problems because this is causing us to create our own meaning and interpretation of the text versus what the author actually meant when they wrote a specific passage. Some break this down into a literal and spiritual meaning of a text, but could be better said as a literary context instead of its “literal” meaning. Literary context as previously discussed can be historical background, context, grammar, or the author’s word choice. Next in this passage it identifies allegory. Allegory is a story with a lot of symbolism. There are examples of passages that use allegory such as some parables, but the problem that we can run into is using allegorical interpretation. This is taking a passage and using an allegorical breakdown to try and find that deeper meaning that is dangerous. This causes us to once again lose the true message. Typology is a type of passage that
is similar to foreshadowing. There is foreshadowing in the Old testament that is revealed in the New Testament, such as Christ’s sacrifice. This typology is very prophetic in nature, and can really only occur in the new testament unless the new testament states that some passage from the old testament is typology. Finally this section concludes with bible codes. Some authors such
as Drosnin attempt to use the Gematria of the Hebrew language with an Equidistant Letter Sequencing to find once again a hidden message and meaning throughout the bible. He has said that the bible has also predicted that other major world events have been predicted and encoded into the bible. Chapter 12
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Chapter 12 discusses the role of the Holy spirit in reading God’s word. The Word is written by a human author physically, but is divinely inspired by the Holy Spirit. This is the first role of the Holy Spirit; Inspiration. The second is His ongoing current work of Illumination. The Spirit can reveal things to us. With this being said we know that believers have the Holy Spirit, but what about non believers if they read the bible? With this come three different answers. The first is yes, that readers can still interpret the bible with proper interpretative methods. The second is yes, to a certain degree. They can understand the bible but are limited by their unbeliever presuppositions, sin, and their lack of a spiritual component as the Bible involves the whole person. Finally there is a view that they cannot interpret the Bible as they lack the personal understanding that the Spirit provides. We may have the Spirit, but there is still work we must do. The spirit does not make interpretation automatic, we still need to use our minds and proper methods. The Spirit does not create new meaning in the text, it simply helps reveal the original meaning. With that also comes a devotional time. This can be referred to Lecto Divina, or holy reading. A proper Lecto Divina has 5 steps to best understand scripture with the spirit. They are Silencio, Lectio, Meditatio, Oratio, and Contemplatio. The first is silencing our minds and the world around us. Lectio is actually reading the word. Meditatio is focusing on that passage and letting the words sink in. Oratio is a conversation with God about his word. Contemplatio is waiting for the presence of the Lord to understand and work through you. Chapter 19
Chapter 19 discusses the Old Testament law, and how we are to interpret it. Historically the Old Testament Law has been identified and interpreted through three different types of laws. Moral laws were timeless truths, civil laws were legal systems, and ceremonial laws were sacrificial, for festivals, or priestly. However the text argues that the best method for interpreting Old
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Testament Law would be through a method that can interpret any law. Once again context comes
up. Old Testament law is embedded deeply into Israel’s history and theological journey. Because
of this we must understand why this law was made. Is it in response to a situation? Is it to protect
Israel? There are questions that must be answered to properly understand a law. With this Old testament law comes the Mosaic covenant. The Mosaic covenant was conditional to the Israelites
and is tightly woven with Israel’s conquest and Occupation of the promised land. We as New Testament believers are not bound by Old testament law, but can be extremely useful and applicable to us today. With all this being said the author’s concluded that the best way to interpret Old testament law was through the interpretive journey. We need to identify the meaning to them. Why was this law created at that time? Chapter 20
This chapter talked about Old Testament poetry. God is a creative God, and through that chose to
display His Word in a creative way and one that can be more fascinating and relational to us. His
poetry appeals to our emotions, imagery, and uses figures of speech. We cannot take a direct and literal approach to poetry as much of it is figurative. Some of these figurative elements include parallelism, acrostics, analogies, substitution, and others. Parallelism can include synonymous, developmental, illustrative, contrastive, and a formal - miscellaneous parallelism. Acrostics can be identified as each line corresponding to the following letter in the alphabet. Analogies can include similes, metaphors, indirect analogies, hyperboles, personification, and zoomorphism. Substitution is more of the cause and effect and use of representation of different words. Finally the miscellaneous figures of speech are irony, wordplays, and apostrophes. All of these are just elements of Old Testament poetry, but we still need to be able to interpret it. Once again we will use the interpretive journey to find the author’s intended meaning. Poetry can be hard to interpret
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as we do not want to read too much into the text, but we still need to find the meaning of the text through all of the figurative language.