Interpreting the God-Breathed Word: How to Read and Study the Bible

© 2018 by Robbie F. Castleman

Published by Baker Academic

a division of Baker Publishing Group

PO Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

www.bakeracademic.com

Ebook edition created 2018

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

ISBN 978-1-4934-1434-5

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1989, by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations labeled KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture quotations labeled NIV are from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com

"Were not our hearts burning within us

while he talked with us on the road

and opened the Scriptures to us?"

Luke 24:32 (NIV)

for

The Fellowship of Burning Hearts,

the friends, students, family, and congregations

who have shared the journey of heartbreak,

hope, and God’s in-breaking grace

when he opened the Scriptures to us.

Sola Fide, Sola Gratia, Sola Scriptura

Contents

Cover    i

Title Page    iii

Copyright Page    iv

Dedication    v

Acknowledgments    ix

Introduction     1

1. Hearing Scripture: What Does the Text Say and How Does It Say It?    9

2. Once upon a Time: Hearing Scripture as Story    25

3. The First Voice: Faith Comes by Hearing    41

4. The Second Voice: Hearing through the Ears of the First Audience    55

5. The Third Voice: Responding to the God-Breathed Word    79

6. Meditation in a Canonical Toolshed: Seeing the Light by the Light    95

Conclusion: Wisdom—Participation in the God-Breathed Word    115

Appendix: Growing a Library    121

Scripture Index    123

Subject Index    129

Back Cover    133

Acknowledgments

I began the lifelong process of learning to study the Bible in the spring of my junior year of college, when I was a newborn Christian. Diane McGirr came twice a week to disciple me through studying Scripture together. A few years later, Dixie Gasper introduced me to the inductive Bible study method championed by InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. Over the next few years I began to lead my own small group studies and first taught a Bible class in New Orleans. I began to sense the Lord’s pleasure during those studies as I worked hard to teach others. Thanks to Sylvia Niedermeier, who was my first Bible study student at Carolyn Park. She kept me on my toes.

Learning Greek at Loyola University New Orleans during my biblical studies degree was difficult. Thanks to the late Earl Richard for his instruction in Greek. Because of Dr. Richard, who was French, I still read Greek with a French accent. I continued my indebtedness to InterVarsity and their deep commitment to studying Scripture during my years on the ministry staff at Florida State University. Studying Scripture without chapter breaks or verse marks (manuscript work) was a blast. From the Gulf Coast to the Ozarks, inductive Bible study and manuscript work carried over into my classrooms at John Brown University (JBU). Thanks to Jim Blankenship and David Vila, whose biblical language skills outpace my own and have kept me from more exegetical foibles than I will ever know.

Fondest gratitude goes to JBU students with whom I worked out the trinitarian, canonical, speech-act hermeneutics that is the subject of this book. Semester after semester they have helped me to grow as a teacher, an exegete, and a disciple. Semester after semester it was a joy to see the Spirit at work through the Scripture, to see students met by the Jesus of the New Testament, and to see them become who they are in Christ.

During this time my appreciation for the biblical and theological richness of Karl Barth was deepened. In reading the works of Kevin Vanhoozer during these past twenty years, I finally found a language for how I understood Scripture study as a dynamic theo-drama. Thanks to Kevin for cheering me on from time to time by taking interest in this endeavor. Dave Nelson of Baker Academic heard what I was up to in the classroom at JBU and initiated a conversation about how I was bringing trinitarian, canonical, speech-act exegetical hermeneutics to undergraduates, seminarians, and congregational laity. I am deeply grateful for the interest, time, encouragement, and even enthusiasm that Dave and the folks at Baker Academic have given me.

Finally, there is nothing like being married to an English major who is both a pastor and proofreader. (If there is a typo, verb-tense issue, or unclear idea in this book, it’s all on me.) Breck Castleman has been my exegetical preaching champion for forty-six years of Sundays and special services. I listened, learned, and heard the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God!

Introduction

Scripture as the God-Breathed Word

What do Christians mean when they affirm that the Bible is the word of God? Too many Christians easily assume Scripture to be the word of the Lord but have never really thought about what that statement means. The Scripture of the Christian faith is composed of the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament and the twenty-seven books of the New Testament. These sixty-six books form the canon, the collection of uniquely authoritative books by which all other beliefs, writings, and confessions are measured.1

The question for believers, however, is how to understand what is meant by affirming the Bible as the word of God. If we mean the word of the God of the Old and New Testaments, then we mean the word of the Triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as revealed in the texts themselves. So, how are the Triune Persons involved in this word, which is Scripture, the Bible, the actual book that sits in desk drawers or on nightstands and is read every morning in a favorite chair, or in times of need, or weekly during a service of worship? The Christian faith affirms that Scripture is God-breathed (from the Greek word theopneustos, usually translated inspired). Paul reminds Timothy that all scripture is inspired by God (2 Tim. 3:16). God’s word is still God-breathed. God’s word is a living word.2

Confidence in the Biblical Documents

God’s word is also an objective word. Scripture is ink on paper (or pixels on a screen), and although translated from the original languages, the text is definitive. The Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are uniquely authoritative. Christians consider the Bible to be the only rule of faith and practice3 for the church universal. The texts of the Old and New Testaments have been and are affirmed by the church in every cultural setting across time.

Confidence is higher for the documents themselves than for any other ancient texts. There is far more ancient documentation for the life of Jesus than there is for the life of Julius Caesar. In his classic book The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?, F. F. Bruce answers the titular question affirmatively, and he robustly supports his argument with the sheer volume of complete ancient manuscripts of the New Testament—over five thousand—and tens of thousands of papyri fragments even older.4 These documents, as Bruce demonstrates from his research and document work, are closer to the events they record than any other documents of antiquity. The oldest of the complete New Testament manuscripts is dated about AD 350. Bruce compares this with the nine or ten good manuscripts of Caesar’s Gallic War, the oldest dated nine hundred years after the life of Julius, who lived from 100 to 44 BC, less than a generation from the birth of Jesus. Bruce continues with extensive comparative evidence concerning ancient documents and concludes by mentioning full books of the New Testament on papyrus fragments dated within 150 to 200 years of the original text.

The reliability of the canon documents themselves is important because the context of God’s self-revelation is historical. Theologian Michael Horton highlights the importance of recognizing the historical context of everything the Bible relates as the unique record of how God chose to make himself known. Horton writes, "Everything turns on whether the reported events actually happened. No other religion bases its entire edifice on datable facts. The events it reports either happened or they didn’t. . . . We must not miss this striking truth—that the Christian creed turns on historical events rather than eternal truths or principles."5

Concerning the recognition of the canon of Scripture by the church and the church’s early affirmation of inspiration, Bruce writes, One thing must be emphatically stated. The New Testament did not become authoritative for the Church because they were formally included in a canonical list; on the contrary, the Church included them in her canon because she already regarded them as divinely inspired.6

The objective nature of an ancient text that is rooted in real history and clear cultural contexts makes the historical reliability of the documents themselves important. Recognizing the divine inspiration of those texts means paying close attention to the wording itself and to its historical and cultural situation as we study it. This book is designed to help students of Scripture observe the text itself and learn to research the historical and cultural background of what the text says and when the text was written. It is important to closely observe what the text says and then to work to understand what the text meant then and there in order to respond faithfully to the God-breathed word here and now. The God-breathed word cannot mean what it never meant, but the challenge to most readers today, especially those already familiar with the Bible, is to slow down and observe what the text itself says and how it says it. If Scripture is indeed a living, God-breathed word, it behooves us to pay attention to the text.

Humility and Love in the Study of Scripture

God has spoken, and this is a risk of divine love. The weakness of the word so easily ignored or contradicted, disbelieved or manipulated for our own ends, is a risk God was willing to take. The violation of God’s word from the beginning was met with divine condescension as God revealed himself in time and space. Creation is the arena where God has made himself known to us through a people (Israel) and most fully in Jesus, the Christ.

To study Scripture is to participate in the dynamic of covenantal reality within the God-breathed word. God keeps his word. The Bible is not a lucky charm or a sanctified horoscope because God is not a vending machine, nor does God relate to humankind through a cause-and-effect relationship. The story of Scripture is a story of astounding grace. The God who spoke all of that into being as the place of his self-revelation is the God who still speaks through the record of that revelation, the Scripture of the Old and New Testaments.

The difference between the canon and a cannon is more than just an extra n. The latter is used to destroy and harm, to win a fight or a war, to make a show of power. But the canon of the God-breathed word is a canon of grace and truth. Good Bible study doesn’t happen if our goal is to win an argument or to find self-empowerment or self-comfort. There is a distinction between Scripture knowledge as a category on the game show Jeopardy! and Scripture knowledge that enables a person to embody the God-breathed word with truthfulness, wisdom, and grace. Humility is a hallmark of a disciple who studies Scripture well.

Another hallmark is the enriching reality of the community of faith gathered by the Spirit to study the God-breathed word for a lifetime. Discipline is characteristic of a disciple who wants to study Scripture well. It takes discipline and practice to do anything well. Hearing the word of the Lord means knowing the difference between playing all the right notes and making music. The music made by God’s people is based on the lyrics of Scripture, whose first, last, and eternal song is a doxology of praise.

Learning to Interpret the God-Breathed Word

This book is about taking seriously the God-breathed sense that Paul declares and that Christians affirm. It is a practical presentation of how to study Scripture, recognizing its God-breathed reality and how it is canonically integrated in the scope of its historical contexts. In addition, the robust appreciation of speech-act hermeneutical concerns, which view God’s word as both powerful and wedded to the integrity of God’s character, is of central importance. Speech-act interpretive practice recognizes that what God speaks, happens: God spoke, and a universe of time and space came into existence; with a word, Jesus calmed the wind and waves of a