the url for the film that julia mention at house group.
http://www.blackgoldmovie.com/
Thursday 3 May 2007
Do verses from the OT apply to us today?
Question I asked Jonathan:
I've been meaning to ask you for ages a question about the verse "you" choose for this year. This is an academic question, I in no way wanting to object to the pastoral side of this choice. This is a verse from the OT, and therefore was given to the people of God in a specific situation for a specific purpose. How is right to claim this applies to us today in the specific way you are doing?
Jonathan's Answer:
Thanks for your interesting question about the text for the year. I think there are several different ways to come at answers to your question.
One is to look at what the text may have meant in context. Some of the key OT commentators see it as being about looking forward to a new saving act from God which would be based on the pattern of God's saving acts in the past (e.g. the Exodus) but which would enable God's people to move into a new phase of salvation history beyond the Exile. In this sense, it would be possible to understand the passage as being fulfilled through the return from Exile. One problem with this approach is that it leaves the passage fairly firmly in the past. There would be little in the way of application that could be drawn out for today. On this basis, we would say that it is a prophecy that had a particular meaning for the people of its day but one that has little relevance for us today.
That isn't the way that the commentators see it however. Their argument is often that this passage demonstrates the way in which Israel's understanding of God developed and changed as it moved beyond the old traditions by witnessing to a God who was always at the front edge of Israel's life. The implication of this argument is that God is always doing something new and we need to look out for it - which is the main way in which I have used the text so far. This is an argument that comes out of context but it is the context of what this passage meant in the development of scripture rather than what it meant in the history of the Israelites.
This argument also links to an understanding of God that is found in several different parts and genres of scripture; the theme of God's creativity and the issue of the extent to which God's creativity is ongoing. This passage bases its statement that God will act in a new way on the implication that God is creative in an ongoing sense. It seems to me that it is important in our understanding of scripture to see the way in which individual passages link to the wider context, themes and issues of scripture as a whole and by talking about this passage in terms of God's ongoing creativity I am seeking to do that.
Interestingly, the way of understanding the development of scripture that the commentators are pointing out seems to me to be very similar that of Jesus. What Jesus does in his ministry, particularly in his symbolic actions, is to retell aspects of the story of Israel (the saving acts of God) and to apply those stories to himself. Where the OT texts see Israel as the servant of God, Jesus applies these texts by words and actions to himself. This is why the Gospel writers are able to point to so many OT texts that they say are fulfilled in Jesus' life, death and resurrection. Now, this is an approach to scripture that is not about understanding it in context in the way that we usually mean today. The writers of the OT texts that Jesus acts out, reinterprets and fulfills did not have Jesus in mind when they first spoke or wrote nor was Jesus, in his actions, trying to understand what those texts meant to the OT writers at the time that they wrote or spoke.
Another way of approaching the passage is to claim that its meaning wasn't fulfilled by the return from Exile but is fulfilled by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus and I have also used this approach on some occasions in speaking about the passage and intend to do so some more in future. Again, this is not a way of understanding the passage based on its likely meaning for the person who wrote it at the time that person wrote but I don't think that it is invalidated for that reason.
I think the Bible is rich in layers of meaning (look, for example, at the allegorical way in which Paul interprets scripture in Galatians 4. 21-31; just like Jesus he pays no attention to what the passage he is interpreting meant to those who lived it out or to those who wrote the story down) and wish to use a variety of different ways of interpretation in order to reveal that richness as I preach (that is my aspiration - I do not want to claim that my inadequate attempts at sermons equate to the richness that is found in scripture). I think we need to be quite careful about our use of approaches to Biblical Criticism that we don't see used in the Bible itself and which we bring to the Bible out of our own (in this case, modernist) culture; often we can't see the problems with and limitations of these approaches because we are so emmeshed in the thought-patterns of our own or recently-passed culture.
I hope this helps in understanding where I'm coming from and in understanding why I think that one of the ways in which we can understand this verse and passage is to apply to ourselves in a way that is different from the way in which people at the time are likely to have applied to themselves. There is much more that could be said on all of this and I'd be quite happy to discuss it further either by email and in person.
I've been meaning to ask you for ages a question about the verse "you" choose for this year. This is an academic question, I in no way wanting to object to the pastoral side of this choice. This is a verse from the OT, and therefore was given to the people of God in a specific situation for a specific purpose. How is right to claim this applies to us today in the specific way you are doing?
Jonathan's Answer:
Thanks for your interesting question about the text for the year. I think there are several different ways to come at answers to your question.
One is to look at what the text may have meant in context. Some of the key OT commentators see it as being about looking forward to a new saving act from God which would be based on the pattern of God's saving acts in the past (e.g. the Exodus) but which would enable God's people to move into a new phase of salvation history beyond the Exile. In this sense, it would be possible to understand the passage as being fulfilled through the return from Exile. One problem with this approach is that it leaves the passage fairly firmly in the past. There would be little in the way of application that could be drawn out for today. On this basis, we would say that it is a prophecy that had a particular meaning for the people of its day but one that has little relevance for us today.
That isn't the way that the commentators see it however. Their argument is often that this passage demonstrates the way in which Israel's understanding of God developed and changed as it moved beyond the old traditions by witnessing to a God who was always at the front edge of Israel's life. The implication of this argument is that God is always doing something new and we need to look out for it - which is the main way in which I have used the text so far. This is an argument that comes out of context but it is the context of what this passage meant in the development of scripture rather than what it meant in the history of the Israelites.
This argument also links to an understanding of God that is found in several different parts and genres of scripture; the theme of God's creativity and the issue of the extent to which God's creativity is ongoing. This passage bases its statement that God will act in a new way on the implication that God is creative in an ongoing sense. It seems to me that it is important in our understanding of scripture to see the way in which individual passages link to the wider context, themes and issues of scripture as a whole and by talking about this passage in terms of God's ongoing creativity I am seeking to do that.
Interestingly, the way of understanding the development of scripture that the commentators are pointing out seems to me to be very similar that of Jesus. What Jesus does in his ministry, particularly in his symbolic actions, is to retell aspects of the story of Israel (the saving acts of God) and to apply those stories to himself. Where the OT texts see Israel as the servant of God, Jesus applies these texts by words and actions to himself. This is why the Gospel writers are able to point to so many OT texts that they say are fulfilled in Jesus' life, death and resurrection. Now, this is an approach to scripture that is not about understanding it in context in the way that we usually mean today. The writers of the OT texts that Jesus acts out, reinterprets and fulfills did not have Jesus in mind when they first spoke or wrote nor was Jesus, in his actions, trying to understand what those texts meant to the OT writers at the time that they wrote or spoke.
Another way of approaching the passage is to claim that its meaning wasn't fulfilled by the return from Exile but is fulfilled by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus and I have also used this approach on some occasions in speaking about the passage and intend to do so some more in future. Again, this is not a way of understanding the passage based on its likely meaning for the person who wrote it at the time that person wrote but I don't think that it is invalidated for that reason.
I think the Bible is rich in layers of meaning (look, for example, at the allegorical way in which Paul interprets scripture in Galatians 4. 21-31; just like Jesus he pays no attention to what the passage he is interpreting meant to those who lived it out or to those who wrote the story down) and wish to use a variety of different ways of interpretation in order to reveal that richness as I preach (that is my aspiration - I do not want to claim that my inadequate attempts at sermons equate to the richness that is found in scripture). I think we need to be quite careful about our use of approaches to Biblical Criticism that we don't see used in the Bible itself and which we bring to the Bible out of our own (in this case, modernist) culture; often we can't see the problems with and limitations of these approaches because we are so emmeshed in the thought-patterns of our own or recently-passed culture.
I hope this helps in understanding where I'm coming from and in understanding why I think that one of the ways in which we can understand this verse and passage is to apply to ourselves in a way that is different from the way in which people at the time are likely to have applied to themselves. There is much more that could be said on all of this and I'd be quite happy to discuss it further either by email and in person.
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