How to Use the Bible…according to God

29 June 2008

Both my parents went to Bible college. Dad is a Th.M. graduate of Capital Bible Seminary, and was a Bible and history teacher by trade for a couple of my formative decades. Needless to say, I learned how to study the Bible growing up. I took my first formal course in hermeneutics when I was 18, and quickly caught on to the fact that if my approach to the Bible was wrong, I could take all the Bible and theology courses in the world from the best teachers, and still come out lopsided. On the other hand, if my approach to the Bible was right, I could weather the storm of poor teaching if necessary, because the Bible itself would straighten me out.

With that in mind, hermeneutics became a major focus of my study for the next decade or so. I took hermeneutics and advanced hermeneutics courses in seminary, and when I graduated and began to teach, I taught hermeneutics myself. When Bob Wilkin of GES came up to teach an advanced hermeneutics course, I exercised my right to faculty audit and sat in the back to listen. It would be fair to say that I was mildly obsessed with the subject.

So imagine my surprise when, fairly late in the process, it dawned on me that hermeneutics has to be founded on the Bible itself. I’d been studying Charlie Clough’s Framework material, and as a result, presuppositional apologetics and philosophy from Bahnsen, Van Til, Frame, Rushdoony and others. All of this drew my attention to Romans 1-2, Colossians 2, Genesis 1-3, and other passages that made it increasingly clear that everything has to start with the triune God of the Bible and move forward from there.

It followed that one’s approach to the Bible must do the same.

Duh.

So I scrapped the seminary hermeneutics curriculum I had developed three years earlier, and set to work writing a new one. I began to develop a narrative foundation approach to hermeneutics. Almost immediately, I found out that “hermeneutics” was not the category I wanted to be working with. The Bible does deal with how it should be interpreted, but only as an organic part of a larger category: how the Bible should be used. The biblical authors are not interested in correct interpretation as an end in itself, but as a precursor to belief and obedience. This does make a difference in approach; meditation on the Word becomes a hefty part of one’s approach to Scripture, for example.

Within that larger enterprise, however, the biblical authors do present examples of how to interpret Scripture properly, and offer a few choice comments on proper interpretation. I recently had occasion to teach a ten-week course at two churches showcasing some of the more striking examples. I’ve not yet had time to write all this material out, but the handouts are available here, and you can find recordings of the sessions under my name on Grace Chapel’s website.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

Seeing with New Eyes

22 June 2008

For those of you who last checked in with biblical counseling when Jay Adams was in his psychology-skewering heyday, you need to come have another look. The present generation of spokesmen for biblical counseling offers a more well-rounded, richer grasp of Scripture and a much more sober-minded tone. While there certainly was some justification for Adams’ jeremiads, the present generation seems to have rediscovered the value and utility of brotherly kindness, a mode of interaction sadly lacking in the early writings of the movement.

Of the present voices, one of the clearest and most articulate is David Powlison.

Seeing with New Eyes: Counseling and the Human Condition through the Lens of Scripture is not a “counseling model” as such. It is to a counseling model what a list of mountaintop elevations is to a topographic map of the entire mountain range: it touches on the high points, and leaves the rest alone. But this seemingly incomplete way of teaching turns out to be surprisingly instructive.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by Tim Nichols

Posting Once a Week

18 June 2008

I’ve been posting twice a week since I started this thing, and having a great time doing it. My aim from the beginning has been not to blog in the common, spill-your-guts-on-the-internet sense.  Rather, I want to post quality material, carefully selected.  Owing to an increasingly busy schedule, I can no longer give the necessary attention to two posts a week.  I will therefore be cutting back to once a week. New posts will appear on Sunday at 1:00 am.

There will probably be the occasional extra post — especially news items that may be of interest to you — but no promises on that front.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

John Donne on Suffering

15 June 2008

I recently renewed my acquaintance with John Donne’s Devotions, an outstanding work I first met as a senior in high school. As it always does, the closing passage from Meditation XVII really struck me.

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee. Neither can we call this a begging of misery, or a borrowing of misery, as though we were not miserable enough of ourselves, but must fetch in more from the next house, in taking upon us the misery of our neighbours. Truly it were an excusable covetousness if we did, for affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it. No man hath affliction enough that is not matured and ripened by and made fit for God by that affliction. If a man carry treasure in bullion, or in a wedge of gold, and have none coined into current money, his treasure will not defray him as he travels. Tribulation is treasure in the nature of it, but it is not current money in the use of it, except we get nearer and nearer our home, heaven, by it. Another man may be sick too, and sick to death, and this affliction may lie in his bowels, as gold in a mine, and be of no use to him; but this bell, that tells me of his affliction, digs out and applies that gold to me: if by this consideration of another’s danger I take mine own into contemplation, and so secure myself, by making my recourse to my God, who is our only security.

(The bold emphasis is mine.)

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Posted by Tim Nichols

Open Secrets

11 June 2008

Six Secrets of the Christian Life by Zane Hodges is one of the shortest, easiest books you’ll ever read, which is a good thing, because you’re going to want to read it several times. In his inimitably brief way, Hodges takes readers on a guided tour of central truths of the Christian life: its miraculous and transformative nature, the need to be open to God’s truth and to pray for His revealed will, the importance of mindset and understanding our position in Christ.

If this sounds like the same old standard stuff, that’s because in some ways it is — but you should hear Hodges tell it. As is typical for him, Hodges does not philosophize; he doesn’t “develop doctrines” or “draw out principles” that are abstracted from the text of Scripture. Rather, he teaches through a careful reading of (relatively few) key passages. The result is that by the time you’re done, you will understand the Bible more clearly, and also understand more clearly how to walk with God.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

The Weight of Glory

6 June 2008

The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor’s glory should be laid on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing…to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations — these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit — immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by Tim Nichols

Who Can Understand the Bible?

2 June 2008

There are two basic myths about understanding the Bible, and most of the evangelical community believes one or the other.

The first is that only a select few can understand the Bible. This myth comes in various flavors, all of them with a seed of truth, and all of them deeply flawed nonetheless. Some insist that one must be a scholar, conversant with the culture, languages, and history of the Bible in order to understand it at all. Some even insist that one must be conversant with some particular set of theological categories in order to understand the Bible (the Roman Catholic Catechism, the Westminster Standards, somebody’s Basics series, whatever). Of course, this raises not only the question of which set of categories, but the much more important question of where the categories come from in the first place, that they are able to exercise hermeneutical authority over the Bible.

Other believers move in a less academic direction, preferring to focus on spiritual qualifications: one must be a Christian, or a Christian walking by the Spirit, or a mature Christian, in order to understand the Bible. Some — the real elitists — insist on all of the above.

Despite the great disagreements about the identity of the select few — or should I call them the elect few? — there’s a lot of tactical continuity in these types of arguments. When person A insists that only a select few understand the Bible, his version of the select few generally includes himself, or at least his sources, and does not include you, and yours. Convenient, that…

Biblically speaking, this first myth (in whatever form) forces the conclusion that Scripture is not profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness — at least not for most of the people, most of the time. (See 2 Timothy 3:16-17 for a comment on this point.)

On the other side of the line is a second myth, the idea that really, the text means many different things to different people, and even many different things to the same person over time. At its root, this myth is based on the idea that the meaning of the text is my experience of the text. The author’s intent has nothing to do with it, nor do societal conventions about the meaning of words. This is simple selfishness, an “It’s all about me!” attitude applied to interpreting the Bible. Moreover, in biblical terms, it is the notion that Scripture is of a private interpretation — a position roundly condemned in Scripture itself (1 Peter 1:16-21).

The Bible itself not only opposes both these myths, it systematically sets up a totally different picture of language, meaning, and God’s communication to us. To read more, see Who Can Understand the Bible?

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Posted by Tim Nichols