Thinking Out Loud with Alan Shlemon - A Verse That Illustrates Three Interpretive Principles

Episode Date: March 21, 2022

Alan looks at passage of Scripture that skeptics like to use to challenge Jesus’ integrity. Then, he clarifies the meaning and application of the passage by using three key interpretive principles.

How you interpret the Bible will define your theology, it'll affect major life decisions, and it'll determine ultimately what you teach others. And so that's why I want to look at three interpretive principles and their application to a particular passage in scripture in this episode of my podcast, Thinking Out Loud with Alan Shleeman. There's one topic that I wish every single believer would study. And even though I'm an apologist, right, and I've taught apologetics for, I don't know, nearly two decades now, it really has nothing to do with defending the faith, this particular topic. Now, I'm not saying it has no application to defending the faith. In fact, it can certainly help with that. But it's not about that per se. And the topic is called hermeneutics.

Now, it's more commonly known as biblical interpretation. And if I could, if I had the power, which I don't, I would require every believer in the church, like in the global church, to learn its principles. Now, I can almost hear the pushback, right? People are going to be like, hermeneutics? What in the world is that, right? It sounds like some sort of dry academic subject that has no practical value for my walk with God. You know, perhaps it's just something that pastors should study when they're in seminary, and that's it, right?

Don't bother everyday believers who are sort of on the front lines engaging the world about such a topic. And to those people who might kind of push back in that way, I would say it's just not true, right? Hermeneutics actually is an exciting topic because it helps us believers better understand what God is saying to us in his word, right? So think about this. You're going to be reading the Bible, most likely, between now and the day that you die. And you will be basing your theology, you'll be making major life decisions, and determining what you teach others according to what you think that Bible says. And so hermeneutics is critical because it's the connection between God's word and its application in your life.

In fact, when I reflect upon my time at seminary, I would say the single most influential class I took when I was there was hermeneutics. Now, my degree was in apologetics. And so you think that, oh, man, an apologist going to study apologetics at seminary, that would be the most incredible part of your experience there. But it wasn't. It was hermeneutics. That class did more to enrich my knowledge and understanding of God's word than any other subject I took during my time there. And so what I want to do is illustrate how three key principles of biblical interpretation can help you understand a commonly misunderstood passage. So in this sense, it is kind of like apologetics

because it's a passage that is often brought up by skeptics, people who are hostile to Christianity or hostile to the Bible. And so it's a verse or passage that has fueled a lot of people to challenge the integrity of Jesus. And so they claim that Jesus commands his followers to round up those people who reject him and kill those people. Now, I know it sounds crazy that they're making this claim, but they basically cite Luke 19, verse 27, where Jesus says the following. He says, those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them, bring them here and kill them in front of me. Okay. Now you might be thinking, well, that doesn't sound like the

tender and compassionate Jesus we all know. Like what's going on? Like, did he not have his coffee that morning? Or, you know, what's the story behind this, right? Now, the problem is entirely a hermeneutical mistake. People are misinterpreting this passage. And I want you to, again, consider how applying these three keys to biblical interpretation that I often bring up will help to clarify the meaning and the application of this passage. So context, this is the first key to interpreting any biblical text. The context is reminding us then to read the verses before and after the passage that's in question. And when it comes to this principle of context, the more you read, the better. And that's why at Stand to Reason,

and Greg Kogel, my boss, myself, and many others at Stand to Reason, we often say this, never read a Bible verse, right? Never read a Bible verse. Always read the whole paragraph, or the entire chapter, or the whole book, right? And so when this verse that I just cited, this Luke 19, 27, when it's read in context,

you discover that Jesus is actually telling a parable about a nobleman and his servants. a nobleman and his servants. Now, remember, parables, of course, are fictitious stories that are intended to illustrate a point. And this story is about a nobleman who leaves 10 minas with his 10 servants and departs to go get crowned king. Now, his servants hate him, and so what they do is they send an envoy to petition against his appointment. And after he's crowned king, he returns to judge those servants on how they've invested his money. And after rewarding the faithful servants, he punishes the unfaithful ones and then orders his enemies to be killed. So notice that when you read the Luke passage in its context,

you discover that it's the king in the story, not Jesus, who issues the command to kill his enemies. So this clarifies this sort of contextual concern, but it still does raise another question, right? Why does Jesus identify himself as the king in the parable, right? I mean, does that mean that he was ordering his followers to round up his enemies and have them executed? Now, to answer that question, we need to consider two additional keys to interpreting any biblical text. So I already mentioned the first one, which is context. The second one is history, right? And the second key to interpreting a

biblical passage is to discover any pertinent historical information that might shed light on the passage that you're reading. Now, it turns out that Jesus includes the king's execution order in the parable because it was actually, get this, a reference to a historical event. You see, after King Herod died, his son, Archelaus, I think it's the way you pronounce his name, Archelaus, Herod's son, Archelaus, went to Rome to claim his kingship over Judea. And so what happened was the Jews sent an envoy to petition against his appointment because they opposed his rule.

Nevertheless, Archelaus was eventually crowned king. He returns to Judea and he orders the killing of those who are against him. And so Jesus basically references this historical event in his parable, right? He's not commanding his followers to round up his enemies and kill them, right? Rather, he's referencing a recent event that his audience was fully aware of, and that was Archelaus' return and his order to execute his enemies. And so recognizing this history behind this passage helps us basically to understand why Jesus included the execution order in his parable. But there's one final interpretive key that will help to clarify Jesus's message. So remember the first key,

interpretive key is context. The second is history. And the third one here is genre. And so this third key is about understanding the literary style or genre that a passage has been written in. in. And then once you figure out the particular genre, the literary style, you got to ask, well, what are the appropriate interpretive principles that apply to this particular genre of literature? Now, although this passage is found in a gospel, the gospel of Luke, gospel is a particular genre. Okay. But there's also a sub-genre being involved here, and that's the sub-genre of parable, right? So a parable is a type of genre, a type of literary style. Now, we know that Jesus preferred to use parables to teach his lessons, and that's why

when you read a parable, you're supposed to ask a key question. And that is, what's the point? Okay, what's the point of the parable? Now, in this case, Jesus is telling his followers that he, like the nobleman, will depart and leave them with responsibility to be faithful. And eventually Jesus is going to return. And when he does, he will exact judgment on his enemies right we see this mention in Revelation 19 verses 11 through 16 his judgment however Jesus's judgment however will be just and he will not ask his followers to carry it out but actually

he's going to do it himself Jesus then does identify himself as the nobleman in the story. Now, although he's not ordering us to round up and kill his enemies, there's still a very sober take-home message. And that is, while Jesus is away, we're responsible for investing our resources for his kingdom. And when he returns, he will hold us accountable for what we did with what we were given and judge those who did not trust him as their king. So notice how when you consider the context and the history and the genre, it helps to neutralize the skeptics challenge

and clarify the meaning and application of this passage. And so think about this. If this kind of elucidation, this kind of clarification, is possible with just one verse, imagine how enlightening it would be for us to apply this kind of careful study to every passage we read in Scripture. God's Word is Holy is Holy inspired, Holy spirit inspired writ that he gave us to help us to be transformed by it so that we can eventually so that eventually the Holy spirit can conform us to the image of his son. And that's why we should take the effort and the energy to do this

whenever we read scripture. Well, that's all I have for you today. If you enjoy listening to these short podcasts where I talk about theology and apologetics or hermeneutics in this case, please be sure to rate or review my podcast on iTunes or wherever you're listening to this podcast on. And thank you for listening. I look forward to talking to you next time