The Field's Musings

Can we understand the original meaning of a text in a way that is effective for the church? Original Meaning and Interpretive Summaries The text has one coherent meaning. Our interpretations of the text can be true but not comprehensive- we have partial summaries. How many Atlantic oceans? There’s one objective, coherent ocean. How many ways are there to describe this ocean? Multiple. You can describe the ocean in terms of location, types of water, colour, etc. We can describe the ocean in multiple ways. Partial and true interpretations of Genesis 1v1: God created the heavens and the earth There was a beginning in time You can divide the creation into the heavens and the earth There’s only one God There are different ways of summarising the same reality. Many disagreements happen over emphasis not heresy. Angles on the Original Meaning What are the main ways to make interpretative summaries on a passage? Three types of analysis used when looking at OT passages: Thematic: things that ar...

There tend to be two extremes among Christians- Popular Concerns: Laypeople want to know what God is saying to them through a passage. They need to see the relevance and message of text to the people Academic Concerns: The opposite of popular concerns: They want to know about the meaning in the context of the time to the origin readers. We need to know what the text is saying within the context and what the text says to our context. The Text’s Full Value Three stages are used to obtain the text’s full value: 1) Original Meaning We have to be concerned with the original meaning of a text; that which is closet to the text itself. We need to uncover and discover the original meaning. What was the human writers intention as he gave a passage to the original audience? What did Moses want the readers of Exodus to understand? Our first priority is not the meaning of us today but the audience back then. Example: Genesis 1 We search for contemporary meaning addressing the tension between Evolut...

A Problem: The OT appears to be irrelevant: Why? 1) Historical discontinuities- differences between OT world and modern world Technology, language, social structures, religious experiences (eg axe head floating on water, pillar of fire and cloud, fire consuming sacrifices) 2) Misunderstanding of the NT outlook on the OT Mat 5v21-47: V21- ‘you have heard it was said’ = Jesus is disagreeing with the OT Jesus is not disagreeing with the OT He’s disagreeing with the Pharisees interpretation of the OT. Romans 6v14: ‘not under law but under grace’ Misunderstanding: law = OT, grace = NT Grace is NOT just the teachings of the NT Rom 6v14 means that we are not under slavery to sin through the law or under the judgement the law brings. We’re not under the law as a taskmaster beating us deeper into sin. Our relationship with God is based on grace for OT and NT people. Rom 4 =Paul proves justification by faith from the OT. He uses the OT to write the NT! Romans 10v4: ‘Christ is the end of the law’...