After reading Scot McKnight’s The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible, I started into Ed Cyzewski’s Coffeehouse Theology: Reflecting on God in Everyday Life. Both books speak of an approach to scripture that attempts to bridge the gap between the culture in which the culture in which each book of the Bible was written and that of today into which it still speaks. As I reflected today on the nature of scripture an how it interacts with itself, I remembered the view of one Rabbi. The Hebrew Bible (what we refer to as the Old Testament) is divided into three parts — the Law (Torah), the Prophets, and the Writings. The Jewish view is basically that the prophets and writings act as commentary on the Law (the Pentateuch), explaining how to understand it.
I’ve written before on the interaction of the New Testament with the Old Testament, and I began to consider another possibility that follows the Jewish tradition of setting the later sections of scripture essentially as commentary on Torah. This is what emerges:
Scripture / Essential Message
Torah Live this way
Prophets You’re not living this way
Writings It’s good to live this way
New Testament How to live this way in a different time and culture
We tend to forget that the time from the writing of Genesis to the writing of the New Testament is significantly greater than the time from the first century to today. With that understanding, the New Testament itself presents a sound example of how to contextualize the Old Testament writings into a newer time and culture.
I’m just thinking out loud here, not presenting a fully developed thesis… but it’s open for discussion.
Subscribe Posts
November 4th, 2008 at 8:13 am
If the NT is indeed an example of how to contextualize the OT in a new cultural setting with new dynamics, then what about all those references regarding OT practices not being necessary in to the NT church?
Some friends and I have been discussing different facets of today’s institutionalized/organized church and whether the model we follow is do for an overhaul. The most prominent question is “how did Jesus ‘do’ church and how does it translate to modern times?” (You can follow our discussion at Ruminations of Freedom )
Several references I’ve been reading (ie: Gene Edwards, etc) state that the modern design of church is unscriptural and counterproductive to the Gospel message. Yet, it’s the model that we’ve used for centuries (more or less), so if what people like Edwards say is true, what choice do we have but to scrap the modern model and start over?
November 4th, 2008 at 8:34 am
I would say that one element you’d need to develop is the fact that the New Testament represents not just a new time and culture, but a completely new cosmic situation, in that the death and resurrection of Jesus have happened.
The Incarnation wasn’t just about contextualization, it was about fulfillment. Thus the New Testament isn’t simply about saying the Old Testament a new way, but looking at the Old Testament through the lens of fulfillment or completion… Jesus seemed to model this on the road to Emmaus – interpreting the Scriptures as speaking about him.
November 4th, 2008 at 11:16 am
I will echo Benjamin Sternke and add a suggested blurb for the NT:
Only in Messiah is it possible to live this good way.
November 5th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Yes, the NT represents a significant shift in the coming of Messiah, but a lot of the text still deals with interpreting the OT for that present time. In fact, I just noticed in McKnight’s Blue Peacock that he quotes John Goldingay as saying that the NT is just footnotes on the OT (p.65).
November 6th, 2008 at 11:57 am
It is indeed interpretation of the OT. I am claiming that it is primarily messianic interpretation. This does not eliminate cultural-historical interpretation; rather, the revealed Messiah is the explicit context–a context that remains stable, even when the cultural-historical context changes.