Originally posted 6/4/24
This is a continuation of last week. If you haven’t read part one, you can read that article here.
Parables are most known for lessons from Jesus within the four gospels. The other part of the gospels is historical. Parables are a form of storytelling that teaches a lesson. They can also be used to make a particular point. Many times, they seem odd to us. However, the people of the time would have fully understood the characters.
Olive Tree gives five tips for reading parables. Parables are stories about comparisons. They teach one lesson. We should focus on the beginnings, not the endings. Parables were meant for believers. They often took something that should have been clear and made it unclear. Parables were meant to be applied.
We think of Jesus making things clearer, but this was not always the case. If you notice that after Jesus spoke in a parable, he often immediately told the disciples what it meant. He wanted it to be revealed to believers, but unclear to those with hardened hearts. We should not look for every little detail to be significant in a parable.
For more information about reading parables, 4 Interpretive Guidelines and 10 Tips for Understanding Jesus’ Parables
Prophecy is probably the most difficult genre to understand. It is very similar to Apocryphal literature. We will not separate them here. Prophecy is by its nature symbolic. However, we have a tendency to try to read it literally. As always, you must take into account the cultural context to fully understand the writings. We are most familiar with Revelation as being an apocalyptic. The Old Testament books begin with Isaiah until the end of the Old Testament. Both use symbolic language to predict future events. Those events would include the final judgment.
In the article, How to Read the Prophets, Bryan Estelle give four tips about how to read the prophets. His first suggestion is to investigate the context. Understanding the historical and cultural aspects are crucial to properly understanding any portion of Scripture.
The second is to recognize that the prophets were God’s covenant lawyers. The role of these passages was to remind Israel of their responsibility to follow and obey the covenants.
The third tip is to recognize the prophetic idiom. Prophets spoke of future events. Estelle states, “The prophetic idiom, therefore, is that manner of expression by which the prophets of the Old Testament use the typological con the new covenant age. This is the nature of the prophetic idiom, and if we do not recognize it, then we will misunderstand the Prophets.”
The final tip to reading the prophets is to look for ways the New Testament cites the Prophets. In Acts 3:17-26, Peter quotes Deuteronomy 18:15-19.
Acts 3:17-26 “And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled. Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago. Moses said, ‘The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you. And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people.’ And all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and those who came after him, also proclaimed these days. You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.’ God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first, to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness.” Deuteronomy 18:15-19 “The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers–it is to him you shall listen–just as you desired of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God or see this great fire any more, lest I die.’ And the LORD said to me, ‘They are right in what they have spoken. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him.”
The New Testament often quotes the Old Testament prophets. Hebrews 3:1-6 refers to Moses, “Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all God’s house. For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses–as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.) Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, but Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son. And we are his house, if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.”
The Epistles are some of my favorite books to read. There are twenty-one Epistles in the New Testament. Each one is written by an individual to an individual or a church. These are written as letters and will contain the same elements of a letter that we might write. Epistles usually contain compliments or corrections. As the church was beginning to form, people often fell back into former habits and needed to be corrected. They also were a deeper dive into Jesus’s teaching contained in the gospels. As always, the reader should look at the context and situations surrounding each of these letters.
Before beginning to read a particular book of the Bible, try to identify the writing style before beginning. See if it helps you read the book or passage differently.
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