Greg Ford - The Bible Through Three Lenses
Okay, we’re in a series right now called «Cover to Cover.» It’s 15 weeks, and we started last week. In these first few weeks, I’m actually going to get into the beginning of the Bible today-the first cover of the Bible. What I’m trying to do throughout this time is share with you some ways of interpreting the Bible and learning how to read the Bible better. We’re going to take a lot of these things that will have kind of an educational component that will hopefully be applicable when you’re reading the Bible at home by yourself. You know, maybe you’re listening to someone teach the Bible, and you’re wondering, «Should I be taking what they said? Is that correct?» You won’t be at the mercy of everyone else; you’ll be able to take these tools and use them for yourself. We live in a day now where you have more tools for this process than you’ve ever had. It’s a great time to be alive.
This week, I want to look at the Bible as literature, history, and theology. I got a letter a few weeks ago from a guy I’ve known most of my life. He’s actually my dad’s friend, so he kind of became my friend over time. He’s older than I am, and he’s a guy I don’t know super well but have known for a long time. I’ve always had great affection for this guy. He sent me a letter in the mail, and as I was reading it, I took what I know about him and his life-my dad has given me little updates about him over the years — so I have a little bit of context. And then I have the letter and the things that he wrote down. As I was reading it, I thought, «Okay, I totally get what he meant there, but I wonder what was behind that. I wonder what he meant by that.» I started drawing conclusions or making assumptions about what I thought he meant. As I sat there trying to decide what action I was going to take from this letter-if I was going to take any action at all-I decided to pick up the phone and call him.
So I called him and said, «Hey, thank you for the letter.» We had a conversation, and I asked some clarifying questions. «Hey, tell me more about this. Tell me more about that.» It turns out some of the interpretations I had from his letter-the assumptions that I made-were dead wrong. I was actually wrong about it; I was missing something. I might have taken the wrong action related to it had I not called him, asked a few questions, and ultimately learned more that allowed me to absorb the letter in the way that he intended and then take even better action than I would have taken had I never called him. One of the reasons I did that is that I care about this guy, and it shows honor to someone to dig deeper beyond just their words into what was their intent.
What I would tell you is to take a critical view of the Bible-not in a nasty, critical way. I' m not talking about being critical; I’m talking about going in and asking the right questions to dig deeper. This is the ultimate honor of the word of God. The more we learn these literary tools, the less we read something on the surface and jump to a theological conclusion. Instead, we look at these literary elements. At times, it may take some education; it might sometimes be a bit laborious. But if you’ll do it, you’ll honor the text in the best way possible by asking, «What was the intent of this author?» and then, «What is the appropriate action that I take from it?» That’s what we’re trying to learn how to do.
In a sense, it might feel like we’re demystifying the Bible. That’s not what we’re doing. In a sense, what we’re doing is honoring it. We’re not taking the awe away from the Bible; we’re not taking our reverence away from the Bible. But when we look at it as literature and history, we are honoring this inspired word and asking what the intent of the original author was- just like I did with the letter from my friend. I want to continue equipping you to do that.
I want to give you a couple of vocabulary words as we start off. These are terms that may come up in the future, but they are good to have as you think about interpreting the Bible as literature and history before you create your theology. The first is the word «exegesis.» Exegesis means the critical explanation or interpretation of a text, especially a scripture. So, when you think about exegesis, think of it simply this way: this is primarily historical in nature, and what you’re trying to do is discover the original intent. We’re going to look today in Genesis 1, attributed to Moses, talking about 3,500 years ago. He’s writing it to a specific group of people at his specific moment in time. Exegesis would involve doing our historical contextual work to understand and close the historical distance between us and 3,500 years ago so that we can know what they would have heard when they read it.
The second term is «hermeneutics.» Hermeneutics is a branch of knowledge that deals with interpretation, especially of the Bible or literary texts. What this means is once we’ve done exegesis and we know what they heard, hermeneutics is the study of interpretation. It asks, «What do we do now?» So, how do I take what was heard and said then, and how does that now interpret into our context in terms of how we interpret it and what we do with it here and now? Does that make sense?
So, those two terms you' ll want to be familiar with. This is why, when you think about the Bible in its literary form, you need to be careful not to fall into mindsets that might sound good on the surface but aren’t as good as they sound. For example, you hear people say, «I just take the Bible literally. You don’t need to study it; just read it and do what it says. God said it, I believe it, that settles it.» You read it, do it. In a sense, that sounds good, and I hope that the spirit of that statement is, «Hey, let’s not overcomplicate and think our way out of obedience.»
I hope that’s the spirit behind it, but it could be a mistake because the Bible is full of literary artistry. You have a lot of things like figures of speech. There are different ways we look at things in our modern Western context versus an ancient Near Eastern document. If you take a literal approach, you’re going to miss things. Let me give you an example. If you ask me, «Greg, are you ready?» and I say, «I was born ready.» That’s a figure of speech. A thousand years from now, if they are studying what I said and think, «You know, Greg Ford made the statement; we take him literally,» they might conclude, «He said he was born ready.»
What am I saying? When I say «I was born ready,» am I literally saying, «Hey, from the moment I emerged from the birth canal and came out as an infant, I was prepared for everything I needed?» If you take it literally, you might think, «Most infants are completely helpless and don’t know anything, but not Greg Ford! He came out and was born ready!» No, that’s not what I’m saying. It’s a figure of speech. What I’m saying is, «Look, I am passionate about how ready I am. I am excited. Whatever we’re into, I’m totally into it. I can’t be more ready than I am right now.»
The Bible is full of these types of things. When we think about particularly Western perspectives, we like literal definitions and bullet points. When we look at numbers, we see them as quantitative and look for numeric accuracy, which is why we might argue that this number means this in the Bible. However, when you look from an Eastern perspective, they use a lot of word pictures and symbols. They are not necessarily breaking down the definitions of omnipotent or omniscient. They’re saying, «God is a strong tower; He’s a rock; He’s living water.» Numbers in the Bible are often more qualitative or symbolic than they are quantitative or numeric.
Let me give you a great example. We looked toward the end of last year at Matthew 14-15, the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000. Remember this in Matthew 14? If you keep reading in Matthew 15, Jesus feeds 4,000, right? We talked about that. So, if you start reading that, you look at numbers through a Western lens; we read it and remember the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000. How many loaves? Five loaves. How many fish? Two fish. He feeds 5,000 people; at the end of it, they collected baskets of leftovers. Remember how many baskets there were? Twelve.
We see five loaves, two fish, 5,000 people, and 12 baskets. We don’t think anything of it. We just go, «Well, that’s five and two, whatever.» They’re just quantitative numbers. Then you read chapter 15, and he feeds 4,000 with seven loaves and a few fish, and seven baskets left over. We read right over it. In the Jewish context, numbers have symbols. The number two is symbolic; it represents the two tablets that Moses brought off the mountain. The number five represents the five books of the Torah. The number seven represents completion; the number 12 represents the 12 tribes of Israel.
They are symbolic. When you understand that Matthew’s audience is exclusively Jewish people, that’s who he’s writing to. When he’s saying those symbolic numbers, he’s throwing out those numbers as shorthand to his audience. If we know that, we get a more robust picture of what he’s talking about.
Let me give you another example in our context. If I say the number 23, you think of Michael Jordan, right? This story is great; hang with me-even if you’re not a sports person, it will make sense. Michael Jordan wins three championships, retires, and goes to play baseball. It doesn’t go so well. There’s a strike in baseball, and he decides to come back to the NBA. He comes back not as number 23, but as number 45. Not number 23!
Michael Jordan, known for being a clutch player with his killer instinct, who never went to a game seven in a championship series, has the ball with the game on the line while wearing number 45, and a guy named Nick Anderson steals the ball from him, and they lose the game. After the game, the reporter puts a microphone in Nick Anderson’s face and asks, «How did that feel?» He replies, «I could have never done that to 23.» Then, the line that will live in infamy: «45 is not 23.»
Is he talking about numbers? No! He’s not talking about the number 45 or the number 23. He’s speaking symbolically- he’s saying the same dude. He’s not the same dude when he’s wearing 45 as he is when he’s wearing 23. Michael Jordan shows up the next game, pulls off his warm-ups, and he’s wearing 23. He took a fine and everything; the number had been retired, but he pulled it out of retirement and said 23 is back! Then he went on to win three more championships.
The idea here is we understand the symbolism of numbers. When you look at that, now that’s a literary element that Matthew uses. So, in the story of feeding the 5,000, were there literally 5,000 people? It says there were 5,000, not including women and children. I don’t know; there might have been 5,000. However, I don’t think that’s the point Matthew is making. What Matthew seems to be doing with these five books of the Torah and two tablets is that he’s speaking to the Jewish side of the Sea of Galilee. He’s talking about God’s chosen people, the 12 tribes of Israel. It’s steeped in Hebrew tradition.
Then, they go to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is Gentile and pagan. The number four in Jewish symbolism is the four corners of the earth, which represents the Gentile world. So, when he goes and feeds the 4,000 with seven loaves of completion and has seven baskets left over, it seems like the point Matthew is making isn’t just about quantitative numbers; he’s ultimately talking qualitatively.
He’s saying, «Don’t forget, Jewish people, God’s covenant with Abraham is that I want to bless the whole world through you. You’re my chosen people, but it’s not just about you. I want to do something in you that I want to do through you to the ends of the earth.» Just like in chapter 14, I fed you; in chapter 15, I feed the ends of the earth. «Don’t get caught up in just you, but what I’m trying to do through you.»
Does that make sense? Now this thing starts to take on a whole new power because I have the literature right, I’ve got the history right, and now I’m starting to get the theology right. That tells me what I’m supposed to do about it-how I’m supposed to think if this is how God thinks.
This is what we want to continue to do. I don’t just want to get you thinking; I want to arm you to be able to do it well. Last week, we gave away one of these. This is the best study Bible I’ve ever used. I wish I would have had this for the last 20 years instead of just the last couple of years. This is so good! I get no kickbacks. I told you last week that I have nothing going on with Amazon, but if you go on Amazon, you can get one for free if you want. We did a drawing last week and gave one away; we’re going to give another one away this week.
I don’t know how we’re going to do it; do you have a QR code or something? What are we doing? I should have thought about that. There it is! If you text 97000 and type «Study Bible,» it’ll send you a link. Click that link; it’s free. Just fill it out; it’ll take you 30 seconds, and we’ll enter you in the drawing. We’re going to give another one of these away this week.
I’ve got another resource to encourage you with. This book is phenomenal; it’s called «How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth,» written by Gordon Fee and Douglas Stewart. Have you ever wondered-you read that there are all these translations of the Bible. You read the NIV, and you’re like, «Who wrote the NIV? Who decided it was the NIV?» You’ve probably wondered that!
Well, it’s a committee of some of the best scholars in the world who ultimately go through it. For example, the NIV first came into being in the early' 80s; it hasn’t been around that long. Even as they’ve continued to advance in scholarship and understand a lot of the early writings even better, they find discrepancies and things they can improve. In 2011, they released a revised version of the NIV. Gordon Fee was one of those scholars, and this is his fourth edition revision of this book, «How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth.»
We talked last week about how sometimes people say, «Hey, I want to read the Bible all the way through, cover to cover.» Great! I would encourage you to read this book first before you read the Bible cover to cover because this will help you understand how to read the Bible cover to cover. I can’t recommend it highly enough.
Now, let’s go into Genesis 1. We’re going to look at, based on what we just talked about-literature, history, and theology-starting from the beginning of the first cover of the Bible. A couple of things I want to show you: One is if you do have the Cultural Background Study Bible, I’m going to demonstrate one way that this will absolutely change how you read the Bible. So go ahead and bring up that first screenshot. Oh, actually, yeah, that’s good! Okay, so in that first screenshot, you’ll notice that the second heading down says «Literary Setting.»
Before you even start reading in Genesis, you can look at a lot of literary style elements. So go ahead and go to that genre chart that I gave you. I think I skipped over that. This is a basic chart of all 66 books of the Bible and the different categories or genres that they fall into. It covers everything from the law to poetic books to the major and minor prophets to the gospels and the Epistles.
What I want you to bear in mind with this — you don’t need to memorize this or whatever-but I want you to think about is that within these books, it’s not as clean as saying, «Okay, this book is an Old Testament narrative book,» or «that’s written in narrative form.» What you' ll find is poetic or poetic literary elements are scattered throughout the whole Bible. We’re going to see poetic elements as early as Genesis 1. This is why a study Bible is so helpful because when you’re reading it before you start charging in, it will show you and tell you about some of those literary elements, so you’re prepared as you read them.
Now, let’s go to Genesis 1. If you start reading in Genesis 1, you' ll notice pretty quickly that there are stanzas. You’ll start to notice the literary style, like «In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.» You’ll notice some things that will kind of jump off the page at you. You’re going to see that there are some refrains — it’s repeated multiple times in Genesis 1 that after God creates something on a day, he sees that it was good. Then he does the second day and says, «It was good.» Then he does the third day and sees that it was good. You' ll see that repeated.
You' ll also see another refrain that will say, «There was evening, and there was morning,» and then, «This was the first day.» Again, «There was evening and morning the second day.» They keep repeating that over and over again. If we’re looking to decide what theological truths we want to get from Genesis 1, we start with the literary nature of this. We start to notice when you see those types of refrains- just like if you wrote a poem and you had something at the end of every line — you’re clearly making a point that you want the listener to hear because you keep saying it over and over again.
We want to pay special attention to those two refrains: «There was evening and there was morning,» and we want to pay attention to the refrain that «He saw that it was good.»
Now, when you do some historical work, go to the next screenshot. What you’re going to see in this Cultural Background Study Bible is something that explains the historical context. If you think about it, who is writing this book? It’s attributed to Moses. Who is he writing to? The children of Israel, after hundreds of years of being in Egyptian slavery. Where does he write it to them? It’s a few months after they have come through the Red Sea and escaped Egypt. They’re now free and at Mount Sinai. You have a group of people who have a mixture of theology-the study of God-and cosmology-the study of the origins of the cosmos. They have a mixture of oral history that comes from their Hebrew family members and the Egyptian cosmologies and theologies they’ve been told as they lived in that culture.
We know that the Egyptian theologies lingered because, all the way into the book of Joshua, even after Moses is gone, Joshua is still telling them to put away their Egyptian idols. He’s still telling them not only to put away the idols but to put away those theologies. This is a moment in time where Moses is saying, «Look, I want to take a moment to hit the reset button on some important things because we have hundreds of years of bondage in Egypt that we have to start sorting out theologically and psychologically to make sense.»
When you start to look at that screenshot I showed you, it explains what some of the obstacles and mindsets of that group of people would have been coming out of that culture. One of the things it talks about is how Egyptians viewed the nature of existence. If I say to you, «Hey, something didn’t exist and now it exists,» in our world we think it had no physical properties and now it has physical properties. It had no atoms, and now it has atoms. Experientially, we know there are things like love or time that don’t have atoms but are very real.
In the Egyptian mindset, the idea of existence didn’t necessarily have to do with physical properties but with having a role or purpose or function. Think about this: some of you have experienced times in your life where you don’t feel like you have any role or function. It almost feels like you don’t exist. You know you have a body. You’re here, but you feel invisible -you don’t know who you are and don’t feel like you exist because you don’t have a role or function.
In the Egyptian world, not only people but things like water and the sky- physical things — didn’t lack physical properties. They were talking about their role and function. Knowing this starts to make sense why, as Moses tells the story, he says God gave function. He took light and darkness, separated them, and then named them. This is significant because naming something declares its function or role.
He calls light «day» and darkness «night.» What is he doing? He’s giving it a function and creating time. As he makes the ecosystem, he’s giving it function — he’s bringing it not only physical properties but also purpose, which ties into their understanding of existence.
Then, what he uses here from a literary element — now we’re going back and forth between literature and history — then theology is just going to jump off the page. When we think about literature, we' ll look at the structure. Go ahead and bring up the chart of the days of creation. This is a summary of Genesis 1, and then the bottom is Genesis 2.
So, on day one, he separates light and darkness. Day two, he separates the sky and the water. Day three, he separates land and sea. Day four, he creates the sun, moon, and stars. Day five, he creates birds and fish. Day six, he creates beasts and humans. Notice this is built in what’s called a chiasmic structure. We talked about this back in the Sermon on the Mount. Chiasmic structures are structured ABC CBA.
Now, go ahead and look at the whole story of Noah. I' ll give it to you super quick! Bring it up! We don’t have time to do the whole flood narrative, but I want to show it to you as a literary element. It’s not ABC CBA; it’s AB BCD FG all the way to P and then back down to A. So, if you look at the story, you’ll see it structured all leading to the center. If you got to P, there, the point in the center-the greatest point-is that God remembered Noah.
He’s going to tell the whole story that’s structured. It builds up and then back down, but in the center, the reason this matters is because the structure helps you see the most important point. There are going to be a lot of points along the way, but the structure helps you see the main point. The main point there, at letter P, is that «God remembers Noah.» In other words, in all of this hardship and this huge trial and experience, God never forgot his relationship with Noah. That’s one, not the only, but the main theological point of the story of Noah. How would I know that other than understanding the literary element that points me to the main point?
That’s a bigger example. The whole book of Leviticus is written as a chiasmic structure. So, let’s go back to the seven days of creation. This structure, this literary structure, is called a parallelism or an inverted chiasm. Instead of being ABC CBA, it’s ABC ABC. Look at this: on day one and day four, light and darkness; on day two and day five, sky and waters; on day three and day six, land and seas and beasts and humans.
The point here is he’s giving us a literary design, a literary structure, so we know what category to put this in. This isn’t a lab report. He’s not making statements about literal time. You could argue that there are 24 hours in a day and it was a literal seven — day creation because he made night and day and therefore defined a day as this many hours. You could make that argument, but that’s not ultimately the point.
When you’re looking at interpretation, whether it’s a poem or historical narrative, you’re calling up your buddy and asking, «What’s the point? What point are you making?» You’re looking at the text; you’re trying to understand its literature and literary style, and what it’s pointing to-what are the historical elements? What is the point of this text?
Once you start doing that, we understand that this isn’t something he’s necessarily making a statement about sequence; he’s giving us a poem that ultimately will find common ground with their beliefs from Egypt, but then the biggest points come from the contrast between Yahweh Elohim, Adonai, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob-the God Moses is presenting to them and the gods of Egypt.
The gods of Egypt believed they created humans because they were tired of making their own food and taking care of their own needs, so they created humans as slaves to pamper them. The image of the gods was never on human beings; it was only on certain kings or certain statues in temples. That’s why you would try to get close to the temple — the closer you got to the god, the more you could appease him, and then he would keep you safe or give you something great. They never thought of themselves as being in the image of God; they never saw themselves as being created to be partners with God. It was simply about being slaves to God.
So now, when you read the text and start to see that in verse 26 of chapter 1, he says, «Let’s make mankind, man and woman, in our image,» they’re starting to see these people who have been in bondage, who only know oppression, realizing, «Wait a second! We thought that was only for kings and important statues, but no! We are made in God’s image!»
Who’s made in God’s image? My children are made in God’s image! I’m made in God’s image! He’s saying, «You are my sons and daughters; you are my children.» This shapes their theology. He gives them a new, fresh, reset theology of work. In chapter 2, when He created the entire world and ecosystem, it says things weren’t doing as they were supposed to do because God had not yet sent rain, and there was no man or woman to work the ground. He sends rain and brings man into the world. What’s he doing? He’s saying, «Look, this isn’t just you making bricks to appease me or showing up so I’m not mad because I see you as a slave.»
He’s saying, «Be my partner in this world I’ve made, a great world with a great ecosystem and great work to do. I’m not just having you do it for me; I want to do this with you. I’m inviting you! I’ll send rain; you work the ground, and we’ll bear fruit together.» He’s inviting man and woman into partnership with God, made in His image.
Then, of course, the refrains we come back to are not only «It was good, it was good, it was good,» but we also see the evening and morning refrain. This past year, we looked at how, in the Jewish mindset, the day starts when you go to sleep — in the evening, instead of in the morning. Why? Because the first act of every day is to go into a catatonic state of rest. Rest is not a reward for a hard day of work; it’s the way you start every day. You come from a place of rest. In my rested state, where I’m producing nothing, I’m loved and approved of by God; I’m His son, and you’re His daughter.
It’s in that state that I wake up to work. Rising and grinding is the second part of your day, not the first part. I come from a rested psychological, emotional, spiritual, and physical state. We see again it starts to jump off the page-it says that God completed all of His work of creation, and then He rested. Had He completed it all? No! There were still seeds to be planted that would produce new growth, and there would need to be pruning. He created humans, and they’re going to make messes; He’s going to have to redeem things! There was lots of work to do!
But it was enough work for that day that I can set my work down and psychologically, spiritually, emotionally, and physically rest. Now, the theology starts to be born out of the literature and history, and the more that I understand, I can see some common ground that I have a little bit of Egyptian baggage myself. I might feel like I can’t do enough, and I have to learn that actually, what God wants me to do is say, «That was enough for today.»
I’m putting this down today to see that God thinks and sees me as good and sees you as good. That God says it is good that I’m made in His image. All of these different elements now fall into place because of the history and literature, and I don’t get hung up on details that aren’t part of the point. We’re able to keep the main thing the main thing and see the point.
I want to encourage you. I want to invite you to continue in this process — take a manageable pace, get the right tools in front of you, and day in and day out, continue to go into God’s word. Just like with my friend who sent me this letter, the more questions I ask, the more I honor the letter. The deeper I dig, the more I discover, and the more I honor the letter, the better I’ll get to the actual intent-not only of the author but also of the one who inspired the author.
Let’s keep taking this journey together. Let’s go ahead and pray.
Lord, I pray that as we continue to seek and find, you’ll continue to produce within us grace and truth. I know what this journey has been like for me, and I’ve got a long way to go. But the more I dig deep, the more grace I seem to develop for other people. I start to see how people can see things differently than I do or even areas where I was really stubborn. But, Lord, with more information, I might be less stubborn but perhaps less certain, and all of that God produces the same grace and truth, Lord, that you extend to me and offer for me to extend to others.
I pray, Lord, as we — your sons and daughters-dig into your word, just like we looked at Genesis 1 and 2 today, that these great life lessons you want to give us and these deep theologies that show up practically — in things like our rest and a healthy self-image and a right view of work-help us take you up on your offer to be your partners during this time we get to live and breathe.
So God, I pray for each of my brothers and sisters as we take this journey. You would continue to bring Revelation in a timely way. We love you, we thank you, and we praise you in Jesus' name. Everybody said, amen.