Delighting in the Word of God: Meditating on the Word

Despite all his sinfulness and brokenness, King David loved the Lord and his Word with all his heart. This is, in part, why he wrote Psalm 119 and expressed himself with words like these: “In the way of your testimonies I delight as much as in all riches. I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways. I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word…I will lift up my hands toward your commandments, which I love, and I will meditate on your statutes…Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day” (Psalm 119:14,16, 48, 97).

Do you hear his heart? David meditated on the Word because he delighted in the Word, and he delighted in the Word because he delighted in God himself. One of the ways we display the value of a person is by listening to their words, and the closer we listen the more value we display. So, again, definitions and techniques aside, meditation on the Word of God is a fruit of our delight in and valuing of God.

To study the Bible is to seek a greater understanding of what God has said and done. To meditate on the Bible is to seek greater insight into the meaning and applications of what he’s said and done. In fact, the primary Hebrew word for meditation means “to speak under one’s breath, or to converse with oneself.” Have you ever been thinking so deeply about something that you’ve caught yourself talking out loud, or worse yet, been caught by someone else? If so, then you understand meditation. To study is to understand, and to meditate is to be captivated. This is why David wrote, “Make me understand the way of your precepts, and I will meditate on your wondrous works” (Psalm 119:27). In other words, he’s saying, “Grant me knowledge that I may delight in you.”

As we learn to meditate on the Word, we grow in love for God. “I will praise you with an upright heart, when I learn your righteous rules…Your statutes have been my songs in the house of my sojourning…The Lord is my portion” (119:7, 54, 57). Indeed, biblical meditation is the fuel of true worship.

As we learn to meditate on the Word, we grow in the knowledge of the will and ways of God. As David noted, “I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation” (Psalm 119:99). The same was true of Jesus when he was young (Luke 2:47) and of Peter and John after the Day of Pentecost (Acts 4:13). True knowledge before God is a fruit of meditation on the Word of God.

As we learn to meditate on the Word, we grow in the ability to endure life’s many trials. David wrote, “Even though princes sit plotting against me, your servant will meditate on your statutes…Let the insolent be put to shame, because they have wronged me with falsehood; as for me, I will meditate on your precepts” (119:23, 78). Beloved, meditation on the Word is a discipline that bears many kinds of fruit, so hear David’s heart, hear your Father’s voice drawing you toward his Word, and join David in the commitment to savor the Word each day. “My eyes are awake before the watches of the night, that I may meditate on your promise” (119:148).

Living by Faith: Being Conquered by Faith

In the last blog in this series, we began to look at Hebrews 11:33-38 and we noted that while the essence of faith is the same for all believers (trusting in the faithfulness of God), the outcomes of faith vary from one person to another according to the will of God. We then considered the lives of those who conquered various things by faith in God—not by their own strength, wisdom, or resources but by placing all of their trust in God. In this post we will now consider those who were conquered by faith, that is, who were plunged into the depths of great suffering specifically because they trusted in the Lord and followed his words no matter what the cost or consequence.

In the middle of Hebrews 11:35, the author transitions from telling us about triumphs to telling us about tragedies. In the ESV this transition is marked by the word “some” but in the Greek text the words are slightly stronger and probably should be translated “but others.” So, on the one hand, some people conquered by faith to the glory of God, but others—the author wants us to hear his transition loud and clear—but others were conquered by faith to the glory of Christ.

These people also received and believed in the promises of God but instead of gaining victories they were tortured. For example, at one point in his life the prophet Jeremiah was bound and beaten by the religious and political powers of his day, and yet he refused to recant what the Lord had sent him to say because his hope was in God. He was sure of what he hoped for because he hoped for what is sure, no matter the cost or consequence. His desire was not for the pleasures of this world but for the treasures of God, and therefore he rejected the easy way and embraced the way of the Lord. Jeremiah was tortured by faith to the glory of God. He was not lacking faith, quite the contrary, he was full of faith in the faithfulness of God and this is what enabled him to endure.

Like Jeremiah, some lived by faith and endured mocking and flogging and chains and imprisonment. By faith some had rocks and stones thrown at them to the point of death. By faith some were actually sawn in two. By faith some did not escape from the edge of the sword but rather were killed by the edge of the sword. Beloved, these people these people were conquered by faith to the glory of God. Their faith did not falter, their lives were not failures, rather, they trusted in the Lord all the way to the point of death and one day they will surely wear the crown of life to the glory of Christ.

Still others were not killed by the saw or the sword but by faith they were forced to live in very difficult circumstances. By faith they dressed in the skins of sheep and goats rather than normal clothing because they had been marginalized and had no other choice. By faith they lived without money or earthly possessions. By faith they were destitute and afflicted and mistreated by the powers and peoples of the world. By faith they had no homes of their own but were forced to wander about in the deserts and mountains. By faith they dwelt in caves and even holes in the ground, which is the more literal translation of the end of verse 38. Yes, the author of Hebrews tells us that some people burrowed into the earth like animals and remained there for a time because that’s the price they had to pay for walking by faith in the faithfulness of God.

Beloved, the world counts these people as losers and failures, but in truth they lived by faith and they are commendable in God’s sight. They trusted in the presence and promises of God to the point where they had nothing left but their joy in him. The world despised and rejected them, but the Lord bears another testimony about them. In essence, the Lord says in verse 38, “This world is not even worthy to be in the presence of these precious people. They trusted in me, they believed my words, they hoped in my promises, they chose the treasures of my Kingdom over the pleasures of this world, and therefore they were willing to suffer anything that they might gain me and exalt me in the sight of others. The world despises and rejects them but I, the Lord, will greatly exalt them to the glory of Christ because they loved and trusted me above all things.” 

The Reformation (15th-16th Centuries)

I envision the era of the Reformation commencing with the life and works of Martin Luther and concluding sometime near the end of the Reformation. I say this tongue in cheek, however I must hasten to add that it is as difficult to mark the end of the Reformation as it is to explain the movement because in some profound ways the Reformation is still alive and well. Semper Reformanda was not just the cry of a generation but a vision of life in Christ that has persisted to this day, and all the more in light of the fact that the official teaching of the Catholic Church, though far removed from the days of Leo X, is yet a long way from a biblical soteriology and ecclesiology.

Having said that, David Larsen envisions the century following the Reformation (chronologically defined) as “the ripening maturity of biblical preaching” (Larsen, 199-248). I find this description both accurate and helpful in that the seventeenth century presents us not with novel developments but with maturing movements that have their roots in the Renaissance and late medieval period. Thus, I suppose I will roughly define the limits of the Reformation from the day Martin Luther nailed his ninety-seven theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg to somewhere near the dawn of the seventeenth century.

The Reformation is an extraordinarily complex movement that exploded in the midst of an extraordinarily convulsive time of history. It is the result of an intricate nexus of historical factors such as the Great Schism and the Conciliatory Movement of the eleventh century; the growing secularization and corruption of the Roman Catholic Church; the burgeoning intellectual developments of the Renaissance and humanism; the various and serious doctrinal challenges that were confronting a church that could no longer suppress the ideas of its opponents; the decline of feudalism and the corollary destabilization of Europe and therefore the better part of the world; the technological advances that brought forth the printing press and modes of travel that allowed Europeans to venture out and encounter strange and foreign peoples along with their ideas and their gods; the Black Death which in the last forty years of the fourteenth century alone killed some 30-50% of the population of Europe so that the world’s population is said to have decreased from about 450 million to 350 million people by A.D. 1400 (McManners, 326-329).

This web of historical phenomena (and more) gave rise to an era of reforming movements which came from top and bottom, rich and poor. There were in fact many “reformations” prior to the Reformation so that we must envision even the Catholic Counter-Reformation as part and parcel of a long history that reaches back beyond the life of Martin Luther. There had been a very long struggle between those who knew and sought after God and longed for the church to fulfill her calling, and those who sought to use the church for personal or political purposes. The difference in the sixteenth century is that the rhetoric was applied, the talk became action, and the action became revolution—exactly why this is so and why this explosion occurred when it did is a bit of a mystery. Perhaps God had grown impatient with his unfaithful Bride.

With regard to the history of hermeneutics and homiletics, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Ulrich Zwingli and other leading lights of the era were agreed in their rejection of the allegorical method and the mysticism that had developed because of it. “We would not be exaggerating greatly if we described the progress of biblical exegesis as the gradual abandonment of allegorical interpretation” (Silva, 52), and this progress gained massive momentum in the sixteenth century. Indeed, the Reformers passionately argued for the primacy of “the plain meaning of Scripture,” and its general perspicuity, which implied, among other things, that the common Christian could understand the Bible and should thus have it available in a language they could understand. Underneath this conviction was the belief in the priesthood of all believers who as such had a right to private interpretation in the context of Christian community.

Furthermore, the Reformers rejected Aquinas’s articulation of nature and grace, and thus blew the trumpet of grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone to the glory of God alone on the basis of Scripture alone. They believed, as did the early church, that the appropriate context for the interpretation, proclamation, and application of the Word of God is the church, and in this way consciously dealt another blow to the remaining vestiges of Scholasticism and the more minor movements it spawned.

As Silva has aptly noted, “It is no exaggeration to say that the sixteenth-century Reformation was, at bottom, a hermeneutical revolution” (Silva, 77), and revolution is not too strong a word. By the grace and power of God, this generation of faithful believers turned the world upside-down mainly by returning to a more orthodox view of the Word of God which they then courageously applied to their social context in a number of ways. Surely, God had ripened the times for men and women such as these, and surely there have been those in every age who have been faithful to God and boldly stood for truth, and surely the heroes of the Reformation were hopelessly flawed and broken and made countless errors which were at times tragic and egregious. Yet we can and should celebrate the days in which God caused the various chains thrown upon his Word to be loosed again.

To get a feel for the careful position on Scripture carved out by some of the Reformers of this era, consider the following statement taken from The Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 1, Paragraph VII:

"The Old Testament in Hebrew (which was the native language of the people of God of old), and the New Testament in Greek (which, at the time of the writing of it, was most generally known to the nations), being immediately inspired by God, and, by His singular care and providence, kept pure in all ages, are therefore authentical; so as, in all controversies of religion, the Church is finally to appeal unto them. But, because these original tongues are not known to all the people of God, who have right unto, and interest in the Scriptures, and are commanded, in the fear of God, to read and search them, therefore they are to be translated in to the vulgar language of every nation unto which they come, that, the Word of God dwelling plentifully in all, they may worship Him in an acceptable manner; and, through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, may have hope." 

This masterful statement clearly communicates that while the Reformers sought to make a clean break with the abuse of tradition, they did not desire to break with the tradition itself (Silva, 96). Rather, they reached back over time, to Antioch and Augustine, and affirmed a view and use of Scripture that has indeed caused the Word of God to dwell more plentifully among the peoples of the earth.

We should not be surprised that the return to a more biblical view of Scripture and its uses led to a renaissance of biblical preaching of which we are direct heirs. As Larsen has noted, the “Protestant Reformation…must be seen as one of the most fertile and forceful times of biblical preaching” because the “Reformers subscribed to a view of scriptural authority which made biblical preaching a necessity” (Larsen, 142). If the Bible is the living Word of God, and if God has commanded that Word to be proclaimed in all the world, then woe to the church if we do not preach the Word in season and out of season (2 Tim 4:1-5). To be sure, the church’s view of the Bible determines how the church will appropriate the Bible, and so we have need to give thanks to God for those faithful servants who have handed down to us a more orthodox view of the Bible. 

Delighting in the Word of God: Studying the Word

Psalm 111 begins with a call to and declaration of praise. “Praise the Lord! I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart, in the company of the upright, in the congregation” (111:1). But the question is this: why is the Psalmist so eager to give thanks to the Lord that he promises to do so in the midst of a worship gathering and also calls on others to join him? The answer is found in verse 2. “Great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who delight in them” (111:2). The reason the Psalmist is so jubilant is because the Lord is so great, and he has revealed his greatness through his works. From this we learn that the works of the Lord make the greatness of the Lord visible, but because his primary works are contained in his Word, we must study his Word to delight in his works.

The Hebrew word for “study” means “to frequently return to a place” so that one becomes intimately familiar with it. So, to study the Word of God is to regularly return to a particular place until we gain insight into the works of God and grow in love for God himself. Indeed, delighting in the Lord begins with hearing and reading his Word, but it deepens and grows as we repeatedly go to his Word and seek to understand what he has done.

As the Psalmist delighted in the works of the Lord, he came to see five ways in which they reveal his greatness. First, the works of the Lord are full of the glory of the Lord, displaying his righteousness, faithfulness, and mercy. “Full of splendor and majesty is his work, and his righteousness endures forever. He has caused his wondrous works to be remembered; the Lord is gracious and merciful” (111:3-4). Second, the works of the Lord reveal the compassionate provision of the Lord for his people, and his enduring commitment to them. “He provides food for those who fear him; he remembers his covenant forever” (111:5).

Third, the works of the Lord reveal the more ultimate purposes of the Lord. “He has shown his people the power of his works, in giving them the inheritance of the nations” (111:6). Fourth, one of the works of the Lord is the granting of his words which are to be understood and obeyed. “The works of his hands are faithful and just; all his precepts are trustworthy; they are established forever and ever, to be performed with faithfulness and uprightness” (111:7-8). Finally, the works of the Lord reveal the gospel. “He sent redemption to his people; he has commanded his covenant forever. Holy and awesome is his name!” (111:9) 

The Psalmist achieved these insights by carefully studying the Word, and we can achieve similar insights by doing the same thing each day. As the Psalmist concludes, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding. His praise endures forever!” (111:10) So, let us delight in the works of the Lord by studying his Word.

Living by Faith: Conquering by Faith

In the last post in this series, I said that the end of Hebrews 11 teaches us that while the heart of our faith is the same (trusting in the faithfulness of God), the outcome of our faith is not the same. Indeed, when we carefully consider verses 33-38, we see that some conquered by faith in God and others were conquered by faith in God. That is, while each group of people listened to the Lord, followed in his ways , and bore his fruit, the specifics of their lives with God were at times polar opposite.

So, if you’ll look at verses 33-35 you’ll see that, on the one hand, certain people of faith trusted in the Lord and conquered kingdoms. By faith they established and enforced God’s system of justice in the lands they conquered, and that wasn’t such an easy thing to do. By faith they obtained certain promises that God had made to them along the way. By faith they shut the mouths of lions, not by their own prowess but by the grace and strength of the Lord. By faith they surrendered themselves to the fires of persecution and overcame those fires by the miraculous power of God. By faith they escaped the edge of the sword when at times they were vastly outnumbered by their enemies and had no earthly hope. They really should have died but God was for them and no one could stand against them. By faith they were made strong when every bone in their body felt so incredibly weak. By faith they became mighty in war. By faith they put foreign armies to flight, not by their strength or strategies but by the power and presence of God.

All of these people looked to the Lord and listened to him and trusted in him and obeyed his commands and believed his promises, and God won the victory for them. As King David wrote, “Some trust in chariots and some trust in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God” (Psalm 20:7). King David was a king; he had chariots and horses and all the accoutrements of war at his fingertips, and yet he knew that his hope was in the Lord and not in these things. This is why he wrote again, “With God we shall do valiantly, it is he who will tread down our foes” (Psalm 60:12, emphasis mine). King David knew as well as anyone has ever known that it is the power and presence of God rather than the techniques of war that conquer the day. As the prophet Zechariah later wrote, “This is the word of the Lord...Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts” (Zechariah 4:6). Indeed, Beloved, some conquered by faith to the glory of God. They did it by trusting in God’s specific words, and along the way they found him to be faithful.

In fact, the author tells us that even before Jesus Christ walked this earth and lived and died and rose again, some of the women of old received back their dead by resurrection. For example, once there was a widow who had a child by way of a miracle. When that child had grown up, he was out working in the field one day and became sick. His sickness was strange, no one really knew what was going on, so they sent him home and there he died. In her grief, his mother cried out to God and then did the only thing she could think to do, namely, she called for the prophet Elijah to come and pray for him.

When Elijah arrived, he spent some time with the Lord and then prayed for the child in a most unusual way. The text is so graphic. It says that he laid his body upon the child’s body, and his eyes upon the child’s eyes, and his lips upon the child’s lips, and his hands upon the child’s hands. When he had finished praying, he arose and walked about the house, returning a second time to pray over the child in the exact same way. As he prayed the second time, the child’s body began to warm and he suddenly sneezed not once but seven times; oh how glorious those sneezes must have been! Beloved, every person in and around that house knew that the child had been dead. He wasn’t simply passed out or otherwise comatose: he was dead. And by faith, by the grace and power of God Almighty, that child rose up and came back to life, glory be to God!

This is such a powerful story, but we must understand that Elijah didn’t create this technique on his own or learn it at a prayer seminar. Instead, we read in 2 Kings 4 that Elijah did what he did because first he prayed and then he obeyed. Now there’s a principle we can live by—Elijah first prayed and then he obeyed. Elijah sought the Lord and asked what he should do, and in his good time the Lord instructed him to lay his body on the child’s body and witness the power of God.

Now, it was great news that this child was raised from death to life and for this we should still give glory to God. However, I believe that the Lord was up to greater things than this. In fact, I think that this story might be the most graphic prophecy of resurrection in the entire Old Testament. One day, in the far distant future, the Lord Jesus Christ would come to this earth and live and die and be raised again from death, and then he would ascend to the right hand of the Father where he would become the resurrection and the life for all who believe in him.

Like Elijah, Jesus would place his body on their bodies, and his eyes on their eyes, and his lips on their lips, and his hands on their hands, and his mind on their minds, and his heart on their hearts, and his soul on their souls. Indeed, Jesus would wrap his being around their being and become their resurrection. He would become their life. Jesus does not give resurrection to those who believe in him, rather, he is resurrection for those who believe in him. Jesus does not give life to those who believe in him, rather, he is life for those who believe in him.

Elijah may or may not have been aware of the greater things God was doing in and through him as he prayed for that child, but one way or the other he did what he did by faith and God gained much glory for himself. Elijah prayed and then obeyed. He sought instruction from the Lord, he believed the specific words of the Lord, and he acted accordingly. Some received their children back from death by faith to the glory of God. Beloved, all of the great victories of verses 33-35 came to pass by faith, not by the wisdom or might or prowess of men and women. These things came to pass as real people like you and me put their hope in the words of God and found him to be faithful. Some conquered by faith to the glory of Christ but others had a different experience. More on that next week!

Late Middle Ages (13th-15th Centuries)

I envision the late middle ages commencing with the life and work of Thomas Aquinas and concluding with the life and work of Marin Luther. It is beyond the scope of this blog to adequately summarize and analyze the works and influence of Aquinas and his relationship to Augustine. I can say that Scholasticism eventuated in a novel and formal separation between hermeneutics and homiletics as the former increasingly became the purview of the academy and was thus increasingly approached as a science rather than as a spiritual discipline. As for the Bible, “Before the twelfth century, the Bible had been a monastic text; now it became a professional text for clergy and their teachers” (Chris Ocker, in McKim, 20).

This unfortunate development combined with the development of natural theology, spelled disaster for the Scholastic movement, and to some extent for the church. Without going into the details, the influence of Aristotle upon Aquinas led him to advance the already extant idea of the division between nature and grace such that, by means of general grace, the natural world and philosophy became valid sources of revelation right alongside the Word of God and theology. “Aquinas recognized that salvation was dependent upon revelation, but he also fixed the relationship of theology to natural philosophy” (Goldsworthy, 112). So, this idea was not new with him, but it became entrenched through his work.

One of the implications of this teaching was what Aquinas called the analogia entis (analogy of being) by which he and the Scholastics argued that the Creator and his creation, particularly humanity, are bound in an ontological union so that the knowledge of God, in some senses, does not require revelation. Because of the effects of sin, this knowledge must be aided by grace but, for Aquinas, human beings remain fundamentally united with God. This does not mean that we have no need of salvation through Christ, but it does mean that human thought has the potential of being a valid source for revelation (see Goldsworthy, 101-119).

In this way, the Catholic Church came to believe in, and promote, a “twofold way of grace and nature in virtue of revelation on the one side and of a ‘profound structural similarity between nature and supernature’ on the other, i.e., through the operation of a twofold alliance, the one set up by the participation of the creature in being and the other by the restitution effected in the reconciliation in Jesus Christ” (Jacques de Senarclens in Goldsworthy, 113).

This teaching formed an ideal launching pad for the Renaissance and the humanism that was endemic to it. The belief that humanity was not hopelessly fallen but instead capable of being conduits of revelation gave rise to a spirit that may have seemed liberating and joy-producing, but was in fact a form of idolatry and rebellion (see Goldsworthy, 101-119). And this spirit did in fact relegate the Bible to a secondary place in western culture such as had not been seen since the days of Constantine. The veneer was there but the core was rotting.

Yet God is faithful, and along the way he sent many servants to seek his face, love his Word, and proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ with joy, boldness, and good effect. Among them were the early Mendicant Friars, John Wycliffe, John Huss, and Girolamo Sirvonarola each of whom was used of God, in one way or another, to “punch holes in the darkness” of this era (Larsen, 128; see also, 95-139; Brown, 3-31).

Delighting in the Word of God: Reading the Word

The Bible assumes that God is, and it teaches that God created all things to reveal his glory to all creation. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge” (Psalm 19:1-2).

Further, the Bible displays and declares that God has spoken in order to reveal his character, his thoughts, his affections, his actions, and his purposes and plans for creation. “And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken” (Isaiah 40:5).

It is glorious enough that God created in order to reveal himself, but it is glorious beyond compare that God has spoken in order to make himself known to humankind, the pinnacle of his creation. Since our Creator has spoken to us, our greatest privilege and obligation in life is to listen to what he has said. Listening begins by hearing the words of God read and preached on their own terms, and it deepens by picking up a Bible and reading those words for ourselves day by day. As we do, we reap many rewards, including the following three things.

First, reading the Bible day by day is a practical way of putting God first and loving him most. Above all things, the Lord calls on people to love him with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, for when he takes his proper place in our lives, all other people and things take their proper places as well. There is no better way to display that his command is our desire than listening to what he has to say day by day.

Second, reading the Bible day by day is a simple way of getting to know our heavenly Father. Since the words of God reveal the character, thinking, feelings, actions, purposes, promises, and plans of God, they help us not only to learn things about him but to actually know him. In other words, reading the words of God is not simply a matter of learning facts about God, rather, it is about developing an intimate knowledge of God.

Third, reading the Bible day by day is the best way to grow in our knowledge of the gospel that we might receive the grace of God in Christ and walk in the ways of Christ. “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:8-10).

Beloved, the rewards of reading the Bible day by day are great, and plans for doing so abound (see www.navigators.org). I urge you, then, to choose a plan and read the words of God that you might come to know God, love God, and walk in his ways.

Living by Faith: The Varied Outcomes of Faith

From Hebrews 11:3-31, the author has drawn our attention to creation, Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, and Rahab. And though he could continue drawing our attention to one biblical figure after another, he’s dealing with certain constraints and so he simply writes this in verse 32: “And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets...”

Why the author mentions these specific people, I’m not really sure and I’m not sure it really matters. Rather, I think his desire is simply to say this, and please allow me to embellish. “Beloved, I could go on and bring to your attention many people who trusted in the faithfulness of God and found him to be faithful. By the grace of God, these people received and believed the commandments and promises of the Lord, and they discovered along the way that he does everything he says he’s going to do. They were not superheroes, rather, they were men and women just like you and me, and the thing that sets them apart is their faith in the faithfulness of God. It’s not so much that they were great but that they trusted in a God who is great. Indeed, these people are commended by God himself because they trusted in God and nothing else.”

Now, as we carefully consider the lives of the people that the author goes on to describe beginning in verse 33, we discover something strange and glorious: the outcome of their faith on this earth, the practical results of their way of life, were not always the same. In fact, they were radically different. Some of these people achieved great things and won great victories by faith to the glory of Christ. Others of them suffered great things and lost great battles by faith to the glory of Christ. Some of them conquered by faith, and some of them were conquered by faith. But all of them brought glory to God because all of them listened to the Lord and did what he commanded them to do, by his grace and power, even though they didn’t experience the same earthly results. They were successful in this life because they trusted in the Lord no matter what the cost or consequence, not because things always went well for them.

In the next two posts in this series, I’ll say a few things about both groups of people, but for now I want to encourage you to seriously contemplate this before the Lord: living by faith will not produce the same outcome for every person because God’s will is not the same for every person. Indeed, the heart of living by faith is loving the Lord, listening to his words and will, and then following in his ways whether in victory or defeat, triumph or tragedy, celebration or mourning.

Hermeneutics and Homiletics: Early Middle Ages (5th-13th Centuries)

I envision the era of the early middle ages commencing with the life and works of Augustine, and concluding with the life and works of Thomas Aquinas who was the leading light among the Scholastics. Indeed, after Augustine, there is little novel work until Aquinas, if there is any at all, for through his writings, and especially On Christian Doctrine, his hermeneutical method grew in prominence until it became the norm. This does not mean that every exegete in the early middle ages unthinkingly embraced Augustine, but it does mean that whatever smatterings of alternatives there were failed to gain a foothold.

In some ways, this was a good thing but it eventuated in a subtle and growing division between exegesis and spirituality so that the former was envisioned as proper to the literal sense of Scripture and the latter as proper to the spiritual senses of Scripture. “It follows that so long as this conception of Bible studies holds good, we shall have many commentaries containing little exegesis” (Smalley, 2). And for this era, this is indeed the case.

In fact, after the death of Remigius of Auxerre, about 908, there is no important commentary, and a dearth of even compilations, for about a century and a quarter. Holy abbots, as their biographers tell us, were still devoted to lectio divina, and we have unverifiable references to their study of Hebrew; they left very little written exegesis. The cathedral schools, which were improving their organization at this time, did as little for biblical studies as the monastic. It is a dramatic pause in the history of Bible studies and we should miss its significance if we explained it away as the demoralizing effect of war and Viking invasion. They certainly made scholarship difficult; but the real reason was a shift of interest. The Cluniac and other tenth-century religious reformers emphasized the liturgy at the expense of study (Smalley, 44-45).

This was a tragic development, but God is faithful. Among other lesser movements, the early twelfth century Victorines, led by Hugh, Richard, and Andrew of Saint Victor in France, revived the discussion of hermeneutics and insisted that though the Bible does contain a literal sense and an allegorical (or spiritual) sense, the former is more important than, and is the foundation of, the latter. “Hugh patiently explains that the literal sense is not the word, but what it means; it may have a figurative meaning; and this belongs to the literal sense. To despise the literal sense is to despise the whole of sacred literature” (Smalley, 93). Hugh’s “great service to exegesis was to lay more stress on the literal interpretation relatively to the spiritual, and to develop the sources for it” (Smalley, 102).

With this revived articulation of what was essentially Antiochene hermeneutics (though Hugh would not have known or said that), also came a fusion of spirituality and scholarship. Previous to this time, a division had developed between monks who prayed and scholars who studied. Now, along with several other movements (or Orders, as they were called), the Victorines sought to combine robust spirituality with disciplined scholarship. They succeeded in this endeavor so that the following generation, led by the trifecta of Peter Comestor, Peter the Chanter, and Stephen Langton, spent their lives promoting and prospering this “novel” approach (Smalley, 196).

In this way, the Victorine program made practices such as lectio divina acceptable to Paris intellectuals who then pressed their approach into what was essentially an academic lecture course. This was truly novel in history of the west, and eventually gave rise to such leading lights as Anselm and Ralph of Laon who made the first concerted effort toward a systematic theology and provided the inspiration and impetus for Thomas Aquinas’s mammoth Summa Theologica (Smalley, 49, 196).

Movements like the Victorines, then, provided the impetus for the development of universities where the Bible, spirituality, and the natural world were approached in an increasingly intellectual manner. This development, called Scholasticism, was further fueled by historic movements that forced prominent scholars to flee from the east and settle in the west, bringing with them vital, ancient texts that had been all but lost to the west. Among these works were the writings of Aristotle which were banned and burned by the church, but which were eventually enshrined in the official teaching of the church via the writings of Aquinas. In Aristotle, Aquinas saw a model for envisioning the world and organizing truth that was, to his mind, superior to Plato. Aquinas did not reject Augustine (who admired Plato), but he astutely modified Augustine’s approach.

Delighting in the Word of God: Hearing the Word

The ancient charge that God gave to Israel still applies to his people today. The Lord said to them, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Deuteronomy 6:4). To hear the Lord is to listen to his words and take them to heart that we might love him with everything in us and walk in his ways. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart” (6:5-6).

In one sense, the Lord commanded his people to hear his words because they were, for the most part, illiterate people who could not read them. But in another sense, he commanded them to hear his words because he made people in his image to be part of a living, loving relationship with him. Even as a loving father speaks to his children and makes his heart and desires known, so the Lord speaks to his people and makes his glory, will, and ways known. Even as a loving child will listen, trust, and obey her father, so the people of God are called to lovingly listen, trust, and obey their God.

Then, as God’s people learn to hear his heart and walk in his ways, they’re called to diligently teach those ways to those with whom the Lord has given them influence. “You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise” (6:7). In other words, they’re called to be like their heavenly Father and teach his will and ways to others. They’re called to enter so deeply into his love and wisdom that they live to spread a passion for his glory and purposes.

Since this life-giving process begins with hearing the words of God, his people are to do what they must to remind themselves to listen to him day by day. “You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates” (6:8-9). These instructions are not so much about the particulars as they are about this principle: remind yourself to listen and then listen!

Listen to the words of God by reading them aloud in worship services, in smaller gatherings, at home, and even at work. Listen to the words of God by taking advantage of audio Bibles or Bible apps like You Version. Listen to the words of God by sitting under expository preaching where the Bible is explained, illuminated, and applied to life. But whatever you do, remind yourself to listen and then listen!

As you do, I have one more word of wisdom for you. While it’s good to listen to large portions of the Bible and a variety of expository sermons, its better to listen to less and do more with what you hear. Train yourself to listen well, understand the meaning, and apply what you’ve heard to life. Remember that loving obedience is the goal of regular hearing.

Living by Faith: The Faith of Rahab

Over the last three posts in this series, I’ve summarized Moses’ and Joshua's lives of faith as described in Hebrews 11:23-30 in the form of a “first-person narrative,” that is, I’ve essentially spoken as though I was Moses. Along the way, I’ve taken some creative and interpretive license, but this was not an attempt to add to the words of the Bible, rather, it was an attempt to help us better hear, understand, and believe the Bible. Today I will continue this form of narration by creatively summarizing a crucial moment in Rahab's live of faith as described in Hebrews 11:31, “By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies."

When Joshua finished speaking, he joyfully took his seat and invited his friend Rahab to rise and speak. “Hello, everyone, as Joshua said, my name is Rahab and I just want to speak a few words. When Israel crossed the Jordan by the power of God and under the leadership of Joshua, I heard about what the Lord was about to do in our land and my heart feared him. But it was a strange fear. I did feel in danger and I didn’t want to die, but I also felt in awe of this God who had moved in Egypt and then on the eastern side of Jordan and now in our very midst. Though I find it hard to explain, I can only say that I wanted to know him. Praise be to his name, the Lord saw my heart and he was so kind to me. I don’t mind telling you that at the time I was a prostitute who sold my body for money. I was an object to men and a wretch to myself, but in his loving-kindness the Lord sent his servants to me, I was kind to them, and they spared me.

“Believe it or not, the Lord made me to be the great-great-grandmother of David the King of Israel! Can you believe that? The Lord made me—Rahab the prostitute—to be Rahab the distant grandmother of the Lord Jesus Christ, and this because I simply listened to his speech through his servants, did exactly what I was told to do by faith, and then sat back and watched the Lord move in grace and power. 

"O Beloved, the time will come when I will tell you many more stories, but just before you re-engage in your own battle of faith, I want to say that our God is great and gracious, and that all of his promises are true. All that the Lord says he will surely do, so listen to him, believe him, cling to his words, and live by faith. If you will look to him, he will show himself faithful to you, and one day you will join us, the mighty throng who lives to give glory to him who is steadfast in love and faithful to all his words. Thank you, and glory be to God!”

Hermeneutics and Homiletics: The Early Church (1st-5th Centuries), Part 2

As I mentioned in the last post in this series, Origen of Alexandria exercised an extraordinary influence over western exegesis by developing and promoting a Christianized version of the allegorical method of interpretation. While his erudition and production of materials is laudable, his philosophy was and is contrary to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Therefore, as he grew in influence, a counter-movement arose in Syrian Antioch (north of Jerusalem near the Mediterranean coast) to defend the gospel that it might continue to be proclaimed throughout the earth.

About one century before Origen rose to prominence, Theophilus of Antioch developed a Christianized approach to hermeneutics that would pave the way for a sound response to him. This approach was more influenced by Jewish exegesis, and to a lesser extent Aristotle, than by Philo, Plato, and Hellenistic allegorization.

On the basis of that approach, Diodore of Antioch issued a penetrating critique of, and alternative to, the allegorical method in a key work entitled, What is the Difference Between Contemplation [theoria] and Allegory? In this work, Diodore rejects the excesses of Alexandria but not everything that came out of Alexandria. That is, his work was more corrective than divisive. Then, for example, in his introduction to the Psalms, he distinguished between historia (the historical background), lexis (the literal sense), theoria (the fuller sense that is discerned through careful exegesis, understanding of the lexis, and contemplation), and allegory. He rejected allegory as a valid method of interpretation because in actual practice the proponents thereof tended to divorce the allegorical sense from the literal sense and thus do violence to the text. He did, however, retain the spiritual sense (theoria) because, in agreement with the broad consensus of the church, he argued that there is indeed more to the Scripture than the plain meaning of the words. But this “more” is always inseparably united with the literal sense so that one may build upon the literal but one may not go beyond the literal.

One convenient way of summarizing the difference between these two schools of thought is this: whereas Alexandria looked at Scripture and saw two meanings, Antioch looked at Scripture and saw a double-meaning (Goldsworthy, 98). The former often tends toward flights of fancy, while the latter preserves the vital relationship between type and antitype without making mincemeat of the literal sense (see Bray, 105-107; Dockery, 103-128; Hall, 156-176).

Unfortunately, there were some at Antioch who pushed the literal sense too far and also made mincemeat of the Scripture and Christian theology. Most important among these is perhaps Nestorius whose Christology was rightly rejected as heresy, and whose shadow largely spoiled what otherwise would have been the lasting legacy of Antioch. But God is faithful, and he caused leading lights such as Athanasius, Jerome, and Augustine to rise up and correct the excesses of Alexandria as well. Augustine in particular, though he did not go as far as I would have liked in rejecting allegorization, popularized a modified approach to hermeneutics and homiletics that would guide the church for centuries to come.

Following the lead of John Cassian (Dockery, 158), Augustine argued for four senses of Scripture: the literal, the allegorical, the tropological (moral), and the anagogical (eschatological). For him, this meant that there is a fourfold meaning to every text that, on the foundation of the literal, expresses faith, love, and hope. He insisted on the importance of the literal, and though he sometimes strayed from his own principles and sadly misinterpreted this or that text, he was eminently more faithful to the text than Origen. His approach dominated the world of hermeneutics and homiletics throughout the middle ages, so much so that the entire era seems to be a series of footnotes on Augustine.

Reflecting on the era of the early church as a whole, Hall helpfully articulates four lessons we should learn from them: on the whole, (1) they read the Bible holistically as one book in two testaments, (2) they read the Bible Christologically as a singular message rooted in the person of Jesus, (3) they read the Bible in community, and (4) they read the Bible within the context of a life of prayer, worship, and spiritual formation (Hall, 191-200). We would indeed do well to humbly learn of them and follow their lead in these several ways.