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March 2, 2014 |
| Context | ||
We've often heard of the Bible being taken out of context. Usually this means that someone has taken one or two verses and come up with a novel understanding of them. The verses have been removed from their textual context, the other verses around them, the chapter they are in, the book they are from and even from the whole Bible. Yes, the interpretation of verses needs to be fit in the context of the whole Bible. Just as the Old Testament explains many things in the New Testament it is sometimes necessary to use other verses throughout the Bible to understand the meaning of one verse. But there is more to context than just textual context.
The events of Jesus' time cannot be fully understood without understanding Jesus' time. The people of Israel at that time had a culture, a language, a view of their world, a past history and a present situation. Jesus life and ministry occurs within this framework and is shaped by it and therefore often requires an understanding of that framework to understand the message.
The people of Jesus time were fishermen, shepherds, farmers, carpenters, priests, wine makers, and so on. In most cases these were family run businesses. Most were small but in other cases they were large and employed people outside of their families. From all of these groups Jesus drew his parables and teaching examples.
Many things about their lives were not that different from our own. People had to work for a living. They married and had children. There were evil people as well; those who lived by stealing and murdering.
There were many differences, however. For example their families were larger and their extended families usually lived together. This affects their values and sense of community.
All of these and many more form the linguistic, cultural, and historical context within which Jesus' message exists. This is true not just for Jesus' time but for all the times in the Bible. In this lesson we will look at a few places in the Bible where context is important to understanding the message.
In John 8:58 we read of an event that doesn't make sense unless the context is understood. Jesus is speaking with the religious leaders
56 "Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad."
57 "You are not yet fifty years old," they said to him, "and you have seen Abraham!"
58 "Very truly I tell you," Jesus answered, "before Abraham was born, I am!" 59 At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.
Without understanding the context it appears that the religious leaders are irrational. Jesus has told them something about Moses that only a close confident would know. They tell him he isn't old enough to have known Moses. Jesus says that he existed before Abraham and they respond by trying to kill him by stoning him. Their response seems excessive and unjustified.
It doesn't make sense until you understand that Jesus used a special wording of "I am" which was generally reserved for words from God. Therefore he was claiming to be God but in a way that was not direct enough for charges of blasphemy to be made against him.
This form of "I am" is a feature of the Aramaic language Jesus spoke and also of Hebrew. In English we have nothing like this so the meaning of what Jesus said cannot be translated. It is only through understanding the context that we can recover that meaning.
The word "son" has many meanings in Hebrew where it is "ben" and Aramaic where it is "bar". Strong's Concordance lists about 20 meanings and sub-meanings for it. In English we use the word "son" in much more limited ways and so it can be difficult to understand what the Bible is saying in some places.
1. Male child, born of a woman. One meaning we share in common is that a son is a male child who has been born of a mother and father.
2. Cousins. We don't refer to our cousins as sons
3. Term of kindliness or endearment. Instead of using the word "son" here we are more likely to use an expression like "he was like a son to me". The apostle Paul speaks of Timothy this way.
4. Children or youth generally, both male and female. In the south we sometimes use "son" or "boy" in a similar way but in these cases it is mostly used to convey the status of an elder to one who is younger.
5. Descendents. In the Bible it is common for the Israelites to refer to themselves as sons of Abraham or sons of Israel even when they are more than 1000 years removed from Abraham and Israel. When they do, they are expressing a biological descendence that may cross many generations. We don't use the word "son" like this. We would use words like grandfather or great-great-grandfather, but when the generational distance becomes too great we usually just say "relative".
6. Inhabitants, membership in a nation, people, land, or city. An example would be to say that Jesus was a son of Bethlehem, meaning that he was born there. That's how we are more likely to express the same idea, as a birth place. We do use "son" this way in very limited cases, one is war. We might refer to sending our sons off to war or as our war dead as being the country's sons.
7. Member of a guild, order, or class. An example of this comes from the book of Daniel where King Nebuchadnezzar throws Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego into the fiery furnace and sees a fourth person walking around with them. Nebuchadnezzar describes that fourth person as "being like a son of god". Some people misunderstand that and think that he is saying he sees the Son of God, as we understand him. Nebuchadnezzar doesn't describe exactly what he sees but we understand him to mean that the fourth person had an appearance that was greater than an ordinary man in some way. Nebuchadnezzar is saying the fourth person is one of the gods.
We don't use the word "son" this way much in the present but we have in the past. We see it in the names of groups like "Sons of the Republic of Texas", and "Daughters of the Revolution".
8. Relative of age. An example of this would be to say that he is a son of 50 years - which means he was 50 years old. We don't ever use "son" in this way.
These are just a few of the ways that "son" is used in the Bible, but they give some idea of the breadth of meaning the word has.
One of the cases in the Bible where the meaning of "son" is not made clear come from the Angel's message to Mary that she will have a son. From Luke 1 the angel says many things about her son-to-be one of which is this from verse 32
32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.
Mary has been told that he will be called the son of God but she would not have been natural for her to understand that he was the Son of God. Note that the angel said he would be called the Son of the Most High; he didn't say he would be the Son of the most high.
Although there are many subtle hints in the Old Testament that there is a trinity, Jews at the time believed God was one person (they still do). Any other claim would have been seen as heresy
Mary probably understood that her son would be the Messiah but the Jews were not expecting the Messiah to be God and especially not the Son of God. They were expecting a great man, like a Joshua, who would lead them to overcome the Romans and make Israel a great country again. The prophecies about the Messiah were not clear on that. Remember also that Isaiah said the Messiah would be called Immanuel - meaning God is with us. Jews took that prophecy to mean that, with the Messiah, God would be helping them as he had in the past.
We do not know what the Holy Spirit had reveled to Mary about who and what her son would be. But without a special revelation no Jew had a way to understand that the angel was saying Mary's son would be the actual Son of God. This is also shown in Luke chapter 2 where the shepherds have heard the angel's message and have gone into Bethlehem to see the child
16 And they came quickly and they found [Mary] and [Joseph] and the baby who was lying in a manger. 17 And when they had seen, they made known the words that had been spoken with them about the boy. 18 And all who heard marveled concerning those things that were spoken to them by the shepherds. 19 But [Mary] was keeping all these words and was pondering in her heart.
Mary is trying to figure out all of this, trying to put the pieces together. She may be wondering why the angels are making such a fuss over her baby. She doesn't understand who Jesus is and will be yet.
Even when Jesus was 12, Mary and Joseph do not understand who he is. We see this in Luke 2:49-51.
49 He said to them, "Why were you looking for me? Do you not know that it was fitting for me to be in my Father's house?" 50 But they did not understand the statement that he spoke to them. 51 And he went down with them and he came to Nazareth, and he was submitted to them; but his mother was keeping all these words in her heart.
Summarizing this section then, we see many parts of their culture that we need to understand, things like how they view the world and interpret events around them. Specifically we see
People of Biblical times also had a very different understanding of travel and time than we do. In fact, our perception of time and travel was largely the same as theirs until 100 years ago. For thousands of years the fastest form of travel was a horse but most people travelled on foot. What we now consider to be short trips took many days. Some distances were just too far to travel; others could be travelled but required many months.
The mode of our travel has changed and with it the time it takes to travel. With that our experience and expectations of travel have also changed more than we realize. When we travel now we expect a more or less point to point trip. When travelling in a car we expect to get in the car, step on the gas pedal, get out of the car and be at our destination. On really long trips we stop at a motel for a night or two.
Prior to the 100 year period that took us from horse and buggy to trains, cars, planes, jets, and spacecraft, the expectations of a long trip were quite different.
One result of these different expectations of travel was that travel was seen as a process and not just as point to point. It was also common to view life as a journey because it too consisted of many stops and interactions along the way.
One place we see this comes in various places in John 14 through John 16 when Jesus discusses going to his father. He doesn't mean that he will be going directly to his father as we might expect. As we look at all that happened after he spoke those words we see that these were the various steps on that journey
So after being in multiple courts, being whipped, crucified, and resurrected, all over a period of 40 days Jesus journey to his father is complete. He described this only as a journey to see his father. It was expected that many things would happen along the way.
The central messages of the Bible can be understood without understanding the context. There is, though, a great depth and richness to the Bible that can only be found by understanding the textual, linguistic, historical, and cultural context. Seek and you will find.