Reading Sacred Scripture: Voices from the History of Biblical Interpretation

By Stephen Westerholm and Martin Westerholm

 
A rich display of the Christian tradition’s reading of Scripture
 
Though well-known and oft-repeated, the advice to read the Bible “like any other book” fails to acknowledge that different books call for different kinds of reading. The voice of Scripture summons readers to hear and respond to its words as divine address. Not everyone chooses to read the Bible on those terms, but in Reading Sacred Scripture Stephen and Martin Westerholm (father and son) invite their readers to engage seriously with a dozen major Bible interpreters — ranging from the second century to the twentieth — who have been attentive to Scripture’s voice.
 
After expertly setting forth pertinent background context in two initial chapters, the Westerholms devote a separate chapter to each interpreter, exploring how these key Christian thinkers each understood Scripture and how it should be read. Though differing widely in their approaches to the text and its interpretation, these twelve select interpreters all insisted that the Bible is like no other book and should be read accordingly.
 
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Release date: Feb 8, 2016
• ISBN: 9781467445047

Stephen Westerholm

 Stephen Westerholm is professor emeritus of early Christianity at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario. His other books include Reading Sacred Scripture: Voices from the History of Biblical Interpretation (with Martin Westerholm), Justification Reconsidered: Rethinking a Pauline Theme, and Understanding Paul: The Early Christian Worldview of the Letter to the Romans.

Book preview

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Reading Sacred Scripture

Voices from the History

of Biblical Interpretation

Stephen Westerholm & Martin Westerholm

William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company

Grand Rapids, Michigan / Cambridge, U.K.

© 2016 Stephen Westerholm and Martin Westerholm

All rights reserved

Published 2016 by

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

2140 Oak Industrial Drive N.E., Grand Rapids, Michigan 49505 /

P.O. Box 163, Cambridge CB3 9PU U.K.

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Westerholm, Stephen, 1949-

Reading sacred scripture: voices from the history of biblical interpretation /

Stephen Westerholm & Martin Westerholm.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-8028-7229-6 (pbk.: alk. paper)

eISBN 978-1-4674-4551-1 (ePub)

eISBN 978-1-4674-4504-7 (Kindle)

1. Bible — Criticism, interpretation, etc. — History.

I. Title.

BS500.W445 2016

220.6 — dc23

2015034463

www.eerdmans.com

For Paul and Jill

ὑπηρέται τοῦ λόγου

Contents

Preface

1. The Voice of Scripture

2. Before the Christian Bible

3. Irenaeus

4. Origen

5. Chrysostom

6. Augustine

7. Aquinas

8. Luther

9. Calvin

10. The Pietists and Wesley

11. Schleiermacher

12. Kierkegaard

13. Barth

14. Bonhoeffer

15. Beyond the Sacred Page

Bibliography

Index of Authors

Index of Bible References

Preface

Some years ago, in reviewing a book with an enormous bibliography, the eminent New Testament scholar C. K. Barrett subtly suggested that the author might have been better served by wrestling with the relatively few books that are really important.¹ His point is surely well taken. We should all be grateful for reference works that introduce dozens, or even hundreds, of figures in the history of biblical interpretation; as need arises, we consult them. The authors of the present work, however, have adopted Barrett’s proposed approach, inviting readers to engage seriously in the study of a mere dozen of the more important interpreters of Christian Scripture, from the second century to the twentieth.

No dozen figures, however significant, can adequately represent the history of biblical interpretation or exhaust the approaches that have been taken to reading the sacred text; nor would any two informed readers think the same twelve figures most worthy of consideration. But selections have to be made, and no informed reader will doubt the importance of each of the interpreters treated here. The present project was begun by Stephen, who intended to write on ten figures — until he was told by a colleague that, however selective his undertaking, he could not omit Barth. That made sense, of course; but it also made sense, for one daunted by the prospect of tackling the Church Dogmatics, to invite the collaboration of Martin, who at the time was working intensively on Barth. Once on board, Martin agreed to treat Schleiermacher as well; the pairing with Barth is a natural one, given the way the latter used Schleiermacher as a foil for his own theology. But Schleiermacher merits study in his own right as one who profoundly influenced later Protestant thought.

Our project is clearly distinct from the several histories of critical scholarship on the Bible that have little or nothing to say on how the Bible was read prior to the seventeenth (or even the eighteenth) century. That story privileges those who programmatically read the Bible like any other book.² The interpreters here portrayed, though by no means uniform in their approaches, all insist that the Bible is like no other book, and must be read accordingly. That, too, is a story worth telling — indeed, one that, exhaustively told, would encompass many millions of readers more than the other. We stopped at twelve.

It remains only to repeat what Gunilla Westerholm (Stephen’s wife, Martin’s mother) is wont to say to dinner guests: Var så goda! (in the vulgar tongue, roughly, Dig in!).

1. Barrett, Review, 114.

2. Cf. Jowett, Interpretation, 377.

Chapter 1

The Voice of Scripture

Among the slogans that set the agenda for much modern study of the Bible, the prescription that it should be read like any other book seems to me singularly unhelpful.¹ We do not read Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves or Have It Your Way, Charlie Brown the same way we read Hamlet or King Lear. Critique of Pure Reason and The House at Pooh Corner are both, I believe, eminently worth reading (though, in the one instance, I am relying on others’ assurances), but they call for rather different approaches. Textbook of Medical Oncology requires yet another. To cut short a game becoming more fun by the minute, we may well ask: Like which other book are we supposed to read the Bible?

To be sure, these and other books can all be read the same way if we approach each with a particular question in mind: How frequently does the author split infinitives, dangle participles, or quote Russian proverbs? Or, what do Romeo and Juliet, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, and Pippi Longstocking tell us about eating habits at the time of their composition? (This game, too, could be fun.) These are, I suppose, legitimate questions — doctoral dissertations have certainly been written on stranger topics — but they seem somewhat limiting. Classic literature — William Shakespeare, Søren Kierkegaard, Astrid Lindgren — has more to offer its readers; those open to experiencing the more soon learn that different books make different demands on their readers.

Unless, then, we are reading the Bible merely to carry out our own limiting agendas, the notion that it should be read like any other book will be true only in the sense that the Bible, like any other book, calls for a particular kind of reading. Sensitive readers of the Bible, like sensitive readers of any text, will be alert to what is being asked of them, given the nature of the text before them; it is then, of course, up to their discretion whether they will attempt to measure up to those demands. Before we launch into a survey of how Christians have, in fact, read the Bible, it will be worth our while to reflect briefly on the kind of reading called for by the biblical writings themselves, highlighting aspects of the texts that have been obvious enough to sensitive readers over the centuries, though they have largely escaped the attention of academics blithely bent on reading the Bible like any other book.²

The Letters of Paul

³

Paul’s Mission and Mandate

When the apostle Paul wrote his first epistle, scarcely twenty years had passed since the central events of his message — and that of the other apostles — had taken place (cf. 1 Cor. 15:3-11).⁴ His last letters were composed little more than a decade later. At that point, the gospel he brought to Gentiles was not only good news, but fresh.

Its backdrop, to be sure, was bleak: no early Christian writer portrays in more dismal terms than Paul’s the human condition, or that of the wider creation, apart from Christ.⁵ But Paul’s depictions of a desperate plight merely set the stage for news of its stunning transformation: though human wickedness abundantly warrants the outpouring of God’s wrath, the Son of God brings deliverance to all who trust in him (1 Thess. 1:10; 5:1-11); though the whole world is culpable before God, God has intervened to put things right, and to declare sinners righteous, through the redemption he has provided in Christ Jesus (Rom. 3:19-24). God demonstrates his love for us in that, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. . . . When we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son (Rom. 5:8, 10).

Clearly, for Paul, the transformation of the human condition required, and was brought about by, divine intervention:

[T]here is a new creation; the old has passed away; look, the new has come into being! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them; and he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. (2 Cor. 5:17-19)

Yet, as the same quotation makes clear, divine intervention extended beyond the recent work of Christ (through whom God reconcile[d] the world to himself) to include the commissioning of Paul (and the other apostles) to convey to the world the message of reconciliation. Consciousness of a divine commission and a concomitant sense of accountability mark all of Paul’s letters and undoubtedly lent conviction to his spoken message as well.

As we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not pleasing people, but pleasing God who tests our hearts. (1 Thess. 2:4)

If I proclaim the gospel, it is nothing I can boast about; for I am under an obligation, and woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel! (1 Cor. 9:16; see also Rom. 1:5, 14-15; 1 Cor. 4:1-5; 15:15; 2 Cor. 2:17; 4:1; Gal. 1:1-12)

That Paul’s message carried conviction is apparent from the communities of believers that arose wherever he went. To believers in Rome he wrote of the success that attended his mission from Jerusalem and as far around as Illyricum [in northwestern Greece] (Rom. 15:19). Not surprisingly, he attributed the success of his mission to the work of Christ within him and the power of God’s Spirit (Rom. 15:18-19; cf. 1 Cor. 2:4-5; 15:10; 2 Cor. 12:9-10). More specifically, Paul believed that God himself was active whenever he proclaimed the gospel (cf. 1 Cor. 3:6), using the apostle’s words to address the hearts of Paul’s listeners with his own divine appeal. As a result, Paul’s (human) words served as the vehicle for the word of God.

We serve as Christ’s ambassadors, as God makes his appeal through us. . . . As we work together with him, we urge you not to receive the grace of God in vain. (2 Cor. 5:20; 6:1)

When you received the word of God that you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of human beings but as what it truly is, the word of God. (1 Thess. 2:13)

Paul makes the same point when he indicates that, in his proclamation of the gospel, people heard the call of God; those who responded in faith (believers) were thus called ones.

God called you through our proclamation of the gospel for this purpose: that the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ might be yours. (2 Thess. 2:14)

God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. (1 Cor. 1:9)

To those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. (1 Cor. 1:24; see also Rom. 8:30; 9:24; 1 Cor. 1:26; 7:17-24; Gal. 1:6; 5:8)

To the gospel message itself, Paul attributes power — the power of God — that is effective in bringing salvation to those in whom it elicits faith. He speaks in similar terms of the word of God (1 Cor. 14:36; 2 Cor. 2:17; 4:2), or the word of the Lord (1 Thess. 1:8; 2 Thess. 3:1), or simply the word (Gal. 6:6; Phil. 1:14; 1 Thess. 1:6) — all understood as equivalents of the [proclaimed] gospel: it was an active force that, once released, accomplished God’s purposes (see Isa. 55:11):⁶

The gospel . . . is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. (Rom. 1:16)

To us who are being saved [the message about the cross] is the power of God. (1 Cor. 1:18)

When you received the word of God that you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of human beings but as what it truly is, the word of God, which is also at work in you who believe. (1 Thess. 2:13; cf. 1:5)

The word of truth, the gospel . . . came to you; and among you, as indeed in all the world, it has been bearing fruit and increasing from the day you heard and came to know the grace of God in truth. (Col. 1:5-6)

Paul’s Correspondence

While in Ephesus, Paul could claim that his spirit was present in Corinth (1 Cor. 5:3); but something more concrete was needed if Paul was to communicate with the Corinthians — so he sent them a letter. By this time, it had in fact become a habit: the apostle regularly dispatched delegates and letters to established communities when he himself was compelled to be elsewhere. Paul’s letters, though occasional in the sense that they dealt with specific issues in particular communities, were not casual communications.⁷ Rather, they were the words of an apostle in his role as an apostle, urging in the Lord Jesus (1 Thess. 4:1); delivering instructions through the Lord Jesus (4:2); declaring the will of God (4:3); insisting that those who disregarded what he wrote disregarded not him but God (4:8; cf. 1 Cor. 14:37). Paul believed that his divine commission extended beyond the proclamation of the gospel to include caring for all the churches (2 Cor. 11:28; cf. 10:8; 13:10), a care that he exercised in the presence of God (i.e., with a sense of accountability to God [2 Cor. 2:17]) no less by letter than by personal visit: he was the same person, communicating the same message — either way (2 Cor. 10:11; 1 Thess. 4:6, 11; 2 Thess. 2:15). Everything he did as an apostle, including the writing of his epistles (Rom. 12:3; 15:15), was carried out by the grace of God (1 Cor. 15:10); the words he used were taught by the Spirit [of God] (1 Cor. 2:13). Even when recording his mere opinion on matters that permitted flexibility, Paul was conscious both of his responsibility to be faithful in his service of Christ and of having the Spirit of God (1 Cor. 7:25, 40).

Paul’s letters were read aloud in the churches to which they were sent — and undoubtedly reread and studied, since no reader for whom a communication from the apostle was important has ever felt that a single reading sufficed. First Thessalonians 5:27 conveys unmistakably both the seriousness with which Paul took his letter-­writing and his expectation that his churches would treat them with equal seriousness: I adjure you by the Lord that this letter be read to all the brothers [and sisters].

Paul also anticipated a limited circulation of his letters: Romans would have been read in various house churches in Rome; Galatians was written to all the churches of a wider geographical area (Gal. 1:2); and Colossae and Laodicea were to exchange apostolic communications (Col. 4:16).⁸ Not all who heard Paul’s letters (particularly in Corinth and Galatia) will have been happy with their content.⁹ But as a general rule, we may assume that the letters were acknowledged by their first readers to be what they purported to be: authoritative communications from an apostle commissioned by God, conveying a divine message to God’s people.

Nor should the point of the epistles be restricted to the message they communicated. Typically, they begin and end by invoking God’s grace [and peace] on the assemblies to which they were read, and with an invitation to join Paul in thanksgiving to God for sundry blessings. Those who sympathetically engaged with the words being read were thus inevitably drawn into an act of divine worship.¹⁰ A message received (as it was meant to be received) as from God was intended to elicit an appropriate response to God.

The Gospel of Mark

¹¹

The Subtext of the Gospel

The Gospel of Mark is commonly taken to be the first of the New Testament Gospels to be written. Near its beginning we encounter the following familiar narrative:

As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew, Simon’s brother, casting a net into the sea — for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, Follow me and I will make you fishers of people. And immediately they left their nets and followed him. He went on a little farther and saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John; they were in their boat mending their nets. Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him. (Mark 1:16-20)

As elsewhere in Mark, the narrative is readily accessible. Neither vocabulary nor syntax is complex. References to fishermen, boats, and nets require no explanatory annotations. If modern readers do require clarifications at other points in the Gospel, the need is created, not — as, for example, with T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land — by difficulties inherent in the text itself, but merely by the distance between Mark’s world and our own. Readers in other times and places have not required the same notes. Even without explanations, most readers in most times and places have had little difficulty grasping the thrust of the story.

And yet, the narrative baffles. How could the simple words Follow me and I will make you fishers of people move fishermen to abandon their families, possessions, and livelihood and commit themselves to following an apparent stranger? At the very least, readers have often supposed that Mark’s laconic narrative has failed to mention some previous contact that Peter and Andrew (and James and John) had had with Jesus. Even so, we may well wonder what kind of favorable impression would warrant so radical a response.

If we turn our attention away from what motivated the fishermen and instead ask why the evangelist reports the incidents as he does, we must say at once that he betrays no interest in providing insight into the psychology, character, or life stories of Peter, Andrew, James, or John. What any or all of them were thinking calls for no comment, and even what they were doing is noted only to provide content to what they abandoned. Precisely the same pattern, in terms equally laconic, is repeated a little later:

As [Jesus] was walking along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax station. He said to him, Follow me. And he got up and followed him. (Mark 2:14)

Mark, we might say, is concerned to convey, not what is peculiar to each of these incidents, but what typically occurs — or should occur — when people encounter the demands of Jesus. Given his concern, we may surmise that, in Mark’s mind, such encounters are by no means confined to the past. He anticipates that his readers will have parallel experiences; indeed, he may well write in the expectation that his narrative will provoke them. Circumstances vary, but Mark has minimal interest in circumstances. What matters is that Jesus’ demands meet with instant and absolute obedience.

If Jesus’ initial demands on his followers, as cited above, strike us as extreme, Mark might well reply, You haven’t seen anything yet! Later, Jesus will require of his disciples that they deny themselves, take up [their] cross and follow [him], adding the paradoxical warning that if they would save their lives, they will lose them; only if they lose their lives for his sake and the gospel’s will they save them (8:34-35). Mark’s readers, like Jesus’ disciples, are thus given due warning. Jesus’ own path leads to his crucifixion; those who follow him are promised nothing better (cf. 10:38). Again, Mark wants his readers to take note, though he does not want them to be deterred.

Mark does not spell out the logic behind these demands; still, it has been grasped without being articulated by readers over the centuries. Indeed, to spell it out is, in a sense, to diminish its impact. Nonetheless, a simple, three-­point summary is possible.

1. People have an absolute duty toward God.¹² Because God is God, and because we are utterly dependent on God, our ultimate duty — transcending all other duties — is to God. This, for Mark and his implied readers, is self-­evident: Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, your whole soul, your whole mind, and all your strength (Mark 12:29-30, citing Deut. 6:4-5).

2. Our absolute duty toward God is encountered in the demands of Jesus. Again, duty does not need to be articulated to be felt; only the sense that the overriding duty to God was at stake can justify Jesus’ demands in Mark’s Gospel — and Mark’s conviction that they should be met with instant and absolute obedience. Without pausing here to examine other narratives, we may fairly say that the whole of Mark’s Gospel — its account of John the Baptist and of Jesus’ baptism, of Jesus’ healings and exorcisms, of his forgiving of sins and authoritative teaching, of his transfiguration, of his purposeful advance to an ordained death and resurrection — everything in the Gospel serves to enforce the point that those who witness the actions of Jesus and hear his words are thereby confronted with, and asked to respond to, the call of God on their lives.

3. Given that our absolute duty toward God is encountered in the demands of Jesus, the right thing to do and, in the end — whatever suffering may be involved in the interim — the blessed thing to do, is to give one’s allegiance to Jesus.

This is the evident subtext of Mark’s Gospel. In effect, the Gospel was written to confront later readers with the same choices as confronted the contemporaries of Jesus. Christian readers, sensing the point, have attempted — with varying degrees of success — to comply with Mark’s agenda. Others reject it outright. But only, I suppose, academics preoccupied with the Synoptic Problem or Mark’s redactional techniques, his narrative world or the social setting of his community, can have read the Gospel while oblivious to the demands it makes of its readers.

The Text of the Gospel

Yet Mark’s call for a faithful following of Jesus remains a subtext of the Gospel: at no point does the evangelist interrupt his narrative of the past with an appeal to readers to order their lives by its implications. He tells a story, convinced that the mere telling of the story will bear the freight of his agenda.

That he designates his story the gospel [or good news] of Jesus Christ (1:1) is the most overt indication of his thinking. Though his text marked an important stage in the process by which gospel came to mean a written account of the life and teaching of Jesus, in Mark’s own day the term euangelion denoted (as it does in Paul’s letters) the message of the early church (1 Cor. 15:1-11; Gal. 1:11, etc.). Mark also uses the term for the basic proclamation of Jesus (Mark 1:14). Behind both usages is the understanding that the coming of Jesus marked the fulfillment of promises made by the prophets in Scripture:¹³

How fair upon the mountains are the feet of the one who brings good news,

who proclaims peace,

who brings good news of good,

who proclaims salvation,

who says to Zion, Your God reigns. (Isa. 52:7; cf. 40:9; 61:1)

Mark may well have been the first to use the term Gospel for a consecutive account of the story of Jesus. Such an account cannot, of course, have been the content of the gospel that Jesus himself proclaimed, nor was it identical with the message of the early church. But Mark believed that the essence of each was the same: in the person of Jesus, God had launched a project for the inauguration of the promised new age and the salvation of human beings. In the proclamation of Jesus and that of the early church, though not by the evangelist of Mark’s Gospel, the obvious implication was made explicit: it is incumbent on human beings to respond by believing in, and getting on board with, the divine initiative (Mark 1:14-15; Acts 2:38-41, etc.).

In Mark, as in other early Christian writings (including the letters of Paul), the word functions as an equivalent of the gospel (compare Mark 1:14 with 2:2; 4:33). No more than other early Christians will Mark have understood the word (or the gospel) as inert material serving merely to inform its listeners: when the word, or the gospel, is spoken,¹⁴ God is at work, calling hearers into his kingdom (see Heb. 3:1; 1 Pet. 1:15; 2:9; Jude 1). Note, for example, how, in the explanation given to the parable of the sower, the word is said to bear or not to bear fruit in the lives of its hearers, depending on their responses to it (4:14-20). But if Mark (like other early Christians) believed that God was at work whenever the gospel was proclaimed orally, he undoubtedly expected that the gospel, when he wrote it, would similarly prove a vehicle of the [living and active] word of the Lord.¹⁵ To return to the narrative with which we began: in cutting to its core the story of Jesus calling his disciples, Mark clearly intended those who read his account to hear, through his words, their own call to obedient faith: What I [Jesus] say to you [the disciples], I say to all (13:37). The words Give careful heed to what you hear are meant for Mark’s audience no less than for that of Jesus (4:24; cf. 4:3, 9, 23).

In short, Mark wrote his Gospel — just as early Christians proclaimed the gospel — in the confidence that God would address his readers through his words. In receptive hearts, those words would bear fruit.

The Gospel of Matthew

Like Mark, Matthew tells a story of the past — the crucial, unsubstitutable story on which the church was founded — conscious throughout of the distance of that past, and at no point interrupting his narrative to exhort or appeal directly to his readers in the present.¹⁶ Even the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5–7), for all its pressing importance for every follower of Jesus, is introduced as words spoken at a particular place and time to a particular group of people; and it ends by noting their response, and where Jesus went once he finished addressing them.¹⁷ No less than Mark, however, Matthew expects that, at least at many points,¹⁸ his readers will see parallels to their own lives and sense the need to respond appropriately. The call of Jesus’ disciples is related in Matthew (4:18-22; 9:9) very much as in Mark, and doubtless with the same expectation: readers are to hear their own call to follow Jesus.¹⁹ In the many petitioners who bring their needs to Jesus and find relief, hearers are to see parallels in their own lives.²⁰ Moreover, as Günther Bornkamm famously demonstrated years ago, Matthew’s readers are meant to identify with the disciples who follow Jesus into a boat, discover themselves in the midst of a storm, react with a fear that overwhelms their faith, but find the power of Jesus more than adequate to bring them to safety.²¹ In referring to the disciples’ dullness and weakness, and yet their experience of Jesus’ patience and forgiveness, Matthew prompts his readers to personal reminiscence, ruefulness, and gratitude. In short, at numerous points the narratives of the Gospel are meant to be heard on more than one level: as stories of the past in which hearers in the present can recognize something of their own experience.²²

On the other hand, the Gospel of Matthew does seem to be a more learned, bookish composition than its Markan source — with a broader agenda. More specifically, from its very first verse, the Gospel appears designed to serve as a continuation of, and fitting climax to, the scriptures of Israel.²³ And by the Gospel’s end, it is clear that the evangelist intended his work to serve as a handy but authoritative guide to Jesus’ life and teaching for converts (disciples), Gentiles as well as Jews, throughout the world (28:19-20).

The former agenda is obvious both from the sweeping claim that Jesus fulfilled the law and the prophets (5:17) and from the many texts in which particular moments in Jesus’ life or aspects of his ministry are said to have fulfilled particular Old Testament texts (see 1:22-23; 2:15, 17-18, 23; 4:14-16; 8:17, etc.). But the point is made in subtler ways as well. The Gospel begins with words borrowed from (the Greek translation of) Genesis 2:4; 5:1, implying that the story that follows represents both a new beginning and the culmination of the sacred history begun in (the old book of) Genesis.²⁴ Note, too, how Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus (1:2-16) is structured in such a way as to convey the point that Jesus’ birth — like the call of Abraham, the reign of David, and the deportation to Babylon — marked a crucial turn in the history of God’s people (1:17). Indeed, much in the story of Jesus, as Matthew portrays it, recalls the Old Testament story of Moses, or even of Israel itself as a nation.²⁵ In short, Matthew has adopted a biblical style, patterned a number of his narratives on Old Testament models, and indicated in ways both subtle and direct that the story he tells represents the fulfillment of the law and the prophets. He will hardly have thought his Gospel of lesser status or importance than those earlier writings.

Perhaps the clearest statement of Matthew’s intentions comes at the end of the Gospel. The risen Jesus addresses his worshiping but perplexed disciples in these terms:

To me has been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Go, then, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, to the end of the age. (28:18-20)

Wherever later disciples are made, they are to be taught all that Jesus commanded their predecessors to do. In the obvious question concerning where, decades later, those commands could reliably be found, Matthew has seen his mandate. As elsewhere, here, too, he keeps within the constraints of a narrative of the past: when Jesus demands that all his commandments be passed on, Matthew does not add, in parentheses, Cf. the five extended discourses and numerous other logia recorded earlier in this book. But he might as well have. Ulrich Luz puts it this way:

Proto-­canonical tendencies are apparent at the end of Matthew’s Gospel. With the mission command . . . [28:20a], Matthew can actually be said to canonize his own book. It contains — especially in the discourses of Jesus spoken into the present — everything the messengers of Jesus need for their missionary proclamation.²⁶

Matthew has provided an authoritative record of Jesus’ teachings — to be read, taught, and obeyed. Essentially, then, he intended his writing to serve the role of Scripture in Christian communities, those already founded and those yet to be established among all nations.²⁷

The teachings of Jesus form the backbone of the Gospel of Matthew. Yet even these ever-­relevant instructional texts here find their place within the broader story of the Gospel. The Gospel of Matthew is, in the first place, a telling of the story of Jesus that includes his teachings; in the end, the uniqueness of the Teacher takes priority over the substance of his teaching. As much as we need to know what he taught, we need to understand, at a still more basic level, why he is and must be the only Teacher.²⁸ Matthew takes on himself the task for his readers that, within his narrative, the transfiguration plays for the disciples: eliciting or enhancing their faith in the beloved Son as the necessary first stage to commending his commands to their obedience (Matt. 17:5). Beyond, then, the practical purpose of conveying the Lord’s instructions, Matthew, like Mark, has written an authoritative account of the church’s foundational story intended to be an instrument for evoking faith in, allegiance and obedience to, and worship of the Teacher among all who hear his words.

The Gospel of Luke

Luke, too, had a story to tell — and access to an audience less likely to be reached by the other evangelists. In the prologue to his Gospel (1:1-4; cf. also Acts 1:1), Luke dedicates the work to a certain Theophilus, following a format — with its implicit request for help in circulating the dedicated work — that was common in literary compositions of the period.²⁹ These verses feature prose as polished as anything we encounter in the New Testament. Briefly, we seem in a Greco-­Roman literary world, far removed from that of Matthew and Mark.

But with the fifth verse of his first chapter, Luke clearly and deliberately adopts for his narrative the language of sacred Scripture (i.e., of the Greek Old Testament):³⁰ regardless of audience, no other idiom would do for his story of how God had visited³¹ his people.³² A sense of wonder pervades Luke’s account — in Acts as in the Gospel — as it moves from one extraordinary disclosure of God’s presence and power to another. Zechariah is terrified (1:12; cf. 1:29-30), then struck dumb, as the angel Gabriel foretells the birth of his son John, who is to prepare the way of the Lord. When, at the naming of the child, Zechariah’s mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, . . . fear came over all who heard of it (1:64-65). Shepherds, too, were terrified by the appearance of the Lord’s angel, in a display of divine glory, announcing the birth of the Savior (2:9-12). When the shepherds later told others what the Lord had made known to them, all who heard it were amazed (2:18; cf. 2:33). Repeatedly, we are told of the wonder that greeted Jesus’ words (2:47; 4:22, 32). His miracles, too, brought a sense of God’s presence — and a sense, at times, that this was more than mortals could endure.

Amazement came over them all and they kept saying to each other, What kind of word is this? For with authority and power he gives orders to the unclean spirits, and they go away! (4:36)

They were all beside themselves with amazement; they glorified God and were filled with awe, saying, Today we have seen things wonderful beyond belief! (5:26)

The dead man sat up and began to speak. . . . Fear took hold of all of them; and they glorified God, saying, A great prophet has arisen among us! and God has visited his people! (7:15-16)

[Jesus] woke up and rebuked the wind and the rough water; they ceased, and there was a great calm. . . . Terrified and amazed, [the disciples] said to one another, Who in the world is this, that he gives orders even to the winds and the water, and they obey him? (8:24-25; cf. 5:8-9)

They found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were frightened. . . . Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to go away from them; for they were in the grip of a great fear. (8:35, 37; see also 8:56; 9:43; 11:14; 13:17)

The appearance of the resurrected Jesus, too, startled and terrified his disciples (24:37), though here the terror gave way to incredulous joy — and worship (24:41, 51-53).

The story Luke wants to tell is thus how God has demonstrably acted, in the lifetime and experience of people he knew, for the salvation of human beings (cf. 1:68-69, 77; 2:11, 30; 3:6, etc.): these were "things fulfilled among us (1:1). Such news by its very nature invites, if not demands, telling: though Luke never uses the noun gospel in his Gospel, the related verb (proclaim good news) appears frequently, with a variety of subjects: angels (1:19; 2:10), John the Baptist (3:18; cf. 16:16), Jesus himself (4:18, 43; 8:1; 20:1), and his disciples (9:6). The good news to be shared is at times a specific incident within the broader narrative of the divine visitation (1:19; 2:10); at other times it represents the thrust of the narrative as a whole (4:18; 7:22; 9:6; 20:1). Among the latter we may include texts that speak of proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God" (4:43; 8:1; 16:16).³³ Luke thus sees himself as one of a series of evangelists, using his gifts as a writer to spread the good news announced first by the angels, then by the Lord himself, then by those who heard him.

The Gospel-­writer makes clear that, though he was not among the latter, he was in close contact with those who were, deriving his narrative from eyewitnesses and servants of the word (Luke 1:2). That his sources were eyewitnesses was an important assurance, for readers ancient as well as modern, of the reliable nature of his account (cf. 1:4; 24:48; Acts 1:8, 21-22; 2:32; 10:39).³⁴ But these eyewitnesses were also servants of the word.³⁵ We have already encountered similar usages of the word — without further qualification — meaning the gospel as proclaimed by both Jesus and the early church. As elsewhere, so in Luke’s writings, the word is used interchangeably with the word of God (Luke 5:1; 8:11; 11:28) or the word of the Lord (Acts 8:25; 13:49). Thus, when Luke identifies his sources as eyewitnesses and servants of the word, he indicates that his narrative preserves and transmits what was simultaneously the firsthand testimony of Jesus’ disciples and the word of God. His Gospel is intended to be a medium for communicating good news from God.³⁶

Throughout Luke’s narrative, the announcement of God’s good news — whether by angels sent from God, by commissioned but otherwise ordinary human beings, or by the Son of God himself — provokes a crisis among those who hear it. At times it meets with an initial disbelief that later gives way to faith (1:20; 24:11; cf. 24:25); at other times the rejection of the message is decisive, leading to exclusion from God’s kingdom (10:10-12; 11:31-32; 14:15-24). A response of faith is said to be blessed and to bring salvation (1:45; 8:12; cf. 5:20; 7:50, etc.). Like these earlier announcements of the good news, Luke’s Gospel invites faith on the part of its readers and hearers; as in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, however, the invitation is left implicit. At no point do the Synoptic evangelists directly call their readers to obedient faith, though each assumes that the divine source of their good news will use their account to do so.³⁷

The Gospel of John

The Gospel of John tells the story of the mission of God’s Son, bringing light and salvation to a world in darkness.

The Son of God is first introduced in John’s Gospel as the Logos, existing in the beginning with God and as God, the very Word by which God spoke and the worlds came into being (John 1:1-3; cf. Ps. 33:6).³⁸ As Logos, the Son of God is not only Creator of the cosmos but also the one in whom its good order consists and by whom it is sustained, the source of all life, light, and understanding (1:4-5, 9). But the Word is also inherently the conveyer of divine revelation: having shared intimacy and glory with the Father before the world was created, the Word/Son became flesh (1:14) to make God known (1:18; 17:5, 26).

Appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, the Son’s mission was successful (17:4; 19:30). The words he spoke and the works he performed were those given him by the Father (5:36; 8:26; 12:49-50; 14:24; 17:8). Everything he did brought pleasure and glory to the Father and light to the world (7:18; 8:29; 17:4; 9:5). That the world did not embrace him — indeed, that it hated him — was only to be expected, given the world’s preference for darkness over light as a cover for its evil (3:19-20; 7:7; 15:18-25). Though he came to bring salvation, the practical effect of his coming for those who rejected him and would not receive his words was self-­condemnation and judgment (3:17-21; 12:48).

That Jesus, the Son of God, was lifted up and crucified represented, not the triumph of the evil world, but his triumph over the world and the accomplishment of his mission (12:31-33; 16:33). His life was not taken from him against his will, but he laid it down of his own accord: greater love could not be shown than when he, the lamb of God, gave his life to take away the sin of the world (1:29; cf. 10:17-18; 15:13). If, through unbelief, the sins of many were retained (8:24; 9:41; 15:22-24), nonetheless there were those given to the Son by the Father who did believe, and to whom he brought light, life, and salvation (8:12; 10:27-29; 17:2).

Why should all have responded to the mysterious mission of the Son of God with faith? And, in fact, how did some believe? Faith was to be based on testimony given, from various sources, about who he was and of the divine origin of his mission: to believe the testimony was thus to believe in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God. John the Baptist was explicitly sent from God to give testimony concerning the light, in order that, through him, all might believe (1:6-7). His testimony brought Jesus his first disciples (1:35-37; cf. 10:40-42). The Samaritan woman with whom Jesus conversed at Jacob’s well gave testimony of what she had learned to those she knew, many of whom believed (4:39; see also 12:17). The mighty works that Jesus performed were signs pointing to, or giving testimony to, the divine source of his mission; they, too, should have evoked faith (5:36; 10:25, 37-38; 14:11; cf. 12:37).³⁹

And Scripture gives testimony to Christ — though, like the other sources of testimony, it gains more attention than faith. Even John the Baptist was, for a time, a popular sensation (5:35), and the miracles of Jesus certainly drew crowds (6:2, 26). Similarly, Jesus’ contemporaries certainly attended to Scripture, searching it diligently (5:39). They read of Jacob’s ladder reaching from earth to heaven, but without asking where, outside Jacob’s dream, such a ladder might be found, thus missing this adumbration of Christ in Scripture (cf. 1:51). They read of the bronze serpent lifted up by Moses in the wilderness, bringing life to all who turned to it in faith; but they failed to see in the ancient story a pointer to the Son of Man, lifted up so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life (3:14-15). They read of the manna from heaven that for a time sustained the lives of Israelites in the wilderness without recognizing its testimony to the true bread come from heaven that, by its very nature, imparts eternal life to all who eat it (6:31-58). In the end, what is most important about Moses and the prophets is that they wrote about Christ (1:45; 5:46; 12:16, 41): he is the righteous speaker in the Psalms (2:17; 15:25; cf. 19:24), the subject of Isaiah’s report to which people gave no credence (12:38). In short, thinking to find life in the words of Scripture, Jesus’ hearers refused to look beyond the sacred page to the subject of Scripture’s testimony: [The scriptures] testify concerning me; and you are not willing to come to me in order that you may have life (5:39-40).

The Father, too, gives testimony to the Son (5:32, 37-38; 8:18). In a sense, of course, the testimony of John, of Jesus’ works and words, and of Scripture all have God as their ultimate source: John appeared as a man sent from God . . . to give testimony (1:6-7); the Son of God spoke and acted according to the Father’s commission; Scripture was itself given by God (cf. 1:17). But Jesus distinguishes the testimony of the Father from these other sources of testimony (5:31-40) and speaks of it in ways that suggest that, unlike them, it is not encountered externally or perceived by the senses (5:37); rather, it appeals to hearts that are open to the word of God (5:38; cf. 7:17; 1 John 5:9-10). We are reminded elsewhere that no one can come to [Christ] unless the Father draws him (6:44): the testimony of the Father thus appears to be another way of speaking of the Father’s drawing — imperceptibly to the senses, but powerfully in the heart — people to faith in Christ. It remains true, of course, that the other sources of testimony provide the external stimuli by which people come to believe (1:7; 4:39; 19:35); but they serve that end effectively only when they are lent persuasive power by the drawing of the Father; only, that is, when their testimony is taken up into and becomes the testimony of the Father himself. Those in whom God’s word finds no place never hear the testimony of the Father to the Son, whether in the words of John, Scripture, or the works of Christ (5:37-38; 8:37, 47). But where God’s word finds a home, the testimony is received (3:33; 8:47; 18:37; 1 John 2:14, 24).⁴⁰

And what about the Gospel of John itself? It, too, is a testimony written so that its readers may come to faith in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God (19:35; 20:30-31; 21:24). Its witness is true, in part because the evangelist writes about what he has himself experienced (1:14; 15:27; 19:35; 21:24), but also in part because he writes guided by the Spirit of truth, sent by the Father and the Son to bear witness to Christ (15:26-27; 16:14) and to remind Christ’s followers of all that Christ had spoken to them (14:26).⁴¹ What is more, John’s Gospel reproduces and thus preserves the testimony of John the Baptist, of the Samaritan woman, of the mighty works and words of Jesus: through the Gospel these witnesses continue to speak to people of other times and places.⁴² Like them, the Gospel of John will prove effective in evoking faith as the Father makes its testimony his own and draws readers to the Son (cf. 17:20).

Nor is the work of John’s Gospel complete when faith in the Son is first evoked. Those who believe in Christ are to remain (abide) in him, which means (at least in part) that Christ’s words — as recorded in the Gospel — are to abide in them (15:7; cf. 8:31, 51; 1 John 2:24). Their faith is thus to be sustained and nourished by reflection on the Gospel. The word of Christ (again, as found in the Gospel) will cleanse (15:3) and sanctify (17:17; cf. v. 14) them. As they meditate on the Gospel, they will themselves experience the peace Jesus left his disciples (14:27), the joy with which they were to be filled (15:11), the reality of Christ’s love (13:1); they will know themselves commanded to love and serve others as Christ has loved and served them (13:14, 34); and they will receive the dominical blessing pronounced specifically for their benefit (20:29). To contemporaries within hearing distance, Christ spoke the words of eternal life (6:68). John wrote his Gospel to mediate those words — and their power — to all who hear or read its message.

Did John, then, intend to write Scripture? The question may fairly be put; but, to be meaningful, it should probably be reworded: Did John, in effect, mean to write Scripture?⁴³ Scripture, for John and his contemporaries, meant Moses and the prophets (cf. 1:45), that is, sacred books from the (distant) past. Of course, John does think that the words of Scripture and of his Gospel form a united testimony to Christ (note the parallels in 2:22; 5:47); indeed, he uses a formula familiar from New Testament citations of (Old Testament) Scripture in quoting words of Jesus cited earlier in the Gospel (18:9; cf. 17:12; see also 18:32 and 12:32-33). But Scripture no doubt forms a distinct category in his mind. Still, it seems apparent that he intended his Gospel to serve the same functions as does Scripture: to be read and spoken of when believers assemble, to be the subject of their meditation and study, to strengthen their faith, to be the means of their communion with God (cf. 14:23; 15:7; 1 John 1:3; 2:24). Furthermore, as noted above, he implicitly attributes to the Spirit a role in the Gospel’s composition (14:26; 15:26-27). John might not have put it thus, but he was, in effect, writing Scripture.

. . . and Elsewhere

Broadly speaking, we may say that the New Testament documents were all written in the conviction that God was at work in the person of Jesus Christ for the salvation of human beings, and with the intention of evoking or enhancing faith in Christ and providing encouragement and guidance for believers. Such a statement could no doubt be refined, and further points of commonality found. But this is adequate for our purposes.

In producing a written version of the gospel of Jesus Christ, Mark intended his text to serve the same function, and to carry the same force, as the oral proclamation of the gospel: to be the instrument by which God would call hearers to obedient faith. The same vision underlies John’s (rather different) Gospel. It was no doubt shared by Matthew and Luke as well, though the former gives much greater emphasis to the instruction of disciples (an element also found, though less prominently, in Mark), and Luke appears bent on addressing the claims of faith to a more educated audience in a form that they would recognize and respect. Uniquely, Luke extends his narrative to include the inspiring, edifying story of God’s continued activity in the early church.

The remaining documents in the New Testament (including the Revelation of John) are all letters directed to communities of believers, intended to encourage and guide them to live as they ought. Each speaks with authority: compliance with their directives is the right thing to do and will result in God-­pleasing behavior; failure to comply will bring judgment. John of Patmos writes to convey the revelation of Jesus Christ given to him in words and visions.⁴⁴ Attentive readers will hear — in what they read — what the Spirit is saying to the churches (2:7, 11, etc.). Letters naming James, Peter, and Jude as their authors come with the authority of these leading figures in the first generation of the church, each a servant of the heavenly Lord with close ties to the earthly Jesus (James 1:1; 1 Pet. 5:1; Jude 1); 1 John, too, is written by one who has seen and heard firsthand the word of life (1:1-3). No similar claim is advanced in the letter to the Hebrews (note Heb. 2:3), though the author nonetheless assumes that God will address his readers through his appeal — and for that reason, one refuses the appeal at one’s peril (12:25).

In essence, then, the New Testament documents were written by people who believed that the God who spoke through the prophets of old has now spoken in the person of his Son (Heb. 1:1-2); but they also believed that their writings — as faithful accounts of what God has done through his Son (the four Gospels) or in the earliest days of the church (Acts), and as faithful statements of what is entailed in following Jesus (the letters) — were vehicles by which the word of God, uniquely and climactically spoken through Jesus Christ, could now address those who never encountered him in the flesh.

The Old Testament

And what about the Old Testament? It may, of course, be read for what it can tell us about Ancient Near Eastern history or the nature of Israelite religion. But these are modern preoccupations, and purely academic: however legitimate they are in themselves, they are remote from the human concerns of the texts and, indeed, frivolous by comparison.⁴⁵ To read the Old Testament merely for such ends is to neglect its call to live responsibly before God. Most obviously, the Psalms summon every human being (kings of the earth and all peoples, . . . young men, maidens too, old men and children) to join in all creation’s praise of the Lord (Ps. 148); and they call on all who suffer — from frailty, sickness, slander, or foe — to see their own experience through the eyes of the psalmist, and to make of his words their prayers. The book of Proverbs is equally universal in its appeal: every reader is invited to play the role of a son admonished (through the text) by his father to take up the pursuit of wisdom, beginning with the fear of the Lord (Prov. 4:1; 5:1; 1:7).

The word of the Lord came to prophets (Jer. 2:1; 7:1, etc.), who duly delivered it to their contemporaries; yet those who later recorded what the prophets had spoken did so because they believed that the divine word, once spoken, was not spent but had abiding significance. Not only could God’s word not fall to the ground (cf. 1 Sam. 3:19); it would freshly address new generations. Like a stone that skips over water rather than making a single splash, it would find, in varying degrees of completeness, multiple applications and forms of fulfillment.

And so the texts were read, already by later writers of Scripture themselves.⁴⁶ Daniel 9 looks forward to a new fulfillment of Jeremiah 29:10, different from what is celebrated in Ezra 1:1-4.⁴⁷ The New Testament writers repeatedly see Jesus (or the community of his followers) as fulfilling prophetic texts whose original referent was another; at times at least (Matt. 2:16, 18 seem to be clear examples), they must have been aware that this was what they were doing, believing simply that the words of the prophets had found fresh significance in their day. The writer of the book of Revelation, in pronouncing the fall of a metaphoric Babylon, did so in terms drawn from prophecies denouncing the historical city (cf. Rev. 18:2 and Isa. 21:9; Rev. 18:3 and Jer. 51:7; Rev. 18:4 and Jer. 51:45, etc.).

The word of the Lord was thus seen, not simply as divinely given knowledge-­before-­the-­fact of some future event, but as a divine force that, once spoken by the prophet, was released into the world where it might shape any number of events: as the word of God, it remained living and active and could not fail to have effect. In some cases, its immediate effect seemed obvious: the Israel denounced by Amos did not long survive his castigations; Jeremiah lived to see his pronouncements of Jerusalem’s doom proved true. Yet even oracles that found no obvious — or only limited — fulfillment in the circumstances first addressed were not expunged from the record: faith simply awaited their outworking in the future. In God’s way and God’s time, God’s word would accomplish the purpose for which it had been spoken (cf. Isa. 55:10-11; Hab. 2:3). The unfaithfulness of David’s descendants meant that their kingdom was not made sure forever before the Lord; God’s promise (2 Sam. 7:12-16) would nonetheless find fulfillment in the future (Jer. 23:1-6, following 22:1-30). Babylon fell, as Jeremiah said it would (Jer. 50–51). Still, its initial fall by no means corresponded to the devastation portrayed by the prophet; only in multiple events, occurring over several centuries, could Babylon’s prophesied doom be deemed complete.⁴⁸ And even then, Jeremiah’s words continued to be read (as in Rev. 18) as an indictment of whatever empires or rulers opposed God’s purposes. When exiles returned to Judea from fallen Babylon, as Isaiah 40–55 said they would, the struggles they faced on their arrival bore little resemblance to the glorious future portrayed in those chapters.⁴⁹ Skeptics noted the discrepancy and remained unimpressed.⁵⁰ The faithful concluded that responsibility for the blockage of further blessing must lie in human, not divine, failure (Isa. 59:1-15); and they clung to the hope, against all hope, that God would yet accomplish what his prophet had spoken (62:1, 6-9; 63:15–64:12).⁵¹ Typically, the New Testament writers believed that much that was written in these chapters had found fulfillment in their day (e.g., 2 Cor. 6:2 [Isa. 49:8]; 1 Pet. 1:24-25 [Isa. 40:6-8]); even for them, however, parts of Isaiah’s text remained a hope for the future (e.g., Phil. 2:9-11 [Isa. 45:23]; Rev. 7:16 [Isa. 49:10]). The grass withers, the flowers falls, but the word of the Lord abides forever (1 Pet. 1:24; cf. Isa. 40:7-8).

And what about the Old Testament narratives? Though recounting the past, their voice, too, resists confinement to the past: their characters, long dead, still speak (see Heb. 11:4). Instinctively, we sense that the very essence of these stories is missed by those who would domesticate them, whether historians occupied only with establishing what really happened in the past; or tunnel-­visioned apologists, concerned only to prove that what really happened in the past was precisely what the texts say happened; or moralists, determined to discover from the past three lessons we may learn for the present.⁵² As the point of Jesus’ parables was realized only by those blessed with the imagination and spiritual insight to see, through the stories, what was true about themselves, so, too, the message of the Old Testament narratives is heard only by those with the imagination and spiritual insight to see, beyond the details of an ancient story, how they impinge on their own lives and frame the world in which they live. Scholars⁵³ may or may not be correct in thinking that the patriarchal narratives as we know them were shaped in part by the intention to address the analogous situation of the exiles; but they undoubtedly capture an important aspect of these texts (cf. Isa. 51:1-3).⁵⁴ The competent reader of Genesis senses at once that Abraham is not just Abraham but his seed as well. In his experience — holding on to promises that in his lifetime will never be more than partially fulfilled; intermittently trusting and despairing of the promises as they seem increasingly impossible to be realized; tempted by lesser and closer goals within his realm of achievement; but ultimately faithful, because (it may seem) he has no choice but to believe — they perceive their own. Paul read the text in the spirit in which it was written, seeing Abraham as the father of all who believe (Rom. 4:11-12; Gal. 3:7), his story as theirs (Rom. 4:18-24). The author of Hebrews was an equally sensitive reader (Heb. 11:8-19). The wilderness generation as depicted in Exodus through Deuteronomy was certainly meant to be seen as a warning for all who live between the beginning and the end of their redemption, in danger of falling short of their goal because more immediate desires crave fulfillment, circumstances conspire to undermine faith, and unbelief demands proof on its own terms before it will capitulate. The psalmist surely captures the thrust of the narratives when he calls on those today who hear God’s voice not to harden their hearts or tempt God’s patience lest they share the fate of those who perished in the desert (Ps. 95:7-11; cf. 1 Cor. 10:1-13; Heb. 3:7–4:11).⁵⁵

In short, the Old Testament no less than the New summons readers to a life lived before God. Of course, the way a book asks to be read does not secure its own reading. The proclaimed gospel of Jesus Christ met with all possible responses; so have its written accounts in the Gospels. The message of Paul, as delivered in person, carried conviction for some listeners but not others; equally diverse has been the reception of his letters. And so with all of Scripture. At the beginning of this chapter, reflection on the dictum that the Bible should be read like any other book prompted the observation that different books call for different kinds of reading; this in turn led to the realization that the writings of the New Testament and the Old are characterized by an implicit claim to convey the call of God to their readers, whose absolute duty it is to respond with obedient faith. That being the case, the actual force of the requirement to read the Bible like any other book is to deny — at the outset, and as a matter of principle — the