interpretation

Five essentials of Biblical Interpretation no. 4: content

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I previously wrote about the first three ‘essentials’ of biblical interpretation in 2013, reposted in 2016—but never finished this series on reading scripture well and wisely. The first related to reading in canonical context, that is, attending to the place a text comes within a passage, a chapter, a book, a testament and the whole … Continue Reading

Should Christmas carols be biblical?

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I am aware that all the readers of this blog are fastidious in their strict observance of liturgical seasons. So I am confident that, during this season of Advent, you will have only allowed yourself to sing Advent carols, and will not yet have either sung or planned to sing anything about Christmas until that … Continue Reading

Who are the sheep and the goats in Matt 25?

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Jesus’ ‘parable’ of the sheep and the goats in Matt 25.31–46 is very well known and widely misinterpreted. (It is not actually a parable, since it is not introduced with the typical ‘The kingdom is like…’ and it is not making use of a story from another context, such as farming and economics, to draw out a … Continue Reading

Jesus was not born in a stable (honest!)

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I am sorry to spoil your preparations for Christmas before the Christmas lights have even gone up—though perhaps it is better to do this now than the week before Christmas, when everything has been carefully prepared. But Jesus wasn’t born in a stable, and, curiously, the New Testament hardly even hints that this might have … Continue Reading

Did John see Revelation as a vision?

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Most ordinary readers of Revelation assume that John had some sort of vision, and that what we have is a more-or-less straightforward description of what he saw as if he was describing a picture. But there are several reasons for qualifying this kind of understanding. The first relates the nature of visions and spiritual auditory … Continue Reading

Will the world end on 23rd September?

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The latest prediction of the end of the world, based on an ‘interpretation’ of Revelation 12, is that it will all happen at the end of the week on Saturday 23rd September. [This was first written in 2017. I now see that the linked video has been switched to ‘private’ to cover up the failure … Continue Reading

‘Head’ does not mean ‘leader’ in 1 Cor 11.3

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The debate about the meaning of ‘head’ and ‘headship’ (even though the latter does not occur in the NT) continues to rumble on. The main reason for this for English speakers is that the term is deeply and widely connected with notions of authority, control and leadership—just think ‘headteacher’ or ‘headmaster’ and other compounds, and … Continue Reading

Did Paul have a pastoral strategy?

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The apostle Paul is not generally viewed as a pastor. Teaching, fearless advocate for the faith, traveller, apologist, pioneering church planter, yes—but pastor? As we read Paul’s letters, in some part because of our cultural distance, it is easy not to sense that we are encountering Paul the pastor. But the latest Grove Biblical booklet … Continue Reading

Should we read the Bible literally?

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Last week it was reported that Dr Hugh Houghton of the University of Birmingham had translated a long-lost fourth-century Latin commentary on the gospels by African-born Italian bishop Fortunatianus of Aquileia, which Jerome had described as ‘a gem’, but which was thought to have been lost, either having perished or having been destroyed. But it turns … Continue Reading

How does the Spirit help resolve critical questions about the Bible?

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In my previous post, I highlighted the dilemma we find ourselves in when there is a dissonance between our experience of hearing God speak through Scripture and our experience of engaging in more reflective study of the same texts. I characterised these two sets of experiences as follows:   Immediacy — Delay Clarity — Ambiguity Relevance … Continue Reading