Topic Video: Scripture's Original Meaning

Описание: What factors should we consider when discussing Scripture's original meaning? Why is it important to think about the original context of Scripture?

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Countless scholarly debates have raged over how to define original meaning, but we’ll define the original meaning of a text as:
The concepts, behaviors and emotions that the divine and human writers jointly intended the document to communicate to its first audience.

As we consider the concept of original meaning, it’s helpful to think in terms of three main concerns: the biblical document we’re investigating, the human writer that the Holy Spirit inspired to write the document, and the audience that the human writer intended to be the first recipients of the document. The document is important because it’s the actual word of God that was sent to the first audience.

It should be obvious that if we want to know the original meaning of a biblical passage, we have to look at the passage itself. Now for many of us, this means that we simply read our modern translations of the Bible. Modern translations are not infallible, but they do represent one of the most important teaching ministries of the church. And as long as we’re careful not to depend too much on a particular word or phrase that may be different in one translation or another, we can learn a lot from the translations we use.

In his providence, God has preserved the Scriptures in remarkable ways. For this reason, the Bibles we have today are still adequate to lead the church of Christ, if we interpret them carefully.

The human writer is important because, through the process of organic inspiration, the document reflects the author’s thoughts, intentions, feelings, literary skills, and so on. The Holy Spirit chose to communicate his word through the personalities, experiences, emotions, and patterns of thought of human biblical writers. And there are several places in the Bible where the importance of the human writers is mentioned explicitly. …

Listen to what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 22 verses 41 through 45:
Jesus asked them, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” “The son of David,” they replied. He said to them, “How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him ‘Lord’? For he says, ‘The Lord said to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.”’ If then David calls him ‘Lord,’ how can he be his son?”

In this passage, Jesus referred to David’s authorship of Psalm 110. And he specifically tied his interpretation of the psalm to the fact that its human author was David.

The audience is important because both the Holy Spirit and the human author crafted the document in a way that spoke particularly to them in their own context and circumstances.

God revealed himself to an original audience, people in a particular place, in a particular time. This is one of the remarkable things about the Bible. It is not merely a collection of prescriptions from on high. God was speaking to particular people in a particular setting, and so when we know how they understood what they were hearing from God, what they were receiving from God, that helps us to know what the limits are for our own understanding.

The Scriptures themselves provide a strong theological basis for giving attention to the writer, the document and the audience of every biblical passage. Now of course, paying attention to all three of these guides to the original meaning requires a lot of hard work. But the more we know about the writer, and the document and the original audience of a biblical passage, the better we’ll be able to explore its original meaning. And the more we understand the original meaning, the better we’ll be able to apply the Scriptures to our lives today.

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