How to Read the Bible as Jesus Did

How to Read the Bible as Jesus Did December 11, 2013

Our passage [Matthew 5:17-20] is the most significant passage in the entire Bible on how to read the Bible, with a nod to Luke 24:13-49, Galatians 3:19-25, Romans 9—11 and Hebrews, because Jesus tells us how to read the Bible. The entire Old Testament or, in Jesus’ Jewish shorthand summary, the Law and the Prophets, aim at and are completed in/fulfilled in Jesus as Messiah. Yet, these words “completed” and “fulfilled” do not mean “abolished.” Rabbi Pinchas Lapide makes this potent observation: “In all rabbinic literature I know of no more unequivocal, fiery acknowledgement of Israel’s holy scripture than this opening to the Instruction on the Mount.” This Jewish scholar think these words “acknowledge” – he means “affirm” – the Bible of Israel. This passage is also the Thematic Statement for what follows in Matthew 5:21-48, that is, we will be treated to five cases of how to read the Bible: about murder, adultery, oaths, retaliation, and love for enemies. Bible reading is at the heart of Jesus’ mission, and this passage reveals what makes that heart beat.

So we need to be listening more carefully in our churches to this question: How do church folks read the Bible? Some people read the Bible formationally, and they read with the heart open to receive from God at a spiritual, intuitive, devotional, and relational level. Others read the Bible informationally, and they read the Bible to know what it said – and many such people have acquired the original languages so they can examine tenses and cases and sentence structure. Others read the Bible canonically so they can read the Bible with their ears open to the rest of the Bible. Others read the Bible historically and only want to know what Jesus’ intent was in his world or what Matthew’s intent was in his context. Others read the Bible socio-pragmatically, and they read the Bible to foster and further their own political, theological, ideological or social agenda. Others read the Bible according to what their guru says, and they read the Bible – usually in a group, or a church, a sect, or a school of thought – according to how their favorite teacher or prophet or charismatic leaders teaches the Bible. Thus, a “Catholic” or a “Calvinist” or an “Arminian” or a “Barthian” or a “Hauerwasian” or a “N.T. Wrightian” or a “John Piperian” reading of the Bible, so they say, would look like this … and again you can fill in the blank.

Is there a right way? Or are there only ways of reading the Bible? Are some ways better than others or do we simply read the Bible for ourselves? We can learn to transcend our own readings of the Bible by focusing on how Jesus read the Bible. What does he say?…

We must consider the mind-numbing claim here by Jesus: he is claiming that he fulfills – in a salvation-historical, theological and moral manner – what the Torah and the Prophets anticipated and predicted and preliminarily taught. What kind of person makes claims like this? It is one thing to say, as Jesus could have, I can do miracles as mighty as Elijah, or I can predict the future as clearly as did Isaiah, or I can do miracles as astounding as Moses. It’s altogether different to claim that he himself fulfills the Torah and the Prophets. But that’s precisely the claim Jesus makes here. Nothing in history was ever the same. The Torah had come to its goal. The Torah hereby takes on the face of Jesus. His claim is thoroughly Jewish (Isaiah 2:1-5; Jeremiah 31:31-34), but of a particular sort: Messianic. The first lesson we get in reading the Bible is this one:

Look to Jesus as its central Story.

… We do not read the Bible aright until we learn to read it as the Story of Israel that comes to completion – fulfillment – in the Story of Jesus Christ. This is the very essence of what Paul means by “gospel” in 1 Corinthians 15:1-28, and it is the way the early apostles evangelized when they were telling the gospel: one simply needs to read the sermons in Acts 2, 3, 10—11, 13, 14, and 17 to see this.Which leads me to say that Matthew 5:17-20 is one of the most pristine expressions of the gospel in the New Testament. Why? Because this passage says overtly and boldly that the Story of Israel is fulfilled in Jesus himself. His life, his teachings, his actions – everything about him completes what was anticipated in the Old Testament. That’s the gospel!


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