Some Reminders as You Continue Studying the Bible in the New Year
For the first time, I am teaching a seminar on Revelation 2-3, a section of Revelation I have often taught in churches but never in seminary. Nine fine students are enrolled and this morning (January 20, 2009) I sent them a memo providing some tips as they begin their journey of study. As I re-read them, I thought it would be appropriate for me to share them with you. In 2009 heed the following:
1. Beware of getting on a hobby horse and focusing on only one aspect (or a handful of issues) of the passage you are studying (e.g., spending most of your time on identifying the Nicolaitans or the hidden manna). Once you are finished with your presentation (or once we are finished reading your paper), we should have a better understanding of the passage or topic as a whole. Some may be tempted to miss the forest for the trees.
2. Beware of divorcing Rev. 1—3 from the rest of the book (e.g., is your passage or portions of your passages hinted at in later passages in Revelation)? You will want to make a list of all the vocabulary in your passage and see how the terms (and synonyms) are used elsewhere in Revelation. Those dealing with chapters two and three must pay attention to the content of Rev. 1 as well as Rev. 4-22. Those dealing with such issues as identifying the angel or the description of Christ need to be sensitive to the role angels play throughout the book or to the interplay between heaven and earth as well as other descriptions of Christ found scattered throughout Revelation as a whole. Far too often exegetes isolate Rev. 1-3 from the rest of the book. Please do not be guilty of doing this.
3. Beware of ignoring the structure of the passage (especially the structure and modification of structure found in chapters two and three).
4. Beware of ignoring the way the Old Testament is used in your passage (the chapter in the book edited by G.K. Beale and D.A. Carson will be especially helpful as well as the OT allusions found in the back of my book).
5. There may be times that you can explore x-number of options with regard to an exegetical issue; evaluate each one with regard to strengths and weaknesses and make a decision as best you can based on your study. There are some issues that remain debated even after nearly two thousand years of discussion!
6. Beware of overlooking the connections between the various messages in two and three. What is unique to your passage and what is similar when compared with the others?
7. Please do not think you already know what the text says! How do you know what “lukewarm” means or what it meant by “first love”? Are you sure you have been taught correctly on these and other passages? Do not assume you know what the passage means; be prepared for surprises!
8. Some additional rules need to be observed, rules that will help you realize that exegesis both a science and an art:
(1) Read your passage over and over again and read it in terms of the passages immediately surrounding it as well as in light of the entire document;
(2) Read your passage and ask how it fits the Story John is relating;
(3) Read the passage in light of the fact that it was recorded by a particular narrator to a particular audience for particular reasons;
(4) Read the passage in light of the time frame and space frame;
(5) Reconstruct in imagination the human situations within each idea derived its relevance for John and the original recipients;
(6) At every point try to fit your ways of thinking into the text’s ways, not the texts into yours!
(7) Free yourself from the desire to make a passage immediately useful in meeting urgent contemporary needs, whether personal or communal;
(8) Read as an individual who is responsible for responding to the text on your own, in terms of your own fund of talents and knowledge rather than screening the text through secondary literature (e.g., commentaries and other special studies);
(9) When a given sentence baffles, look for clarification to nearby sentences and to the patterns of John’s thought throughout the rest of the book;
(10) In each verse something is hidden that would surprise you, if you could find it. What you expect is sometimes not there; what you do not expect is there; look for it;
(11) Familiarity most surely, if subtly, breeds contempt of well-known passages (e.g., Is “Behold, I stand at the door and knock” to be used to call people to accept Christ as Lord and Savior? ;
(12) I know that such rules are dangerous because they can constitute a prescription for bizarre interpretations in which personal idiosyncrasies may run riot (I expect no one to proclaim in their presentation: “ I have found something in the text that no one, absolutely no one in the last two thousand years has ever seen!”);
(13) Yet I am convinced that only in following the above guidelines will a passage begin to pull your thought into new channels;
(14) Please be prepared to come to class to share some of the surprises that have come to you as you have tried to come to terms with what Revelation is teaching.
Do your best (II Tim. 2:15)!
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Good rules for exegesis no matter which text you are dealing with. As I often remind students, the three rules of exegesis are:
1. context.
2. context.
3. context.
Isn’t it odd that we can read a newspaper, book or poem and understand what we are reading and yet when we deal with Revelation, or other biblical passages, suddenly the rules we employ on a regular basis are set aside.
Thank you for a timely reminder.
It sounds incredibly challenging. I haven’t studied Revelation much at all since graduating from Harding in ’99, and although I disagreed with what I learned there, I have since abandoned the alternative view I took. I’m going to print out your tips and keep them handy.