Seeing the Big Picture in Scripture

still haven’t figured out where I fit into the spectrum of postmodernism, emerging church, etc. To be honest, I’m not in any hurry to find out where I fit, but sometimes it makes me curious about who all I do identify with. I mention that only because the topic on my mind today is one that seems to be strongly associated with the emerging church. Much of it relates to questions I’ve asked in the past about Scripture, but now it’s a bit more general.

So here’s what’s on my mind. As I’ve mentioned recently, we are reading through the Bible in our homeschool morning routine. We finish breakfast and then we usually read anywhere from one to four chapters in sequence. (We are not following a reading schedule. We just play it by ear based on the length and content of the chapters in our progress.) Admittedly, we have not read out loud for the past few days because we’re up to a chapter in Leviticus that talks about all kinds of bodily discharges, etc., and it seems a bit awkward at the breakfast table!! I’m trying to figure out how to get past that…

So anyway, this exercise of reading through the Scripture causes me to see how very important it is to see the big picture in Scripture. While I understand the perspective that leads to expository preaching of the text, I fear that expository preaching — and more specifically the process of dissecting individual words, sentences, and verses in minute detail — has led to a plethora of proof-texting methods which extract sentences (or even portions of sentences) from the whole and prop them up to stand on their own as propositional statements.

For example (and this is probably worth a post of its own, but I’ll forego that for right now), we came across the story of Nadab and Abihu in Leviticus 10. This story is the basis for what many term the “Regulative Principle of Worship“. However, I noticed something rather interesting with regard to this.

First of all, let’s set aside the fact that very little detail is given as to the exact nature of Nadab and Abihu’s sin. All we’re really told is that they offered “strange fire” before the Lord, and that it was something God had not commanded them to offer. (It’s possible that verse 9 actually indicates that perhaps Nadab and Abihu were drunk when they offered a sacrifice, but I can’t be sure.) The idea in the Regulative Principle, as I understand it, is that this text then is applicable in our worship in that anything that God has not specifically commanded in Scripture is forbidden in worship. I have seen this applied in some really frustrating ways.

What struck me, however, as we read this chapter, was that later on in that same chapter, Aaron and his sons burn all of the meat of a goat, rather than eating a portion that was given to them as part of the commands of God. Moses responded very angrily when he found this out. But Aaron tells him that they did it (if I’m reading this correctly) because they didn’t feel like they should benefit from the sacrifice after what happened to Nadab and Abihu. Moses was, according to the text, appeased by Aaron’s explanation.

Taking the single verse about Nadab and Abihu out of context, one can draw a conclusion that leads to the Regulative Principle of Worship. But even within the context of the very same chapter, we find someone (Aaron and his remaining sons) deliberately handling the sacrifice differently from what God had commanded, and there were no ramifications.

The big picture is even more significant when we take Scripture as a whole. All of the sacrifices that we read about in Leviticus, in all of their painstaking detail, can mean something completely different if we take them on their own without the completion of the story in the sacrifice of Jesus. If we don’t see the fulfillment of those sacrifices in Jesus, we are left with some very strange applications.

I could provide many examples of this problem. But suffice it to say that I think we need to be very careful how much we assume that individual verses or phrases in Scripture can be applied to our lives out of context.

I think part of the problem comes from the way we reduce statements like that found in 2 Timothy 3:16. In this verse, we read the very familiar words that “All Scripture is…profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness.” And I believe this is where the concept of expository preaching derives its substance. After all, if all Scripture, every word, every phrase, every verse is useful for all of these things, then we dare not miss any of it, right? But the word “all” doesn’t necessarily mean that every single portion of it is such on its own. (Hear me carefully on this.) But the entirety of Scripture as a unit is profitable for all of the things mentioned.

Even just a cursory glance at the many different ways in which Paul uses this same Greek word within the book of 2 Timothy alone show the variety of possible meanings there. And just thinking about the ways in which Scripture verses have been applied out of context shows the necessity of viewing “all Scripture” as a unit.

In that sense, I’m enjoying the read-through. It’s helping me take a step back and see the big picture. And as Christy and I continue to comment almost every time we read in Leviticus, I’m so glad that Jesus came! What we are reading is part of our history as Christians. It’s part of the long, continuous story of God’s interaction with man. It’s part of the story in which we find ourselves. But the book of Leviticus is not the story all by itself. Nor is it “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness” all by itself.

Until next time,

steve