Audio Transcript

We’ve talked a lot about Bible-study principles on the podcast — specifically, arcing: the practice of breaking down a paragraph in the Bible to its individual statements, its propositions, to determine how those propositions relate to one another logically, so we can see for ourselves the main point of a text. It’s a powerful way to employ discourse analysis. We talked about this back in episode 1056. But in that episode, you only used examples from Paul’s epistles. And I think the epistles are rather intuitive for arcing. But Nicholas in Ontario, Canada — who is, I gather, a pastor — writes in to ask about narrative texts.

“Hello, Pastor John. Thank you for your tireless work on this podcast. It is such a blessing to have these concise and thoughtful responses to the perennial questions of life. I am currently listening on Audible to your book Reading the Bible Supernaturally. It has been such a wonderful refresher on why to read the Bible and how to focus my reading and study for personal devotion and sermon prep. Thank you. My question is regarding narratives. You make the point that your revolution in reading came when you discovered that the Bible’s authors were making arguments and that tracing those arguments well was key to understanding the author, and thus God’s intention in the word. I see how this applies to the epistles of the New Testament and even wisdom literature. But what about narratives? My church is currently preaching through Luke, and while there is indeed structure, how do you ‘arc out’ a narrative? Are there different keys you look for? Are there specific transitions, markers, or triggers you are looking for in the narrative texts?”

Seeing What an Author Is Saying

Well, let me see if I can get everybody up to speed with what he’s asking. I put a huge emphasis on following an author’s train of thought in order to find his true intention. And I do believe that the most fundamental goal of reading is to discover the author’s intention, what he wants to communicate. Now, there may be other good effects of reading besides that discovery. You might just find entertainment, for example. But without pursuing this foundational effect of finding an author’s intention, we’re being discourteous, and we’re treating authors the way we don’t like to be treated when we try to communicate something and somebody says, “I don’t really care what you’re trying to communicate. I’m going to take your words to mean this or that.”

“Without pursuing this foundational effect of finding an author’s intention, we’re being discourteous.”

And in the process, we’re going to lose a great opportunity for growing. If we don’t care about finding what another person has discovered in reality, and we’re just going to read our own ideas in, we’re not going to grow. And 2 Peter 3:18 says, “Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” So, I argue that one essential means of pursuing that goal of finding an author’s intention and growing in knowledge and grace is to carefully trace an author’s argument.

And by argument, I don’t mean quarrel. I know that sometimes people use the word argument differently than I do. I mean a sequence of thought that builds from foundations to conclusions. For example, Romans 1:15–17 goes like this. (There are going to be three becauses.)

I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. Because I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. . . . Because in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith.

I read my Bible for two decades before I discovered that’s the way Paul wrote. So there are four massively important statements here, right? And my point is that you can’t understand Paul’s intention, what he’s trying to communicate, unless you understand the logical relationships between those four statements. And Paul signals, loud and clear, those relationships by using the word because three times. He’s building an argument from foundations to conclusions.

Clues in the Narrative

Now, Nicholas’s question is how that detailed, rigorous focus on the logical relationships between particular statements relates to the interpretation of big sections of narrative in the Bible or story in the Bible. And he could expand it out and ask, “How does it relate to poetry and parable and so on?” Events that are woven together in a certain way — that’s what I mean by narrative. Should we seek the author’s intention in the same way?

And my answer is this: In principle, yes. But in the details of how the author signals his intention, we’re going to have to watch for other things than simply one proposition following another proposition with a logical connector in between. Stories don’t work like that. But biblical authors write stories for a reason. They are trying to communicate something to us. They want us to find it.

I remember when I wrote Reading the Bible Supernaturally, which he referred to, I was just blown away by this. I saw this really for the first time. One of Jesus’s main criticisms of the Pharisees was that he said they didn’t know how to read. I mean, it must absolutely have galled them. I mean, they were the readers, right? Over and over he says, “Have you not read? . . . Have you not read?” (Matthew 12:3; 19:4; 22:31). And they’re scratching their heads and saying, “All we do is read!” Of course they read. So what does he mean? He means they were reading and not reading, seeing and not seeing.

“Biblical authors write stories for a reason. They are trying to communicate something to us. They want us to find it.”

In other words, there are real intentions that the inspired authors communicate — in this case, the Old Testament authors that the Pharisees read every day — whether through careful, sentence-by-sentence exposition, or whether through poetry, or whether through narrative, and those Pharisees weren’t seeing it at all. That’s what Jesus was upset about.

So yes, we should look for an author’s intention in all writing — all writing that’s worth its salt. And yes, we should look for whatever clues the author gives us, and all good authors do give clues to help us find what he’s trying to communicate. Those clues with regard to narrative might be repetitions, or the order of events, or what the dialogues actually say, or the effects of certain events, or actual inserted interpretive comments by the author, and so on.

Joseph and the Story of Many Layers

So let me just give a few illustrations from one of the best stories in the Old Testament. I’m thinking of Joseph now in Genesis 37–50. Some regard this as one of the best short stories that’s ever been written, if you want to put it in those categories. It’s an absolutely riveting story, and you wonder, What in the world is going on here? Where is this going, this story?

There are fourteen whole chapters about Joseph’s dreams, the hatred of his brothers, their selling him into slavery, his fall further and further into misery as Potiphar’s wife lies about him — and then he goes to prison, and he’s forgotten in prison. And then he becomes the second-ranked ruler in Egypt, and the people of God are saved from starvation in the famine, and the line of the Messiah is preserved. Oh, that’s what was going on!

And there are numerous layers of intentions in this writing. I want to get it out of people’s minds that when you read a narrative, you get the big picture or get the one big point. Well, yes, by all means, get the one big point. It may govern all the others, but there are a lot of little points that authors make along the way.

The Bible in Parable

So let’s start with the big picture of this story. I think Moses wrote Genesis, and he does not leave us wondering about the big overarching intention of the story. He fills us in with a couple of very clear, pointed summary statements of what he’s been talking about. For example, Joseph says in Genesis 45:7–8,

God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here [even though you sold me into slavery!], but God. He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt.

In other words, all these apparently human events that we’ve been reading about for fourteen chapters, even the sinful ones, were in the control of the sovereign God, who is sending his emissary through sinful actions down to Egypt to save his people. That’s crazy. That’s wonderful. That’s almost the meaning of the Bible in parable.

And then in Genesis 50:20, Joseph says to his brothers, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive.” I think when you read that, you almost have to go back and reread the story, because now you get it. Now you say, “Oh, that’s where it was all going.” And you can reread the story and say with that clue in your mind, “This meant that, and this was going here.” You see God’s hand more immediately.

So, the big point is that the human sinfulness of God’s people or human sinfulness against God’s people not only do not thwart his saving plans, but they advance his saving plans. They are part of the plans of God to save his people and finally bring his Messiah into the world through that line. So that’s the big picture. And he clues us in with hints all along the way and with that big explanatory statement at the end.

‘The Lord Was with Him’

But there are other clues of meaning and layers of meaning besides the big interpretive statement at the end. Along the way, Moses mingles worsening circumstances with encouraging words. Joseph is thrown into the pit. He’s sold as a slave. He’s far from home in Egypt. He’s lied about by Potiphar’s wife. He’s forgotten in prison. Down, down, down, down — you can graph this story, and it corresponds to many of our lives. I’ve done this for our people. I graph it and say, “Where are you on this horribly descending graph of miserable circumstances in your life?” And he comes to the end, and then he seems to be forgotten by God. What in the world? It’s supposed to sound that way.

But along the way, Moses says things like, “The Lord was with him and . . . the Lord caused all that he did to succeed in his hands” (Genesis 39:3). Or again, “The Lord was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison” (Genesis 39:21). We get these hints along the way that even though things are getting worse for Joseph, it’s not because of his sinfulness. He’s not bringing this on himself. It’s not because he’s been abandoned by God — but because of God’s hidden purpose. And as we read, we want to know, What’s the purpose? What’s the purpose? God, you say you’re for him; you don’t look like you’re for him.

Story Within a Story

One more illustration of how the author gets across his intention, and this is one of the most perplexing things to me in the whole story. Chapter 38 totally, it seems, interrupts the flow of the story. The Joseph story begins in chapter 37 with the dreams and the selling into slavery in Egypt, and — bang! — Moses inserts chapter 38 as soon as the big story starts, and it is so extraneous. It tells this bizarre story about Judah, Joseph’s older brother, who winds up getting his daughter-in-law pregnant, thinking she’s a prostitute. Now whatever else is going on here, my question is, Moses, why here? I mean, put that chapter before chapter 37. Let the story flow. What’s the point of interrupting the narrative with this chapter 38?

Well, here’s my suggestion, and I would love to know whether it’s right or not. The very next thing after that horrible immorality of Judah in chapter 38 — the very next thing we read about in Joseph’s story — is Joseph’s incredible uprightness in sexual relations with Potiphar’s wife, who tries to seduce him. And Moses records his words: “How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?” (Genesis 39:9). So, I think the ordering of the narrative with the insertion of Judah’s sexual immorality just before Joseph’s staggeringly effective and beautiful sexual morality is to underline in bright colors the difference between Judah’s unfaithfulness and Joseph’s amazing sexual uprightness, which simply goes to show that there can be main points to narratives and lots of sub-points to narratives that we should be alert to.

Keep Looking

So, in answer to Nicholas’s question: whether we are reading a tightly argued epistle of Paul or a sweeping narrative across fourteen chapters, we’re always looking for what the author intends to communicate. And we look for the kinds of clues that he gives us, whether in exposition or in narration, to help us find the intention.

I would just say to Nicholas that the more you read — the more I read — with that aim of spotting those tips and pointers that authors give us, the more you’re going to see.

Ofttimes the primary reason why godly men are called to suffer is for the sake of witness they may give to the sincerity of their love for Christ and the reality of divine grace in them.

There is a deep mystery to suffering. While the Bible makes it plain that we must expect to encounter times of sorrow and loss, of trial and grief, we often don’t know why these times come. Though we know he is weaving together a marvelous tapestry that will wondrously display his glory, we also know it is one whose beauty we will fully appreciate only when faith becomes sight.

It was in the waning weeks of 2020 that my family faced our darkest hour, for it was then that the heart of my 20-year-old son Nick suddenly and unexpectedly stopped, and he went to be with the Lord. One moment he was a seminarian leading some fellow students in a game, and the next he was in heaven. His departure shocked us, devastated us, and left us wondering why. Why would God choose this for us, and why would God choose us for this?

“Why would God choose this for us, and why would God choose us for this?”

In the aftermath of that dreadful evening, I turned to some of my dearest friends, friends who lived and died many years ago, but whom I’ve come to know through the books and sermons they left behind. If a multitude of advisers is necessary for planning well, how much more for grieving well (Proverbs 15:22)? In the most difficult days and darkest hours, they counseled and consoled me.

Suffering as Witness

Theodore Cuyler was a close and steady companion who encouraged me to accept that God always places bright blessings behind the dark clouds of his providence. F.B. Meyer assured me that peace would come through submission to God’s will, and that I should trust him in the taking as much as I had in the giving. But it was in the words of the old preacher J.R. Miller that I found one piece of wisdom that especially helped quiet my heart and direct my path.

Ofttimes the primary reason why godly men are called to suffer is for the sake of witness they may give to the sincerity of their love for Christ and the reality of divine grace in them. The world sneers at religious profession. It refuses to believe that it is genuine. It defiantly asserts that what is called Christian principle is only selfishness, and that it would not stand severe testing. Then, godly men are called to endure loss, suffering or sorrow, not because there is any particular evil in themselves which needs to be eradicated, but because the Master needs their witness to answer the sneers of the world. (“The Ministry of Comfort”)

In every age, we hear of professed believers who abandon the faith as soon as they are called to suffer. They are glad enough to express confidence in God as long as his will seems perfectly aligned with their own, as long as his providence decrees what they would choose anyway. But when they are called to lose instead of gain, to weep instead of laugh, to face poverty instead of prosperity, they quickly turn aside and fall away (Matthew 13:20–21). Like towers built on sand, many who stand strong in days of calm collapse in days of flood (Matthew 7:26–27).

No wonder, then, that many unbelievers become convinced that the Christian faith is unequal to great challenges, that Christians will adhere to Christ only while life is easy and circumstances favorable. No wonder, then, that skeptics scoff since they have observed many whose faith was no stronger than its first great challenge. And no wonder, then, that even many sincere believers wonder whether their faith is sufficient for times of deep sorrow, whether it could withstand a dreadful shock.

It is just here that Miller’s word have been both comforting and challenging.

What the World Needs to See

In times of great sorrow, we naturally long for answers. We long to know why a God who is good and who loves us so dearly has decreed such a painful providence. Miller comforted me with the assurance that we do not need to assume that God is punishing us for sin we have committed or chastising for righteousness we have failed to accomplish. We do not need to believe that these circumstances somehow escaped his notice and darted past his control. We do not need to wonder whether it is all just meaningless and purposeless, as if “all things work together for good” except for grueling losses.

No, we can be confident that God has important purposes for our suffering, and we can be equally confident that one of these purposes is simply for us to stand strong, to continue to profess our allegiance to him. If Paul could say that his imprisonment “has really served to advance the gospel,” why shouldn’t we say the same of our bereavements (Philippians 1:12)?

Unbelievers and Christians alike need the assurance that our faith does not depend upon God delivering only what we ourselves would choose and that our love for God does not depend upon circumstances that never contradict our desires. Unbelievers and Christians alike need to be shown that God’s people will be as true to him with little as with much, with broken hearts as with whole, with empty hands as with full. All need to be shown that those who blessed God in the giving will praise him still in the taking, that those who weep tears of sorrow will still raise hands of worship, that those who trust him in the green pastures will trust him still when he leads through dark valleys. And this is precisely what my dear friend J.R. Miller called me to.

Still Good in the Valley

By God’s grace, I can profess from the valley of the shadow of death that my Shepherd is good. I can attest from a place of deep sorrow that God is providing sweet comfort. I can proclaim that while my heart is broken, my faith is intact. I can affirm that a love for God formed in days of sunshine truly can withstand days of rain. So, too, can my wife and my daughters.

“From the first moment of that first night of our sorrow, God has been present and kind, faithful and good.”

There has not been the smallest bit of coercion or the least measure of performance. There has been no need. For together we have learned that while our strength is small, God’s is great. While our hold on him is weak, his grasp on us is strong. While we would certainly be insufficient to this challenge, God has given what we need. The steadfast love of the Lord has not ceased; his mercies have not come to an end, but have been new every morning. Great has been his faithfulness (Lamentations 3:22–23).

We don’t know all the reasons why God chose to take Nick to himself at such a young age, but neither do we have any right to demand answers from our God or to insist that he account for his providence. Our confidence rests not in his explanation but in his character, not in what he has done but in who he is — the one who knows “the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose’” (Isaiah 46:10).

And from the first moment of that first night of our sorrow, he has been present and kind, faithful and good. He has been true to his every promise. We love him more now than ever.

Picture yourself in a group Bible study. Your small group is studying the book of Ephesians, and you’ve made it to chapter 5. Someone reads aloud verse 18: “Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit.” Then Steve, the new guy, says, “Well, Paul clearly forbids getting drunk on wine. I’m just thankful that he said nothing about getting drunk on whiskey. That’s my favorite way to become intoxicated.”

We all intuitively recognize that Steve is mistaken. We might even think him absurd. But how do we explain his error? My guess is that we would say something like, “Steve, that’s not what the Bible means. Paul intended to prohibit all drunkenness, not just drunkenness from wine.” To which Steve might reply, “But that’s not what the Bible says. Paul mentioned wine only. I’m sticking to the text.” Or he might say, “That’s just your interpretation. I’m talking about what the Bible means to me.”

Learn the Habit of Reading Well

When people ask what I do for a living, I often say, “My job is to teach college students how to read.” This is only half a joke, because the reality is that our educational system and society has left many people incapable of reading well. That’s why, at Bethlehem College & Seminary, our approach to education centers on imparting to our students certain habits of heart and mind.

In all of our programs, we aim to enable and motivate students

to observe their subject matter accurately and thoroughly,
to understand clearly what they have observed,
to evaluate fairly what they have understood by deciding what is true and valuable,
to feel intensely according to the value of what they have evaluated,
to apply wisely and helpfully in life what they understand and feel, and
to express in speech and writing and deeds what they have seen, understood, felt, and applied in such a way that its accuracy, clarity, truth, value, and helpfulness can be known and enjoyed by others.

“You can’t say whether something is true or false, good or bad, until you first know what the something is.”

There is a certain order to these habits. Before you can feel appropriately, you must evaluate rightly. And before you can evaluate rightly, you must first observe accurately and understand clearly. Note this: evaluation depends upon understanding. Without clear understanding of what someone has said or written, evaluation is impossible, because you have nothing to evaluate. You can’t say whether something is true or false, good or bad, until you first know what the something is.

Meaning and Significance Are Not the Same

My own experience as a teacher suggests that there are many confusions and pitfalls around the question of “meaning” when we read a text. Consider this a crash course on the meaning of meaning.

Let’s begin with the Golden Rule: “Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them” (Matthew 7:12). When it comes to reading, we ought to practice Golden Rule Interpretation. That is, we ought to treat authors the way we want to be treated. No one wants his own words treated like a wax nose that a reader can bend according to his will. No one likes to have his words twisted into something he didn’t intend. When we speak or write, we mean something, and we want that meaning to stand — to be understood and respected as ours (even if others disagree with us). And so, given that’s how we want to be treated, we ought to treat authors the same.

To do this, we must distinguish between what the author meant by his words and the effects of his words on subsequent people and events. For clarity, let’s refer to the first as meaning. Texts mean what authors mean by them. The second we may call significance. The author’s meaning can be related to different texts, contexts, concepts, situations, people, places — anything you can think of, really.

Meaning and significance are distinct. Meaning is stable through time; significance may and does change. Meaning is about what authors do in public by means of words (as one theologian puts it). Significance is about the effects of those words on everything else. Meaning is fixed and bounded; significance is, in principle, limitless. When an author writes something, he means this and not that. But significance has to do with the relation between the author’s meaning and this, that, and the other.

With this basic distinction in hand, let’s consider four puzzles in relation to meaning: the source of meaning, the means of meaning, the levels of intent, and the boundaries of meaning. To aid in solving these puzzles, we’ll use Steve’s surprising interpretation of what the Bible says in Ephesians 5:18 as a test case.

Puzzle 1: Source of Meaning

The first puzzle has to do with the source of meaning. Note that I introduced the quotation as “what the Bible says.” But if we’re thinking carefully, we realize that this must be a form of shorthand. People say things, not objects. So when we say, “The Bible says . . .” what we (ought to) mean is, “Paul says (or God says) in the Bible . . .”

“Texts are not free-floating entities with autonomous meaning. Instead, authors are the source of meaning.”

Meaning, then, is a matter of the author’s intent. This is crucial to remember. Whenever we talk about meaning, we are talking about persons. Sometimes we say things like, “The text means what it says.” But this again is misleading. Texts don’t mean; only people mean. To put this another way, a text doesn’t mean what it says, because it cannot say anything; instead, it means what the author says. Or to say it in yet another way, if there is meaning, there must be a mean-er. Meaning exists only when someone has meant.

Thus, we stress that texts are not free-floating entities with autonomous meaning. Instead, authors are the source of meaning.

Puzzle 2: Means of Meaning

If authors are the source of meaning, what then are texts? Texts are the means of meaning, and therefore are absolutely crucial for interpretation. Stressing the importance of texts helps us avoid another confusion and solve another puzzle.

When we are interpreting a text, we sometimes say that we are looking to “get inside the mind of the author” and to “see what he wanted to do.” Now, this could be another form of shorthand, a way of stressing that we are interested in the author’s intention, and seeking to avoid usurping his place by imposing our own meaning on his text.

However, speaking like this could also be misleading. It could lead someone to think that the aim of interpretation is to somehow recover the author’s psychological state at the time he was writing. We might attempt to psychoanalyze him, and discover the hidden motives of his mind. So someone might try to discern what in Paul’s personal background led him to prohibit drunkenness in Ephesians 5. And because many recognize the impossibility of such a task, this mistake has sometimes led interpreters to abandon the idea that the author matters at all.

How, then, can we avoid this error? By stressing both the author and the text. The text is the public means by which an author accomplishes his purpose. As we said above, meaning is about what authors do in public by means of words. Note this: meaning is not about what the author wanted to do, or what the author tried to do, or what the author subconsciously attempted to do. It’s about what the author did do through his text.

Meaning, then, is a public affair, because through the text it is shareable and reproducible. The norms of our language establish the boundaries of what we can say. Within those boundaries, we select the appropriate elements (words, grammar, syntax, and more) and put them to use to accomplish our purposes. Someone who shares our language is thus able to discern our intent in what we’ve said. Authors are the source of meaning, and texts are the means of meaning.

Puzzle 3: Levels of Intent

Now we introduce an additional puzzle, having to do with the English word intent, which is potentially ambiguous. Consider the simple phrase “Do not get drunk.” When Paul writes this phrase to the Ephesians, we can see two different levels of intention. At one level, his intent is to exhort or issue a command. That’s what his words do. At another level, his intent is that his command be obeyed. That’s what he hopes his words accomplish.

But it’s important to keep these two levels distinct. The first level is entirely within Paul’s power. Assuming he writes clearly in a language his audience understands, he accomplishes his intent simply by writing, regardless of whether the Ephesians obey or not.

The second level is not within Paul’s power. While he may intend (in the sense of “hope for”) the obedience of the Ephesians, securing that obedience is not within his power. The first level refers to the force of Paul’s words — what he is doing in speaking at all. The second refers to the desired results of his words — what he is trying to accomplish by speaking. But these are distinct. The first level — issuing the command — is a matter of meaning; the second level — the Ephesians’ obedience or disobedience — is a matter of significance.

Puzzle 4: Boundaries of Meaning

The final puzzle has to do with the boundaries of meaning. Earlier, we noted that meaning is stable, fixed, and bounded. But how do we determine such boundaries? When Steve says that Ephesians 5:18 only prohibits getting drunk with wine, but has nothing to say about getting drunk with whiskey, how can we explain his error?

One way might be to focus on the logic of Paul’s statement. “Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery.” The word for indicates the ground on which the command is issued. And drunkenness is debauchery and corruption, whether it is caused by wine or whiskey or beer.

But even without the grounding statement, we can know our friend to be in error if we recognize that meaning is both explicit and implicit. When Paul explicitly mentions wine, he is using wine as an instance of intoxicating beverages. Wine is a type of intoxicating beverage that represents the entire class. Implicit within Paul’s statement is an etcetera; we might reproduce his full meaning as, “Do not get drunk with wine (and things of that sort), for that is debauchery.”

This is how communication works. We can’t say everything all the time. We can’t identify every instance of every type. And so, we frequently will the type of thing that we mean, and trust that, using language and shared context, our audience is able to discern the boundaries of our meaning.

How Good Readers Interpret

Much more could be said about meaning. But being a good reader means learning to think clearly about the task of interpretation. When we interpret, we are looking for the author’s intent or meaning. This original intent is distinct from the significance of that meaning to us. The author is the source of meaning, and the text is the means of meaning. Because the text is public, readers are able to attend to the author’s intention embedded in his words. And good readers attend both to the explicit and implicit dimensions of an author’s meaning.

The task of interpretation does not exhaust our responsibilities as readers, especially as Christian readers who are interpreting for ourselves or trying to help friends like Steve. As mentioned above, our school seeks to teach students to evaluate, feel, apply, and express what they learn from their reading. But none of those steps can happen apart from patient, persistent, humble observation and understanding — that is, hard work. And that hard work of good reading is not without great reward.