Five Ways to be A More Faithful Reader of the New Testament

As the old saying goes, biblical exegesis “is both a science and an art.” There are necessary skills and tools the biblical exegete needs to be able to give himself the best opportunity to understand the author’s intent or intents in a text so that he would be transformed and conformed to the image of Christ by what he reads. However, biblical exegesis is also an art. Readers are making interpretive decisions about what they see in the text and what they think is the author’s intent. I focus this piece on five things I think can help readers of the New Testament strive toward faithfulness as they study it.

Read the New Testament as a Supernatural Book

Readers of the New Testament should prayerfully read it as a supernatural book and rely upon the Spirit to help us understand as we read it (see 2 Cor 3). The Bible is a miracle. God inspired holy men to write his inerrant word for his people. Biblical inerrancy and inspiration are a miracle. The Bible is the living and breathing word of God. As Paul says, “all Scripture is God-breathed…” (2 Tim 3:16). Since all Scripture is a God-breathed miracle, then every reader of the New Testament must approach it with prayer as a supernatural book, asking God to awaken our hearts to the truths therein as we read it.

Read the New Testament in the Context of the Church

Readers of the New Testament should read it in the context of the local church. There are many good things churches can do. In my view (and in the view of the apostle Paul!), churches should prioritize the faithful preaching and teaching of God’s word. Paul makes it especially clear to Timothy that the most important things he must do in Ephesus are teach and obey sound doctrine, appoint pastors to teach and obey sound doctrine, and to organize the church in such a way that it promotes the teaching and obeying of sound doctrine (see 1 Tim 1:3-6:2). Those who want to read the New Testament well must be in churches where the pastors and teachers faithfully teach the entire counsel of Scripture from the pulpit, in other contexts in the local church, and where they model for their people a faithful reading of the text. In many cases, readers of the New Testament will only be as good at faithful reading as their pastors, teachers, and churches that teach them how to read it.

Read the Old Testament

The New Testament authors have a masterful handle of the Old Testament. Their messages are saturated in God’s redemptive plan which begins in Genesis and continues through Revelation. John, for example, demonstrates in his apocalypse that his message to Christians, who were suffering persecution at the hands of the Roman empire, was anchored in God’s redemptive plan in Christ, to which the Old Testament points. With ease, John quotes, alludes to, or echoes Genesis, Daniel, Isaiah, Ezekiel (Rev 12-22), and many other texts as he emphasizes the Christian’s victory in Christ over sin, the devil, the empire, and over all the principalities and powers of the air because of Christ’s death and resurrection. Those who want to be faithful readers of the New Testament must be anchored in the Old Testament.

Study the Historical Context

The New Testament was written in a historical context, which is a very different context from 21^st century readers. If readers of the New Testament aspire to be as faithful as we can when we read it, we must take seriously its historical context. We should not keep the New Testament locked away in history, because it is the living and breathing word of God for every generation until Jesus returns. Nevertheless, the New Testament’s readers must learn as much as we can about its world and its culture to gain an even deeper insight into its message so that we can live faithfully as Christians in a fallen world. We must learn much about Greco-Roman history, Second Temple Judaism, and about additional historical referents that the New Testament authors do not explain, but assume, so that we can more rightly divide the word of truth.

For example, in John 10:22, John records that Jesus goes up to Jerusalem to the Feast of Dedication, and he gives a short seasonal statement with the words: “and it was winter.” However, he does not explain the Feast of Dedication to his readers, for they likely knew what it was. This feast occurs nowhere in the Old Testament. Its origin is during the period of Second Temple Judaism. This feast is more popularly known as Hannukah. The Jewish book of 1 Maccabees records the story of a fellow named Judas Maccabeus and his family who successfully fought against and defeated Gentile invaders who desecrated the holy temple in Jerusalem. Once Judas and his family took back the temple from these Gentile invaders, they purified it, filled it with light, sanctified it, and dedicated it to the Lord again. In the narrative of 1 Maccabees, Judas functions as a savior-like figure of the Jewish people (1 Maccabees 4:36-58). They celebrated a feast in honor of this event every year (1 Maccabees 4:59). Josephus describes the same celebration as the “festival of restoration” and the “festival of lights” (Antiquities 12.323-26), because the temple was restored and lights burned within it.

When Jesus goes up during this feast in John 10:22, it’s likely that the participants were singing hymns, praising God, and remembering Judas Maccabeus’s heroic act of delivering the Jews in Judea and their temple from the bondage of the Greek tyrant, Antiochus IV Epiphanes. They likely praised God for the purity of the temple, for its sanctity, and as it was filled with lights reminding the people of God’s presence with his people. They possibly told stories about Judas and his great deeds.

John places Jesus’s trip to Jerusalem during Hannukah within a section that begins in 7:1 and continues to 10:39. In this section, Jesus has numerous debates with unbelieving Jews. He tells them more than once that they were in darkness as they refuse to receive him, the true light, that has come into the world as “the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1). Jesus has also identified himself as the light of the world, the bread of life, the water of life, the good shepherd, and soon the resurrection and the life (John 7-11). However, when Jesus teaches at the temple during Hannukah/Festival of Lights/Feast of Dedication, he tells those unbelieving Jews present that one greater than the temple has come. Hannukah represents Israel’s political liberation and hope. Yet, Jesus enters the temple to teach during this feast about hope in him because unbelieving Jews were in darkness (see John 1, 10), which John supports in the narrative by their rejection of Jesus, the holy one himself, who is God in the flesh (1:14). They celebrated Hannukah to remember the day when Judas consecrated and sanctified the temple. Jesus tells them a greater sanctified holy place had come (namely, the incarnate God-Christ), who dwelt among them, to whom the purified inner sanctuary of the temple pointed. Thus, if they believed in Jesus, he would have given to them eternal life, to which the temple simply points. Knowing this historical context helps read this story in a fresh way.

Learn The Biblical Languages

The Old Testament was written in Hebrew and parts in Aramaic. The New Testament was written in Greek. Those who want to read the New Testament even more faithfully should gain a working knowledge of Greek. This may seem daunting to most. However, those who commit consistent time to learning both biblical languages will see things more clearly in the text and will be more careful when they read the text. Their exegetical skills will be even more sharp. Examples abound why a basic knowledge of Greek will help readers be more faithful in their study of the New Testament, but I simply refer those interested in examples to A.T. Robertson’s famous book The Minister and His Greek New Testament, in which he makes a compelling case as to why readers of the New Testament, especially ministers, should devote themselves to studying Greek to help them be more faithful readers, teachers, and preachers of the New Testament.

The Scriptures are sufficient for everything we need for eternal life and godliness. They are sacred. They are food for the souls of God’s people, and we should love and cherish them with all our being as followers of Christ. May God help us, his people, to commit ourselves daily to read them faithfully.