The Mileses

Paul and Olena Miles with Grace Abroad Ministries

gospels

A bit about intertextuality (Matt. 2:15)

Intertextuality is key to ensuring that the Bible student is doing nothing “to” or “with” the text, but rather deriving that which is already “within” the text. The proper method for interpreting the Scriptures is the grammatical-historical method, which analyzes the text for grammatical and structural implications as well as its historical context. The result is that any given text only has one singular meaning, but could have multiple implications. This is not only how we should read the text; it is also how the biblical authors read the biblical texts that came before them. Some who reject grammatical-historicism would propose that the NT authors were repurposing the OT texts noncontextually for their own purposes, so that texts have more meanings than can be extracted contextually.

Michael Vlach advocates the consistent grammatical-historical approach to intertextuality. He has calculated 355 to 360 OT references in the NT, most which are clearly contextual uses of the OT with only about 14 hard cases.[1] Theologians who disagree and say that the NT authors were flexible with their application of OT texts typically defend their views from the hard cases, but a better approach is to use the easy to understand the hard.

An example of a hard text could be Matthew’s quotation of Hosea 11:1 (Matt. 2:15). The fluctuating assumption is that Hosea 11:1 does not reference the coming Messiah, and so Matthew is changing Hosea to fit his narrative. A conservative view could be that God revealed a hidden meaning of Hosea to Matthew, while a liberal view could be that Matthew was wrong about Hosea. Either way, Matthew would be doing something “to” the text. However, if the reader allows the OT to have its own say, then perhaps Hosea was also doing intertextuality. Balaam spoke centuries before Hosea, and in his oracles, he recognized that God brought Israel out of Egypt in the past (Num. 23:22) and that in the future, a king of Israel would come out of Egypt (Num. 24:7, 8). Even Balaam’s mention of a future king was intertextual to Jacob’s blessing of Judah (Gen. 49:10). Moreover, Jacob’s blessing is the beginning of a Lion of Judah motif (Gen. 49:9) that Balaam picks up on (Num. 23:24; 24:9) as does Hosea (Hos. 11:1). The lion motif through these texts serves as an ancient hashtag that weaves the thoughts together.

When the Holy Spirit moved men to write the text of the Bible, He did so in a way that gives the modern reader an example of how to study. It is not for the reader to do anything “to” the text, but rather to follow in the footsteps of Matthew, Hosea, and Moses by analyzing that which is already “within” the text.

[1] Michael Vlach, The Old in the New: Understanding How the New Testament Authors Quoted the Old Testament (The Woodlands, TX: Kress Biblical Resources, 2021), vi, 61–63.

 

What about Miracle Stories?

The Bible says that we must believe in Jesus alone—not self—for eternal life. Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and others say that we must contribute our works—not believe in Christ alone—for eternal life. There are stories about Catholic and Orthodox saints performing miracles, so does that mean that they were saved? The short answer is “no.”[Read More]

What is the Kingdom compared to in the parable of the leaven?

The following is an excerpt from a paper for an upcoming volume on Bible difficulties related to eschatology. This particular paper deals with the parables of the mustard seed and leaven. I take the view that these two parables depict the current evil age rather than the future Messianic kingdom. Part of this reasoning is that leaven typically represents corruption in the Bible. The most common response that I’m hearing is “But the Bible says that the kingdom is like leaven, so leaven must be the good kingdom here.” Here’s my response to that:

[Read More]

The Magic Elf Analogy

Roman Catholicism is a false religion. The gospel according to Roman Catholicism is not salvific. This is a point where most Christian Pluralists will disagree with Faith Alone in Christ Alone.

When we say “Faith Alone in Christ Alone,” we refer to the school of thought that a man is saved when he believes in Christ Alone for salvation, rather than believing in his own work, or, by extension, in some combination of Christ’s work and his own works. When we say, “Christian Pluralism,” we refer to the school of thought that a man does not need to believe in Christ for salvation, but can rely on his own works instead, so long as he has some belief about Jesus. There are various camps within both of these schools of thought, but that’s the issue in a nutshell (read a more thorough and boring article here or download a full book here).[Read More]

Book Announcement! “Current Issues in Soteriology”

Next week (May 27, 2021), we will be launching the website of The International Society for Biblical Hermeneutics (www.biblicalhermeneutics.org). We will also be launching our first ISBH volume, which will consist of papers presented at the symposium on “Current Issues in Soteriology.” The volume will be free and available on kindle.

In the mean time, sign up for ISBH updates and announcements at www.biblicalhermeneutics.org.

Here is the preface from that volume:

[Read More]