One of the things that is primary when I teach, especially the Gospels is how the narratives are to be read and taught. For the most part, while interpretation of story is very normal it is not done frequently from the pulpits, podiums or academia. The Gospels are, very simply, Historical Narrative. How does one interpret historical narrative correctly for one’s self and one’s audience.
The most common way to preach and teach the Gospel events is by using the experience of the disciples to illustrate some good or bad behavior for the purpose of improving the reader’s life. The disciples become the lesson, while Jesus steps into the background. The lad who gave his loaves and fishes to Jesus would be a lesson on how Jesus can multiply whatever you have, thus improving your life, or the healings that Jesus gives can be yours if you only have enough faith, etc. Now all historical narratives do have a point for the reader, but it must be made only once one has found out the whole narrative and its whole message. And that message is about Jesus, not you.
One of the things that students often come to me and ask is, “but couldn’t the text be saying that too (as well as what it says about Jesus)? That question is the wrong question to ask and reveals their basic hermeneutical process . . . it is application driven (e.g., “it is about ME). The student is concerned about the relevance to his audience first, not getting the message of the text. In other words, what if the text wasn’t directly relevant to the audience (e.g., the eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?) If it is first wrongly assumed that there is a direct application, then the reader approaches the text errantly assuming something that may or may not be there. Thus because of a wrong assumption about the purpose of this text, he inserts something he wants the text to say, not what the text says.
In other words the interpreting student has come up with a conclusion about the text that he is trying to make the text fit what he wants it to say. This is (even though some thoughts might have merit) the reverse process of exposition. Exposition is explaining what the text means. It is not finding some meaning by being creative or stretching the text beyond its plain meaning, or catering to be relevant with one’s audience. It is meaning, which is only found in the contextual meaning of the whole book, and thus comes from the text not the reverse. So, the job of the interpreter is to explain what the author is saying and that alone is the meaning. Creativity in exposition is the rage today, yet that is a contradiction in terms. One should not be creative with the textual interpretation. The author has already done the work, and the expositor is simply to explain it . . . period . . . end of discussion. Only the author is inspired (“God breathed”). Creativity may come in communicating the message (e.g., audio/visual aids), but not in the meaning.
One of the common miscues is the interpretation of the story of Peter getting out of the boat in Matthew 14. This, of course, is preached frequently to mean that we, as believers, should “get out of the boat.” Of course, no one advocates a literal “getting out the boat,” but they would advocate that it means that we should take risks (hopefully for Jesus) or some other application depending on the interpreter/preacher. Of course, if the interpreter had not changed the application from literally “getting out of the boat” to some interpreter-perceived relevant contemporary risk (which, of course, just happens to relate to the acceptable bounds of the interpreter’s audience), the application would be to get out of an actual boat, as Peter did. But no one advocates that. Why not . . . because Jesus isn’t here! And you would drown . . . especially in a storm on the Sea of Galilee!
Yes . . . Jesus isn’t here! Amazingly these modern day interpreters, who overwhelmingly try to alter the text to be relevant to their contemporary audience, seem to miss that simple but impacting fact. It is as if Jesus presence in the Gospels is exactly the same as His presence today in the heart of the believer, or through the Spirit. But they would be wrong since it is clear that Jesus isn’t here, and they can’t duplicate what went on when Jesus was there! They can’t see Him, nor hear Him, nor watch Him in person with their own senses. That much is very clear since no one, as far as I know, has ever seen Jesus on the Sea of Galilee (or any other body of water) asking him or her to get out of the boat.
If Jesus was here and you were in a boat in the midst of the storm and He told you to come to Him . . . then do it! Why didn’t Peter drown? Because Jesus was there! Otherwise, stay in the boat or you will drown! That’s what boats are for . . . safety, and that’s why Christian boaters use the boat instead of walking on water sans the boat. But if Jesus is here . . . then you can get out . . . because you are safe. Without Him calling to you on the water you are not safe. So was Peter risking by getting out of the boat? Not even a little bit. Why? Because Jesus was there!! Are you risking when you get out of a boat . . . Yes! Why? because Jesus isn’t here.
What happened to Peter cannot happen to you. What happened to Peter was what he realized when he walked on water. It was not something about self-improvement (e.g., he needed to go home and sell his fishing business and go into missions, although that may come as a result of this realization), but simply that he had looked into the eyes of God. Just try to do that in your daily life. You can’t do it. Not even a little bit. Do not miss that simple fact . . . you cannot look into the eyes of God.
And what’s the application? Well, since you can’t look into the eyes of God (i.e., Peter’s experience is not replicable), then what is there to learn from what Peter did? It’s interesting that the Gospels do not leave the conclusion to the reader. They make it pretty clear by letting the reader hear Peter’s, and the disciples’, conclusion. It is very simply, what Peter said at the end of this event . . . “You most certainly are God’s Son!”
You see, what Matthew is trying to relate to you, as the reader, is . . . Peter’s experience of looking into the eyes of God, especially since you will not be able to do it. Jesus appeared on earth and Peter experienced it. So it was absolutely necessary for Matthew to record Peter’s experience, so you could hear for yourself about this Jesus when He was on earth, a Jesus that you will never meet on this earth in this lifetime. Matthew wants the reader to realize the benefits of this Jesus, who is not here, but alive in heaven. He is not here! But he knows you can’t know this Jesus unless someone tells you about Him. Matthew wants to do that. He will tell you what people saw and heard as they walked and talked with Him . . . something you can’t experience . . . but something you need to know . . . and so you can do it through the eyes of one who was there . . . an apostle. It is their experience (“these (signs) are written . . .”, John 20:31), not yours, that will enable you to “believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you might have life in His Name.”
Now, let me make this point immensely clear. The Gospels are about Jesus when He was on earth. They are not about methodology that He is trying to teach you (e.g., the fallacy of using the latest technology from the story of “new wine in new wine skins”), nor some process of evangelism (e.g., the fallacy of how to evangelize from John 4 and the Woman of Samaria), nor some psychological principles that will help you have a better relationship with someone (e.g., the fallacy of self-love from loving yourself first before you can love others). The Gospels are not meant as examples of good or bad behavior that should change in your life. They aren’t there to find examples of how you need friends, or mentors, accountability or transparency. They are meant solely to introduce you to the God who became a Man and walked this earth. A God who had to become a Man to fulfill all that the Old Testament had spoken of the One who would come and live among humanity. And He came to change everything. He did not come to give self-improvement seminars, or to urge you to do the same, nor to give you a standard of living to which you could attain in this fleshly body. He came so that you would die to those 21st Century, westernized, human wisdom concepts (and the arrogance that comes with our self-enablement) and live solely based on the absolutely new life that is given to you by this unbelievable awesome loving God who became an unbelievable awesome loving Man . . . Jesus. If you don’t get that when you get out of the Gospels and think they are a bunch of examples of how you should live . . . you will have missed the appearance of God on earth and His impact on you. You will have lowered the greatest announcement and appearance in the history of mankind, to a common principle for the improvement of your worthless Adamic life. You will have exchanged that moment for some self-improvement principle that will be buried with you. This is about Jesus and Him only. Only knowing Him and what He alone will do for you will change your life and motivate you to operate from His great mercy alone.
If you want more than what Jesus gives you, then you might as well stop reading, because I don’t have it for you. The kingdom is coming in its all its glory and has been long before you came onto the scene. It’s coming because Jesus was on earth and did what He did and said what He said. It’s not coming because of your self-effort. It’s coming because of Jesus . . . alone! So . . . just read the Gospels, and look through the eyes of Peter and John, listen to what they heard and come to the same conclusion they came to about Jesus, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” That will change your life. Only that will allow you to be the merciful person God wants you to be. Only that will allow you to implement service to widows and orphans of whom James speaks.
Now that’s the point of the Gospels. Of all the courses that I teach, I tell the students that I love the Gospels. Why? Because it’s the only book that records the Savior on earth, walking the roads of Galilee, the streets of Jerusalem, talking to people. It never happened before. It will never happen again in the same way. It’s not only rare, it’s unique. Don’t miss it.
Some Caveats:
First of all, I should state that much in the Gospels that you learn about Jesus will affect how you operate in this church age. That Jesus multiplied the loaves and the fish in John 6 shows that He is the Greater Moses who will deliver us into the Kingdom on earth and destroy the Romans, sustaining us on the way (as Moses did with manna.) Now that will affect how you live since Jesus has shown that He is the Sustainer to get you into the Kingdom. Now sustaining is not some “name it, claim it” promise of food or other physical needs. He will provide those, but only as you need them. You are going to die. He is not going to save you from that (unless the rapture, of course). But His sustaining is anchored in the bodily resurrection. He will resurrect your body into the kingdom. That is the promise that He has given. This New Moses, realized by that miracle in the first century, is going to sustain you into the kingdom through resurrection. That should motivate you to be loyal and faithful in this age of suffering.
Now another thing is that an interpreter might advocate that what he is doing is paralleling Peter’s experience, where Jesus was there, to our experience where Jesus is not, and making appropriate adjustments. The problem is that it is in the mind of the interpreter what those adjustments are. The adjustment is not necessary. Peter proved Jesus was the Christ. In his case it was walking on water that the Christ enabled him to do. In our case the application would be, from Peter’s experience, to believe Jesus is the Christ. There are some instructions for the apostles in the Gospels for the coming Apostolic Age, which we will see within the gospels (e.g., Matthew 18, church discipline). But they are not processes, nor hot tips for life. They are to “preach this Jesus, and this Jesus only!” (Matthew 18). Thus the church, the age of the Apostles, must do what the Gospels prepared them for, that is, to teach the Jesus they saw, watched and heard. The epistles tell us that He will give us the bodily resurrection and that is the solution for everything, including our ability to suffer and die for Him. Every imperative in the epistles is based on doing things because of the Jesus that the disciples eye-witnessed in the Gospels.
One also might object because Jesus is here in some sense through the Spirit. That is true. He is here through the Spirit. His bodily presence, however, is not here, but in heaven at the right hand of the Father. The effect of His presence in the Spirit must be defined by the Scriptures, since one cannot know Him through the senses (that is why it is through the Spirit). Through the Spirit is clearly not the same as His presence (i.e., you cannot verify or validate anything about Jesus through the senses, since that required His presence.) For instance you cannot verify that He is resurrected except through the testimony of the apostles, who saw Him! See Acts 10:39-41 where Peter states, “We are (eye) witnesses of all the things He did both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They also put Him to death by hanging Him on a cross. God raised Him up on the third day and granted that He become visible, not to all the people, but to witnesses who were chosen beforehand by God, that is, to us who ate and drank with Him after He arose from the dead.” Thus, Cornelius (Acts 10) had no way of knowing about Jesus, His appearance, and the promise that He had made while on earth in His body. Peter gave him those facts by testifying what He had said and done as seen and heard by Peter while Jesus was here. The presence of the Spirit then guides us to the Jesus written in the Gospels so that we can walk with Him. He creates in us a new life, binds us into the Body of Christ, and assures us of the presence of Jesus (not bodily) as we walk through life.
Note that the processes and hints for a successful life are deferred to a very low spot on the priority list next to the message of Jesus in the Word. For instance refer to 1 Timothy where Paul tells Timothy that “bodily discipline is of little value.” He is trying to convince Timothy that next to the Apostolic Word (which Timothy is exhorted to put primary by coming to the Apostle in prison to get more of it to spread), there is little of importance.
So, start your day, not by looking out for some big dream to fulfill, or some comfort zone to get out of, but by worshipping this Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and submitting all things to Him, including your material goods, your day, and most of all yourself. Not because you can walk on water, but because He must certainly be the Son of God!
Written: Dr. Charles Baylis, January 10, 2015
Photo Credit: Charles Baylis, “Fishermen on the Sea of Galilee” March 2010.