Unit #2 Discussion Post
Before delving into 2 Timothy 3:14-17, Pastor David Platt makes “three stops” (Spellman “David Platt”) to introduce the topic of “…liv[ing]…on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” (Deuteronomy 8:3). The first “stop” is Exodus 16, which describes the account of the Israelites receiving manna from God. Platt notes that God’s purpose for giving the manna was to encourage the people to rely on Him for their food every single day (Spellman “David Platt”). They had no other choice but to rely on God’s provision. Deuteronomy 8, the second “stop,” hearkens back to the Exodus account and explains it. Drawing from this passage, Platt notes that the manna “humbled” the Israelites and created a physical picture to remind them that “…their dependence on God needed to be deeper than their need for food” (Spellman “David Platt”). The third, and final stop, is Matthew 4, which relates the
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The Exodus account provides a physical depiction of the spiritual reality that we need God’s word more than anything else. Deuteronomy 8 further explains the meaning behind the Exodus account. Finally, in Matthew 4, Jesus quotes the verses from Deuteronomy 8 as He endures a similar situation to the one the ancient Israelites experienced in Exodus 16. Thus, all three passages are connected to each other, and together they demonstrate that all of our physical needs are subservient to our spiritual hunger for the word of God. Paul builds on this idea in 2 Timothy 3:16 as he describes the wide variety of Scriptural applications for our lives. Platt takes seven major points from this passage to describe the nature of the Bible: it “is supreme,” it “is sanctifying,” it “convicts,” it “corrects,” it “equips,” it “is sufficient for us,” and it “is satisfying for us” (Spellman “David
This image, and the detail that goes into it in the Torah’s description, loom large in the Jewish imagination, and our conceptualization of our community. As the Israelites move forward into the desert, surely they can rally behind this glorious homage to God’s greatness – surely they will be proud to march to the Promised Land behind this banner for holiness, the ultimate reminder of God’s presence. And within the Ark, the tablets themselves, perhaps the broken first set alongside the second set that Moses carved himself. What could be more powerful?
It is the reader and his or her interpretive community who attempts to impose a unified reading on a given text. Such readers may, and probably will, claim that the unity they find is in the text, but this claim is only a mask for the creative process actually going on. Even the most carefully designed text can not be unified; only the reader's attempted taming of it. Therefore, an attempt to use seams and shifts in the biblical text to discover its textual precursors is based on a fundamentally faulty assumption that one might recover a stage of the text that lacked such fractures (Carr 23-4).
The Bible is read and interpreted by many people all over the world. Regardless, no one knows the absolute truth behind scripture. Walter Brueggemann, professor of Old Testament, wrote “Biblical Authority” to help people understand what he describes as six different parts that make up the foundation to ones understanding of scripture. He defines these six features as being: inherency, interpretation, imagination, ideology, inspiration, and importance. As Brueggemann explains each individual part, it is easy to see that they are all interconnected because no one can practice one facet without involuntarily practicing at least one other part.
--- Walvoord, J.F. and R.B. Zuck (ed.) The Bible Knowledge Commentary; eds. 2 vols. n.d. e-Sword, Version 9.5.1
The first and foundational aspect of the quadrilateral is Scripture. God’s Holy Word. To Wesley, the Bible was the only book needed and he considered it the first and final authority. He considered Scripture to be primary with the remaining three factors holding complimentary roles. When studying Christian theology, we are to use the other components of the quadrilateral to assess how scripture addresses a specific question. With the Bible as the final test, Scripture is most important and it is how God reveals Himself to us.
“The Bible is a special revelation from God to man of truths concerning Himself, His purposes, His plans, His will, man and his sinful nature, and God’s redemptive plan for man.”
Moses is the speaker now, and he says that God made a covenant with them at Horeb. Additionally, he says that last time they would not go up the mountain because they were afraid of the fire. Then, Moses repeats the Decalogue to the Israelites, and he explains that they were written on two stone tablets. Here the third commandment differs from Exodus. Instead of Remember the Sabbath, it states “Observe the sabbath day and keep it holy as the Lord your God commanded you.” (Deut 5:12). In comparison, observe has a more commanding connotation. Furthermore, at the end of the first line of the commandment the text adds as “your God commanded you” (Deut. 5:12,). This sets a more domineering tone and implies that the Israelites will not follow unless commanded. Another key distinction occurs when the texts are describing why one must follow the Sabbath commandment. The text reminds the Israelites that they were once slaves in Egypt and that “God brought [them] out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm” (Deut 5:15). Here God is guilt-tripping the Israelites into following the Sabbath by reminding them of what God did for them in their relationship. Thus, it seems that in Deuteronomy God is attempting to invoke fear in order to convince the Israelites to follow. Nonetheless, Deuteronomy is not only based on the Israelites following God out of fear. It also states that they will change their reasoning to aspire to be similar to God, like Exodus. For instance, when asked what would they tell their children when asked why they follow the Decalogue, they should say that if we follow it “as he has commanded us, we will be in the right.” (Deut 6:25). This indicates that after they followed out of fear that they changed their reasoning to be aspirational. Moses concludes with how they should follow the commandments
Bible Gateway Passage: Deuteronomy 12:31 - English Standard Version." Bible Gateway. Accessed April 16, 2014.
...hat God was trying to disclose with Moses. God wanted Moses to know Him and who He was through His name. He is not an unloving god who watches over his children and does nothing when they suffer. He is not a god that ignores old promises. He is an omnipresent God that helps his children and doesn’t break a covenant. God allows himself to be known by his people because he is a devoted god. He is, has been, and always will be our god.
—. The Unity of the Bible: Exploring the Beauty and Structure of the Bible. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2003.
Matthew paints the scene of Jesus using a parable to describe the fact, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son” (Mt 22:2). Using a wedding banquet as the setting for this parable allows people to apply the message of God to their everyday lives. The visualization of the preparations of the oxen and fat calves for feasting depicts the nature that this was an important event, worth the sacrifice of animals, which at the time was a great personal expense. Theologically, the kingdom of heaven was represented by the wedding banquet, for those who were invited to the wedding banquet were extended an invitation to the kingdom of God, while the King was an image of God, the Father and the king’s son was a portrait of Jesus. Brown 66 5.
The Bible Student will have more knowledge of how to interpret God’s Word when finished with the work. Fee and Stuart achieve their goal of helping the reader not only with interpretation, but with application.
Spanning fifteen hundred years with over 30,700 manuscripts, extensive archaeological evidence and 2000 prophecies that have been fulfilled, the Bible is God 's word to us. (Yohn, 2013). In the Bible, the Father is essentially giving us a picture of the history of the world and is also leading us to a place where we must make a decision that involves whether we choose to accept his son or reject him and remain guilty. Additionally, the Word of God tells us what happened that caused this breach between us and God, the result of this and how God has rectified it through the blood of his son. In fact, from the beginning of the Bible (written 1400 B.C.) to the last book (A.D. 96), God is showing us why we need Jesus and how to find him. Just as a plant’s root system propagates and occupies the pot that encloses it, Jesus permeates the entire Bible. Therefore, the motif of the Bible is the story of the redemption of mankind and it all points to Jesus as the messiah and savior who secures this for all.
Answering these questions is the purpose of this essay. I begin by arguing that the Bible cannot be adequately understood independent of its historical context. I concede later that historical context alone however is insufficient, for the Bible is a living-breathing document as relevant to us today as it was the day it was scribed. I conclude we need both testimonies of God at work to fully appreciate how the Bible speaks to us.
Tarwater explains that even through the small snippet of information how “the God we serve in the New Testament is the same God who worked on behalf of the people of Israel in Exodus.” Through the last chapters, I began to appreciate Jesus’ teachings and the correlation to the commandments of the Old Testament. Before this book, reading through the Old Testament did not bring about the importance within the books of Leviticus or Numbers. However, the author’s strong statement “the laws were meant to demonstrate how obedience and holiness were to permeate every aspect of the people’s lives” highlights the nature of the Bible to be a continual work highlighting God’s mercy and forgiveness. Digging deeper into the context of the stories through the author’s visual narrative that I could see how the theme of each book extended into another. Ultimately, the book of Leviticus is clarified with the realities of how sinful the people are and why God had to ultimately bring to earth His son to take away our