APPLYING BIBLICAL HISTORY

A great deal of the Bible truths are presented to us in the form of ancient history, whether it is the Pentateuch, the OT History Books, or the Book of Acts. So the question is, How do we apply the examples given there to our present situation? Paul R. House, in the introduction to his commentary on I-II Kings, enumerates some important principles to keep in mind as we and pastors attempt to do it. Below is my summary of his main points to which I have appended some typical examples to consider.

1. One must recognize first that there is an historical gap between the biblical text and today's situation. But that gap can be bridged by looking for commonalities between the two. And the closer the parallels, the more applicable the example is to us today. These commonalities can exist either in the historical situations or in the way in which human beings attempted to address those situations, for good or for bad.

There are many places where this good piece of advice can be applied. But just consider the books of I-II Kings. A number of times in the history of the Divided Kingdom, the king over one or the other of these countries found it threatened by powerful outside forces. In desperation, they turned to pagan powers as potential allies. Inevitably, it always turned out to be the wrong thing to do from God's viewpoint, as the author often points out directly. The so-called allies either refused to help Israel when things got rough or even turned against Israel themselves.

This lesson can directly transfer to the Christian church today, which feels under attack from an antagonistic culture which denies God's word. Unfortunately, in desperation, we sometimes turn to completely atheistic or heretical entities as allies in this culture battle. This happened with the Moral Majority movement, and it continues to be a temptation for the church today.

2. Analyze, through consideration of the story's plot, the external and internal factors at play that influenced the characters' behavior.

In Esther 3:2, for example, we learn how Mordecai refused to bow down to Haman in Esther 3:2. One could deduce that Mordecai was exhibiting his personal pride, which led directly to the danger the Jews faced in the rest of the book. So the lesson for us is not to be prideful, but show appropriate deference to those in authority, whether they personally deserve it or not. But all of this reasoning is misguided since the key facts being overlooked are that (1) Haman is an Agagite and (2) Mordecai is a relative of King Saul. Thus, we need to go way back in Israelite history to the story of Saul refusing to honor God's command to destroy all the Agagites to truly understand the enmity between the two groups. With that in mind, Mordecai's attitude is now seen to be entirely in keeping with God's will.

3. Look at how these historical events were viewed and interpreted elsewhere in the Bible. For example, the writings and proclamations of the prophets as well as the letters of Paul often refer back to earlier events and comment on them. And often, the author of the historical account will make his own definitive comments. This is an extremely important principle to keep in mind since “description is not prescription.” In other words, many of the things that characters throughout biblical history do are not at all practices that we should follow just because “it is in the Bible.”

There is at least one other inherent danger in following this principle in that one must first make sure that there is truly a reference to a particular event in a later pronouncement. One cannot just take any two passages and couple them together with the idea that there might be a connection. As one example, I have read an interpretation of the practice of “Christian communism” in Acts 4 in which the person connected this with the later collection for the poor in Jerusalem taken up by Paul. The erroneous deduction drawn from these two facts was that the early Jerusalem church was only poor because they mistakenly practiced communism. Left out of the equation is the well known fact that practically all of the region of Judea was suffering from drought and famine during Paul's time, not just the Christians in Jerusalem.

4. Are there any large, overall themes that can be derived from the story? Remember that the history books are not only useful for giving us practical lessons for our lives, but also in instructing us in matters of doctrine that should inform us regarding our general view of reality.

The whole history of the Israelites is filled with stories of the people as a whole being blessed when they obeyed God's directives and suffering the consequences when they went in another direction. Each of these narratives re-emphasizes that God is loving and patient, but also a righteous God who judges disobedience. Eliminating either one of those aspects is fashioning a god of our own making, which will in turn determine how we live out our own lives.

5. Keep in mind the general tone of the passage, whether strictly factual, ironic, woeful or joyful. Without consideration of these factors it is very easy to be misled as to its meaning.

Thus, the oracle against the prince of Tyre in the Ezekiel 28 is simply dripping with tongue-in-cheek irony when it describes him as living in Eden as a blameless entity. But many commentators feel it is a straight-forward historical account of the fall of Satan (rather than an example of poetic imagery and prophetic hyperbole addressed to an earthly king of the time), which they believe took place in the early part of Genesis. In that manner, they then need to re-interpret Jesus' later pronouncements in the Gospels regarding His disarming of Satan beginning with His early ministry. And this, in turn affects how one looks at the cryptic passage in Revelation 20 regarding the “millennium” when Satan's power will be limited. All of the above generally leads to one particular view of eschatology, which can have a profound effect on the way one views not only the future, but also how we live in the present.

The above example doesn't even come from an historical book. But even within the Historical Books are many songs, parables, rhetorical questions, sermons, prayers, etc. which cannot be interpreted in the same manner as the predominantly historical material found there. It is not necessary to do as one young man I met did when he stated that the narratives in Jesus' parables must have literally happened. Otherwise, that would make Jesus a liar.

I could add that just as it is easy to confuse figurative language with literal language in the Bible, the opposite is just as common. Many liberal churches will totally deny the historical truth of an event such as Jesus' resurrection by dismissing it as only a figurative way of saying that Jesus still lives within our hearts even though he is dead and gone. And then there is the example of the animal-rights group who explained that during the healing of the demoniac, Jesus didn't really kill all those pigs when they were inhabited by the legion of evil spirits. Instead, the story is merely a sly allusion to the Gentile army (“legion”) which inhabited the Holy Land.