Book summary “How to read the Bible for all its worth”: summary

Introduction

You open the Bible intending to read God's word, but you immediately confront a vast historical and cultural chasm. You find yourself unintentionally importing modern assumptions into ancient texts, which leads to confusion and misapplication. Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart argue in How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth that the Bible is both divine and human, requiring you to master specific literary genres and historical contexts to grasp its true meaning.

To properly understand and apply the Bible, you must master the historical and literary context of each diverse genre while distinguishing eternal relevance from ancient cultural particularity.

The book guides you through every biblical genre, from epistles and narratives to prophecy and apocalyptic literature. You will learn how to bridge the gap between the original audience and your daily life. The book answers several vital questions:

• How do you uncover the original intent of an ancient author?
• Which translation should you trust for serious study?
• How do you apply ancient laws and cultural practices today?
• What distinguishes poetry and prophecy from straightforward prose?

1. The Need to Interpret

Every reader acts as an interpreter, requiring rigorous exegesis to bridge historical distance and discover original intent before seeking contemporary application.

Every reader automatically acts as an interpreter, often unconsciously reading personal culture and foreign assumptions into the text.

The Bible is simultaneously a divine message with eternal relevance and a human document conditioned by history and culture. Over 1,500 years, God's Word was expressed through real persons. This dual nature creates a tension between the original historical context and the eternal relevance of the divine word.

Applying the commandment of Deuteronomy 22:5 against wearing men's clothing to modern women's slacks while ignoring other commands in the same list illustrates the error of ignoring historical particularity.

The Dual Nature of Scripture

Reading any Bible translation already involves you in the interpretive process because translation requires editorial choices. Translators must make difficult decisions regarding vocabulary and syntax to bridge language barriers.

Exegesis and Hermeneutics

Exegesis is a careful, systematic, historical task designed to hear the Word as the original recipients were meant to hear it. It focuses on discovering the original intended meaning, dealing with what happened then and there.

Conducting proper exegesis requires asking 2 basic kinds of questions to ask of every biblical passage: historical and literary context. Historical context examines the time, culture, author, audience, and occasion of a book. Literary context dictates that words only have meaning in sentences and broader units of thought.

Hermeneutics seeks the contemporary relevance of ancient texts, focusing on the here and now. However, this task must be strictly controlled by prior exegesis to prevent arbitrary applications.

2. The Basic Tool: A Good Translation

Using only one Bible translation commits you to the specific exegetical choices of that translation, which may occasionally be incorrect. Because no single translation is infallible, relying exclusively on one version leaves you at the mercy of the translators' choices.

In 1 Corinthians 7:36, translations like NKJV, NASB, NIV, and NEB render the Greek text differently, leading to completely different meanings regarding a man's relationship with a virgin.

Over eighty New Testament translations have appeared since the beginning of the twentieth century. Textual criticism is the scientific process used by translators to determine the original wording of biblical texts from thousands of handwritten manuscripts. Textual critics weigh external evidence and internal evidence to resolve textual variants across over 5,000 Greek manuscripts of part or all of the New Testament spanning a 1,400 years period of copying manuscripts for the New Testament.

In 1 Samuel 8:16, the Masoretic Text reads young men while the Septuagint reads cattle, an error caused by a single character miscopy in the Hebrew tradition.

Formal Versus Functional Equivalence

Translation theories range from formal equivalence, which stays as literal to the original words and grammar as possible, to functional equivalence, which focuses on expressing the original meaning in normal contemporary language. Formal equivalence preserves historical distance at all points, often resulting in awkward or ambiguous English.

In Romans 12:20 KJV translates literally as coals of fire, whereas the NIV renders it as burning coals to reflect true English meaning.

Translators handle ancient wordplays and unique grammatical structures carefully because direct word-for-word transfers often destroy the intended meaning in English. In Amos 8:1-2, the Hebrew wordplay between summer fruit and the end is rendered by the NIV as a basket of ripe fruit and the time is ripe to preserve the acoustic play. The Hebrew text contains thirty times the word and appears in Genesis 1 in the Hebrew text.

On Choosing a Translation

Choosing a reliable translation requires understanding textual criticism, translation theories, and the challenges of ancient idioms and grammar.

You should use a reliable modern functional-equivalent translation as your main text while regularly consulting several other translations from different categories for study. The author recommends using a primary functional equivalent translation like the NIV, GNB, HCSB, or NAB, and cross-referencing it with formal equivalents and freer committee translations.

• Regularly read one main contemporary translation that is reliable.
• Use several well-chosen translations that are known to differ for Bible study.
• Consult one or more commentaries to resolve difficult matters of interpretation.
• Check eye-catching moments in free translations against another translation or a commentary.

3. The Epistles: Learning to Think Contextually

All New Testament Epistles are occasional documents that arose out of specific historical situations rather than serving as systematic theological treatises. Most letters were prompted by specific circumstances on the reader's side, such as behavioral corrections, doctrinal errors, or misunderstandings. Consequently, they contain task theology applied to particular needs rather than comprehensive summaries of an apostle's theology.

New Testament epistles are occasional documents addressing specific historical situations, requiring paragraph-by-paragraph analysis and contextual reconstruction.

Paul's letter to the Romans contains theology driven by his specific struggle to unite Jews and Gentiles based on grace alone, making justification his primary metaphor. The word justify appears fifteen times in Romans and eight times in Galatians, but only two other times in all of Paul's other letters combined.

The Historical and Literary Context

Adolf Deissmann distinguished between real letters, which were nonliterary and intended only for specific recipients, and epistles, which were artistic literary forms intended for the public. While most Pauline letters are real letters, others like 2 Peter and 1 John are closer to public epistles, and Hebrews functions largely as an eloquent homily or word of exhortation. Hebrews operates three parts as a tract and one part as a letter, featuring an eloquent homily in the first ten chapters interspersed with urgent exhortations.

Ancient Corinth was only ninety-four years old by ancient standards when Paul first visited it, yet it was a cosmopolitan, wealthy, and sensual hub comparable to a mix of New York, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas. It featured at least twenty-six temples and shrines. To interpret an epistle, you must build a tentative reconstruction of the original situation:

• Consult your Bible dictionary or commentary introduction to find out about the city and its people.
• Develop the habit of reading the whole letter through in one sitting, preferably aloud.
• Block out an hour or more to capture the big view rather than focusing on every word.
• Jot down brief notes on recipients, Paul's attitudes, specific occasion markers, and logical divisions.

Paul addresses matters reported to him in chapters 1 through 6 of 1 Corinthians, while using the phrase now about to introduce specific items from the Corinthians' letter starting in chapter 7. You can trace an argument paragraph by paragraph to avoid relying solely on outside scholarship. You must state the content of each paragraph and explain why the author says this right at this point. In 1 Corinthians 3:5-17, Paul shifts from agriculture to architecture metaphors to warn church leaders that building the church with human wisdom will be tested by fire.

Handling Problem Passages

Difficult problem passages in epistles must be approached by recognizing historical distance, distinguishing certain facts from uncertain details, and consulting quality commentaries. When confronting obscure references where original readers shared unstated background with the author, you should accept certain knowledge gaps and avoid dogmatic speculation. There are typically four to fourteen viable options for a given difficult passage, and at least forty different guesses exist for 1 Corinthians 15:29. In that verse, while the exact mechanics and participants of baptism for the dead remain unknown, Paul's broader point uses their practice as an argument for the bodily resurrection.

• Acknowledge that some oral communication or background is lost and avoid dogmatic speculation.
• Determine what can be said for certain about a given passage versus what remains merely possible.
• Consult a good commentary to review the variety of suggested options and their supporting arguments.

4. The Epistles: The Hermeneutical Questions

Applying occasional letters today demands distinguishing eternal moral truths from culturally relative practices without resorting to arbitrary proof-texting.

You often rely on commonsense hermeneutics, which lacks consistency due to unexamined cultural norms and church traditions. Readers bring their existential concerns to the text, resulting in selective obedience and clever ways of bypassing uncomfortable passages.

American evangelicals easily accept commands to suffer like a soldier or bring a cloak from Troas, but dismiss instructions to drink a little wine for stomach ailments or follow prohibitions against long hair for men based on cultural habits.

Rules of Interpretation

A biblical text cannot mean what it never could have meant to its author or its original readers. Exegesis must always precede hermeneutics to establish absolute parameters of meaning based on historical and literary contexts.

Some argue that the perfect in 1 Corinthians 13:10 refers to the New Testament, meaning spiritual gifts like tongues have ceased. This interpretation fails the basic rule because the Corinthians did not know a New Testament was coming.

Whenever you share comparable particulars and life situations with first-century hearers, God's word to them remains the same today. This rule applies directly to theological texts and community-directed ethical imperatives where the underlying human and spiritual situations are identical.

Extending a first-century case-specific matter to a totally foreign modern context often bypasses proper exegesis. Applying 1 Corinthians 3:16-17, which warns against destroying the local church community, directly to an individual abusing their own physical body is an extended application that bypasses original context.

Cultural Relativity and Task Theology

Non-moral cultural preferences must be identified as matters of indifference rather than elevated into requirements for holiness. Twentieth-century debates over movies, dancing, clothing length, cosmetics, and tattoos mirror ancient arguments over marketplace idol food.

• Regard items explicitly marked in Epistles as food, drink, and observance of days as matters of indifference.
• Recognize that matters of indifference are cultural rather than inherently moral, differing across genuine believers from culture to culture.
• Note that New Testament sin-lists never include these cultural items.

Distinguishing between culturally relative commands and eternal normative truths requires systematic exegetical guidelines.

• Distinguish between the central core of the biblical message and peripheral customs.
• Differentiate between what the New Testament views as inherently moral versus cultural expressions.
• Note whether the New Testament has a uniform and consistent witness or reflects internal differences.
• Separate underlying principles from specific occasional applications.
• Examine the cultural options available to the New Testament writer.
• Account for hidden cultural differences between the first and twenty-first centuries, such as literacy rates and forms of government.
• Exercise Christian charity and love toward those with differing interpretations.

Because epistolary theology is task-oriented and occasional, you must accept theological limitations without resorting to unwarranted speculation or proof-texting. Paul mentions that Christians will judge angels at the eschaton to shame the Corinthians into settling lawsuits internally, but provides no further details on how this will work out.

5. The Old Testament Narratives

Over 40 percent of the Old Testament is narrative, and three-quarters of the bulk of the Bible is constituted by the Old Testament. Whole books are largely or entirely narrative.

Old Testament narratives operate across a three-level hierarchy, recording historical events and implicit truths rather than directly teaching moral rules or allegories.

Three Levels of Narrative

The top level is the universal plan of God including creation, fall, and redemption. The second level is the history of God's covenant people Israel, from Abraham's call through the exile and restoration. The first level consists of hundreds of individual narratives that make up the other two levels.

Elijah's battle with the priests of Baal on Mount Carmel is not an allegory of Jesus triumphing over evil spirits.

Genesis 37 to 50 covers the longest single-focused narrative in the Bible, relying on scenes, dialogue, and recurring motifs. Joseph explicitly tells his brothers that God intended his sale into slavery for good to save many lives.

Principles for Interpretation

People fleece God for personal decision-making based on the Gideon narrative, ignoring that Gideon's action showed a lack of trust in God.

• Remember that an Old Testament narrative usually does not directly teach a doctrine.
• Recognize that a narrative usually illustrates a doctrine taught propositionally elsewhere.
• Acknowledge that narratives record what happened rather than what ought to happen every time.
• Evaluate character actions without assuming they serve as good examples.
• Account for the selectivity and incompleteness of historical narratives.
• Look for both explicit and implicit teachings within the text.

6. Acts: The Question of Historical Precedent

Unlike Old Testament histories, Christians frequently treat the historical narratives of Acts as the normative model for the church of all times, creating major hermeneutical challenges. Many sectors of evangelical Protestantism hold a restoration mentality, looking back to first-century experience as the ideal.

Unless Scripture explicitly commands it, what is only narrated or described in historical narratives does not function in an obligatory, normative way.

Diverse practices including infant versus believer baptism, congregational versus episcopalian church polity, and even ritual snake handling have been supported using Acts. This lack of precision regarding what Acts teaches has caused deep divisions over practices like baptism modes, church polity, frequency of the Lord's Supper, and the selling of possessions.

Structure and Purpose of Acts

Luke's two-volume work follows Hellenistic historiography and Old Testament narrative styles, written both to entertain and to convey theological purpose. Acts is structurally composed of six panels or sections that trace the geographical and demographic movement of the gospel from Jerusalem to Rome.

• 1:1 - 6:7 - Description of the primitive church in Jerusalem
• 6:8 - 9:31 - First geographical expansion by the Hellenists
• 9:32 - 12:24 - First expansion to the Gentiles
• 12:25 - 16:5 - Expansion into the Gentile world with Paul
• 16:6 - 19:20 - Ever westward expansion into Europe
• 19:21 - 28:30 - Events moving Paul and the gospel to Rome

10 Key Ideas

1. The Bible operates as both a divine message with eternal relevance and a human document conditioned by history and culture.
2. Exegesis discovers the original intended meaning of a passage based on its historical and literary context, whereas hermeneutics seeks its contemporary relevance.
3. Choosing a reliable translation requires understanding textual criticism, translation theories, and the challenges of ancient idioms and grammar.
4. New Testament epistles function as occasional documents addressing specific historical situations through paragraph-by-paragraph analysis and contextual reconstruction.
5. Applying occasional letters today demands distinguishing eternal moral truths from culturally relative practices without resorting to arbitrary proof-texting.
6. Old Testament narratives operate across a three-level hierarchy, recording historical events and implicit truths rather than directly teaching moral rules or allegories.
7. Unless Scripture explicitly commands it, what is only narrated or described in historical narratives does not function in an obligatory, normative way.
8. Gospels function as carefully crafted theological accounts rather than modern biographies, requiring readers to understand both the historical setting of Jesus and the evangelists' editorial purposes.
9. Parables function as metaphorical stories designed to provoke a crisis of response rather than serve as allegories with hidden codes.
10. Old Testament covenant laws and apocalyptic imagery demand rigorous contextual exegesis to separate temporary ancient regulations and symbolic visions from their eternal theological messages.