Essays in Understanding the Bible (4): The Importance of History
In this series of essays, Helen Parry explores some basic principles for understanding the Bible. The essays are posted monthly on the LICC website, normally on the third Monday of the month. Since interpretation is not a dry academic exercise but is essential to a proper use of Scripture, each essay is followed by questions for reflection (and discussion with others, where applicable), and suggestions for action.
One of the great losses of our generation, it seems to me, is a loss of a sense of history. It’s not simply that we don't learn from the lessons of the past, but that we don’t know enough about the past to learn lessons from it. Nor do we have a strong enough sense of history to be able to make sense of our present situations and experiences.
The seemingly haphazard teaching of history in schools, with its focus on periods and events selected because of their perceived relevance to contemporary issues, fails to give us the perspective that might enable us to make informed judgments. Indeed, ignorance of – or disregard for – history is one of the main causes of the West’s recent disastrous misjudgments of the situations in the Gulf states.
Throughout the centuries, a people’s history has been inseparable from their identity – identity as individuals and as members of a community or nation. In the Ashanti area of Ghana, for example, a formal occasion in the presence of the king (the Asantehene) will begin with the praise singers recounting the great events and deeds of the heroes of the past. This reminds the listeners that they are heirs of a great past and trustees of a great future.
This issue of identity has become acute in Britain today. While the Welsh and the Scots have a strong sense of who they are, the English flounder with little sense of self. This is sometimes attributed to England’s loss of its Empire, but part of the problem is that English history in schools was taught very much in terms of Empire and the achievements of the white Anglo-Saxon race. Little attention has been paid to successive waves of immigration and England’s tolerant absorption over the centuries of people of other races and cultures. In such a multi-racial society this is part of the history that we should celebrate; this is the history that should establish a new concept of ‘Englishness’ – so that all can understand who they are and how they belong.
For the Jewish people, their history is inseparable from their identity. To recognise this helps us to understand the current situation in the Middle East. It also helps us to understand the Bible. The great events recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures (the Old Testament to Christians) are to this day rehearsed on communal occasions. The constant refrain, at celebrations and in prayers, is ‘If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its cunning’. On the Sabbath eve, two loaves of bread are broken to symbolise the double portion of manna that the Israelites were given every Friday in the wilderness. The father blesses his daughters: ‘May God make you like Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah...’ Perhaps most significantly of all, the annual Passover recalls the deliverance of the Israelites from captivity in Egypt. Unleavened bread is eaten, and bitter herbs. And the Hagada is recited: ‘in prose and verse – sometimes spoken, sometimes sung – we tell the evergreen story of the Exodus’ (Moshe Davis, I Am a Jew).
As we read the New Testament, we see how the past history of the Jewish people informed the understanding of, and provided the imagery for, the Jewish writers of the gospels and epistles. The first few chapters of John’s gospel illustrate this well. ‘The law was given through Moses’, John writes, ‘grace and truth came through Jesus Christ’ (1:17). Jesus tells Nicodemus, ‘Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up’ (3:14). Again, in chapter 4, John tells of how Jesus, travelling through Samaria, ‘came to a town called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus... sat down by the well’. When Jesus got into conversation with a Samaritan woman and offered her ‘living water’, her reply was, ‘Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself?’ Interestingly, the shared ancestry of Jew and Samaritan formed a critical part of the Samaritans’ identity.
As Jewish followers of Jesus recognised him as their long-awaited Messiah they came to appreciate the continuity of the old story in a new way. It was as if, to them, the great river of God’s purposes took a new turn, and began to flow in a new channel. They were still Abraham’s heirs, inheritors of the Old Testament promises, still God’s covenant people, though now of the ‘new covenant’ not the old covenant (see Hebrews 8:6-13). ‘Now’, Paul wrote to the Romans, ‘a righteousness, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe’ (3:21-22).
That phrase ‘all who believe’ is critical to Paul's argument. Not only, he was saying, were believing Jews justified by faith in Christ (Romans 5:1), Gentiles who believed were justified too, and also became inheritors of the whole Old Testament story. ‘There is no difference between Jew and Gentile – the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him’ (10:12). Illustrating this, Paul used the striking image of an olive tree (a familiar Old Testament metaphor for Israel; see, for example, Jeremiah 11:16): ‘... some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root... You do not support the root, but the root supports you’ (11:17-18).
So where does this leave us, Christians (mostly Gentile) in the 21st century? We too are children of Abraham, God’s covenant people, children and heirs of God (Romans 8:15-17).
Children of God – that is our identity. Living in an age of ‘identity crisis’, when the shifting sands of our culture, helped by self-help gurus of all stripes, are creating deep uncertainties about who (or even what) we are and why we are here, we are seeking firm ground on which to stand. But just as ‘Englishness’ is only skin-deep if it depends on nothing more significant than a father, a birthplace or a passport, so being a child of God means little if divorced from the history of God’s people.
It is not only so that we may understand better the character and purposes of God that we need to understand biblical history. It is also so that we may understand ourselves, and, crucially, our place in those purposes. We are not spectators at the drama of God’s unfolding purposes: we are actors in it. We are part of a history in which each of us has a part to play.
This is rather what Paul meant when he wrote of what it means to be God’s heirs. We do indeed inherit the blessings, and many of our churches today encourage us to recognise, appropriate and rejoice in those blessings. But if we are truly identified with Jesus, we are also privileged to ‘share in his sufferings’ – whatever that may mean in our own circumstances. Identification implies a complete submission to Jesus of our whole lives, just as actors, when on the stage, lose themselves in their roles.
But we can look forward also to sharing in his glory. So whatever part we may have been called on to play in God’s unfolding drama, we shall be there at the grand finale.
In the meantime, we might say that we have come onto the stage in Act 4. In many of the great classical 5-Act plays, the key dramatic event takes place in Act 3. In Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, for example, the assassination of Caesar happens in Act 3. The rest of the play (sometimes called the denouement) tracks the outcomes of the central event, until some kind of resolution is reached. In God’s drama, the Act 3 happening is, of course, the incarnation, life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Act 4 (a long act) is the history of the church. In order to understand Act 5 (which is what we call the Last Things), we need to follow the unfolding of Act 4.
So we need to have a grasp not only of biblical history but also of church history. What has happened during the past 2000 years? What issues has the church faced? How were they resolved? What lessons have been learned? What lessons have been ignored? Just as in politics, we should not make up policy as if in a time-bubble, but learn from the wealth of experience of those who have gone before, as God’s story continues to unfold.
God’s story is mine, too. This is my identity.
For personal reflection:
Read slowly through this hymn, thanking God for each great fact that affirms your identity and security.
Before the throne of God above
I have a strong and perfect plea.
A great High Priest whose Name is Love
Who ever lives and pleads for me.
My name is graven on His hands,
My name is written on His heart.
I know that while in heaven He stands
No tongue can bid me thence depart.
When Satan tempts me to despair
And tells me of my guilt within,
Upward I look and see Him there
Who made an end of all my sin.
Because the sinless Saviour died
My sinful soul is counted free.
For God the just is satisfied
To look on Him and pardon me.
Behold Him there the risen Lamb,
My perfect spotless righteousness,
The great unchangeable I am,
The King of Glory and of Grace,
One with Himself I cannot die.
My soul is purchased by His blood,
My life is hid with Christ on high,
With Christ my Saviour and my God!
For group discussion:
‘Whatever part we may have been called on to play in God’s unfolding drama, we shall be there at the grand finale.’ Read 2 Corinthians 5:17-21. How does this passage affirm our significance in God’s drama? Discuss the implications of being an ambassador, and how you feel the Lord wants you to play to your part. Pray for one another.
For action:
In conversation with a colleague or friend, seek to find out more about their background and past history in order to understand them better. Be willing, reciprocally, to open up about your own life. At the same time pray for them, that the Lord will bless the greater intimacy that grows between you.
Helen Parry
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