“… a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.” (II Tim 2:15)
I pray, Lord, that you grant me your Spirit as I read to help me grasp the plain sense of what you say.
Let’s say you write a simple text that says, “Hi Abdul, We’ll come Saturday.” You write that text because you are in a specific situation and feel the need to communicate specific information to a specific audience. And this is true no matter what you write. The simplest email or a 300-page dissertation both give specific information to a specific audience to address a specific situation. All writing does this, including Biblical writing. Therefore, if you want to understand the Bible, it helps to understand a writer’s situation and context. This is rather basic, but let me give some examples where knowledge of a situation helps us understand Scripture.
Let’s begin with Paul. Paul himself tells us that he is a former Pharisee of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, and that he once tried to persecute the faith he now follows. He has a calling to take the gospel of Jesus to Gentiles, so he is a cross-cultural minister, but he is also steeped in the Old Testament and quotes it profusely. When you read Paul, you have to let him remain a Hebrew and not try to make him a 21st century American or Asian or whatever. In this sense, you need to understand the Jewishness of the gospel. Even when Paul writes to Gentiles, the gospel is the culmination of the Hebrew Scriptures. And even when Paul says that Gentiles do not have to keep certain Jewish ceremonial laws, he says that their faith is rooted in God’s eternal plan revealed in the Hebrew Scriptures. In other words, Paul is a Hebrew even when he is telling people that they don’t have to be Hebrews. It’s who he is. And it’s what the gospel is. This means that when you read Paul, try to understand him from his sandals.
Now Paul wrote many letters, but they are not the same. For example, he received information that one of the churches he had planted had abandoned the gospel of justification by faith and had accepted contrary doctrines. He wrote an official letter to that church in order to address the specific doctrines they embraced with the intent that the church read his letter publicly. That letter is Galatians.
Toward the end of his life, however, Paul found himself in prison. He believed that his life was poured out and that the authorities would soon execute him. He wrote a private and deeply personal final message to a man whom he regarded as a son. That letter is II Timothy.
One author. Two very different situations. This means that when you read II Timothy, you must read it differently from the way you read Galatians. It is private, not public. It does not touch on many of the themes or problems Paul deals with when he writes publicly. The tone is different. The style is different. The wording is different. The topics are different. But the man is the same. His situation, however, has greatly impacted what he says and how he says it. This is common sense. No one writes a private letter to his son in the same way that he writes an open letter to the editor. Nor does he necessarily say the same kinds of things.
When you read Galatians, therefore, understand that Paul is combating the idea within the church that God justifies us on the basis of our keeping the law. Paul is saying, “Your faith, not your works, saves you.” He argues it. He supports it from the Old Testament. He contrasts it with the error the Galatians were embracing. He discusses the implications of living life under this new gospel of faith. Most everything he says in Galatians is tied to the idea that justification comes by faith, not works. That is the historical situation he is addressing. If you miss that, you miss Galatians.
But when you read II Timothy, you hear a man pouring out his heart to his son and encouraging that son to fight on. Whether that son is to guard the good deposit entrusted to him in the Scriptures, or to entrust to faithful men what he has received from Paul, or to remember Jesus Christ risen from the dead, or to remind the church of these things, or to present himself to God, or to rightly handle the Word, or to flee earthly passions, or to avoid controversy, or to preach the Word, or to … You get the idea. You see what Paul is doing. And he is doing it because “the time of [his] departure has come.” He has fought the good fight and finished the race, and now it is time to pass the baton to the next runner. That is the situation Paul is in. If you miss that, you miss II Timothy.
Common sense. When you read the Scriptures, use your common sense.
