A crucial presupposition we must make when studying the Bible is that, while it was written for believers in all ages (1 Cor 10:11), it was not written directly to us. We are reading someone else’s mail.
That means that we must be aware of and alert for idioms. Those turns of phrase that have a unique meaning in a particular culture but would make no sense when translated to another language. For example, if I describe my child’s theater performance as having “knocked it out of the park,” people in another time and place might presume something got broken or that the play was performed in an outdoor venue.
With the Bible, this issue works in both directions. Ancient authors used idioms, for which word studies will be no help. (Imagine looking up “knocked” and “park” up in a dictionary.) And at the same time, we cannot read modern day idioms back into the text, even if the words are the same.
For example, Alan Shlemon explains the fact that when Jesus told Lazarus to “Come out” (John 11:43), he was not inviting him to publicly identify as gay. This may be self-evident to some, but such basic principles bear repeating. We must seek to understand the Bible the way the original audience would have understood it. Only then can we draw legitimate applications in our day.
Shlemon’s piece skillfully draws out this principle with respect to some of the ways people read the text today.
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