Helping ordinary people learn to study the Bible
Stephen Kneale has a brief but provocative piece on “Three ways we might find our biases driving our biblical interpretation.” Of course, I don’t ever think I bring my biases to the study. But shouldn’t I take note when the fruit of my study matches one of Kneale’s signs?
This is worth your time to consider.
Romans 8 is one of the most beloved chapters of the New Testament, with many staggering promises and assurances for the people of God. But could it be that some of them tend to take on meanings Paul didn’t intend, when we cite them out of context?
Joshua Greever tackles 3 such verses from the chapter, employing the context of Paul’s argument to explain some familiar verses and phrases:
Greever’s work on these texts is worth considering and modeling how to answer such interpretive questions from a close examination of the train of thought.
Consider one of the most chilling statements Jesus ever made:
‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” (Matt 25:45-46)
It sounds as though the way a person treats “the least of these” is—if not the cause—at least the evidence of a person’s eternal fate. But do we understand who those people are whom Jesus wishes us to feed, clothe, welcome, and visit? It prevails on us to get this right.
Kevin DeYoung recently republished a helpful piece where he examines the phrase “least of these” from the context. He looks at Jesus’ usage not only in Matt 25:45 but also Matt 25:40, along with the logical flow of Jesus’ discourse and the literary connections back to Matthew 10.
I won’t quote his conclusion here, to entice you to go and read how he arrives at it.
The Lord gave us not one but four accounts of Jesus’ life and ministry. Steve Burchett wants to help you appreciate and understand them better. He explains that the stories of the gospels:
Burchett goes on to offer practical suggestions for reading and understanding these stories rightly.
I found an older episode of Ask Pastor John with a really important question: Can I really trust my interpretation of the Bible?
John Piper addresses the question from two angles. First, he offers guidance to the person looking for guidance. Second, he addresses the inconsistency of an extreme skeptical perspective.
I could give, for example, five biblical pointers to how the Bible says we should handle the law. And a certain kind of person could say to me, “But how do I know that I’m reading those pointers correctly?” And I could give an explanation of the pointers and how they work. They could say, “But how do I know that I’m interpreting your explanation correctly?”
A few weeks ago, I republished, with some editing, a 2016 post about why the conventional Bible study advice that “proverbs aren’t promises” is misleading. Then Pastor Paul Carter interacted with my piece on The Gospel Coalition Canada site, concluding that “proverbs aren’t promises” is true after all.
I would encourage you to check out Carter’s article, as he defends the conventional wisdom and illuminates a few places where my argument is not as clear as it ought to be. Below, I will seek to rectify that. But first let me point out what I appreciate about Carter’s piece, along with how important our definitions are.
First, while Carter makes use of scholarship to assist his arguments, he primarily looks to the Scripture itself for guidance. For this I am grateful. He takes pains to highlight the wisdom literature’s own view of the world, especially life in a fallen world.
Second, while holding to the maxim that proverbs aren’t promises, Carter makes sure to also state that “Proverbs are true and can be trusted entirely.” And that “They are truths you can build your life upon.” I affirm these conclusions wholeheartedly. I believe that these truths are in tension with the claim that “proverbs aren’t promises” on account of definitions, but more on that below. I’m just grateful up front that Carter recognizes the need to be explicit about the trustworthiness of the Proverbs.
Third, Carter’s argument is almost entirely based on the nature of life in a fallen world. And I would agree with him on his analysis of the wisdom literature’s description of our fallen existence: “Sometimes the righteous get what the wicked deserve and the wicked get what the righteous deserve. I’m not sure how anyone living on planet earth could deny that.” Agreed. In no way am I denying that reality.
Finally, Carter affirms the long-term view taken by the Proverbs: “Proverbs are true and can be trusted, but because the world is fallen, a person may have to wait until the Final Judgment and the resurrection for the full enjoyment of that truth and the full possession of the rewards associated therewith.” I fully agree with the fact that the truth of proverbs is often not fulfilled in the present age. Now strikingly, Carter believes that “promise” is the wrong label for this “full enjoyment of that truth and the full possession of the rewards associated therewith” that comes in the Final Judgment.
It is on that point of labels and definitions that my disagreement chiefly lies. So let me turn to that.
If by “promise,” we mean a deistic, impersonal mechanism, by which certain inputs infallibly result in guaranteed outputs, then I would agree that proverbs aren’t promises. And all over Carter’s article, it is clear that this is what he means by “promise.”
So for Carter, a “promise” is:
It’s as though God embedded into the source code of the universe a touch screen kiosk for ordering fast food. Just input your diligent labor, and pre-programmed robotic servers will bring riches and wealth right to your table.
Again, if that is what is meant by “promise,” then I agree that proverbs aren’t promises.
However, the biggest problem here is that this is not what a promise is in the Bible. And that is the basis for my entire argument that “proverbs aren’t promises” is misleading.
In the Bible, a promise is:
The promises of the book of Proverbs fit squarely within these characteristics. The assurances and predicted rewards or curses (I’m not sure what else to call them besides “promises”) are offered to the young nobility of Israel in the kingdom period [contextual], on the basis of their fear of the Lord (Prov 1:7, 9:10) and their standing in his steadfast love and faithfulness (Prov 3:3) [covenantal], and on condition of walking faithfully on a straight path away from self-reliance and toward Yahweh their God (see Proverbs 1-9, which is the foundation for the practicals in the rest of the book, and especially Prov 3:5-6) [conditional].
No, the assurances of Proverbs are not mathematical functions within a universal, deistic machine. Yes, the assurances of Proverbs function just like the rest of the Bible’s promises. We can come up with exceptions to the assurances of Deuteronomy 28 on account of the world’s fallenness. But nobody thereby concludes that “covenant blessings and curses aren’t promises.” So why do we make that claim about the Proverbs? Yes, they are promises. We just need to define “promise” the way the Bible does.
I’m grateful to Carter for his article, which illuminated the need for me to clarify this presupposition of my argument. My concern with the maxim “proverbs aren’t promises” lies not with what it says about proverbs but with what it says about promises.
The conventional wisdom that “proverbs aren’t promises” always appears to arise from one of two observations:
Both of those concerns are real pastoral problems. Yet when we address them with a sweeping hermeneutical solution (that proverbs aren’t promises), the collateral damage is even greater than the presenting problem.
First, if it is true that proverbs aren’t promises, then it must follow that none of the following particular proverbs are promises:
Many more examples could be given. And if none of those are promises (the way the Bible defines “promise”), where does that leave us? Under the guidance offered by the conventional principle, as Bruce Waltke recognized decades ago, a psychologically well person could scarcely trust God.
Second, if it is true that proverbs aren’t promises, how can we even say we expect their fulfillment in the Final Judgment or the new heavens and new earth? Isn’t it the case that many of the Bible’s promises are not fully true—i.e. we will experience apparent exceptions to them—until the age to come? “The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat … They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain” (Isaiah 11:6-9). Carter claims that “promise” is the wrong label for truths that “will be resisted and delayed until the Final Judgment.” So what, then, should we call those assurances in other parts of the Bible that will be resisted and delayed until That Day?
Third, if the assurances of Proverbs can be refuted by appealing to self-evident exceptions to them in a fallen world, what is to prevent us from approaching any of the Bible’s promises the same way? For example, God promised to David that his son would sit on his throne forever (2 Sam 7:13). It is self-evident that Solomon did not reign forever, providing an exception to the larger promise of David’s dynasty. Does that mean that 2 Sam 7:13 is not a promise, just like “proverbs aren’t promises”? (Psalm 89 wrestles with a very similar question.) Of course not; we now know God was talking most fully about the Messiah. But this takes us back to the previous point: If the fulfillment of the promise delays until a future age, does that make it no longer a promise?
Fourth, if the assurances of Proverbs can be refuted by appealing to exceptions that violate our expectations of how the world ought to work (something to which Carter appeals numerous times in his article), what is to prevent us from approaching any of the Bible’s promises the same way? For example, “If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it” (John 14:14). But my experience has shown numerous times when Jesus did not do what I asked in his name; this violates my expectation about how Jesus said the world ought to work. Does that mean this can’t be a promise, just like “proverbs aren’t promises”? Of course not; there must something contextual, covenantal, and/or conditional that I must grasp from John’s gospel to help me overcome the pastoral problem of this verse. After all, promises are not universal, deistic mechanisms for attaining what I want.
Fifth, when the guidance that “proverbs aren’t promises” sinks in, people lose interest in the book of Proverbs. If all I find here are “general principles” and “probabilities” which may or may not be true in my life — and there’s no way of predicting whether they will be true in my life or not — then why would I pay any attention to this book at all? The book of Proverbs used to be core to Christian discipleship, as evidenced in part by its inclusion with the Psalms in the Gideons’ “New Testaments.” These days, I find it rare to come across Christians who have any real familiarity with the book of Proverbs at all. There’s just not much motivation to soak in this book when you’ve been told you can’t bank on what you find there. And in our generation, we sure would benefit from soaking in this book to guide us through the mess we’re facing.
To be fair, Carter explicitly denies the idea that the truths of Proverbs can’t be trusted. But he is not clear about how “proverbs aren’t promises” and “they are truths you can build your life upon” can both be true, when denying the latter conclusion follows directly downstream from affirming the former.
My point is simply that we create far more serious pastoral problems when we apply a sweeping hermeneutical solution to the presenting set of pastoral problems. This, I believe, is the very concern of which Dr. Waltke tries to warn us in his commentary.
Carter is not the first critic to claim that I have misread Bruce Waltke’s commentary, which I quoted in my original article. But the criticism goes like this:
This is to miss the point of my citation of Dr. Waltke. I do not claim that Dr. Waltke supports a deistic, mechanistic view of the promises of Proverbs. Nor do I argue myself in favor of a deistic, mechanistic view of the promises of Proverbs.
All that Dr. Waltke is saying, to which I am appealing, is that to solve the pastoral problems of Proverbs with a sweeping hermeneutical maxim that “proverbs aren’t promises but probabilities” is “stating the matter badly.” By the way we have chosen to frame the hermeneutical principle, we have created a host of “theological, practical, and psychological problems” that are even worse than the original matter we set out to address.
So again, I deny that proverbs are universal, deistic, mechanisms for attaining reward in this present life. But I strenuously urge us all not to frame our correction with the language of “proverbs aren’t promises.” By doing that, we create even worse problems for the people we’re trying to help.
I am not arguing, as Pastor Carter claims at the start of his article, against the overstatement of a valid hermeneutical principle. I am arguing against even the bare statement of such a faulty principle, even though the principle is well-intended to address a real problem.
To continue repeating the oft-repeated maxim that “proverbs aren’t promises” is to throw into question all of the Bible’s promises, because the same arguments against proverbs being promises can be directly applied to promises from other genres of the Bible. That is why the statement “proverbs aren’t promises” is misleading.
But that which truly concerns Pastor Carter, along with the myriad other proponents of the conventional guidance, is something with which I fully agree. Proverbs are not mechanistic guarantees for life in this fallen world. Can we not simply frame the matter that way, and do away with the label of “not promises”?
Pick up a book with Bible-reading advice, and you’ll barely get your nose in before it gets mashed with the ubiquitous yet astonishingly forceful declaration: Proverbs aren’t promises! This piece of conventional wisdom is everywhere. Though it has roots in careful thinking about the genre of wisdom literature, this advice often goes too far and misses the point of the proverbs.
In almost every case, the counsel comes with strong emotion and a reference to Proverbs 22:6. Too many people have seen too many people bludgeon the hurting parents of wayward children through immature and thoughtless reference to this crucial verse about parenting. (“If you had trained your child right, he would not have walked away from the Lord.”) And the pastoral reflex is just right. This is not how to use Scripture.
But the conclusion—that proverbs are not promises—is not right. In this case, the cure is worse than the disease.
Consider first, the many respectable authors and pastors who promote the conventional wisdom. They often offer sound counsel, and their sensitivity to abuse is spot on. But when discussing how to read wisdom literature, they move in synchrony:
“A common mistake in biblical interpretation and application is to give a proverbial saying the weight or force of a moral absolute.” (R.C. Sproul)
“The proverbs commend certain paths to family members because they reflect the ways God ordinarily distributes His blessings. But ordinarily does not mean necessarily…Proverbs are not promises.” (Richard Pratt)
“The particular blessings, rewards, and opportunities mentioned in Proverbs are likely to follow if one will choose the wise courses of action outlined in the poetic, figurative language of the book. But nowhere does Proverbs teach automatic success.” (Gordon Fee & Douglas Stuart)
“The proverbs are meant to be general principles.” (John Piper)
“The proverbs appear to represent likelihoods rather than absolutes with God’s personal guarantee attached.” (James Dobson)
In other words, all agree: Proverbs are general, but not universal, statements. Proverbs are usually, or ordinarily, true. They speak about what is likely, not about what is guaranteed. But proverbs certainly are not promises. They are not absolutes. We cannot bank on them completely.
But consider some amazing statements from the proverbs. And consider where we end up if we read them as probabilities instead of promises. The conventional wisdom feels right with a verse like Proverbs 22:6, but it doesn’t hold up with much of the rest of the book.
According to Lady Wisdom: “If you turn at my reproof, behold, I will pour out my spirit to you; I will make my words known to you” (Prov 1:23). According to the conventional approach, this means that only most people who turn at wisdom’s reproof will know her words. It cannot be absolutely certain that wisdom is available to those who turn to her. Some who turn will be disappointed when she rejects them anyway.
Or consider chapter 2: “My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding…if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God” (Prov 2:1-5). This can’t really mean what it says. What Solomon wants to communicate is that those who receive and treasure, pay attention and incline their hearts, seek wisdom like silver and search for it as for hidden treasure—such people might understand the fear of the Lord. Some—but not all—who seek the wisdom of God, and who seek it in the way God requires, will know God in the end. Hopefully you can be one of the lucky ones.
But it gets better. “For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding; he stores up sound wisdom for the upright; he is a shield to those who walk in integrity (Prov 2:6-7). Today, of course, we know that only sometimes does the Lord give wisdom. This isn’t absolute, because of course you can find wisdom in other places besides him. He’s usually the source of wisdom, but if you try other places, other deities, other schools of thought, you might also get the life you need.
Or let’s hear personified Wisdom once more: “For whoever finds me finds life and obtains favor from the Lord, but he who fails to find me injures himself; all who hate me love death” (Prov 8:35-36). Because this can’t be a promise, it must be only a likelihood. So those who find the fear of the Lord and walk in his wisdom might get his favor. Or they might end up still injuring themselves and dying the eternal death. Ya never know. In this broken world of ours, it’s a crap shoot. So go with the better odds; but don’t bank on any certainties.
There has to be a better way to read this genre. And I contend that, when a proverb sounds like a promise, it is making a promise! And you can always trust God’s promises. When a proverb issues a command, it is making a moral absolute!
However, these promises and commands all have a context. Just as Jeremiah 29:11 was a promise with a context (not modern-day graduates, but ancient Israelites in exile), so also proverbs have a context, a specific situation at which they are aimed. And instead of seeing proverbs as “general” or “broad” statements, we need to see them for what they truly are: very specific and particular statements. They speak to the minute details of life, which is why they can even sound contradictory at times. For example, see Prov 26:4-5. One saying is always true in a certain context (where answering a fool will make you as foolish as he is), and the next statement is always true in a different context (where not answering a fool will leave him wise in his own eyes). Wise people will discern which context they find themselves in. But both statements are always true within their contexts, and absolutely so. Neither statement is a mere likelihood.
And to get more specific, the context of the Proverbs is God’s covenant with Israel. The promises of Proverbs typically involve blessings or curses for those who keep or reject the covenant stipulations to know the Lord and walk in his wisdom. Just read Proverbs 3:1-12 immediately after Deuteronomy 28, and you can’t help but observe the contextual connection. However, nobody argues that Deuteronomy 28 contains only “probabilities,” or that these covenant blessings and curses are “not promises.” No, these promises of blessing and cursing exist within the context of God’s covenant with Israel and simply require care to apply them properly to our new covenant context.
I’m not. Everyone agrees that Bruce Waltke has written “the standard commentary” on Proverbs. Yet few listen to him on this point:
“The popular evangelical solution that these are not promises but probabilities, though containing an element of truth, raises theological, practical, and psychological problems by stating the matter badly…A psychologically well person could scarcely trust God with all his heart (Prov 3:5) knowing that he usually, but not always, keeps his obligations.” (The Book of Proverbs, Chapters 1-15 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004), pp. 107-8)
Brothers and sisters, let us no longer state this matter badly.
So we must return to that which set us down the false trail. What will we do with those who mistakenly read Prov 22:6 as a promise, and thus trample on faithful, wounded people who cannot control the hearts of their children?
We must understand the context to which this proverb speaks. In his book, God’s Wisdom in Proverbs (pp.353-379), Dan Phillips argues convincingly that Prov 22:6 means almost the opposite of what we tend to think. The verse doesn’t promise superhero children to those who follow the correct parenting techniques. Instead, it threatens selfish, miscreant children to those who refuse to use God’s means (the rod and the word of patient, faithful exhortation) to drive the folly from their children’s hearts.
In other words, the verse does not promise good kids to all good parents. But it does threaten bad kids to all bad parents. Train up your child according to his way. Teach him to continue loving himself and putting himself at the center of the universe. Show him over time that there are no consequences to his foolish choices. And even when he is old, he will not depart from his natural inclinations toward himself and himself alone. This is a promise.
But even this covenant curse has a context within the covenant of grace. There is always hope. The grace of our Lord overflows with the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. “And the saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”
Photo Credit: Clark Maxwell (2010), Creative Commons
This post was first published in 2016.
Disclaimer: Above, Amazon links to great books are affiliate links. If you click those links, I promise you I will usually receive a small commission, ordinarily at no extra cost to yourself. But you never know when Amazon may change the terms of their agreement with me. Don’t read such probabilities as absolute promises. Click only if you dare to dig into this topic further.
Last week, I shared an article by Christopher Ash about Jesus as the lead singer of the psalms. I can’t help but follow up this week with another article by Ash entitled, “4 Psalms You Didn’t Realize Point to Christ.”
Ash considers:
All four psalms only make real sense if Jesus Christ is the lead singer.
Last week, I argued for the value of “thinking bigger” in your Bible study—of seeking to grasp how your text fits into the book’s larger argument. In this post, I’ll give some examples to show the payoff of such bigger thinking.
First, a rather simple example. Upon studying Proverbs 2, you may recognize that this poem describes how to become wise. All you have to do is passively receive wisdom and actively seek it, and the Lord is just waiting to dole it out.
So much, so good. But how does this chapter fit into the book’s argument?
As a whole, Proverbs 1-9 serve as an extended introduction to the book. In the long poems there, the sage poet explains the fundamentals of how wisdom works, what it does, and why it’s worth it. Chapter 2 on how to get it fits right in with the other fundamentals.
And all those fundamentals are to be assumed when we read chapters 10 and beyond. Therefore, to read particular verses of proverbs as points of secular business, finance, or relationship advice is to miss the entire point. Proverbs 2 plays a crucial role by explaining that God is the only source of wisdom and that he is generous in giving it to those who seek him. Recognizing this role enables us to perceive the weightiness of chapter 2 and the importance of constantly returning to it to help interpret the wisdom found in the rest of the book.
We love to give Sunday school children their coloring pages to help them learn about the cornucopia described in Galatians 5:22-23. But what role do those verses play in light of the letter as a whole?
Gal 2:16 could perhaps summarize the main point of the whole letter: “We know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ.”
Paul makes his case first through his autobiography (Gal 1-2) and then by drawing out the tension between law and promise (Gal 3-4).
Now, in chapters 5-6, he explains the freedom that comes with the righteousness that is by faith. This freedom leads us to serve one another in love (Gal 5:13), which is the sum of the whole law (Gal 5:14). In other words, getting right with God (by faith) will produce rightness of relationship (in love).
Gal 5:16 then contrasts the desires of the flesh with the desires of the Spirit. At this point and throughout the letter, “flesh” has stood for justification by works (which leads to all kinds of strife and relational tension), and “Spirit” has stood for justification by faith (which leads to loving communities).
So by following the argument of the entire letter, we will recognize that the fruit of the Spirit is not about how to be a good Christian person, but about what sprouts forth when people put their faith in Christ.
Luke’s gospel is especially challenging on account of its length. But repeated reading and re-reading pay great dividends as you pick up the overall contours of the book’s structure. I won’t restate the full structure here, but can only refer you to my post on the topic.
We find the parable of the Good Samaritan within the lengthy middle section of Luke, which can be difficult to navigate until we discover that it’s organized around four key questions. The Good Samaritan is the final scene in the discussion of the first question: “Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” (Luke 9:54). In other words, Luke is addressing the issue of how Jesus’ followers must go about proclaiming his kingdom.
So in the section of Luke’s gospel where Jesus’ disciples want to call down fire on Samaritans for not receiving Jesus, Jesus ends up telling a story about a Samaritan to illustrate who is one’s neighbor. The parable demonstrates that Jesus wants his people proclaiming the kingdom to all their neighbors (with neighbor being defined by the story as anyone in need, even across the cursed Jew-Samaritan divide).
So yes, those who hear the parable today ought to do good to people they wouldn’t otherwise like. But they ought to do so from a belief that the message of Christ’s kingdom is for all nations. We proclaim grace, and we act out that grace, so they might believe.
These three examples, from three different text types, exemplify the value of following the argument of the entire book you are studying. This takes a lot of work, and it’s not easy. In fact, I don’t think I ever get it “right” on my first pass through a book. But I do the best I can and then refine my work when I come back to a book later in my study.
Don’t settle for quick answers on a text. Think bigger and take stock of how your text fits into the author’s larger argument. In this way, you may find your Bible study more enriching, encouraging, and enlightening than you expected.
Perhaps I’ve convinced you that part of Bible study requires picking up an author’s train of thought. And you can see it most clearly with instructional texts like epistles, wisdom poetry, and prophets. But what about the narrative books? Do they have a train of thought as well?
Ted McGrath (2014), Creative Commons
Remember that Bible stories are more than stories. While biblical narratives tell a true history of God’s redemption, the purpose of the stories is more than the history itself (or the story itself). Paul uses biblical narratives to provide examples to follow and warnings to avoid (1 Cor 10:6, 11). Jesus uses biblical narratives to draw ethical principles for his day (Mark 10:6-9). And Hebrews uses biblical narratives to inspire and motivate people not to shrink back but hold fast to Jesus despite great affliction (Hebrews 10:39-12:3). Examples, morals, and motivation all come from stories.
What does this mean for our Bible study? How do we find the main points of Bible stories?
Narratives by nature don’t present their material logically. You won’t find many “so that”s or “therefore”s in narratives, so it’s more challenging to trace out a logical train of thought.
But the tools of narratives lie primarily in plot, structure, and climax. Learn to see these things, and you’ll discover the narrator’s train of thought.
Plot: What is the primary sequence of action? Who does what to whom, and what are the results? At what point does the plot hinge and build toward climax and resolution?
Structure: Narratives won’t make clear logical argument, but they structure their material intentionally.
Climax: Where is the highest point of energy in the story? Where do the characters find what they seek or resolve their tension?
Look for these clues, and you’re on your way toward the main point.
This short example begins with a clear title statement: “Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way” (Matt 1:18). The plot immediately thickens as Mary gets pregnant and Joseph tries to do the right thing by her. Suddenly, an angel appears to him in a dream (not an everyday occurrence) and gives Joseph two commands with explanation:
So not only the marriage, but also the child’s name is important here. We don’t hit the story’s climax, though, until we read “All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet” (Matt 1:22), which leads into more talk of pregnancy, birth, and naming of a child – with another explanation of the name (God with us – Matt 1:23).
As the tension resolves, Joseph obeys the angel. And Matthew goes out of his way to tell us that he 1) married her without making love to her, and 2) named the child Jesus (Matt 1:24-25).
We’re not told much in this short tale, but the following things are clear:
What is the point of this short story? God himself has come to deal with his people’s sin. See how the story’s train of thought leads us to this key point?
I don’t have the space to analyze this lengthy passage exhaustively, but I want to show how observing structure helps us to get the point.
Intro: Jesus sends out the 12, creating a crisis for Herod: Who is Jesus? – 6:7-29
A Jesus feeds 5,000 – 6:30-44
B Jesus crosses the sea with his disciples – 6:45-56
C Pharisees argue with Jesus – 7:1-23
D Jesus talks to a woman about bread – 7:24-30
E Jesus heals a deaf man – 7:31-37
A Jesus feeds 4,000 – 8:1-9
B Jesus crosses the sea with his disciples – 8:10
C Pharisees argue with Jesus – 8:11-13
D Jesus talks to his disciples about bread – 8:14-21
E Jesus heals a blind man – 8:22-26
Conclusion: Peter sees and understands exactly who Jesus is – 8:27-30
Seeing this larger structure is what helped me to understand why it took Jesus two tries to heal the blind man in Mark 8:22-26. Mark portrays two parallel cycles of events with the disciples, where they get to experience firsthand who Jesus is. Herod’s initial questions (John the Baptist? Elijah? One of the prophets?) go unanswered until Jesus takes his disciples through these two cycles.
And they don’t get it (Mark 8:21). But in healing the blind man, Mark gives a living parable of Jesus’ healing of the disciples blindness. And then, finally, they see him clearly. Not John the Baptist, Elijah, or one of the prophets – but the Christ (Mark 8:27-29).
The narrative has a train of thought; not only within a particular episode but also across many episodes. Look for this train and hop on board.
