Interestingly (I think), Moses (in Deuteronomy 11:1–9) made the claim that he wasn’t speaking to those who hadn’t experienced the exodus from Egypt, but to those who had. But, in fact, this speech was given after the entire generation that had crossed the Red Sea had died. How can this statement be justified?
It’s important to recognize that the Bible isn’t just an ordinary history book. Oh, yes, it IS a history book! — but not just an ordinary one! It needs to be understood on several different levels:
- What does the passage say? (We need to discover what actual words were written by the original author in the original text. This is not always as easy as it looks. You can’t just read any English translation and assume that the translators got it right.)
- What does the passage mean? (We need to discover what message the words conveyed to the first readers of the original text.)
- What principle(s) can be derived from that message? (Beyond the message of the passage itself, what idea was the author attempting to communicate to the original readers?)
- How can that principle (or those principles) be applied to you, as a reader, today? (This is where Jesus’s statement comes in — “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life” — John 6:63.)
In this way, the words of Scripture become “the Word of God” for all people of all times and places, not just a record of what God said to certain people at specific times and in specific places.
Don’t just read the Bible: listen to what God says to you through it!
John H. Roller
Extended Scripture: Deuteronomy 11-13
