Her God Speaks

The takeaways from this episode:

• A love letter is written to a person, the Bible was written to a people.. 
• The Bible fundamentally a “we” book not a “me” book.
•  Before I seek to discern what God is saying to me, I need to figure out what he’s saying to us. What’s the message of this passage for His people? 
• Prioritize reading and studying the Bible in community with other believers

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Takeaway's from this episode:

• Sound biblical hermeutics requires that we understand that the biblical authors didn’t think the way we think. They were just as committed to accuracy as we are, but not in the "video camera footage" way that we are. 
• You aren't reading a police report, you are reading holy Scripture!
• Let the apparent contradictions or conundrums be an invitation to linger in the text, to explore on a deeper level what the author of each passage was seeking to communicate and how his unique presentation of the facts accomplishes that. 
• Learn to respect the artistry, the arrangement, the rhythm and flow of thought, the use of imagery and metaphor, and the way the author hyperlinks his words to other parts of Scripture. As best you can, try to think like an ancient reader. 

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Takeaways from this episode:

• The authors of Scripture are constantly taking one idea – usually something tangible and easy to understand – and mapping that idea onto a more abstract concept or experience. (This is what a metaphor is.)
• Taking every word of the Bible literally should NOT be a badge of honor!
• Every culture develops its OWN metaphors that will seem strange – perhaps even nonsensical – to another culture. This means we're going to have to do some work to discern the meaning of biblical metaphor to the author and original audience. 
• Don’t be afraid of taking biblical metaphor metaphorically! Metaphors express what’s true just as much as more literal descriptions of reality, they just use a different medium to do it. 

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The takeaways from this episode:

• We cannot answer the question, “What DOES this passage mean (for us)?” until we first seek an answer to the question, “What DID this passage mean (for the author and original audience)?”
• The problem in the story Aprile reads is the "interdimensional superbeings" failing first, to understand what a political cartoon IS and second, to see the political cartoon through the eyes of the original artist and audience.  
• We do this with the Bible ALL the time, particularly the parts of Scripture that heavily employ imagery and metaphor (which is a LOT of Scripture).

Here's the link to Joshua Porter's book:
(This is an affiliate link, so Her God Speaks makes a small commission if you use it.)
Death to Deconstruction: Reclaiming Faithfulness as an Act of Rebellion

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The takeaways from this episode:

• Literary context is essential, but literary context without deep regard for historical and cultural context  can give you a false sense of understanding what a passage means when in reality you're not being a very good "tourist" of scripture.
• We cannot assume that our plain reading  of the text is the same as the original audiences’ plain reading of the text. What a passage means for us when we take it at face value is probably not what it meant for them when they took it at face value. 
• Genesis 1 is a temple text.
• We need to find scholars who are experts in historical/cultural context and we need to read what they're writing. 
• Some of my favorites  for OT studies are are John Walton, Michael Heiser, Tremper Longman, Gordon Whenham, and Tim Mackie.
• For NT studies, my go-to scholars are NT Wright, Michael Bird, Craig Keener, Douglas Moo, Scot McKnight, Tom Schreiner 

The Lost World of Genesis One by John Walton

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The takeaways from this episode:

• The Bible was not written to us, meaning that it was not written in any modern language or with our modern assumptions, values and worldview in mind.
• We can't answer the question, "What DOES it mean (for us)?" until we do the work of seeking an answer to the question, "What DID it mean (for them)?” 
• A passage can't mean something for us that it never would have meant for the original audience. 

Books for further study:

(These are Amazon Associate links. I make a small commission if you use them.)

How NOT to Read the Bible by Dan Kimball
In the Beginning we Misunderstood by Johnny Miller and John Soden
The Lost World of Genesis One by John Walton

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The takeaways from this episode:

• We have a tendency to map all of OUR cultural assumptions onto the Bible and expect to come out the other side with an accurate interpretation. It doesn't work!
• The Bible is fundamentally an act of communication and communication by nature is always contextualized.
• The Bible was written FOR us, but it was not written TO us.
• Before we can answer the question, "What DOES it mean for us today?" we have to seek (the best we can!) to answer the question "What DID it mean for the original author and audience?”

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The takeaways from this episode:

• When we don't think carefully about the historical and cultural context in which the Bible was originally written we are being bad tourists of the Bible, guilty of cultural snobbery. 
• The Bible is a DIVINE book written and delivered by  HUMAN agents.
• These human agents were real people who played a real part in writing the Bible.

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