Category Archives: New Testament

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How do we imitate God?—Ephesians 5:1; 1 Corinthians 11:1; and other passages

What does Eph 5:1 mean when it exhorts us, “Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children” (NIV)? Should we try to be omnipresent (everywhere at once), as God is? Should we try to create the universe? The context is very specific how we should imitate God. We should forgive as God in Christ forgave us (4:32) and love one another, just as Christ sacrificially loved us (5:2).

Paul similarly invites his hearers in Corinth to imitate him as he imitates Christ (1 Cor 11:1). Paul offered himself in 1 Cor 9 as an example of giving up his rights; in 10:33, he summarizes, “just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, so that they may be saved” (NRSV). This is how Paul followed the example of Christ, and invites others to follow his example.

Other passages also speak of imitating God or Christ, although in different words. For example, 1 Pet 1:14-16 urges us not to act like we did before we followed Christ, but to be holy in our behavior as God is holy. That is, God has set us apart for himself, so we should behave like those who are consecrated for God’s eternal purposes, not living for things that do not really matter. (Peter cites Lev 11:44-45, where God already invited this imitation, in that case by Old Testament food customs separating Israel from surrounding cultures.)

In Matthew 5:48, Jesus calls us to be perfect as our heavenly Father is. This does not mean that if we miss a point on a test we are disobeying this command. The context is God’s example: he sends the agricultural blessings of sunshine and rain on both those who serve him and those who do not. In the same way, we should love our enemies, thus acting like his children who follow his example (Matt 5:44-45). (This is clear in the same context in Luke, where Jesus is instead quoted as, “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful”; Luke 6:36 NASB.)

Something goes even deeper than imitation, however, and enables us to imitate God in these moral ways. If we recognize Jesus as our Lord and Savior, he sends God’s Spirit to live in us (Rom 8:9). The fruit of God’s Spirit in us means that God’s own character, his own heart, is at work inside us. Because of this, we will grow to be more and more like him, because of his own gift of his Spirit to us. (For more detail on this, see the post on this website concerning the fruit of the Spirit: http://www.craigkeener.org/the-fruit-of-the-spirit-galatians-522-23/.)

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Does the New Testament Quote the Old Testament Out of Context?

Some claim that the apostles took Scripture out of context in the New Testament, and that their example authorizes us to do the same. We could respond that, no matter how led by the Spirit we may be, we are not writing Scripture.

But the fact is that claims about New Testament writers taking the Old Testament out of context are mostly overrated. Some passages are fairly straightforward, including some that announce the future reign of a Davidic descendant; these texts, however, are not the issue to be addressed here.

Many times New Testament writers do not give a straightforward interpretation of Old Testament texts. What we need to keep in mind is that this is not always what the writers were trying to do.

Most of the examples critics give fall into one of three categories, none of which authorize us to discover a text’s meaning by ignoring its context. First, when responding to opponents who used proof-texts, the biblical writers sometimes responded accordingly (“answering a fool according to his folly,” as Proverbs 26:5 suggests). Some of Paul’s uses in Galatians might fall into this category (e.g., Gal 3:12). Writers could also use the sorts of arguments popular in their day to make their point, without assuming that this was what a text actually meant. (Thus, for example, Paul emphasizes that “seed” or “offspring” in Gal 3:16 is singular, but he knows very well that it can be a collective singular. He uses the same Greek term for many people in Gal 3:29. If one reads how ancient rabbis often handled Scripture, however, Paul is usually tame by comparison.)

Second, and much more often, the writers simply drew analogies from the Old Testament, using them to illustrate a principle found in those texts or the lives they present. To apply a principle genuinely illustrated in a figure or a text is not to take it out of context; without this method, preaching would become next to impossible for most texts. For example, if a psalm describes the anguish of a righteous sufferer, the principle could apply to Jesus as the righteous sufferer par excellence. (At least with particular psalms, the early Christians probably did also believe that God intended some descriptions that matched this ultimate righteous sufferer more specifically. Nevertheless, that belief would not invalidate a more general application to those who suffer unjustly from others’ enmity.)

Third, and perhaps most often, the texts we think are out-of-context sometimes reflect our own failure to recognize the complex way the writer has used the context. Readers often accuse Matthew of quoting Hosea 11:1 (“Out of Egypt have I called my son”) out of context; they often present this as the one of the most blatant cases of the New Testament writers misunderstanding context. They make this claim because Hosea in context is talking about God delivering Israel from Egypt, whereas Matthew applies the text to Jesus.

But Matthew knows the verse quite well: indeed, instead of depending on the standard Greek translation of Hosea here, he even makes his own more correct translation from the Hebrew. If we read Matthew’s context, we see that this is not the only place where he compares Jesus with Israel: as Israel was tested in the wilderness for forty years, Jesus was tested there forty days (Matt 4:1-2). Matthew also expects his target audience to know Hosea’s context: as God once called Israel from Egypt (Hosea 11:1), he would bring about a new exodus and salvation for his people (Hosea 11:10-11). Jesus is the harbinger, the pioneer, of this new era of salvation for his people.

In the same context, Matthew applies Jeremiah 31:15 (where Rachel weeps over Israel’s exile) to the slaughter of infants in Bethlehem (Matt 2:17-18), near which Rachel was buried (Gen 35:19). But Matthew knows Jeremiah’s context: after announcing Israel’s tragedy, God promises restoration (Jer 31:16-17) and a new covenant (Jer 31:31-34). Matthew compares this tragedy in Jesus’ childhood to one in Israel’s history because he expects his first, biblically knowledgeable audience to recognize that such tragedy formed the prelude to messianic salvation.

Matthew also knows the context of Isaiah 7:14, which he quotes in Matthew 1:23 (see the post on that passage on this website); the context remains fresh in Matthew’s mind when he quotes Isaiah 9:1-2 in Matthew 4:15-16. Matthew is not ignoring context: he is comparing Jesus’ ministry with Israel’s history and the promises those very contexts evoke. He may extend analogies further than we generally do today, but he read the context better than most of his critics have!

These observations are not meant to deny that people can sometimes teach us true principles using texts taken out of context. The point is that we cannot guarantee that the principles we find will be truly biblical if we get them from texts never meant to say those things. If we want to hear what God inspired the first authors to communicate, we need to read their texts in their context. Otherwise we can (and some today do) make texts say anything we want—things that will often run counter to the biblical message and sometimes prove very harmful to others.

See at greater length The Bible in Context, available at: http://www.craigkeener.org/free-resources/

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A Multicultural Multitude—Revelation 7:9-17

While there is some debate about the identity of the 144,000 in 7:1-8, everyone agrees that the innumerable multitude in the next vision refers to believers from all peoples—a vision that ultimately includes all of us who believe in Jesus.

These people are “from all nations and tribes and peoples and languages” (7:9). Revelation uses this fourfold formula, in varying sequences, seven times. The formula echoes the book of Daniel. Daniel has the threefold formula six times; the Greek translation of Daniel makes the first instance (Dan 3:4) fourfold, as in Revelation. That context applies to Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylonian empire.

By the time of Revelation, however, people would no longer think of “all nations” as part of the Babylonian empire. Another passage in Daniel predicted an innumerable multitude from all nations serving the Son of man (Dan 7:13-14). Yet despite the hyperbole of Roman imperial claims, most people in John’s urban audience in the Roman province of Asia knew about many other parts of the world beyond the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire had trade ties with India, China, parts of Africa as far south as Tanzania, and northern Europe perhaps as far west as Iceland. The idea that members of all peoples would stand before God’s throne would have been unthinkable!

Much of John’s audience may have been shocked by the implausibility of his vision, yet we are living in its reality. By the second century, the greatest strongholds of Christian faith were in Syria, Egypt and what is now western Turkey. In the fourth century both the Roman empire and the Ethiopian kingdom of Axum in east Africa became predominantly Christian, and Jesus’s movement was spreading, usually in its Syrian forms, much further east in Asia. In different periods different regions had more of the gospel.

The shift in global Christianity over the past century has been one of the most dramatic in history. Some estimate that just 16.7 percent of Christians lived in Africa, Asia and Latin America in 1900; but that this figure will be close to 70 percent by 2025. This growth has been especially explosive among particular groups in the past generation. For example, in 1960, Africa, Asia and Latin America had an estimated fifty million evangelicals; today that figure is about 600 million, with a majority in Pentecostal and charismatic circles. Majority World evangelicals outnumber those in the West perhaps five times over. (These statistics are from Operation World and, following that resource, the introduction to a recent book edited by myself and Daniel Carroll, Global Voices.)

In Daniel 3, Nebuchadnezzar demanded that all peoples worship the statue he made; in Revelation 13, the quintessential evil kingdom demands that all peoples worship the image of its ruler. Nebuchadnezzar and Revelation’s beast have their global empires, but Jesus has a true international, multicultural kingdom. Whereas Nebuchadnezzar and the beast impose their rule by force or deception, Jesus’s followers are those who love him and trust him because he gave his life to redeem us.

Notice what the believers in this passage are doing: worshiping God, they “serve day and night in temple,” like priests (Rev 7:15); in fact, Revelation elsewhere declares that they are a kingdom and priests (1:6; 5:10). Because they wear white robes like the martyrs in 6:9-11, many scholars think they are martyrs. In any case, they are people who persevered in faith during their time on earth and are now in heaven (7:14).

Yet they appear as a triumphant people hailing a conqueror; Israel often waved palm branches to hail a victorious leader (7:9). Whereas some Jewish people believed that they would constitute God’s end-time army to defeat the Gentiles, here God’s people are portrayed not with weapons but with branches, hailing the victor. And the victor, God’s conquering lion (5:5), turns out to be a slain lamb (5:6), who won the victory in God’s sight not by earthly conquests but by offering himself to suffer for truth and righteousness.

John declares that the lamb will shepherd them (7:17). This image is striking for two reasons. First, Israel’s chief shepherd in the Old Testament was God himself (e.g., Ps 23:1). The lamb here is God in the flesh. But second, lambs were not shepherds; lambs were in fact the most vulnerable members of the flock, who most needed a shepherd to protect them. Yet our shepherd is also a lamb who was slain for our sins; he understands our suffering because he became one of us and shared that suffering.

Revelation describes the hope that awaits us in terms familiar to John’s first audience from their Bibles. We will no longer be hungry or thirsty, nor suffer from sin or heat (7:16); our shepherd will guide us to springs of water (7:17). Most of this description comes from Isa 49:10, depicting God’s care for his people Israel. John’s depiction changes two important details: Jesus fills the divine role here, and all his followers belong to his people. John also says that Jesus will wipe away our tears (Rev 7:17; cf. 21:4), which alludes to Isa 25:8: when God raises the dead, he will wipe away his people’s tears.

Whatever we suffer, we may remain confident that our Lord loves us. For our sake he has already experienced suffering and death; he understands what we suffer. He is with us now and he will be with us forever. Weeping may endure for a night; but a morning is coming when our Lord will wipe away every tear from our eyes.

Craig Keener is author of The NIV Application Commentary on Revelation (Zondervan, 2000, also available in Spanish and Chinese) and the IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (InterVarsity; over half a million sold; also available in Spanish, Chinese, Korean, and some other languages). He and M. Daniel Carroll R. coedited Global Voices (Hendrickson, 2013).

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Who are the 144,000?—Revelation 7:1-8

Did you know that you’re in the Bible? Sometimes we might wish that there were Bible stories about us, but in fact there are stories that talk about God’s people from all nations. Revelation 7:9-17 is one of these passages.

The scene before it, however, talks about the 144,000, twelve thousand from each tribe (Rev 7:1-8). Who are they?

If we take the number literally, we should also take the other details literally: Jewish male virgins (using Rev 14:1-5 also). For this reason, the interpretation offered by Jehovah’s Witnesses is inconsistent and cannot be correct.

Some scholars take the details as literally as possible. They argue that John envisions a literal 144,000 Jewish men from twelve tribes in the end-time. After all, many Jewish people expected the restoration of the lost tribes, and there is biblical reason to expect a special movement among the Jewish people near the end (Rom 11:25-27). This is a respectable scholarly interpretation, although most of the twelve tribes are no longer known.

Other scholars, by contrast, believe that Revelation intends the details here as figurative, communicating a different inspired point. They offer several reasons:
1. This is the number of God’s “servants” (Rev 7:3). Elsewhere in Revelation this title often includes all Jesus’s followers (1:1; 2:20; 22:3, 6).
2. They are those who follow Jesus and have been redeemed (14:3).
3. Revelation often uses symbols. After all, no one takes literally the woman clothed with the sun (12:1). Further, Revelation sometimes explains details as symbolic (1:20). A symbolic reading is actually more consistent with Revelation as a whole.
4. The numbers connect with a later passage in Revelation. The New Jerusalem is said to be 12,000 stadia (about 1400 miles, or 2200 kilometers!) wide, long, and high, with a wall of 144 cubits (about 200 feet or 65 meters). Through this narrative connection, Revelation portrays them as the people of God for the city of God—they are new Jerusalemites.
5. That’s why 14:1 portrays them “standing on Mount Zion” with Jesus. Zion was the temple or, more generally, Jerusalem.
6. Why might they be described in terms of the twelve tribes? This listing of the tribes is unusual, and even leaves out the tribe of Dan. But elsewhere in Revelation all believers are described as spiritually Jewish (cf. Rev 2:9; 3:9)—what Paul would call grafted into the heritage of God’s people. The churches appear as lampstands (1:20)—the standard symbol in the ancient Mediterranean world for Jewish communities.
7. The next vision speaks of a numberless multitude from all nations. We could read this as a contrast instead of as a parallel, but we should note the description of this multitude …
8. They serve him day and night in his temple (7:15)—just like priests in ancient Israel (Ps 134:1). That they will never hunger, thirst, or suffer heat (Rev 7:16), and that the Lord will lead them to springs of water, echoes promises to Israel in the time of restoration (Isa 49:10). That God will wipe away all tears from their eyes (Rev 7:17) likewise echoes a promise probably especially to God’s people (Isa 25:8). In other words, they are portrayed as God’s people just as the 144,000 are. The passages thus appear to be parallel, with the second further explaining the first.

For these reasons, I believe that the case for reading them as representative of all God’s people is stronger than the case for reading them as a literal 144,000. Thus, the 144,000 may stand for all those who will someday be in the New Jerusalem—all New Jerusalemites, all of God’s people.

Another possible view is compatible with this one, although I am less certain about it. Many scholars see the people in the second passage as martyrs. Some see the 144,000 in the first passage as God’s end-time army, because they are portrayed as consecrated men numbered like a military census in the Old Testament. These views are debated, but if they are correct, then God’s church is portrayed as an “army” of nonviolent martyrs.

If this is correct, a parallel would then emerge. In Revelation 5:5-6, John heard about the lion from the tribe of Judah—the conquering, warlike Messiah. When he turned, however, what he saw was instead a slaughtered lamb. That is, Jesus conquered not in the expected way, but through laying down his life. Here in chapter 7 Revelation might portray the end-time army that some expected as instead a movement of martyrs—of people who laid down their lives to announce Jesus and his purposes in the world. What price are we willing to pay to follow Jesus’s truth and depend on him?

The “army of martyrs” interpretation may be correct. I am less certain about it than about these being God’s people, because some of the supporting evidence is less than certain. I do believe that the evidence is strong, however, that this multitude represents God’s people.

Who are the 144,000? You are, if you trust Jesus as your Lord and Savior. Together we have a mission to honor Jesus, no matter what the cost.

Craig Keener is author of The NIV Application Commentary on Revelation (Zondervan, 2000).

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The riddle about understanding–Matthew 13:3-23

Like many sages in his day, Jesus told parables. Parables were a way to illustrate the principles about which a sage was teaching. Sometimes, however, sages chose to speak in riddles, especially to outsiders; only the most determined students then would figure out the meaning. Wisdom was like a treasure, and it was suitable only for those who were fully devoted to its pursuit.

Teachers often explained their parables. Because parables illustrated points, it made little sense to tell these stories in isolation, without connecting them to the points one was illustrating. The exception would be if those very stories functioned as riddles. Riddles challenged hearers to care enough about their meaning to persevere in exploring them.

One day Jesus told a parable that was meant to illustrate this very point. Most of his audience consisted of Galilean farmers, so they could understand his story on the surface level. What they might not understand was what Jesus meant to illustrate by it. Although ancient Mediterranean farmers sometimes plowed before sowing, sometimes they sowed before plowing; ancient sources document both approaches. Still, to make his point Jesus may stretch the story a bit. In this case, some of the seed got wasted because this farmer knew only the surface of his soil (which would seem unlikely if the farmer had ever worked this land before!)

Some seed was scattered in the open, but birds ate it (Matt 13:4). Then as now, birds were ready to devour farmers’ seed and crops. A second group of seeds sprang up quickly on rocky soil, but because the roots were not deep the grain withered under the hot sun (13:5-6). A third group of seeds was choked by thorns (13:7). If thistles had been cut down rather than uprooted, the farmer might not see their roots in the soil; but by April, they could grow to a meter or higher. Nevertheless, the fourth group of seeds, which did bear fruit, yielded many times more grain than all the seed that had been sown (13:8). A hundredfold harvest was magnificent (Gen 26:12), but even thirtyfold and sixtyfold were excellent. Apart from the fertile Jordan Valley, the average yield for grain in in Judea and Galilee was about tenfold. To reap even thirtyfold was to reap far more grain than one had invested in sowing.

Jesus drew on an ancient farming principle: you do not know which seed or which day’s labor will succeed, so you labor widely (Ecclesiastes 11:3-6). We do not know where our sowing will bear fruit, but we can be confident that the overall harvests will make up for every effort. Some people for whom we labor will not respond, but the word will multiply through others many times over. In the end, it will all be worthwhile.

Jesus’s own disciples did not understand why he spoke to the crowds in parables. Jesus therefore explained that he used parables as riddles to keep the meaning obscure to those who deserved judgment (Matt 13:13-15). The disciples, by contrast, would be blessed with understanding (13:17). It is important, however, to note how they received this understanding: Jesus explained the message to his closest followers (13:18). In other words, understanding was available for those who determined to be close followers, to be disciples. Disciples were not limited to the twelve; Jesus invites whoever wishes to be his disciple to follow him—so long as they are ready to follow to the cross (16:24).

All of this, in fact, is what the parable of the sower is about, as the Lord goes on to explain. Some heard the message about the kingdom but did not understand it, so the devil’s agents stole the message from their heart (13:19). Others were happy to receive the message, but when it brought them hardship, they abandoned it (13:20-21). Still others listened to the message, but other competing interests took priority and the hearers did not become true followers of the message (13:22).

What makes the entire enterprise worthwhile, however, is that some bear fruit many times more than what is sown in them. These are the ones, Jesus says, who “hear the message and understand it” (13:23). Who are those who understand? Not the crowds, who watch Jesus heal the sick, listen to his stories, and then go home. Those who understand are the disciples—Jesus’s followers, who stay to hear his interpretations. They are the ones who persevere when things do not seem to make sense, until they hear the Lord’s explanation. These are the ones who do not simply nod with approval that Jesus is a great teacher, but those who embrace him as their Lord and Savior.

In the context of Jesus’s ministry, the meaning of the parable should have been fairly obvious anyway. Not only did the Pharisees denounce him (12:24), but his own family did not yet recognize the truth of his ministry (12:46-50) and his home town rejected him (13:53-58). Nevertheless, large crowds gathered around Jesus (13:2). The kingdom did not belong to Jesus’s opponents or even (in their current state) to the expectant crowds; it belonged to Jesus’s disciples.

Although the meaning should have been obvious to the disciples, they often needed an explanation (13:36)—and Jesus provided one. That is good news: for those who are truly willing to persevere in following Jesus, Jesus provides the understanding. We are saved completely by his grace; we merely need to value the message and welcome the transformation that it brings.

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Historical Reliability of the Bible

Craig wrote an article on the historical reliability of the Bible for the Exploring God website, focusing on the periods of Abraham and the patriarchs, 2 Kings, and the Gospels. (The available historical evidence to examine these passages in the Bible increases from one discussion to the next.)
The article is available at:
http://www.exploregod.com/is-the-bible-reliable-paper