The World of the New Testament: For Us, Not to Us

To not be stooped into the narrative of Scripture often leads to having a fundamental commitment to eisegetical interpretations.1 To not be stooped into the narrative of Scripture often leads to having a fundamental commitment to eisegetical interpretations. In other words, coming to Scripture casually or infrequently is a prime growing condition for the flawed interpretation & application of it. A recent example of biblical illiteracy was seen in a current US Senator who defended the reason he believes the US ought to unequivocally support the modern-state of Israel, because “God says that those who bless Israel will be blessed and those who curse Israel will be cursed, and I want to be on the blessing side of things”. 2 The Senator knew about a real verse in Genesis but misquoted it, did not know where it was located, and ultimately, had no understanding what the contextual setting was for that verse in relation to the rest of Biblical revelation, leading him to defend catastrophic policies. The problem of biblical illiteracy is rampant within our churches, and as you can see, spills into the way the Christian understands or misunderstands the world that Jesus, the Apostles, and the 1st century believers lived in as the New Testament was being written.  

The Bible Was Written For You But Not To You

One of the greatest weapons to use in fighting today’s battle of misinterpretation of Scripture is the hermeneutical principle that the Bible was written for us, but not to us! Many Christians seek to find application for specific texts, but we must remember to let the text itself determine the context first before we apply any given text. In other words, we need to let Scripture interpret Scripture. As stated previously, each Biblical author had a particular historical audience in mind, they were writing to real groups, real saints, real churches. An example of this is when John wrote the book of Revelation and addressed the seven churches of Asia Minor. He was actually writing to… seven churches in Asia Minor that were in existence a little over 2000 years ago. Or when Paul wrote to the Ephesians, or Galatians, or Corinthians, these were real churches that were historically in existence in the cities of Ephesus, Galatia, and Corinth. Does this mean that there is no application and biblical principles that one could glean for today? Not at all! But it does mean that the material found in Scripture was primarily speaking of a particular time and a particular world, that the Church in the 21st century is not in, for obvious reasons. I am simply seeking to remind us that these are important things to understand to help us achieve true Biblical literacy. 

So, What Was the Big Idea in the 1st Century World of the New Testament? 

When the Christian is able to read and study his Bible remembering that it was written for him but not to him, the big idea of the New Testament begins unfolding itself organically. Many 21st century Christians would argue that the ministry and work of Jesus was solely focused on providing salvation by faith alone, or that the Bible’s story is only about how Christians get to heaven. While that is an incredibly important part of the story, that piece of the pie has to be understood in light of the whole pie! Meaning, the redemption that Jesus accomplished on the cross has to be contextualized within the historical progression of the metanarrative of Scripture. 

The Newer Testament (the fruit) is building upon the foundations of the Older Testament (the root). This means you cannot properly understand the full intent of the New Testament if you have not read from the beginning, Genesis. God created a world where he deputized Adam and Eve to be vice-regents over his creation, to bring everything under the triune God’s reign and rule, and to spread Edenic holiness to the ends of the earth (Gen. 1:26-31). They failed by sinning, which cursed all of creation (Gen. 3). But God graciously set a plan in place to push that curse of sin out as far as it is found (Gen. 3:15). This glorious mission known as the cultural mandate, or the first part of the Great Commission, gradually progresses in stages. Notice how it was first tasked to a couple, Adam and Eve (Gen. 1:26-31), then to a family, Abraham’s (Gen. 12, 15, 17), then to the nation of Israel (Ex. 19:3-6), and finally with the advent of the last Adam to inaugurate the New Covenant, that mission expands itself to the entire world including both Jew and Gentile. (Matt. 28:18-20; Rom. 4:13). 

The Edenic commission had landed upon the nation of Israel, they were to be a light to the nations (Isa. 49:6). Their tabernacle/temple was where the presence of God was confined, in the Holy of holies, in the city of Jerusalem. But when Jesus arrived as the new Israel, all of the old covenant structures were shaken up. The presence of God would no longer be confined to a temple in a city, in one nation (Acts 1:6-8). But rather, his presence would be unleashed to the ends of the earth by believers as living stones (1 Pet. 2:4-8), all over the world, building God’s Edenic temple (Eph. 2:11-22).

That change of administrations from the old covenant people (Jews), to the new covenant people (Jews and Gentiles), was brought about by Christ the mediator, Lord, and fulfiller of all the covenantal promises (Eph. 2:12; 2 Cor. 1:20). This produced a serious tension amongst Jewish hearers who struggled to accept the full inclusion of their Gentile brethren into the Israel of God (Gal. 6:16). That particular tension is touched upon consistently throughout the New Testament. The dynamics between Jew and Gentile, in light of the coming Messiah who destroyed the wall of hostility (Eph. 2:14-16), play a massive background role within the context of many stories, judgements, parables, and controversies in the Biblical narrative. To practice Biblical literacy, let’s look at a few examples of how this plays out within the records of the New Testament.

The Synoptics

Matthew, writing to a largely jewish audience, demonstrates that the promised Jewish Messiah has come to fulfill all the promises concerning his messianic Kingdom to bless the world. 3 It’s easy to see the Jew/Gentile theme right from the beginning because of the genealogies mentioning Abraham,Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba (Matt.1), who were all non-jewish individuals. Throughout his gospel, Matthew continues to repeatedly demonstrate that Jesus has come as the new Israel to provide light to the entire world and to unify Jew and Gentile in Him, the new and true Israel. In the synoptics, there is a thread of de-emphasizing the importance of Israel’s land, temple, sacrificial system etc. through Jesus’ healings, teachings, and miracles. This thread instead emphasizes the newly inaugurated Kingdom which extends its borders to the ends of the earth in contrast to a concentrated nation. The Kingdom is a decentralized nation of men, women and children all over the world who are called to live sacrificial lives of service before the Lord Jesus! 

The Jew/Gentile tension escalates as the gospel accounts progress to Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem Lk. 19), where the topic clearly centers around the Jewish nation and its leadership consistently rejecting the son of God as the promised Messiah. Thus, Jesus begins to warn them of the impending judgement if they continued in their covenant unfaithfulness and hard heartedness (Matt. 21-24).  Most of Jesus’ miracles weren’t random miracles, most of Jesus’ parables were not random parables about life, and most of Jesus’ strong language wasn’t directed towards people “who are religious”. He was actively exposing the sin problem present amongst the Jewish leadership, the covenant administrators. They were putting too much emphasis on the ethnic component of their salvation and heavily relying on the ceremonial system which was only created as a shadow which was to vanish when the substance came. And the substance, Christ Jesus, had come!

The Pauline Epistles

This emphasis of the birth of a new humanity beginning in Jesus uniting jewish and gentile believers by faith, opposing any sort of ethnic pride and special blessing connected to the physicality of the land, temple, priesthood, and sacrifices, continues heavily throughout the Apostle Paul’s writings. In the book of Romans, the entire build up of the letter is not merely an emphasis on justification by faith alone, although this is a beautiful part and revealed throughout the entirety of Scripture (Deut. 30:6; Jer. 31:33, 32:40; Ezek. 11:19; 36:26). Rather, Paul is trying to demonstrate that racial distinction is not what matters before the eyes of Christ. What Christ values, what he has always valued since the Old Covenant, is that Jew and Gentile alike would have a circumcised heart before God. Paul reminds the reader that the true Jew is one who is inwardly circumcised, not outwardly so (1 Sam. 15:22; Jer. 7; Rom. 2:25-29). Romans 5-8, is the retelling of the exodus story through the eyes of the New Covenant world. 4 Here, Paul parallels the exodus story and imagery to its climactic fulfillment in Jesus as he leads the enlarged Israel by the Spirit out of sinful bondage to slavery and death and into the promised “land”, which is now the entire world. The controversial chapters 9-11 are no different and continue to build upon the expansion of the covenantal administration to include Gentiles in the Abrahamic mission to bless the nations of the world.

The letter to the Galatians follows suit, the Jew/Gentile theme is heavily discussed in Paul’s mind as he shows these believers in Galatia, that Abraham as the Father of faith (Gal. 3:9) and inheritor of the world, is the primary example of what the mission of God was always to be. God’s kind intention had always been that all the nations of the earth would be blessed by Abraham’s seed, which is Christ (Gal. 3:16). This blessing would not come by becoming a Jew or coming to the Temple to sacrifice. Those things were getting ready to pass away in the first century as the epistle to the Hebrews tell us (Heb. 8:13), but the blessing (which was the Spirit of God) would come to all, equally, who would turn from their sins and trust in the finished work of Messiah. This was the entire purpose for which God providentially preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, so that the Gentile nations would one day be blessed (Gal. 3:7-8) and as Jesus beautifully said, Abraham longed to see his day, because it had come (Jn. 8:56)!

Ephesians is no different, here the Apostle works to masterfully build his case on the basis of Christ’s life, death, resurrection, and ascension. When Christ died and the veil was torn, which happened simultaneously, it represented the death of the Messiah and the death of the Jewish economy with its physical temple, physical priesthood, and physical sacrifices (Eph. 2). When he rose the old world did not rise again, but a new one rose in which the separating ethnic wall was torn down (Eph. 2:14-16). This meant the strangers of the covenant of promise (gentiles) were now brought in as fellow citizens in the Kingdom of Christ (Eph. 2:12) and sent out to rebuild the third temple! The third temple is not to be expected one day in the future during a great tribulation. 5 The construction of the third temple began with the inauguration of the Kingdom of God, as living stones work to build Christ’s spiritual temple all over the world! This is the end-time, eschatological temple that Christ inaugurated as in which living waters flow out from, just as the prophet Ezekiel had prophesied in chapters 40-48 (Jn. 7:37-39).

The General Epistles

The General Epistles (Hebrews, James, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, and Jude), persist in demonstrating the importance of understanding the covenantal first century background. The topics of persecution and suffering play a big role in these letters. A proper understanding of how to view and live through persecution and suffering is extremely important and we truly can find much comfort in the general epistles.

Nonetheless, it is important to remember yet again, it was written for us but not to us. 

As the Apostles address these first century churches, the saints of that day were going through a very real time of tribulation and persecution at the hands of the Jews and the Roman authorities. Nero was even nicknamed as “the Tyrant” and was a great persecutor and murderer of Christians. That awful time period of much tribulation for those first-century believers reminds us of an important eschatological truth as well, which is that, while it is true that there will always be sin in the world ‘till the last day, and at times there will be seasons of persecution and tribulation in different areas of the world, one ought to be careful to not project the incredible high intensity of those persecutions and tribulations of the first century and make it the story of Christianity throughout the rest of human history. 6 

Persecution will most likely always be present amongst Christians around the world due to sin and the Church ought to never stop praying for and serving all of the precious brothers and sisters who are suffering and dying for their faith. Nevertheless as history progresses, the kingdom of God does so as well. What began as a tiny mustard seed in the first century has been growing up into the tallest and most grandiose tree ever! This bold, faith-filled expectancy of worldwide-kingdom success leads the Apostle John to remind Christians who were going through tribulation under the tyranny of the Roman empire and the Judaizers, which John describes as present-day antichrists (1 Jn. 2:18-22; 2 Jn. 7), to remember that they have already victoriously overcome the world through their faith in Jesus Christ the ascended King of kings and Lord of lords (1 Jn. 5:1-5).  

The Epistle to the Hebrews is probably one of the greatest examples of the thesis presented in this article. The theme is clear, the author (Paul!) is writing to Jewish Christians who are living in a transitional generation (from 33 AD to 70 AD), reminding them of the progress of redemptive history that has led to their present day circumstances: there is a covenantal transition of administration from the Old Judaic world into the new world of the Kingdom of God, where Jew and Gentile are united in Christ, and the New Covenant is the apex of redemptive history (Jer. 31:31-34; Heb. 8:8-12). The authors of the New Testament write with a great sense of urgency, letting their audience know that there is a transition happening, and to not return to the Old Covenant types and shadows for the hammer was about to fall on that old shadowy world (Heb. 2:1-4; 3:7-4:13; 5:11-6:12; 10:19-39; 12:14-29). All of covenantal history has awaited for the time of the Messiah and his kingdom (Heb. 1:1-4). That time has come, the New Covenant has been inaugurated as the final and greatest covenant. There will be no newer covenants ever again, this is the last stage of redemptive history (Heb. 10; 12). And thus, the old covenant world with all of its physical structures, was passing away (Heb. 8:13).

The Revelation

John’s Apocalypse, the Revelation, is known to be one of the most difficult books of the Bible to interpret. The prolific American journalist Ambrose Pierce sarcastically once said about the book, “Revelation: a famous book in which St. John the Divine concealed all that he knew. The revealing is done by the commentators, who know nothing”. 7 Because this book has led so many Christians to think it is a book full of codes to decipher to know how the world is going to end, they miss the hermeneutical principle that has been previously applied. What was John trying to communicate to his audience in the first century? It would be odd to have a unified theme being developed throughout the New Testament by Jesus, Paul, and the Apostles, and all of sudden in the Revelation the theme completely changes. John is describing much of the theme that has already been explained. The book is not describing the end of the world, but the end of their world, the Old Covenant world, in the first century. It is a book revealing the judgment that was soon to come towards apostate Israel (Rev. 1:3; 22:7, 10), as the covenant breakers, for ultimately rejecting the Messiah and crucifying him, while simultaneously demonstrating the gradual victory of Jesus Christ and his people throughout the nations as the dawning of the New Covenant light shines forth.

The Fruit of Biblical Literacy

Its tempting to think that there is no point in reading or obeying the Scriptures if we affirm this hermeneutical principle that the Bible was written for us but not to us. But this is not true, understanding Scripture like this will actually allow it to speak for itself which increases our clarity and understanding of the mission at hand. This is how we become Biblically literate. When we keep this understanding in tandem while we read we are able to tune our ears to the rhythm of the Bible. We will be able to Biblical patterns, catch the melody behind every story, and then allow the Scriptures to give meaning to our World. When we behold the New Testament specifically within its own world and timeframe, we can see why Jesus spoke of the sun, and the moon, and the stars falling out of the sky (Matt. 24:29), or why John described the resurrected Jesus as a gardener (Jn. 20:15), or why Paul encouraged the Roman Christians that soon they would be crushing the head of the Serpent (Rom. 16:20), etc. There are covenantal and historical ramifications of Jesus’s work and ministry in the 1st century church. That reality highlights the grandeur of the story, it does not minimize the role of the church in the 21st century. We instead understand more clearly just how expansive and relevant her task is in bringing Eden to the ends of the earth, as opposed to a false understanding of the mission: to escape to heaven one day in a secret rapture. Our job is to train ourselves to be Biblically literate so we can see just how Scripture is speaking. The Scripture must contextualize itself and by doing so, it then contextualizes the world.

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1The Merriam Webster Dictionary defines eisegesis as : the interpretation of a text (as of the Bible) by reading into it one's own ideas.

2This quote came from the recent interview between Ted Cruz and Tucker Carlson.

3This thesis is further developed in my article, Matthew a Lordship Gospel.

4See this article by Peter Leithart at the Theopolis Institute, and also consult N.T. Wright’s great book called Into the Heart of Romans: A Deep Dive Into Paul’s Greatest Letter

5The Great Tribulation mentioned by Jesus in his Olivet Discourse took place within one generation at the destruction of Jerusalem at 70AD.

6While Postmillennialists must steer away from a triumphalistic view of history, Amillenialists and Premillenialists must steer away from viewing history as a steady decline towards the church's failure to disciple the nations.

7Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary (University of Georgia Press, 2001), 200.