Hermeneutics - Lesson 16

Well, I’ve been saying over and over again that the most important thing in biblical interpretation is context, context and context. And of course, that is the case with narratives as well. The context of any individual part of the narrative, the story, the little micro-story that’s being told, is that story as a whole and then the big picture. So, any individual narrative should be interpreted in light of the whole account, the biblical account, and even the book account, if we wanted to go to a little smaller level. We might ask ourself, “How does one piece of the puzzle fit into the whole?” 

Mark 5 is a very interesting passage because it tells the story of Jesus healing the demoniac, but we really should interpret it in light of the narrative as a whole. And in the gospel of Mark, we have Jesus in action, we have Jesus Christ who is the Son of God. Mark introduces his gospel with that very verse. And then we’re told in 1:34 this, that “Jesus healed many who were sick with various diseases and cast out many demons, and He would not permit the demons to speak because they knew him,” which is an interesting passage. 

And we might wonder why, why would Jesus not want the demons to speak, especially if they knew him? Maybe it’s because why would anyone trust a demon? That might be the reason. Jesus wasn’t interested in their testimony. He wasn’t interested in what they had to say at that particular time as well. Because in Jesus Christ, we have a man who’s totally in charge of his own destiny. He walks the earth as the sovereign Lord and everything is done on his timetable, and nothing is going to interfere with that, even though it feels like things are spinning out of control as he’s arrested and ends up on a Roman cross, it is everything going according to plan. 

Well, when we’re reading Mark 5, which is the story of Jesus exorcizing a demon and the demon speaking. We have to read that little narrative, Mark 5:1-20, in light of the entirety of the Gospel of Mark, where we’re told in that first chapter, Jesus did not permit the demons to speak. Mark assumes when we get to Mark 5 that we’ve read Mark 1, that we’ve read about Jesus not permitting demons to speak. The demons knew who he was. And so that indicates when we get to Mark 5, we should pay careful attention to what’s going on, because this is extraordinary. It’s not how things normally go. Because remember, the gospel writers, every word is intentional. They don’t have to tell you anything that they tell you. They selectively choose what it is that they tell us. 

And in Mark 4:35 through Mark 5:43, Mark gives a series of miracle stories that demonstrate Jesus’ power over nature, Jesus’ power over the demonic, Jesus’ power over disease, Jesus’ power over death. And in the middle of that, we get the demon speaking and it raises the question, Why? Why would Jesus allow the demons to speak? Particularly since the normal practice was demons are not permitted to speak around Christ. 

I can only conclude that one: this did not happen by accident. Two: Mark knew that he had written Mark 1 when he wrote Mark 5 and so he hadn’t forgotten. “Oh yeah, I forgot, demons aren’t supposed to speak; I messed that up.” No. And then Three: therefore, there has to be something intentional about why he would break from the normal practice. 

Perhaps, (by “perhaps” this is, I think, what’s going on) we’re told in Mark 1 that Jesus’ practice was not to let the demon speak so that when we get to Mark 5, we would be, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, Jesus is allowing the demons to speak.” He’s actually engaging them in conversation, and he asks them their name and, you know, it’s Legion, and that sort of thing. 

I think the reason why the demons are allowed to speak in Mark 5 is because it fits Mark’s narrative strategy of, by the time we get to Mark 5, their testimony is remarkable, and it demonstrates even further Jesus’ superiority over the demons. Now, he does permit them to speak. It’s a time of his choosing. And in their speech, they acknowledge him in word and in action to actually be the Lord. They are frightened of him. They beg him for mercy. They ask him to be sent someplace else. 

Again, that one story is remarkable enough, but it’s heightened. It makes more sense in light of the whole, especially, ironically since we’re told earlier, Jesus didn’t ordinarily let demons to speak. Well, he does now. Why? And then when we hear their speech, we come to understand maybe a bit of why Jesus now is allowing them to speak and why Mark, in his Gospel writing, has them speak at this point, because Jesus is being demonstrated to be the Son of God in action who is powerful over the demonic and every other phase of life. 

Another clue for interpreting narrative is to look for thematic verses. This is really kind of cheating a little bit because sometimes the Gospel writers tell us what they mean explicitly. Like, “Here’s my strategy, I’m going to do this.” I’ve referenced John 20 many times where John tells us, “This is why I am writing to you what I’m writing, so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” John tells us that’s his narrative strategy. So, everything that he writes, he tells us in John 20, every single thing that he writes is driving towards that point. He has selected all the events that he has selected so that we would be convinced and believe that Jesus is the Christ. 

Other times, it’s not quite as obvious. It might take a bit more reading. The Book of Acts, for example, in Acts 1:1, Luke begins this way, he says, “In the first book, O Theophilus,” obviously referring to his gospel, the Gospel of Luke. In that book, “I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach until,” and then it goes on, which implies that in this book it’s the continuation of all that Jesus is doing and teaching. 

And then in verse 8, we’re told “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.” Well, the rest of the book follows that trajectory. The Spirit comes upon people at Pentecost in Jerusalem, and by the time we get to chapter 6, the priests in Jerusalem are recognizing that the Spirit of God has come upon God’s people. In chapter 9, we have the story of the Spirit coming upon the people, the Samaritans, and also the people in Galilee and Judea, the Gentiles. In chapters 12 and 16 and 19, the Word of God is growing and prevailing until by the time we get to the end of the book, Paul is teaching openly in Rome. 

So, it seems that Luke gives us a bit of his narratival strategy through the words of Jesus, “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.” And that’s exactly what happens in the rest of the Book of Acts. 

Sometimes the critical verse that tells us what things are about can be found at both the beginning and the end of the book, and we just have to look for it. Deuteronomy 34:9-12, at the end of Deuteronomy, we read: 

“Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom for Moses, had laid his hands on him. So the people of Israel obeyed him and did as the Lord had commanded Moses. And there has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, none like him for all the signs and the wonders that the Lord had sent him to do in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants, and to all his land, and for all the mighty power and all the great deeds of terror that Moses did in the sight of all Israel.” 

This kind of sums up the majority of the Pentateuch to where the Book of Genesis is kind of the prologue to this, and now Moses, the great prophet, comes who is the great lawgiver. He is the one who establishes the covenant that we have named after him, the Mosaic Covenant. Mighty in deed. And it’s interesting that in Deuteronomy 18, Moses says, “One day God’s going to raise up a prophet like me, listen to him.” And then at the end of Deuteronomy we’re told, (I suspect Moses didn’t write this, it was probably added on by someone else), “There hasn’t arisen a prophet since like Moses.” Which leaves us wondering because Moses said, Look for the prophet like me. And as of the writing of this last part (many people would place it as late as even the Exile) Israel is still waiting, still waiting for that prophet to come. 

Sometimes we can find the theme just through looking for repetition. We see this in the Book of Judges. I look, for example, in Judges 3:7-9, 

“The Israelites did what was evil in the Lord’s sight…” Pretty much sums up the Book of Judges right there. “…they forgot the Lord their God worshiped the Baals and the Asherahs. The Lord’s anger burned against Israel, and he sold them to King Cushan-rishathaim king of Aram-naharaim, and the Israelites served him eight years.” Then verse 9, “The Israelites cried out to the Lord. So the Lord raised up Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb’s youngest brother, as a deliverer to save the Israelites.” 

Those three verses right there pretty much describe the cycle that we find throughout the Book of Judges. Where things are going very badly because the people are behaving badly, God will raise up someone to oppress them and persecute them, make life miserable for them. The Israelites will call out to the Lord for mercy. God will show mercy by raising up a deliverer who rescues them from the oppressor. And there’s a period of good times until the people forget the Lord and then verse 7, “Do what was evil in the Lord’s sight, and they forget the Lord their God.” And then it’s like, wash, rinse, repeat; wash, rinse, repeat; over and over again. We see that in chapter 17, chapter 18, chapter 19, chapter 21. Over and over again, we see this. 

Another recurring theme that we find in like the Book of 1 Kings, for example. We see there’s kings who do what’s right in God’s eyes. Those are all Judean kings, and there’s not that many of them. And there are kings who do what’s evil in the eyes of God. And that’s every northern king and most of the southern kings. But you have this phrase, “this king did what was right in God’s eyes,” or “this king did what was evil in the eyes of God.” And as the king goes, so goes the people. 

Look for authorial comments. These appear often in John. I love the fact that he gives us little parenthetical comments. He’ll interrupt the story, give us an explanation. For example, in John 7, when Jesus stands up at the Feast of Tabernacles and said, “Whoever is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.” And then John tells us what he means by this, by referring to these waters that will spring up within you. He, John, tells us, he was referring to the Spirit whom he had not yet sent because Jesus had not yet been glorified. 

It’s clear from John 20 that John had a strategy in selecting the material that he selected. And so, practicing a hermeneutic of charity would involve granting to all authors the same respect, even though they don’t say what John said – “I write these things to you so that you may…” We should assume all of the biblical authors had a strategy, that they had an agenda. And so, expect that and look for that and give them the benefit of the doubt for being good writers. 

Pay attention to the subjects. Hero stories will focus on the life of a hero. And we find that in so many of the biblical narratives. 

Later, we’ll talk about typology, about how in the narratives individuals will be raised up by the Lord to give us a picture of what, when the great hero shows up, he’ll look like. That raises questions about how much the authors actually knew. Did they know that that’s what they were doing? But remember, we’re dealing with dual authorship here. And so even as the Spirit of God is moving a human writer to write what he wrote, the Spirit of God may have more in mind than what the human author understood. But we’ll get to that when we get to typology a bit later.