Matthew 4:1-2

Scripture

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.
-- Matthew 4:1-2

Observation

Who?

• Jesus
• The Holy Spirit
• Satan

What?

• v1: The Holy Spirit leads Jesus into the desert to be tempted by Satan
• v2: Jesus fasts for 40 days and nights, and He is hungry

Where?

At the beginning of these verses, Jesus is at the Jordan River. At the end, He is in "the wilderness." We are not told exactly where this wilderness is.

When?

These verses occurs immediately after Jesus' baptism.

Interpretation

These verses draw a parallel between the life of Jesus and the experience of the people of Israel when God brought them up out of the land of Egypt:

In the book of Exodus, God brings the people through waters of the Red Sea and immediately brings them out into the wilderness. In the desert, He prepares them for 40 years, teaching them through hardship after hardship to rely on Him. At the end of that time, they go and do battle to take the land of Israel out of the hands of the wicked people who are holding it.

In these verses, God brings Jesus though the waters of baptism and immediately brings Him out into the wilderness. In the desert, He prepares Him for 40 days, teaching Him through fasting and prayer to rely on Him (see John 4:31-34, John 5:19). At the end of that time, He goes and does battle to take the people of Israel out of the hands of the Devil, the wicked spirit who is holding them.

Note in v1 that the Holy Spirit leads Jesus into the wilderness specifically so that Satan can tempt Him. This is reminiscent of the first chapter in the book of Job:

Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them. The Lord said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered the Lord and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” And the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?” Then Satan answered the Lord and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.” And the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.” So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.
-- Job 1:6-12

In this passage, Satan claims that the only reason Job continues to love and serve God is that God has protected and blessed him. In response, God allows Satan to tempt Job in order to prove whether or not Job's faith is real. The interesting thing to me, however, is that Satan displays no interest in Job at all until God brings him up. Apparently, it was God's plan from the get-go to have Satan tempt Job! Why would God do that? Is He mean? I thought He was supposed to love us!

There are differing opinions about why God would do this, but I believe that God is selecting Job as His champion¹. Scholars have noted similarities in the language used in this passage to the language used by rival ancient kings choosing a champion to represent them in battle. When two opposing sides in a battle chose champions, the champions would meet in one-on-one combat. Both sides agreed that the outcome of the whole battle would be decided by the outcome of the single combat (like David and Goliath, see 1 Samuel 17). God is not throwing Job to the wolves; He is selecting Job as His representative in the ongoing struggle between Satan and Himself, and staking the Honor of His name on how Job acts.

In Matthew 4:1, God is again choosing a Champion, namely Jesus, but this time the Champion will represent us all, and the fate of the world and all who live in it hang on how Jesus acquits Himself.

Application

God is in the business of opposing evil and rescuing people from their sins. The Father sent His Son, Jesus, to rescue people from their sins.

Satan is real. He is not a metaphor or a symbol but malicious spiritual entity. His primary conflict is with God. He hates us and, given the opportunity, is perfectly happy to destroy us, but his hatred for us is secondary. He hates God first, and hates us secondarily as God's creations and as objects of His love. Satan is also a created being, and the things he is allowed to do are limited by what God allows (see Job 1:12). He is much greater than we are, but for all his greatness, his struggle with God is ultimately the struggle hopeless struggle of the finite against the infinite.

When I was in college, I had a computer science professor who used to try to give us a visceral feel for how big infinity is. He would ask a student in the class to pick a really large number². The student would then rattle off a number like 17,792,129,700,972,208,999. That seems a pretty big number--it's over a million times our national debt! The student would be proud of naming such a large and impressive number, but the professor would say, "Actually, that's a pretty small number. In fact, it's smaller than most." No matter how big a number you choose, there are always more numbers which are greater than that number than there are numbers which are less than that number. The point of this little mathematical exercise is that no matter how big you think something finite is, infinity is incredibly and unimaginably larger than that, and so it is in the struggle between God and the Devil.

Compared to us, Satan is unimaginably great, strong, and powerful, but he is in no way God's equal. As great³ as he is, God Himself is inconceivably greater. We do not live in a dualistic universe where there are two equal gods, one good and one evil, locked in an eternal struggle for dominance. We live in a world that was created by the single, good, infinite God. The Devil was made by Him and is being allowed to roam the world at his liberty for a time, but even that liberty is granted to him by God. One day it will be rescinded. God will roll up the sky like a scroll (however that works), unveil the secret, spiritual world that has always been hidden beyond the veil, and set everything finally to rights. Somehow, He has already laid the groundwork for all this through the blood of His Son Jesus shed on the cross. When the end comes, Satan and all those who are aligned with him will find out that they were not so great after all when compared to the Majesty that was before time and will be ever after.

You may ask yourself, "Why does God wait? Why doesn't he bring this mess of a world to an end?" He allows the current state of affairs to continue to give you and me a chance to repent of our sins and turn to Him before the end comes, as 2 Peter 3:9 says:

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

I submit to you that God is still choosing champions for His name today, and that He wants you to be His champion. Through the blood of His Son Jesus, He has provided everything you need. Humble yourself. Refrain from sin. Give honor to God. Acquit yourself well.

Reflection

• Read 2 Peter 1:3-11
• Are you increasing in the qualities Peter describes?
• Pray for God to grant you a humble, repentant heart. Pray for Him to help you to grow in His grace.

Footnotes

1. I first encountered this idea in the book Disappointment with God by Phillip Yancey. To me, this idea makes sense of the whole book of Job.
2. Specifically, an integer. Real numbers get weirder. There are more real numbers between zero and one than there are integers, period. If you're interested, you can read this Wikipedia article about the cardinality of infinite sets...
3. Great in size and power, not great in moral worth.

Matthew 3: 16-17

Scripture

And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased."
-- Matthew 3:16-17

Observation

Who?

• John the Baptist
• The people of Jerusalem, Judea, and the region around the Jordan
• Pharisees
• Sadducees
• Jesus, the One is to come
• The Holy Spirit
• God the Father

What?

• v16: Jesus comes up out of the water. The heavens open to Him. The Spirit of God descends on him in the form of a dove.
• v17: A voice from heaven declares Jesus to be His beloved Son and that with Him, He is well pleased.

Where and When?

The location and historical setting is the same as in Matthew 3:1-6, Matthew 3:7-12, and Matthew:3 13-15. 

Interpretation

Not too long ago, a friend of mine asked me a question about the history of the doctrine of the Trinity. He was not asking what the doctrine of the Trinity is, but how Christians got the idea that God is triune in the first place. My answer was that as Christians started studying the statements and actions of Jesus and tried to reconcile them with the teaching of the Old Testament, the idea of the Trinity is what emerged.

One of the main truths established in the Old Testament is that there is one God. As Deuteronomy 6:4 says:

Hear, O Israel: the Lord Our God is one.

A lot of the Old Testament deals with the issues the people of Israel had coming to understand that there is no other God than the One who had revealed Himself to them.

Things begin to get more complicated in the New Testament. John 1:1 says,

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

In this verse, we see that in some way the Word, Jesus, is identified with God, but in some other way, He is distinguished from God. In all of the Gospels, Jesus talks about (and to) His Father. He is also said to do his miraculous works by the power of the Holy Spirit. In John 14:16-17, Jesus talks about the the Father sending the Holy Spirit to be our Comforter or Helper (depending on translation). In these verses, Jesus is primarily talking about the role of th Holy Spirit in the life of the believer, but one of the underlying assumptions of what He says is that the Holy Spirit is separate from both Himself and His Father. If you explore the New Testament, you will find a number of other places where the Fathe, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are treated as distinct Persons.

Looking at the Old Testament portrayal of God as one together with the New Testament distinctions between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the early Christians said, "Huh? How does that work?" After a couple centuries of arguing and figuring and working and praying, orthodox Christians settled on the doctrine of the Trinity to explain these apparently contradictory statements in Scripture.

St. Augustine summarized the doctrine of the Trinity with the following seven brief statements:

• The Father is God
• The Son is God
• The Holy Spirit is God
• The Father is not the Son
• The Son is not the Holy Spirit
• The Holy Spirit is not the Father
• There is one God

The idea here is that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are distinct from one another. Each of Them is God in His own right, but somehow those Three are in essence One God. They are equal to and united with One Another, but somehow different from one another as well. When speaking about the Father, Son, and Spirit as individuals, they are often referred to as the "Persons." When speaking about Them as a unified whole, that Unit is often referred to as the "Godhead," a term taken from Colossians 2:9.

Opponents of Christianity have often pointed to the doctrine of the Trinity as evidence that Christianity is false (they often go on to add that it is stupid as well). They argue, quite rightly, that three is not equal to one and they go on to say that if one of the fundamental "truths" of Christianity is so patently and obviously false that the whole of Christianity must be false as well. The Christian response has been that this is not a  contradiction, but a Mystery.

The most fundamental rule in logic is the rule of non-contradiction. This rule states that's thing and it's opposite cannot both be true, or at least that they cannot both be true at the same time and in the same sense¹. If, for example, you tell your mother that you ate your grilled cheese sandwich, and she has already seen it in the trash, she will know that you are not telling the truth².

According to Wikipedia, a paradox is a statement which appears to contradict itself and yet might be true. Upon further examination, it will will either be possible to resolve an apparently paradoxical statement, or it will be discovered to be truly contradictory. In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis used the statement, "The lazy boy works hardest" to illustrate this idea. On the surface, this appears to be false--of course the lazy boy doesn't work as hard, he's lazy! However, when digging deeper, we find that by the end of the semester, the boy who buckled down, did his homework, and learned the material will be ready for the exam without too much additional studying. The lazy boy, meanwhile will be scrambling to cram a semester's worth of learning into the week before the exam.

Paradoxes which cannot be resolved reveal logical problems in the system of thought from which they arise. Russell's Paradox, for example, revealed a flaw in mathematical set theory which gave mathematicians years and years of work to do.

In theology, a Mystery is a paradox that cannot be resolved by human minds, but which, by faith, we believe to be true nevertheless. There is a set of Mysteries at the heart of Christianity³:

• The Trinity - The triune nature of God
• The Incarnation - The Son, Jesus, the Second Person of the Trinity, becoming a Man in addition to being God
• The Atonement - The death of Jesus, the God-Man, through which our sins are forgiven

Christians believe that these paradoxes are not actually contradictory, but that our finite minds are not big enough to resolve the apparent contradictions. Opponents of Christianity balk at these Mysteries, but Christians see them as evidence of the greatness of God. To the one, they are a scent of death, to the other, the scent of life.

All of this begs the question: why can't I just say "it's a Mystery" to excuse whatever sloppy, incoherent so-called thought I come up with? The answer is Scripture. The ideas of the Trinity and the Incarnation were not made up simply to be confusing. Christians looked seriously at what the Bible says about God's nature with the assumptions that (1) the Bible is the Word of God and (2) whatever God says is true. In the Scriptures, God makes the claims described  above about His nature. Since they all must be true (God is not a liar), they must not be contradictory, even though neither I nor anyone else in history has been able to figure out how they fit together. 

This is one of the rare passages in Scripture where we see all three members of the Trinity together. As discussed in my last post, in His baptism, Jesus is leaving behind His former way of life to begin His work fulfilling the Father's plan of Salvation. As He comes up out of the water, the Holy Spirit descends and rests upon Him. This fulfills two prophecies given by the prophet Isaiah⁴:

And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,
    the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
    the Spirit of counsel and might,
    the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
-- Isaiah 11:2

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
    because the Lord has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;
    he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
    and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
-- Isaiah 61:1

At the same time, Jesus' Father speaks from heaven, dramatically and publicly confirming Jesus and His mission. This serves as the final confirmation that Jesus is the Messiah who was to come.  All the build up, starting in chapter one with the virgin birth, the dreams, the Magi, the fight to Egypt, the coming of John the Baptist to prepare the way, all of it culminates here with God the Father's statement: "This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased."

Application

Jesus is the Son of God, the second Person of the Trinity. He is fully God and fully man. He is the Messiah who has come to save His people. This has been affirmed by His fulfillment of prophecy, by signs in the heavens, and, in this passage, the personal affirmation of the other two Persons of the Trinity. He has come to save. Put your trust in Him. He is worthy of it.

Reflection

• Read Colossians 2:9.
• Contemplate the idea that God, in His infinite majesty, dwells fully in the Man, Jesus.
• Contemplate the idea that God became Man for the express purpose of rescuing you from your sin.

If you have never done so before, now would be a good time to pray and receive Christ in your heart. You might pray something like this:

Father, I recognize that I have sinned. I have fallen short of Your desires for me and, by my thoughts and my actions, I have made myself Your enemy. Please help me to turn away from my evil desires and to follow You. Thank You for sending Your Son Jesus to rescue me from my sins through His death and resurrection. Please come into my heart and guide my life by the power of your Holy Spirit. I surrender myself to You, and I ask You to reign as King in my heart.

If you have prayed this, you have just made the first step into a new world. In order to succeed in your new life, you need to connect with other believers in a church. I would love to help you to do this. Please feel free to contact me. Sometimes I'm a little slow about getting to my email, but I will get back to you.

Praise God for His mighty and glorious works.

Footnotes

1 This assumes a classical understanding of truth, which I do. There are a number of other theories of truth (Relativism, Pragmatism, etc.), all of which are, in my opinion, loathsome and depressing. Other theories of truth basically argue that, while the traditional understanding of truth works very well as a rule of thumb, it is not True at all times for all people.^↩
2 I can attest to this personally.^↩
3 This list is intended to be representative, not exhaustive.  I'm sorry if I missed your favorite Mystery.^↩
4 Thank you, Matthew Henry.^↩

Matthew 3:13-15

All of Matthew 3 forms a single logical unit. Everything that happened in  vv1-6 and vv7-12 should form the immediate background in your mind for what is happening here: 

There is a prophet in Israel! John the Baptist has been calling out in the wilderness to prepare the way for the Messiah. He is baptizing people in the wilderness as a sign of repentance. The Pharisees and Sadducees have come, and John has given them an earful.In that context, Jesus comes to be baptized.

Scripture

Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" But Jesus answered him, "Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness." Then he consented."
-- Matthew 3:13-15

Observation

Who?

• John the Baptist
• The people of Jerusalem, Judea, and the region around the Jordan
• Pharisees
• Sadducees
• Jesus, the One is to come

What?

• vv13-15: The baptism of Jesus
• v13: Jesus comes to John to be baptized
• v14: John says he should be baptized by Jesus, not the other way around
• v15: Jesus tells John to baptize him in order to "fulfill all righteousness." John consents baptize Jesus.

Where and When?

The location and historical setting is the same as in Matthew 3:1-6 and Matthew 3:7-12. 

Interpretation

When Jesus comes to John the Baptist for baptism, he immediately recognizes Jesus as the One who is to come, and he objects on the grounds that he needs to be baptized by Jesus, not the other way around! John is referring to the baptism "with the Holy Spirit and with fire" about which he had spoken to the Pharisees and Sadducees in v11. His attitude is in direct contrast to that of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Where the religious leaders had wanted to bolster their position in the eyes of the people through a show of repentance, John is willing, even eager, to submit himself to Jesus. Further, John recognizes that Jesus, the sinless Lamb of God had no need for a baptism of repentance--He had no sins of which to repent!

Jesus counters, somewhat mysteriously, that John should "Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness" (v15). 

Let it be so now

By making His justification of being baptized for "now," Jesus is tacitly agreeing with John's statement that he should be baptized by Him and implying that at some later time, John would receive the baptism for which he longed, presumably in heaven since it didn't happen while John the Baptist was alive.

For it is thus fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness

I have to confess that the reason for Jesus to be baptized is as opaque to me as it was to John the Baptist. Since Jesus has no sin, from what can he be repenting?

Digging Deeper

I love inductive Bible study. I love its focus on the text. I love its emphasis on drawing ideas out of the text rather than bringing ideas to the text. I love its humble attitude which allows God's Word to speak for itself. But sometimes, I just get stuck. No matter how much I look at the words and the grammar and the context, I just don't get it. When that happens, I fall back on commentaries, even though it feels like cheating.

Commentaries are a great source for finding out how other Christians have understood a passage through the ages. By seeing how other Christians have made sense of a difficult passage, it is often possible to make sense of it ourselves. However, they are a terrible substitute for reading God's Word and allowing Him to speak to you through it.It is a mistake to allow a commentary (or anything else) to do all your thinking for you.

Choosing a commentary can be difficult. The ones that are cheap or free are often older and use archaic language (which doesn't mean they're bad, but does mean they're harder to read). Commentaries are usually chock-full of the author's theological bias. This can be quite annoying if his bias is different than yours.

I often use the free commentaries available at Blue Letter Bible. Blue Letter Bible has a number of freely available Bible Study tools, including commentaries and tools for doing studies in the original languages.

By looking through several commentaries, I have concluded that this is a difficult passage. not just for me but for everyone. There are several schools of thought about why Jesus was baptized including (but not limited to) these:

• To set an example that we should follow
  
  Jesus set us the example of the perfect life. Even though He had no sin of his own, He demonstrated through His actions what perfect repentance looks like. This included and was culminated in His baptism. People who favor this view often quote 1 Peter 2:21:
  
  For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps.
• To identify with sinful man
  
  Jesus came to identify with us in out sinfulness so that, in that identification, he could ultimately carry our sins with Him to the Cross so that he could make us alive, together with Him (Colossians 2:13-14). People who favor this view often quote 2 Corinthians 5:21:
  
  For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
  
  Because He had so perfectly identified with our sins, He could legitimately repent of them.
• To symbolically die to his own desires in favor of God the Father's plans
  
  Jesus was a human man. As such He had a human body, a human mind--a human everything, including the normal and good human desire for self-preservation. He had no illusions that the Father's plan for Him would ultimately bring Him to death on the Cross.
  
  Part of the symbolism of baptism is death to one's own desires. As one goes down into the water, one symbolically dies. As one emerges, one is symbolically resurrected to a new life in which the Father's will is preeminent. By being baptized, Jesus is symbolically and publicly laying down his own desires in favor of doing His Father's will. 

Of these, I favor the third. Jesus was certainly the example whom we should follow, but for Him to be baptized merely for the sake of demonstrating that we should be baptized seems to me to make His baptism a contrived event done merely for show. His identification with sinners seems to me like a stronger reason for Him to be baptized, but I think of His identification with humanity being accomplished more in His Incarnation and in the Cross than in his baptism.

Up until this point in His life, Jesus has been a private person. There have been events when his deity has poked out--His birth by the Virgin Mary (Matthew 1), the coming of the Magi (Matthew 2), His trip to the Temple (Luke 2:22-52), but for the most part, He has lived a private life as an everyman in Nazareth of Galilee. In His baptism, Jesus dies to that private life and rises up to His new public life and goes forth to accomplish the task for which God the Father sent Him into the world.

Then he consented

After hearing Jesus' reply, John the Baptist consents to baptize Jesus. Although he may have understood Jesus' reasons, the verse does not say explicitly that John that he did. Rather, we are told that he obeyed Jesus' command.

Application

The recurring themes in these verses are obedience and submission. Both Jesus and John the Baptist display an attitude that says, "Thy will, not mine, be done." In John the Baptist, we see an eagerness and a hunger to submit himself to Christ's lordship. In Jesus, we see a willingness to die to whatever his personal, private life had been in order to fulfill the Father's plan of salvation.

This calls to mind Philippians 2:2-8:

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

This attitude is in direct contrast to the self-aggrandizing attitude of the Pharisees and Sadducees seen in vv7-12.

Reflection

• In what areas is your attitude like that of the Pharisees and Sadducees?
• What things do you do from selfish ambition or vain conceit?
• In what ways do you look to your own interests above the interests of others?
• In what areas of your life is your attitude like that of Jesus and John the Baptist?
• In what ways to you count others as more significant than yourself?
• In what ways do you look to the interests of others above above your own?
• Pray for God to grant you humility and to more fully form the character of Christ in you.

Typology vs. Allegory

In response to my post about the literal interpretation of Scripture, my friend Dani posted this question:

Would you then say that the allegorical approach is invalid? Is it an un-Reformed way of looking at the Bible? Don't we say that "The Old Testament is the New Testament concealed?

I thought this was such an awesome question, that it gets its own post.

There is a distinction between interpreting the Old Testament typologically and interpreting it allegorically. Typology is essentially God's use of symbolism and foreshadowing in the Old Testament to prepare the people of ancient Israel (and us) for the coming of His Son, Jesus.

Living in the world after the Incarnation, we have the benefit of hindsight when looking at the Old Testament, so we can often identify where He has used these devices. For example, when we see the coming of Christ prefigured in the Old Testament, either directly through prophecy or indirectly through the pattern of someone's (e.g., King David's) behavior, that is typology. When we see New Testament symbolism in the physical layout of the Tabernacle/Temple, that is typology.

If one interprets the Scriptures allegorically, one decides that the Scriptures (Old Testament and New Testament) are essentially a giant parable in which one can assign arbitrary symbolic meanings to the text. By making this decision, one leaves the realm where one can derive true meanings from Scripture about who God is, who we are, or how we should behave. For example, if I were to decide "the temple" represents my (purely hypothetical) mistress, and that the "high priest" represents me, the Day of Atonement would take on a very different meaning and application.

All of the Reformers (and St. Augustine and modern evangelicals) have embraced typological interpretation, but have had issues with allegorical interpretations. They have embraced typology for a couple of reasons: first, the New Testament often interprets the Old Testament typologically. If we were to reject typology out of hand, we would have to reject significant portions of the New Testament. Second, typological interpretations grow naturally out of the text.

Correct typological interpretations should

• Flow naturally from the text as written
• Conform to the overall message of Scripture
• Enhance your sense of wonder at God's sovereignty, power, and love

By contrast allegorical interpretations

• Assign arbitrary or contrived values to symbols
• Do not support or are contrary to the overall message of Scripture
• Serve the ends of the person doing the interpreting

All of the "Scriptural" support for practices the to which Reformers objected came out of the allegorical house of cards which Medieval interpreters had build up around the Scriptures.

The difference between typology and allegory is the difference between understanding and misunderstanding the author's intent. Authors use devices like symbolism and foreshadowing to enrich what they write. Correctly understanding the way the author uses these devices enhances our understanding of the text and our experience when reading. When Elwin Ransom recalls upon meeting him again how much he disliked Dick Devine in school, it builds the reader's sense of dread and anticipation. When Devine drugs and kidnaps him the reader experiences the sense of an expectation fulfilled. Similarly, when God promises a King to reign forever on the throne of David, it builds the reader's sense of joyful anticipation for the coming Messiah. When Jesus is born of the line of David, the reader rejoices in God's promise fulfilled (or he should!).

God is the ultimate author of both history (Psalm 139:16) and Scripture (2 Timothy 3:16). In ancient times, He sovereignly arranged the lives of men and nations to prepare the world for the coming of His Son. In the Scriptures of the Old Testament, He uses foreshadowing to tell us about the unfolding of His plan.

Slack Dog

I have been a slack dog about writing on my blog since my vacation. I hereby resolve to do better.

Matthew 3:7-12

Scripture

But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father,' for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

"I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."
-- Matthew 3:7-12

Observation

This passage is an immediate continuation of Matthew 3:1-6 and forms one logical unit with that passage (in fact all of Matthew 3 is one logical unit). The only reason I have split this chapter up is that my comments on vv1-6 and now on vv7-12 have gotten too long to be a single post. As you read and think about vv7-12, bear in mind that all these things are an immediate continuation of what happened in vv1-6.

Who?

• John the Baptist
• The people of Jerusalem, Judea, and the region around the Jordan
• The Pharisees
• The Sadducees
• God

What?

• v7a: John sees Pharisees and Sadducees come to "his baptism."
• vv7b-12: John warns Pharisees and Sadducee of the coming judgement. John tells the Pharisees and Sadducees:
• v7b: They are a "Brood of vipers." Asks who warned them of the coming judgement
• v8: Tells them to bear fruit in keeping with repentance
• v9: Tells them not to presume to say to themselves that Abraham is their father; God can raise up new children for Abraham from the stones
• v10: Tells them the axe is at the root of the tree and that every tree that doesn't bear "good fruit" will be cut down and burned
• vv11-12: The one who is to come
•  v11: John baptizes with water for repentance; the One who is coming is greater. John is not worthy to carry His sandals. He will baptize with the Holy Spirit and Fire
• v12: The one who is to come has his winnowing fork in his hand. He will clear the threshing floor, gather His wheat into the barn, and burn the chaff.

Where and When?

The location and historical setting is the same as in Matthew 3:1-6. In fact, that passage is really just establishing the setting for this passage.

Interpretation

The first three chapters of Matthew form a sort of preamble to his Gospel. In these three chapters, Matthew is setting the stage for the rest of the book. He is establishing the major characters whose actions and interactions will determine the course of events, namely, Jesus and the Pharisees and Sadducees, and he is establishing God as the primary mover of everything that happens in Jesus' life. We have already seen in chapters chapters 1 and 2 that Matthew is building up Jesus as the protagonist of this story, emphasizing the fulfillment of prophecy and the miraculous events surrounding His birth. As we will see, this buildup will culminate in the events of His baptism. In these chapters, Matthew is also establishing the Pharisees and Sadducees as the primary antagonists.

Digging Deeper

As we discussed my previous post about the literal interpretation of scripture, the Bible is, among other things, a book. As such, the same basic rules and techniques apply to reading and understanding the Bible as apply to reading and understanding any other book. This includes the understanding of literary terms and devices. As this study continues, we will be building up a list of literary terms and devices that are useful in understanding the Scriptures.

This list will include the terms:

• Protagonist
• Antagonist
• Character Establishment
• Setting

To view the list, click here.

There were numerous religious groups in first century Palestine (see here for more details); the Pharisees and Sadducees were the two most prominent sects of the day. The Pharisees were the fundamentalists of their day. They were associated with the local synagogues where ordinary Jews would worship every Sabbath. They believed that the Bible was true; they believed in the reality of the spiritual world; they believed that the dead would  be resurrected on the last day, all things that Jesus Himself taught. The two main problems with the Pharisees were that they elevated the rabbinical traditions above the teachings of Scripture and that they believed that they could obtain right standing with God through their external actions.

The Sadducees, meanwhile, were the rich, liberal mainline denomination of their day. They were wealthy, elite, and powerful. They were closely associated with the priesthood and the worship at the Temple in Jerusalem. They were prominent in the Sanhedrin, the ruling council of the Jews. They did not believe in the reality of angels or demons; they did not believe in life after death. Like the Pharisees, they believed that righteousness was achieved by external acts. The Sadducees took a lower view of the rabbinical tradition, but unfortunately, they also took a lower view of Scripture. The two groups competed for political power, and they detested each other.

John's comments to the Pharisees and Sadducees are both colorful and theologically dense. We will break down his comments, bit by bit so that we can see what he is saying in each part.

v7a: He saw the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism.

The Pharisees and Sadducees did not come to God or even to John, they came to his baptism.
This might just be a slightly odd phrasing, but more probably it indicates that they were interested in baptism as an external symbol of righteousness rather than as the outward sign of true repentance in their hearts. This idea will be borne out in the remainder of the passage.

v7b: You brood of vipers!

Obviously, this is not a complimentary statement. John is saying that the Pharisees and Sadducees are twisted and full of poison. The word "viper" recalls the Serpent in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3) who deceived Adam and Eve, leading them into sin. By calling them a "brood" John is essentially calling them children of the Devil.

v7c: Who warned you to flee the wrath that is to come?

There are a couple of things that I'd like to draw out of this sentence. First, God has wrath, and it is coming. This is an unpopular idea, but according to the Scriptures, there are many things God hates: dishonesty, hypocrisy, pride, envy, strife, murder, adultery, rape, drunken rages, etc. In essence, He doesn't like any of the petty, selfish, small-minded, vicious things about us, and he really doesn't like it when we act those things out and hurt ourselves other people. He loves us like a (good) father loves his children, and He doesn't like to see us do things that are self-destructive or things that hurt His other children. The unpopular biblical word for all of these inward attitudes and outward behaviors is sin.

The wrath of God is reserved for unrepented sin.The ideas of sin and wrath are not unpopular because people like the sinful things about themselves--in fact, these are the things we usually hate about ourselves. Nobody¹ wakes up in the morning and thinks, "I'm so glad that I reduced my sister to tears yesterday by picking at her relentlessly until she broke down," or, "Isn't it wonderful that I've destroyed my wife's self-esteem by looking at pornography? Maybe I'll do it some more today so that I can grind her further into the dust," let alone, "I'm so glad that man stabbed his wife to death. She was so pretty, and look! She was pregnant!"² God doesn't like the very same things about us that we, ourselves, hate³, and for much the same reason: neither we nor He like what those things do to us or to those around us.

The wrath of God is real, but He has deferred its execution in the hope that people will turn from their wicked ways. As 2 Peter 3:9 says:

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

The promise spoken of here is the return of Christ (Maranatha!) which will happen in the final days. At that time, God will bring final judgement for sin, but He delays that day in order to give you and me a chance to repent. Again in Romans 2:4, God says:

Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?

He loves us and rejoices when we turn to Him and away from our sins. As Jesus says in Luke 15:3-7 (emphasis mine):

So he told them this parable: “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

God loves repentant sinners! Come to Him! If you are weary and burdened, if your heart is heavy with what you have done and what others have done to you, come to Him! It is easy to think that if God were really good and actually had power, that He should step in and put a stop to all the evil things people do, but it's not true. He is waiting to execute His righteous judgement to give you the chance to come to Him. Come!

So now we come back to the second point, the coming of the Pharisees and Sadducees to John. They are not repentant. They are not acknowledging that they are wrong and coming to the Lord to be washed clean. They are coming because John is popular and the people think he's a prophet. They are coming because they want to bolster their outward appearance of righteousness with the people who believe in John, and John is sarcastically calling them out because of it.

v8: Bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

True repentance is an inward action, but it always has an outward reflection. Just as pettiness, selfishness, and viciousness arise from a sinful heart, so kindness, mercy, and justice arise from a humble, repentant heart. The fruit of repentance was not evident in the lives of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

Notice that John is not condemning them. He is using his harsh statements to get their attention; he is calling them to repentance. God's heart yearns for the repentance of sinners, including stuck-up, religious sinners. As God's mouthpiece (see our discussion of vv1-6), John is expressing God's desire for the religious leaders to come to Him, drop their pretenses, and walk humbly with Him. We will see this theme repeated throughout the Gospels as Jesus interacts with the Pharisees and Sadducees. In every interaction with them, Jesus calls them to repent.

v9: And do not presume to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father,' for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.

Abraham was the ancestor of the Jewish people. His story is told in the book of Genesis, starting in Genesis 11:31 and going on until Genesis 25:18. In Genesis 12:1-3, God makes a covenant with Abraham:

Now the Lord said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."

Because of this covenant, Abraham was rightly regarded as the founder of both the race and the faith of the Jewish people (You can read a pretty good article about this covenant here). Throughout his life, Abraham walked with God in faith and obedience.

When the Pharisees and Sadducees claim to be children of Abraham, they are not simply claiming to be his descendants (which they were). In those days, children and fathers were thought be of the same nature and character. As we will see later, this is one of the main reasons the Jews objected to Jesus' claims to be the Son of God. By claiming Abraham as their father, the religious leaders were imbuing themselves with the aura of Abraham's faith and obedience in the eyes of the people.

John tells that mere biological inheritance does not make them Abraham's children in that sense--in fact that God can raise up true children for Abraham, a people who will love and obey God and walk faithfully with Him, from the rock. Their pride in their ancestry does nothing to give them true righteousness.

Taken together with John's earlier statement that they are a "brood of vipers" it is difficult not to think of John 8:39-47, in which Jesus says (emphasis added):

They answered him, "Abraham is our father." Jesus said to them, "If you were Abraham's children, you would be doing the works Abraham did, but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. You are doing the works your father did." They said to him, "We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one Father—even God." Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God."

v10: Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

John is now speaking metaphorically about the wrath of God. The Pharisees and Sadducees are the trees, and the One "who is coming after me" (see the next section) is wielding the axe, and He is ready to start chopping. The good fruit John is speaking of here is the same fruit he has already spoken of, the fruit of repentance. Again John is calling the Pharisees and Sadducees to repent. The image of being "thrown in to the fire" evokes the ideas of Hell and damnation to modern readers. Those images are quite applicable, but in context, the fire spoken of is probably a more generic image of God's judgement.

v11: I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

As we saw in vv1-6, John came with his baptism of repentance to prepare the way for the coming Messiah.  John here acknowledges that the Messiah who is coming is greater than he and adds the information that He who is coming will baptize with "the Holy Spirit and fire."At least implicitly, all three persons of the Trinity are present in this verse: John has been sent by God the Father to prepare the way for the coming of God the Son who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.

In the Greek, the word "baptize" is "baptizo" (βαπτίζω). The word literally means "to immerse." Originally, this word was used in the dyeing trade to describe the process of dunking a piece of white cloth in a vat of dye so that it would take on the color of the dye. Similarly here, to be baptized with the Holy Spirit and fire means to be immersed in the Spirit of God and to have your life "colored" by His presence in you. During the course of his ministry, Jesus makes many promises concerning the coming of the Holy Spirit into the lives of believers (see especially John 14:17-31). In Acts 1:4-5, just before His ascension, Jesus tells His disciples:

And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, "you heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now."

These promises are fulfilled in Acts 2 on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit comes upon the disciples.

When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

The coming of the Holy Spirit transformed the disciples so that they were indeed "colored" by His presence. Peter, who had denied Christ a few weeks before, immediately went out and preached a sermon which drew 3000 people to Jesus. Acts sums up what people who are baptized with the Holy Spirit are like as follows:

And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

It should be noted that the "fire" here does not specifically connote God's judgement as in v10 and v12, but His power. It is, however, the same word and has a related meaning. Malachi 3:2 says of the coming Messiah:

But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap.

A refiner's fire is used when smelting metal to remove impurities. When metal is heated to a high enough temperature, the impure gunk that is mixed in with the metal burns up and the remains, the dross, floats up to the surface of the molten metal where it can be skimmed off and thrown away. In this metaphor, the same fire which burns away the impure in judgement produces the purity and goodness of the saved. This idea of God purifying his people and refining them with fire is repeated often in the Old Testament. See here for more references. (Fullers' soap is used in cleaning wool. The fulling process is eliminates the oils and filth in the wool and prepares it to be woven. It is a similar image of judgement/purification. See here for more details on fulling.)

v12: His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.

Winnowing is another picture of God's judgement; His separating the good from the bad. In ancient times, when the harvest was brought in, it would be taken to a threshing floor, a wide, flat place with a hard, usually paved floor. On this floor, the sheaves of grain would be beaten with a flail or walked upon by donkeys or oxen to break the outer husk off of the edible inner kernel of grain. This outer husk is called chaff. It cannot be eaten and is essentially worthless.

Winnowing is the process of separating the chaff from the kernels once the threshing is complete. To winnow, one waits for a strong wind and then throws the grain and the chaff into the air together using a winnowing fork, a device similar to a pitch fork. The wind blows away the lighter chaff which would be collected and burned up.

Here again, God's judgement is a separating process which removes the bad parts from the good. The bad parts are destroyed and the good parts are put to their proper use.

Summary

In this passage, Matthew introduces the Pharisees and Sadducees as the primary antagonists in his Gospel. In later chapters, they will frequently be seen in conflict with Jesus. Their conflict with John the Baptist reminds us that their antagonism is not toward Jesus as a man, but toward God and His unfolding plan of salvation. John has come to proclaim the coming of Jesus, the Messiah, through whom God will save His people. Jesus has come to proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God. The Pharisees and Sadducees, who have different ideas about how salvation should be achieved, do not appreciate this challenge to their worldview. Additionally, they have a political power base with the Jews which this new move of God threatens.

It should be noted, however, that God is not against them. He is against their behavior and against their philosophy, but He desires that the Pharisees and Sadducees should themselves repent and be saved.

Application

God's wrath is real and is reserved for sinners (i.e., all of us) who refuse to repent. Sinners who are religious are in a particularly precarious position because their religion can provide them with the illusion that they are in right relationship with God, even if they do not have repentant hearts. God wants you to humble yourself and turn to Him and away from your sin.

Reflection

• Is there any sin (dishonesty, hypocrisy, pride, envy, strife, murder, adultery, rape, drunken rages, lust, self-righteousness, gossip, etc.) that you need to repent of?
• Ask the Lord to grant you a repentant heart.
• Read Psalm 51 and pray each line as though it were written by you about yourself.

Footnotes

1 Or at least nobody I know, thank God.^↩
2 These are obviously not the excuses we make for ourselves when we act this way. Our thinking is usually something more like, "Man, I really got her! Did you see the look on her face?" or "I am so frustrated! I need to do something to help myself calm down." I have no real insight into the thoughts of a murderer.^↩
3 This, of course, begs the question: if we hate sin so much, why do we keep doing it? The short answer to this is that we are broken in such a way that we are inexorably drawn to sin, in spite of its loathsomeness. At root, we love ourselves and our own way and our own pleasures more than we love God or other people or what is good and right. We can see how detestable sin is (especially in other people), but, in our brokenness, we continue to return to it, like a dog to its vomit.^↩

The Literal Interpretation of Scripture

The literal interpretation of Scripture is an idea that is often misunderstood, both outside the Church and inside it. To a modern (or postmodern) person, to read something literally means to blindly take it in a strictly non-figurative sense. When someone is accused of interpreting of the Scriptures literally, what is usually meant is that the accused takes a rigid, narrow-minded view of what the Bible says. This accusation is usually leveled at the kind of person who thinks the earth, which God created in six 24-hour days, is flat; that women should only ever wear dresses; that smoking, drinking, playing cards, and dancing are evil; and that fun, in any form, should be abolished¹. The accusation is usually leveled by someone who is offended at the position the accused has taken on some moral or political issues. In our relativistic culture, narrow-mindedness is almost the last sin which is generally recognized. Someone accused of literally interpreting the Bible is thought to be narrow-minded, intolerant, bigoted, rigid, uncharitable, and probably stupid, bereft of the mental capacity to recognize a simple figure of speech.

Unfortunately, these accusations are sometimes true. It is easy to find examples of conservative Christians who do hateful or intolerant things and use the Bible to excuse or explain their actions--if your only source of information about Christians were the news, I'm not sure how you would escape the conclusion that all Christians are like that. More usually, however, these accusations are false--even the most narrow-minded bigot you can imagine does not think that because Jesus says, "I am the door," (John 10:9) that He therefore has hinges and a knob. To the contrary, Christians who do and say hateful and wicked things usually have a highly developed, symbolic understanding of the Scriptures; they need it. If they were to pay attention to what the Bible actually says, in plain, ordinary language, they would not be able to justify their actions!

Historically, the term "literal interpretation" has a very different meaning than what people usually think of when they hear the term today. When originally coined, it meant "taking words in their natural meaning" (from the Online Etymological Dictionary). By the time of the Protestant Reformation, scholars had developed a four-fold method Biblical interpretation which had drastically skewed the way the Bible was understood:

Medievalists developed a fourfold approach to interpreting the Bible: the literal, showing what God did; the allegorical, showing what at surface level God hid; the moral, revealing what believers should do; and the mystical, or anagogical, showing the heavenly life in which, for Christians, things will end. In effect, the method obscured the true meaning of the Bible by imposing arbitrary meanings on it. Theology took precedence over careful literal-historical exegesis.
-- J.I.Packer² (emphasis in bold mine)

In the context of this elaborate scheme of biblical interpretation, the literal meaning of the text was what an ordinary person would understand if he read the text. This was considered to be the lowest, basest, most common meaning of the text, fit for peasants and other people "who could not grasp the intricate  nature of language (i.e., figures of speech, mysterious sayings), while the deeper meaning was for the learned or more spiritual."³, ⁴

To the Reformers, however, this literal meaning was the primary meaning.In fact, this school of interpretation was one of the significant things that the Reformers were protesting. They believed that this assignment of arbitrary meanings to the Scripture was used to support and reinforce the false beliefs and corrupt practices then present in the Church:

The Protestant Reformers of the sixteenth century reacted against the misuse of the Bible in Late Medieval theology. They insisted that authority rested not in leaders or fathers of the church but in a proper understanding of the text derived from correct methods of literary interpretation. Reformers starting with John Wycliffe (c. 1330-1384) insisted on the grammatical-historical approach to the Bible. The German reformer Martin Luther (1483-1546) broke with the nonliteral, allegorical approach that was dominant in his training and returned to the patristic emphasis on the centrality of Christ in Scriptures. He was adamant that the Bible be approached not through fanciful allegories or merely to support established dogma but through ordinary language and literal, historical and grammatical exegesis.^{5, 6}

The literal sense, the actual words and their ordinary meaning, is the only one of the four-fold senses from which we can understand what God is telling us in the Scriptures. In other words, when God inspired the words of Sacred Scripture, He said what He meant.There is no need to go seeking mysterious, hidden meanings in the text⁷. We just need to understand what He has said.

To interpret the Bible literally, therefore, does not mean to take a strict or narrow-minded view of what the text says but simply to try to understand what it says. Understanding what the Bible says (or what any book says, for that matter) involves several key things:

• Vocabulary
• Grammar
• Awareness of context

Vocabulary

Understanding individual words is the bottom level for understanding any verbal communication. If you don't know the words I am saying you cannot possibly derive meaning from the sentences I am speaking. For example, if I were to say to you, "The nurse came in with a sphygmomanometer," you would have no idea what was going to happen to me unless you happened to know that a sphygmomanometer is a device for measuring blood pressure. Similarly, when reading the Scriptures, if you don't know what is meant by words like sin, righteousness, justification, or holiness, you will often fail to understand what the Bible is saying.

If you think of verbal communication as a Lego model, words are the individual blocks. If you don't have very many blocks, you can't build very many or very interesting things. Building up your vocabulary is like buying more Lego kits. The more words you have, the more ideas you are able to express and understand.

Grammar

Contrary to popular belief, grammar is not solely a means by which teachers are able to torture their students⁸. While it is effective and amusing in this capacity, grammar is actually the rules by which words can be strung together to form meaningful combinations. It is grammar that tells us the difference between "Robert ate the cake," and "The cake ate Robert." (It is also grammar that makes Yoda funny: "The cake! The cake, Robert ate, hmmm?")

If words correspond to Lego blocks, grammar corresponds to the way that the studs on one block fit into the recesses on another. When you put two words together without following the rules of grammar it is like putting two Legos next to each other without fitting them together correctly. You can't build anything significant unless you use them the way they are intended to be used.

Context

According to Google's dictionary, context is defined as follows:

con·text
/ˈkäntekst/
Noun

1. The circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood and assessed.
2. The parts of something written or spoken that immediately precede and follow a word or passage and clarify its meaning.

In terms of the Lego analogy, context is the way all the surrounding bricks influence how you think about each individual brick or group of bricks. Bricks (words) taken in isolation do not convey the same impression by themselves as they do when they are put together into a larger model. For example, these are reddish-orange flat 4x6 bricks:

By themselves, they are not very interesting, but when used to form the skin of a giant space Kraken tearing apart a Super Star Destroyer they are pretty awesome!

Context can be viewed at many levels. At the most basic level, context should be considered by looking at a passage's immediate surroundings: what was said before it and what was said after it. At a broader level the topic being discussed forms part of context--a drain is something very different if you're talking about plumbing than it is if you're talking about what chasing your toddler does to your energy level.

Often, the context of a piece of writing includes the historical situation of the people in the story and/or the original reading audience. The culture the author and the culture of the people about whom the author is writing form an invisible context that surrounds what he writes. By understanding more about those cultures, you gain better understanding of what you are reading. If you had never heard the legend of the Kraken or if you had never seen The Empire Strikes Back, your reaction to the Kraken/Star Destroyer model might have been something like, "What is that thing that octopus is holding?" However, if you knew what both the Kraken and the Super Star Destroyer were (as I hope you did!), your reaction might have been more like, "Dude! That thing is huge! If only the Rebel Alliance has been able to harness the power of the Space Krakens in their struggle against the Empire!"

Context also includes the genre or type of literature that is being read. By knowing the genre, you know a lot about what to expect out of what you're reading. For instance, if you were reading an column by Dave Barry, (like this, or this, or any of these), you would have very different expectations than if your were reading the Wikipedia article on Special Relativity. With the Dave Barry column, you would expect to find jokes and hyperbole and a keen commentary on the human condition. With the Special Relativity article, you would expect to find formulae and diagrams and discussions of experiments. Similarly, in the Bible, you would have different expectations when reading a poem than when reading a history and still different expectations when reading a letter or a prophecy.

Literal Interpretation

The Bible comprises many books written in different styles at different times, by different (human) authors. In order to understand what the  Bible says you must understand all of the things we have been talking about and apply them correctly. In the words the Reformers would have used, you must interpret the Bible literally. To do this, you must understand:

• The basic meaning of the words
• The grammar by which the words are fit together
• The immediate context of the text
• The historical context of the text
• The literary context of the text

This sounds pretty complicated when you write a 10 page essay about it, but in reality it's just a long-winded explanation of something very simple: read the Bible the same way you would read anything else. When you read Dave Barry, nobody has to tell you that it's funny or that he's exaggerating; you know that because you can read.

When you read the Bible, it works the same way. There are, of course, difficulties--the Bible is obviously more complex than a Dave Barry column, but for the most part, the Bible says what it means. When God says, "I hate dishonesty," He means that He hates dishonesty and that you, therefore, should be honest. When He says, "I hate divorce," He means that He hates divorce and that you, therefore, should not get divorced if you can help it. When He says, "I am the door," he means that He is the only way in to His Father's kingdom and that He wants you to come in. When He says, "I am gentle and humble of heart," He means that He is not harsh or mean and that if you come to Him, He will be kind.

Footnotes:

1 I do not mean to imply that I am specifically for or against any of the particulars in this list. I am merely attempting to paint a picture of what most people think of people who understand the Scriptures literally--except for fun, of course. That really should be abolished.^↩
2 Most of the information in this post comes from J.I. Packer. I seem to remember reading this material originally in a book called The Authority of Scripture, but this book seems to be either a figment of my imagination or at least to be out of print. The quotations here are taken from a book called, Understanding Scripture, which is a collection of material by several authors. I can't recommend this book enough. It's quite awesome.^↩
3 More J.I.Packer. I have the Kindle edition of the book, so I'm not sure how to give page references...^↩
4 The four-fold method of interpretation had a long history. It had developed from the school of allegorical interpretation founded by church fathers like Origen and Clement of Alexandria. Acceptance of this method was never universal. Throughout church history, many of the greats, including St. Jerome, St. Augustine of Hippo, and St. Thomas Aquinas, rejected this approach and embraced the literal-historical method.^↩
5 Surprise! More Packer! Emphasis mine.^↩
6 Exegesis means interpretation or explanation. It is originally a Greek word which, literally translated, means to "lead out of" the text, that is, to allow the ideas to come out of the text as it leads you.^↩
7 It is easy to feel superior to the medievals, but modern people are just as susceptible to looking for arcane and hidden meanings in the Scriptures. This type of biblical interpretation is foundational to many cults. Christian Scientists, for example, believe that all truth in the Bible is spiritual rather than physical. In order to properly understand what the Bible is saying, you must interpret it through the lens of Mary Baker Eddy's book, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, which provides all of the "true" meanings of the words in Scripture. These meanings have much more in common with the Gnostic heresies of third century than they do with historical Christianity and the plain meaning of the words in the Bible. On a more popular level, Michael Drosin's 1994 book, The Bible Code was nothing but an esoteric interpretation of the Bible that looks for hidden wisdom in the Scriptures while ignoring their plain meaning.^↩
8 Robert Carrington may believe that torture is grammar's primary use, but most scholars disagree...^↩