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The first rule of Bible interpretation is understanding a text in terms of its original setting and audience, always asking the question, How would those who first picked up copies of the gospels and epistles have understood what they were reading? Louis Berkhof, following Milton Terry's injunction that we should "place ourselves in the position of the sacred writers," [1] stresses that the interpreter
must place himself on the standpoint of the author, and seek to enter into his very soul, until he, as it were, lives his life and thinks his thoughts. This means that he will have to guard carefully against the common mistake of transferring the author to the present day and making him speak the language of the twentieth century. If he does not avoid this, the danger exists, as McPheeters expresses it, that "the voice he hears (will) be merely the echo of his own ideas."[2]
Reading modern-day concepts, whether scientific, geographical, or academic, 3a [3] back into the Bible can cause insurmountable interpretive problems. For example, how many times have you heard a minister claim that the gospel is like "dynamite"? The comparison is made because the Greek word dunamis, translated "power" (Rom. 1:16), is the same word Alfred Nobel chose in 1866 to name his explosive concoction. Since "power" and "dynamite" share the same Greek word (dunamis), the claim is made that the New Testament use of "power" must share the characteristics of dynamite. D.A. Carson describes this as "an appeal to a kind of reverse etymology," [4] reading modern definitions of words back into ancient writings. The effects of dynamite were unknown by the New Testament writers. Paul was not thinking of exploding sticks of dynamite when he used dunamis to describe the power of the gospel any more than he was thinking about the power expended when the Space Shuttle takes off from Cape Canaveral. Our understanding of the biblical use of dunamis has to be understood in terms of how it was understood in Paul's day. "[Gordon] Fee and [Douglas] Stuart rightly emphasize that 'the true meaning of the biblical text for us is what God originally intended it to mean when it was first spoken.' [5] We must first determine what a text meant 'in their town' before we can determine what it means and how we should apply that meaning to our own time and culture." [6]
In a similar way, we should not read twenty-first century geographical knowledge into the Bible. For example, were the cartographers of Jesus' day wrong when they called the Sea of Galilee a sea rather than a lake (Matt. 4:18)? Our definition of "sea" should not be the interpretive standard for the New Testament. Many commentators misinterpret what Jesus meant when He stated that He would be "three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" (12:40) because they do not understand the statement in terms of Jerusalem-centered geography. [7] Equally so, we should not read into the Bible our conception of what we now know about our world.
Jesus tells His disciples that the gospel must preached in the "whole world for a witness to all the nations" (Matt. 24:14). The interpreter would be making a serious mistake if every time he read "all nations" he concluded that the biblical writer had every nation around the globe in mind. The following examples will show that "all nations" and "all kingdoms" often have a limited geographical application:
Using "all" and "every" in a narrow sense when referring to nations and kingdoms is neither unusual nor non-literal. We must be equally careful when we see "all the earth" used in Scripture. The Hebrew word eretz and the Greek ges can be translated "earth" or "land" depending on the context (Gen. 47:13; 1 Sam. 17:46; Luke 23:44).
Thomas Ice, for example, begins his study of Matthew 24:14 by stating correctly, "While it is true that 'world,' or oikoumene, is used in the New Testament to refer to 'the Roman Empire of the first century,' its basic meaning is that of 'inhabited earth.'" [10] But that's just the point. Those living in the first-century saw only their world as the inhabited earth. Also, Ice does not deal with the way that global language (all and every) is used to specify a more restricted contemporary geographical area (see above). The following points by Ice do not resolve the problem that confronts futurists on the extent of gospel proclamation described by Jesus in Matthew 24:14:
Clearly oikoumene can be used globally, even though it may have a more restricted use. The deciding factor is the context. Thus, if Matthew 24:14 was fulfilled in A.D. 70, then it would have a localized meaning as noted by [Gary] DeMar. However, if it will be fulfilled in the future, then it has the meaning of the entire inhabited world at some future date, which would clearly include much more than the old Roman Empire.
Ice states the obvious: Jesus is either describing events in the near future or He is describing events in the distant future. All Ice can be sure of is that oikoumene can be used of the known world and also the entire world. For Ice, the question remains as to how Jesus is using the word in Matthew 24:14. Since Jesus tells His disciples later in the chapter that "this generation will not pass away until all these things t6ake place" (24:34), and every time "this generation" is used by Jesus it means the generation to whom He is speaking, then oikoumene most probably refers to the first-century Roman empire since it falls within the time frame of "this generation."
It's significant that Matthew uses oikoumene only in 24:14, while he uses kosmos, a word that can have a more global meaning, nine times. In fact, we read later in Matthew's gospel: "Truly I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world [kosmos], what this woman has done shall also be spoken of in memory of her" (26:13). The Greek construction in the two verses is identical except that in 26:13 kosmos is used for "world." Matthew chooses oikoumene over kosmos because he wants to emphasize its local geographical fulfillment within the time frame of "this generation" in contrast to a universal fulfillment not bound by geography or time as is the obvious case in 26:13.
Notice also that Jesus tells His disciples that the things outlined in Matthew 24 will happen to them. Jesus makes this point by His continual use of the second person plural "you":
Sandwiched between 24:6, 9 and 24:15 is "And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world oikoumene for a witness to all the nations, and then the end shall come" (24:14). If, as Ice correctly notes, "the deciding factor is the context," then as the above passages demonstrate, the context is decidedly pre-A.D. 70, the generation to whom Jesus was speaking.
By placing ourselves in historical context of the first-century writers, we can conclude that it was perfectly natural to use "all nations" and "inhabited earth" as references to the geography of their day. Since the time when the events of Matthew 24 are to take place are contemporary with Jesus' audience, we can come to no other conclusion than that the gospel was preached to the nations round about the Roman empire prior to that generation passing away. To read Matthew 24:14 any other way is to strip the text from its context.
[1] "In the systematic presentation, therefore, of any scriptural doctrine, we are always to make a discriminating use of sound hermeneutical principles. We must not study them in the light of modern systems of divinity, but should aim rather to place ourselves in the position of the sacred writers, and study to obtain the impression their words naturally have made upon the minds of the first reader." (Milton S. Terry, Biblical Hermeneutics, 2nd. ed. [Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, n.d.], 595). Go Back
[2] Louis Berkhof, Principles of Biblical Interpretation (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker House, [1950] 1974), 115.Go Back
[3] By academic I mean "scientific precision." While estimates and over-generalizations might not be suited for today's academic research papers, they are perfectly appropriate for conveying God's redemptive covenant. Go Back
[4] See D.A. Carson, Exegetical Fallacies, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1996), 34. Go Back
[5] Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth: A Guide to Understanding the Bible, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1993), 26. Go Back
[6] J. Scott Duvall and J. Daniel Hays, Grasping God's Word: A Hands-On Approach to Reading, Interpreting, and Applying the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2001), 97. Go Back
[7] "Heart of the earth" has reference to Jerusalem which was considered to be the center of the world. "Three days and three nights" most likely refers to Thursday night in the Garden of Gethsemane to His burial through Sunday morning. See Ralph Woodrow, Three Days and Three Night -- Reconsidered in the Light of Scripture (Riverside, CA: Ralph Woodrow Evangelistic Association, Inc. 1993). Go Back
[8]"All the earth] -- i.e., the known, inhabited world, from Elam and Media in the east to Egypt and the Mediterranean seacoasts in the west. Cf. Jer. 25:26; 27:5-6). The Assyrian and Babylonian kings regarded themselves as kings of all the earth, and in their inscriptions were accustomed thus to speak of themselves. This practice was also in vogue among Persian rules" (Edward J. Young, The Prophecy of Daniel: A Commentary [Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1949], 97). Go Back
[9] It's obvious that "all nations" refers to all the nations to which they had access. Rome was an empire of conquered nations similar to the way the land of Canaan was home to "seven nations" (Acts 13:19; Deut. 7:1). Go Back
[10] Thomas Ice, "The Global Proclamation of the Gospel," Midnight Call:www.midnightcall/2002/062002/tice.htm Go Back
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