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Biblical Hermeneutics

Transcript - HR501 Biblical Hermeneutics Understanding Biblical Interpretation© 2019 Our Daily Bread University. All rights reserved.

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LESSON 04 of 12HR501

Interpreting Narratives or Stories

Biblical HermeneuticsUnderstanding Biblical Interpretation

Let’s have a word of prayer as we begin. And then we will go into the narrative genre of lecture number four. Thank You Lord Jesus for another day and for the delight and the joy and surprise day after day. And we give this day to You, give ourselves to You especially, and ask that as the King of Glory You may have all the honor and praise. We pray for the great success of Your Word this day around the globe. And that the powers of evil and darkness may take a hard hit, be beat back tremendously as Your Word goes forth in all of its majesty representing Your Person. And for that we pray for ourselves too. Help us to see the delight of Your Person and the joy of working in Your Word. For it is in Your name we pray. Amen.

Welcome indeed to our work here together. We want to look here at several genres. This is a fun part today, and it will have more stuff, I think, than we can even begin to imagine of what we could really take [from here together. So I’m going to get right at it.

Narrative is the fun part. It’s the most common literary type in the Bible. We call these literary types genres, and what really distinguishes it is that it is written in various scenes. These scenes represent changes in place, changes in time, setting, or even speaker. Although, if you go with speakers, sometimes it changes—there are too many [times] back and forth [to be helpful for sermon outlines].

However, most biblical narrative is between God and another person. God is either directly there, or is implicitly there. You look at the beginning in Genesis [1–12], it’s God and Adam or God and Adam and Eve or God and Cain or God and Noah or God and Abraham. So that continues to build. He’s always one of the strong persons there. Often, that change in speaker marks a new scene, but don’t use this too frequently. The NIV, for example, makes a new paragraph out of every time there’s a change of speaker when it may still be on the same subject.

Walter C. Kaiser Jr., Ph.D.Experience: President Emeritus and

Distinguished Professor of Old Testament and Ethics at Gordon-Conwell Theological

Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts

Transcript - HR501 Biblical Hermeneutics Understanding Biblical Interpretation © 2019 Our Daily Bread University. All rights reserved.


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How do we begin to really teach a narrative? An awful lot of us have, in the past, tried to do moralizing on texts. We read a story and then try to think, “Now what virtue or what sort of moral does this bring up?” And usually we foist the moral on top of the Bible and therefore lose the impact of the unity of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation [and its authority]. Because this narrative plays a part—it’s one of the trees in God’s forest—of His everlasting plan. So there is a plan and a purpose that’s coming from Genesis all the way through [to Revelation]. We have 1,500 years, a millennium and a half, from Genesis to Revelation. We go from 1400 BC , from Moses, all the way up to John, who writes in AD 90–95, and 40 different speakers, writers—9 approximately in the New Testament and about 31 in the Old Testament. And we go through three continents, we go through three languages. We’ve got an enormous spread there. That’s why we need help in interpreting. Because if they were of our times and our cultures and our language, there’d be no problem— it would be like reading a newspaper. And when you read the newspapers, there are different genres. You don’t read the funnies like you read the editorial page, although lots of times there are similarities. But at any rate, you really use a different interpretive skill when you go from the news story pages over to the sports page. These are different things, and we automatically switch. But on the other hand, that’s our culture; these are our times. But what are we going to do with a millennium and a half? That’s going to be different.

The most important feature of narrative is dialogue. The Bible loves dialogue more than anything else. The Old Testament is very sparse on adjectives and adverbs. Almost all the action is in the verb and in the noun. So, as a matter of fact, Hebrew has very few adverbs. They just don’t even list them. They don’t need them. But a Greek [writer] would be really handicapped with that. Greek needs that kind of thing. So dialogue is very important [for both Hebrew and Greek].

And [there is] the place where dialogue is introduced. Why did the author start with dialogue at that point? That is a question well worthwhile asking. And then ask why the narrator steps out [of the dialogue] and describes for a while, he narrates, and then steps back in and has dialogue again. Dialogue slows down the action, whereas narrative speeds it up. But if you’re going to have dialogue, “And so he said, and she said, and he said, and she said,”—well that’s taking a lot of time rather than [simply] say, “they both disagree.” You can sort of speed that action up an



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awful lot.

But there are all sorts of rhetorical devices too that they read. In the book that we’re doing here, chapter 8, “I will remember the deeds of the Lord,” the meaning of narratives. I’ve discussed this in a lot more detail and with footnoting on page 125 down at the bottom of that page. There are at least some of the half dozen or so articles that I have, over the years, done on the use of narrative in teaching or preaching from a text.

What are some of the rhetorical devices? One of them is repetition. The Bible loves repetition. Why? Because it wants to help us get the point. When you repeat something, you get the point. I give some examples here. First Kings 19 is a great text, where verse 9, we have Elijah, who has just had a great day on Mount Carmel. He [had just] called down fire from heaven. That would be rather impressive. I mean, if you’re having a little difficulty with your congregation, say, “Alright, everyone outside. I’m going to call down fire from heaven.” That would certainly help your credibility a little bit in your class or with your congregation. We generally don’t teach “fire-calling” in seminary. Fire Calling 101 is not one of our topics [subjects in Seminary].

But this man was confident that God could send down fire from heaven. I would have thought (see, I’m just thinking of myself [speculating]) the Lord says, “I want you to call down fire from heaven.”

“Right! Well Lord, if I’m going to do this, let’s go around the back of Mount Carmel. I tell you what— I’ve got a piece of paper here. I’ll start praying and you make the thing smoke, because I’ve never done this before and I need a little trial experiment here.”

He didn’t do that all. He’s got 2 million people [out on Mount Carmel], and in 61 words or less he prays. He doesn’t even stonewall [his prayer] with one eye open and start smelling to see if anything is happening here. He just prays straightaway, and God sent down fire from heaven and the people all go flat down. They all say, “The Lord, He is God, the Lord.” I guess I would too, fearing we’d be next. But at any rate, that was the great day.

But then Jezebel (thorn in his side) hears that he’s taken care of all her people [850 Baal and Asherah prophets] that are on “Baal scholarship.” He’s “bailed them out” so that they no longer have full-time scholarships—and they had had their time from 6 a.m. until noon and then until 3 p.m., and Elijah’s relaxed the whole time. (I would’ve thought he would’ve been uptight. “Oh, boy! My



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turn is coming. They’re not able call down fire. Wonder if I can”).

No, no. He is chewing on . . . I was going to say [on some] grass, but there is none. He is chewing on a straw and saying, “Hey boys, I don’t smell anything yet, do you need help? Call louder,” “Oh thanks. Baal!” They were very “baleful” in the way in which they cried out here. But [they got] no response. He [mockingly] said, “Perhaps he’s on a trip, shout louder!” They take that tip too.

And one, no one has translated this [third tip], except Ken Taylor in his paraphrase Bible [The Living Bible]. This time he didn’t paraphrase; he said what the Hebrew said. No one can say it out loud in nice company. But I think he said, “Perhaps he’s busy right now and ‘can’t come to the phone,’” and that was the third reason he gave here [to the idolatrous prophets]. Well at any rate, nothing has taken place and it is really just a very, very difficult moment. But then he takes all the prophets of Baal, because they’re phonies, and the prophets of Ashera and they’re all murdered down at the brook. [I Kings 18:40]

Well Ahab goes home and says, “Honey, guess what, they killed all your prophets.” You’re now a full non-prophet organization. And lo and behold, she gets mad. She gets mad and sends a messenger and says [in I Kings] 19:2, “May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of them.” Which was “I’m giving you a 24 hours.” Why?

I mean, with a man who is in this mood, you would think he (Elijah) would have said, “Honey, be careful! I’ve just got into the hang of calling down fire. Would you like to become a grease spot?” But lo and behold, no! That’s not at all what is taking place here, he runs. And the repetition that we find here in 19:9, the Lord asked him several times here in this passage, “What are you doing here?” as he fled from Him. It’s in chapter 19, and he’s out in the desert and he is saying, “I’ve had enough, take my life, I’m no better than my ancestors.” He’s fooling, of course, you know. If he wanted someone to take his life, he should have stayed home. Jezebel would have done it free of charge. But he is out there and says, “Take my life. I’m no better than the rest of them.” And the Lord knows what he needs. The guy needs rest, he needs some food.

So the Lord prepares out there in the desert for him a little hibachi, and he’s got hot coals and a cake cooked over it and some [fresh] water. He lay down, went to sleep. And He woke him up again, touched him and tapped him on the shoulder and [said], “Get up



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again. You need some more food.” So the Lord says at the end of [19:9], “What are you doing here, Elijah?” [And] in verse 13, “What are you doing here Elijah?”

And both times he’s got a canned speech. He comes back and says, “You know, they’re after all your prophets. They put them to death. I, only I, am left.” To which the Lord doesn’t say, “Booh! I’ve got 7,000.” As a matter of fact, he was going tell him that later. But the guy’s not ready for evidence. He needs TLC and a little bit of help here. Well my point is repetition [is part of narrative].

While we’re on it, 19:9. Do you see that “there he went into . . .”? The English text says, “a cave.” The Hebrew says, “the cave,” but the English text can’t say the cave when no cave has been mentioned [so far in the text]. Usually when you say “the cave” in the context there’s got to be some cave. The context here is all the way back to Exodus 34, when Moses was up on the mount and there he says, “Lord, Israel sinned grievously against You with this golden calf.” He had been 40 days, almost 6 weeks [on the mountain], and they [Israel] had apparently no expository preaching. I don’t know if they had films or musical groups or what. But at any rate, there was no expository preaching for those 6 weeks. The people say, “as for this man Moses, we don’t know what’s happened to him. Make us some gods.” And so Aaron said, “Snatch off your gold earrings.” Moses comes down and sees this golden calf and the people are now naked, running around in a dervish kind of worship in front of it, and he comes up to Aaron. And he says, “Bro, what is this? What have you done?” And Aaron tells the biggest whopper ever told. He says there, “Well I threw in this gold and,” remember what he said, “out came this calf!” It doesn’t tell us what Moses said. I think we need a picture Bible at that point, with the picture of Moses’ [face]. You know, just so dumbfounded you don’t say anything. “Out came this calf!” That’s a big one. “He took a tool,” the Bible said, “and around this wooden thing, he took the gold and smeared it on with the tool.” And Aaron made that! And he said, “Out came this calf.”

Well the Lord told him. He [Elijah] says, “Lord, I can’t go on without you. I need a whole new vision of You.” So the Lord said, “Come out of the cleft to the rock. Come out of the cave for I am about to pass by.”

Remember that? I think that’s the only cave that he has reference here to.

Same situation. He [Elijah] was down in Sinai, so was Moses in Sinai. The Lord says here, “Come out of the cave,” and then later



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on he is going to use the same verb—the only other place where it’s used— where he’s going to say, “because I am about to pass by.” [Chapter 34:11], and the Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” The informing theology on this passage, then, is Exodus 34, where God said, “Moses, what you need,” and he says, “Elijah, what you need,” is the same thing that teachers and ministers need—a whole new vision of the grandeur of God—the majesty of His person. [They need] that as a rhetorical device. So repetition is one of them.

Inclusion is another, where you have a kind of “bracketing.” The beginning of a section and the end of a section are set off by the same words. I’ll come and give you some of illustrations of that later, but let me get to the other devices. Chiasm is from the letter chi in Greek, which is our letter X; it’s an inversion, or a crossing over, of the elements that are there. Some of these I have given illustrations from the biblical text (this is not the Biblical text, this is perspired), page 130, which comes from Isaiah 11:13.

Ephraim (A) will not be jealous (B, the verb) of Judah (C) and Judah (C’) will not harass (B’) Ephraim (A’).

So (A) and (C) reverse in the second line. That would be an “x-ing.” So you start out with Ephraim and you end with Judah; the next line you start with Judah and end with Ephraim. That’s an “x-ing.” It’s just a chiasm. Or another one I have on that page is Daniel. The first seven chapters of Daniel are good illustration or so. Daniel 2, [A] which says there are four world empires, [and] Daniel 7 again, has the four world empires [A’]. So you deal with the two of these. Then we come to Daniel 3 [B], and that is very much like Daniel 6 [B’], where in Daniel 3, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego (otherwise known as “your shack, my shack, and a bungalow), the three of them are told “renounce God or we’re going to throw you in the furnace.” They say, “Look, O king, our God is going to deliver us from that hot thing. But even if he doesn’t, we’re not bowing down to your stupid 90 foot gold thing here.” And the other one here [chapter 6] is the lions’ den. This one is the lion, and this one is the furnace. But I think both of these are the Gentile persecution of Israel. This is the Gentiles (and I am just going to put) versus Israel, and they kind of go together.

But then, at the heart of it [this inclusion] is Daniel 4 [C] and Daniel 5 [C’]. As you put these together, you have the divine providence that governs the Gentiles in both cases. Again, these



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are the wonderful stories that are told of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream in Daniel [4] of the tree. Nebuchadnezzar is that great tree. God is going to cut that tree down, and for 7 years He’s going to put Nebuchadnezzar out to pasture on grass. So nevertheless, it shows divine providence. Who is in charge? God is in charge!

In Daniel 5, there is, again, the same thing. This is the writing on the wall, the very place in old Babylon which was being restored by Saddam Hussein. He had 60 percent restored of old Babylon [up until the war]. He was going to make it into [a kind of] Disney World. The hall, the very hall in which there was an inset where the speakers table probably was and where on the back wall the plaster fell down on which the hand wrote mene mene tekel upharsin—“you are weighed in the balances and found wanting.” That very place was reconstructed, and before the whole of the Gulf War, they had a dedication there. Some of the faculty, at least one of the men from Dallas Theological Seminary, was there, present in that very place in which this took place—reconstructed. And, of course, it still stands to this day, but the project is without a leader at the present moment. It too is divine providence. So what we have here is a kind of inclusion, inclusio, in which A and A’ go together, B and B,’ and then C and C.’

So the book itself, in the first seven chapters (at least chapters 2–7), is laid out in a way that illustrates that here you have four Gentile world empires, concludes with four world Gentile empires: the Gentiles persecution (B) of Israel; Gentiles persecution again of Daniel (but as you remember those lions were somewhat down in the mouth that night, and didn’t really want to eat anything until next morning when they found their appetite again, as it goes.) But Chapters 4 and 5, Nebuchadnezzar is “up a tree” and then finally restored back. And he said, “Let me tell you, I’ve been there and I want all the peoples on earth to know there’s no one like this God. I’ve seen Him. I’ve seen His providence.” Chapter 4, [an] amazing chapter, [shouts out], “only God is great,” and, in chapter 5, the writing on the wall. These are great, great sections. I did with you I Kings 17, which is on our narratives thing here, illustrating four scenes. Let me go to a different one, and that is to take you to I Samuel 3. The Lord calls Samuel. A well known text, so it should be easy for us to quickly use as an illustration. It’s a narrative again, so I need [to identify the] scenes. Scene one is former days—“in those days the Word of the Lord was rare.” There were not many visions. So scene one: previous days. Scene two is one night. Verses 2 all the way down through verse 14: one night. And then, verses 15–18 is next morning. And then verses 19



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through chapter 4:1a is all of subsequent days. So previous days, one night, next morning, and the rest. That kind of gives it [the main points of the sermon], so I’m going to have four points; each of these are like paragraphs [in prose genres]. What’s a paragraph in prose? It has one complete idea. Well what is it in a narrative? Again, they have complete ideas here [in each scene], and we’re going to try to bring those out.

So what’s the next thing I do? After I get the scenes, then I need to get the focal point (so I have my four scenes and these are former days, one night, and then next morning, and then the rest or subsequent days. This is 3:1, this is verses 3:2-14, this is verses 3:15-18 and then verses 3:19 through 4:1a.***24:24

Now I need a focal point. If I’m going to get ready to teach, I need to ask, “What’s the pivot point? What is the center of this whole passage? What is it that my colleague, Haddon Robinson, calls “the big idea” of the passage? Well I think that comes in [3:]9. I’ve looked at this over and over, and it seems to me that usually you put it in the mouth of the speaker, one of the [key] speakers in narrative, as you had in I Kings.

First Kings 17, the widow woman finally says, in the last verse, I Kings 17 [verse 24], “Now I know that the Word of the Lord in your mouth is the truth.” So the “big idea” of that passage is learning that the Word of God is dependable. Now you can teach a lot of things and do a lot of kind of [projected] moralisms [on the text], but that’s not what God’s Word was after. Your moralism is found somewhere in the Bible, but not in that passage.

But what is it in this passage here? “God let none of his words fall to the ground.” So I’m going to talk about magnifying the power of the word of God. If God didn’t let his words fall to the ground (I take it that they were Gods words), then how is it that this passage sort of does it? Well I go back to the former days. How powerful is that Word of God? 1) God can make that Word scarce for us (I always want to put in the outline first-person plural [us]. You could make second person [you], but I don’t think that the lectern or the pulpit ought to be a rock pile. God can make this Word rare. The word of God in those days was rare. Why? People didn’t want it, they didn’t listen. Sometimes God gives us what we want and sends leanness to us. You ask me to describe the American church and I would say 90 percent of it has to be that. The people are getting what they want. “Tell us a story, make us happy. I’m okay, you’re okay. I really can win. I can really be successful. I can be rich,” and [for that] you can draw 37,000 people.



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Then, the second one here, one night, and this is God can make his words startling. He calls this boy, Samuel. His mother, Hannah, had just brought him there [to the tabernacle], and the Lord calls him (3:5), “Samuel, Samuel, Samuel.” He runs over to Eli, “Hinnani, here am I.” Eli said, “Kid, go back to sleep.” I think you have to have some kind of intonation here. Then, verse 6, the Lord called him again, “Samuel” and he ran, “Here am I.” Eli, maybe a little older, little testy, “Kid, sleep! Read my lips!” (Some of it is marginal [to the text of Scripture]).

In 3:7, “Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord. The Word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.” That’s interesting too (what did they have? Junior church with just cookies, Kool Aid, cut outs, and crafts, just messing around and he did not yet know the Word of the Lord. That’s amazing, but that’s true in lot of the churches too. Our 3 year old grandson who lives with us can work the computer very well, but they give him cookies for Sunday school. Fiddles! Rascals! And the biblical text says, “No! Feed them, feed them!” [the Word of God]).

The third time, 3:8, the Lord called him, “Samuel.” And the third time he went to Eli said, “Here am I.” Hebrew is hinnêh. So he finally gets it. He said, “Listen, go lie down, and if He says it again, say, ‘Speak Lord, for your servant is listening.’” So Samuel went and lay down, and the Lord came and stood there calling him as at other times. Look at the patience of God! The Lord could get kind of upset here too. “Hey, kid, you’re not too swift!” But the Lord came and stood there by his bed calling him as at other times. “Samuel, Samuel.” And he says, “Speak for your servant is listening.” And the Lord said to Samuel, “Look, I’m about to do something in Israel that’ll make the ears of everyone who hears it tingle.” What is this? And He said, “I’m going to carry out against Eli everything I’ve spoken against his family from beginning to end for I told him I would judge his family forever because of the sin he knew about: that his sons made themselves contemptible.” Actually the sons blasphemed (see here footnote there for a better translation), and he failed to restrain them.

Hophni and Phinehas were having sexual relations right in the tabernacle, and were autocratically saying, “I don’t want that old boiled soggy meat.” And they’d send the servant saying, “Give me sirloin. I want the raw, stuff and cook it for myself.” And the Lord said, “Eli, talk to your boys.” Eli didn’t talk to them. So at any rate, he failed to restrain them. That was startling. God can make his word startling.



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The power of God’s word. He can make it scarce. He can make it startling. Next morning: Samuel lay down until morning, then he opened the doors of the house of the Lord and he was afraid. Who isn’t? When you get that kind word you can feel cinders in your stomach. And so Eli said, “Don’t hide it from me son. May God deal with you ever so severely.” I don’t know if we get this, but sometimes ministers don’t understand that if they don’t deliver the cookies [Word] as God has given it in His Word, guess who’s responsible? It comes out of the teachers’ hide for pulling their punches. That’s what I understand that text to mean. So he said, “This is what the Lord said about your house.” And he said, “He is the Lord. Let him do what is good.” God’s Word is sovereign over us. Not only can He make it scarce, not only can He make it startling, but He’s sovereign. He is the Lord.

And then, the last paragraph here, using the focal point, they let none of his words fall to the ground, and “He [Samuel] was attested as a prophet of the Lord. And the Lord continued to appear at Shiloh, and there he revealed himself to Samuel through his word. And Samuel’s word came to all Israel.” God can make His words secure. Startling? Yeah. Make it scarce? Yeah. Show that Word [is] sovereign? Yeah! But He also can make that Word secure too.

We move from focal point after we got our scenes, and then for each one of the scenes, we try just to put us, we, or our into each one of the principles here so that we weren’t talking abstractly [about what happened in Samuel’s day]. We’re doing the application right in the teaching thing or preaching aspect here. But I think it’s got to revolve around this first-person plural in that outline. God can make His Word scarce to us. God can make that Word startling to us, not just to Eli. God’s Word is sovereign over us and God can make that word for us secure. See how He personalizes it? And then all you need are your conclusions here [to the message or lesson].

Notice, too, the importance of history here for the teaching of the Word of God. That is, many have tried to sidestep in our day the whole issue of [the] historicity [of Scripture]. The 20th century was not kind to biblical studies. We had a huge amount of scholarly activity that really tried to do away [with the history of the Bible], in the midst of our great archaeological finds, too. Here we are, finding all sorts of things! The scholars would say, “There is no Sargon the Great. We have the whole list of the Assyrian Kings called the Khorsabad. [But] Khorsabad king list [had] no Sargon! We don’t even have a palace from him. We’ve dug up Nineveh, and [there is] no Sargon.” So they went across the Tigris River,



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and found the 20-acre p[a]lace, and [there] on the front it said, “Sargon, King of Assyria,” and they had a big bull [actually two] shaped thing [creatures], which is about 50 tons each, on either side of the gateway. One of them they took back to Chicago, and [is now] at the Chicago Oriental Institute. They knocked down the wall in the back of the thing [the museum] to bring this big old bull into the hall in order to get it there.

They also said there are missing peoples. They were no Hittites up to 1900–1910. They said, “No Hittites,” and someone went up into Turkey on the Halys River and, lo and behold, we found not only the whole Hittite Empire but we found a literature which one of my classmates, [Dr.] Harry Hoffner, has now developed for the University of Chicago [some] 20 volumes of Hittite dictionary. No Hittites? Here is a 20-volume thing.

So this continued with individuals, and they said there was no King David either. In 1995, we found an inscription which talks about the house of David, the dynasty of David. And we can go on and on with men, with nations, with cities. That doesn’t mean we found everything. Don’t forget, archaeology has excavated less than 1 percent of all the possible sites in the world, especially in the Ancient Near East. Less than 1 percent! So what we have found thus far is accidental, and there probably is much more to come.

But, in our teaching, even though when we are in Joshua and we want to make sure, we want to say, “Yes, the Walls of Jericho did fall down.” Scholars didn’t say so [agree]. At first, it [Jericho] was excavated [around] 1930 by Garstang. And Garstang said, “Look the walls fell out.” Kathleen Kenyon came along in the 1950s, and she said, “No, no, there was no collapse of the walls of Jericho.” They went back, reinvestigated, redid her work, and she said, “There is nothing from this period of time from the 1400s, the Late Bronze.”

They have now shown that, indeed, those [another set of] walls did fall outward, and they can be dated to this particular period.

But when we go to teach that, we are so tied to the historical situation that we forget the point of the narrative. Therefore, don’t preach against the Liberals. They are not there anyway. Still, go to the narrative and show what the text is [saying]. Incidentally say, “We have found that much of the history here can be documented and is now reliable.” But don’t make the whole sermon on evidences for the truthfulness of Christianity, because the narratives do intend to tell us what happened. And that’s the

Transcript - HR501 Biblical Hermeneutics Understanding Biblical Interpretation© 2019 Our Daily Bread University. All rights reserved.

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big difference of [between] narratives in the Bible and [narratives found] in other places [kinds of books].

The story line of the whole Bible is to anchor it in space and time. It really did take place in space and time. But what took place in space and time is not [only] the fact that it took place, but that it was God that was working, His plan. And therefore we try to teach based on the focal point of each one of the narratives. We’re trying to say: “What was this [text] put here for?” “Why did God put this story and why did He introduce dialogue at this point, drop it at this point, reintroduce it at this point?” and, “Are there techniques like repetition and other types of things [rhetorical devices] that really appear here that show how God is using this?” I think that narrative is one of the most enjoyable sections. Again, over 50-60 percent of the Bible is [in the] narrative [genre]. Most of the Genesis, half of Exodus, a good part of Numbers, Joshua, Judges, I and II Samuel, I and II Kings, I and II Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, a good part of the prophets have narrative, and Jonah (the whole of his prophecy was that). Matthew and Mark and Luke and Acts are [mostly] narrative.

So the storyline of Bible is kind of like the wash line on which all of the truths of God are hanging. But don’t take the wash line for the truth that’s found in each one of the focal points here. This section in the book (this chapter is the one that I wrote) has more concepts than I have introduced thus far. Pages 123-138 should give you many more examples of what we have been discussing here. [We have come to the end of the time for me, and I am open to questions].

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