He Gave Us Prophets: Essential Hermeneutical PerspectivesSample

Popular Exegesis of OT Prophecy: Jeremiah 23:15

Everywhere you turn today, well-meaning Christians interpret the prophets with very little attention to the original meaning intended by the prophets. These popular approaches may be characterized in at least two ways: they are atomistic, and they are ahistorical. 

What do we mean when we say that popular exegesis is atomistic? Well, it's very typical for Christians to read the prophets as collections of loosely connected predictions. Instead of reading carefully through large sections of a prophetic book, we are usually satisfied to focus on a catch phrase, or some special word. At times, a few verses come under consideration, but that's about as large a context as most Christians consider when they read Old Testament prophets. An atomistic approach to Old Testament prophecy simply won't do. 

As sad as it is, most evangelicals also don't concern themselves with the historical context of prophets. They don't focus on the human writer and they don't consider the circumstances and the needs of the original audiences of Old Testament prophecies. 

Instead, prophecies are treated as if they were empty canisters just waiting to be filled with meaning. We don't find the original meaning that fills these canisters already. Instead, we supply our own meaning by looking at events in our day. We look at what is happening in our world and we seek to fill up the empty canisters of prophecy with current, historical events. 

I remember teaching in a wonderful church in Europe, and during the question and answer time, a fellow in the back of the room raised his hand and said, “Do you think that the disaster at Chernobyl is a sign of the end of time?” Well, I looked at my translator and I said, “Did he really say that?” And the translator said, “Sure” — because the word “Chernobyl” in this man's language meant “wormwood,” and in Jeremiah 23, the word “wormwood” is used and associated with the end of time. Well, what did this fellow do? He had found a word in the Bible and he associated it with something in his experience, and as a result he came up with a sign of the end of times. Well, what are we to do except read our own ideas into the Bible when we read it atomistically and without any concern for the historical context of the Old Testament prophets? 

Reading our own meaning into Old Testament prophecy is widespread because so many of us read these texts atomistically and without concern for the historical context of the writer and the audience. When original meaning is ignored, we can do very little other than read our own ideas into these Scriptures.