One of the baffling problems of interpreting the Bible is the way New Testament writers refer to the Old Testament. A related problem is how the Old Testament writers refer to each other.
Reading a gospel or epistle, we come to the phrase, “it is written.” The writer does not tell us who is being quoted, give a chapter-and-verse reference, or even explain why the quote matters. He almost never offers a justification.
It’s as if the writer expects us to get the reference immediately because we’re so intimately acquainted with the Old Testament. And the one who does this most often is Jesus.
When the Old Testament writers refer to each other, they’re even less helpful. They just weave in other writers’ words, trusting us to spot the allusions.
In our study of Ephesians at Bethel Grove, we have come to a passage that takes all of these problems, wrings them into a tangle, drops them in our lap, and strolls on as if nothing has happened. Paul refers to a few words from Psalm 68 without naming it. We ask, “Why, Paul? Why did you refer to this text? How is it supposed to help us?” The apostle just stares at us across two millennia in silence. He thinks it’s perfectly clear.
The passage is Ephesians 4.8-10, which reads (ESV):
“Therefore it says, ‘When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.’ (In saying, ‘He ascended,’ what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.)”
In using these verses, I have done my best to fulfill your modern expectations of writers who quote old texts. You want me to respect the historical particulars, keeping the time periods and authors neatly distinct. You don’t want the chronology muddled. And you expect word-for-word quotations.
So I explained the issues under discussion, I told you who wrote the words, and cited the exact chapter and verses where they are found. Additionally, I told you which translation I quoted, the English Standard Version, and used punctuation to establish which words belong to Paul, which to Psalm 68, and which to me.
See how helpful I am?
Paul’s readers in Ephesus did not share your modern expectations.
For starters, they were taught the Old Testament daily by Paul himself for two years (Acts 19.10). Likely, Paul’s reference to Psalm 68 is so brief because it repeated what he had already taught them in person. By contrast, we need to study the background texts more deeply, as we did last Sunday, to grasp what Paul was saying.
The New Testament churches had been trained in a tradition of Old Testament exposition that Jesus started. Letters like Ephesians relied on that tradition.
Further, the tradition featured a key principle: the Old Testament was about Jesus (Luke 24.25-32; John 5.39-47). Paul taught the Ephesians to approach the Scriptures as a whole. They assumed that a psalm was connected to Christ in some way. For us modern people, the connection between a psalm and Christ is just another claim that has to be proven.
This point needs more explanation.
Modern readers emphasize the Bible’s historical particulars not its literary connections, the Bible’s chronology not its doctrine. Psalm 68 is from David. To understand it, study David and his world. Paul is a different man at a different time. You can’t study Paul to understand David better, nor the other way around.
In other words, modern readers treat the Bible as a chopped-up mixture of texts. If we want to understand what the texts are “really” saying, we have to strip away eternal themes and focus on historical background.
(In all candor, this is one reason modern preachers struggle in applying the Bible to contemporary life. Even many conservatives treat the Bible as too culturally specific to speak directly to us today. A good book on this issue is Participatory Biblical Exegesis by Matthew Levering.)
So, the modern reader assumes that Paul did not use Psalm 68 as David intended but adapted the psalm to his own purposes.
Psalm 68.18, for example, says that the Lord “received” gifts from men, while Ephesians 4.8 says he “gave” gifts. More liberal readers will say we should expect Paul to edit the psalm to make it fit his argument. More conservative readers will say that the Holy Spirit revealed meanings to Paul that were not available to David.
But the assumption of both is the same: We modern readers understand Psalm 68 perfectly well and we know that it was not “really” saying what Paul claims.
I reject that assumption.
The first readers of Ephesians would regard our modern interpretations of Paul’s letter as hopelessly obtuse. They would gasp at our inability to treat the Scriptures as an interconnected whole. And they would smirk at our pretense that we know Psalm 68 well.
I’ll go even further.
The Ephesians would scoff at the claim that Paul could change a text to make it say what he wanted and get away with it. Jesus and the apostles all taught in situations dominated by the most intense debate. Their opponents were in the room and would pounce on any misuse of scriptural words. Even favorably disposed listeners studied the source texts to see whether Paul’s claims were true, like the famous Bereans (Acts 17.11).
The irony is that overconfident modern readers, in their reductive cynicism, often devise readings of biblical passages that are not remotely plausible in light of the historical context.
As I argued on Sunday, Paul is more deeply in tune with Psalm 68 than we are. David was alluding to previous Old Testament passages. He constructed his song as an intricate dialogue with texts about God’s victories for his people, such as Numbers 10.35-36, Deuteronomy 33, and Judges 5. His praise is summed up at the end of the song (68.35): God is “the one who gives power and strength to his people.” Paul is summarizing David’s theme that God has descended to give salvation and ascended in triumph. Paul is not quoting David word for word, nor would the Ephesians have thought he was obliged to do so.
The longer I work as a pastor, the more dismayed I am by believers’ lack of confidence and fluency in the Bible. Our bafflement at these texts is a symptom of our tacit acceptance of modern skepticism.
Next week: some pro-tips on how to interpret New Testament quotations of the Old.