Before we get started, I need to clear one thing up.  Lest you think that “interpretation” is best left to the professionals, i.e. our pastors and theologians, you would be wrong.  Here’s why: EVERY SINGLE TIME YOU READ THE BIBLE, YOU MAKE ASSUMPTIONS AS TO WHAT THE TEXT IS SAYING – WHICH MEANS THAT YOU ALREADY MAKE INTERPRETATIONS OF THE BIBLE.  Everyone does this.  So here will be some tools that should help you make those interpretive decisions better.

First up is taking a look at the genre. The bible is filled with many different types of writings.  We all know this and recognize this.  The trouble is that some people (many in fact) don’t know what to do with all the different types of writing.  It is important for us to get this right because our job is not to read the Bible passively: it is to be a central part of our lives, meaning that we are to read Scripture with transformation in mind.  If we get the interpretation wrong then we will most definitely get the application wrong.

1. Narrative.  A Narrative tells us the facts and even sometimes the motives for actions taken.  Narrative is not a flat out acceptance of a particular behavior.  Just because it is written that Solomon had hundreds of wives, does not mean that if we are to be wise like Solomon we also need hundreds of wives.  Narrative simply tells us what happened.  Narratives also illustrate for  us the fallibility of human nature – just because there is a story in the bible does not mean that it endorses that particular behavior – quite the contrary.  In fact, I would wager that most of the narratives in the Old Testament are the “what NOT to do” stories and illustrations.  Bear this in mind when reading narratives.
2. Law.  Law (or statutes) are prescriptive – they do tell us what we should and should not to.  However, not all Old Testament laws apply to us today.  A prime example would be the dietary restrictions.  How do we know this?  Because in the New Testament, in the book of Acts, chapter 10, Peter has a vision in which God tells him that God has made all things clean and that it is okay for him to eat of the foods that were previously restricted.
3. Poetry.  This should be self explanatory, but poetry is descriptive and imaginary and should not be read literally.  Mountains do not skip like rams (Psalm 114:6) and God is not a physical rock (Psalm 18:23).  These psalms are figurative and poetic.  They are humanity’s attempt to pour out their feelings (the good, the bad and the ugly) to God.  Read them for the emotions that they evict and the images that come to mind.
4. Genealogy.  The Old Testament is notorious for this.  They are simply lists of people.  Why are they there? Partly to highlight the brevity of life and partly to provide physical evidence that people are who they are.  David was promised the monarchy forever.  Jesus is a descendant of David, therefore Jesus is heir to the monarchy.  This is why Matthew and Luke open with genealogies.
5. Parable.  Jesus conveyed tough biblical concepts with stories – stories that are masked in such a way that they have double meanings: there is the literal meaning of the story, which is what most people “got” and then there is the theological meaning which most people did not “get”.  Don’t take parables literally, but look for the deeper meaning that is being conveyed.  It is important.
6. Wisdom.  There are a few books in the Old Testament that are considered Wisdom books: Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs (Song of Solomon).  Wisdom is is a topic of discussion in and of itself, but our purposes here, wisdom is what leads us into a better understanding of God’s sovereignty, His truth and His justice.  We humans have our own sense of fairness and justice that don’t always accord with God’s, so the wisdom literature helps us understand this.
7. Prophetic and Apocalyptic. These are two types of literature that are constantly misunderstood.  First, prophetic literature is calling God’s people into a better (right) relationship with Him by proclaiming the ways in which they are disobeying Him.  There is always an immediacy to prophetic literature that has the application in the day/time in which it is being proclaimed.  Sometimes, though, prophetic literature has a double application in that it also predicts what will happen in the future, i.e. the predictions in Isaiah of a Messiah.  Apocalyptic literature, on the other hand, is always future in that it has not happened yet and it always deals with the end times.  Apocalyptic literature is also highly figurative and poetic and therefore cannot, and should not, be interpreted as being literal.

Keep in mind that these are very broad categories.  There are probably some that I’ve missed, so if you have a question about a particular passage and its genre, please leave a comment.  I would love to hear those.

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