Getting the Most from Old Testament Stories (Part 1)

By Matt Proctor

(This is the first of six articles Matt Proctor will write this year under the theme, “Reading the Bible for All It’s Worth.)

All human beings love a good story, so when God wanted to communicate the most important message in the universe to us, guess what he did? He told stories . . . and we”ve been captivated ever since.

The Bible, and especially the Old Testament, is chock-full of narratives. The Old Testament is two-thirds of Scripture, and more than 40 percent of the Old Testament is narrative. In Sunday school children are still taught much-loved stories such as Moses in the basket, David and Goliath, and Daniel in the lion”s den.

The Most Misinterpreted Passages

But knowing the stories is not the same as understanding them. Old Testament narrative texts might be the most misinterpreted passages in Scripture. For centuries, well-meaning people have “discovered” meanings in these stories that were never there in the first place.

Well-intentioned sermons and books look for life lessons that the Old Testament writers never intended, and these biblical stories become “blank checks” anyone can fill in with the application of his choice. With this approach, the story of Joseph in Genesis can teach: “Don”t tell your dreams to others, lest you get in big trouble for it” or “Even slaves can get ahead if they pay attention to their administrative skills” or “Foreigners rise faster in positions of authority than natives do.”1

Asking the Right Question

When we go looking for dating tips or business advice in an Old Testament narrative, we usually are asking the wrong questions of the text. These passages were written to teach us, yes, but not to teach anything and everything. The Old Testament narratives are telling the story of God at work to save the world. Our primary question must always be: What is God up to in this passage?

Because the focus is on God”s salvation story, these narratives are selective, in that they record only the pertinent facts. While the Old Testament is historically accurate, its narrative does not function like a history book, dutifully noting everything that happened during a particular world era. Rather, it functions more like a novel, with a singular plot that drives the entire story. That driving plot is the tale of a “God who is out to get back what rightfully belongs to him.”

Example: In Exodus 1, the Israelites grow so numerous that Pharaoh fears an uprising. He commands the two Hebrew midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, to kill the baby boy Israelites at the birthing stool. But Shiphrah and Puah refuse, and the Hebrew nation is saved.

Here”s what”s amazing: Pharoah”s name is never mentioned, but the names of the two Hebrew midwives are! Most history books would record the name of Pharaoh””one of the most powerful men on the planet””and ignore two ladies at the absolute bottom of the social order. But because Shiphrah and Puah helped preserve the nation through whom Messiah would come, we still speak their names 3,000 years later. Pharaoh is a minor character, but these two women are major characters in the story of God”s plan to save the world.

Three Levels of Narrative

So when we read a section of Old Testament narrative, we must always ask how this smaller story is part of the main story””that is, the sweeping epic of a God who is out to save the world. To understand an Old Testament narrative rightly, scholars Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart suggest thinking about it as a story told on three levels.

The top level is the universal story of God as he rescues the world. The first three chapters of Scripture set the stage: humanity sins, creation falls, and the world cries out for salvation. The rest of the Bible tells the rest of the story: a new nation carries the seed of a promised deliverer. He arrives, and through Christ”s death and resurrection, salvation begins. He leaves behind a church to continue his mission until he returns to finally set right humanity and creation. Every page in your Bible is part of that story””The Story, the overarching plot of Scripture.

The middle level centers on Israel”s story: the call of Abraham, the establishment of Abraham”s line, Israel”s captivity, the Exodus, the conquest of the promised land, David”s reign, Israel”s on-again, off-again obedience to God, judgment and exile, and finally the restoration of God”s people after exile.

The bottom level consists of the hundreds of individual stories that make up the other two levels””the accounts of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Samson, Ruth, Samuel, David, Solomon, Elijah, Elisha, Esther, Daniel, and the list goes on.

Here”s the point: “Every individual Old Testament narrative (bottom level) is at least a part of the greater narrative of Israel”s history in the world (the middle level), which in turn is a part of the ultimate narrative of God”s creation and his redemption of it (the top level). You will not fully do justice to any individual narrative without recognizing its part within the other two.”2

All of these smaller narratives are simply movements in the larger plot of Scripture. But if you”ve been around church very long, you”ve probably heard a preacher who forgets to preach the top-level story where God is always the primary hero. Instead he only preaches at the bottom level, and he makes the biblical characters the superheroes. Sunday morning sermons sound like Saturday morning cartoons: “Be strong like our hero Samson!” “Be brave like our hero Daniel!” “Be wise like our hero Solomon!”

When we read these texts only at the bottom level, the Old Testament narratives get treated like a collection of morality stories, a forerunner to The Book of Virtues, with no more overall plot than a telephone book. Make no mistake, these stories do vividly picture right and wrong, and we certainly should read them as examples to us (1 Corinthians 10:11). But there is a greater plan at work. God chose these events to include in his book because they tell the story of his work to save the world. When we forget that, it can be hard to make proper sense of many Old Testament narratives.

Read at the Top Level

Remember to draw the right moral from the story you”re considering.

For example, consider Genesis 12:10-20. Here Abram leaves Canaan for Egypt to escape famine. We don”t know 65-year-old Sarai”s beauty secret (someone suggested “Oil of Delay”), but we know her beauty was no secret. To keep someone from killing Abram for his beautiful wife, Abram and Sarai agree to lie about their relationship.

Of course, Pharaoh takes Sarai into his harem and pours riches on her “brother” Abram””until God sends diseases on Pharaoh and family. Pharaoh discovers Abram”s deception, preaches a sermon on honesty to the father of our faith, and then forcibly escorts him out of the country . . . although Abram gets to keep all the expensive royal presents.

Perhaps you heard this story in Sunday school, and the moral you were taught was “Don”t lie!” Certainly Abram should not have lied, but if you think about it, the actual moral of the Genesis 12 story would be something like: When you lie, God will intervene, save your bacon, and you”ll get filthy rich! When you read this text solely at the bottom level, the moral just doesn”t work.

But when you ask how this narrative is part of the top-level story, it begins to make sense. God”s plan was for the Savior to come through Sarai as Abram”s seed, but with Sarai in Pharaoh”s harem, that promise was threatened, for Sarai might have become impregnated with Pharaoh”s seed!

Though his servant Abram was faithless in this instance, God remained faithful. He would not let his salvation plan be foiled. He stepped in, preserved the family line of the Messiah, and moved history one day closer to Good Friday. A careful reading of Genesis 12:10-20, then, leads us to the truth that God keeps his promises, especially his promise to rescue us from our sin.

So back to our original question: When we read an Old Testament narrative, we must ask, “What is God up to in this passage?” Instead of immediately focusing on the moral learned from the biblical characters, we first must focus on the role the biblical characters play in God”s plan to save the world.

“¢ Yes, the story of Judah and Tamar is about “the foolishness of sexual indiscretion,” as Judah”s promiscuity in Genesis 38 contrasts with Joseph”s chastity in Genesis 39. But first it is about the continuation of the line of blessing, as Judah produces an heir who ends up in the genealogy of Jesus.

“¢ Yes, the story of Jonathan and David is about “the marks of a good friendship.” But first it is about how God used Jonathan to protect David”s life from King Saul, thus preserving the kingly line through which the King of kings would someday come.

“¢ Yes, the story of Esther is about “the courage to stand up for God in a pagan culture.” But first it is about how God used a simple Jewish girl to deliver the nation that was to be the womb for the world”s promised deliverer.

Read these stories not simply as individual morality tales, but as part of the overarching plot of Scripture””God”s plan to save the world.

“That”s Me”

But if the first question to ask of an Old Testament narrative is, “How does this fit into God”s story?” then the second question is, “How does this fit into my story?” When you see a group photograph that includes you, whose face do you look for first? The answer, we all would admit, is we look for ourselves first.

The same dynamic is at work when we experience stories. We look for ourselves in the story””identifying with the characters as they face conflicts.

In East of Eden, John Steinbeck wrote, “No story has power, nor will it last, unless we feel in ourselves that it is true and true of us. . . . If a story is not about the hearer he will not listen.”

The Old Testament narratives are “great and lasting” stories, first and foremost, because they are God”s story. But they are also “great and lasting” because they are our story. When we read these accounts, they seem “deeply personal and familiar,” and we suddenly recognize ourselves in these characters. Maybe you identify with Jacob”s at times dishonest ambitions or Moses” reluctance at God”s call or Hannah”s grief in her barrenness or David”s struggle with lust.

The fact is, while the Old Testament narratives are more than individual examples of vice and virtue, they are not less than that either. They vividly portray how our moral choices matter in the real world, and as we identify with the characters of Scripture, we learn better how to (and how not to) live as the people of God.

Speaking of the Old Testament Scriptures, Paul said, “For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us” (Romans 15:4). Elsewhere he writes, “These things [stories from Exodus and Numbers] happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us” (1 Corinthians 10:11). That”s why:

“¢ The writer of Hebrews challenges us to have faith like Abraham and Rahab (11:4-39).

“¢ James exhorts us to pray like Elijah and persevere like Job (5:11, 17).

“¢ John warns us against the hatred of Cain (1 John 3:12).

“¢ Jude cautions us against the greed of Balaam (Jude 11).

In Models for Interpretation of Scripture, scholar John Goldingay notes, “Focusing the interpretation of biblical narrative on its capacity to provide examples of how believers should or should not behave is thus a quite biblical procedure.” So when we read an Old Testament narrative, it is entirely appropriate for us to ask, “What does this tell me about me?”

The Old Testament authors certainly wanted to picture something about how we as the people of God should live, relate, worship, think, feel, decide, trust, give, serve, and speak. In our next article, we will talk about how to discover the Old Testament authors” intended meaning.

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1Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart, How to Read the Bible for All It”s Worth (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982), 79.

2Ibid, 74, 75.

Matt Proctor is president of Ozark Christian College, Joplin, Missouri, and a contributing editor for CHRISTIAN STANDARD.