In our fellowship, there has been a lot of debate about how to read Scripture (our hermeneutic). But while the traditional hermeneutic of "command, approved example, and necessary inference" is never laid out like this in Scripture, Jesus does give us an approved hermeuetic--himself.

On resurrection day in Luke 24, two disciples are walking on the road to Emmaus, They are depressed because Jesus had been killed, and they had put their hope in him. Jesus, who was walking beside them, had this response:

"25 Then he said to them, 'Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! 26 Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?' 27 Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures" (Luke. 24:25-27).

Other passages also point towards Jesus being the hermeneutical key. In John 5:39, Jesus chastises the religious leaders for failing to have the right understanding and approach to Scripture. Jesus says, "39 You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me to have life." They had traded study of Scripture for Christ himself, and they missed the Messiah when he was standing in front of them. A clear warning for us.

This was Paul's understanding of Scripture as well. In Acts 17, Paul goes to the synagogue at Thessalonica. It says, "2 As was his custom, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, 3 explaining and proving that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead. 'This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Messiah,”' he said" (Acts 17:2-3). Paul, as with the gospel writers, saw Jesus in all of Scripture. The only Scriptures that he had at this time were the Old Testament Scriptures--and yet, they were all about Christ.

So if Jesus is the hermeneutical key, then we ought to look at Scriptures--and life--through the lens of Christ's birth, life, ministry, death, burial and resurrection.So many lessons that I have heard preached (and have probably preached) just take OT stories and make moral lessons out of them. They do not connect them to Christ's story.

• Not just the Creation account with Adam and Eve, but the early Genesis stories of Cain and Abel, Noah and the Flood, and the Tower of Babel, all point towards the need for a Savior.
• Abraham of course is the "grandfather" of Christ, through whom all would be blessed; if we missed the redemptive nature of Isaac's near sacrifice, well Hebrews clears this obvious one up for us.
• Joseph is a type of Christ figure, suffering unjustly in prison, with false accusations made against him, and being raised up to save all of his people from certain death by famine. This story is not just a morality story about not being jealous, problems in families, or resisting sexual temptation.
• Moses is of course a pre-Christ figure, though flawed, who led the people out of Egyptian bondage. But Christ was there in the desert, Paul tells us. Matthew's gospel shows how Jesus is a type of new Moses.
• Samson plays a salvific role in his death, where the death of one man who has been blinded saves Israel from its enemies. Again, it is not just a story about marrying the wrong person. (Here is a great article on Samson and Christ-Centered Preaching). The cycle of oppression, crying out, and deliverance points toward the need for a greater deliverer.
• David--well, this is another explicit type of Christ-figure. Psalm 22 has an almost verse by verse account of the crucifixion that Jesus would go through.
• The suffering prophets, of which Isaiah 53 is the most obvious, foreshadow Christ.

In looking at OT prophecy, then, it is not so much that God predicted something, and it came through and thus proves the NT (as if God needs to be tested or prove himself). It is more that God has been working all throughout history, and this working can be seen on every page of Scripture. And when Christ comes, he is the "fulfilment" of all that God has been up to since Genesis.

Understood this way, we should then also "exegete" our lives through this lens. God is working through us. We have a birth, a ministry, and many mini deaths, burials, and resurrections in our life time. Times where we go through pain and sorrow, temptation, sweat drops of blood. But because God has been faithful in the past, we know that he will be faithful in the present. He will raise us up, in this life or the next.

This could have implications for how we view:

• Marriage problems
• Struggles with homosexuality
• Financial problems
• Stress, worry, and anxiety
• Career disappointments
• Loss of loved ones
• Problems facing a church
• Problems in our nation
• Problems around the world

When people come on Sunday, few are looking for a mere moral lesson. They are looking to make sense of their lives. They are wrestling with death, temptation, "ministry" challenges.

And they are looking for hope. Something to keep going. Something to make sense of life's messes. And if we can help people see that they are part of this Christ story--that what they are going through can ultimately have meaning and lead to something better--well, that is the gospel. And people today desperately need the gospel.

People today need so much more than "5 Steps to a Better Marriage" that could be found in any psychology book. These tips can be good, but the Bible is much more than some self-help book. Whether they know it or not, they need to see how Christ's example and story gives shape and meaning to their own marriage struggles. That "resurrection' is on the other side. That suffering can bring about obedience and transformation and dependence on God and one another. 

That was what Jesus was doing with the disciples on the road to Emmaus. He was making sense of their lives, in which they had invested much in Christ. We need to do the same with people who show up on Sunday without hope, and help them to think and act this way throughout the week.

So the next time we come across a passage about Bible study--like Acts 17 a little further down, where the Bereans were said to be of more noble character due to their study of the Scriptures--we need to remember the purpose of said study. It is not to just gain more knowledge. It is to see our lives in light of Christ's life. Remember, what Paul was preaching was Christ. They were looking to see if what he said about Christ was true. THAT Christ-centered approach to Scripture, study, preaching, and all of life is what we need today. Christ is our hermeneutical key.

How is a Christ-centered hermeneutic different from a "command, example, necessary inference" hermeneutic? What would be the practical difference in these two approaches? Where do you see Christ in various OT stories? Where do you see Christ in everyday life?

P.S. An excellent book on this type of reading of Scripture is Jesus: A Theography by Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola.