“He’s seventeen years old and I have no concept of how he comes up with notions totally opposite from ours on the exact same subject. Didn’t he learn anything from us?” I’m sure we aren’t the only parents who have asked ourselves questions like this. The reality is that teenagers don’t think like their parents. They process information in a different way. People form their thinking-process through life experiences, environmental, social surroundings, and the information they receive at school, at home, through media, and friends. They don’t think like us because they have grown up in a world that has changed since we grew up. Understanding another culture is the biggest challenge missionaries encounter when moving to a foreign country. The people process information in a different way. Why? They have grown up in different surroundings and encountered different life experiences, sometimes radically different from ours. They view the world from another perspective.
Now apply this to the Bible. The writers of the Bible lived in a much different world. They didn’t process information the same as we do. Neither did they express information as we do. The Bible is the inspired Word of God however the Holy Spirit worked through humans who spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit (2 Pet 2:1). This process did not overrule their personality and cultural perspectives when they wrote. Neither did this lessen a single bit of the truth in Scripture that we read today. This should challenge us to understand their view of the world better in order to gain a deeper awareness of Biblical truth. The Western world today still views life with a strong Greek thought influence yet the writers of scripture, especially the Old Testament, viewed life through a Hebrew pattern of thinking. Knowing the differences between Hebrew and Greek thought will greatly enhance our insight into the Bible. A Greek instructor once told me that reading the Bible in English is like looking at a black and white television. Understanding the original languages is like looking at a color TV. The basic picture remains the same, but color brings out an additional perspective. I would add that awareness of even a little about the differences between the Hebrew and Greek thought process will be like seeing the same picture in High Definition 3-D.
Hebrew thinking viewed the world through the five senses or concrete thought that expresses concepts and ideas in ways that can be seen, touched, smelled, tasted, or heard. In contrast, Greek thought views the world through logical and abstract thinking, which expresses concepts and ideas in ways that cannot be seen, touched, smelled, tasted, or heard. Hebrew thought is emotional. Greek thought sees the world through facts and figures. Hebrew is concerned more with doing and experiencing the truth. We as Greek thinkers are more concerned with having an intellectual knowledge of truth and forming the right belief system. Greek thinking, i.e. Westerners, divides life into two realms, secular and sacred; natural and supernatural. Hebrew thinking had no division. Everything in life was sacred. All of life centered around God. We might say, “Oh, that’s my secular job. I worship God on Sunday at church.” The Hebrew thinker would have said, “I worship God in all of life and through my job.” Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men (Col 3:23).
One simple application that will aid your insight into the Old Testament starts with realizing the words don’t present abstract ideas about God. Each word and phrase in the Old Testament should produce an image or picture in our mind. Take for example the 23rd Psalms. The Lord is my Shepherd; He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters; through the valley of the shadow of death; You prepare a table. David wrote in pictorial language telling us how God cares for us. Shepherd, green pastures, quiet waters, etc. present concepts we can visualize, feel, taste, touch, and hear. As we read any OT passage, we should pause and reflect on the image the writer presents.
Paul instructed Timothy, Study to shew thyself approved (2Tim 2:15). Growing in Christ involves more than a casual reading of the Bible. All believers should study scripture. That doesn’t mean you can read Hebrew and Greek. insight, with the multiple study tools available today any believer can see the Bible in full living color. Apply just the simple rule of pausing and visualizing the words and phrases of the OT will bring your understanding to a HD picture. Scripture is infinite. It is like a man finding a nugget of gold lying in a field but can’t pick it up. So he begins digging and the deeper he digs the bigger the piece of gold gets. Fifty feet down in a hole, the nugget has turned into a mountain with no end in sight. Don’t just know the truth, think Hebrew, and put it into action and experience truth. Christians will always find more truth and grow in Christ—no end is in sight.
Sustaining Word for the Week: Faith is more than just knowing and believing the right things. These are tools enabling us to serve God through our actions.