The Gift of Prophecy

Chapter 4 — The Use of Scripture by Bible Writers

Clinton Wahlen

Studying the use of Scripture by Bible writers involves broader hermeneutical issues such as the nature of inspiration, the relationship between the testaments, the role of Israel in prophecy and prophetic fulfillment in general, and whether inspired writers had access to hermeneutical tools inaccessible to other interpreters, including modern readers. ¹ Evangelical interpreters, to say nothing of their more liberal counterparts, hold widely different positions on all of these issues. ² Fortunately, there remains substantial agreement among many Seventh-day Adventist interpreters on some of the most important hermeneutical issues. ³ The most pertinent of these principles for our purposes is the recognition that “the Bible is its own best interpreter and when studied as a whole it depicts a consistent, harmonious truth (2 Tim. 3:16; Heb. 1:1, 2; cf. Selected Messages, 1:19, 20; The Great Controversy, v, vi).” ⁴ GOP 105.1

Since the Bible is its own best interpreter, it is important for us to observe how that process takes place. How do the Bible writers interpret the writings of their predecessors? Many answers have been given to this question and most of them are neither helpful nor faithful to the biblical text. For example, it is not accurate to say that the Bible writers, when quoting Scripture, sometimes impose a meaning on the text that is foreign to the author’s original intention; or that they used methods of interpretation that came to be used only well after the final books of the New Testament were written, such as pesher exegesis, homiletical midrash, or an allegorical method. Such ideas have only clouded study of this topic. While we cannot in this brief study address all of the various issues involved, careful attention to how both Old and New Testament authors approached and interpreted Scripture can provide us with several important keys for interpretation of their writings. GOP 105.2