My beloved spiritual children in Christ Our Only True God and Our Only True Savior,
CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST! HE WAS, IS, AND EVER SHALL BE.
HOW TO READ THE BIBLE (Part IV)
By Metropolitan KALLISTOS (Ware) of Diokleia
Christ, the Heart of the Holy Bible
The third requirement in our reading of Holy Scripture is that it should be Christ-centered. If we agree with the 1976 Moscow Conference that the "Scriptures constitute a coherent whole," where are we to locate their wholeness and coherence? In the Person of Christ. He is the unifying thread that runs through the entirety of the Bible, from the first sentence to the last. Jesus meets us on every page. It all ties up because of Him, "In Him, all things hold together" (Col. 1:16).
Much study of Holy Scripture by modern Western (Protestant and Roman Catholic) scholars has adopted an analytical approach, breaking up each book into what are seen as its original sources. The connecting links are unraveled, and the Holy Bible is reduced to a series of isolated units. Recently there has been a reaction against this, with Biblical critics in the West devoting much greater attention to the way in which these primary units have come to be joined together. This is something that we Orthodox Christians may certainly welcome. It is important to see the unity of Holy Scripture as well as the diversity, the all-embracing end as well as the scattered beginnings. Orthodoxy prefers, for the most part, a "synthetic" rather than an analytical style of hermeneutics, seeing the Holy Bible as an integrated whole, with Christ everywhere as the bond of union.
Such, as we have just seen, is precisely the effect of reading Scripture within the context of the Church's worship. As the lessons for the Annunciation and Holy Saturday make clear, everywhere in the Old Testament we find signposts and way marks pointing to the mystery of Christ and His Mother Mary. Interpreting the Old Testament in the light of the New, and the New in the light of the Old--as the Church lectionary encourages us to do--we discover how The whole of Scripture finds its point of convergence in the Savior.
Orthodox Christianity makes extensive use of this "typological" method or interpretation, whereby "types" of Christ, signs, and symbols of His work, are to be detected throughout the Old Testament, Melchizedek, for example, the priest-king of Salem who offered bread and wine to Abraham (Genesis 14:18), is regarded as a "type" of Christ not only by the Holy Fathers but equally in the New Testament itself (Hebrews 5:6; 7:1-9). The rock that flowed with water in the wilderness of Sinai (Exodus 17:6; Numbers 30:7-11) is likewise a symbol of Christ (I Cor 10:4). Typology explains the choice of lessons, not only on Holy Saturday but throughout the second half of Lent. Why are the Genesis readings in the sixth week dominated by the figure of Joseph? Why read from the Book of Job in Holy Week? Because Joseph and Job, who both suffered innocently, foreshadow the redemptive suffering of Christ on the Cross.
We can discover many other correspondences between the Old and New Testament by using a Biblical concordance. Often the best commentary of all is simply a concordance or an edition of the Holy Bible with well-chosen marginal cross-references. Only connect. It all ties up. In the words of Father Alexander Schmemann, "A Christian is the one who, wherever he looks, finds everywhere Christ, and rejoices in Him." This is true in particular of the Biblical Christian. Wherever he looks, on every page, he finds everywhere Christ. (Source: Orthodox Study Bible)
(To be continued)
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"Glory Be To GOD For All Things!" -- Saint John Chrysostomos
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With sincere agape in His Holy Diakonia,
The sinner and unworthy servant of God
+Father George