This series of posts was first a series of sermons I preached at City South Presbyterian and Coorparoo Presbyterian in mid 2026. You can, if it is your preferred medium, watch the video recording of this sermon here (Vimeo), or listen to the audio recording here (Spotify link).
Someone at church asked if this series would explain ‘why we cover the whole Bible every week…’
This is the post.
The Bible contains lots of words. Around 730,000 in the NIV or 757000 in the ESV.
We can do more than count them, we can analyse how frequently words are used; after the ands and thes — lord, king, and son are up there.
We can visualise which words are used most in the Bible, or its individual books — noticing how how Father — 208, and God — 224 — are the most common word in Genesis.
Is frequency meaningful?
How do we get from data — words — to meaning?
Imagine you have got a shopping list of ingredients. Are the items and their quantity meaningful themselves?
They become more meaningful arranged in a recipe; instructions to combine them into something new…
Thanks to recipe blogs — we know stories are what really makes meaning.
And a cake is most meaningful when it’s enjoyed in relationship as a “birthday cake”…
When we read the Bible we can look for meaning in the ingredients, the words, or the recipe — sentences, passages or books — and miss the story, or forget to eat the cake.
We want to have our cake and eat it too.
The Bible is not just ingredients — words — to analyse, or sentences to diagram… Its words come in this hyperlinked, multi-scroll collection connected by 63,799 cross references.
If you remove the filler words — ands and buts — ten percent of words are hyperlinked. And Jesus says these hyperlinked words tell one story.
“How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken!Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.
Luke 24:25–27
He tells his friends they should have read the words of the Prophets saying the Messiah had to suffer ‘these things’ — the cross — then enter his glory. And ‘beginning with Moses’ and all the Prophets, he explains what all the Scriptures say about him.
Then, he says fulfilled everything written about him in the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms; the Jewish Scriptures: the Tanak — the Torah, Prophets, and Writings, though it’s interesting he says Psalms not Writings. Jesus opens their minds so they can understand the Scriptures… he unveils this meaning (Luke 24:44-47). Jesus claims the Scriptures are about and fulfilled in him — specifically that he would suffer and rise; so forgiveness of sins comes — through this story — the gospel — to the whole world.
Notice he is fulfilling everything written about him, not saying every word is about him; an important distinction; we do not have to jump to Jesus from every word or moment…
But these words of Jesus are a guide for reading the Scriptures; our job is to work out how a fully human, fully divine, text is fulfiled in him.
Which is where our nuts and bolts come in.
Today we are looking at hermeneutics — the word for finding the message in a text.
This is harder than it sounds. Especially treating it as fully human; embedded in and emerging from the lives of real humans. There is an art seeing the text fulfilled in Jesus without eradicating the meaning of the words in their time; so their humanity enriches our reading.
Some hermeneutical methods deliberately erase humans — whether that is the post-modern idea of “the death of the author,” where readers make our own meanings — or ancient approaches importing the idea from Plato that human stuff is dirty, so we should strip it away to find the spiritual, figurative, meaning; treating the Bible as God’s timeless word. You might see problems with that — context, right — but modern — or modernist — ways of reading can do the same thing.
Our default is probably a thing called the historical-grammatical method — the idea words have specific meaning, connected to their context — in a sentence, and in history — solving a sentence is like a science; there are rules.
But these rules are new; and the text is old. Mostly we are guessing or reconstructing the historical world of the author and the readers; and we see words and the world differently to pre-modern people, who were way more comfortable with supernatural and symbolic meanings, so even in the Bible, writers make connections from older texts symbolically, or through what is called typology, that we wouldn’t.
Our modernist rules reinforce a natural rather than supernatural reading of the text, that is outside the human approach of the authors.
Ok — onto this principle from Jesus that the right reading of the Old Testament involves seeing it fulfilled by him (Luke 24:44).
Scholars debate how this works — including a tension between reading christocentricly or christotelicly.
Again, big words — Christocentric readings look for Jesus on every page of the Scriptures; reading the end back into the start — and, as an observation — seem more likely to connect words or phrases to Jesus as divinely intended, in ways the humans involved might not have… The ‘true’ reading is the one that helps you see Jesus.
So — you will go from Samson’s improvised weaponisation of a donkey’s jawbone (Judges 15:15) — or where he saves God’s people with his arms outstretched, while dying — to the improvised weapon of the cross and Jesus’ outstretched arms (Judges 16:29–30)… This preaches well — It’s better than asking what the donkey jawbone in your life you can use to slay your enemies (Judges 15:15). But it erases the way the Judges depicts super-flawed figures spiraling towards darkness; because there is no king (Judges 16:6).
Christotelic is from the Greek word ‘telos’ — ‘fulfilment’ or end — Christotelic readings follow the way God authors history and the narrative arc of the Bible from the start to bring everything to fullness in Jesus, its end.
Stories in the Old Testament can be events that lead to the climactic moment that are not just types or shadows; and can reveal the hopes and expectations — and tensions — that are answered by Jesus.
Christotelic readers will describe a first reading tracking with the humans, and then read a ‘second time’ knowing how God fulfills it, noticing how the New Testament authors use the old. It’s worth observing that different types of Old Testament writing, and different things in Israel’s history have different types of fulfilment; fulfilling a Law is different to fulfilling the meaning of a sacrifice or holy space, which is different to fulfilling a prophecy.
Our hermeneutic of fulfilment in Jesus needs to be flexible enough to recognise different texts — and that all the information we have about those other bits also comes to us embedded in a narrative; a curated, organised collection of writings; not just random ingredients, or a cookbook — but as literature; that, to quote the Bible Project: “is a unified story that leads to Jesus.”
There is another big question around the relationship between what is called biblical theology and what is called systematic theology.
Biblical theology is the idea of paying attention to the narrative shape of the Bible; connected to God’s work in history, we interpret a passage asking where it is in the big story.
Systematic theology is the idea the Bible reveals big truths on topics like who God is, and that we should collect all those ideas and read the Bible through this lens. At its best it weighs up words on where they are in the narrative, at its worst, it flattens the story and treats anything said about an issue as equal; or it reads philosophical ideas — even good ones — from the position of the reader into the text — like Greek philosophy, or humanism, or inclusivity.
Biblical Theology asks “what time is it”; Systematic theology emphasises timelessness. Do we read the words shaped according to our system, or doctrine, or have the story build our system? The relationship between these two fields is complex; especially when people are always working to understand the texts better, while doctrines tend to remain fixed in different traditions.
Kevin Vanhoozer’s book Mere Hermeneutics tries to resolve this complexity. He is big on how words do not just say things, they do things; and the idea we are not just meant to look at the ingredients, or even the recipe, but the intended purpose of the words; we are meant to enjoy the cake; that the purpose or telos of the text isn’t just within the text, but what it’s meant to do to us; the community of people shaped by the text.
So, back to the words of Jesus — the telos of the Scriptures isn’t just to tell a story about his death and glorification, but for this story to transform us
The Scriptures are not just ‘christotelic’ — pointing us to Jesus, but crucitelic — pointing to the crucifixion; and cruciforming — persuading us to take up our cross to follow Jesus (Luke 24:26, 46).
They are doxatelic — the Greek word for glory, pointing us to his glory, and doxaforming; inviting us into his glory as we are raised and seated with him (Luke 24:26, 46).
Whether we read words ‘christocentricly’ or ‘christotelicly’ doesn’t matter if the words are not achieving their purpose in us.
Vanhoozer suggests a transfigural interpretation; built from the story of the transfiguration — where Jesus is revealed as both fully human and radiantly divine.
…transfigural interpretation attends to the letter of the text in order to discern in it the light of Christ…
Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Mere Christian Hermeneutics
He reckons our hermeneutical process is to see the biblical letter in a glorified way that brings us face to face with Jesus for our glorification.
Transfigural interpretation stands for the whole hermeneutical process of glorifying the biblical letter for the sake of the reader’s glorification.
Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Mere Christian Hermeneutics
In the last two weeks we have seen an analogy between the written word, and Jesus the ‘word made flesh who reveals God’s glory’ (John 1:14), as the ‘radiant image of God’ — his Son (Hebrews 1:3).
The transfiguration — where Jesus takes his disciples up a mountain and his shining glory is revealed — vividly displays Jesus’ two natures; fully divine and fully human; as he stands with Moses — representing the Law, and Elijah — representing the Prophets — who have both previously encountered the glorious presence of God on mountaintops — and is called God’s Son (Luke 9:28–35).
We are seeing a snapshot of the the fulfilment of scriptures; what happens when God’s Spirit unveils their meaning; bringing us into an encounter with the glory of God revealed in the face of his Son — his word. If our reading of the Scriptures isn’t bringing us into the glory of Jesus — the crucified Messiah — illuminated through the work of the Spirit, we are not eating the cake, we are playing with eggs and flour.
A couple of New Testament passages support this… Paul draws an analogy between Moses shining face being veiled after his mountain-top transfiguration (2 Corinthians 3:13), and the Old Testament being veiled to readers without the Spirit — until Jesus opens our minds — now it’s unveiled for us, so — we now in these Scriptures — come face to face with Jesus’ glory, up the mountain, becoming transformed as God’s Spirit works through his word to reveal Jesus to us. We read the Bible as human words inspired by God expecting the Spirit to transfigure them, so we experience them as heavenly words brought to life by the Spirit, to transfigure us… To transform us into the image of Jesus in ever increasing glory.
But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away. Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts.
But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.
And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.2 Corinthians 3:14–16, 18
Peter describes the transfiguration as God’s glory being shone on Jesus, as God declared “This is my Son, whom I love, with whom I am well pleased…” A quote from Psalm 2; which we will pick up in a minute (2 Peter 1:17) — while they were on the sacred mountain (2 Peter 1:18). He pivots from the shining transfiguration to the Prophets whose words are like a light shining to enlighten our hearts (2 Peter 1:19); the Spirit was bringing this light; inspiring their pens, to illuminate our hearts — as they wrote words from God, for this purpose (2 Peter 1:21).
Here’s three ways this shapes the way we read the Bible…
First, the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms are collections of writing that emerge through Israel’s story, and are hyperlinked to each other. The Prophets and Psalms reflect on the Law as God relates to Israel through history, and inspires this writing. If you are a reader sitting at the point of Israel’s history where they have all been compiled and composed; you are never just reading the Law; you read the Law with the language and imagery and interpretation of the Prophets in your ears — with the words of the Psalms on your lips as your songbook. These Writings are brought together in the life of a word-shaped community, and they shape each other. Jumping straight from the Law — or the Prophets — to Jesus — misses this rich dynamic; the way the words are received along the way. Old Testament readers did not read these texts in isolation in their time, and neither should we, reading from where we sit, after their fulfilment.
Second, the sermons recorded in the New Testament — including in Luke part 2 — Acts — interpret the Scriptures this way. There are 15 sermons in Acts, give or take… All of them draw from multiple texts from the Law, the Prophets, or the Psalms — except Paul’s sermon to Greek philosophers in Athens, where he quotes their poets; there he begins with creation, and his logic on idolatry comes straight out of the Prophets and Psalms.
In Acts 13, Paul arrives heads to the synagogue — the scripture-reading community — in Pisidian Antioch (Acts 13:14). They read the Law and the Prophets, then invite Paul to speak… (Acts 13:15). He begins with Torah; the Exodus story (Acts 13:17) — moves to the Prophets —Israel’s desire for a king (Acts 13:20–21), David — hinting at God’s promise for a Messiah from the line of Jesse (Acts 13:22); and says this story leads to Jesus (Acts 13:23); quoting Psalm 2 to announce it’s been fulfilled by Jesus being “raised up”… (Acts 13:32–33). Law. Prophets. Psalms. Fulfilled — a model sermon.
What God promised our ancestors he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus. As it is written in the second Psalm: “‘You are my son; today I have become your father.’
Acts 13:32–33
The book of Hebrews — which many think is a sermon script — is soaked in the Scriptures; it quotes or alludes to the Law around 20 times, the Prophets around 15 times, and the Writings and Psalms 30 times; building out its picture of God speaking through these sources, but now speaking through Jesus — the radiant example of his being (Hebrews 1:1–2), through this living and active word (Hebrews 4:12).
If the Scriptures are this hyperlinked collection, and the New Testament models how to read them — this is how we should read too. Not by breaking a passage into dry ingredients — its words or components — line by line; but connecting words in this unified story fulfilled in Jesus, with this purpose of being transformed; transfigured; glorified; as God reveals himself to us in his word; his glorious Son who radiates with his presence.
Third — it’s rich.
Let us test it out — bringing our three weeks of work, and this heremeneutic to Psalm 2 — which is quoted at Jesus’ baptism, the transfiguration, in Paul’s sermon, and in Hebrews 1… It’s also a pivotal Psalm in the deliberate structuring of the Psalms as a five-part book. We noticed how this structure emerges in Israel’s history last week… but this is a handy visual.
Source: I can’t actually remember where I found this. Will attribute it when I locate it…
Here are some big picture implications of this structure.
They are deeply connected to David, the annointed Messiah — almost half of the 150 Psalms are titled ‘of David’ — the book is collated and sung after David has failed, and the throne is empty, so they are an invitation to reflect on God’s promises through the Prophets that a forever king would come from David’s line. There are songs where the Messiah cries out as he suffers (Psalm 22:1–2). Songs yearning to be shepherded into God’s house, like an anointed lamb (Psalm 23:5–6), followed by the question “who can ascend God’s mountain”… into his presence. Someone with a pure heart… (Psalm 24:3–4)
There are songs about exile in Babylon; remembering this mountain (Psalm 137:1), picturing exiles singing songs of Zion — presumably other Psalms… (Psalm 137:3) This song book is with them through exile (Psalm 137:4) — songs asking how long God will keep punishing his people; having them surrounded by enemies (Psalm 80:4), that wait for a Messiah; a Son of man to be raised up… (Psalm 80:16–17)
The hinge Psalms between books are important. Psalm 89 — the end of book 3 — recalls the promises about David’s line (Psalm 89:3–4), but notes God has turned his back; the kingship failed; the crown is in the dust (Psalm 89:38–39); and the song asks God to remember (Psalm 89:46, 47). The mood shifts in Book 4; Psalm 90 is a Psalm of Moses; a throwback to the Law (Psalm 90:1). The book still asks how long (Psalm 90:13), but turns from failed human kings to a series of Psalms declaring God reigns; he is pictured robed in majesty; enthroned… (Psalm 93:1–2), ruling Israel and the nations (Psalm 96:10) — the whole earth (Psalm 97:1); from the heavens… (Psalm 99:1). Book 4 ends trusting God will save — gathering his people back to his mountain; where they will praise him (Psalm 106:47).
Book Five begins with this return (Psalm 107:2–3); and expresses hope God will enthrone another figure; a Messiah (Psalm 110:1); who will rule from Zion; his mountain (Psalm 110:2). Book Five features these Psalms of ascent people sang while climbing Zion; heading to the temple; longing to enter God’s glorious presence with this Messiah enthroned (Psalm 121:1). Then a series of Psalms of David where a suffering Messiah is crying out to God (Psalm 143:7). The book closes with five songs of praise (Psalm 146–150); the God of the mountain — Zion — reigning forever… (Psalm 146:10)
When you sing these songs; or read this book after exile, it creates this image of a suffering king; but also God enthroning a king with glory, bringing his people back to dwell on the mountain of the Lord. But, there is no king on the throne; the Psalms are waiting for fulfilment. Psalms 1 and 2 work as a prologue for this reading; depicting this king. Psalm 1, which we read a couple of weeks ago — describes a blessed one (Psalm 1:1), who delights in God’s word; meditating on it day and night (Psalm 1:2); They are a fruitful Eden person — an image of God (Psalm 1:3) — the Law instructs God’s king to dwell on God’s word like this; writing their own copy, keeping it with them always (Deuteronomy 17:18, 19).
Psalm 2 pictures the nations raging against God and his anointed — his Messiah (Psalm 2:2) — this king is installed on God’s mountain; Zion (Psalm 2:6). God’s Son. Words echoed in Jesus’ baptism; at the transfiguration and as Hebrews describes him enthroned in glory (Psalm 2:7).
The kings of the earth rise up
and the rulers band together
against the Lord and against his anointed…
“I have installed my king
on Zion, my holy mountain.”
I will proclaim the Lord’s decree:
He said to me, “You are my son…”Psalm 2:2, 6–7
When Jesus says he fulfils the Psalms this is what he means.
When we read and sing these songs, we picture Jesus glorified and exalted as the king who suffered and is glorified; enthroned, reigning beside God; inviting us to ascend the mountain — singing these songs — entering his glorious presence; by his Spirit; to become transfigured — radiant — as we encounter him and respond with praise.
The task of reading Scripture is not just about analysing the ingredients — or recipe — in them, our king says “let them eat cake;” he invites us to come to him and to taste and see that he is good and glorious.