6: When the Bible Breaks the Fourth Wall

(00:01) Stephanie: Season 4, Episode 6. Hello, Father.

(00:05) Marcus: Hello, Daughter. Here we are, one more time. I think we’re wrapping up our series this week, aren’t we? The STORIES checklist, got it.

(00:12) Stephanie: Well, we’re wrapping up the STORIES checklist. We still have to talk about interpretation and application.

(00:20) Marcus: You can tell who does all the work on this podcast job.

(00:23) Stephanie: I was not planning to take quite so many. We needed to know what the tools were. We have to put the tools in our toolbox so that we can make all of our observations and hunt for the clues, and then we’ll give some strategies for what to do with those clues once you have them. So it’ll be fun.

Also, I don’t want to forget to remind everyone, the Spirit in Scripture course is still live for pre-orders and that is coming out in October. We’re very excited. If you are enjoying this series, then you will enjoy the Spirit in Scripture course. It’s really fun.

So yeah, let’s go ahead and dig into 3-2-1 Bible Study Method. We are wrapping up STORIES. So we’ve been through Speeches, Terms, Order, Repetition, Intros. We’re ready for Edits. Now, for people who are like, “We’re talking about Bible study and we’re talking about edits, that sounds sketchy,” let’s give some explanation here. What does that mean?

(01:37) Marcus: Edits, yeah. Editorial comments is the actual phrase and even that sounds sketchy to people, so let me explain. An editorial comment is where the author breaks the, kind of what they call the fourth wall in moviemaking, and talks directly to the audience instead of just telling the story or relaying information. For example, if you’re reading through First Kings, and First King 17 is this massive event that takes place, and it is the exile of the Northern Kingdom. As the Assyrians come in, they destroy everything. There’s a whole chapter devoted to it, but it’s fascinating to notice that the author doesn’t take that chapter explaining how it happened. We don’t get the military strategy that was used. We don’t know the names of all the generals. We don’t hear the battles laid out.

(02:34) Stephanie: We get more of a play-by-play in (the book of) Daniel in a prophecy than we do in this moment.

(02:38) Marcus: Yes, it’s true. When you think about it, this is a massive historical event, but it’s not presented to us with the history primarily in mind. There are three verses like, “Here.” “Here’s what happened in the whole rest of the chapter,” is an editorial comment, right? And you think about a newspaper. You’ve got news articles and then you’ve got the editorial page. Now, these days, obviously, they get blended.

There is this thing here where authors are telling you the narrative, but then they break from the narrative to give you the explanation, or to tell you some things directly as an editorial comment on what they are sharing. Most of that chapter is an editorial comment where the author is telling us all this happened because of Israel’s idolatry. He could have said that in one sentence, right? “All of this happened because of Israel’s idolatry,” but he took a whole chapter just laying out all the ways in which they had completely disregarded the law of Moses, they had completely forsaken the Lord, they had engaged in every kind of abomination and idolatrous thing, and this is what had to happen.

(03:51) Stephanie: And like I said last episode, it’s a huge clue when you see words and phrases like “so that” or “because”. For instance, in 2 Kings 17: 7:

And this occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh, King of Egypt and had feared other gods and walked in the customs of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel and in the customs that the kings of Israel had practiced. 

So it just says it right there, and then it keeps unpacking it, right? It keeps unpacking it, and that’s not even like the only thing, but there’s a clear little intro to this editorial comment.

(04:37) Marcus: Yes, so that word “because”, “this happened because,” well, that’s now changing from telling narrative to talking to you and interpreting it for you. And so an editorial comment is just, I always say, the author is interpreting something directly for us to make sure that we don’t miss it. And it can be, “this location used to be called something else,” to something like…

(05:02) Stephanie: “It’s still here to this day.”

(05:04) Marcus: “Still here to this day…and you can still see these stones to this day,” which we can’t today, in some of those cases, but it was to that original audience. And that’s what we’re talking about with editorial comments. It’s noticing, “Where does the author break in?”

So let me give you a few examples. One of the first places I began to notice this was Ecclesiastes, because you often hear people say Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes. And I’m like well, sort of.

There’s a reason to get a little more nuanced than that because there’s an introduction to it where someone is saying all of these things were collected writings of Kohelet. Now we think Kohelet is Solomon, but somebody has collected Kohelet’s writings and then occasionally makes comments on those writings and says, “and then Kohelet said this. “

And then at the end of the book, it’s like, “Now wrapping this all up, what was it Kohelet was saying? And how do we understand? What should our takeaway be?” And there are only a couple of options here. That’s either Solomon playing both roles, or that somebody else collected Solomon’s writings and wanted people to be aware of it and lay it out.

And so you notice things like that, and just noticing the editorial comment directly to us, like, “I’m telling you about Kohelet, this is my take on what Kohelet is saying,” that helps you to see other things, and that opens the door to other observations. Like, “Well, if that’s the case, then maybe I should be reading it with a little bit different perspective.”

(06:42) Stephanie: And whether or not you know, whoever wrote it, it was clearly organized that way intentionally.

(06:48) Marcus: It was organized that way intentionally. It was a strategy of the author. So we need to notice those strategies, make those observations and begin asking ourselves questions about them. So that’s an example. We could go to a lot of places in scripture because any time that the author is not just relaying a story, but is giving you a key to the interpretation of the story directly, it’s something we need to pay attention to.

Judges is another one. We see it a couple of times in there. There’s this whole cycle that happens in Judges where we see the repetition: they did evil in the eyes of the Lord, Yahweh got angry, and then Yahweh sent somebody to execute judgment on them. They cry out to the Lord and the Lord raises up a judge to deliver them and there is a time of rest.

And we see this cycle over and over and over again. We also see the explanation directly given to us in, as the author says, “These things happen because after the elders of Joshua’s generation passed away, the next generation didn’t know the Torah and they didn’t follow God.” And so you pay attention to those things.

And again, in both of these things we’ve talked about in Second Kings, I think I said First Kings the first time, in Second Kings 17 and in Judges and other passages, in both cases you have this word “because”, like, “Let me tell you why this was happening and let me give you some explanation.” So that’s what we mean by an editorial comment is, “I’m giving you an interpretation of this and not just laying out the facts.”

(08:35) Stephanie: Yeah, I think it’s all so helpful. It’s easy to grab the ones where it says “because”, or it literally will be framed in a parenthetical or something. But, you brought up John 6, “Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews was at hand” as an editorial comment or as a narrative statement that you could put into this category. Could you unpack why that would be?

(09:01) Marcus: Yes, so adding that little phrase, “Hey, I want you to know that this took place at the Passover feast,” now provides a context for interpreting the rest of what’s gonna happen. What happens next is Jesus feeds the 5,000, he gives a speech about eating his flesh and drinking his blood, and it drives people away. People are like, “This guy’s, I don’t know. The miracles were cool, but we’re not sure this is what we signed up for.” And people are leaving.

But you have to understand that this editorial comment at the beginning where he says, “I want you to know this is happening at the Passover,” sets us up. There are other little ones that aren’t quite editorial comments, but they’re interesting, nuanced expressions that the author puts in to set the stage for something.

Another one in the Gospel of John that’s really interesting is the end of John chapter two. It says that many people were putting their trust in Jesus, but Jesus wasn’t putting his trust in them. He didn’t trust them, it says, because he knew what was in a man. And the next line is, “Now there was a man…” And you’re like, Jesus knew what was in a man. “Now there was a man of the Pharisees. His name was Nicodemus.”

And so it’s setting us up to recognize that Jesus knows exactly what Nicodemus needs. He’s looking into his heart. He’s looking in there, he knows what’s in him, and he doesn’t just judge him and condemn him for it. Though there is that statement, “How is it you, as a teacher of Israel, don’t know this?” But he doesn’t end it there. He then says, “So you’ve got a problem, let me tell you what the solution is. The solution is faith in me, and it’s following me. And I’m going to prepare you to interpret what is about to happen at the end of my life because when I am lifted up, I want you to know what that means when you see me on the cross.” He lays it out for them.

I’ve said this many times: Jesus dying on the cross begs for interpretation, because here’s this Jewish rabbi / prophet person who’s been going around and he is now crucified and you’ve got to interpret that.

(11:18) Marcus: And people are like, “His whole ministry ended in failure.” That’s an interpretation. Or, the Romans got another one, “Poor guy, the Romans win again.” And so how do we know that when Jesus was on the cross that he was dying for the sins of the whole world and that he was opening the gates to eternal life? How do we know that? We know that because of prophecy.

And that is, that this event was foretold in the Old Testament. It was foretold by Jesus. When it was foretold, it was interpreted so that when you see this, you will know this is what it means. So sometimes that comes out. Now, in our case, this is from the speeches. Sometimes there’s the equivalent of an editorial comment, but it’s put into the mouth of a character. And in this case, Jesus is actually just doing his own interpretive preparation.

We’ll get there, but you get the idea that these categories are not meant to be silos. They’re meant to be gateways, right? We enter into them and then the one gateway leads us to another gateway, leads us to another gateway. Before we know it, it’s like, “I see where this is going.” And that’s kind of how this works.

(12:32) Stephanie: We’re Hansel and Gretel, picking up clues, but hopefully not to a scary house, along the way, I just also have to say, my other side comment that’s more on the trail, is that John is just hands down one of my favorite writers in the Bible. In terms of his artistry and the way he pieces things together, he’s really good at what he does.

(13:00) Marcus: John, as a craftsman and an author, is remarkably talented, yes.

(13:07) Stephanie: Yes! I love it. All right, let’s move to Shifts. So a shift is a change in the scene, or a change in genre, or a change in point of view or location, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. You’ve been bringing them up..

(13:51) Marcus: We’ve touched on this many times: shifts, noticing shifts. Is this a shift in location? Is it a shift in scene? Did the author wrap something up with an intro and a conclusion and now he’s giving you another intro and conclusion? Now has there been a shift in perspective from the point of view of God to the point of view of a participant in the story, to the point of view of you as the reader?

(13:51) Stephanie: We were with Nebuchadnezzar and now we’re with Daniel.

(13:53) Marcus: Exactly. So we’re looking at this through Nebuchadnezzar’s eyes, through Daniel’s eyes, through the eyes of the divine council looking down on it. Whose eyes are we looking at this through? That’s a shift. There’s a shift in scene, obviously.

The first one that really grabbed me was shifts in genre. And that may seem subtle, but when an author is writing stories and then he all of a sudden is telling you a genealogy, that’s not a story anymore. Why did he do that? Why shift from telling me the story to giving me this genealogy? And if the author shifts from telling you back to back to back stories and all of a takes three chapters to tell you one sermon, you’re like, “Wait a second, he just changed genre there.” Recording a lengthy speech is a different way of communicating than just writing out this fast paced narrative that he was doing beforehand.

If you insert a poem in there that is lengthy, you’re like, “Okay, the author clearly wants me to pause and pay attention to something here.The author’s put this poem in there.” Paying attention to the fact that something has changed and the author is employing a different strategy here is a shift. And I want to get good at identifying and recognizing when shifts have taken place because that’s often a clue to other things.

Again, any one of these can be the entry point that leads you to something else. Knowing a shift could be the thing that makes you notice repetition, which could be the thing that makes you recognize the order and the arrangement that the author has done, which may open your eyes to the fact, “Wow! He actually has an introduction and a conclusion here now that I see all this.”

In other words, you’re never sure which one of these observations is going to lead you to more observations. But the goal is that they all work together to guide you to this idea that the author had a strategy. The author is employing specific strategies, and recognizing those strategies can guide you to his intended message.

(16:02) Stephanie: I want to dig more into that thought. Do you have any concrete examples, or anything to leave people with for shifts? If they wanted to go see it for themselves an example of a shift.

(16:17) Marcus: Well, there are a lot of them, but the first one that pops into my mind, I think I already mentioned, is in John chapter one. It starts with this introduction about the logos, the word, the word becomes flesh, and the word dwelt among us, and he revealed his glory, and in him we’ve seen the glory of God. So you’ve got this introduction, and then you have a shift, and he starts telling narrative. He said, “Now, some people from the Jewish religious leaders came to see John, and they asked him his story.”

And then you have, “and the next day.” And so now you’ve got repetition of time-capsuling things starting to happen. The next day, then the next day, then the 10th hour, now the third day. And you start putting together the repetition of these time frames. Each one of those creates a shift. Like, we’re on a new day now, and sometimes we’re in a completely new setting. So they leave the Jordan and they go up to Galilee and now they’re in Cana. But it’s all the same week.

And you can kind of see, “Okay, so it took them two days ago from the Jordan River up to Cana where they were at, so that makes sense. So that’s why it was the third day.” And you just start piecing these things together. You looked at it and it started with noticing a shift. All right, there was a shift from the introduction about introducing us to the word who’s made flesh, and now I’m going to tell you a story. And then that story ends with a conclusion.

And the conclusion is, with his first miraculous sign, Jesus revealed his glory and people put their faith in him, which is the point of the story, the whole book. And so if you’re looking for an example, John is probably the easiest book to start picking up and practicing this checklist with because he does such a genius job of using these strategies.

And so if somebody’s like, “Where do I start?” I’d say start with the gospel of John and just start using the checklist to go through that. And I think you’ll really enjoy the things that start popping out at you.

(18:19) Stephanie: And I just want to throw people into the deep end, so I’m going to recommend also, if you are someone who gets bogged down in books like Leviticus or Numbers or things like this, I would recommend, there are many more stories in those books than you might think, and it can be really easy to get bogged down in, “This is how the tabernacle is,” or “This is the commandments,” but if you look at the shifts where the stories are, and kind of use those as anchor points, that might be an approach to try to unpack what’s going on there a little bit more.

(19:17) Marcus: And the book of Numbers is, again, kind of like the Gospel of John, highly structured. Once you start looking through books like Leviticus and Numbers through this lens, they get a lot more interesting because you start realizing, “The author is using all kinds of strategies here. I need to pay attention to them.”

(19:17) Stephanie: On that note, let’s wrap up the episode with “How to use This Checklist: Do’s and Don’ts”

(19:25) Marcus: Yeah, so the main “don’t” here is, don’t use these things like silos, and that is, “Okay, I’ve done all the speeches, now I’m doing all the terms, and now I’m doing the order, and now I’m doing the repetition.” That is just gonna frustrate you, because these are not meant to be silos. Somebody said, “You should do a study Bible and just highlight all these things,” and that’d be fine, but there’d be a lot of passages that are highlighted in five colors because this isn’t a siloed experience.

You’ve gotta think of these as, “These are clues that I’m noticing, and to get where I wanna go, I’ve gotta bring the clues together. I’ve gotta notice how this clue connects to that clue, how this strategy connects with this strategy,” and then you see how they combine to take us someplace. And so all of these are doorways, and any one of them could be the aha moment that makes you realize what they were doing with another strategy.

My hope and my prayer is that this becomes a pathway to help you get more out of your Bible study. And clearly, the more you can dive into the original language is great, but anybody reading their English Bible can pick up about 80% of this. So I think it’s a good tool and I’m really grateful that we’re discussing it.

(20:46) Stephanie: I would just add that, you we call it a checklist and I realize sometimes if you have a to-do list that’s your checklist and I need to accomplish each of these things. And so there’s that temptation of,  “I’m studying this passage. I need to find each element of STORIES in this passage.”

Every element isn’t always going to be in everything that you’re studying and so they’re not all always going to be there. Sometimes they’re all there all at once because, like you said, things are highlighted five times. It’s more of a checklist of, “Are you remembering to look for this sort of thing? Are you keeping this in mind as you are looking for your clues?”

(21:22) Marcus: Right, I look at it similar to the five engines in emotional healing. It’s a checklist of things to look at, “Have I dealt with this or have I skipped this?” I have this kind of rubric in my mind as I’m approaching scripture. And I agree. You’re not going to find every one of them in every single passage, but you want to have that in mind to make sure that you’re looking for them and noticing them when they show up.

(21:49) Stephanie: Because you don’t know what you don’t know, it’s a tool that’s like, “I wouldn’t have even thought to look at this angle or to look for this thing.”  And so now you know to look.

All right. Well, very good. Any other things you want to cover in the do’s and don’ts?

(22:09) Marcus: Those are the main ones. The “don’ts” is don’t turn it into a silo and the “do” is to let them work together. Let one thing lead you to another thing, lead you to another thing. Part of it is to just experience the joy of discovery. You’re going, “I never saw that before. Wow! Look at that. That’s so obvious now that I’m looking at it like this.” And, there’s a joy in Bible study that comes from those aha moments where you’re like, “I had never seen that before, but that makes so much sense.” That’s kind of what we’re after here as part of the joy of the journey of discovery.

(22:44) Stephanie: Amen. If this episode encouraged you, imagine the impact it could have on someone halfway around the world. We’re passionate about creating free resources that help believers experience freedom, healing, and kingdom impact. And we’re able to do that because of generous listeners like you. If you’d like to pay it forward and help us reach even more people in over 100 countries, visit deeperwalk.com/payitforward

Thank you so much, everyone who is on this journey with us. We’re so happy to be able to be talking Bible with you and just all around the world. It’s awesome. Father, next episode we’re going to be getting into Interpretation. Any final thoughts for Observation?

(23:31) Marcus: Well, I’ll just say that most of Bible study is observation. Most of what we’re doing in Bible study isn’t interpretation, it’s noticing the things that are there to be noticed. And the good news here is if it’s in the text, it’s probably important. So you’re looking at it going, “I want to notice what is included, what’s left out”. Just like we were looking earlier at second Kings 17. It’s like, “That is not the way I would have written that.”

Sometimes it’s helpful for me to put myself in that perspective. Like, “If I was telling this story, what things would have been important to me? And how would I have written that?” And sometimes that mindset makes it jump out just how differently the author is telling the story. And now you’re asking, “Why? Why is the author telling it this way? What is the author in fact highlighting? What is the author in fact drawing my attention to? How is it all working together?” And that’s kind of what this is meant to do. And the more accurate I am with that, the more of those observations I make, the easier the interpretation becomes.

(24:38) Stephanie: Good word. I look forward to digging into more next week.