Why we need to be familiar with the whole of scripture

Two voices, one song*

In his letter to the church in Rome, Paul was writing to Christians who were at risk of believing that keeping the Jewish law was helpful, perhaps even necessary, for salvation. To help them understand that it was their faith in Jesus, not keeping the law, that put them right with God, he pointed out that Abraham was declared righteous by God before the covenant of circumcision was even introduced. He quoted Genesis 15:6, “And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.”

James' letter, on the other hand, was addressed to converts who, having rightly understood that they were saved by faith and no longer under the Jewish law, were at risk of going to the other extreme, thinking that they were free from all law. Any sort of “good work”, even loving a neighbour, could be seen as law-keeping and an attempt to win God’s favour.

He quoted the same verse from Genesis 15 that Paul used. But then he went on to say that this scripture “was fulfilled” just seven chapters later in Genesis 22:1-19, when God tested Abraham’s faith by asking him to sacrifice Isaac. Abraham had faith when he believed God’s promise in chapter 15, but that faith was demonstrated in his obedience in chapter 22.

Peter, writing to Christians who were being persecuted, says that they should see their trials as a test of their faith, to show that it is genuine. (1 Peter 1:6-7) Perhaps he too was thinking of Abraham’s faith being tested by God in Genesis 22.

Here we have an example of why we need to be familiar with the whole of scripture. If we don’t know the Old Testament, we’ll have no idea what Paul and James are talking about, and we’ll have even less chance of seeing the allusion to the Old Testament by Peter.

If we’re only familiar with a few verses from Paul, we’ll think that James has missed the point about “salvation by faith alone”, and we may be at risk of falling into the same error as the people James was writing to (though that was never Paul’s intention). If we only read James, we may fall into the opposite error. Knowing the whole helps us to make sense of the parts.


*Image by Ian MacKenzie, https://www.flickr.com/photos/madmack/424759185