The following post is adapted from my Amazon bestselling book, Inductive Bible Study. If you would like to study God’s word but can’t afford a copy, reach out to us. I will gladly give you a free Kindle version of the book.
Understanding a biblical author’s purpose for writing his book 1) enables us to understand his message, 2) serves as a guide for personal application, and 3) is crucial for sermon preparation and delivery.
1. Understanding the writer’s purpose is crucial to understanding his message and the decisions he made about the content and structure of the passage.
I agree with Henry Virkler when he cautions us to “beware of interpreting any passage without first understanding the author’s intention in writing the entire work that contains it.”[i] When you know the purpose, you will see how everything he wrote and how he wrote it makes sense and goes to satisfy that purpose.[ii]
Purpose provides context for interpreting the words of all authors, both biblical and modern alike. Dr. Charles Bazerman, Professor, and Chair of the Department of Education at the University of California, Santa Barbara, says, “The writer’s overall purpose determines the techniques he or she uses.” As such, “understanding the writer’s underlying purpose will help you interpret the context of the writing. It will also help you see why writers make the decisions they do—from the largest decisions about what information to present to the smallest details of what words to use.”[iii] Bazerman adds that “because the writer’s purpose is realized through the specifics of words in combination, the writer’s technique is present in every sentence and in every word, as well as in the larger groupings of paragraphs.”[iv] As a result of this purpose-driven selectivity, “being aware of the writer’s purpose when you read helps you evaluate how well the writer has achieved the purpose and decide whether you want to follow where the writer is trying to lead you.” That’s why “the active reader reads more than the words and more than even the ideas: the active reader reads what the writer is doing. The active reader reconstructs the overall design, both the writer’s purpose and the techniques used to realize that purpose.”[v]
An author’s purpose is crucial for understanding his message because it determines all the seven components of a passage. It determines the content, context addressed, genre, tone, words, grammar, raw materials, divisions, and the structure of their message.[vi] The why (purpose) determines the what, how, where, when, and whom.
Authors craft each aspect of their writing to achieve their overall purpose. For example, if I wanted to write to show my wife how much I love her, I might write a love poem. If I wanted to tell my children our family’s history, I would write a narrative. My purpose for writing informs everything I do to produce my composition because I have an effect in mind I want to elicit or create in my audience after they read my writing.
The four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) have the same topic—namely, the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Even though all the evangelists had access to the same basic information about Jesus, the contents and structures are different.[vii] When you look at a harmony of the Gospels, you’ll quickly realize that the authors exercised selectivity in what they chose to cover. Some covered certain parts but left others out. Their structures also differ. These differences are attributable to their different purposes. For example, Matthew was Jewish and wrote to a Jewish audience waiting for a Messiah. His purpose was to prove to them that Jesus was the Messiah and eternal King for whom they had been waiting. That explains why Matthew starts his book with the words, “A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham” (Matt. 1:1). The Messiah had to be a descendant of David, and Matthew starts his book by providing that information (content). And that influences how the book begins. It begins as a list of these genealogies.
In a Gospel that is 28 chapters long, Matthew only uses chapters one and two to mention brief details about the first thirty years of Jesus’ life. He devotes the remaining chapters to covering the three years of Jesus’ public ministry life. His purpose determined everything he wrote.
Simon Sinek wrote a popular leadership book titled, Start with Why. In it, Sinek shows us that great leaders like Wilbur and Orville Wright (inventors of their airplane), Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs (cofounders of Apple), and Martin Luther King Jr (the Civil Rights icon) inspire people to act by starting with “why.” In their communication, these leaders start with “why,” then “how,” then “what.”[viii] To understand what they said, one must first understand their “why.” Like these extra-biblical authors, Bible authors were driven by compelling purposes and wrote to inspire people to say yes to God (Jer. 20:9; 1 Cor. 9:16). Many were tortured, crucified, and martyred for preaching God’s word. They rejected offers to stop teaching and writing to save their very own lives.[ix] The passion that drove them to write shaped what they wrote and how they wrote.
God (the ultimate author of the books of the Bible) is a purpose-driven creator. Everything he makes has a purpose (Prov 16:4). He sends his word on purpose, and the Scriptures testify about its efficacy, saying, God’s word will not return to Him empty but will accomplish what He desires and achieve the purpose for which he sent it (Isa 55:10-11).
Biblical authors wrote to persuade, inform, teach, rebuke, correct, encourage, comfort, train (in righteousness), and more. Whatever their purpose was, it determined what, when, where, how, and to whom they wrote. If you want to understand a biblical author, start by figuring out his why (purpose) for writing that specific piece. And, if possible, we should determine their life’s “why” as well. That will help us understand their message much more clearly.
2. Understanding purpose guides personal application
Haddon Robinson defines the purpose of a sermon as “what one expects to happen in the hearer as a result of hearing this sermon.”[x] Bible author’s also had a purpose—outcomes, effects, or results they wanted to bring about in their original readers’ lives. Their purpose wasn’t merely to solve a problem but to bring about life change or transformation. They didn’t write simply to put out fires. Instead, they wrote to create a certain heart (attitude or character), mind, and behavior pattern in their readers. They wanted to see Christ formed in them (Gal. 4:19). We must discover those purposes, outcomes, or fruits and seek to yield them in our own lives as we apply those passages.
3. It facilitates sermon preparation and preaching
For those who preach, every sermon needs to have a purpose or outcome that the preacher wants to bring about in the listeners’ lives. That purpose is must mirror the purpose the biblical writer had for his original audience.
Understanding the author’s purpose is essential, whether we want to apply God’s word to ourselves (as we should) or preach it to build up others (as we may be privileged to do).
References
[i] Henry A. Virkler and Karelynne Ayayo, Hermeneutics, 86.
[ii] For example, to write this book, the first thing I did was write a purpose statement for the book and send a copy to my coach. Everything I have written in this book was guided by that purpose statement. That’s what my coach and I used to judge my success during the book writing process. My purpose statement read, “This textbook is designed to teach you the general principles of inductive Bible study (as part of a holistic strategy of spiritual formation) so that you would be able to conduct a basic inductive Bible study on any passage following the approach of observation, interpretation, and application.”
The subject matter for this book is study methods or, to narrow it a little, Bible study methods. There is a vast amount of material available on Bible study methods from which I could choose. My purpose helped guide me to focus on Inductive Bible study. The three major sections of this book, namely: observation, interpretation, and application, come right out of my purpose statement. They help me organize the book and ensure that I teach the student how to do each of the major things stated in my purpose statement. By doing so, I will achieve my purpose. I carefully chose everything I put in this book and how it was arranged to help fulfill that purpose. I thought about my audience and chose from within my available vocabulary words I believe they would understand. Nothing is in this book by chance.
My purpose statement only stated my main purpose. I have other complementary purposes. For example, in addition to the purposes already stated above, I earnestly pray and seek through this book to help young people realize that the same exact methods they will learn in this book can be applied to transform their academic life, their decision making process, and help them succeed in life beyond their wildest imaginations. This is in addition to, and as a result of, their ability to study God’s word better. In their own way, these secondary purposes all shape the choices I make as I communicate in this book.
[iii] Charles Bazerman, The Informed Writer: Using Sources in the Disciplines (Fort Collins: The WAC Clearinghouse, 2010), 103-104, https://wac.colostate.edu/docs/books/informedwriter/informedwriter.pdf.
[iv] Ibid.
[v] Ibid.
Chapter 6: Determine the Author’s Purpose
[vi] This is also true for speaking such as delivering a speech, etc.
[vii] 1. Howard T. Kuist, These Words Upon Thy Heart: Scripture and the Christian Response (Richmond, VA: John Knox Press, 1947), 91.
[viii] Simon Sinek, Start with why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action (London: Penguin, 2011), 2-7.
[ix] John Foxe, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs (London: Frederick Warne and Co., 1869), 7-46.
[x] Haddon W. Robinson, Biblical Preaching, 96.
