The story of Queen Vashti (Esther 1) teaches us that women should not parade themselves in front of men who do not respect them. The story of Ham dishonoring his father Noah (Gen 9:18-29) teaches us that it is wrong to dishonor our parents. The story of David and Bathsheba (2 Sam 11) teaches us that men need to have accountability partners instead of surrounding themselves with “yes-men.”
These are just a few real life examples I have personally encountered in the church of how Christians often use Biblical narratives in their preaching and teaching. It is very common for Christians to read Biblical narratives as if the point of them is to give us moral lessons by providing us with a series of good and bad examples of human behavior. This manner of reading biblical narratives is deeply flawed and gives rise to arbitrary interpretations that frequently miss what God’s word is actually telling to us.
The Narrative Genre
Many Christians use the Bible as a kind of magic book, a collection of short sayings and stories that we can apply to our daily lives (The late, artificial division of the Bible into chapters and short verses reinforces this approach). However, if we are going to take the Scriptures seriously, we need to read and interpret the Bible for what it actually is: a collection of 66 different texts written by various authors in various times and places, each with its particular literary genre. Each literary genre found in the Bible (law, prophecy, narrative, gospel, epistle, apocalyptic) communicates meaning in its own particular way, and we need to interpret each part of Scripture according to the message the original author intended to communicate by means of that literary genre. Only then can we begin to ask how that message might apply to our own lives.
Genres like law and epistle are relatively direct in how they communicate their theological message. However, the genre of narrative is often more indirect, since it spends a lot of time describing the actions of human characters. Descriptive (this is what happened) and prescriptive (this is what you should do) are two very different things.
The stories of the Bible often contain protagonists and antagonists, heroes and villains. Many Christians assume that if someone is the protagonist of a Biblical narrative, then they must be a righteous and godly person who is there to provide a good moral example to us. However, very often this is not the case. The Bible contains stories of real, flawed human beings who often do sinful and foolish things. Even Biblical protagonists are almost always deeply flawed characters who sometimes sin and make mistakes. Samson is a Biblical protagonist, and he slept with prostitutes, broke his Nazarite vows, and went on murderous rampages of personal revenge. A description of a Biblical protagonist’s actions does not automatically translate into a theological teaching that we should follow their example.
Similarly, we cannot assume that all the actions of a Biblical antagonist are wrong and sinful. Biblical antagonists are real, complex characters that sometimes do the right thing and sometimes do the wrong thing. A description of a Biblical antagonist’s actions does not automatically translate into a theological teaching that we should avoid following their example. It is never legitimate simply to assume that a description of a character’s actions in a Biblical narrative is meant to give us an example of what we should or should not do.
The Theological Purpose of Biblical Narratives
So if Biblical narratives are not there to give us a bunch of moral examples to follow, then what is the point of Biblical narratives? Primarily, the purpose of Biblical narratives is to tell us something about God. God is the only character in the narratives of the Bible whose actions we can know are always right. By reading stories of God’s interactions with human beings in history, we can learn more of who God is, what He does for human beings, and what He asks of them in return. Really, the whole point of Scripture as a whole is to tell us who God is, what He has done for His covenant people, and what He expects of His covenant people in return. But while a genre such as law does this through God providing general teachings and commands, the genre of narrative does this in a more subtle manner, by providing concrete examples of how God has interacted with human beings throughout history.
In addition to communicating their theological message through descriptions of God’s actions in history, the authors of Biblical narratives communicate their theological message by providing their own theological commentary upon the events they are describing. For example, the author of Kings provides an assessment of the spiritual and moral conduct of each king of Israel and Judah; together, these contribute to the author’s overall theological purpose of explaining why God eventually sent His covenant people into exile. These explicit theological comments made by the narrator can clue us in on the theological message that the author is trying to convey through their narrative. So if the narrator says that a character’s actions are good or bad, then we can rightly look at that character’s actions as good or bad examples for us.
However, even here we must be careful. For example, I Kings 15: 5 states, “David had done what was right in the eyes of the LORD and had not turned aside from anything the LORD commanded all the days of his life, except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite.” However, II Samuel 24 records another time David sinned by taking a census of Israel. Additionally, David’s military career included such actions as exterminating every person in some villages he raided (I Sam 27: 8-11) and executing two thirds of the Moabite prisoners of war after conquering Moab (2 Sam 8:2); these are certainly not good moral examples that we should follow! The author of I Kings was using hyperbole in order to make a theological point about why God allowed the Davidic dynasty to continue as long as it did. Even if a Biblical narrator gives a positive assessment about a person’s character, we should be cautious about applying that to everything the person does in the story.
The Abuse of Biblical Narratives
Let’s return to the examples I gave at the beginning of this post. The book of Esther does not say anything one way or the other about whether Queen Vashti’s refusal to come when Emperor Xerxes commanded (Esther 1) was right or wrong. The only purpose of this episode in the book of Esther is to explain why Emperor Xerxes was looking for a new queen. To say that Queen Vashti’s actions provide a good example to us, when the text has nothing to say about this, is a misuse of the text.
In the episode of Ham dishonoring his father Noah, and Noah cursing Ham’s son Canaan in response (Gen 9:18-29), the book of Genesis does not say whether Ham’s or Noah’s actions were wrong or not; it merely describes them. The purpose of this episode in the book of Genesis is for Noah’s curse to foreshadow Israel’s invasion of Canaan. One can say that Ham’s actions were wrong, but that is an assessment brought in from outside the text, not something the text itself is teaching. To say that this text teaches us that we should honor our parents is a misuse of the text.
The story of David and Bathsheba (II Sam 11) does not give us enough information to know whether David was surrounded with “yes-men” or whether he committed adultery in spite of people telling him it was wrong. We know adultery is wrong because of God’s response to David’s actions, and because of what Scripture has to say about it elsewhere. But there is no basis for reading into the text our speculation that perhaps David did not have good accountability partners, and then using that speculation to provide a moral example for us today.
If we truly want to take the Bible seriously as God’s word, if we want to listen to God’s word and submit to its authority, then we must be careful to read and interpret the Bible according to the theological messages the authors are actually giving, and not the ones which we are reading into the text. As we interpret Biblical narratives, we must focus on what the actions of God in history and the inspired author’s theological commentary tell us about who God is, how He interacts with human beings, and what He requires of human beings in response. When we read Biblical narratives as if they merely are a series of good and bad examples of human behavior, we misuse the text of Scripture. This interpretive approach is arbitrary, and can distract us from hearing the true theological message of the text. Rather than (ab)using the text of Scripture to talk about what we want to say, we must listen to what God’s word is actually saying to us.