The Bible tells me so.

God told Israel not to eat pork (Lev. 11:7-8). But can I eat pork? Most Christians today do not think it is wrong for them to eat pork chops (if they like them).

This instruction in Leviticus was addressed to ancient Israel. However, the New Testament indicates that, at least non-Jews, are free to eat anything today (Mark 7:19; Rom. 14:2, 14:14). We can certainly learn lessons from God’s prohibition from eating pork – it is still Scripture for us. But that instruction was not written to us.

Reading the Old Testament Through the New Testament Lens

This example highlights another important factor in inductive Bible study. The Bible as a whole is a choir of voices, not a monotone. The story throughout the Bible is a movement, not a static repetition. You may have heard the old statement, “The New is in the Old concealed; the Old is in the New revealed.” Paul talks about how the good news of Jesus was “hidden for long ages past” (Rom. 16:25).

What this means is that we need to read the Old Testament with the full understanding of the New Testament in view. Before we apply Old Testament instruction to us today, we should read it through the lens of the New Testament. In theory, you could read the instruction in Leviticus 1-5 on sacrifice and think to yourself, “I need to start sacrificing sheep and other animals to God.” There is nothing inductively in Leviticus that would lead you to think otherwise.

But when we read Leviticus through the eyes of Christ, we realize that “Christ is the culmination of the law” (Rom. 10:4). We read the book of Hebrews and realize that the death of Jesus on the cross has made the offering of animal sacrifices no longer necessary (Heb. 10:18). In fact, Ephesians 2:14-15 says that Christ has destroyed the parts of the Jewish Law that separated Jew and Gentile.

It is thus clear that, when we are applying the biblical text to today, we should read the Old Testament with the full understanding of the New Testament in hand.

Harmonizing Apparent Contradictions: A Holistic Approach to Scripture

Similarly, we should take into account what the whole New Testament teaches in the process of applying an individual verse to today. We have seen that, because the books of the New Testament were written to different audiences to address different situations, some verses might sound like they contradict each other. Digging into the context of each passage often helps us resolve these sorts of tensions.

For example, take the following verses:

• “A person is justified by faith apart from the works of law” (Rom. 3:28).
• “A person is justified by works and not by faith alone” (James 2:24).

These two verses sound like they are in conflict with each other. But they really aren’t. Taking into account the context of each helps resolve the apparent conflict.

True faith, for Paul, will result in “works” in your life, just like James says a person must have. Paul might say that, if your faith does not result in “works,” your faith was not legitimate faith in the first place. Ephesians 2:10 says that we were created for good works in Christ, even though they will not save us in themselves (Eph. 2:8-9). Paul even says that God will evaluate our works in the judgment (2 Cor. 5:10). 

Similarly, James is concerned with someone who might believe in God with their head (like the demons do, James 2:19) but not in a way that results in any life change. This is not the kind of faith that Paul was talking about. Paul would agree with James that God will not consider such individuals to be right with him.

So, when we take the “whole counsel of God” into account (Acts 20:27), we see that these two verses do not contradict each other. 

However, you can also see that I might have easily gotten the wrong impression if I had only read one verse and not the other. It is important to read individual passages in the light of the whole Bible so that we know we are applying them correctly. 

When we look at some of the issues that Christians debate today, it is easy for one side to say, “You are not following Scripture.” But in most cases, each side is rather emphasizing different passages. Both sides are, as the Reformation affirmed, “using Scripture to interpret Scripture.” They just see different Scriptures as the focal points. They see different Scriptures as the “clear” ones and different Scriptures as the “unclear” ones.

For example, if you take debates over women in ministry today, both sides strongly believe that they are following Scripture.

• One side sees as the center the general principle of Pentecost (Acts 2:17) and the full redemption of Christ without partiality (Gal. 3:28), coupled with the actual example of the early church (e.g., Acts 18:26; Rom. 16:1, 7). It often sees 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 as a comment on disruptive speech and 1 Timothy 2:12 in relation to the situation at Ephesus.
• The other side interprets all the other passages through the lens of 1 Timothy 2:12. Assuming that 1 Timothy 2:12 is a universal statement, it restricts the application of the principles in Acts 2 or Galatians 3 to matters of salvation or perhaps women only prophesying in specific contexts. Verses on women leaders are often translated differently (e.g., in the ESV) or assumed to involve limitations that are not mentioned in the text.

Again, you can see how important it is to read the whole counsel of God when we begin to think about applying the biblical texts to today.

The Whole Counsel of God: Integrating the Entire Biblical Narrative

You might remember the children’s song, “Jesus loves me.” It ends by saying, “the Bible tells me so.” The Bible is not just one book or one passage or one verse. It is a whole Bible. Discerning the whole counsel of God has to do with discerning a biblical theology on a topic. A biblical theology has to take into account all of Scripture.

Because the books of the Bible were written individually, separately from each other, they do not usually tell us how to fit all the other books together with them. We are forced to do this task looking at the text from the outside. It is a largely “extra-biblical” task. The Bible provides the content, but we are largely forced to connect the content together from the outside looking in. The fact that there are different ways to do this task is one of the main reasons why there are so many different denominations.

As such, integrating Scripture is a task that is just too big for one person do to. We need each other to make sure we are properly discerning the Spirit. This is why it is important for us to read Scripture together in a community of faith.

The early church processed Scripture with the question of what the essence of its teaching might be. Some today might call this integration of all the Bible’s teaching a “biblical worldview.” They came up with what we might call the “rule of faith” and the “law of love.” The early church understood the rule of faith to be the rock bottom beliefs of the Bible. They summed it up in what we call the Apostle’s Creed today.

The law of love is the love command of Matthew 22:36-40. When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, he summed it up as “Love God and love neighbor.” All the commands of Scripture, all its exhortations, can be summed up in this command to love (cf. Rom. 13:8-10). The Bible tells me so.