Jun 17, 2026 · 39 min · 11 segments
Matt Harmon and Ben Gladd talk with Mary Hannah about Old Testament theology, biblical theology in the local church, Christ-centered interpretation, moral application, and how ordinary Christians can…
Mary HannaGuest
Matt HarmonHost
Ben GladHost
When you have a difficult text, how does the storyline of the Bible, redemptive history, play a role in interpreting that text, that difficult text? Do you try to situate it within it? How do you work with a tricky text?
Well, I mean, for example, when I've done a good bit of my work in Deuteronomy and Deuteronomic ethics in particular, so you've always got to be situating it in the ancient Near Eastern context, but then also in the redemptive historical context.
And, you know, you all know this better than I, but one of the first questions we tend to ask when we read a dicey and extra spicy,
ethical text is, One of the first questions we tend to ask is, how does this strike me in my current context with my Western egalitarian ethics, etc.? But, of course, we've got to ask first, how would this have struck the original audience? And that helps us understand a bit more of the author's aim and what the ethical passage is getting at.
And so, of course, presupposed in that is an understanding of redemptive history and how, at that point, we ain't there yet.
Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, I would try to see, I would look around the text, see if I have any anchors where I can say, well, I know what's going on before it.
And then do I have any Old Testament allusions or quotations within that difficult text that I could go back, I could reflect on? Those are the sorts of things.
Yeah, I think just having an awareness, I think both of you know this, there's an awareness that when you read the Bible over and over again, you start to understand it better.
When you have a difficult text, how does the storyline of the Bible, redemptive history, play a role in interpreting that text, that difficult text? Do you try to situate it within it? How do you work with a tricky text?
Well, I mean, for example, when I've done a good bit of my work in Deuteronomy and Deuteronomic ethics in particular, so you've always got to be situating it in the ancient Near Eastern context, but then also in the redemptive historical context.
And, you know, you all know this better than I, but one of the first questions we tend to ask when we read a dicey and extra spicy,
ethical text is, One of the first questions we tend to ask is, how does this strike me in my current context with my Western egalitarian ethics, etc.? But, of course, we've got to ask first, how would this have struck the original audience? And that helps us understand a bit more of the author's aim and what the ethical passage is getting at.
And so, of course, presupposed in that is an understanding of redemptive history and how, at that point, we ain't there yet.
Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, I would try to see, I would look around the text, see if I have any anchors where I can say, well, I know what's going on before it.
And then do I have any Old Testament allusions or quotations within that difficult text that I could go back, I could reflect on? Those are the sorts of things.
Yeah, I think just having an awareness, I think both of you know this, there's an awareness that when you read the Bible over and over again, you start to understand it better.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
