New Creation Conversations Episode 057 - Dr. Michael Graves on What the Early Church and the Biblical Writers Themselves Teach Us About Interpreting the Bible

Welcome to episode fifty-seven of New Creation Conversations. In today’s conversation I’m very excited to be joined by Dr. Michael Graves. Michael is Professor of Biblical Studies at Wheaton College. Michael is an alum of Wheaton, he has a master’s degree from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and earned another master’s degree and his PhD from Hebrew Union College. Michael has written several excellent books on biblical interpretation including The Inspiration and Interpretation of Scripture: What the Early Church Can Teach Us (Eerdmans, 2014); Biblical Interpretation in the Early Church (Fortress, 2017), and he contributed one of the volumes – the Commentary on Jeremiah – in the Ancient Christian Texts series (IVP Academic, 2012).

His most recent book is, How Scripture Interprets Scripture: What Biblical Writers Can Teach Us about Reading the Bible – just recently released from Baker Academic. One of the great gifts of the last five hundred years is that every day Christians can have the Bible in their own hands, in their own language. Although this is an amazing blessing, the challenge it creates is that every Christian with their own Bible also becomes their own interpreter. That’s where the work of scholars like Dr. Graves can be so helpful. Michael’s interest and passion is not only to help people interpret the bible well in the present, but also to help all of us interpret God’s Word in connection to the great biblical interpreters of the past. I found our conversation helpful, thoughtful, and enriching; and I know you will too.