Lesson 10 | Quotations & Allusions
Consider Genre
The Word of God is also not boring because it is varied in its type of literature and approach to conveying truth. Books like Genesis and the Gospels convey truth through a retelling of history. Books like Proverbs and James convey truth by laying out concise statements of the way things [generally] are. Books like Psalms and Lamentations convey truth through poetry steeped in emotion. And so too do prophetic books and epistles (i.e. letters) convey truth in yet other ways. This dynamic of conveying truth in a certain way is called “genre.”
Now this is a huge topic and could justify an entire course. But what is important for you to understand now is simply the reality of this dynamic. Let’s press that home through an example.
The Best Way to Prove Your Point?!
Think through Paul’s use of Psalm 44. Take a few minutes to read Romans 8:35 and then the portion quoted from Psalm 44 with the context provided.
In case you are unfamiliar with Romans 8, the fuller context makes absolutely clear that the answers to the two rhetorical questions in verse 35 are nothing and no. Nothing shall separate Christians from the love of Christ.
But why, then, does Paul use Psalm 44 (of all passages!) to demonstrate this?! The message of the entirety of Psalm 44 is well represented in the verses shown above…and it is inescapable. God, says the psalmist, has forgotten his people though they have been faithful. This leaves us with two questions that must be answered:
- Why is this psalm even in the Bible when its message so blatantly contradicts the rest of Scripture?
- Why would Paul seek to prove God’s faithful love to us in Christ with a psalm that decries God’s unfaithfulness?
It is tempting to wonder if these questions have any answer at all. But they do—and that answer is found by noting the genre.
The book of Psalms conveys truth through poetry steeped in emotion—and sometimes it is the struggle of emotion that is the truth being conveyed. This is made clear in Psalm 73.
13 All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence. 14 For all the day long I have been stricken and rebuked every morning. 15 If I had said, “I will speak thus,” I would have betrayed the generation of your children. Psalm 73:13-15
Verses 13-14 do not express the truth of reality. Verse 15 makes that clear. Rather, they express the truth of how deeply a follower of the living God can feel abandoned by God. Psalm 44 is the same genre and presenting a similar truth—except without the explicit commentary of Psalm 73.
And now we see why Psalm 44 is the best Scripture for Paul to quote in Romans 8. No other passage could so deeply and profoundly communicate the truth he is after: Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ—not even our doubts concerning his faithfulness brought on by the trials we face.