We’ve been walking through Matthew 21 for the past week or so. I mentioned once that Jesus was quoting from the Bible as it was then even as he was living what would become the next part of the Bible. (Said less confusingly, he was quoting what we know as the Old Testament while he was living out the beginning of the New Testament.)

Here’s how he used scripture:

• Jesus quoted little bits of passages. It’s likely that the people around him knew the whole passages that he was referring to. It was a bit like when someone quotes a phrase from a movie that everyone knows and we all suddenly nod and smile.At times, however, these fragments that triggered memories of the larger passage would then be transformed as the listeners went, “You? That was talking about you? Sweet!” Or the listeners would say, “You? You have the gall to think that’s about you? Why I oughta punch …”
• Jesus quotes lots from lots of places, stitching together broad sweeps of the Old Testament. In this one chapter, Jesus quotes twice from Psalm 118, once from Psalm 8, and once each from Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Zechariah.  In living the two days covered in this chapter, he is weaving a story of his unexpectedly humble royal entry into Jerusalem. He is showing that his coming is part of a long prophetic thread, a fact that he reinforces with his story about the tenant farmers ignoring representatives of the landowner.
• This blend of shorthand and broad strokes is an important alternative model to an approach that takes on verse out of context as a life verse or organization purpose.

God tells a huge story of relationship, sweeping across the whole book. Jesus is showing how his life fits into that story. It’s a good model.