Cees en Anneke Noordzij — Prolegomena
b5 — Putting Your Hand to the Plow
Hermeneutics
Orthotomeo: definition and methodical scope
Noordzij corrects the Dutch NBG translation of 2Tim. 2:15 — “drawing straight furrows” — and points to the Greek root:
“The Greek verb is actually not ‘drawing straight furrows’. The Greek verb orthotomeo means: to cut straight, to hold a straight course. Orthotomeo in bringing the word of truth means: applying the truth correctly and consistently. The NBG translators wrongly thought of plowing.”
— Putting Your Hand to the Plow, section “Drawing Straight Furrows”
Interpretation: The translation correction is not incidental but a methodological key choice: orthotomeo is not activist plowing but precise discrimination.
Content of the hermeneutical principle
“It is making a consistent distinction between the ‘old’ and the ‘new’, between the natural and the spiritual, between the earthly shadow images and the truth in the Kingdom of heaven.”
— Putting Your Hand to the Plow, section “Drawing Straight Furrows”
Interpretation: This is the central hermeneutical axiom of this source: every Scripture passage requires placement on the axis old/new, earthly/spiritual, shadow/reality.
Theological Method
Bipolar schema: old covenant — new covenant
Noordzij formulates the methodical framework explicitly:
“In the ‘old’ covenant, the Word applied to visible things, to an earthly people, with whom God made a covenant to deliver them from Egypt and bring them into a better land. There a stone temple would be built in an earthly Jerusalem, etc. Whoever still thinks this way interprets all prophecies and events in the Bible with an eye to earthly, visible, temporal shadow images. His way of thinking is still that of the ‘old’ covenant.”
“But in the ‘new’ covenant, everything applies to spiritual, heavenly realities. And therefore also to a spiritual people. With that people God does ‘new things’ (Isa. 42:9, 48:6).”
— Putting Your Hand to the Plow, section “Drawing Straight Furrows”
Method conclusion by the authors: “In the new covenant one consistently seeks the things that are above. That is orthotomeo. Cutting straight. Cutting straight! Thinking consistently!”
Concrete application example
“When the Lord said: ‘Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up’, He was not thinking of a natural temple (as the scribes were). He was thinking of a spiritual temple of God. He was thinking of Himself (John 2:19-21, cf. Col. 2:9). Cutting straight! Whoever has entered the kingdom of God and has become a citizen of a realm in the heavens, applies the word of truth consistently to spiritual realities.”
— Putting Your Hand to the Plow, section “Drawing Straight Furrows”
Faith and Reason / Critique of Literal-Natural Interpretation
Noordzij explicitly questions the epistemic status of literal-natural exegesis:
“Moreover, is holding to a literal-natural interpretation of the word really faith? Is, for example, waiting for Jesus’ coming on clouds of water vapor and the rapture of believers in a flash not rather a naive interpretation of unspiritual teachers?”
— Putting Your Hand to the Plow, section “Drawing Straight Furrows”
Interpretation: Literal-natural exegesis is here classified as unspiritual and set against genuine faith.
Definition of genuine faith: “It is hearing the living word of God, receiving it, and living according to it.”
Epistemological Precondition
Silence and worship as precondition for theological knowing
Noordzij formulates an epistemological precondition for effective theological work:
“In principle, every worker in God’s field should always come to Him first and first want to stand serving ‘before the Lord’ in order to ‘bless in His name’ from there (Deut. 10:8). In principle, coming to rest is a prerequisite for being able to be an effective blessing for others.”
— Putting Your Hand to the Plow, section “Plowing and Resting”
“That is why God seeks ‘true worshipers who worship Him in spirit and in truth’ (John 4:23). He seeks servants who want to serve Him in the heavenly temple, in His house.”
— Putting Your Hand to the Plow, section “Plowing and Resting”
Jesus as model of epistemic waiting
“What He spoke, He had first heard from the Father (John 8:38). What He did, He had first seen the Father do (John 5:19).”
— Putting Your Hand to the Plow, section “Plowing and Resting”
Interpretation: Jesus’ theological speaking and acting is primarily receptive: first hearing/seeing, then speaking/doing. This model functions as a norm.
Practical consequence for the theological worker
“A spiritual person can learn to be still. He learns to wait until God makes His will known. He desires just one thing and asks for it: ‘Lord, may I understand Your will in Your house?’ (Ps. 27:4).”
— Putting Your Hand to the Plow, section “Plowing and Resting”
Biblical precedent: “That is what the teachers and prophets in Acts 13:2 did also. In the first instance they did not serve the congregation, the poor, or their fellow countrymen. They served the Lord there, fasting and praying.”
Summary of Author’s Position
Noordzij employs in this source two intertwined prolegomenal principles:
- Orthotomeo as hermeneutical mandate: consistent distinction old/new, natural/spiritual, shadow/reality — based on 2Tim. 2:15 (corrected translation).
- Worship as epistemological precondition: theological knowing begins with silence before God; the Jesus-model (first hearing from the Father, then speaking) is normative.