Hermeneutical rules - Get the Picture

There are certain rules of interpretation that have been adopted by the majority of conservative Protestants. These rules are part of a discipline known as hermeneutics. Some, probably most, Evangelical theologians, to greater and lesser degrees, affix a certain absolute nature to these rules. In general there is logical purpose to this, although the extent that these are reverenced as absolute can be binding to stifling to down right oppressive when it comes to reading the Bible and being confident that the Holy Spirit may actually speak to the common man through the received Scriptures. Knowing these rules, can be an aid in properly interpreting passages of Scripture. But when an absolute nature is inferred - the ability of a living God to communicate to a contemporary mind becomes the realm and dominion of the religious hierarchy. A situation similar to that experienced at the time of and resulting in the Protestant Reformation is actualized. Rules of Biblical interpretation, though potentially helpful, are not of themselves, absolute doctrines of interpretation, ever to be set in stone and immortalized - time without end. Hermeneutical rules, rather than absolutes - concrete foundations, forever placed blinders to the Spirit should be considered more as stereotypes, simplified conceptions: an oversimplified standardized image or idea based on some general although not always recurring observations. There may be some truth behind many stereotypes, but all too often the stereotype is proven insufficient if not absolutely in error. Any hermeneutical rule that we would seek to enforce as absolute for Scriptural interpretation runs the risk of, in actuality, being set up as a god to bind God. One of the first steps to correctly interpreting Scripture is being aware of what the Bible says about itself and understanding how it has come down to us through the centuries The Bible clearly claims to have revealed information about God. Deuteronomy 29:29 declares that, The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law. In general, this is a good hermeneutical rule. But as an absolute, particularly as referencing the scripture from Deuteronomy, it is too easily shot through of holes. This verse, as a proof text for the inspiration of the entirety if the Bible, or even the complete text of the first five books of the Bible is simply out of context and use to imply and infer more than it says. It does speak in reference to the second giving of the Mosaic Law as recorded here in Deuteronomy and the blessing and curses associated. But to simply grant blanket association to all prior or subsequent scripture is not the case. Besides inferring a broader inspiration than is actually stated, the statement, as used to prove full Biblical inspiration, is divorced from the greater context and prophetic indictments made concerning Gods continued and future dealings with His people in Deuteronomy 30 and following. Deuteronomy 30 is a continuation of the discourse of Deuteronomy 29. The chapter break is of it self an arbitrary break.

Deuteronomy 30 continues to expound that even after trying to obey the Law, after experiencing the blessing and the curses associated with the Law, the time will come when God Himself will circumcise your hearts that you may be able to love the Lord your God with all your heart. The implication being that there is something inherently deficient in the Law to enable the keeping of its requirements. The Law is good - God breathed - But it does not keep itself in the hearts of the recipients. And the recipients, as well intentioned and faithful as may be possible, can not keep it either. A Spiritual solution, over and above and apart from the Law is required. But like many of us, there is much we will not hear until we have exerted what we perceive to be all our possibilities. Anything to do it ourselves - and maintain our apparent autonomy. In 1 Corinthians 2:12-13 the writer adds that, We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. I dont really see it, but this is often quoted to prove the Bibles inspirational endorsement of itself. Obviously the statement is true, but applying it exclusively to the Bible, or a particular interpretation of the Bible is spurious at best. It can just as easily be applied to any inspiration or manifestation of the Spirit in our lives. The unique nature of the Bible is made clear by Paul in 2 Timothy 3:16. Paul tells Timothy that All Scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. Invariably in the New Testament denotes that definite collection of sacred books, regarded as given by inspiration of God, which we usually call the Old Testament The Old Testament canon in the time of our Lord was precisely the same as that which we now possess under that name. He placed the seal of his own authority on this collection of writings, as all equally given by inspiration (Mt. 5:17; 7:12; 22:40; Lk. 16:29, 31). In 1 Tim. 5:18, the 2nd quotation is from Luke 10:7, from which it may be inferred that the apostle included Lukes gospel as Scripture alike with Deuteronomy, from which the first quotation is taken. There is no other occurrence where the New Testament quotes itself. Peter does make an inference to the writings of Paul, equating them to scripture, And consider that the long-suffering of our Lord [His slowness in avenging wrongs and judging the world] is salvation (that which is conducive to the souls safety), even as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the spiritual insight given him, Speaking of this as he does in all of his letters. There are some things in those [epistles of Paul] that are difficult to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist and misconstrue to their own utter destruction, just as [they distort and misinterpret] the rest of the Scriptures. 2 Peter 3:15-16 The word to denote scriptures in the New Testament is graphe. 1. a writing, thing written 2. the Scripture, used to denote either the book itself, or its contents 3. a certain portion or section of the Holy Scripture. Scripture or as referenced it is written. graphe , akin to grapho, to write (Eng., graph, graphic, etc.), primarily denotes a drawing, painting; then a writing, From the idea of graphe we get the English graph or to make something graphic, a picture. This should

be too surprising because the way ancient Hebrews thought and communicated was in picture stories. This is evident in Jesus own style and abundant use of parables. I believe this is the ultimate purpose of the Scriptures. God is drawing us a picture. One picture does not necessarily represent all pictures, any more than all men can be represented by an abstract stick figure as is depicted in much modern art. But the Scriptures are graphic illustrations of the mind of God. One picture does not say it all. But, there is enough to be applicable for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. So that the man of God may be complete and proficient, well fitted and thoroughly equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:17 Too many interpret complete and proficient as perfect. It does not actually say that. This is one of those instances where too much is inferred upon something that is not there. Another inference that is often applied to the Scripture is that of being the logos. I dont believe that is in fact the case, and we will deal with that as we paint the bigger picture. Get the picture?

Hermeneutical rules and the Holy Spirit

The role of the Holy Spirit is to illumine the believer in order to accept and apply what is found in Scripture. The key role of the Spirit is not to add information to the text, or to give us special translating abilities, but to soften our hearts in order to receive what is there. The key role of the Spirit is to soften our hearts in order to receive what is there. A role of the Holy Spirit to illumine the believer in order to accept and apply what is found in Scripture is true - but too presume The key role of the Spirit is primarily this - assumes a fundamentally academic and intellectual apprehension of the Spirit limited to the letter of the book, and forgets it is the Spirit who is the third person of the Godhead (is in essence God) and it is the book that serves the author and not the other way around. I.e. We worship the Father, Son and Holy Spirit revealed to us in the book , Not -We worship Father, Son and Bible illumined to us by the Spirit. We need to get this together. It is the book the Bible that reveals the person of the Spirit and communicates His purpose and function in our lives. It is not the prime purpose of the Spirit to make us servants of the book, but the book is to reinforce and assure us of the Life communicated through the Spirit - even as that life may transcend the limited content of the book. As a book - bound by a set number of words, sentences and concepts - its scope and purpose is limited. It may in fact be the words of God, but is not in fact God. The words and concepts may well be eternal - as eternal is defined as maintaining value time without end, but are finite as no book may express the entirety of the Person and all God is. Expressing the entirety of the Person and all God is in and through our lives - as we live in Him - in Christ - this is the prime purpose of the Holy Spirit. John 14-17

Hermeneutical rules and the Reformation

Prior

to the Protestant Reformation in the 1500s, biblical interpretation was often dominated by the allegorical method.the medieval church believed that every biblical passage contained four levels of meaning. These four levels were the literal, the allegorical, the moral, and the eschatologicalwith a new emphasis on the original languages of Hebrew and Greek, the fourfold method of interpretation was beginning to fade. Martin Luther argued that the church shouldn't determine what the Scriptures mean, the Scriptures should govern what the churches teach. He also rejected the allegorical method of interpreting ScriptureLuther argued that a proper understanding of what a passage teaches comes from a literal interpretation. This means that the reader must consider the historical context and the grammatical structure of each passage, and strive to maintain contextual consistency. This method was a result of Luther's belief that the Scriptures are clear, in opposition to the medieval church's position that they are so obscure that only the church can uncover their true meaningCalvin agreed in principle with Luther. He also placed great importance on the notion that Scripture interprets Scripture, stressing that the grammar, context, words, and parallel passages found in the text were more important than any meaning we might impose on them. He added that, it is the first business of an interpreter to let the author say what he does say, instead of attributing to him what we think he ought to say. I am not unequivocally abhorrent of contemporary conservative hermeneutical method. There is a lot of good sound wisdom in the approach to interpreting scriptures that has been won for the church as a result of men of integrity following Gods leading and applying themselves as best they understood His will. A recurring problem is as these new freedoms and insights are implemented, others not so true to the original intent and purpose, expand and take to extremes these methods and logic and end up constructing perversions of that which was originally found to be good. I do not believe this regularly observable fact is limited to any particular movement or line of theology, but is rather a by-product of fallen human nature. The original integrity of a plan, means or method becomes compromised by ambition. Ambition may be define two fold: (1) an aim or objective that somebody is trying to achieve, and/or (2) a strong feeling of wanting to be successful in life and achieve great things. It is this second inner drive in the heart of men that compels them to strive to do virtually anything necessary to become more than what they perceive they are, to enforce their will and purpose, to compromise or justify half conceived enhancements - the purpose being not the integrity of what they would claim to represent, but their own situation as may be ordered in the scheme of things. Unable to rest in God - they are driven to prove and justify themselves - and secure their place in the Kingdom whatever that (the Kingdom) may be. Luther argued that a proper understanding of what a passage teaches comes from a literal interpretation. This means that the reader must consider the historical context and the grammatical structure of each passage, and strive to maintain contextual consistency. This is an excellent beginning. The problem arises when this literalism is taken to extremes and applied to passages that quite obviously are not literal but metaphoric. It does not take into account the different literary genre, or types, in the Bible. A first step should be to determine the literary genre of the passage. A passage might be legal, narrative, polemic, poetry, wisdom, gospel, logical discourse, or prophetic literature, each having specific guidelines for proper interpretation.

Calvin agreed in principle with Luther. He also placed great importance on the notion that Scripture interprets Scripture, stressing that the grammar, context, words, and parallel passages found in the text were more important than any meaning we might impose on them. Here again this is a good basic rule. What it lacks is understanding of the Person of the Holy Spirit except as it applies to an intellectual approach to interpreting the Scriptures, based on what may be arbitrary standards of interpretation. Scripture interprets Scripture is all to easily caught in the hunt and peck pulling of Scripture verses out of context in order to support pet doctrines. Both these men made great strides for the Church in interpreting and making understanding of what the Bible teaches more accessible to the general population of the Church. But they were not perfect. I truly believe, that as they realized their place in the maturation of this body called Church, to the best they knew - they were faithful. Faithful - Not perfect. Our error is when we infer an implied perfection to what they accomplished and/or fail to recognize actual errors in their doctrines and fail to address them openly and honestly and/or build upon their errors and compound a theological dilemma with greater error. Spiritual strides forward too easily slip into religious complacency. History has a way of repeating itself. A state of religious complacency is not what I find to be a particular worry to God. As such a state may exist - God has His way of stirring the pot and stimulating a restlessness among His people. And among these will be men with integrity enough to hear His voice and proclaim His Word. By Word I do not necessarily exclusively imply the Bible - although it certainly is not excluded and will assuredly substantiate the proclaimed Word.

Hermeneutical Rules - Context, or the lack there of

subtitle: Chucking All Reason and Logic for the Virtue of Ignorance
Context 1. text surrounding a word or passage: the words, phrases, or passages that come before and after a particular word or passage in a speech or piece of writing and help to explain its full meaning 2. surrounding conditions: the circumstances or events that form the environment within which something exists or takes place Another approach to interpretation is letterism. While often ignoring context, historical and cultural setting, and even grammatical structure, letterism takes each word as an isolated truth. A problem with this method is that it fails to take into account the different literary genre, or types, in the Bible. The Hebrew poetry of the Psalms is not to be interpreted in the same way as is the logical discourse of Romans. Letterism tends to lead to legalism because of its inability to distinguish between literary types. All passages tend to become equally binding on current believers. There is a particular Christian movement that I have a peeve with. Actually there is a second and most likely a third and forth, but the errant handling of the Bible and implied absolutes asserted by this one really irks me. I wont mention it by name, but Im sure most reading this will recognize it by the characteristics exhibited and commonly associated with it. At the same time I want to stress that I believe that the

leaders in this movement (and others) truly do seek to be Gods servants and in spite of the a chosen path of preferred ignorance. By preferred ignorance I mean a conceptual grasping of Biblical truth based on a desire for what it (the Bible) says, rather than a contextually complete apprehension of what is actually presented. Doctrines and theology are built on a foundation of desires about God sacrificing the truth of what the Bible (Scripture) actually says about God. To this is added the encouraged products of our imaginations, with insufficient criteria to assess the Spiritual content of what is imagined. Desire and imagination become the interpretive norms of the Bible and the Spirit. Context, in understanding Scripture, is more than what comes before and after a particular passage. Context includes the literary genre of the passage. A passage might be legal, narrative, polemic, poetry, wisdom, gospel, logical discourse, or prophetic literature, each having specific guidelines for proper interpretation. For instance, the wisdom literature found in Proverbs is to be seen as maxims or general truths based on broad experience and observations. "They are guidelines, not guarantees; precepts, not promises. Various forms of Hebrew poetry, simile, metaphor, and hyperbole need to be recognized if the reader is to understand the passage's meaning. Hyperbole, for example, uses exaggeration to make a point. Ignoring the cultural context of a passage is one of the greatest problems in Bible interpretation. By culture we mean the behavior of a people as reflected by their thoughts, beliefs, social forms, speech, actions, and material artifacts. If we ignore culture, we often wrongly read into the Bible our twentieth century ideas. An acquaintance in Christian music ministry was having difficulty independently studying and understanding the Bible. Expressing this to the foremost leaders within the movement, he was advised, Only read the words in red. The words in read are the words of Jesus in many Bibles. That in itself is not bad, but to take those words out of contextual relation with the rest of the passage is purely a cognitive decision to treat as irrelevant the why solely in arbitrary preference to the what spoken by Jesus. This approach to acquiring Biblical knowledge, is not Spiritual. Its roots are every bit as humanistic as any other approach that would exclude portions of Scripture because of the miraculous inclusions that could not possibly be treated as factual. This red letter approach to theology ignores the fact that the same Spiritually inspired author who penned the words of Jesus for posterity also recorded the context and framework for understanding and applying those words. The contemporary Church is in an acute state of schizophrenia. Rather than expressing a coherent complete corporate personality of Christ, we are a fragmented delusional driven religion, lacking means to heal our selves and persistently demanding prescriptions of our own conjuring. Yet even in this state God has not deserted us or left us without care. Eventually the arguments over to heal or not to heal, to prosper or not too, all find there way into the relative void of nothingness, and all there is left is God. And whether our theology is together or not, God IS. And eventuallyif we really lookwe find He Is much closer than any theology could ever allow us to imagine. Hein meChrist.