Category: Hermeneutics

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Biblical Studies Epistemology Hermeneutics Theology

A Third Way and Scripture

Scot McKnight is writing about a “third way” between “conservative” and “liberal” Christian faith.  Today’s post is on the nature of scripture — something I’ve been studying and thinking about quite a bit lately.  I think I’ve read most of the recent books on the nature of scripture.  Here are my thoughts:

(a) any Christian formulation of what scripture is must acknowledge that all scripture is inspired by God; (b) any Christian formulation of what scripture is must be consistent with the completely truthful, loving, and gracious character of God as the one who inspired scripture; (c) if the God who inspired scripture is a God of truth, then any Chrisitan formulation of what scritpure is must be completely truthful and honest about the phenomena of scripture (meaning it must take scripture as we find it, with all of its marks of humanity, and not as we ideally would like it to be); (d) if the God who inspired scripture is a God of truth, then any Christian formulation of what scripture is must not stifle or react defensively to the search for truth in any discipline of study and must not cause Christians to fear any truth wherever it is found; (e) any Christian formulation of what scripture is must locate scripture in relation to God’s revelation in Christ and in connection with scripture’s overarching purposes in God’s plan of redemption (this implies the role of the Holy Spirit); and (f) and Christian formulation of what scripture is must locate scripture within a coherent and satisfying Christian epistemology.  As an addendum to all this, I think we need to remember that any creedal / doctrinal statement about the nature of scripture is not scripture itself; scripture might be infallible, but our statements about scripture are never infallible.  Also, we need to say something about the canon.

Taking all these things into consideration, in my very humble opinion, the “conservative” evangelical approach to scripture, rooted in Warfield and summed up in the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy, misses the mark.  However, “progressive” evangelical approaches to scritpure, in my view, sometimes seem weak on (b) and (e) — if “conservative” approaches can seem docetic, “progressive” approaches can seem adoptionist. 

So as a very tentative first cut at a summary:  “Scripture is the true and trustworthy record of God’s plan of redemption in Christ.  It is to be cherished, studied, and heard with reverent humility in the community of God’s people through the ages and under the direction of the Holy Spirit.  Each follower of Jesus is responsible before God to seek to understand and live out the story of redemption revealed in the scriptures and summarized in the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus.”

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Hermeneutics Spirituality Theology

The Text(s) of Scripture: Living and Active

This is the first post in the “Text(s) of Scripture” series in conjunction with Thomas at Everyday Liturgy.

Our first text is Hebrews 4:12:  “For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”

Exegetical note: It is difficult from the context to determine what “ho logos ton theou,” “the word of God,” means in this context. The immediate context seems to refer to the gospel, and warns that the gospel must be received in faith for the promise of a “Sabbath rest” to become effective for the hearer. Some commentators therefore suggest “the word of God” here refers specifically to the gospel; others identify it with Christ, the “Logos” of John 1, though this is not a typical Pauline usage; and still others identify it with revelation generally, including all of the scriptures.

Reflections:

Dave: What does it mean for a text to be “living and active?” I’m reminded of current debates in the United States about whether our Constitution is a “living” document. There is lots of unfortunate political baggage around this concept, but it seems obvious to me that the Constitution is a living document, whatever approach one takes to its interpretation. The Constitution must continually be applied to circumstances the framers never could have anticipated, such as the scope of free speech rights on the Internet. And the Constitution continually judges our polity and praxis, forcing us to consider again and again whether “we the people” are living up to our formative ideals. There is a hermeneutical spiral in the interpretation and application of the Constitution, as we move from the original context to the contemporary challenges and back again.

The Bible is a sort of constitution for the Church, and it is “living and active” in a manner similar to the U.S. Constitution. The community governed by the Biblical constitution – the Church – must continually apply the principles reflected in the text to new circumstances the human writers could never have imagined. How do we respond to ethical challenges posed by new technologies, such as in vitro fertilization? What kind of community should we become in a global village networked on a scale inconceivable in the first century? And the Biblical constitution continually judges the polity and praxis of the Church, cutting through our cultural baggage and hypocrisy and asking whether we truly are loving God and neighbor fully.

Yet the Bible is “living and active” in ways that cannot be claimed for a legal text like the Constitution because this “word” is uniquely “of God.” The God who speaks this “word” is the triune God, who became incarnate in the Son and who speaks in and to the Church in the Spirit. The “text” of the “logos ton Theou” is not merely a set of signs that signify discrete legal-regulative principles in the manner of a Constitution. It is rather the signification of the presence of the triune God who continually transforms the community of faith.

Thom: There is a sense here that the author is intentionally linking the “word of God” or gospel to Creation. The Sabbath rest is a signifier of judgment or completion, for only when Creation was good and complete did God rest. The actional quality of the “word of God” is the sense that it moves beyond the text to stir hearts to adhere to the gospel message. Here, the gospel or “word of God” finds its truest sense as the way that a person is judged once he or she has completed the task at hand: to live a life based on the “word of God.” I do not take “word of God” to be inclusive of Scripture here, but instead to be the fullness of God’s prophetic action in the world, whether through the words of Scripture, the words of his servants, prophets, or kings (especially the true King, Christ). The statement that follows our quote is “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account. Thus, the “word of God” is substance to which we must give account. There are troubling and awesome prospects in this: that we cannot enter the rest of God unless we live the living Word. This is not a justification by works (alone), for the author clarifies in the previous section “for we also have had the gospel preached to us, just as those who have fallen short of it did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard it did not combine it with faith. Now we who have believed entered that rest.” The intersection of Word and Creation is evident in that Christ, the first fruits of the new creation, enables the faithful to enter into a Sabbath rest. The Word of God, the voice that called Creation into existence has been completing the work of rest since the creation of the world. Therefore, the “word of God” is thus a prophetic message, one of prayer, Scripture, prophecy, judgment, and action, that calls people out of the patterns of this world and into the Sabbath rest of God.

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Hermeneutics Theology

New Series: Reading the Text(s) of Scripture

Thomas of Everyday Liturgy and I have run out of steam on the “postmodern apologetics” series, so we’re starting a new one on “Reading the Text(s) of Scripture.” Thomas and I both were educated in (he: Philadelphia Biblical University; me: Gordon College), and worship and fellowship in, the evangelical world, so we’re both aware of the hornet’s nest any discussion of the doctrine of scripture can stir up. We’re hoping, though, that this will not be taken as another set of broadsides in the “battle for the Bible,” or as picking fights, but rather that it will represent the reflections of two textual scholars from outside the theological guild (he: literature and literary theory; me: case law, statutes and constitutions), with a missional sensibility, on the nature of the Biblical texts.

We’ll approach this as follows: we’ll first offer a quote from a systematic theology text / book / article on the doctrine of scripture and/or Biblical hermeneutics, or a passage directly from scripture about scripture, and then we’ll offer our personal reflections on the quote.

As a lawyer, I often feel compelled to append disclaimers to everything, so let me add one here: we are both very imperfect, but serious, Christians, and so we both take the Bible to be “scripture.” Whatever precise statements, definitions, qualifications, and such we each might feel comfortable with concerning the doctrine of scripture and hermeneutics, at the end of the day we both seek to submit to and be transformed by God as He speaks through scripture. If there are any elements of “deconstruction” of any of the definitions we discuss — and I’m not prejudging that there necessarily will be — that is only for the purpose, we hope, of understanding more fully, expressing more articulately, and representing more faithfully and truthfully the power and majesty of the scriptures.

Coming up next…. the first quote.