Christian Theology in a Thumbnail: The Art of Hermeneutics (15)
Hermeneutics is the art of
interpretation, in our case, interpretation of the Bible. We Christians are the artists charged with
the task and privilege of painting a picture of the meaning and message of the
Bible in our time and place.
As Christians we come to this
task with five features that comprise our studio. First is ourselves. Who we are: our socio-economic setting, gender, ethnicity,
biases, experiences, family backgrounds, education, politics, nation, etc. We must recognize all this and how it
inclines us to see and interpret life. The second is we stand on the ground of
the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Outside the
gospel our interpretation will start off in the wrong direction. The third is that we must love the truth (2
Thess.2:10) and passionately follow the Truth (Jn.14:6). Fourthly, is that we need each other. Community is the place where reading and
interpreting the Bible most fruitfully takes place. Lastly, the scriptures function as “spectacles”
(John Calvin) which help us see things as they really are. These form for Christians what philosophers
call the “hermeneutic circle.” We stand
on the ground of the gospel, wearing the spectacles of scripture, in the
community of faith, passionately in love with Christ and his purposes, and from
there we seek to look harder and go further in understanding and following the
truth we discover.
We begin
our painting by invoking the aid of the Holy Spirit. This is essential. We move to the text noting first, the
Literary Forms & Historical Context (when, why, and how the passage was
written in so far as these can be determined).
Next we read our passage in the larger context of scripture as a whole
(the six chapter story we considered earlier), trying to understand the parts
in light of the whole of the story. The
Christ Principle focuses in on the meaning of our passage. The Christian meaning of the Bible always
runs through Jesus Christ. He is the
fulfillment and center of all scripture.
Any meaning we try to paint of the Bible’s meaning must cohere, point
to, or flow from him. The next step is the
Rule of Love as described by Jesus as the love of God with all we have and are
and the love of neighbor as ourselves.
Thus our interpretation must lead to these two forms of love if they are
truly Christian interpretations. The Rule of Faith, early Christian creedal
forms like the Apostles’ Creed, give us a baseline from which to begin and
check our progress in painting our picture of biblical hermeneutics. It may be that we will discover biblical
truth along the way that may supplement or even correct this Rule of
Faith. But we would never discover this
without beginning from the Rule of Faith.
Seeking God’s Way Now is a necessary element of each painting
interpreting scripture. What does this
passage require us to do today? The corollary
of this is Openness to Reformation. Our artistic
process will hopefully lead us to new insight or deeper comprehension. We must be open to this expansion or
extension of insight if we hope to see truly and clearly what God wants us to
see.
This
brief overview is, I hope, enough to get us artists of interpretation
going. Each would handsomely repay
further study.
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