Interpreting Scripture

Skye Jethani has provided a list called the Ten Commandments of Scripture Interpretation.

I realise, of course, that in putting this list on a blog aimed primarily at Presbyterians, who are wise in the Word and don't need warnings about the way they interpret Scripture, that I'm preaching to the converted, as it were.

So, for all those people who read this blog who aren't Presbyterians, (those loose-theology Baptists, and wildly-wacky Pentecostals, and tradition-focused Catholics, as well as all the others - I speak with tongue in cheek, in case you didn't notice), I'm putting this list on here for your information.

You may not agree entirely with Jethani's list (one commentator rightly points out that there may be a contradiction between commandments two and four), but I think it has some good reminders for anyone who has to stand up and preach.

Imagination and Culture

Kevin Vanhoozer, editor of Everyday Theology: how to read cultural texts and interpret trends (Baker Academic, 2007) and professor of theology at Wheaton College Graduate School in Illinois talks in an (abridged) interview on Leadership Journal.net about the need for preachers to preach with the culture in mind, exegeting it as well as exegeting the Scripture texts. Some preachers do this as a matter of course; some get more tied up in 'topics' than in text, but there is a need to get a good balance.

One of the more important things Vanhoozer says is this:

Imagination is the ability to grasp things together in a meaningful pattern. Imagination is at work when a scientist develops a hypothesis that enables her to see how something causes something else. We all do that. We all look at the world with a framework of belief and interpretation, and that happens on the level of the imagination. The question is, are we doing it with biblical categories or are we just following cultural templates?

Preachers should not only be trying to take every thought captive to God's Word, but also every imagination. The imagination is the core out of which we live. The problem with culture is how it captures our imaginations through indirect communication. We can spot direct anti-Christian communication; that's easy. It's the indirect propaganda that's harder to spot.

(My emphasis in the above quotation.) The full version of th interview and Preaching Today's review of Kevin Vanhoozer's book, Everyday Theology, is available at www.preachingtoday.com
(However, you have to subscribe to this to read it.)

Leadership by Abraham Lincoln

Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote a book in 2005 called Team of Rivals: the political genius of Abraham Lincoln, which was about the leadership lessons to be learned from Lincoln’s administration. One of the intriguing things Lincoln showed was his willingness to embrace the concept of a leadership team composed of men who were not only diverse in their views, but were his personal rivals as well. (In the last episodes of the last season of The West Wing, we see the incoming President doing the same sort of thing, particularly in relation to asking his Republican opponent to take on the role of Secretary of State.)
Jeff Knowles writes in Leadership online: Goodwin's thesis that great leadership neither punishes nor ignores ideological foes, but rather embraces them, has important implications for our increasingly large and complex church governmental structures. The danger of group-think is ever present in congregations where dissent is seen only as a problem. Church leaders often extol the virtues of 90 percent congregational confirmation votes for the new building program or the new minister, or the elders' "unanimous agreement" that the church needs to take a certain action. But we forget that many of God's commands in Scripture required leaders to go against the tides of popular opinion. If Abraham Lincoln could use the power of diverse opinions and contrary egos to save the nation, then we ought to look more closely at the benefits of dissenting opinions in our churches as well.

Memorizing Scripture

Years ago I became convinced that learning portions of the Bible was a good thing to do. I can't even remember how this came about now. However, it's stood me in good stead over the years, particularly in those dark times in the night that most of us experience at some point, when it's too cold to get out of bed, but your brain is fizzing...!

Keith Mannes writes on this topic in the Leadership Journal, and confirms my feelings about the value of memorizing scripture. And for him as a pastor, it has the additional value of giving him confidence with his parishioners in being able to quote Scripture without having to look it up.

Click here to read the article, My 3.5 Salvation.

To Those Who Lead the Rural Church

I know where you live: in a nation ruled by the god of Business, where those who do not have the power to buy are shunted aside. The old and the very young are ignored. The few (who do not make up a critical mass, a niche market, a group worthy of attention) are dismissed.

Back in February, BuildingChurchLeaders.com considered how different expressions of Christianity could more faithfully embody the calling God has placed on them. They produced a series of letters patterned after the words of Jesus in Revelation 2–3. While they lack the authority of Scripture, they contain many convicting insights brought in the spirit of humility and love for the church. One letter, the introduction of which is printed above, was written by Susan Wise Bauer, who addressed to the churches she knows best: those in rural America.

For more resources about the small church, check out the new Training Theme download on Strengthening Small Churches.”

A bunch of various quotes

Sometimes the quotes come thick and fast. Here are two that arrived in my email box this morning, and another that's a quote from an essay I mentioned a day or so ago.

Nothing is so important as human life, as the human person. Above all, the person of the poor and the oppressed... Jesus says that whatever is done to them he takes as done to him. That bloodshed, those deaths are beyond all politics: They touch the very heart of God.

- Oscar Romero
March 16, 1980

Humans possess an innate affinity for narrative. Narrative surrounds us, and something about narrative movement captivates the hearts of human beings. Why is this? Christians can look to scripture to uncover a reason for this affinity: storytelling resides in the heart of God. Genesis 1:26 says that man is created in the image of God, and God has an affinity for storytelling. How are we certain of this? Jesus Christ, God incarnate, presented truth after truth during his earthly ministry in story form. At several points, Jesus’ disciples question this practice. Matthew 13:13 relays Jesus’ answer: “This is why I speak in parables: ‘Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing they do not hear or understand.…’” Jesus answers their question with an invitation. He invites the disciples to explore his stories, to question them, to examine them, to break through their blindness and discover the truth.

Bill Boerman-Cornell and Annette Witte
"Neither Minnie Mouse nor Wonder Woman" in catapult magazine

The Bible is not actually older than church tradition. The writings of the first fathers precede the uniting of the biblical books in one volume as we have it today (the first list of the books of the Old and New Testaments that matches our own Bibles comes from St. Athanasius in 367, though the key books were in place long before). St. Clement of Alexandria speaks of "Scripture" simply as what we think of as the Old Testament, which for him demonstrably sets forth Christ without ambiguity! Even after the formation of the biblical canon, tradition still functioned as a hermeneutical rule: "an approach for interpreting the Bible by investigating and following the ancient consensus of the fathers."

Not that that consensus is always clear. In fact, learning to read like the fathers should make our reading of the Bible a good deal more difficult. The fathers often affirm an "infallible Bible," music to the ears of today's evangelicals. But they also celebrated "points of obscurity or even contradiction" in the Bible—the very things many superficial readers today would prefer to ignore or iron out. The letter of Scripture is plain enough for all readers. But God has intentionally placed obscurities in the Bible as opportunities for spiritual growth for its readers: "because he only wants to open [the Scriptures] up to those who are prepared to look" for God's mysteries, as D H Williams quotes St. Augustine.

From Reading with the Saints, The art of biblical interpretation.by Jason Byassee