Conclusion: Biblical Hermeneutics

6. The Table of Discernment and Inspiration

Although they would probably disagree with me on a few points, evangelical scholars by and large accept the hermeneutical situation as I have set it out. As they might lay it out, a healthy hermeneutical process is one that moves carefully from "that time" (the time of the original meaning) to "this time." We determine the original meaning. We identify timeless principles that we then reapply to today in our context.

Most evangelical scholars would also at least acknowledge development in thinking from the Old Testament to the New, particularly in terms of the impact of Christ's coming. However, they might feel uncomfortable with any suggestion of development beyond the New Testament, unless such development is in continuity with the New Testament and probably even in a seminal form in the New Testament.

Most evangelical scholars are modernist in philosophy, which means they feel a strong aversion to non-literal or out of context appropriations of Scripture. Their loyalty is to the original meaning and to the original text. Thus the Greek text behind the King James Version is not used because it is not as original, despite the fact that it was largely the text used by the church for 1600 years.

We wonder if this is not a good time in history to re-examine some of these biases. On the one hand, the way in which Scripture itself uses Scripture raises serious questions about evangelical priorities with regard to the original meaning. The New Testament authors by and large read the Old Testament text in terms of their own contemporary situations and values, not in terms of the original meaning. And even today, evangelical scholars sometimes smuggle in their contemporary situations and values into the meaning of the text. These are recognitions we feel more comfortable making in a period when the limitations of modernism are out in the open.

This also seems a good point in the history of the church to acknowledge that the Protestant Reformation probably went too far in its denial of the extent to which genuine, inspired Christian tradition plays a role in our appropriation of Scripture. For example, Western Christians "know" that it is wrong to be a polygamist or a slave owner today, even though the Bible never says anything of the sort. We "know" it is wrong to see Jesus as any less divine than God the Father, even though the New Testament actually subordinates him to the Father (1 Cor. 15:28).

How do we know these things? We know them because we are Christians in continuity with the church of the ages. The most unhealthy and bizarre forms of Christianity are those where groups have read the "text alone" in isolation from the continuity of the church of the ages. The text alone is susceptible to as many different meanings as there are contexts against which it is read.

So I would like to suggest what I consider a healthier process of appropriating Scripture, one that allows for the standard evangelical process but that is less myopic in its value system. I suggest that we think of finding God's will in terms of a dialog between several key players. This model is similar to what is sometimes called "Wesley's Quadrilateral." In Wesley's Quadrilateral, we give first place to Scripture and then process it in dialog with tradition, experience, and reason.

But reason and experience are always involved in our reflection on the world. Indeed, they are unavoidable elements in our apprehension of the Bible's meaning. And Scripture is actually a part of Christian tradition when we read the individual books in context as moments in the formation of the early church.

Let me suggest that discerning God's will bids us come to a table of discernment and inspiration. The original meaning of each book should be there with us at the table, as should the most venerated voices of the saints through the ages. These spiritual individuals have already wrestled before us with the proper appropriation of Scripture.

We should also bring with us the wisdom of spiritual individuals in the church today. If the Spirit of God lives in the body of Christ, which is the church everywhere in all times and all places, then surely we are most in contact with the Spirit when we are most in communion with the saints of the ages. Appropriating the Bible is something best done together, in communion, rather than as a lone individual.

Appropriating the Bible for today is a spiritual task. It is not something we can do by formula; it is a spiritual art. The way Jesus and Paul appropriated Scripture was not always literalist or always allegorical. It varied. Further, sometimes it was absolutist but more often than not it was contextual. It was spiritual and, to some extent, unpredictable. Its common denominator was the love ethic.

We discern two crucial principles in the appropriation of Scripture for today:

1. Any appropriation of Scripture that is driven by the hatred of others is unchristian and unworthy of Christ.

2. Any appropriation of Scripture that is out of continuity with the communion of saints through the ages is most unlikely to be of God.

Are there prophetic movements in the church, instances where God might lead in new directions out of continuity with prior Christian practice? If so, I would suggest such movements will not be out of continuity with the Spirit of the communion of the saints of the ages. But the burden of proof will always lie with the new. It is hardly possible to reject wholesale some two thousand years of Christian history without rejecting to some significant degree the God that they and the authors of the Bible worshipped.

The Bible as Scripture is thus much bigger than the original meaning. But it is also vastly bigger than the way the words might strike me on a given day. It is the Bible as read by the saints of all the ages, the canonical interpretation of the Bible, that is the most authoritative over us. It is the ongoing task of the universal church to determine what this meaning is and ever to apply and reapply it to the world today.