Drury has asked me to give some sort of an account for how a Sunday School class might find the inerrant meaning of Scripture, "God's" meaning to the words in possible distinction from the original meaning of the words. This is my attempt to propose what that might look like.
1. First, there are some significant frame of mind issues to consider. First, let's admit that while the biblical text "cues" meanings for us, the factors that lead us to our conclusions go well beyond the text. I mention this as an observation, without engaging the question of "should." Scholars who know the most about the original meaning disagree vigorously on the precise meaning of practically every verse. And those who use the lenses of their traditions to read the Bible also differ dramatically from one another.
There is an inescapable conclusion staring us in the face here. We ultimately are not really getting our understandings from the text. What is really going on here is something bigger than the text, something of which the text itself is a part. The key is to be a part of the divine flow of which Scripture is a part, not to pretend as if we are really getting the nuances of our beliefs from the text itself. This is a paradigm game we play that just doesn't match the diverse situation before us. The Bible is always in the Word of God, but the Word of God is bigger than it.
I doubt you will find a label for what I'm saying. It is my attempt to articulate the way the Christians of the centuries have used Scripture prior to fundamentalism and modernism--the difference is that they did not realize they were reading Scripture this way.
2. So certain important attitudes follow from what we have just said, important preparation as we approach the Bible. First, it implies a certain humility of approach. I do not have it in myself to hear God's voice authentically as I read the text. Hearing God's voice will be a matter of His gracious stooping to me and my understanding. I cannot apply a formula and expect the conclusion to follow Q.E.D.
To be sure, I will do the best I can with what training and prior knowledge I have, but hearing God's voice authentically is a spiritual task. By all means we should use any knowledge we might have of the science of determining the original meaning, as well as of Christian theology and history. But no matter what I know of all these things and the original meaning, the final "jump" to today, appropriation, will require more than a knowledge of the original meaning. I will need spiritual discernment.
Second, I should try to read the Bible in community, with other believers who are listening for God's Spirit as well. I should listen to every voice I can, especially the ones who I believe to have the Spirit. There's no reason not to become acquainted with every interpretation and application Christians have ever suggested throughout the centuries. Perhaps God will quicken one of them to my/our heart.
3. With attitudes of humility and openness, a recognition that the Word of God is not a "do it yourself" meaning, reading in communities of faith, the next step is to steep myself in the content of the Scriptures. I should know these words so well that I breathe them. They should affect my daily speech and the metaphors I use in every day life. They should become an integral part of me that is evident to all who know what they say.
4. I should get in the flow of the church. I should know the common beliefs and practices of Christendom and be able to tell orthodoxy from heterodoxy, righteousness from sin as Christians understand them. These are the fences that must guard my appropriation of the words. I will get short of breath if I tread outside these boundaries.
We are now ready for Sunday School.
1. We come with open hearts, the law of Christ written on our hearts, circumcised in spirit. We bring the Spirit, the communion of saints, a lifestyle of Scripture with us. We come breathing Scripture because we love and adore it, and because we have immersed ourselves in it.
2. We read the text again. We have studied some more in meditation and the reading of the masters, both of the original meaning and the use through the centuries. We have looked at the context some more. We have experienced life through the eyes of the Spirit some more since we last read these words. We get to hear our brothers and sisters bring their new knowledge and experiences to bear on this text again.
3. The Spirit meets us on His timetable, not as something we can conjure or arrange. The Spirit blows when He wills.
4. Repeat as often as possible.
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8 comments:
Your post reminded me of something Thomas Merton once wrote, it went something like 'Who are you that comes to read me, when every other book goes something like who am I to read this'. Ok I know its not verbatum or even close. Its in the book Opening the Bible. A wonderful short little book.
Anyhow something that maybe of benefit to speak of is the idea of community. Each individual and the class as a whole are being invited to take part in the discussion known as the Scriptures. God beacons us to bring ourselves that we may dialogue with his Holy Spirit in the now while listening in on the discussions that occured in the past but are ever brought into the moment. Anyhow its a great idea to promote that each and everyone of us is in and a continuation of the discussion of Scripture. I know I am probrably not making alot of sense. Its late and I am very tired.
Pax Vobiscum.
OK nice job... if I turned this into a "learning rubric" would it look somethinglike this?
1. Be a Bible reader before class so much so that it breathes through you.
2. Pray for spiritual discernement—seriously, the Spirit does enlighten the meaning of the word to us.
3. Approach Scripture with humility and lay aside cocky quick-answer approaches—submit your mind to Scripture rather than submitting the text to your mind.
4. ASK: What has this text meant through history to other Christians? (find the boundaries.)
5. ASK:What do other in the class say it means—especially the spiritual godly people and listen to what the Spirit says through them.
6. ASK: what does this text say to US, not just me…search for the corporate word from God not just a personal one.
Is this getting close to a systematic "list" for a Sunday school class based on you thinking?
Ben, maybe it's because my mind is twisted like yours, but that all made sense to me... I like it.
Keith, that's a fair summary. My question is what it really means to submit our minds to Scripture. My problem is that the knots in my brain make the question of what meaning I am to submit to very vague. But this is a very important point, for submission to the Scripture is part and parcel of who we are. I have no answer that really satisfies.
If The Asbury approach that "what the text affirms" is without error then it stands to reason that ordinary people must be able to access that affirmation. I'm looking for a process that helps ordinary people access the without-error (Asbury) "what the text affirms."
Sunday school classes have been fixated for several decades attempting to discover what the text meant-back-then in an orderly way (after all most of their curriculum has been written by academic types who loved the detective process of “discovering” what Paul really meant in saying something to the Corinthian folk. The hitch is once this is all done the class often takes a flying leap into “application” with no orderly process—it “means to me” whatever it seems to mean today and it “means for you” whatever you like today. While I can accept the notion that the text can “say” various things to various members of a class I yearn for a process that brings orderliness to the application process like we have in the scientific process of “discovering” the meaning-back-then. I think you have “lots of the dots” of that process here, I’m just trying to make it into something of an orderly rubric for application like we have for the “original meaning.” I’m partially satisfied but not completely so yet…
Here's another question I have. Wesley believed that conversion and sanctification were not things that we could make happen by following a method--they happened in God's timing. What if the inspired meaning of Scripture is not something that we can arrive at by a method? What if it is something that happens in God's timing?
Hey Ken as you know at one point time I use to be a Pentecostal. All the time we had people blabbering about the meaning that God had given them while reading the text. Sometimes they would try to argue that their meaning was superior to the text. I generally always enjoyed how the Pentecostal leaders would handle these situations.
1st off they generally made the case that there is a specific intended meaning as written by the authors of Scripture. With their high view of Scripture they tend to argue that this was more authorative than any "personal" revelation since God gave it to his church.
2nd they would argue that God would not contradict himself with the inspired meaning given to the person with that of Scripture.
3rd that both the original meaning and the personal meaning have to be experienced by what they call "rhema". Rhema being when the Holy Spirit brings a truth into the heart of a person where they understand it and may then indeed live it. Understanding it is what is emphasised.
So in a sense the Pentecostals have generally promoted an idea that a person can not understand the intended or the later personal inspired meanings of Scripture without having a God moment in God's time with us.
Maybe in part why Bible reading is so important to the Pentecostals is that it is an invitation to the people discover truth (and who they are) by being part of the divine flow that comes via Scripture. They tend also to promote we hear from God when reading the Scriptures on someway generally in a person way. This generally helps the individual discern to hear the voice of God in their life and become accomstomed to it.
Both Ken & Ben have emphasized the Spirit's role in understanding the Bible, even to setting the timing for the revelation-of-insight... I think that is what we are after, and I accept a "method" can’t guarantee it, but as an educator I think no method at all can be a barrier to it. I've seen too many Sunday school classes with little method at all accomplishing little results at all. So I seek a "method" that might increase the chances of a class getting this insight from the Spirit--even if the "method" is mostly negative as yours is--removing the barriers in attitude and ignorance so the Spirit might speak.
As far as method, the "Asbury way" when it comes to appropriation (Schenck version) asks things like:
1. What are the points of continuity and discontinuity between the original context and our current context?
2. Was is the Christ trajectory or the trajectory of heaven? What is God's ideal that He will enact fully when the kingdom of God is fully arrived? What might we do in this instance to make the earth look more like the kingdom?
3. What did the Spirit reveal to the church on this issue beyond the pages of the New Testament? The Wesleyan Quadrilateral beyond Scripture: tradition, experience, and reason.
But of course the summary of doctoral programs in First Things I sent you, Coach, would see this as an old and tired method.
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