Tag Archives: exegesis

Reading oneself and the Bible: follow-up 2

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This post is the second part of my reply to “Listener’s” recent comment.

Previously I replied to Listener’s view that followers of God will know God’s voice and be able to identify things that come from God. Further, that “we can be sure of God’s goodness and His character for these things are revealed in Scripture.” To this point I raised the importance of employing scepticism and suspicion, both defining them and then explaining the importance of suspicion.

In this post I want to go further, by putting scepticism and suspicion to work on Listener’s next point.  Her next comment was: “When a person receives something beautiful from the Lord, the enemy will move in quickly to cause them to doubt its authenticity (because his whole goal is to kill, steal and destroy) and if he can do this through the voice of other Christians, it is far more effective in shutting down moves of the Spirit than someone who does not claim faith. That is why it is crucially important for each and every one of us to be very, very careful with the hearts of our brothers and sisters.”

I understand the logic and plausibility of this view, and it has some correspondence with the parable of the sower that is attributed to Jesus in the Gospels (Mt 13, Mk 4, Lk 8). Yet here, too, scepticism and suspicion must be at play.

Recall: scepticism addresses the opacity of facts while suspicion addresses the duplicity of persons.[1. See Merold Westphal’s Suspicion and Faith: the Religious uses of Modern Atheism.]

So on the level of the facts, scepticism asks: Who says that something is either “beautiful” or is “from the Lord”? On what basis can these claims be substantiated (or, what is the truth value of such truth claims)? On the level of persons, suspicion asks: What else might be going on here? What does the claimant stand to gain by making this claim (or lose if they don’t)? Such questions become more prominent the more the link between the facts and the claims seems weak or incoherent.

Now part of the difficulty in treading this ground is that Christians have never, to my knowledge, systematized claims about experiencing God in the same way that they have systematized, in their theology, claims to information about God.

In other words, knowing God through relationship and knowing about God through the Bible have received very different treatment over the history of Christianity. Yet, ironically, so many Christians want to claim—and seem to base their Christianity upon—the importance of specific, personal experiences with / from God (in the form of answered prayer, providential acts of divine intervention, etc.).

To be clear, I am not advocating theology instead of experience. Actually, I want to redress the overwhelming disparity between the two: to situate them in their proper relationship, which is theology with experience. I believe that at least three basic steps are required to right the relationship between the Bible and experience, between factual knowledge about God and personal / relational knowledge of God.

First, in addition to providing information about human beings and limited information about the natural world, the Bible points to God and explains who God is, how God acts, and what God seeks. As such, experiencing God is theological where it is the natural outcome of a God who acted, and continues to act, so as to seek ongoing relationship with humanity.

Second, experience is not simply the interpreted events or situations of a single person but, in Christianity, experience is essentially corporate. This is because testimony, as the credible accounts of others, is essential in order for people to come to relationship with God or to strengthen existing relationship with God.

So Christianity depends on others sharing their experiences of God yet, because this experiential content also informs us about God’s character and manner of relating (literally, it further informs us who God is relative to human beings), it is essential that Christians are not deceived in what they accept or deceptive in what they share. To this end, the Bible contains numerous warnings about false teachers, false prophets, and wrong teaching. And make no mistake: when we claim special interaction with God (and especially, when we conclude specific things about God on the basis of this interaction) we are indeed taking the role of teacher and potentially, prophet.

Third, given the necessarily theological character of experience and essential nature of testimony, Christians need to cultivate personal ‘exegesis’ on the same level as textual exegesis: Christians need to become equally skilled at ‘reading themselves’ as they do at reading the Bible. This is not to put the two on the same level but to affirm that both are complimentary, as requisites toward attaining the same goal.

Next post I aim to wrap up this examination by considering Listener’s final point: what to do with Christians who seem to respond to our experiential claims with envy or disdain, and to consider our reasons for sharing our “exceptional” experiences.

Not as different as we seem…?

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Recently I interacted with Christian author Frank Viola,where he blogged about a hypothetical conversation between two Christians (Chris & Bill) who both value the Bible but disagree on how to arrive at its meaning.

Frank focuses on their differing “communication styles.”  The one, Chris, uses what Frank calls the Charismatic Spiritual Conversation style (or CSC) and understands a biblical passage because “God showed me” or “the Spirit revealed to me” what it means.  The other, Bill (no “style” is actually associated with Bill’s approach), understands the Bible exegetically and hermeneutically.

Viola believes that their communication is frustrated because they use different communication styles (CSC vs. not CSC).

I don’t think so.

Specifically, the issue is not different “styles” / approaches but two sides of the same, disjointed ideology: an ideology that I believe fails properly to integrate our humanity with our Christian faith.  Let’s take a closer look.

What Frank refers to as “CSC” I would describe as the belief that we directly access biblical meaning through personal experience of God—knowing the Bible by knowing God.  What Frank refers to as the “exegetical, hermeneutical” style means believing that we reliably access biblical meaning through exegesis—knowing the Bible (and so God) through proper reading method.

The one touts experience, the other touts method.

Yet despite their different starting points both have much in common.  Further, rather than “running to excess,” both actually need to carry their emphases further.  Let me suggest four ways that this is so.

First, both are hermeneutically oriented.  So those who prize experience do actually maintain a hermeneutic (i.e., a lens, through which they read the Bible) that negates the necessity of exegesis because it denies that there is any distance between the text and the reader.  It does so because the Bible’s ultimate ‘author’ is giving readers the “inside scoop” on what it means.

Second, both are experientially oriented.  So those who prize proper reading method do actually emphasize their experience of God, particularly during discussions with non-Christians where they often use it as a ‘response of last resort’ against the claims of atheists / agnostics (“You just need to believe to understand”) or to curtail discussion (“We can only talk so far because we don’t have Christ in common”).

Third, however, rather than less emphasis on personal experience we need more.  Specifically, humans understand experience by drawing conclusions on the existential events that we undergo and testing these conclusions over time.  So reflecting on my experiences in my family of origin, marriage, etc., (i.e., how much and why I esteem them, and the outcome of doing so) can inform—and possibly correct—how much I esteem my experiences of God in understanding the Bible.

Fourth, and by extension, rather than less focus on exegesis we need more.  Specifically, the “greatest commandment” (to love God entirely, in response to God’s deep love for us) is an invitation to a love relationship that is not only core to Christian experience, but the basis of Christian understanding.  As such, being Christian involves not only applying proper method to Bible reading but also to ourselves: becoming skilled readers of our motives, intentions, etc.

These four points show how Chris & Bill’s approaches are not incompatibly different but are complimentary, yet incomplete because they are unintegrated.

In all areas of life, humans rely on explanations of how things work and then put these understandings in motion (such as understanding the Bible in order to know God).  Likewise, we experience things working and then are able to explain—to ourselves and others—how this is so (such as experiencing God and, thereby, understanding the Bible).

And the relationship between these two opposite approaches is reciprocal and productive: sometimes experience generates understanding, sometimes understanding prompts (or recontextualizes) experience.  And new experiences (and new understandings) prompt us to rework our understandings, or reconsider our interpretations of experience.

We need experience; we also need exegesis.  And we do not need to choose between them but properly to understand them, and so, integrate them.

Understanding the Bible: love the text as yourself

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Biblical interpretation, or exegesis, empowers belief.  But it can also destroy it.

The interpretation of biblical texts—determining their meaning according to linguistic content and cultural / historical context—is exegesis.  Yet it allows us better to understand biblical truth claims and the Bible’s various stories (and overarching Story) by giving content to these truth claims and specifying the nature and character of their protagonist: God.

In other words, exegesis helps us know what the Bible is claiming and, literally, who God is.  And this insight is crucial in deciding how we respond to the Bible and its God.

Before delving into the two passages from last post we must consider not only exegesis but what precedes it: our orientation towards texts in general.

At its core, biblical interpretation (or exegesis) is attuning ourselves to the unique nature of the text: letting the text “be itself”.  It is neither seeking to impose our views and understandings on it nor abandoning all we know and understand, and accepting it unquestioningly.  Yet neither is this an attempt to be ‘neutrally’ disposed towards the text, as if this were even possible.

Rather it is first “listening” to the text through a posture of respect, openness, consideration—the very stance that I hope others would take towards my writing or speech!  Quite literally, I am advocating treating the text according the golden rule: loving it like another person, as I love myself.

So the co-centrality of love and truth resurfaces, for it is by putting love in conjunction with truth that we most genuinely offer the text ‘a hearing’.

In my last post, then, I referred to two biblical texts that are easily misinterpreted.  This can be due to assumptions that a) culture in biblical times is similar enough to our own that no translation between them is needed, or b) the linguistic translation of the Bible (e.g., from Greek to English) yields unambiguous results, and so c) readers can understand a Bible verse by its own content alone, without overly considering the surrounding verses, or the chapter or book that contains it.  These are false assumptions.

For example, the role of honor and shame in 1st century Palestine is key to reading Matthew 5:39 properly, “if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also” (NRSV).  In that culture honor was like good credit: it offered privileges and possibilities unavailable to those of lesser esteem.  So a slap to the right cheek—a back-handed slap, designed to humiliate and reduce someone’s honour—was a big deal.

So rather than advocating pacifism in the face of abusive treatment, the verse contains the implicit cultural understanding that unwarranted incidents like this would prompt a community response.  Thus it calls for the wronged individual to allow the community to intervene as the best way for right relationships to be restored between the two parties.[1. Bruce J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh, Social-Sciences Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels, Fortress Press, 55-57.  See also Charles H. Talbert, Reading the Sermon on the Mount: Character Formation and Decision Making in Matthew 5-7, Baker Academic, 88-93, who argues that “non-retaliation” is a key notion here.]

Similarly, in Romans 8:28, “all things work together for good for those who love God” (NRSV), Paul’s tightly woven argument throughout Romans, the linguistic complexity of the verse, and the context of the surrounding chapter are key to proper exegesis.

In a recent paper on Romans 8:28 Mark Gignilliat notes four possible interpretations:
a) God works together with all things,
b) God works all things,
c) The Spirit works with all things for those who love God.
d) All things work together for good,
First he cites another Romans scholar who finds option d) to be “the least probable” option. Then he and argues for the one that he believes makes best sense, given the language use and context—option a) “And we know that in all things God is working together (with the Spirit) for good to those loving God.”

I am persuaded by the reasoning in Gignilliat’s paper that this is the best reading of the four. Further, this interpretation also defeats the objection that Romans 8:28 shows that God works with / uses evil (and so it has the additional benefit of harmonizing / making sense alongside of other biblical texts rather than contradicting or being at odds with passages that bear on issue of God and evil).[2. “Working together with whom?”  Biblica Sacra, 87 no. 4 2006, 511-515.  Both James Dunn and N.T. Wright agree with this interpretation (see World Biblical Commentary and New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary, both on Romans.) while F.F. Bruce advocates option c), seeing the Holy Spirit in the main role: “in everything, as we know, the Holy Spirit co-operates for good with those who love God.”  In all cases the common translation, d), is rejected.]

In fact, the notion that God makes use of, or even needs, evil to bring good is called The Greater Good argument.  Such a God has more in common with Buddhist or Hindu perspectives, and Christians who hold this view typically believe that everything is “God’s will.”  But have they forgotten how Jesus taught us to pray: “…Your will be done, on earth, as it is in Heaven”?[3. Mt 6:9-13.]

Clearly, things down here don’t always happen as God wills.  But that’s for another post.