Sound Interpretation Leads to Sound Conclusions
In our last 2 blogs in this series, I talked about the issue of filters in handling Scripture. You will want to review the first 2 before you read this blog.
Interpreting Methods
I can’t discuss handling scripture rightly without discussing something called hermeneutics. Hermeneutics is simply defined as a method or principle of interpretation. I have found that the most trustworthy hermeneutic is a historical, contextual hermeneutic. What does that mean? It means we must pay attention to the history surrounding the author and audience of Scripture, and we must look into the context surrounding Scripture.
Asking the Right Questions
I suggest you ask questions that will help you. If you don’t, you will passively assimilate everyone else’s conclusions. This is YOUR relationship with God – not your Pastor’s or some Teacher’s relationship with God!
Asking the right questions is paramount. If you ask the right questions, you will come to the right conclusions.
Here is where it gets really practical. Whenever you are interpreting scripture, you need to ask:
- Who is the author speaking to?
- What is the historical, cultural, political, and economic background of the author and the author’s audience?
- What is the context of the scripture?
- How does it fit with the nature of God and the whole of scripture?
Who is the Author Speaking to?
Who is the author speaking to? Is it:
- for all people?
- for all time?
- under all circumstances?
- for a specific people/person?
- for a specific time?
- for a specific circumstance?
Many times, when Jesus spoke, He was speaking to people still under the law. He put the law on steroids! This was the audience of that time. When Jesus revealed the reality of the law, His audience became aware of their complete inability to fulfill the demands of the law, causing them to fall back into dependence upon a merciful, lovely and saving God. Truly, if we all followed Jesus’s commands under the law to the letter in the sermon on the mount, we would all be armless and gouging our eyes out (Matthew 5:27 – 30). Understanding these scriptures righty requires understanding the audience, culture, and context.
Another example is where Paul said that women should be silent in the church (1 Corinthians 14:34). If Paul was speaking to all women for all time, then any woman prophesying, teaching, giving a testimony, asking a question, or speaking as a missionary in church would be silenced. What God placed in half the body of Christ would die with them in the grave.
It is crucial to apply good hermeneutics to interpret this rightly.
What is the Culture of the Audience?
Another important question to ask is what is the historical, cultural, political, economic background of the author’s audience? We should not impose our current culture, politics, economics on a different culture especially thousands of years ago! This is called eisegesis. Eisegesis is where we interpret a text by reading into it our own ideas. This is a big no-no!
Back in Paul’s day, a woman keeping her head uncovered and a man covering his head were big taboos with the culture (1 Corinthians 11:6-7). Today, in our current culture, forcing women to cover their heads and men not to cover their heads would be oppressive legalism. Do you see how cultural context affects how we interpret Scripture?
Another example of eisegesis revolves around the powerful imagery surrounding “the heavens and the earth.” In common Jewish culture “the heavens and the earth” was symbolic for the different parts of the Temple. So when the word said “the heavens and earth shall pass away” (2 Peter 3:10), the Jewish audience understood it referred to the Temple being destroyed that Jesus referred to in Matthew 24:1-2. This was fulfilled in 70 AD.
Surrendering our Mindsets
When we impose our literal cultural mindset, we interpret this as a fearful future event with a literal passing away of the heavens and earth. This results in all sorts of bad doctrine that causes fear because of the error of eisegesis!
Searching into the ancient cultures may take some digging, but the internet has made this so easy and the payoff is huge!
And on this note, I will reserve the last 2 hermeneutical questions for our last in the series. Join me next time!
XO,
Catherine
