Category Archives: Interpretation

Really Glad About This Article

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I’m pretty excited about this new resource just added to DG’s Resource Library. It’s excellent content that has been inaccessible on the web. The process to get this up included transcribing the original document into electronic format (contracted out), translating it into HTML (including the 72 hyperlinked footnotes), inserting the images for the content that’s irreproducible otherwise.

Here’s the post. Below’s the body copy…

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If you want to understand the message of 1 Peter,
or how hope in God’s grace affects our command to love,
or if you just want to see a lucid example of careful exegetical method. . .

let me commend to you John Piper’s 1980 article for Cambridge’s New Testament Studies: “Hope as the Motivation of Love: 1 Peter 3:9–12.”

A new web version has just been added to our Resource Library, full of the original British –ours, German lines, Greek inserts, and 72 footnotes (now hyperlinked).

Read the full article.

Here’s a snapshot of the work:

Method

In the long run it is the mutually correcting interaction between detailed analyses of particular texts (at the risk of conceptual myopia) and more general syntheses of an author’s total thought (at the risk of superficiality) which will yield the most balanced and true picture of how he may conceive of ethical motivation (or anything else).

Outline

  1. Introduction: the problem at hand
  2. The motif of hope as it’s grounded in the work of Christ and functions to motivate Christian behavior.
  3. 1 Peter 3:9–12 considered in detail.
  4. The conclusion as a result of points 2 and 3: general synthesis of the author’s thought and detailed analysis of a paritcular text.

Conclusion

Rather, when we hold the two parts together [points 2 and 3 above] a more balanced and true picture emerges of how 1 Peter aims to motivate enemy–love. . . .

Instead (taking the whole message of 1 Peter into account) we will recognize in our own ill will a failure to “hope fully” in the grace of Christ (1:13) who by bearing our own sins in his body (2:24) has brought us home to God (3:18) — our faithful creator (4:19). We will admit that not legalistic moral effort but a change of heart is demanded. To that end we will “be sober unto prayer” (4:7), and girding up our minds (1:13) will direct our attention to the reality of the Lord’s kindness in the living word (2:2, 3; 1:23). Thus by the grace of God we may experience a renewal of hope so that in all sincerity and earnestness (1:22) we can speak and act toward our enemy from a hopeful, humble and loving heart that truly desires his blessedness.

An Old Word for a New Day—Exegetical Integrity and Theological Faithfulness

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G. C. Berkouwer writes:

Admist many dangers, the conviction has gradually become stronger that the human character of Scripture is ont an accidental or peripheral condition of the Word of God but something that legitimately deserves our full attention…

The fear that the [human element] of the doctrine of Scripture implies a threat to and an historicizing of the authority of Scripture is really the result of an artificial view of revelation. Those who hold such a view deny that shifts and changes in the history of the church can originate from a better understanding of Holy Scripture. They forget that Scripture is written in human words and consequently offers men legitimate freedom to examine these words and try to understand them (Holy Scripture, 20).

Berkouwer’s insight does not mean that we receive the New Perspective on Paul or biological evolution as the newly-founded norm. But it does mean that we confront these issues exegetically and not merely dismiss them as novel.

We understand Holy Scripture better than believers who lived in the 1300s. This is not because the Bible has changed as if it were some document of undetermined meaning, but because the church has learned how to better understand the Bible’s determined meaning.

This must be the root of faithful theology. This stance has no bias but to be true to the nature of Holy Scripture. The Bible as the inscripturate revelation of God is nothing static. It is active with divine force to accomplish the will of God through the gospel in a new day. The Church is to read upon the shoulders of our earlier generations, being aided and helped but in no way enslaved by the light shed upon them.

“The unfolding of your words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple” (Psalm 119:130).

A Hermeneutical Rule: My Aim in Reading the Bible

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My aim in reading[1] the Holy Scripture[2] is to understand[3] what the author is willing to communicate[4] about the LORD[5], by attending to the genre and grammar[6] of the text[7] in reference to the canonical testimony[8], in order to embody the gospel witness in my particular context.[9]

[1] A “hermeneutical rule” is essentially a standard that expresses an “aim in reading”

[2] “Holy Scripture” is used here as a confessional phrase that signifies a conviction that the Bible in its final form is the Word of God inscripturate.

[3] “Understand” corresponds to reading and underscores the cognitive process the authors intended the reader to employ (Eph 3:3-4; use of ge√graptai).

[4] This attends to the intention of the human author who wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:20-21; 2 Tim 3:16).

[5] The qualifier “about the LORD” signifies two points: 1) this reading has a theological emphasis. Having been called out of darkness into light by the gospel, the aim is primarily to know and love the LORD; 2) the LORD abolishes any generic sense of divine revelation. The theological emphasis is directed at beholding the LORD Almighty—the one true God—Father, Son, and Spirit. This Trinitarian reference also implies a christotelic focus because Jesus Christ is the Word of God incarnate and the conscious focus of all saving faith and worship (John 1:1-3, 14; 14:6; Acts 4:12; 2 Cor 1:19-20; Heb 1:1-3).

[6] The genre and grammar of the text takes the human element of Holy Scripture seriously. The Word of God is written in human language, therefore conveyed in linguistic conventions of a particular culture and history divinely preserved and accessible to contemporary readers.

[7] The use of “text” rather than “author” highlights the conviction that the text is the means by which the author communicates his intention. Therefore, the text itself must be the reader’s central concern as opposed to the events and processes behind the text.

[8] The “canonical testimony” is the conviction that Holy Scripture, in its final form, is the sufficient and holistic witness of the LORD given to his church within the economy of salvation.

[9] This is to say that the purpose of reading is to live out (embody) the Word in joyful obedience to the LORD, contextualized in the specific culture (witness) to which the LORD has called me. This is the task of theology—the living out of and faithful witness to the gospel.

Historical Studies and Our Interpretation of Scripture

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In light of my last post, I want to explain more of how I understand the place of historical studies in our reading of Holy Scripture.

Historical studies has a place in our interpretation of the Bible because the Bible is written in human language. Human language is historical phenomena and the Bible’s language is thousands of years old. The parameter of historical studies to philology is more in line with the nature of Scripture—God’s revelation in text. Moreover, God’s revelation in text-testimony of God’s Text—the Logos, Jesus Christ.

Attention to the text will inevitably take us beyond language to concept since the two are so inseparably united. And it is here where I think we have our limits. Concepts are helpful insomuch as they are studied in relationship to language, in the effort of understanding text. And I think the primary area for studying these concepts is the canon, that is, the greater narrative of Scripture. And these concepts of the greater narrative of Scripture inform—but do not determine— apostolic meaning.

This is one reason why I think the Biblical Theology Movement has been so beneficial to biblical studies. It has readjusted the criticism of the 18th and 19th centuries to focus on the Holy Scripture itself with the dogmatic foundation that there really is one message—it is biblical studies based on what the Bible is.

The Greatest Barrier Between Us and This Book

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There is no doubt that visiting Turkey is really cool. I would love to check out the ancient ruins and take lots of photos for my desktop. But if that makes the Bible “come alive” for me then I’ve been doing something wrong.

Contact with the history of the Bible may seem to accentuate the text—and it indeed helps people. But there is a potential expense too great to risk. All the searching in history to vivify the Holy Scripture may actually blur what the Holy Scripture actually is. Yes, a document written in history. Yes, a document written by humans who lived in that history. But more than anything, the revelation of God. This Book is an action, the work of the triune God to reveal himself and reconcile a people for his own.

The greatest barrier between us and this Book is not the history and culture that separate us from its human authors, but the heart of darkness that separates us from its divine author. We need faith more than understanding the geographical layout of Asia Minor. We come to the Holy Scripture in need of an illumining work, not a historicizing one.

It’s the Message that Matters

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So today was the day in our OT class. Having read essays by Longman, Enns, and Sparks, we were set to interact with some critical issues of the Old Testament: Adam is historical? Explain the land of Nod. How should we understand the creation narrative of Genesis 1-2? What about the Ancient Near Eastern accounts?

Three hours of a discussion like this is only worthwhile when the foundation of the discussion affirms that these things are only secondary issues at best. The how of Genesis 1-2 must be submitted first and foremost to the why of Genesis 1-2 — or as Jason DeRouchie says of the text, “see the sermon.” What the Old Testament authors really cared about is the message.

The main error at stake when examining the ‘how issues’ behind the text is that they can distract us from the ‘main issue of the text.’ To be the truest to the text, to the human authors who wrote it, and the triune God who inspired it, we should come to the text as recipients of the LORD’s covenant love. We come to the text in faith and we come to find revelation.

A New Hearing for an Old Word

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Alongside these editorial and compositional factors, moreover, are important hermeneutical signals that must be studied and assessed for their proper proportionality and significance. The juxtaposing of late and early is not just a matter of the clever matching of kindred themes or catchwords or the tidying up of historical gaps and inconsistencies after the fact.

He we approach the heart of canonical reading, that is, that aspect of God’s word to Israel that continues to press for a hearing and addresses new generations with an old word, borne of a specific time and specific application and, without shedding that, moving forward through time to enclose new readers and new situations.

Christopher Seitz, Prophecy and Hermeneutics, 239, paragraphing and italics mine

Seitz makes a very important point about the canonical approach that I think distinguishes it from hard historical-grammatical approaches and fluffy reader-response orientations.

A canonical reading continues to press for a hearing and addresses new generations with an old word. In order for the old word to apply to us we do not need to vicariously inhabit the world of pre-exilic Israel awaiting an impending judgment, nor a Second Temple Judaism that may have some serious issues with ethnocentrism. This old word continues to press for a hearing right now where we’re at in the economy of salvation.

And it is, in fact, an old word. This is to say that it does have a determinant meaning. The author did mean something. The text does mean something. Our task is not creative, but exegetical. And the conviction that drives our exegesis situates “exegesis” within a larger framework of God’s revelation. Exegesis cannot be the mere decoding of texts shrouded by centuries of historical and cultural differences. Exegesis is the turning of our ears toward an old word that continues to press for a hearing.

Why is Hosea First? – Seitz and Canonical Thinking

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Seitz offers three reasons for why Hosea is the first of the Minor Prophets although it does not rank first chronologically.

  1. “Hosea introduces the them of YHWH’s patience and urges its centrality by clear intertextual links to the foundational account of Moses and God’s forbearance at Sinai following the golden calf incident (the names of Hosea’s children, ‘not my people’ and ‘no compassion,’ play on the dialogues between God and Moses in Exodus about whose people the murmuring Israelites are and on the compassionate and merciful formula from Exod. 33-34″ (234).
  2. “Second, Hosea ends with an exhortation to the reader, and in this sense it is similar to other reader-directed shaping such as we find at another beginning: Psalm 1 of the Psalter collection” (235).
  3. Third, this bit of canonical shaping is preceded by a lengthy call to repentance (14:1-7 [14:2-8 MT[) whose force does not take hold within the compass of Hosea as an individual book. It is a bit of final introduction from Hosea that sits now over the journey on which one is about to embark in the unfolding of the Minor Prophets as a whole” (235).

Christopher Seitz, Prophecy and Hermeneutics, numbering mine

Seitz: Canonical Reading as the Appropriate Historical Reading

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My more contentious point is that those who claim that their reading is more historically appropriate–a reading in which the individual prophets are isolated from one another, recast according to date, and placed in a reconstructed temporal context–are actually the ones who are not reading the prophets sufficiently historically, for final canonical form is also a piece of history, belonging to decisions made in the past about how an ancient prophetic witness is finally to be heard.

Christopher Seitz, Prophecy and Hermeneutics, 233

Christopher Seitz on ‘Canonical Reading and Hermeneutical Reflections’

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Chapter eight of Christopher Seitz’s Prophecy and Hermeneutics: Toward a New Introduction to the Prophets is “worth the price of the entire book” (but my copy is used). The chapter is entitled “Prophecy and Hermeneutics: Canonical Reading and Hermeneutical Reflections.” Due to how the chapter is so concise, clear, and helpful, I plan to devote the next series of posts to insightful portions from Seitz.

He begins the chapter with quotes from Benjamin Jowett and Hermann Gunkel.

Jowett is quoted: “The true use of interpretation is to get rid of interpretation, and leave us alone in company with the author.”

Gunkel says, “If the contemporary readers wish to understand the prophets, they must entirely forget that the writings were collected in a sacred book centuries after the prophet’s work. The contemporary reader must not read their words as portions of the Bible but must attempt to place them in the context of the life of the people of Israel in which they were first spoken.”

Seitz then writes,

In these quotations we see a separation of text and author and a valorizing of man over text. In this chapter I want to reverse that trend (221).