Approaches to Biblical Interpretation (Methods)

Gold Dragon,

I don't see any corrections, but I do some clarifications and applications that may not have been apparent in the previous revelations.

But God does override in the sense that he laid aside the Old law for the New.

Hebrews 7:12 & 18-19
"12For when there is a change of the priesthood, there must also be a change of the law...
18The former regulation is set aside because it was weak and useless 19(for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God."


I may not be explaining myself correctly here. I believe as you we should read the Bible from front to back.

But what troubles me, is when someone takes something from the Old Testament and they completely reintrepret something that seems to be clear in New Testament with the Old Testament.

Yes we need to understand how we came to the point we are at in revelation. How would someone understand many things in the New Testament without first reading the Old? We agree there.

I, unlike some of my fellow brothers, do not believe it is always possible that two seeminly contradictory things are true. It can sometimes be true - like that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man. That God is soverign, and man still has a free will.

But often times people like to invent tentions or seemingly opposite truths where there are none.

So yes Revelation does not speak on all subjects, but on those subjects which it does speak(most predominantly prophecy) it is the final word.

Anyone Christian I have ever discussed theology or prophecy with always has some underlying presuppositions, whether he admits it or not. He has certain books of the Bible he uses has his starting point for interpretation on different matters, and no matter what any other books says, he will always see it through the lense of those starting books.

Then there are some, and you may or may not be one, that believe they are are taking a balanced and don't start from any certain place. These people see lots and lots of unresolved tentions in the Bible and usually have a very indefinite view of many areas of theology.

Let me just say one thing about your comparison to looking at current Baptists to understanding ancient churches. I don't think this is a fair comparison.

The Bible has been inerrantly inspired by God through the centuries. The Baptist Church has not been inerrantly developed by God(although some of my buddies my disagree).

So the development of interpretation and application in the Bible is perfect, while anything else including the development of Baptists is far from it.

So we can trust the the final product, the New Testament is the lense through which we must view the Old Testament. The Gospels likewise must be seen through the lense of the Epistles.

IFBReformer

[ April 21, 2005, 09:49 AM: Message edited by: IfbReformer ]

 

Agreed. That is also incorrect.

Do you subscribe to the dispensational or covenantal hermeneutic?

Generally I agree with you here. When something seems to be contradictory, it usually just appears to be an is not. However, your solution to reconciling these apparent contradictions is to give more authority to later revelation. While the later revelation may help us understand more fully the previous revelation, I believe that overemphasis of this idea of progressive revelation results "overriding" more than simply the Law.

I am especially wary of ultradispensationalism that has resulted in an "overriding" of most of Jesus' teachings by giving greater authority to Paul. And it sounds like that is what you are espousing below.

I believe I have a starting place and try to recognize the lens that I see scripture through. But one of my constant struggles is trying to minimize the thickness of that lens so that I will see scripture in its true light and less through my lens, knowing that this will never be possible.

While I am probably a lot more comfortable with unresolved tensions and indefinite views than you are (a modernist vs postmodernist distinction) I don't believe that those tensions are unresolvable or that those views are undefinable. Simply that I can attempt to but not perfectly succeed in resolving and defining them.

 

Actually I would find myself inbetween. I am a historic premillenialist and often times we are confused with convental theologians but that is not the case.

I see the church as belivers of all ages(Adam to the last man that will be believe), so many people think that makes me a convental - but I don't agree with many of their approaches of explaining things so I don't call myself a convental.

Here are some articles I wrote explaining my view
http://www.ifbreformation.org/Prophecy_Historic_timeline.aspx
http://www.ifbreformation.org/Prophecy_Israel_Church.aspx

As far as Paul overiding Jesus I don't think thats the case at all. I think Paul clarifies what Jesus was talking about.

I think you may be alluding to the hard sayings of Christ verses the promises of the Epistles?

I also wrote something on this a while ago - here is a paragraph I wrote about this the full article is linked below:

IFBReformer

 

So you would classify yourself as a progressive dispensationalist? I guess I would consider that a step in the right direction, away from both covenantalism and dispensationalism.

However I still think you place too much emphasis on progressive revalation designed to simplify and rationalize apparent conflicts in ways that I believe to be over-simplifications and over-emphasis of apparent conflicts that we should wrestle with and not try to rationalize away.

Personally I reject the entire premise of both the covenantal and dispensational hermeneutics. I recognize that dispensationalists hold a form of grammatico-historical hermeneutics that has many similarities to mine, but I reject the lens of dispensations that they interpret that hermeneutic through.

I also don't hold to any particular millenial view.

Phew, then we agree. Which is why I think we need to read the Gospels to understand what the Epistles are trying to clarify (but not override).

I'm alluding to the tendency of ultra-dispensationalists to say that the gospels are for the disciples or some future kingdom and the epistles are for the Church, effectively overriding the words of Christ by relegating it to a different dispensation.

 

IfbReformer, I read your "About Me" section on your webpage and I was very encouraged by your sharing and your approach to conflicts that face the IFB. Thanks.

 

I completely agree with you and know what you speak of. Everything that is said in the New Testament, from Matthew to Revelation, is for the New Testament Church.

When I speak of Epistles clarifying the Gospels, as I said I don't think they overide, but that there are many aspects of the Gospel that are not fully covered in the Gospels - such as justification by faith alone, imputed righteousness and other important aspects of salvation.

Forgive me if I am oversimplfing for you, but this is the way I see the Gospels:

Christ exposes those who believe their works will get them into heaven, and shows them their utter sinfulness.

Christ shows no one can perfectly keep the law except himself so no one can be saved by keeping the law - because they cannot.

Christ places a huge emphasis on simple faith, many are healed just by touching his garments because of their faith.

Christ shows men the only way they can be saved is by throwing themselves on the mercy of God and believing that he is the only one who can save them.

Christ gave us an example in his own life, that while we will never perfectly resemble, we are to strive to be like him.

Sometimes Christ explains his parables, and other time he does not. Even his explanations at times see difficult to understand.

Then we have Paul many years later, who gives us the greatest clarification of the Gospel we will ever get. He tells us of God's soverignty(what happens before we are saved), he tell us what happens at the point of salvation(when we hear and believe) - regeneration,justifcation, imputed righteousness and then tells us what should happen after salvation - progressive sanctification. He tell us of our eventual glorification.

Where I have a problem with some interpretations of the Gospels, is when Christ is telling a parable or speaking of the cost of being like him. Many will take a parable or something Christ says about the cost of being like him(discipleship) and railroad over simple, yet clear statements that Christ and Paul made other places about the simple freeness of salvation.

By the way no I am not a progressive dispensationalist - although there is not much difference between us. In fact many of the first progressive dispensationalists got many ideas from historic premillennialists like George Ladd. I guess the biggest differences between us is we have no need or desire to hang on to any part of dispensationalism, while the Progressives attempt to do so.

IFBReformer

 

I think this has been a very fruitful discussion for me and I believe our approach to hermeneutics isn't that far apart after we clarified a few initial misconceptions. I will probably always give more authority to Christ's words and less to Paul's espistles and Revelations than you will, but I think our overall approach is fairly similar.

I'll have to read your article on historic premillennialists to know a little better where you are coming from. But I'm encouraged to hear that some folks who grow up in dispensationalism are able to change.

 

Untangled,

1. Genesis is a copy of ancient mythology so the Jews could create their own history.
2. Revelation was a letter to scare the early church into obedience and has no meaning for anyone else of today.
3. When looking at scripture as long as the outcome makes you a better human then that is what the Bible is meant to do.

You're grouping together things you don't like. These 3 views are different. The first two are assertions regarding the INTENT of a book. The third is a loose view of scripture as a whole.

I think we should try to find what the intent of the book is. If we simply assume everything is literal we will certainly make some mistakes. Obviously the mindset of middle eastern people 2000 years ago is different than is ours. Gold Dragon is right. Some of scripture is literal and some is intentionally nonliteral.

I think too many here assume that a nonliteral (and in some cases allegorical) approach is wrong and is disrespectful of the Bible. This same viewpoint also seems to say that any critical analysis of the Bible is also bad. We must realize that perhaps the authorial INTENT WAS NONLITERAL in some cases. And we should not be afraid to study. I would not advocate the position that the critical view always should be assumed correct - but we also must not flee from a particular interpretation because it came from the critical method.