A Short Course on Hermeneutics (5)
C. HERMENEUTICS: A Spiritual Discipline
"Spirituality surrounds, vitalizes, and safeguards the whole process of hermeneutics."
1. A major discussion of hermeneutics is the role of the Holy Spirit or of spirituality in interpretation. My answer is that I don't know, but let me qualify that statement. I do know that both extremes on this issue are to be rejected because they border on blasphemy. There are those who, like Eliphaz in the book of Job, claim to talk with God or that the spirit reveals all truths to them. Why are they studying hermeneutics? The second position is that God is not involved. I believe he is involved, but I cannot pinpoint how.2. What I do believe is that when a man walks in the spirit and leads a spiritual life that this plays a major role in his understanding.
a. His priorities are right: Once I heard a man preach a sermon that began, "Nothing could be more important to the Christian than understanding the proper day of worship." This heresy is obviously one of emphasis because to emphasize that the day of worship is the preeminent issue in Christianity lacks spiritual insight.b. He has ethical standards: A man without ethical standards will abuse the text and twist it to his own destruction (2 Peter 3:16).
c. He has proper goals: He keeps Biblical goals as the goals of his teaching. In the book of Revelation the majority of the book speaks of the present and soon to come evil, but if one makes explaining the reign of the Antichrist the goal of the book, he is wrong. The book, since it is apocalyptic, is trying to develop a belief system that there is grace and not grief in the end. There is a future and present deliverance from this evil by the God who gathers His people around Himself.
d. He is confronted with true experiences: His life experiences are those that the writers of scripture describe and so he understands, because he is an insider to the reality of what the writer is communicating.
e. Is there more than this? My answer is yes, but I do not know all the dynamics of the matter other than to say, "It happens!"
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Further Reading:
Pinnock, Clark H. Biblical Revelation: The Foundation of Christian
Theology. Chicago: Moody Press, 1971. (pp. 215-17)