38 THE TEXT— INTERPRETATION



HOMILETICS

LECTURE 25

HERMENEUTICS

The following are excerpts from various sources dealing with the subject of Hermeneutics. The important point for the student to learn here is being very careful to correctly interpret the Bible passage that he is studying. We will examine ‘eisegesis vs. exegesis’; the basic laws of hermeneutics; Spurgeon’s lecture on spiritualizing; and Broadus’ lecture on Interpreting the Texts.

2 Tim 2:15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

Eisegesis is what's being done when someone interprets the Bible according to notions that were born outside of the Bible. It's when we read stuff into Scripture. To some extent, eisegesis is unavoidable. We don't come to the Bible with a blank slate. A lot of living and learning went into each of us. If we really bring our whole selves to the study of the Bible, all that stuff in us will and should have an impact on how we learn from the Bible. Here's where prayerful obedience and discipline come in, for the Spirit rewards hard work and harder prayer. The hard work uncovers what the Bible is telling us, and the obedience sets aside the ideas we cherish so that we may take on the Bible's vision. We need to actually ‘set aside our biases’ as we read and study the pages of Scripture!

Exegesis is what comes out of the Bible, as against what gets read into it. In a more theological setting, exegesis means what comes from the use of certain methods of studying the Bible. Just about every imaginable method already has a name, and there are all sorts of mixes, but the main types are : historical (using the form, word choices, editing work, historical context, main themes, and so on, to find what it meant back when it was written or when it happened), canonical (treating the Bible as an whole document designed to be what a specific community lives by), symbolic/allegorical (figuring out what each character and event represents), rational (thinking it through using logic and deductive technique). Most Bible students use most of the methods in their own way at some time, even if they don't think they do. All of them are often helpful, sometimes not at all helpful, and occasionally downright deceptive. It's best to see all methods as tools for the Bible student to use prayerfully, rather than as rules to follow or conclusions ('scholarly consensus') that one must accept.

The first half of the process of hermeneutics is referred to as exegesis. The goal of exegesis is to discover the meaning of the text through the author's intent. Once the meaning is discovered, then the principles are applied. This application of the principles is the second half of the process of hermeneutics, referred to as contextualization.

[The following is excerpted from “”]

Biblical hermeneutics is the science of knowing how to properly interpret the various types of literature found in the Bible. For example, a psalm should often be interpreted differently than a prophecy. A proverb should be understood and applied differently from a law. This is the purpose of biblical hermeneutics - to help us to know how to interpret, understand, and apply the Bible.

There are some religious groups (i.e. Christian Science, liberal United Methodist, Universalists, etc.) that read the Bible as something that is a mystery that needs to be investigated deeply to understand its deep dark doctrines. They believe that everything is basically an allegory. One must look for the ‘deeper spiritual meaning’ in every passage. They do not believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible.

The most important law of biblical hermeneutics is that the Bible should be interpreted literally. Literal Bible interpretation means you understand the Bible in its normal/plain meaning. The Bible says what it means and means what it says. One principle of hermeneutics often practiced among Evangelical Christians is "Scripture interprets Scripture," which is the principle that we should read any passage of the Bible in light of the entire Bible and not build a doctrine or position on a single proof text. The principle also holds that we should read obscure passages of Scripture in light of clear passages. Many make the mistake of trying to read between the lines and come up with meanings for Scriptures that are not truly in the text. Yes, of course, there are some spiritual truths behind the plain meanings of Scripture. That does not mean that every Scripture has a hidden spiritual truth, or that it should be our goal to find all such spiritual truths. Biblical hermeneutics keeps us faithful to the intended meaning of Scripture and away from allegorizing and symbolizing Bible verses and passages that should be understood literally.

A second crucial law of biblical hermeneutics is that a verse or passage must be interpreted historically, grammatically, and contextually. Historical interpretation refers to understanding the culture, background, and situation which prompted the text. Grammatical interpretation is recognizing the rules of grammar and nuances of the Hebrew and Greek languages and applying those principles to the understanding of a passage. Contextual interpretation involves always taking the surrounding context of a verse/passage into consideration when trying to determine the meaning.

Some mistakenly view biblical hermeneutics as limiting our ability to learn new truths from God's Word or stifling the Holy Spirit's ability to reveal to us the meaning of God's Word. This is not the case. The goal of biblical hermeneutics is to point us to the correct interpretation which the Holy Spirit has already inspired into the text. The purpose of biblical hermeneutics is to protect us from improperly applying a Scripture to a particular situation. Biblical hermeneutics points us to the true meaning and application of Scripture.

Heb 4:12 For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

Applying Biblical hermeneutics correctly will help keep the ‘sword’ sharp!

Spurgeon’s Lectures to my Students

excerpts from: Lecture VII

“On Spiritualizing”

The first canon to be observed is this--do not violently strain a text by illegitimate spiritualizing. This is a sin against common sense. How dreadfully the word of God has been mauled and mangled by a certain band of preachers who have laid texts on the rack to make them reveal what they never would have otherwise spoken.

A passage in the Proverbs reads as follows: "For three things the earth is disquieted, and for four which it cannot bear: for a servant when he reigneth; and a fool when he is filled with meat: for an odious woman when she is married; and an handmaid that is heir to her mistress." A raving spiritualizer declares that this is a sweet picture of the work of grace in the soul, and shows what it is that disquiets Arminians, and sets them by the ears. "'A servant when he reigneth,' that is, poor servants like ourselves, when we are made to reign with Christ; 'a fool when he is filled with meat,' that is, poor foolish men like us, when we are fed with the finest of the wheat of gospel truth; 'an odious woman when she is married,' that is, a sinner when he is united to Christ; 'A handmaid that is heir to her mistress,' that is, when we poor handmaids that were under the law, bondslaves, come into the privileges of Sarah, and become heirs to our own mistress.'"

Next, never spiritualize for the sake of showing what an uncommonly clever fellow you are. Such an intention will be wicked, and the method used will be foolish. Only an egregious simpleton will seek to be noted for doing what nine out of ten could do quite as well. A certain probationer (looking for a pastorate) once preached a sermon upon the word "but," thus hoping to ingratiate himself with the congregation, who would, he thought, be enraptured with the powers of a brother who could enlarge so marvellously upon a mere conjunction. His subject appears to have been, the fact that whatever there may be of good in a man's character, or admirable in a man's position, there is sure to be some difficulty, some trial in connection with us all: "Naaman was a great man with his master, but--?' When the orator descended from the pulpit the deacons said, "Well, sir, you have given us a singular sermon, but--you are not the man for the place; that we can see very clearly." Remember that spiritualizing is not such a wonderful display of ingenuity, even if you are able to do it well, and that without discretion it is the most ready method of revealing your egregious folly. Gentlemen, if you aspire to emulate Origen in wild, daring, interpretations, it may be as well to read his life and note attentively the follies into which even his marvellous mind was drawn by allowing a wild fancy to usurp absolute authority over his judgment; and if you set yourselves to rival the vulgar declaimers of a past generation, let me remind you that the cap and bells do not now command the same patronage as fell to their share a few years ago.

But supposing you have expounded all the usually accepted types, and have cast light upon the emblems and figurative expressions, must your fancy and delight in sirnilitudes go to sleep? By no means. When the apostle Paul finds a mystery in Melchisedek, and speaking of Hagar and Sarah, says, "Which things are an allegory," he gives us a precedent for discovering scriptural allegories in other places besides the two mentioned. Indeed, the historical books not only yield us here and there an allegory, but seem as a whole to be arranged with a view to symbolical teaching.

The parables of our Lord in their expounding and enforcement afford the amplest scope for a matured and disciplined fancy, and if these have all passed before you, the miracles still remain, rich in symbolical teaching. There can be no doubt that the miracles are the acted sermons of our Lord Jesus Christ. You have his "word sermons" in his matchless teaching, and his "deed sermons" in his peerless acts. Take the story of the healing of the deaf and dumb man. The poor creature's maladies are eminently suggestive of man's lost estate, and our Lord's mode of procedure most instructively illustrates the plan of salvation. "Jesus took him aside from the multitude"--the soul must be made to feel its own personality and individuality, and must be led into loneliness. He "put his fingers into his ears," the source of the mischief indicated; sinners are convinced of their state. "And spat"--the gospel is a simple and a despised means, and the sinner, in order to salvation, must humble himself to receive it. He "touched his tongue," further pointing out where the mischief lay--our sense of need grows on us. He "looked up to heaven"--Jesus reminded his patient that all strength must come from above--a lesson which every seeker must learn. "He sighed," showing that the sorrows of the Healer are the means of our healing. And then he said, "Ephphatha, Be opened"--here was the effectual word of grace which wrought an immediate, perfect, and lasting cure. From this one exposition learn all, and ever believe that the miracles of Christ are a great picture gallery, illustrating His work among the sons of men.

Let it be an instruction, however, to all who handle either the parables or the metaphors, to be discreet. Dr. Gill is one whose name must ever be mentioned with honour and respect in this house in which his pulpit still stands, but his exposition of the parable of the Prodigal Son strikes me as being sadly absurd in some points. The learned commentator tells us, "the fatted calf" was the Lord Jesus Christ! Really, one shudders to see spiritualizing come to this. Then also there is his exposition of the Good Samaritan. The beast on which the wounded man was placed is again our Lord Jesus, and the two pence which the Good Samaritan gave to the host, are the Old and New Testament, or the ordinances of Baptism and the Lord's Supper. Despite this caution, you may allow much latitude in spiritualizing to men of rare poetical temperament, such as John Bunyan. Gentlemen, did you ever read John Bunyan's spiritualizing of Solomon's Temple? It is a most remarkable performance, and even when a little strained it is full of a consecrated ingenuity.

With this I close, re-asserting the opinion, that guided by discretion and judgment, we may occasionally employ spiritualizing with good effect to our people; certainly we shall interest them and keep them awake.

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BROADUS: ON PREPARATION & DELIVERY OF SERMONS

INTERPRETATION OF THE TEXT

(excerpts)

"A poetic language, a language I mean of a poetic people, delights alternately to diminish and augment, that the imagination of the hearer or reader may be exercised in adding or retrenching." For example, " Whosoever is born of God, doth not commit sin" (i John iii. 9); "That which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God " (Luke xvi. 15); "If any man come to me and hate not his father and mother ... he cannot be my disciple" (Luke xiv. 26). And, as an example of a diminished expression, "The unfruitful works of darkness" (Eph. v. 11). "It delights by turns to make absolute that which is relative, and relative that which is absolute." Examples of the former : " When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbors; . . . but call the poor, the maimed," etc. (Luke xiv. 12). This is stated as an absolute prohibition of inviting friends, kindred, rich neighbors, and a command to invite exclusively the other class. We know very well that our Lord did not mean to be thus understood, nor does any one ever thus interpret.

Erroneous interpretations arise from disregarding the connection of the text. In some cases, a sentence taken apart from its connection would give a positively wrong sense. For example, "Nevertheless, being crafty, I caught you with guile "

(2 Cor. xii. 16). In others, it would be hopelessly ambiguous, or utterly vague. In nearly all cases, a thorough understanding will require that we examine the connection. Even in those portions of Proverbs, where the several sentences appear wholly disconnected, one may sometimes derive help from observing what seems to be the general class of topics which the writer or collector has here in mind. In the Psalms, even Psalm cxix., there is always a general drift by which we may be guided. In the narratives, poetical treatises, discourses, epistolary arguments, etc., which make up almost the entire Bible, the connection is obviously important. It might in fact seem needless to insist on this. No man of sense, in dealing with any other book, would think of interpreting a single sentence here or there, in entire disregard of its connection. If an agriculturist or engineer, a physician or lawyer, should thus interpret detached sentences in the works which he consults for instruction and practical guidance, he would be voted a simpleton. Why, then, do men of sense so often neglect, or even knowingly violate, the connection of a Scripture text? It is a mournful fact that Universalists, Romianists, Mormons, can find an apparent support for their heresies in Scripture, without interpreting more loosely, without doing greater violence to the meaning and connection of the sacred text than is sometimes done by orthodox, devout and even intelligent men.

A second cause is the exclusive use of short texts. Men of ordinary powers cannot always find short passages which, interpreted in the light of the connection, will furnish them material enough for a sermon ; and they are tempted to make some additional application of the words which the connection does not admit, or even to break a sentence away from its connection, and give it an entirely new application, which would make it a striking text. Under such pressure, and encouraged by the example of good and honored brethren, they interpret as suits them; and the habit thus formed is perhaps confirmed by indolence, seeing that it is often troublesome to study the context.

And there is yet another cause. Some six centuries ago there began the present division of the Bible into chapters, and some three centuries ago the subdivision into verses. Both were made for convenience in reference, just as somewhat similar divisions and subdivisions have from time to time been made in the text of many Greek and Latin authors. In the classics, however, only the larger divisions, the chapters, have been printed as separate, the subdivisions being put together according to the sense, and merely noted on the margin or within the text. Unfortunately, a different course has been pursued in printing the Bible; beginning with the Genevan Version, it has become common to print each verse as a separate paragraph. This mode of printing was probably introduced partly because of the peculiar structure of the Psalms, in which the successive sentences are frequently distinct; it also saved trouble in finding verses, and the practice at one time existed of printing "references " not as we do in the margin, but at the end of each verse. Whatever causes established the custom, it has long been a custom, and some persons even defend it because it makes the Bible look different from other books. Now the division into verses, as well as that into chapters, was very carelessly made, and often sadly disregards the connection and obscures the sense (Broadus’ statement, not mine).

The result has been to lead both preachers and hearers to think of every chapter and every verse as a sort of separate whole. It is curious to observe how rarely we hear read in public the latter part of one chapter and the earlier part of the next, though the slightest care for the real connection of narrative or argument would often require this; and how awkward it would seem to take the last words of one verse and the first words of another as a text. To dispel this illusion, which makes every verse a paragraph, and every chapter almost a distinct book, is a matter of serious importance for all persons, ministers or others, who wish really to understand the Bible.

A third source of error in the interpretation of texts is improper spiritualizing. We have no other means of representing spiritual things than by metaphors derived from things temporal ; and our very conceptions of the unseen world depend upon images furnished by the world in which we now live. Swedenborg taught, in the "doctrine of correspondences " upon which he asserts the Scriptures to have been written, that every object and relation in the material sphere has something corresponding to it in the spiritual sphere.. All the false religions present perversions and distortions of this conception.

Individual personages of history, as Melchizedek, Moses, Joshua, David, Cyrus, undoubtedly bore a divinely designed resemblance, in some respects, to the coming Messiah. The relation between husband and wife afforded an oft-recurring image of the relation between God and the chosen nation, between Christ and his Church. Even the enmity of Sarah and Hagar pictured the opposition between bondage under the law and liberty in the gospel. With such a foundation in the nature of things, and with so much support in the actual usage of the Bible, it is not strange that there has always been on the part of some men a tendency to spiritualize, widely and wildly, the language of Scripture. It is common to speak of Origen (third century) as the father of Christian allegorizing; but it abounds already in some writers of the second century, and Origen learned much of it, as regards the Old Testament, from Philo the Jew, a contemporary of our Lord, the Alexandrian Jews having long been engaged in this sort of speculation. Origen 's transcendent ability, learning, and power of creative imagination contributed much to make fanciful allegorizing popular among Christians. Most of the great Fathers, who have ever since their own times exerted so powerful an influence on Christian thought and practice, are grievously infected with this evil.

In the case of figurative passages which really have a spiritual meaning, there is danger of pressing the figure too far, of fancying a spiritual sense in aspects or details of the figure which are not really within the scope of the inspired writer. When our Lord says, " Take my yoke upon you," we have no right to hunt up all manner of details as to yokes and oxen, and run a fanciful parallel as to each particular; the general meaning is plain enough, and that is all. When he says, "Be ye wise as serpents," or, "I will make you fishers of men," and in thousands of Scripture passages the same principle holds. We must inquire what the sacred speaker or writer designed by the figure; so much it means, but beyond that, as a part of Scripture, it means nothing. Especially common are errors of this kind in the interpretation of our Lord's Parables. The stories which were told by the Great Teacher are illustrations of unrivalled beauty and impressiveness, but still they are illustrations.

Pay special attention to any figures of speech that may occur in the text or its connection. Wherever it is clear, from the nature of the case, from the connection, or from precisely similar expressions in other passages, that the literal sense is not designed, then we must understand figuratively. In the language of Scripture, as in all other language, the presumption is in favor of the literal sense. To explain away as figurative whatever seems to conflict with doctrinal prejudices, or with fanciful notions and morbid feelings as to ethics or aesthetics, or with hasty inferences from imperfectly established scientific facts, is to trifle with that which we acknowledge as an authoritative revelation. Still, there is very much in Scripture that is clearly figurative; and very much more which might so readily be thus understood, in the light of other Scripture usage, that we ought to be careful about building important theories upon its literal sense. This is especially true as regards prophecies of things yet to come, in which it is of necessity quite difficult to distinguish beforehand between literal and figurative, though the fulfilment will some day make it plain.

Study the text in its immediate connection. The connection of thought in which a text stands will of course throw light upon its meaning, and is usually indispensable to understanding it. The immediate connection, or context, will usually embrace from a few verses to a few chapters, before and after the text; and of this context the preacher should not only have a general knowledge, but should make special examination, when examining his text; and we must resist the common tendency to imagine that this context begins or ends with the cJiapter in which the text stands

Study the text in its larger connections. These remoter relations of the text are also very important to its correct interpretation. Sometimes the logical connection will really be the entire book to which the text belongs. There are few sentences in Hebrews, or in the first eleven chapters of Romans, which can be fully understood without having in mind the entire argument of the Epistle. Of course this is not so strikingly true in most of the books, but each of them has its own distinctive contents, connection, and character. Few things are to be so earnestly urged upon the student of Scripture as that he shall habitually study its books with reference to their whole connection. Then he can minutely examine any particular text with a correct knowledge of its general position and surroundings.

Apart from the logical connection of discourse in which a text is found, there is often important aid to be derived from general historical knowledge. In the narratives which make up the larger part of Scripture we have constant need of observing facts of geography which would throw light on the text. So as to the manners and customs of the Jews, and other nations who appear in the sacred story. Thus much is obvious, though these helps for understanding texts are seldom used as diligently as they should be.

You, as a teacher and preacher of God’s Word, must, and I repeat, must, have the correct interpretation of whatever it is that you are bringing forth to your hearers! Much time and effort (and prayer) needs to be put forth in this exercise of what is called ‘hermeneutics’. If you remember nothing else from this lecture, remember this: “Scripture interprets Scripture”…

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