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Meaning and Application 2: Timeless Truth?

I ended my previous post with these words:

In summary, sharp distinctions between meaning and application are difficult to make at best. I fear that the making of such distinctions comes out of a desire to seek ‘scientific objectivity’ in interpretation. Such objectivity is impossible. And even if it is possible (and I don’t think it is), it is still undesirable. My argument is that objective detachment in biblical interpretation is impossible and/or undesirable for at least two reasons: 1)Interpretation (even in determining the original context of portions of Scripture) necessarily involves asking questions of the text, and questions cannot be neutral and 2) the best biblical interpretation is also the most applicable and vice versa (the worst is the least applicable).

I will now pursue those two points.

First, interpretation necessarily involves asking questions of the text of Scripture, and questions cannot be neutral. Back when I was blogging through Technopoly, by Neil Postman, I wrote a post entitled Questions Cannot Be Neutral. I referenced this quote by Postman:

A question, even of the simplest kind, is not and can never be unbiased…My purpose is to say that the structure of any question is as devoid of neutrality as its content. The form of a question may ease our way or pose obstacles. Or, when even slightly altered, it may generate antithetical answers, as in the case of the two priests who, being unsure if it was permissible to smoke and pray at the same time wrote to the Pope for a definitive answer. One priest phrased the question ‘Is it permissible to smoke while praying?’ and was told it is not, since prayer should be the focus of one’s whole attention; the other priest asked if it is permissible to pray while smoking and was told that it is, since it is always appropriate to pray (pp. 125-126).

From there, I made this observation:

First, in my thinking, I applied this quote to the study of the Scriptures. As a student of the Bible, and as a preacher, I think this is sound wisdom for dealing with the Scriptures. Martyn Lloyd-Jones makes the point in Preaching and Preachers that a student of the Scriptures must constantly be asking questions of the text if he is to find answers; and the kind of questions we ask will largely determine the answers that we receive. John Frame makes much the same point in  The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God (and in his general points about Perspectivalism; if you don’t know what it is then by all means click the link). He argues, and he is absolutely right, that we cannot come to the Scriptures, or any book for that matter, as blank slates. We come with all sorts of baggage, which leads us to ask certain kinds of questions and seek certain kinds of answers. What this means practically is that we have to train ourselves to ask the right sorts of questions.

Someone may contend that our goal is to make our questions as ‘objective’ as possible. This would lead back to the road of interpreter as historical exegete looking primarily for the illusive ‘original meaning’ of the text. But there’s a problem with this. Perfect objectivity is a myth of Scientism. As long as we are personal beings with personal histories, personal presuppositions, and personal beliefs, we will never achieve the gnostic idea of setting those things aside for detached objectivity. Michael Polanyi dealt with this question at great length in more than one book. For instance, in Personal Knowledge, he writes,

When we accept a certain set of pre-suppositions and use them as our interpretative framework, we may be said to dwell in them as we do in our body…They are not asserted and cannot be asserted, for assertion can be made only within a framework with which we have identified ourselves for the time being; as they are themselves our ultimate framework, they are essentially inarticulable (p. 60).

Postman says that questions cannot be neutral. Polanyi says that the reason questions cannot be neutral is that the people who ask them cannot be neutral – they have inarticulate presuppositions that they are likely not aware of, not to mention overt presuppositions that they are aware of. This means, for our discussion, that the idea of biblical interpreter as detached exegete is a myth. And that’s a good thing.

Let me share an anecdote. A few years ago I took several classes on homiletics (preaching). During a discussion on the subject of ‘application,’ one of the students made this point to our professor: ‘What if there is no application of the passage? I just don’t see any application in the passage I’ve been working on, so why should I worry about it?’ I raised my hand an responded, ‘But you are a person, and you are preaching to people! You are not preaching in a vacuum!’ What followed was the chirping of crickets for about 20 seconds. It seems obvious enough. We should not be afraid to ask our ‘modern’ questions of the sacred text. How does this affect me? How does it affect my church? How does it affect my society?

‘Rabbi’ John Duncan once wrote of Jonathan Edwards that his ‘doctrine is all application, and his application is all doctrine.’ This is an interesting quote for a couple of reasons. First, Edwards is famous for the habitual structure of his sermons. He nearly always follows the same pattern: exegesis, statement of the main doctrine, application. He studied a text to find a primary teaching. After demonstrating that teaching in the text, he would go on to apply it to his congregation. Thus his sermons were divided into two main parts: doctrine and application. But, says Duncan, his ‘doctrine is all application, and his application is all doctrine.’ If you’ve read much of Edwards, you likely understand what Duncan means. He was never interested in detached exegesis, exposition, or theology. He was always aiming the truth right at you.

Doctrine cannot be expounded in a vacuum. The incarnation of Christ is the ultimate proof that doctrine must touch the ground and get dirty. This is what separates theology from so much philosophy. Christians are not primarily concerned with theoretical questions. When we ask questions, we are looking for answers that apply to actual lives lived in this actual world. This is why a Puritan father like William Perkins defined theology as “the science of living blessedly forever,” and why his disciple Williams Ames called theology “the doctrine or teaching of living to God.” This is why, during the Reformation, John Calvin claimed, as the central thesis of Book I of the Institutes of the Christian Religion, that the knowledge of God and the knowledge of man are inseparable if we are to properly live the Christian life. He writes,

Our wisdom, in so far as it ought to be deemed true and solid Wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But as these are connected together by many ties, it is not easy to determine which of the two precedes and gives birth to the other.

And this is why, centuries before, Francis of Assisi (and Thomas Aquinas) were so concerned with the things of this world:

St. Francis was becoming more like Christ, and not merely more like Buddha, when he considered the lilies of the field or the fowls of the air; and St. Thomas was becoming more of a Christian, and not merely more of an Aristotelian, when he insisted that God and the image of God had come in contact through matter with a material world. These saints were, in the most exact sense of the term, Humanists; because they were insisting on the immense importance of the human being in the theological scheme of things. But they were not Humanists marching along a path of progress that leads to Modernism and general scepticism; for in their very Humanism they were affirming a dogma now often regarded as the most superstitious Superhumanism. They were strengthening that staggering doctrine of Incarnation, which sceptics find it hardest to believe (G.K. Chesterton, St. Thomas Aquinas, pp. 16-17).

All of these men (though Edwards was on the edge) lived before the days of the popularization of so-called Scientific-detachment. And all of these men, in many ways, were better exegetes and theologians than what the church is producing today.

Let me return for a moment to Calvin’s words (quoted above). What he says of knowledge in general is true of knowledge in particular. If we take his argument that knowledge of God and knowledge of self are intimately related, to the point that we can’t tell where one stops and the other starts, and apply it to the study of individual passages of the Bible, what we might get is this: I cannot try to take off my own skin as I study the Bible. I cannot be detached. To detach myself from me is to detach myself from God. This does not mean that I am God. But it does mean that I am a Christian, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, living in a particular place at a particular time. And this means that, not only can I not know God as though he or I were in a vacuum, I cannot know him as someone living in a different place or different time. True theology and exegesis is personal and timely.

I have a pet peeve about using the word ‘timeless.’ God’s truths are not timeless. They transcend time; they are for all time; but they are not timeless. Rather, they are always timely. The incarnation is always true, no matter the age. But that truth is timely. It has ramifications for us (in the Muddle Ages) that may not be the same as the ramifications for someone who lived in the Middle Ages. This does not mean that the truth has changed. It simply means that the truth reaches out and fills up the corners of whatever time it finds itself.

Let me lay out a few ramifications of this line of thought. First, if what we have said is true, then you must not be afraid to bring your whole self to your reading of the Scripture. You do not need to ‘get out of the way.’ I’ve heard this said of preachers: they need to get out of the way and let the Bible speak. If God wanted to get us out of the way he has means of accomplishing that. He calls particular men, with particular personalities, and particular strengths and weaknesses to speak to particular generations. Let them be faithful to the Scriptures, but let them speak. Bring your baggage to your Bible study. Don’t be afraid to let God’s Word speak to you as a particular person in a particular time. Do not be content to read Scripture as a textbook, or history book. Come to it expecting every word to shake up your world. Second, do not sit in authority over the Scriptures, but do allow the Scriptures to sit in authority over you. Let the Bible have its way with you – with you, in your present context. Don’t be so concerned with the context of a given book of the Bible that you do not allow it to speak to your context.

That is the great takeaway from this subject. If your Bible study does not touch down into your world, then you are not only missing applications, you are actually missing the very meaning of Scripture. And if your study is leading you to miss how the Scriptures apply to your given situation, then you are liable, in the future, to be asked, “Have you not read?…” Of course your read it, but you didn’t live it. Of course you knew the truth, but you didn’t allow it to touch down and get dirty, as it was always meant to be.

I will conclude this series with a post about the application of Law and Gospel.

0 comments

  1. Could you give an example of how a particular scripture might be read and interpreted in a way that stops short of the goal, and then of the same scripture fully applied? Or will this sort of thing be included int the next post?

    • Heath says:

      In the previous post I mentioned ‘thou shalt not steal’ extending to embezzlement and illegally downloading movies (you could add music, etc). You could also say that the commandment implies its opposite. If you are NOT to steal, then you ARE to do/be its opposite, which implies that you are to be generous and giving. There are plenty of folks who do their best not to steal in obedience to the command but aren’t the least concerned with being generous.

      Why don’t you pick a text that is interesting and we’ll discuss it. My main concern with this teaching is that I want to encourage people to meditate on texts rather than glancing over its words. I want folks to understand that you can read the Bible in such a way that Jesus would consider it as good as not reading at all (like the story with the pharisees, ‘have you not read?’). I do not think that we can exhaust the meaning of Scripture. This means that Bible-reading should never get old and we never stop learning.

      • Well I’ve always been profoundly moved and mystified by Psalm 131. The “weaned child” is a metaphor that I’ve consulted alot of commentaries, sermons, etc to aid in my understanding, and I still find myself believing we’ve not yet arrived after consulting the wise.

        • Heath says:

          Okay, let’s take our time and try to press this psalm home. Let me start with two things; these are major steps we have to take:
          1. This psalm is in the first person. If we want to apply it, our goal from the beginning needs to be that we will be able to say it in the first person about ourselves. The meaning/application unity I’m calling for means that we are not simply concerned with analyzing what the psalmist felt, but with feeling it ourselves.
          2. To begin that process, we need to figure out the theme of the text. Now, I have found that this can be difficult for people who are not used to looking for themes. You can substitute the word theme with ‘doctrine’ or ‘teaching’ if you like. Tell me what the you think the doctrine/theme of this passage is. Try to state it in one succinct sentence, and try to draft the sentence in a way that is applicable rather than abstract.

          • Heath says:

            That’s a good start. But notice that you have made your sentence more abstract than the original text. We want to get closer to home rather than farther away. What does a child have to do with what you just said? Is that the posture of a child? What is it about children that illustrates what he is trying to say? How does verse 1 lead into verse 2? Are they related? If so, why? If not, why not?

          • jargonbargain says:

            All three verses are related. Verse 3 states the abstract concept, “hope.” It also states whom David is directly addressing, Isreal. Finally, verse 3 gives us who this hope is to be placed in- God. Isreal, a people who we understand within the Great Story of the Bible, especially all its history up to the time of David, is important to consider. You get an idea of the kind of hope that David means from this. He is talking about hope in “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob…” I always see such statements as a way of reminding the listener of the way in which God makes himself known to His people. Hope is the theme of Israel’s history. To speak to Israel of hope, is to be reminded of all the hope-filled experiences of their history.

            Going back to verse 1, we find pride and haughtiness to be given as the antithesis of a rich, historically rooted hope. One might normally say “humility” is the antithesis of “pride,” and thus we now find something very rich in asking how pride and haughtiness relate to hope. The question of value relationship is given guidance then, in verse two, where a movement from pride and haughtiness, to one of historically rooted hope, is likened to a weaned child.

            A weaned child has a history of being fed, and therefore knows from who and from who their food will come from. They don’t necessarily understand why or how. There is nothing prideful about this trusting, hope-filled knowledge. The child is utterly dependent. To attempt to fulfill his own needs would be an act of concerning himself with “matters too great” and “too wonderful” for him. His confidence is not in his own ability.

            Finally, the result of a historical-hope is a feeling of calm, and quietness. The child is not racing about, struggling to somehow control things outside of his control. He can be calm, and quiet. Not only CAN he be calm and quiet, but he is humbly happy to do so. He is contented by this state of being.

            The exhortation could be summed up something like this: recognize who you are. You are as needfully dependent as a child. Recognize who God is. He has everything you need, like a mother to a child. Accept this relationship. Embrace this relationship. Cherish this relationship.

            A child that is not weaned is yet ignorant of this sort of hope-filled dynamic. They are without understanding and cannot accept, embrace, or cherish it, even though it exists, whether they know it or not. Beyond knowing about it, they must ACCEPT this hope. A child is given the “knowledge” of hope the first day they receive milk. And yet it takes those daily lived-in experiences of hope for the child to finally resolve to accept that offer to hope. This is the process of maturation. We see that the acceptance of hope coincides with being “weaned.” There is a tangible lifestyle change that results from accepting that hope-filled relationship, and, perhaps ironically, it results in an invitation to a stronger hope, because now the food does not come as milk directly from the mother, but from some unseen place.

          • Heath says:

            I’ll try to write more about this tonight. But I think there’s several ways you can think about this passage. I tend to milk individual verses (that’s a pun, but I didn’t mean it that way when I wrote it) for as much as I can get. So, we could think about verse 1 and how it relates to humility and verse 2 and how it relates to contentment. Verse 3 is an exhortation based on David’s posture of humility and contentment.

            I would word the theme of the whole psalm like this: Childlike humility and contentment lead to hope.

            From there, my mind goes to David’s moments of pride and discontentment. Good examples would be the Bathsheba incident and the numbering of the people that led to God’s discipline on Israel. David was learning about humility and contentment, and they led him to hope in God.
            Next, I think of the fact that even children aren’t always humble and content. But I also know that there are ways in which they are. The fact that they are not philosophers (like verse 1) and learn to be content with their mother apart from her milk (verse 2) is another.

            Now, where can I learn about that type of humility and contentment in more detail? I can go to the New Testament and see the Apostle Paul denouncing the wisdom of this world and I can go to Christ pointing us to the necessity of becoming like little children in order to enter the Kingdom of God.

            Now I’m starting to get somewhere.I want to take those ideas about humility and contentment and press them in light of the gospel. The gospel is antithetical to worldly wisdom. It calls us to be humble and content like a child. For instance, contentment doesn’t come from having enough milk – we are like weaned children – it comes from having the presence of God in our lives.

            That’s just one train of thought, there are others. My point is that once I have made the teaching of the passage into a doctrine, I can start to let that doctrine have its way – to open it outward as Lloyd-Jones said. And my main concern is to open it up enough to get to the gospel. I want to show that a proper understanding of the gospel is the only means to get to the point where David is in the psalm – humility, contentment, hope (and it is that humility and contentment that leads to hope).

            Thoughts? Take your time and I’ll keep responding.

          • jargonbargain says:

            I’ve been mulling all this over.

            So what I’m noticing as I look over your example is that you are working with a sort of thought process that moves in concentric rings, like the ripples caused by a stone tossed in the water. First you began with the central principle. Next you looked for the most immediate support to that principle from the closest texts. Next you move outward, relating the principle to texts that may not seem as close. There is a cumulative understanding being built. Next, you observe your “pond of ripples” by the light of the Gospel. What can be seen now? You can aim the light of the Gospel, all over this pond of ripples, gaining all sorts of different insights.

            You might say that to understand the waters of life, you must first learn to how to cast stones (ask right questions.) Then you learn to observe the ripples, (ripples like the central principle ripple, Biblical support/examples ripples, life experience ripples, etc.) The fullness of this observation comes from casting the “light” of the Gospel upon all that is before you. (And note that in this analogy the “ripples” represent a sort of “opening out” and “expanding” process occurring with the Bible.)

            As you mentioned in your posts here about meaning and application, a single text can have a myriad of applications. It depends on what you bring to the discussion. What questions will you poise? These questions are charged by previously understood and/or experienced realities. Or, in keeping with my analogy, the myriad of rings reverberating through the waters of life all depend upon what stones (questions) you toss in the “water.” These stones were picked up, somewhere previously along your path. And yet you must still choose to throw them or not, and to observe or not what you see, using The Light.

            Am I getting your meaning here? Am I missing anything?

          • Heath says:

            The concentric circles analogy is pretty much right on. I pretty much follow the old Puritan methodology (Martyn Lloyd-Jones describes it really well in Preaching and Preachers).
            You study the text to get as close to the original intention as possible – but that is only the BEGINNING. Most scholars/preachers seem to want to end there.

            From there you want to isolate a key theme or doctrine (those are synonymous in my mind). Then you want to relate that doctrine (as it is found specifically in the text your dealing with) to other places in Scripture that teach a similar idea. This is not necessarily prooftexting (though that’s a part of it). It’s more of trying to make sure that you are not coming up with something that is not taught elsewhere in Scripture.

            From there you can begin making specific applications…and in this area I am concerned to get to the gospel. It it’s a law text I want it to drive us to the gospel. If it’s a gospel text I want to make sure that shines through in our current context.

            My ‘home’ sermon on Psalm 90:1 is a classic example. I opened up the original meaning – the children of Israel were homeless but God was there home. Then I tried to show how we are not homeless externally, but still internally feel the need for a home that is more lasting. And then I pointed to Christ as the ultimate home of the believer. The sermon really wound up being about union with Christ. I follow that methodology in almost everything I do.

          • Heath says:

            I was thinking more about your analogy and the idea of asking questions. Let me put it this way: we are opening the text outward. The type and amount of questions (from previous experience) you bring to the text may determine how far ‘out’ you can get.

            A novice with commentaries can get to the very center of authorial intent. A wise man can get to the center and then bring it all the way out to home.Both are important.

          • jargonbargain says:

            Yeah. What you are saying is all making more sense now.

            I came across an example recently of what I think you are primarily trying to argue AGAINST in advocating the style of Bible interpretation/application you have expounded upon in these posts. [“Against’ in the sense that there is MORE to be had, not something different to be exchanged.] A church was defining expositional preaching as follows:

            “An expositional sermon takes the main point of a passage of Scripture, makes it the main point of the sermon, and applies it to life today. According to Scripture, God accomplishes what he wants to accomplish through speaking (Genesis 1:3, Isaiah 55:10-11, Acts 12:24). This means that if preachers want their sermons to be filled with God’s power, they must preach what God says. The Bible has many examples of this kind of preaching and teaching: Levitical priests taught the law (Deuteronomy 33:10), Ezra and the Levites read from the law and gave the sense of it (Nehemiah 8:8), and Peter and the apostles expounded Scripture and urged their hearers to respond with repentance and faith (Acts 2:14-41, 13:16-47). On the other hand, God condemns those who “speak of their own imagination, not from the mouth of the Lord” (Jeremiah 23:16, 18, 21-22). Expositional preaching is important because God’s Word is what convicts, converts, builds up, and sanctifies God’s people (Hebrews 4:12, 1 Peter 1:23; 1 Thessalonians 2:13, John 17:17). Preaching that makes the main point of the text the main point of the sermon makes God’s agenda rule the church, not the preacher’s. The pulpit is indispensable to the church’s growth in knowledge, holiness, and love. It cannot and should not be replaced or diminished. (2 Timothy 2:15).”

            I include this because I think it is useful to see how the opposing side packages their argument. It doesn’t sound so bad at face value. You would actually be hard pressed to condemn any statement made in this. Yet, I think it is fairly obvious that a very truncated view of Truth is in mind when statements are made like “Preaching that makes the main point of the text the main point of the sermon makes God’s agenda rule the church, not the preacher’s.”

            What I am trying to say is that without a deeper understanding of what we are talking about here in regards to Biblical exposition, a person could read your posts, nod their head in agreement, and tomorrow go to church and hear somebody defend a truncated exposition of the gospel and nod their head to that as well. The example above demonstrates how rhetoric can be used to convolute matters such as these. It’s one of those “Well, when you put it THAT way…” kinds of situations. You thought it was all clear, until the other side argued, not necessarily with the truth, but with rhetorical skill.

          • Heath says:

            I actually like the idea of the main point of the text being the main point of the sermon; I had a former pastor who used to use that phrase regularly; I want to say Mark Dever coined the phrase. But what those camp consider expository preaching is usually just a running commentary on a passage. That’s actually what I’m used to.

            During the course of my (still not finished) seminary studies, I had to take three semesters of preaching courses (including two massive labs). During my last semester of preaching lab I had to not only preach, but do a lot of listening. Over the course of a semester (say a little over 3 months) everybody in that class had to listen to about 75 sermons from our classmates -20 people, 4 sermons each, minus my own. We were taught to preach in the classic, John Calvin-like, expositional method of taking a few verses for each sermon, explaining those verse, and maybe making an application for each verse. This is how Calvin preached, but it’s not how those who followed after Calvin (the Puritans and those from the Evangelical Awakening) preached. The more I sat under it the more I realized it lacked in power.

            When a preacher simply comments on his verses, he doesn’t get the chance to really press it home to people’s consciences. I am arguing for a type of preaching that does that – that aims to open up the text to the point that it actually hits people in the hearts.

            But this isn’t really about preaching, is it? This has to do first and foremost with how we read the Bible. You will preach the Bible the way you read the Bible. We cannot be content so simply ‘learn things’ when we read. We must let the Scripture have its way with us. That’s what I want. I want every passage to speak to me with as much depth, breadth, and force as possible. And that’s the way I want to preach. So, all in all, what I want is more substance. I want a wiser reading of the Scriptures. I want us to allow the Scriptures to have as much sway over us as the Holy Spirit will choose. That’s what the ‘authorial intent’ position lacks – it tends to downplay the fact that the Holy Spirit is just as much the original author as the men He inspired to write the words.

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