I thought it might be fun (for me at least) to share a few posts regarding interpretive issues and personal bible study. How do we properly interpret the scriptures? Let's define a few "theological" words before we begin. Don't let these words scare you- they have simple meanings. The first word is hermeneutics ('herman-newticks'); this word simply refers to the principles of interpretation. The second word is exegesis; this is simply the practice of hermeneutics. Eisegesis is the opposite of exegesis and it means to express your own interpretation of a text (i.e. "to read into it" as opposed to exegesis which is to "draw out" from the text). In case you didn't know (wink wink), exegesis is the preferred method of interpretation; allowing the text to speak to us, rather than trying to make it say something we've conceived. The final word today is exposition. I chuckle when I read advertisements for local churches in the newspaper. They will often make the boast "We feature expository preaching at our church!" Obviously this is worn as a badge of honor, and I wonder if the people truly know what expository really means, or if it just sounds cool or profound to them. The word exposition simply means to pass on or to explain a text (pretty complicated stuff eh?)
Ok, now that we've got some of the white-collar stuff out of the way, let's look at a brief example today in closing. Let's take a verse like Psalm 115:17 as an example that presents a simple challenge in interpretation.
Ps 115:17
17 The dead praise not the LORD, neither any that go down into silence.(KJV)
Well, if we take a wooden, literal approach to this text, then one might come to the exegetical (there's one of those big words again) conclusion that people who die lose their ability to praise God in eternity. Using this method of interpretation, we might imagine Heaven as a kind of public library where the saints do not mutter a word, and perhaps even the angels whisper to keep from making any commotion. Of course, I drew a rather silly conclusion to try and engage and amuse you as a reader of this blog. But on a more serious note- I wonder how many would take a text like this (standing alone without the support of other scriptures) and use it as a support for a doctrine like "soul-sleep" (i.e., the idea that a person who dies goes into a spiritual coma until the day of the Resurrection)? So you see, it's not hard for something which seems rather benign in terms of interpretation to become serious.
Perhaps if this were the only text we had regarding the dead and their activities, the wooden-literal approach to interpreting this text would be favorable. However, we have the benefit of many other Scriptures which describe the activities of the saints (I'll just deal with the saints in this blog for sake of time) in Heaven. The book of Revelation, in particular, describes the activities of those who have been martyred for Jesus, and they are anything but silent! This illustrates the absolute necessity of allowing scripture to interpret scripture. That means that an obscure text which seems to have a strange meaning must always be intrepreted in light of the other scriptures which deal with the same subject. As with most things in life, there may be some exceptions, and some situations where we don't have a multiplicity of other examples to draw inferences from. But as a general rule, this principle will serve you and I well in our personal bible study.
That's all for today...more soon!
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