1 Hermeneutics and Common Sense: An Exploratory Essay on the Hermeneutics of the Epistles
1
HERMENEUTICS AND COMMON SENSE: AN EXPLORATORY ESSAY ON THE HERMENEUTICS OF THE EPISTLES
It has long been my conviction that the battle for inerrancy must be settled in the arena of hermeneutics. The basic differences that have emerged among evangelicals, for example, between those who believe in “limited” or “unlimited” inerrancy[1] are not textual, but exegetical and hermeneutical. Unfortunately, a good deal of name-calling and mud-slinging has gone on over theological definitions of inerrancy, while exegetical and hermeneutical imprecision abounds.
This conviction has been supported most recently—unwittingly to be sure—by Harold Lindsell’s The Battle for the Bible. Early on he inveighs against those who would “destroy the idea of biblical infallibility neatly by providing interpretations of Scripture at variance with the plain reading of the texts.”[2] Yet when he himself tries to resolve “the case of the missing thousand” (Num 25:9; 1 Cor 10:8), he does so with precisely the same kind of hermeneutical stance, that is, by abandoning “the plain reading of the texts” and inveighing against those who read Paul’s account “superficially” (pp. 167–69).[3]
The burden of this present essay is not necessarily to resolve the hermeneutical tensions highlighted by the battle for inerrancy. Nor does it aim to spell out the hermeneutical principles required by a belief in biblical inerrancy. Rather, the essay intends to be more foundational and to offer some suggestions in the area of common sense. The plea is for greater hermeneutical precision in order to answer the thorny question of how to move from the first to the twentieth century without abandoning the plain sense of the texts, on the one hand, and yet without canonizing first-century culture, on the other.
I have chosen to limit my remarks in this essay to the New Testament Epistles. The reason for this is twofold: (1) the problem of “cultural relativity” and its relationship to inerrancy is most often raised here. (2) Many of the battle lines in the current debate have been drawn over the issues of women’s role in the twentieth-century church. Here especially, hermeneutical precision—or at least consistency—has been lacking on both sides. Unfortunately, in an area where hermeneutics is in fact the key issue, some have taken such a rigid stance on the basis of their own hermeneutics that they have accused others of believing in an errant Bible because they do not hold to the same interpretation.
I. The Basic Problem
In his now famous article on “Biblical Theology” in the Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, Krister Stendahl suggested the core of the hermeneutical problem today to be the contrast between “What did Scripture mean when it was written?” (the aim of historical exegesis) and “What does it mean to us today?” Historical exegesis, of course, is the culprit. By insisting that we go back to the then and there, many exegetes seemed less concerned with the here and now. Exegesis became a historical discipline, pure and simple; and the Bible seemed less a book for all seasons—an eternal word from God—and more like a book of antiquity, full of the culture and religious idiosyncrasies of another day. A new way of “hearing” Scripture was forced upon us. How is a statement spoken to a given historical context, in response to a specific historical problem, the word of God for us, whose context is so different? How, or when, does something that is culturally conditioned become transcultural?
These problems are especially acute for us in the evangelical tradition, where a real bifurcation has taken place. On the one hand, there are those who read the Epistles without a sense of the then and there. It is the eternal word, which is therefore always here and now. Yet in practice it works out a little differently. For example, many evangelicals consider the imperative to Timothy, “Use a little wine for the sake of your stomach” (1 Tim 5:23, RSV), to be culturally and specifically bound. Water was unsafe to drink, we are told, so Timothy was to take wine for medicinal reasons. All of this might be true, but many of the same Christians insist that men today should not have long hair, because “nature itself teaches us” this (although it is seldom recognized that short hair is “natural” only as the result of a non-natural means—a haircut!).[4] And we are never told how one arrives at such neat distinctions.
On the other hand, some of us who engage in historical exegesis do so at times with an uneasy conscience. We see a scholar like Ernst Käsemann engage in the same discipline with great expertise, but we are ill at ease with his “canon within the canon” (who decides on that inner canon?), which allows him to call the Gospel of John heterodox and say of Paul: “Being an apostle is no excuse for bad theology!” What is to keep us from the charge of picking and choosing when historical exegesis brings us face to face with statements and ideas that jar us in our twentieth-century ethos? How does the word spoken then and there, to which we are theologically committed, become a word to us today?
Because I am an exegete committed to the canon of Scripture as God’s word, I can neither reject exegesis (what it meant then) nor neglect hermeneutics (what does it say today).[5] But those of us who take such a stance have still further problems: (1) In the past three decades there has been a spate of literature, mostly by Roman Catholics, on the sensus plenior of Scripture, which is defined by R. E. Brown as “the deeper meaning, intended by God but not clearly intended by the human author, that is seen to exist in the words of Scripture when they are studied in the light of further revelation or of development in the understanding of revelation.”[6] Most evangelicals have avoided the term sensus plenior, since the concept of “development in the understanding of revelation” seems to leave the door open for the magisterium to define “God’s intentions”; nonetheless, evangelicals use such terms as “secondary sense” to function in the same way as sensus plenior. The problem has to do with both the legitimacy of sensus plenior and, allowing its legitimacy, finding the principles for determining deeper meanings. (2) Protestant theologians have sometimes tended to lay aside the results of historical exegesis by distinguishing between the explicit and the implicit in Scripture, and they have argued: “Therefore not only the express statements of Scripture, but its implication . . . must be regarded as the word of God.”[7] But again the rules or principles are seldom given as to how one finds the implications of the word of God.
I have neither the space nor the expertise to answer all the questions that I have raised, but we evangelicals must speak to them. So here are some suggestions. I begin by stating in detail what exegesis of the Epistles as epistles entails, and then move on to the implications.
II. Interpreting the Epistles[8]
Traditionally for most Christians the Epistles seem to be the easiest parts of the New Testament to interpret. They are looked upon as so many propositions to be believed and imperatives to be obeyed. One need not be skilled in exegesis to understand that “all have sinned,” or that “by grace are you saved through faith,” or that “if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation.” When we read, “Do all things without grumbling or questioning,” our difficulty is not with understanding, but with obeying. How, then, do the Epistles as epistles pose problems for interpretation?
The answer to that quickly becomes obvious when one leads a group of Christians through 1 Corinthians. “How is Paul’s opinion (e.g., 1 Cor 7:25: ‘I have no command from the Lord, but I give a judgment as one who by the Lord’s mercy is trustworthy,’ NIV) to be taken as God’s word?” some will ask, especially when they personally dislike some of the implications of that opinion. And the questions continue. How does the excommunication of the brother in chapter 5 relate to today’s church, especially when he can simply go down the street to another church? What is the point of chapters 12–14, if one is in a local church where charismatic gifts are not accepted as valid for the twentieth century? How do we “get around” the very clear implication in 11:2–16 that women should have a head covering when they are praying and prophesying?
It becomes clear that the Epistles are not as easy to interpret as is often thought. What principles, then, apply specifically to this genre? Here are some suggestions:
Let us begin by noting that the Epistles themselves are not homogeneous. Many years ago Adolf Deissmann, on the basis of the vast papyrus discoveries, made a distinction between “letters” and “epistles.”[9] The former, the “real letters” as he called them, were nonliterary, that is, not written for the public and posterity, but “intended only for the person or persons to whom [they were] addressed.” In contrast to this is the “epistle,” which is “an artistic literary form, a species of literature . . . intended for publicity.” Deissmann himself considered all the Pauline Epistles as well as 2 and 3 John to be “real letters.”
Although William M. Ramsay cautioned us not “to reduce all the letters of the New Testament to one or other of these categories”[10]—in some instances it seems to be a question of more or less—the distinction is nevertheless a valid one. Romans and Philemon differ from one another not only in content but also in the degree to which they are occasional. And in contrast with any of Paul’s letters, 1 Peter is far more an “epistle.”
Further distinctions must also be drawn. For example, on the one hand, Hebrews is, as A. M. Hunter said, “three parts tract and one part letter.”[11] But it is far more than a tract. It is an eloquent homily proclaiming the absolute superiority of Christ, interspersed with urgent words of exhortation. James, on the other hand, looks very little like a letter, but often very much like the wisdom literature of the Old Testament and Apocrypha, except that the wisdom literature is poetry and James is prose.
However diverse the Epistles might be, they nonetheless have one thing in common. They are occasional documents of the first century, written out of the context of the author to the context of the recipients. We are often, as it were, on one side of a telephone conversation and must piece together from this end what the other party is saying or what the problem is. Or as R. P. C. Hanson said of 2 Corinthians: “As we read it, we sometimes feel as if we had turned the [radio on] in the middle of an elaborate play: characters are making most lively speeches and events of great interest and importance are happening, but we do not know who exactly the speakers are and we are not sure exactly what is happening.”[12]
Moreover, all of this took place in the first century. Our difficulty here is that we are removed from them not only by so many years in time, and therefore in circumstances and culture, but also very often in the world of thought. Sound hermeneutics with regard to the Epistles, therefore, seems to require the following three steps:
1. The Original Setting
Understand as much as possible the original setting. The interpreter, if you will, must remove his or her twentieth-century bifocals, shedding the filter of twentieth-century mentality, and journey back into the first century. For the Epistles this has a double focus: (a) The interpreter must try as much as possible to reconstruct the situation of the recipients. That is, one must ask, how is this letter, or this section of the letter, an answer to their problems or a response to the recipients’ needs? In every case, a primary concern of interpretation is to try to hear what they would have heard. (b) One must try to live with the author and understand his mentality and his context. Above everything else the interpreter must try to understand what the author intended the recipients to hear.
A maxim of hermeneutics for the Epistles is: The correct meaning of a passage must be something the author intended and the readers could have understood. For example, it has often been suggested that the phrase “when the perfect comes” (1 Cor 13:10) refers to the completion of the canon of Scripture, and that therefore it points to the end of the first century as the time when charismatic gifts will cease. But surely that is altogether modern. Not only does the immediate context imply that the eschaton is intended (v. 12, “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known,” NIV), but there seems to be no way either that Paul could have meant the completion of the canon, or that the Corinthians would have so understood him.
2. The Word of God in the Original Setting
Hear the word of God that is addressed to that situation. This, of course, will be very closely tied to the first principle, and sometimes they will be one. The point here is not that some parts of the Epistles are inspired and others are not, but rather that the recipients’ context often reflects a problem which needs correcting or a lack of understanding that needs enlightening. Our task is to discover (or “hear”) the word of God that was addressed to that situation, the word that called for the recipients’ obedience or brought them understanding.
3. The Word for Our Situation
Hear that same word as it is addressed to our situation. Understandably enough, most of us want to go directly to this step, that is, to have Paul speak directly out of the first century into ours. This is not to suggest that such may not or cannot happen, but the point is that very often the words of the Epistles are culturally conditioned by the first-century setting.[13] If these words are going to be God’s word to us, then we must first of all hear what God’s word was to the original recipients. By being aware of God’s message both to the first century and to us, we avoid two dangers. First, there is the danger that the words may never leave the first century. Some passages seem to address us, and some do not. If we have no one struggling with whether to join pagan neighbors at feasts in an idol’s temple, or no one denying the bodily resurrection, or if our culture does not insist on women’s heads being covered, or if we have no one drunk at the Lord’s Table or shouting (by the “Spirit”), “Jesus is cursed,” then the Epistles have historical interest at these points, but they scarcely address us.
The second danger is that the Epistles may never belong to the first century. In this case we suppose that every word comes directly to us. But sometimes that word is not God’s intended word to us! For example, if the intent of Paul’s word about partaking of the Lord’s Supper “unworthily” is to correct the abuse of divisiveness based on a sociology of rich and poor while at the Lord’s Table, then our ordinary application of that text to personal piety does not seem to be God’s intended word. What was being said to that situation had to do with an attitude, or lack of it, toward the Supper itself. By their division and gluttony some of the Corinthians were profaning the Supper, not “discerning the body,” missing the whole point of it all. Surely the twentieth-century Christian needs to hear that word, rather than a word about “getting rid of the sin in one’s life in order to be worthy to partake,” which is foreign to the point of the passage.
If we are to escape both of these dangers, then we must discover what God said to that setting, and it is that word which we must hear, even if we must hear it in a new setting or learn to recognize contemporary settings to which it should be addressed.
These principles may perhaps be best illustrated from a passage like 1 Corinthians 3:9b–17, which has been frequently misunderstood and misapplied, and has served as a theological battle ground for a controversy to which Paul is not speaking at all.
It takes no great skill to recognize that the context of 1 Corinthians 3:9b–17 is partisan strife in the church at Corinth, carried on in the name of wisdom. In 1:10–12 Paul says that Chloe’s people have told him all about the tendency to divide into cliques on the basis of favorite leaders. On either side of the immediate context (3:4–9a and 21–23) this strife is obviously still in view. Unless verses 9b–17 can be demonstrated to be a digression (and here they cannot), then one must assume them to speak directly to this problem.
Paul’s response to the strife among the Corinthians is twofold. His first great concern is theological—their sloganeering and dividing on the basis of human leaders reflect on their understanding of salvation, as if humans (especially people with great wisdom and eloquence) had something to do with it. So in 1:18–2:16 Paul reaffirms that salvation is God’s business from start to finish; and, as though deliberately to leave humans out of it, God wisely chose the foolishness of the cross as his means of accomplishing it, so that their trust (= “boast”) will be not in men but in God.
In chapter 3 Paul turns to the practical implications of the divisions. He begins with two analogies intended to show the role of the human ministers in salvation. The particulars in both analogies are closely related (Paul plants/lays the foundation; Apollos waters/others build the superstructure; the Corinthian church is the field/building; God owns the field/building), but the point of each is considerably different. The agricultural analogy is intended to help the church have a proper perspective as to its leaders; they are servants, not lords. The figure from architecture (v. 10) turns the argument toward the present leadership; they are to take care how they build (the church is obviously the object being built). Verse 11 is simply a parenthesis reiterating the point of 1:18–2:16; namely, that Christ crucified is alone the foundation of the church in Corinth. Verses 12–15 therefore have nothing to do with personal morality or piety as to how one builds one’s own life on Christ. Rather, this is Paul’s charge to those who have responsibilities of building the church; and the point is, it is possible to build poorly! So let each one (those currently leading the church) take care how he or she builds. To have built with an emphasis on human wisdom or eloquence is to have built poorly, although the builder “himself will be saved, but only as through fire” (v. 15, RSV).
Within the same context Paul then turns the figure slightly and addresses the “building” (vv. 16–17)—and this is the real point of the section. He is not here writing about individual Christians, and especially not about the human body (a matter which he does address in a whole new context in 6:12–20). It is the whole church whom Paul addresses. They, especially when they are assembled, are God’s temple, among whom God’s Spirit dwells. If anyone destroys the temple, God will destroy that person! How were the Corinthians destroying the temple? By their prating “wisdom” as gospel and by their partisan strife, which inevitably would banish the Spirit.
If this then is the correct historical exegesis of this passage (and there seems to be no other), then what about step 2—What was God’s word to the original recipients? First, there was a word to those who had “building” responsibilities, to build with care. Second, there was a word to the church, not to divide over human leaders. The church at Corinth was God’s alternative to that city. To be divided was to destroy the church as God’s option. Since it was in the church that God was gathering his new people, and in the church that he was now pleased to dwell, for the Corinthians to destroy that church was to put themselves under the prospect of fearful judgment.
III. The Hermeneutical Problems
We now come to the crux of the hermeneutical problem—step 3. What word does 1 Corinthians 3:9b–17 have for us? Here the exegete insists that when there are comparable particulars in our own time, then the word of God to us is precisely that which was spoken to the original recipients. There is still need for those with responsibilities in the church to take care how they build. It appears sadly true that the church has too often been built with wood, hay, or stubble, rather than with gold, silver, or precious stones; and such work, when tried by fire, has been found wanting. Furthermore, in this passage God addresses us as to our responsibilities to the local church. It must be a place where God’s Spirit is known to dwell, and which therefore stands as God’s alternative to the alienation, fragmentation, and loneliness of worldly society.
All of that seems easy enough. But now the real problems begin, problems for which I do not have ready answers, but for which I am prepared to suggest some directions for finding answers.
1. The Problem of Cultural Relativity
In the passage discussed above, step 3 was relatively easy because there are comparable particulars: we still have churches, which belong to God and which have various kinds of leaders. And we still have need to assess our leaders as servants, and the leaders still need to take care how they build, and the local church still should be a place so inhabited by the Spirit that it stands as God’s alternative to its pagan surroundings.
But what of those sections of the Epistles which are also clearly responses to first-century occasions, but for which we do not seem to have comparable particulars? Or to put it back one step, How does one determine what is cultural and therefore belongs only to the first century, and what is transcultural and therefore belongs to every age.[14]
These questions are not easy to answer. Let us begin by noting the obvious: some things are clearly culturally conditioned, while others are just as clearly transcultural. For example, indicatives and imperatives such as, “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, and patience, forbearing one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other” (Col 3:12–13, RSV), clearly transcend culture.[15] These are the “obvious” texts which seem to make the Epistles so easy to interpret.
On the other hand, for the Western world, the eating or noneating of food offered to idols is of no consequence. The only possible way, therefore, that we can find how 1 Corinthians 8–10 speaks to our situation is to go through the steps outlined above and “translate” the first-century situation into the twentieth century. To behave so as not to cause others to stumble and to avoid participating in what is demonic, which were God’s word to the Corinthians, are just as surely God’s word to us. Our problem is to recognize comparable culturally defined contexts. Before we turn to this problem in detail, we must first examine some guidelines for determining that which is culturally relative. With respect to these guidelines it should be understood that not all “obvious” things will be equally obvious to all.[16]
a. One should first determine what is the central core of the message of the Bible and distinguish between that central core and what is dependent upon and/or peripheral to it. This is not to argue for a canon within the canon; rather, it is to safeguard the gospel from being transformed into law through culture and religious custom.
b. Similarly, one should note whether the matter in hand is inherently moral or nonmoral, theological or non-theological. Although some may differ with my judgments here, it would appear that eating marketplace food formerly offered to idols, requiring a head covering for women when they pray or prophesy, teaching in the church by women, and Paul’s preference for celibacy are examples of issues not inherently moral. They may become so only by their use or abuse in given contexts. That is, eating in the pagan temple food which has been sacrificed to idols and teaching by a women who has usurped established authority (as would be true of men as well) become moral/ethical questions.
c. One must note further when the New Testament has a uniform witness on a given point and when there are differences within the New Testament itself. Thus, the corporate life of the community seems to be different in Acts 2–6 and 1 Corinthians,[17] and one should probably not make one the word of God over against the other. More difficult here, however, are the different attitudes toward food sacrificed to idols. Compare Acts 15:29 (21:25) and Revelation 2:14, 20, on the one hand, with what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 8–10, on the other. Our problem here is our lack of understanding of the terminology. Did it cover all the food which had been sacrificed to idols, including that sold in the marketplace, or did it refer specifically to eating such food in the pagan temples? If the former, Paul obviously reflects a more relaxed attitude.
d. One should be able to distinguish between principle and specific application. It is possible for a New Testament writer to support a relative application by an absolute principle and in so doing not make the application absolute. Thus in 1 Corinthians 11:2–16, the principle seems to be either (1) that one should do nothing to distract from the glory of God (especially by breaking convention) when the community is at worship or (2) that whatever else being God’s eschatological people means in the present, it does not mean that the distinctions between the sexes have been eliminated. The specific problem seems to be relative, since Paul appeals to “custom” or “nature.” Therefore, one may legitimately ask: “Would this have been an issue for us had we never encountered it in the New Testament documents?” If the specific problem were not relative, one might be tempted to argue that the culture in which any part of Scripture was given also becomes normative along with the principle itself.
e. One must keep alert to possible cultural differences between the first and twentieth centuries that are sometimes not immediately obvious. For example, to determine the role of women in the twentieth-century church, one should take into account that there were few educational opportunities for women in the first century, whereas such education is the expected norm in our society. This may affect our application of such texts as 1 Timothy 2:9–15.
f. Finally, one must exercise Christian charity at this point. Christians need to recognize the difficulties, to open the lines of communication with one another, to begin trying to define some principles, and to have love for and a willingness to ask forgiveness from those with whom they differ.
2. The Problem of Comparable Context and Extended Application
Once one has determined that a passage is culturally relative, then if one is to hear the word of God at all, it must be “translated” into twentieth-century contexts in which that word is to be heard. Very similarly, even where step 3 has comparable particulars in the twentieth century, one must ask whether that is the only context to which that word can be addressed. Other questions inevitably arise: Are there limitations of applications? Are there principles as to what is legitimate in translating the first-century word into a new context? Let me suggest examples of problems which arise.
a. Second Corinthians 6:14–7:1 has often been used in Christian moral theology as a proof-text against Christians marrying non-Christians. But neither the immediate context nor the language of the passage suggests that this is the problem Paul is addressing. Probably Calvin is right—the text in its entirety repeats the injunction of 1 Corinthians 10:14–22,[18] that the Corinthians may not under any circumstances join their pagan friends at the idol’s temple. Indeed, “what agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God.” We simply have no context which is comparable. Into what kind of contexts, then, do we translate the principle, “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers”? And even if Calvin is wrong as to the particular historical context, it is surely true that this text is concerned with the community, not with individual believers. One may rightly question the legitimacy of transferring the context of this passage from the church and pagan temples to individual Christian and their marriages.[19]
b. First Corinthians 3:16–17, in speaking to the local church, presents the principle that what God has set aside for himself by the indwelling of his Spirit is sacred, and whoever destroys it will come under God’s awful judgment. Again, is it legitimate to apply that text to the individual Christian or to the church universal in the same way it addresses the local community of believers? Is it really legitimate to argue from this text that God will judge the believer for abusing his body? Similarly, 1 Corinthians 3:10–15 is addressing those with “building” responsibilities in the church, and warns of the loss they will suffer if they build poorly. Is it, then, legitimate to use this text, which speaks of judgment and salvation “as by fire,” to illustrate the security of the believer?
If these are deemed legitimate applications, then the exegete would seem to have good reason to be nervous, for inherent in such “application” is the bypassing of historical exegesis altogether. After all, to apply 1 Corinthians 3:16–17 to the individual believer is precisely what the church has erroneously done for centuries. Why do exegesis at all? Why not simply begin at step 3 and fall heir to centuries of error?
The exegete, therefore, would argue for two principles: (1) in “translating” from the first-century context to another, the two contexts must be genuinely comparable.[20] We may not all agree, of course, on our definition of the “genuinely comparable,” but surely that must be the legitimizing factor. What addresses the local church speaks to the individual only as he or she is related to what God is saying to the whole. Therefore, it is not legitimate to apply 1 Corinthians 3:16–17 to the individual in the same way it applies to the assembly—unless he or she is the one destroying the assembly as God’s alternative by divisiveness! On the other hand, 2 Corinthians 6:14–7:1 may apply to the individual in a circuitous way, since it was as individuals that the church was “unequally yoked” to pagan temples. But even here it is better to approach the text from the standpoint of the community.
(2) Usually the “extended application” is seen to be legitimate because it is otherwise true; that is, it is clearly spelled out in other passages where it is the intent. If that be the case, then one should go to those other passages and stop abusing texts where it is not the intent. If there are no such passages where it is the intent, then one may legitimately ask whether that can truly be the word of God which one learns only by “extended application.”
3. The Problem of “Implication” and “Sensus Plenior”
I am here lumping together several problems which have one thing in common: Scripture is often used in such a way as to say more than was the primary intention of the human author. R. E. Brown would call these “more-than-literal” senses; however, I would also include here those things that are explicit in the text, but incidental to the author’s primary intention.
a. The exegete who is doing his or her work properly is forever asking the question: But what is the point? What is the author driving at? That is, one is always raising the question of the author’s intent. At the same time, it is to be hoped that one is also asking questions about the content, questions of lexicography, syntax, background, and so forth. Further, one is also wary of over-exegeting—for example, finding something that would stagger the author were he informed someone had found it in his writing, or building a theology upon the use of prepositions, or discovering meaning in what was not said.
But because the exegete is so intent on intent, that is, on finding the author’s point, the interpreter often comes to the text with a different agenda from that of the theologian, whose concerns are more often the content and its theological implications. An excellent case in point might be 1 Thessalonians 3:11: “Now may our God and Father himself, and our Lord Jesus, clear the way. . . .”
The exegete does not neglect the fact that the sentence has a compound subject and singular verb, but neither is the interpreter tempted to make too much theological hay out of it. The point is, Paul is not here trying to make a theological statement as to the unity of the Father and Son. He is concerned with returning to Thessalonica, a concern which he articulates in prayer. The exegete wants to discover why Paul shows such concern, and how that affects other things said in the epistle; the exegete wants to know what word there is from God to us in the wish-prayer of an apostle to a neophyte congregation in Thessalonica.
But the exegete must not, indeed dare not, overlook the theological implications of the prayer, which assumes the Father and the Son to act in unity. What is not intentionally theological is nonetheless incidentally theological; and even though it is incidental, it is not thereby unimportant or any less the word of God. It is hoped the exegete and theologian differ here only in the primary interest each brings to the text.
b. What has been said above as to “extended application” continues to hold true here. What is determined to be true by implication is so on the basis of the analogy of Scripture. That is, it is either taught clearly elsewhere, or it can be shown by numerous examples to be the human author’s theological assumptions or presuppositions.
It is precisely for this reason that one must reject the Mormon application of 1 Corinthians 15:29. In spite of some exegetical gymnastics arguing for the contrary, the clear implication of that text is that some Corinthians were practicing baptism of the dead. I am of the mind that the passage implies that Paul is not terribly shaken by the practice. But the analogy of Scripture scarcely allows us to regard such a practice as either mandatory or repeatable by later Christians, for neither by implication nor by explication do we have the faintest idea as to the particulars of that baptism—for whom, by whom, for what reasons, and with what significance. Here is a place where the point of the text is clear: in a purely ad hoc argument, Paul says that the practice argues for a future resurrection; otherwise what these Corinthians are doing is absurd. But what in fact they were doing remains a singular mystery belonging to first-century Corinth.
c. A final point here. The apparent identification of Jesus with the Spirit in 2 Corinthians 3:17 (“Now the Lord is the Spirit”) has long been a crux interpretum for exegetes and theologians. Along with 1 Corinthians 15:45 this passage seems to lend credence to a kind of Spirit Christology, as if for Paul the risen Lord and the Spirit are one and the same (so Hans Lietzmann). But as a matter of fact, what seems to be implied rather strongly is not said by Paul at all. The point is, sound exegesis will often correct erroneous inferences, and such inferences must always be subject to exegesis.
In the passage at hand, Paul has been glorying in his privilege of ministry in the new covenant, a covenant brought on by the coming of the Spirit and contrasted with the covenant of the letter, which led to death. To illustrate the greater glory of this new covenant he inserts a pesher (a special kind of Jewish commentary) on Exodus 34:29–34. He concludes by citing Exodus 34:34, with slight changes, so as to move it from Moses to the present. Thus, “whenever anyone [not Moses only] turns to the Lord, ‘the veil is taken away’” (2 Cor 3:16, NIV). Now “the Lord” being referred to in this passage, Paul goes on to say, “is the Spirit,” the life-giving Spirit of the new covenant; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty (= the freedom of the new covenant, freedom from the law with its imposition of death). The passage, therefore, is a pneumatological one, not christological, and it is not identifying Christ and the Spirit, even by implication.
But is it not possible that there is a sensus plenior, a deeper or secondary meaning to such texts? After all, taken by itself, 2 Corinthians 3:17 does use language to identify Christ with the Spirit. Is it not possible that God intended something quite beyond what the human author intended? Besides, we have the example of the New Testament writers, who, in exegeting the Old Testament, found sensus plenior. Is it not possible on such grounds that those people are right who argue that “the perfect” in 1 Corinthians 13:10 does indeed mean canon?
Some observations and personal opinions: (1) There is inherent danger in the concept of sensus plenior. If indeed God intends something beyond what the human author intended—and I would certainly not deny that possibility—then who speaks for God? That is, who determines the deeper meaning God intends for us? The magisterium? The Dispensationalist’s view of history? I admit to being squeamish regarding the whole area.
(2) The fact that the New Testament writers found sensus plenior in the Old Testament does not help me much. R. N. Longenecker has argued, and I tend to agree, that we cannot repeat the exegesis of the New Testament writers, precisely because what they did at that point was inspired.[21] In this case we know God’s fuller meaning in the Old Testament because he revealed it through the New Testament writers. But this can scarcely serve as a model for the twentieth century, any more than Paul’s use of pesher and allegory can. We belong to a different hermeneutical world.
(3) There is for me the possibility of a sensus plenior in predictive prophecy. But if so, it would seem to be something available to us only after the fact, not before. Therefore, I would tend to hold such interpretations in abeyance.
(4) All of this leads me to suggest that a sensus plenior in the Epistles is not a solid option, except perhaps where the writer is engaging in predictive prophecy.
IV. Some Concluding Remarks
How, then, is all of this concern for greater precision in the exegesis and hermeneutics of the Epistles related to the battle of inerrancy? In several ways, I think.
Even if one is uncomfortable with my special use of the terms, the distinction I have made between exegesis and hermeneutics is a very important one. The first task of the interpreter is to discover what the text meant when it was originally written. The question of the inerrancy and trustworthiness of Scripture must be carried on at that level, not at the level of “what does the text mean for us today.” This is not a way of trying to get around anything. In fact a careful reading of this paper will indicate that quite the opposite is my intent. All of Scripture is God’s word. The hermeneutical task is to free the word to speak to our own situation.
My point here is a crucial one. We simply must be done with the nonsense that suggests that some evangelicals are “soft on Scripture” because, for example, they believe in women’s ministries in the church. One may as well accuse B. B. Warfield of not believing in inerrancy because he had a hermeneutical way to get around Paul’s very clear command to seek spiritual gifts, especially prophecy. The so-called women’s issue is a hermeneutical question, and we will have differences here. But those differences are not questions of the authority of Scripture. They are questions of interpretation, and have to do with our historical distance from the text and the whole question of cultural relativity. We will not all agree on the principles I have suggested. But surely we must agree that hermeneutics is the arena in which we must carry on the discussion, not in the arena of the doctrine of Scripture per se.
If the battle of inerrancy must be carried on at the exegetical level—and it must—then we simply cannot afford to play loose with the text at that point.
Here is one of the great weaknesses in Harold Lindsell’s book, for example. Through a series of contrived interpretations he does things to the biblical text that good exegetical method must vigorously oppose as an abuse of the text.
A case in point. In order to reconcile some apparent difficulties between the Synoptic and Johannine accounts of Peter’s denials, Lindsell argues that Peter really denied Jesus six times! It may be argued, by sheer sophistry, that for the biblical writer to say three does not exclude the possibility of six, because six can also include any number up to six. But that is to play havoc with the clear intent of the biblical writers who clearly say that there would be three denials. To turn that three into six by a kind of hermeneutical harmony in the fashion of Tatian’s heretical Diatessaron borders on arguing for an errant text. I remember a day in 1975 when Fred Lynn of the Boston Red Sox batted in ten runs in a single game. Had a reporter for the Boston Globe written that Lynn batted in five runs, the reporter would not technically have been in error, for Lynn did in fact bat in five runs. But not a person in Boston who saw the game would have been convinced that the sportswriter was not really in error. For the clear intent of such reporting is not to give part of the whole, but the whole itself.
Furthermore, to say that God really meant six when the word clearly says three seems to contravene the nature of God and his revelation. It is to argue that God intended to obfuscate rather than to reveal or make plain. Exegesis, therefore, must be carried on with precision.
Since inerrancy must be wrestled with at the exegetical level, the real question in the debate is not so-called limited inerrancy. Rather, it has to do with the amount of accommodation one believes the Holy Spirit allowed the human authors.
That there is some accommodation one can scarcely deny. The very fact that God chose to give his word in ordinary human language, through real people, in real historical settings, is an expression of this accommodation.
Thus, the Bible is not just a collection of sayings or propositions from God, written in a unique, divine language. God did not say, “Learn these truths: Number 1. There is no God but one, and I am he. Number 2. I am the creator of all things, including humankind.” And so on. These propositions are indeed true, and they are found in the Bible. A collection of such propositions might have made things easier for us, to be sure! But God chose to speak his word through a wide range of literary forms (narrative histories, chronicles, law codes, dramas, all kinds of poems, proverbs, prophetic oracles, parables, stories, letters, Gospels, and apocalypses). Each of these is a different kind of human speech, and each requires its own special rules for interpretation.[22]
There is also a wide range of people who were used by the Holy Spirit to write Scripture. Thus we can distinguish between the way Paul and John express themselves theologically as well as between their grammar and literary style. To say they differ in expression is not to say that they are opposed, or that one of them is in error.
Another expression of accommodation is to be found in the fourfold Gospel. People like Tatian and some well-meaning modern authors have always been embarrassed by that reality and attempt to harmonize the four into one. But it was God who inspired the four. We do well to keep it that way. The fact that the Aramaic words that Jesus originally spoke are now recorded for us in Greek translation is already an accommodation. So also is the fact that his words as they are recorded in one Gospel are not usually duplicated exactly in the others.
Such expressions of accommodation are accepted by all evangelicals, and even by some fundamentalists. The real problem here is, where do we draw the line? The differences that exist among evangelicals are basically a matter of finding a starting point. Do we start with a theological a priori and say what God must do, or do we start with the text itself and say what God did do? As an exegete my sympathies obviously lie with the latter option.[23]
Take, for example, the question of whether accommodation allows for the human author to speak popularly, even if such speech is not precise, according to modern scientific norms. The exegete sees Jesus speaking popularly in Matthew 13:32 when he says that the mustard seed “is the smallest of all your seeds” (NIV). But if one argues a priori that every botanical allusion in Scripture must carry the precision of the twentieth-century botanist, then one must resort once again to remote possibilities that are improbable in the highest degree.[24]
I do not wish to resolve this issue here, for that would require a paper of much greater length [see the next chapter]. However, these are the kinds of questions that must form a part of the discussion; and no philosophical or emotional a priori should be allowed to prejudge how the believer in biblical inerrancy must decide these questions.
Finally, I will contend for one thing above all. The occasional nature of the New Testament Epistles is scarcely debatable. This does indeed give us many and varied exegetical and hermeneutical problems. But the fact that they are occasional is also their greater glory. Instead of trying to circumvent that reality by a variety of hermeneutical ploys, we should affirm with thanksgiving that the weakness of God is stronger than men and the foolishness of God is wiser than men. The same God who spoke his living word most eloquently through the weakness of an incarnation, has also spoken his written word through the weakness of human language and human history. That this word was spoken once is precisely what gives us the courage to believe it will so speak again and again despite the relativities and ambiguities of history and culture. The eternal word never changes, even though the historical circumstances in which it speaks are ever subject to change.
1 “Limited” inerrancy describes the belief that what God intends to convey in Scripture, or the message of Scripture, is without error, but that this absence of error does not necessarily apply to the incidental scientific or historical notations in Scripture. “Unlimited” inerrancy would include the latter items as well. This language, it should be noted, is the product of the latter group and is intended to exclude by definition of terms.
2 Harold Lindsell, The Battle for the Bible (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1976) 30.
3 [This is hermeneutical inconsistency of the worst kind. Lindsell’s hermeneutics are clearly dictated by a theological a priori—a certain view of inerrancy. On the exegete’s difficulty with this kind of thinking see the next chapter.]
4 [Republishing this essay twelve years later reminds one how much hermeneutical issues are subject to the whims of cultural change!]
5 These are not precise usages of the two terms, but I will tend to use them in this way in the present essay. Exegesis is in fact concerned with what the text meant in its historical context. Hermeneutics has to do with the science of interpretation in all its ramifications. But since the term has to do especially with what a text means (which includes what is meant), I will use the term to refer to what the biblical text means for us in terms of our understanding and obedience.
6 R. E. Brown, “Hermeneutics,” in The Jerome Bible Commentary (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1968) 616.
7 Louis Berkhof, Principles of Biblical Interpretation (2nd ed.; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1952) 159.
8 [For many readers this section will be quite elementary, and in any case it appears in adapted form in Fee and Stuart, How to Read, as chapter 3. One may therefore wish to skip over to sections III and IV. I have included this section, as in the original essay, because much in the following essays assumes this material and some readers may wish to have it available for handy reference.]
9 Light from the Ancient East (4th ed.; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1965 [reprint]) 146–245, esp. 228–45.
10 Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia (New York: A. C. Armstrong and Son, 1905) 24.
11 Introducing the New Testament (2nd ed.; London: SCM, 1957) 157.
12 II Corinthians (London: SCM, 1954) 7.
13 In a certain sense, of course, every word of Scripture is culturally conditioned, in that, for example, every word of the New Testament was first spoken in the context of the first century. The degree of “cultural conditioning” is a relative matter, which will receive attention later in this chapter.
14 In all candor it should be admitted that this last question is usually answered by our own cultural predisposition (see chapter 5 below). If we have been raised in a context where women pray, or prophesy, or teach, then 1 Tim 2:9–15 is seen as culturally conditioned. But if our context is more strictly patriarchal, then those words are seen as transcultural and as applicable to every situation.
15 [See now chapter 3 below for a fuller explication of this matter.]
16 This is a collection of some of my own material with some suggestions from my colleague, David M. Scholer. The present arrangement is my own.
17 The corporate life of the community in Acts 2–6 was not communal, but the sense of community was at a very high level. No one considered property to be one’s own private possession; rather, it was made available for the whole community. In Corinth the church was composed of slaves and free (1 Cor 12:13; cf. 7:21–24). These distinctions apparently carried over to the Lord’s Table, where the rich went ahead with their own meals and thus humiliated those who had nothing (11:21–22). Paul says they “have their own homes” in which to eat and drink (11:22, 34).
18 See my own espousal of this position in “Eἰδωλόθυτα Once Again—An Interpretation of 1 Corinthians 8–10,” Biblica 61 (1980) 12–28.
19 Although the point often made from this text is surely a proper one. However, such a point needs to be based on firmer ground than this one dubious text. It has to do finally with the complete incompatibility of “two becoming one” who cannot be one at the single crucial point of their relationship.
20 R. E. Brown, “Hermeneutics,” uses the term homogeneity to express this same principle. What fails to have “homogeneity,” he styles “accommodation.”
21 In Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975) esp. 205–20.
22 [See now How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth (with Douglas Stuart; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982).]
23 [For a further elaboration of the concerns in this paragraph see now chapter 2 below.]
24 On this issue Lindsell allows for the possibility of accommodation (Battle for the Bible, 169), but it also seems clear that he would prefer not to have to make this allowance.