Iv. A Concluding Note
III. EXEGESIS AND SPIRITUALITY
In at least one point, those who fear the scholar exegete have it right, namely in their protest that the exegete tends to make Scripture a matter of history pure and simple, and then, often, to be skeptical of that history as well. I want to say with great vigor that even though the first task of the exegete is the historical one (= to determine the biblical author’s intended meaning), this first task is not the ultimate one. The ultimate task, and now I repeat myself, is the Spiritual one, to hear the text in such a way that it leads the reader/hearer into the worship of God and into conformity to God and his ways. My present point is that this task is not to be separated from the historical one, or added onto it at the end. Rather, determining the Spiritual intent of the text, as we have previously defined Spirituality, belongs legitimately — indeed, necessarily — to the historical task itself.
I do not mean by this that what is often termed application or devotion is to be understood as part of the exegetical task itself. Rather, I mean that the biblical authors to a person were not only inspired by the Holy Spirit — or so we believe — but also brought their own Spirituality to their writing of the text. My point is that true exegesis attempts to engage in the author’s Spirituality, not just in his or her words. Moreover, our engagement at this level is not to be a merely descriptive task (as in, “Paul was a passionate lover of Christ”), but a genuinely empathetic one, so that we ourselves become passionate lovers of Christ if we are to hear the text on Paul’s terms and not simply on our own.
Of what earthly or eternal value is it, for example, for us to exegete Philippians 1:21 (“for to me to live is Christ, to die is gain”), in purely descriptive terms, if we do not engage in Paul’s further intent that the Philippians themselves share this view of present life? It is easy to point out the place of this text in its context, that Paul is picking up on the two possible resolutions of his imprisonment, freedom or execution, and offers a brief personal reflection as to what either of them means for him. We can go on to describe the rhetorical power of the assonance, which would have caused the Philippians to have heard these words in ways we cannot, and to suggest further in light of what we know elsewhere from Paul that this statement registers as a kind of motto for his life. Indeed, we might even go beyond that to try to catch something of Paul’s Spirituality, and thus to comment, for example (and now from the commentary):
As he puts it in 3:12-14, having been “apprehended by Christ Jesus,” Christ thus became the singular pursuit of his life. “Christ” — crucified, exalted Lord, present by the Spirit, coming king; “Christ,” the one who as God “emptied himself” and as man “humbled himself” — to death on the cross — whom God has now given the name above all names (2:6-11); “Christ,” the one for whom he has gladly “suffered the loss of all things” in order to “gain” him and “know” him, both his resurrection power and participation in his sufferings (3:7-11); “Christ,” the name that sums up for Paul the whole range of his new relationship to God: personal devotion, commitment, service, the gospel, ministry, communion, inspiration — everything.
But what is the point of such description if we do not press on to ask further about Paul’s intent what he was expecting the Philippians to do with such a statement? And what does it mean further for us as the heirs of their text to be brought up short in the face of this text with our own mottoes which seem to fall so far short of this one (e.g., “for to me to live is to be honored by colleagues and students”). But unless we do so, unless we are encountered by Paul’s own Spirituality, have we truly engaged in the ultimate exegetical task? Because these words are not simply an autobiographical aphorism; these words are intended to call the Philippians — and us — to the imitation of Paul.
The Apostle makes this abundantly clear in 4:9: “What things you have learned or received or heard or seen in me, practice these things.” True Spirituality, life in the Spirit, is precisely the aim of all that Paul writes to them; and this is precisely where the “imitatio” motif, which figures largely in many of Paul’s letters and arguably dominates Philippians from beginning to end, fits into his view of things. His readers are urged to imitate him, to follow his cruciform lifestyle as depicted in his own story in 3:4-14, just as his story is closely related to the Christ story in 2:5-11. At issue in Philippi is their need to have the same mindset regarding the gospel, and to live with one another in the kind of humility that puts the needs and interests of each other ahead of one’s own. They are thus urged to have the same mindset as Christ, who as God, demonstrated God’s true character by pouring himself out and taking the form of a slave, and who as man humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on the cross. But they are further urged to imitate Paul, whose own story finds its focal point in “knowing Christ Jesus my Lord,” which is further clarified as simultaneously knowing the power of his resurrection, as he also participates in Christ’s suffering, so as to be conformed to Christ’s likeness in his death. And those who live otherwise, he goes on to say in 3:18-19, whose minds are on present, earthly things, are thus enemies of the cross. To hear this letter aright we must be prepared to imitate Paul in his cruciform lifestyle, as his own life was an imitation of Christ’s pouring himself out for the sake of others, even to the point of death on the cross.
And that leads me to my final concern about the Spiritual intent of this motif in Philippians. Paul understood Christian life and discipleship quite in contrast to our own Spirituality, in which we are quite content to put the Bible into people’s hands but would not think of telling them to follow our example as we follow Christ. Part of our excuse for this, of course, is that we have a perfectionist’s view of the world, that if we are not ourselves perfect then we should never suggest that others follow our example. But Paul is quite ready to say that he has not yet arrived at the full completion of his knowledge of Christ (3:12-14), but he will urge them to follow his example in any case. I would suggest that we have not entered into the full Spirituality of these texts until we are ready to follow Christ so fully that we can tell those whom we have been given to teach that they should mark our lives, and the lives of those who walk as we do, and thus follow our example. We are not talking about being perfect, of course, but about having a mindset like Christ’s, so that through the power of his resurrection our lives are lived so as to be in conformity to his death. When we have so set our own minds, and behave accordingly, and urge others to follow us in this way, then we might have something truly to say to our broken and fallen world.
I would urge that good exegesis and true Spirituality should meet at precisely this point in our interpretation of Philippians.
Finally, I would argue, if we do not go on to this step of the process, that is, if our exegesis and spirituality do not join hand to hand at this point, then I wonder whether what we do may rightly be called biblical exegesis. To put all of this in another way — and in contemporary terms: Because we believe Scripture is God’s Word, by which God addresses us, that means that Scripture is the subject and we are the object. During the process of exegesis we momentarily reverse these roles, so that we act as subject with the text as object. I would argue that the exegetical process is not completed until we return to the proper posture of objects being addressed by the subject.