On reading and interpreting scripture

A well known preacher here in Sydney has often been heard to say that evangelicals are not in the business of “interpreting” scripture. I’ve always thought this was an odd thing to say. Surely this is exactly what we are doing when we come to a passage which is hard to understand and which doesn’t present itself with immediate clarity. Surely we are “interpreting” the text when we translate from Greek and Hebrew into English. What is this preacher talking about? Is he advocating an approach where we just respond to an unaided reading of the text, with no recourse to commentaries or other aids when trying to unlock the difficult bits?

It’s helpful to realise that we can mean different things when we talk about “interpretation”. For example, “interpretation” can mean:

1. translation;
2. uncovering the meaning of a particular text when the text is from another culture;
3. attaching meaning to a text from our own context and experience, hence providing an “interpretation”.

I think it’s this last one which the preacher in question is arguing against. It’s worth considering the difference between the last two options given above.

Often those who might oppose our reading of a text will say “That’s just your interpretation!” But as an evangelical, I don’t see myself as providing an “interpretation”. Rather I’m seeking to “read” rather than “interpret”, and this “reading” uses the tools of exegesis and history to uncover the text’s original meaning from its cultural and grammatical context. This assumes that the text has an original purpose and meaning, and that this original purpose and meaning is still worth our attention. I guess in doing this we are seeking an interpretation according to definition 2 above, but I would call this “reading” rather than “interpreting.”

On the other hand, there are some approaches which seek to remove the text from its context, leaving it as an entity in itself. This text then has meaning attached to it from modern contexts. While it’s an appealing idea to see texts “released” so that they can do many weird and wonderful things, I think that too much is lost with this approach. My fear is that we end up ‘bastardising’ the text; we leave it without an origin. And by removing the text from its origin we only enslave it to our own context; we use it to tell our own story. We may as well not play games and just say what we think, avoiding the temptation to marry our opinions to a text which we have “neutralized.” This is especially important if the original context still has very real implications which are imposed upon us. Because the NT texts were born from the context of a resurrected Lord who is still ruling and claiming his rights over us today, then they are texts which cannot be “interpreted” in separation from the ongoing rule of the risen Lord Jesus, and are also texts which still have a claim on us who live under his Lordship.

So what can we say about “interpretation”? It’s true that we must “read” the text and not “interpret” it, if interpretation means reading our own stories and experiences into a passage which has been divorced from its context. But “reading” does not simply mean “reading” like we would read a novel. It means reading with an eye to the ground out of which the text was born, a ground which saw Jesus rise from the dead and establish his ongoing rule, a rule which carries the original meaning of the NT through to our current context.

I hope all that makes some sense. It is 1.59AM after all. I guess I’m trying to tie the ongoing relevance of scripture to the ongoing Lordship of Christ. Perhaps I’ll write some more on this issue one of these days, at a more thought friendly hour.

Exam report card

The MTC third year exams which finished last week were really hard work. I thought that nothing could be harder than second year, but I was wrong. One week later and only now am I feeling like I haven’t been hit by a truck. Here’s my take on each of the exams…

Old Testament 3 (theology)
This was our opening exam and the one which took the most preparation. The paper consisted of three compulsory questions drawn from a pool of 16 which were known to all candidates, plus one unseen question which we could pick from a number of options. Sound complicated? Yeah, not the most straightforward affair. Even though we knew the questions they were really hard and took a bit of research. This meant that while we actually learnt a lot of OT Theology, our preparation for the rest of the exams suffered. The lecturer who set the paper’s format but was on sabbatical during second semester so we couldn’t go and exact our revenge. I’m not sure how we would have done this, but some disciplinary action was necessary.

This paper receives a C.

Old Testament 3 (exegesis)
No real surprises here, but the texts which were set were only parts of larger compositional units. This made it hard to talk about structure…“This text forms ¾ of a chiasm.” Awkward.

I give this paper a B+

New Testament 3 (theology)
Again no real surprises. The questions followed the syllabus fairly closely, to the point where some questions allowed for exact regurgitations of particular set readings. The paper could have been improved by adding another question to the Pauline theology section (only three options to choose from), but the questions here were interesting enough, although predictable:

How useful is it to search for a ‘centre’ in Paul’s theology?

and

Asses the view that Paul was ‘called’ and not ‘converted’ on the Damascus road.

The New Perspective question felt a little impossible:

What is the essence of the ‘New Perspective’ understanding of Pauline theology?

This is like asking “what is the essence of being Australian” or “what is the essence of being male”. You know it when you see it (although in Newtown…), but it’s many things nonetheless.

This paper receives a B+

New Testament 3 (exegesis)
This year’s NT3 exams were both two hours in length, which I felt made the whole experience a little easier. The one common complaint was that the texts in this year’s exegetical paper were a little long, so after translation there wasn’t enough time to make adequate comments. But, the new format included a new section where no translation was required but where theological comment was asked for on a pair of related verses. Interesting.

This paper deserves an A-.

Doctrine 3
This was the paper I was least prepared for. Thankfully it was devoid of Robert Doyle’s mega-long, quotation-based questions. They were shorter and to the point, which was nice. Most people found four questions which they felt comfortable answering, but it seems that they were the same four questions for everybody. I even answered two on eschatology, which was my least prepared area in my least prepared subject.

I give Doctrine 3 a B+

Ethics 3
I worked really hard for this one. Ethics was something I struggled with all year, but I was determined to get it. I reckon it finally came to me in the days before, which is a good thing. The paper was the best of the lot; questions were stretching but accurately reflected the content of the course and enabled us to apply the skills which the course attempted to teach us. Some of the wording was interesting and betrayed certain presuppositions:

Are Christian ethics relevant to people to people who are not Christians? Illustrate your answer with reference to Old Testament Israel.

Can we call OT Israel “Christian”? Hmmm…

“Unplanned motherhood represents a threat so great to modern women that it is perceived as an equivalent to a ‘death of self’.” In a society where abortion is legal, what can Christians do to undermine its ‘attraction’?

That the Christian would want to undermine abortion assumes a certain stance, so this question can be seen to jump down the path of ethical logic a little too quickly. Nonetheless, the question of the application of a certain moral position is an interesting and important one, and it’s refreshing to break out of first order questions and to get to the pointy issue of acting upon moral theory.

Speaking of which, the last question was a real cracker and was compulsory for all taking the exam:

A cohabiting couple, who are not Christians, come to you in some distress. The woman is not yet pregnant yet yearns to have a child. The man professes to love the woman, but insists that he will leave her if she falls pregnant. They agree to several meetings with you.
What Christian moral arguments about this situation will you seek to outline and persuade the couple of, and what suggestions, advice and/or instructions about what to do will you offer?

Wow. That’s what the whole course is getting at; enabling us to actually be effective in that situation.
Well done Andrew Cameron. You get an A+.

Back again...again

Ok, I think I can see how this is going to work. I'll post like mad for a couple of weeks and then go all quiet for a month and a half. That's been the pattern so far; I have the desire to blog, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not blog when I want to blog, but the non-blogging I do not want is what I keepon doing. What a wretched blogger am I! Who will deliver me from this body of Cyber-death? Thanks be to the summer holidays...

Seriously, the last 6 weeks or so has seen me in an examination frenzy here at MTC, so that's why things have been a little quiet. But posts to come include my report card on the MTC third year examination questions, more in the AIDS/HIV series, and some stuff on singleness and also some thoughts on hermeneutics. Fun fun fun!

Making room for women?

At church we've just finished a sermon series on relationships and it's raised a few questions in my mind concerning our theologies of gender.

As men, is it patronising to speak of providing a "safe" emotional and relational place for women? The biological differences between the sexes means that physically the provision of a safe place is necessary, but how much of our help do women need in other areas? At uni I was stuck in the situation where one female friend told me "men need to make room", and another said "we don't want men to make room, we need to do it ourselves and it's patronising to suggest otherwise." During sunday's sermon I addressed the men saying:

When we use affirming language, we create a relationally secure environment. Our sisters will feel that they can contribute without fear of unfair rejection or dismissal. And if we create that environment, then that's an environment where our sisters will thrive and flourish. And we want our sisters to thrive and flourish don't we? That's good for everyone, and most of al it's good for our sisters.

Was this patronising? Why should a sister have to rely on me for them to contribute to the church? Sure there's a place for encouragement, but it's not primarily up to me to give a sister confidence, surely that confidence should come first from her identity in Jesus. To suggest that she needs me to make the first move does, I fear, leave us with a sense where the woman is still subjugated in a way.

What do people think??? Do men need to make room?

A Christian Response to HIV/AIDS #2

I think a helpful first question we can ask concerns how we arrived at this point. What can we say about the beginning of the AIDS crisis? Perhaps if we look at the root cause we can start building a response.

A firm biological answer as to how we received this virus remains elusive. Most scientists agree that HIV is a mutated form of a similar virus found in African primates, but there is debate as to how the virus spread to humanity. Some researchers argue that African hunters who were killing and eating chimpanzees and other apes and monkeys were the first to be exposed to the virus, while others suggest that HIV was first spread by a contaminated polio vaccine which was issued to over a million people in central Africa during the late 1950s. The theory is that the vaccine was prepared using infected monkey livers in a laboratory.

However, the scriptures do give us a firm theological answer as to why we have diseases like AIDS:

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.  Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. (Romans 8.22-23)

It doesn’t take a genius to work out that there is something wrong with the world. AIDS isn’t the only symptom; earthquakes, tsunamis, cancer and human conflict all suggest that our world is not functioning as it should. In the above passage from Romans, Paul writes that the world is “groaning” under the strain of all the suffering and decay that’s going on, and we humans who are living as part of this world are groaning as well. The human race is a burdened race.

When we look back at Romans chapter 5, we see that there is one underlying cause behind all these burdens:

Sin entered the world through one man and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned. (Romans 5.12)

Here we see the beginning of AIDS. When our first ancestors sinned in the Garden of Eden, it wasn’t just a case of a man and his wife eating an apple. This was the point when sin and death grabbed hold of the world, setting up shop in God’s creation. And once sin and death established themselves it’s as if they vomited all over God’s good and wonderful creation, spoiling it and leaving us with things like earthquakes, cancer, human selfishness, and HIV/AIDS.

Near the university where I used to study there was this one particular Victorian-era terrace. It was fairly run down and in need of renovation, but instead of being sold to a renovator it remained empty except for some squatters who had moved in. It wasn’t long before graffiti appeared on the walls and soon all the windows had been broken. When you looked through the windows there were mattresses on the floor which were all soiled with rubbish and syringes lying about the place. What was once a beautiful and desirable creation was now ruined. You could still see and work out how the building was meant to look like, but the present reality was far from glorious. I think this is a great metaphor for our world. Sin and evil and death have moved in and they’ve made our world far from perfect, leaving us with the rubbish and soil of disease. That’s the origin of the current HIV epidemic.

Why is it important to know this origin of HIV?

1. It puts AIDS into context.
As long as there is sin, there will always be disease – its part and parcel of living in a fallen world. We may not always have AIDS – we might find a cure one day – but we will always have epidemics of one sort or another. This doesn’t mean that we just shrug our shoulders and say “oh well, nothing we can do about it, we’ll always have this issue.” Scripture demands that we respond, and we’ll get to that response in future posts, but it does mean that we don’t have to loose our heads about this. AIDS doesn’t mean that God has lost control; rather it means that God in his wisdom has allowed sin and death to remain in his world for a time. So we live in a world where AIDS is a reality, because sin and death is a reality.

2. Knowing the origin of AIDS gives us a hint as to the nature of a possible solution. Get rid of sin and death, then you rid the world not only of AIDS but of all diseases.

Our next post will take up further the possibility of a final solution.

A Christian Response to HIV/AIDS #1

In Australia, somewhere between 12-18,000 people are living with HIV/AIDS. Each year just under 100 people die from HIV/AIDS related illnesses, and each year sees 700-1000 new cases of HIV infection.

Once we move into the developing world though, things are very different.

The World Health Organisation estimates that 40 million people world-wide are currently infected with either strand of HIV, the worst effects being felt in Africa. In Sub-Saharan Africa, between 25-28 million people are infected with HIV. 2.3 million people die from AIDS related illnesses each year, and there are 3.4 million new cases every 12 months. Out of all the African nations, Botswana is the worst effected. Over 1/3 of all adults living in Botswana are infected with HIV. It’s estimated that because of AIDS the average life expectancy for adults in Botswana will plummet to 29 years by 2010. And of course, apart from those living with HIV, there are those family members who are affected. By 2010, it’s estimated that there will be at least 25 million African children who will have lost one or both parents to the disease.

In the face of such horrific statistics we can feel absolutely helpless; numbed by the shear enormity of the problem. Not doing anything can even seem like a viable option. Why waste time and effort on a battle you will only loose? However, as Christian people we have a hope which leads us to banish such defeatist logic:

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Rev 21.3-4)

Because of the final victory of Jesus Christ we can afford to have confidence in the face of such tragedy. This post is the first in a series which will explore how we as Christians can respond to this sad epidemic which is unfolding across the globe. How can we think about this event and what can we do to help? As Christian people we are unique in the world. We follow a unique Lord and we have a unique message, so we will also have a unique response to this tragedy; we’ll have our own unique contribution to make.

I hope you find the series stimulating yet productively unsettling.

The stats in this post are from Weinreich and Benn, AIDS, Meeting the Challenge: Data, Facts, Background (Geneva: WCC Publications, 2004).

Al Gore preaches up a storm

Last night Naomi and Alistair and I went to see the Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth (check out the trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUiP6dqPynE). It’s been billed as “the most terrifying film of the [northern] summer” and yeah, it’s a little concerning.

Aside from being shocked about how unhealthy we’ve made the planet it got me thinking about the issue of God’s sovereignty and human responsibility. Recently I’ve been praying for more rain, convinced in my Calvinism that ultimately it’s God’s sovereignty which will save us all from thirsty deaths, and it’s God’s sovereignty which led us to the position in the first instance. But Al Gore reminded me in no uncertain terms that the blame for our current situation can be placed quite squarely on human factors.

Now theologically I’m confident that I can reconcile this. For every action there is a divine and a non-divine agent, with the divine agent acting for holy and good reasons and the non-divine agent possibly acting with unholy motives (as hinted by Gen 50.20 and Acts 2.23). So our culpability in causing global warming is upheld, but God’s role in bringing it about can still be recognised without him being held guilty.

While I have applied this model to other natural phenomena, up until now I have not been particularly struck by the consequences of there being a human element in global warming. I knew that human activity was responsible for the situation, but my prayer in response to the crisis betrayed an overly theo-centric approach to the issue. The solution was to pray for God’s intervention, and to try and remember to start sorting my garbage every now and then. But the obvious human element involved in global warming has made me think that my prayers (and behaviour) should change. If I want the situation to improve, then shouldn’t repentance be a first step?

I know that by using the word ‘repentance’ it sounds as if contributing to global warming is a sin. Whether it is a sin is an interesting and important question, but this is not an avenue I wish to explore fully in this post. However, that global warming is our fault and that I want God to intervene suggests that some sort of repentance is called for, be it a moral repentance or merely a change from what is essentially a neutral behaviour. Either way, I do think that a recognition of our responsibility should be incorporated into our heavenly petitions. If God is not the only agent, then why have I prayed as if he is???

Does anyone have any clearer thoughts on this?
Is global warming a sin?
Is it possible to ‘repent’ from something which is not a sin? If so, how is this different to just ‘changing your mind’?

My Jesus my boyfriend...

A common complaint among us evangelicals is that many of our contemporary church songs sound too much like love ballads. I remember seeing a South Park episode where Cartman starts a Christian Band. He decides that this would be an easy thing to do because all that's required is to take an already existing love song and change the word 'baby' to 'Jesus' in the lyrics. But is there really that much of a problem with songs addressed to God which are so heartfelt that they lean towards a romantic expression of faith?

The image of the church being the bride of Christ is one worth considering. What is this metaphor trying to communicate? Is it merely another way of expressing the first commandment; that we as God's people are to be loyal to our creator as a bride is to be loyal to her husband? Is it speaking about how we are under Christ's headship as a bride is under the headship of her husband? Certainly the answer to these questions must be a "yes", but can we see more in the metaphor? It seems that from God's perspective, that he is "married" to his people gives rise to an emotive element within the relationship (eg Ezekiel 16). So as far as the divine to human perspective is concerned, the marriage between God and his people not only describes the functions of the relationship but the emotive aspects as well. As one fellow student asked in a lecture on the process of salvation: "Might God woo us?" Indeed he might! So if strong emotion flows from the divine to us, why do we baulk at letting it flow the other way? Why not allow ourselves to be 'wooed' like a bride might allow herself to be 'wooed' by her husband? Granted, when we sing three "I love you Lord" songs in a row at church, I do start to wish for a little more thought to be put into arranging the song order. But perhaps there is a stronger warrant for 'romantic' songs in church than we might sometimes care to admit.

Back again

Ah yes, back to the blog. I've been sidetracked by other things over the past month, and when starting this blog I promised myself that it wouldn't become an all devouring monster that sucked up all my time. So I guess its good to see that I've been able to be disciplined. However, last night at church Mark Stephens (who needs to start his own blog where he can write his thoughts and post his wonderful sermons) said "I checked out your blog last night, you haven't updated it in a while". Opps, yeah thats right...that blog thing... so my goal is a couple of posts a week. We'll see how we go.

Good Preaching #3

Last weekend a friend of mine announced that he had started attending a Pentecostal church after years ministering in a 'typical' Sydney Anglican setting. His most startling comment was that for the first time since high school (he is now in his mid 20s) he is now reading his Bible in a devotional way. He says that the preaching he's now hearing is getting him excited about God and about what can be found in Scripture. What were we doing wrong to deprive this man of the affective wonder of God's word? Here's a thought:

Could our use of the Bible from the pulpit and in the small group Bible study be feeding an approach to Scripture which is about knowing things about God rather than knowing God himself? Such an approach could lead us along the path of Gnosticism; saved, kept and fed solely by information and not by an informed relationship. Yes knowledge is important, but in the sense that it feeds our relationship with the one we have knowledge about. To fail to draw out and make this connection in our preaching is a severe discrepancy. This is the problem with common statement that our goal in preaching is to 'help people be able to read the Bible'. Unless that help includes a renewed passion for being a child of the Almighty then I fear that we aren't teaching people to read the Bible at all. At best we are giving a lesson in hermeneutics; helpful to a point, but not adequate on its own.

Aside from this issue, there is a problem with our current obsession over ministry 'training'. I saw one document recently which suggested that the goal of ministry was to raise up other ministers and to train them to train and raise up more ministers who will then train others to train others to train others etc. So who actually does the ministry? Yeah, training is important, and we need to provide for subsequent generations, but the problem with this approach is exemplified in the attitude of my friend mentioned above. He never stopped to enjoy his status as a loved child of God. Why? Because his church and university Christian group taught him that being Christian was all about serving others and training others to serve others; about doing and not being. If we had more 'be' along side the 'do' then we would be in a better state of spiritual health.

Of course these issues aren't found everywhere in the Anglican Church in Sydney (of which I'm a proud member), but I fear that they are issues which we are particularly susceptible to. It's probably a good idea to keep an eye on our own particular temptations.

Good Preaching Part 2

Preaching error #1: preach just in order to explain the content of scripture, thinking that by doing this you are “teaching people how to read the Bible”.
Preaching error #2: preach in a way which is overly anthropocentric, meeting the congregation’s needs as only the congregation sees them. This is nothing more than a baptized episode of Dr Phil.
A better approach: apply divine scripture to the hopes and aspirations of those who have gathered together, allowing God to form and mould those hopes and aspirations to be those which he wants them to have.

What makes for good preaching?

Recently I've developed the habit of listening to a variety of preachers from around the globe. This started as a professional development thing, but it's also turned out (surprise surprise) to be an incredibly edifying hobby. One of the most enjoyable has been Greg Laurie from the west coast of the US. Exegetically he can miss the mark at times (who is going to cast the first stone?), but he is sure worth a listen...so darn clear in his presentation, and you end up thinking "Man, its good to be Christ-follower." Now there are two goals that I reckon we should be aiming for when firing from the pulpit. So now I'm interested, what do like hearing from the pulpit/lecturn/stage/podcast?

How might we be saved?

Last night was the first of the 2006 Annual Moore Theological College Lectures, with Gerald Bray presenting his first paper in a series of five theological reflections on the Lord's Prayer. This, I think, is a very helpful undertaking; to dive into the theology of what GB has called the 'first systematic statement of theology that we have.' Within what was a pastorally helpful hour, GB did make a claim that because the Father is in Heaven, he is in a position to save us. It's his transcendence which enables him to come into our mire and lift us out of trouble.

This got me thinking. Didn't one of the Cappadocians (I forget which one) say that you cannot save that which is not assumed? This opens up the whole question of how our salvation works... a big, big issue (and perhaps very presumptuous to attempt to tackle it here). But I think at the very least we've got to hold to both the necessity of God's transcendence and his immanence for our salvation; his transcendence because we can't save ourselves, his immanence because our selves need saving. Another reason why the uniqueness of Christ as the God-man is a wonderful thing to hold on to. I'm sure GB would agree entirely. In fact, I'm sure that he was only reflecting on one aspect of the atonement (an aspect particularly relevant to the first clause of the Lord's Prayer), but the balance is something worth reflecting on.

Now on to more prep for Sunday's sermon: Mark 8.22-9.1

OK, here I am!!!

OT essay is over, so now it’s down to blogging. There are numerous reasons why I've decided to join the ranks of the cyber-savvy. First of all, it seems to be a trend at the moment, and I'm a sucker for fashion, so here I am. Secondly I learn when I write so this provides the space to do some reflection. Third, I enjoy reading and posting on other peoples pages so I really should start my own. Fourth, its the way of the future baby, so I'm on board. Fifth, I can't let Byron or MPJ get away with all the stuff that they post (Ha ha!! Just kidding guys, I do appreciate your posts). So with that fist-full of reasons its off we go!

So what can you expect? I'll post some theo-reflective stuff, but will also throw in some personal things as well; we are people and not just thoughts after all. Some times some weird stuff happens in my life, so every now and again I'll put that in, and I might post some of my sermons or essays too.

Happy reading!

First post...

...will perhaps happen after the OT essay is done.