Theological Interpretation of Scripture
Last fall I had the privilege of taking a class at my home college entitled Theological Interpretation of Scripture (TIS). The format was unique: it was co-taught by professors Joseph Mangina and Ephraim Radner and involved both the study and practice of the TIS exegetical "method." For those unfamiliar with the term, TIS has been described as being a "return to the practice of using Scripture as a way of ordering and comprehending the world rather than using the world as a way of comprehending Scripture" (Stephen E. Fowl, Theological Interpretation of Scripture, 23). Of course, defining TIS–even as a method–remains a challenge. Academics from a variety of backgrounds employ TIS in various ways.
Nonetheless, TIS as a whole sees value in past methods of biblical interpretation. While not abandoning critical methods as an important tool in biblical interpretation, TIS questions history as the gold standard of discovering the truth of scripture. Theologians and scholars who embrace TIS make no apologies for considering how Scripture is to be used in the life of the church. Scripture is an object of faith.
As Karl Barth earnestly pointed out to Adolf von Harnack ("An Answer to Professor Adolf von Harnack"), the historical reality of Christ is his reality as the risen Christ, something this is humanely speaking, "totally incomprehensible." For Barth, the historical reality of Christ "as revelation, as 'center of the gospel' is not the 'historical Jesus' whom an all too eager historical research had wanted to lay hold of in disregard of the very warnings made in the sources themselves," but the Christ of Paul's resurrection in 2 Cor 5:16. Scripture itself demands eyes that see beyond the historical to the one sustaining the historical. Collapsing the former into the latter opens up ways to define God in our image. When God becomes subject to our rationality, our natural inclination to modify that which produces discomfort takes over. Faith demands something different. Faith demands accepting God as the justified sole object of human devotion and love.
TIS, therefore, reminds us that studying scripture is fraught with risk. To use another quote by Stephen Fowl: " When Augustine spoke of Scripture as a vehicle to carry us to our true home, he was aware that we might find the vehicle so plush and the ride so smooth that we would forget we are on a journey and not a joy ride. We would end up loving the ride more than we desire to get to our destination" (39). The Christian Bible is a beautiful collection of poetry, history, narrative, myth, apocalyptic, and prophecy. Scripture is intriguing to those of many disciplines. However, Scripture is also a call to confess the sinful state of the human person and proclaim Christ as Lord over all. Barth witnessed a devastating disconnect between these two realities. While German scholars masterfully excelled at critical theories, many were blind to the devastating take over of the German Evangelical Church by Nazi Nationalism. Instead of conforming their mind to Christ, many in Barth's majority Christian nation allowed themselves to be conformed to the hate-filled ideology of Adolf Hitler.
In short, if we do not read the Bible to be read by God we are not properly reading the Bible. This process is deeply uncomfortable and subjective–subjective in that it involves two living subjects, the Spirit of God and the spirit of humanity. The modern idea of the pure observer is simply illusory. History is only subject to the pure observation of the Spirit. The content of that history is well beyond the purview of human intuition, for the centrepiece of history–the resurrection of Christ–defies the cause and effect foundation of historical inquiry. That the Spirit raised Jesus from the dead constructs a new historical reality that humanity can enter. Life becomes subject to new life and the effect of death is reversed. All human intuition is thrown into chaos, which is what we should expect when encountering God.
Good intentions aside, modernity produced an idealized vision of the individual that no human could ever live up too. Post-modernity, despite all its problems, was a correctional shift to that false view of humanity. And yet post-modernity offers little comfort. Biblical studies is now filled with a dizzying array of frameworks that offer little continuity with the words of Scripture (Stanglin, The Letter and Spirit of Biblical Interpretation, 187). TIS questions aloud whether such strict delineations are necessary. Alternatively, TIS accesses the pre-modern, modern, and post-modern approaches to Scripture. TIS recognizes that Scripture involves the historical, the allegorical, is morally instructive, and looks hopefully to the future (Stanglin, 96–100). Reading Scripture with TIS as a companion liberates the reader from having to maintain a limiting set of presuppositions to arrive at the meaning of the text. That is, the meaning of Scripture involves the Spirit illuminating the eyes of faith, not merely arriving at a semantic range of words or an interpretation according to a philosophical framework.
Pastors instinctively know this. We do the historical and the grammatical–in fact, that's usually the first step. We pull down our trusted commentaries and examine the historical details surrounding the passage. The brave among us wrestle through the Hebrew and Greek. However, if it were to end there, would we be doing our job? A skilled pastor knows that studying scripture ought to inspire faith in the body of Christ. Pastors embrace the theological in relation to the needs of the church. TIS frees scholars to do likewise.
Like all methods of biblical interpretation, TIS is limited, but it is in that limitation that one discovers the life-giving work of the Spirit. It is in this space that pastors, theologians and biblical scholars humbly come face to face with their limitations and admit that reading scripture is much larger than our method of inquiry. TIS allows us to proceed with humility, a lesson that far too many pastors and academics have ignored.
