Member's Blogs

Confessional Lutheran Blogs Aardvark Alley Approved
Our thanks to Orycteropus Afer, of Aardvark Alley. He does the tedious work of maintaining the following Confessional Lutheran Blogroll, and makes the results available to other bloggers.

Other Blogs

CyberStones--A Lutheran Blog
Blog Home | RSS 2.0
Currently browsing thread: A Distinctly Christian Reading of the Scriptures Petersen Oct 22, 2009 06:21:46
A Distinctly Christian Reading of the Scriptures
Petersen
email
Posted on:
Oct 22, 2009 06:21:46 		In my youth, this is how we studied the Bible: We sat in a circle. An slightly older kid would tell us what chapter and book we were studying. Then we would each read one passage out loud, sequentially. After everyone had read a passage, we would go back, in order, and each would kid would say what that passage - I am not making this up - meant to him. Whatever was said - no matter how outrageous, unreasonable, or heretical - was affirmed. We could not give wrong answers because we were talking about what the passage meant to us, that is, how it made us feel, or what it made us think about, or how God might be speaking directly and newly to us.

Maybe that is not the way the pastor - who never led the study himself - intended it, but that is they way I remember it. What it meant to me is that the Bible is a secret code book or springboard and has no actual intrinsic meaning in itself. It is completely neutral and can mean whatever it needs to or you want it to.

Nowm, by the grace of God, I am free of such inane tyranny. And by that same grace I know what every passage "means." Really. I do.

Every passage, in all of the Holy Scripture "means" Jesus Christ is Lord and has redeemed us from our sins. I know this because the Bible says so, again and again, but perhaps most pointedly in Luke 24:27 where Jesus, "beginning at Moses and all the prophets, expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself."

So I know what the Scriptures mean. The task of exegesis is not to figure out what they mean. If it means something "to you" other than Christ is Lord and has redeemed us from our sins then you are simply not in fellowship with Jesus. Because that is what it means to Him. So what is our task in reading the Scriptures? It is to figure out how they are speaking of Christ. We know they are speaking of Christ. How is then that the Good Samaritan or the Abomination of Desolation or the 153 fish testify of Christ? And unlike the agony of trying to figure out what something "means" or of coming up with something "meaningful" that task is pure joy.  

Comments...

  • Oct 27, 2009 13:30:27 Re: A Distinctly Christian Reading of the Scriptures - Rev. Paul T. McCain
    But here's a question....

    Can and does God convert people to Christ solely through the read and written Word of God? Can a person be converted without a parson?

  • Oct 27, 2009 11:44:41 Re: A Distinctly Christian Reading of the Scriptures - E. Carnoali
    "Every passage, in all of the Holy Scripture "means" Jesus Christ is Lord and has redeemed us from our sins"
    I agree, however, I don't limit this statement to just the Bible. I apply it to Whitman's poetry, (especially) Rumi, the music I listen to, and the movies I watch.
  • Oct 22, 2009 13:13:55 Re: A Distinctly Christian Reading of the Scriptures - Rev. Charles Lehmann
    That's how I was taught to study the Scriptures in OAFC.

    Fortunately, the Lord has long since delivered me from those days.
  • Oct 22, 2009 09:24:39 Re: A Distinctly Christian Reading of the Scriptures - Peter
    I don't have much to add when it comes to the OT, but I think the formation of the New Testament canon, in its general outline, is a biblical decision, addressed, for the most part by Luke-Acts. At least from Luke-Acts, you could learn that the writings of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter, Paul, and James are in, perhaps also Barnabas (Hebrews), and Jude.
    • Oct 22, 2009 10:08:14 Re: A Distinctly Christian Reading of the Scriptures - Pr. H. R. Curtis
      Peter,

      A good approach - but the rub is still determining if Jude was really written by Jude (the book itself admits that it has no apostle as its author), 2 Peter by Peter, 2 and 3 John by John etc. Those are historical questions to which the Church gives a mixed witness as noted by Eusebius - and the excellent section in Pieper that takes up the NT Antilegomena.

      +HRC
  • Oct 22, 2009 08:34:33 Re: A Distinctly Christian Reading of the Scriptures - Pr. H. R. Curtis
    And this is also why the Church of the Augsburg Confession is the only group that doe not have a canon defined. Such unbiblical decisions (where's the list of the Bible books in the Bible again?) are just not so pressing with this hermeneutic.

    +HRC
All times listed in GMT -6 (DLS) / EST

Comments no longer accepted for this post.

An Orca Script
 

Bad Bot Trap: Clicking this link may cause your ip to be banned.