In God’s amazing goodness he’s given us his word in a book. It’s written down. So, one of the most important questions we can ask is, How do I interpret that Word correctly and accurately? Derek Brown and Cliff McManis will answer that question in the first of a two-part series on this episode of the With All Wisdom Podcast.
Transcript
Derek: In God’s amazing goodness, He’s given us His word in a book. It’s written down. It’s in human language. So one of the most important questions that we can ask is, how do we interpret that word correctly and accurately? We’re going to answer that question in the first of a two-part series on today’s With All Wisdom podcast. Welcome to With All Wisdom, where we are applying Biblical truth to your everyday life. My name is Derek Brown. I’m pastor-elder at Creekside Bible Church in Cupertino, California. And I’m also the academic dean at the Cornerstone Bible College and Seminary in Vallejo, California. And I’m here today with Cliff McManis. He is pastor-teacher at Creekside Bible Church and professor of theology at the Cornerstone Bible College and Seminary. And today, we are going to talk about hermeneutics. And in case you’re not sure what I just said, hermeneutics is simply a word that refers to the principles of Biblical interpretation. But before we get to our topic, I want to encourage you to check out WithAllWisdom.org, where you will find a large and growing collection of resources that will help you, like this radio program, to apply Biblical truth to every area of your life. And now on to our topic. Cliff, why do Christians need to know about hermeneutics?
Cliff: Did you say hermeneutics, Derek?
Derek: I did say hermeneutics.
Cliff: That is a big word with a lot of syllables. But I am excited to talk about hermeneutics because it is so basic and fundamental. For every Christian should know hermeneutics, the definition of it, the meaning of it, like the back of their hand. The problem is, a lot of Christians don’t know what it means. But you gave a good definition there, hermeneutics, the principles of Biblical interpretation.
Derek: Right.
Cliff: Another way to say that, that I like to say to, particularly my seminary students, is the definition of hermeneutics, are the rules of interpretation. They are the rules. Everyone’s wrong. I’ll ask the seminary students, define hermeneutics, and inevitably I’ll have a seminary student say the art of Biblical interpretation, and then I will say, wrong answer. It’s not an art, primarily, that lends itself to being somewhat subjective. So it’s the rules of interpretation, and rules are permanent, they are fixed, they do not change, they’re universal, they apply to everybody. So that’s what hermeneutics is, and that’s what we’re talking about. And the reason it’s so important to understand what hermeneutics is, and that we have common ground in our understanding of hermeneutics, of how we apply the Bible, because there are practical implications of that at the most fundamental level for churches and for Christians. For example, we are on KFAX about to embark on a series on studying Genesis 1, 2, and 3. And in the Christian world, studying, teaching, and preaching on Genesis 1 through 3 can actually be very controversial, because there are so many different perspectives and interpretations, even in the evangelical Christian world. And so one of the main questions is, what is your approach going to be of Genesis chapter 1? How are you going to interpret Genesis 1?
And so answering the question of hermeneutics, what is our hermeneutic when we apply it to Genesis 1 will determine our approach to our interpretation, and every Christian needs to know what hermeneutics is and the implications, because it affects some of the most fundamental doctrines that we hold to as Christians. You and I, we’ve talked about various doctrines recently, including things like elders should be men and not women. That was one of the issues in the Southern Baptist Convention that they were talking about. Well, why does our church hold to the fact that elders should be qualified men and why a woman shouldn’t be a pastor? Well, really, it comes down to hermeneutics. It’s how you interpret the Bible. If you’re a church that believes that women can be pastors, at bottom is your view of how you interpret the Bible. What do you do with 1 Timothy 2? How do you interpret that passage where it basically says men should be pastors and not women? Other basic doctrines, like we’re a Baptist church, and that means something. We’re not a Presbyterian church. We do formal membership here of people, and we interview them to make sure they understand what kind of church we are. Being a Baptist church, one thing that means is we don’t baptize babies. Well, why don’t we baptize babies? Because it’s not in the Bible. There are Presbyterian churches who claim to believe in the Bible, teach the Bible, believe in inerrancy and the authority of the Bible, yet they’re committed to baptizing babies even though that is not taught in the Bible. How can you do that? It comes down to hermeneutics and your approach to how you interpret the Bible. Even if you look through the statement of faith of our church, one of our paragraphs there is on eschatology, the last things, or doctrine about prophecy, and we have a very specific view on how we interpret prophecy.
For example, we believe in a literal millennium on earth, a thousand years long, in the future. Well, why do we believe that? Well, because it’s in the Bible, Revelation chapter 20, and we take that literally. Our hermeneutic affects our view of eschatology, whereas if we were a millennial church or a post-millennial church, the reason their differences is it all comes down to hermeneutics again. So, just many practical implications, and so that’s why we need to talk about the fundamentals of hermeneutics. And our church thought this was so important, our leaders, our elders, that we actually added a paragraph or two to our statement of faith not long ago on hermeneutics. Because I’ve looked through a lot of statement of faiths of churches over the years and rarely is there anything in there about hermeneutics or how that church interprets the Bible, when actually that’s probably one of the main things you should know about a church before you join a church. So we added that statement on hermeneutics, and actually you and I labored and put together that short little statement. So I just thought it would be helpful if we just read through our short little paragraph on breaking down hermeneutics and the main principles of a definition, a practical definition of it. And just read through our statement.
Derek: All right. This is what it says. It says, we teach the grammatical historical method of interpreting scripture. Formally, this means interpreting the Bible in light of the details of the grammar and syntax as well as the historical context. Informally, this means taking the Bible at face value, reading it normally as one would read other forms of common literature. The Bible was written in the, quote, language of the people, and as such should be understood that way. The following interpretive priorities are paramount when studying the Bible. Number one, the Holy Spirit enables a person to understand scripture. Number two, the goal in Bible study is to determine the author’s original intent. Number three, context determines meaning. Number four, the Bible does not contradict itself. Number five, the modern culture does not determine the meaning of a Bible passage. Number six, the text will have one meaning, although it may have many applications. Number seven, the Bible relates true history. Number eight, ideally, one should study the original language, that’s Hebrew and the Old Testament and Greek and the New Testament, to get the clearest meaning of scripture.
Cliff: Thanks for reading those, Derek. Now, let’s just take them maybe one point at a time, kind of unpack their significance on a practical level. And I’m just going to ask you a couple questions as we go, too. But you started out with that first sentence. We teach the grammatical historical method, the grammatical historical method. Some in the listening audience maybe have never heard that phraseology before. But that is our approach. So if somebody asks me, so Pastor Cliff, what is your method of the hermeneutics? I would say grammatical historical. And it’s in contrast to probably the other alternative or the main one would be allegorical interpretation. What is your understanding or experience with allegorical interpretation?
Derek: Well, allegorical interpretation usually means that you take a text and rather than trying to understand the author’s original intent, what you’re doing is you’re taking the words and sentences of that passage and you’re having those words apply to something that was not intended by the original author. And a famous illustration of this is Augustine’s treatment of the Good Samaritan, where you read that story and Jesus is talking about and you just, if you just take it at face value, you’d see Jesus talking about a person who gets beat up and you have people walk by him and ignore him and then he’s treated well by this Samaritan man who then takes him down and make sure he has right lodging and is careful of his wounds. And you would understand that story to be pretty straightforward. Well, Augustine took that and he took each element of that story to refer to a greater spiritual reality and I can’t remember all the details of his interpretation, but I believe the man who fell was Adam who fell into sin or the man who was injured was Adam who fell into sin and so these various elements that aren’t the intent of the original story but nevertheless were pulled in through this allegorical interpretation. There’s an example.
Cliff: That’s a very good illustration. So the grammatical historical method is just getting the meaning from the text itself, literally, whereas the allegorical method is a combination of things. It’s putting your own meaning into it that’s not there because you said it’s the grammatical historical method is an approach that takes the Bible at face value of what the text actually says and Augustine’s put stuff in there. If you read it, it’s like, no, that’s not in there. Adam’s name is not in the story of the Good Samaritan. So it’s a very subjective approach, but it’s very common. It’s not pulling meaning out of the text. It’s putting your own subjective meaning into the text and that’s a good way to explain allegorical. It’s very subjective. It’s not concerned about what the text actually says at face value. A lot of times allegorical is defined as looking for the secret meaning or the hidden meaning and then you called it appropriately the spiritual meaning as though there’s some deeper mystical hidden meaning that your average reader isn’t even going to see at face value. But that’s allegory and in order to understand something allegorically, you need a secret interpreter, someone kind of an esoteric meaning and the average reader just doesn’t see it. It’s not there. So grammatical historical is just taking the Bible at face value and dealing only with the text and what the text actually says. Let’s go on to some of these other specific principles, priorities and hermeneutics. Number one there, the Holy Spirit enables a person to understand Scripture. Now you wrote your PhD from Southern Seminary on an element of Bibliology and I remember reading that PhD and I remember that in part of your paper you had a little discussion where you were arguing and making the case that even though we are finite people and sinful people, we can still actually and truly understand what the Bible says with God’s help because there are theologians out there who argue that, oh, we can’t understand the Bible and that human language isn’t capable to communicate God’s truth as it is. And you’re arguing, no, we can understand it. So number one here is really important in that regard. So if you could comment on that, the Holy Spirit enables a person to understand Scripture.
Derek: Yeah and this goes back to even something that you mentioned here in the Bible being written in the language of the people, God is the inventor of language. God is the one who created language and so then to suggest that language is inadequate to convey true meaning is to really make a claim that God didn’t know what he was doing when he created language. God created language specifically so he could reveal himself to humankind. And so, however, we’re fallen and we are sinful and so we need help to understand Scripture. Frankly, we need illumination from the Holy Spirit clearing away the spiritual cobwebs, clearing away the inclination towards sin and to twist and misinterpret Scripture. But the implication here is that the Spirit helps us, which means that there is a meaning to be known. And if we yield to his leading and if we yield to proper hermeneutics, we are able to come to a correct meaning of the text. And so, the encouragement to the regular believer is that if you have the Holy Spirit and you have the Scripture and you’re guided by correct biblical hermeneutics, you can come to truth, which should be encouraging to all the listeners.
Cliff: Amen. And God speaks to us today through his word through Scripture. He wants us to understand it. And the Holy Spirit helps us. So, the Holy Spirit enables a person to understand Scripture. That’s not just a Christian too. So, as Christians, we do have the Holy Spirit living in us and help us understand God’s truth with confidence. But the Holy Spirit also helps unbelievers understand the Bible and biblical truth. So, we can truly understand it. Number two, the goal in Bible study is to determine—this was really important, you mentioned this earlier—what is our goal as we study the Bible? It is to determine the author’s original intent. Explain that.
Derek: Yeah. So, I had mentioned the Augustine interpretation, and I remember mentioning this in a class once, and the student said, well, was there anything that was wrong that Augustine said? And I said, well, not technically, theologically what he said was true. It’s just not what Jesus meant when he gave the parable. He wasn’t attending to the intent of the author in that case. The goal of hermeneutics is to dig into the text and to learn what Jesus meant in that parable, or what Paul means when he’s writing in Romans. That is the authoritative meaning. The meaning does not lie in us, does not lie in our subjective opinion of the text. We are trying to cull that meaning that the author intended when he wrote down those words. And that’s just common sense language. When we’re talking to each other right now, what we’re trying to determine is what you say, and by what you say, what you mean by what you say. That’s what I want to know. And I’m assuming that there is an intent that you have by what you say, and when you communicate that to me, I’m trying to understand that intention. So, it’s just a basic point of interpretation.
Cliff: This is fundamental. So, right now, you’re teaching Galatians in one of your Bible studies.
Derek: Yeah.
Cliff: So, if I went to your Bible study, I shouldn’t be interested in much in what Derek thinks Galatians means.
Derek: Not so much, no.
Cliff: As because you’re trying to get us to realize what did Paul mean when he wrote Galatians.
Derek: Right.
Cliff: There’s a big difference there.
Derek: There is.
Cliff: And it’s like we’re about to do Genesis here. And my goal in teaching on Genesis chapter 1 through 3 is what did Moses mean when he wrote that in 1400 BC?
Derek: Right.
Cliff: Not what does Darwin think thousands of years later, or some humanist here in 2021. What does he think about Genesis chapter 1, the original author’s intent? And coupled with that would be that plays into what did the original audience understand the author to mean? Because they knew Paul, they knew the circumstances and what was going on. And Paul’s trying to communicate at a level that they can understand. So, that’s also a part of finding out that original intent. So, that’s number two. We need to discover the original intent of the author when he wrote. Then number three is context determines meaning. This helps us discover the original intent by the original author, doesn’t it?
Derek: It does. It does because, in fact, I was going to ask you to kind of explain the importance of this statement because just a few days ago, you asked me about certain aspects of biblical interpretation and you were asking me about this very question. What determines meaning? And someone suggests that genre, the genre of a text or genre of a piece of literature determines its meaning. And you responded differently.
Cliff: Yes. So, in the past, I’d say 20 years in the evangelical world, it has become commonplace for theologians, Bible teachers, so-called experts on hermeneutics to say that meaning is determined by the genre of the passage or genre determines meaning. Hear that all the time. That’s dead wrong. Context determines meaning. That’s always been true. That will never be changed. That’s never different. So, there’s a big difference there. And genre just has to do with what kind of text you’re dealing with. Is it poetry? Is it narrative? Is it figurative? There’s so many different kinds of genre. And they say that depending upon the genre, you change your hermeneutic and you take a different approach. So, Genesis chapter one is poetry. Therefore, we don’t take it literally, they would say, because genre determines meaning. And I would say no, number one, context determines meaning, not genre. And then number two, Genesis one isn’t poetry. It’s Hebrew narrative.
Derek: So, even in that case, you’re misclassifying Genesis.
Cliff: They are. And that’s very common to misclassify it. And I would say the grammatical historical approach is a big umbrella that actually accounts for different genres, so we don’t change our hermeneutic. So, I use the same grammatical historical hermeneutic when I study poetry in the book of Proverbs, when I study epistles with Paul, when I study gospel narrative with the four gospels, when I study history and chronicles. I’m using the same hermeneutic accounts for all of it. But bottom line, you start with the immediate context, and then you go from there to the context of the book, the context of the New Testament or Old Testament, and then the context of the entire Bible, because God is always consistent with himself. But context determines meaning.
Derek: Well, that leads to number four.
Cliff: Number four.
Derek: The Bible doesn’t contradict itself. I mean, you just basically just said that. That’s why you can span out to these, the larger context of the whole scripture, because God doesn’t contradict himself in scripture.
Cliff: Yes. The Bible doesn’t contradict itself because of our understanding or the presupposition we would hold is that scripture is God’s word, literally 2 Timothy 3.16, that God spoke. He spoke through his prophets. He led his prophets through the Holy Spirit to write down exactly what God intended to be written down. So, what we see on scripture are the very thoughts and the mind of God. And so, we literally believe it is the word of God. God is perfect. He cannot contradict himself. The Bible reflects his mind and his thoughts, and therefore scripture is not going to contradict itself.
Derek: Right. And this is so important when it comes to interpreting scripture, because if you bump up against two statements that seem to contradict each other, you know, coming from God, that they can’t ultimately or finally contradict each other. So, what you have to do is you have to work hard in the text to determine how it is that they synthesize together well and fit well together. And frankly, it’s just easy to say, well, it’s contradictory and not do the hard work of seeing how God’s revelation is truly consistent with itself. It’s hard work to dig into those texts and so on. But nevertheless, that gives you confidence, knowing that there will be some solutions. There are solutions to these seemingly tough passages. And so, that should give even the Bible reader who doesn’t have much of an education to have the confidence that they can come to right conclusions about what scripture teaches, even when there are tough passages.
Cliff: Yeah. A true Christian actually should believe that the Bible is the Word of God, all of it. And therefore, a true Christian should never actually say the Bible contradicts itself, because really what you’re saying is God is contradicting himself. And then you’re speaking about the nature of God. God doesn’t do that. So, if I see an apparent contradiction in the Bible, even as a pastor and Bible teacher, I immediately conclude that I am ignorant. The problem is Pastor Cliff, not God’s Word. I’m missing something here. I’m ignorant. I’m uneducated. I need to do more research. Or God’s thoughts are greater than my thoughts, and maybe I won’t get this answer until the next life. And that should be the approach of a true Christian with scripture.
Derek: Amen. Well, unfortunately, we can’t get to points five, six, seven, or eight because of our time, but I think it’s a good place to end there and talk about the nature of God, talk about the truthfulness of God himself. He can never contradict himself. Therefore, scripture will never contradict itself. What an important key to unlocking the meaning of scripture as we study it. Well, we want to thank you for joining us on this conversation about biblical interpretation on With All Wisdom. We encourage you again to check out WithAllWisdom.org where you’ll find a growing collection of resources to help you apply biblical truth to your everyday life. We’ll see you again real soon.
