1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:06,160 Hello and welcome to Deep Roots, conversations about theology and ministry brought to you by Oak Hill College. 2 00:00:06,160 --> 00:00:12,000 We took a month off for Christmas over December but it's very nice to be back again. 3 00:00:12,000 --> 00:00:16,960 My name is Tim Ward and I'm joined here by my colleagues David Shaw and Alden McCray. 4 00:00:16,960 --> 00:00:20,560 Alden is consistently one of the sharpest dressed members of faculty. 5 00:00:20,560 --> 00:00:22,400 Alden, thank you for keeping the standards high. 6 00:00:22,400 --> 00:00:24,720 Well, in Chris's absence I suppose I'll have to. 7 00:00:24,720 --> 00:00:30,480 Now, Alden, you're nominating the topic that we're going to go at for the next 40 minutes or so. 8 00:00:30,480 --> 00:00:32,240 So tell us what you've chosen. 9 00:00:32,240 --> 00:00:37,280 So I thought it'd be great to revisit the topic of the theological interpretation of scripture, 10 00:00:38,000 --> 00:00:41,040 perhaps more broadly just how theology and scripture interact. 11 00:00:42,400 --> 00:00:47,920 Over recent decades people from all sorts of different walks of the Christian faith have been 12 00:00:47,920 --> 00:00:54,320 looking at how theology might shape our scriptural reading. 13 00:00:54,320 --> 00:01:02,400 In particular, going back to previous generations of Christians for how they read the Bible, 14 00:01:02,400 --> 00:01:07,600 how their practices might help and guide us, how they might correct us in particular ways, 15 00:01:07,600 --> 00:01:15,520 how we might learn from them, how what they describe might ably describe where we're doing things well. 16 00:01:15,520 --> 00:01:23,600 So that's part of a sort of broader movement of retrieving aspects of faith and practice 17 00:01:23,600 --> 00:01:28,800 and theology from previous generations that I think is gaining a lot of attention, 18 00:01:28,800 --> 00:01:31,040 it's got a lot of traction, can be very helpful. 19 00:01:31,040 --> 00:01:33,440 So I thought it'd be great to talk about that with you both. 20 00:01:33,440 --> 00:01:36,400 Great. Well, I think we agree with that. 21 00:01:36,400 --> 00:01:42,320 This is something I continue to think about and we co-teach a module, don't we, that gets into some of this. 22 00:01:42,320 --> 00:01:47,040 You say revisit the issues under theological interpretation of scripture. 23 00:01:47,040 --> 00:01:49,520 I guess you're thinking it was 18 months ago, wasn't it? 24 00:01:49,520 --> 00:01:53,360 We did a school of theology here on this, but we continue to think about it, 25 00:01:53,360 --> 00:01:55,520 people continue to talk about it, it remains significant. 26 00:01:55,520 --> 00:01:57,760 So I want to dig in a bit further. 27 00:01:57,760 --> 00:01:58,240 Absolutely. 28 00:01:58,240 --> 00:02:02,960 I mean, you talk about retrieval and David, you're going to say something about this in a moment, 29 00:02:02,960 --> 00:02:06,480 but is this something, I mean, learning from the past, 30 00:02:06,480 --> 00:02:08,640 people might think isn't that something Christians have always done? 31 00:02:08,640 --> 00:02:12,960 But this is particularly arisen, hasn't it, in recent years in scholarship? 32 00:02:12,960 --> 00:02:13,760 Yes, I think so. 33 00:02:13,760 --> 00:02:19,920 So over the 20th century, there were different groups within the church 34 00:02:19,920 --> 00:02:25,200 who were wanting more deliberately to have better conversations 35 00:02:25,200 --> 00:02:32,160 with earlier generations of Christian theologians, exegetes, pastors, preachers, 36 00:02:32,160 --> 00:02:36,640 and to be much more deliberate about the way they could draw on those 37 00:02:36,640 --> 00:02:44,160 conversations as that sort of movement of retrieval has expanded into different areas 38 00:02:44,160 --> 00:02:50,000 of the church that's gained more energy, more importance for how people have gone about 39 00:02:50,000 --> 00:02:51,600 various tasks. 40 00:02:51,600 --> 00:02:57,440 And I think perhaps it's even accelerating within evangelicalism at the moment, 41 00:02:57,440 --> 00:03:03,760 as people want to give more and more attention to what do we learn, what do we learn well, 42 00:03:03,760 --> 00:03:08,080 and where has there been genuine progress? 43 00:03:08,080 --> 00:03:16,880 Where do we not, where and how do we not simply try to repeat the past, 44 00:03:16,880 --> 00:03:22,720 but genuinely sort of retrieve the past for contemporary application? 45 00:03:22,720 --> 00:03:26,240 So I think that all of those are parts of the... 46 00:03:26,240 --> 00:03:29,680 When we say earlier generations, we're thinking about a broad sweep here. 47 00:03:29,680 --> 00:03:33,840 I mean, like the first 1600 years of the church, we're talking about the early church fathers, 48 00:03:33,840 --> 00:03:37,680 medievals, and then into the Protestant reformers too. 49 00:03:37,680 --> 00:03:38,480 Absolutely. 50 00:03:38,480 --> 00:03:38,960 Great. 51 00:03:38,960 --> 00:03:41,840 We got a lot to talk about, and I'm excited by this stuff. 52 00:03:41,840 --> 00:03:45,200 David, you've recently put together a paper that you delivered at a conference 53 00:03:45,200 --> 00:03:46,800 on this border issue of retrieval. 54 00:03:46,800 --> 00:03:50,080 Just help us set the scene a bit more by talking a bit more about that. 55 00:03:50,080 --> 00:03:50,960 Yeah, gladly. 56 00:03:50,960 --> 00:03:55,840 So Alden kicked us off thinking about theological interpretation of scripture. 57 00:03:55,840 --> 00:04:00,160 Often that would be a kind of overlapping idea to the idea of retrieval. 58 00:04:00,160 --> 00:04:03,760 And if I try to describe it, you'll see areas of overlap already. 59 00:04:03,760 --> 00:04:10,800 So retrieval built into that word is the idea that there's something to recover from the past, 60 00:04:10,800 --> 00:04:12,400 something to retrieve. 61 00:04:12,400 --> 00:04:18,880 The thought that before the last 300 years or so, there was a healthier relationship 62 00:04:18,880 --> 00:04:24,160 between the ways that we read scripture, the ways that we thought about Christian doctrine, 63 00:04:24,160 --> 00:04:28,560 and theology, and those were better integrated than they've become. 64 00:04:28,560 --> 00:04:36,320 And that there were a set of not just theological conclusions, but ways to read the Bible, 65 00:04:36,320 --> 00:04:38,480 and also a vision of the Christian life. 66 00:04:38,480 --> 00:04:42,000 All of those things in some ways are seeking to be retrieved. 67 00:04:42,000 --> 00:04:48,480 The thought that there are, yes, theological judgments, theological ideas that we've lost 68 00:04:48,480 --> 00:04:53,280 contact with and don't talk much about, or that we've actually discovered that there's 69 00:04:53,280 --> 00:04:57,280 something to recover from the past, we've actually decided we don't think they're in 70 00:04:57,280 --> 00:05:00,080 the Bible and we've rejected them. 71 00:05:00,080 --> 00:05:06,800 So there are some theological ideas that for a long time have been very stable within the 72 00:05:06,800 --> 00:05:10,560 Christian tradition, but more recently we've not been persuaded of. 73 00:05:10,560 --> 00:05:14,960 So ideas like the eternal generation of the sun, for example. 74 00:05:14,960 --> 00:05:17,760 Alden can explain that to us in a moment. 75 00:05:17,760 --> 00:05:25,600 Ideas, concepts, doctrines, but also that idea that if we go back into the early church, 76 00:05:25,600 --> 00:05:31,520 into the medieval period, into the reformers, then we find ways of reading the Bible that 77 00:05:31,520 --> 00:05:35,680 aren't quite like the way that we are taught to read the Bible now and how we teach people 78 00:05:35,680 --> 00:05:36,800 to do that. 79 00:05:36,800 --> 00:05:43,120 So what we think about theology, how we read the Bible, and then also our vision for the 80 00:05:43,120 --> 00:05:50,800 Christian life and a number of people looking at the ways that the hope particularly of 81 00:05:50,800 --> 00:05:56,480 knowing and experiencing God, contemplating him and his beauty, that is something that 82 00:05:56,480 --> 00:06:00,400 people have identified as a missing element in a lot of our spirituality and one that 83 00:06:01,280 --> 00:06:02,800 we'd really helpfully retrieve. 84 00:06:06,960 --> 00:06:08,800 I'll say one more thing and then I'm going to throw you a question. 85 00:06:08,800 --> 00:06:13,120 Of which I don't have advance notice in case anybody's wondering. 86 00:06:13,120 --> 00:06:14,080 You absolutely don't. 87 00:06:14,880 --> 00:06:16,720 So that's the freefall. 88 00:06:16,720 --> 00:06:18,960 If I've had it straight back to Alden, you'll know I don't know. 89 00:06:18,960 --> 00:06:19,520 There we go. 90 00:06:20,480 --> 00:06:26,240 So the one comment I want to make is that at its best this idea of retrieval, as Alden 91 00:06:26,240 --> 00:06:32,800 mentioned a moment ago, isn't about simply trying to recreate the fourth century, 15th, 92 00:06:32,800 --> 00:06:33,840 16th century. 93 00:06:33,840 --> 00:06:37,200 So this is not some kind of, oh, there was a golden age, if only we could get back there. 94 00:06:37,200 --> 00:06:37,920 Exactly. 95 00:06:37,920 --> 00:06:46,080 At its best, the movement want to speak about creative archaeology or retrieval for the 96 00:06:46,080 --> 00:06:50,400 sake of renewal, genuinely thinking that there are resources here that are going to help 97 00:06:50,400 --> 00:06:57,040 the church fulfill its calling and to equip pastors to teach and lead God's people well 98 00:06:57,040 --> 00:06:57,520 and so on. 99 00:06:57,520 --> 00:07:02,720 So there's a real advantage, there's a real heart for the church behind a lot of this. 100 00:07:03,520 --> 00:07:05,200 That's the comment I wanted to make. 101 00:07:05,200 --> 00:07:13,120 The question I'll send back to you is how much it's right to see something of a kind 102 00:07:13,120 --> 00:07:14,800 of story of crisis. 103 00:07:14,800 --> 00:07:20,320 So Alden a minute ago said, this is really about us trying to make improvements and trying 104 00:07:20,320 --> 00:07:24,240 to think more carefully about the relationship between theology and scripture. 105 00:07:25,040 --> 00:07:28,800 Often it's told as much more of a story of crisis, that things have gone quite badly 106 00:07:28,800 --> 00:07:30,960 wrong and we need much more of a course correction. 107 00:07:30,960 --> 00:07:34,240 Does that ring true to you? 108 00:07:34,240 --> 00:07:38,320 I don't think I want to call it a crisis. 109 00:07:39,280 --> 00:07:42,240 I think that feels to me like an exaggeration. 110 00:07:44,240 --> 00:07:47,520 I prefer the image that you gave of course correction. 111 00:07:48,640 --> 00:07:56,160 So not as an, oh my goodness, 180 degree turn, but oh look, it appears that in some ways, 112 00:07:56,160 --> 00:08:01,200 in a lot of evangelical interpretation of scripture, a lot is going well. 113 00:08:02,000 --> 00:08:07,120 The ship is heading in the right direction, but you know, you need to be steering a ship, 114 00:08:07,120 --> 00:08:08,000 driving a car. 115 00:08:10,560 --> 00:08:12,880 You can't just hold the wheel in a fixed position. 116 00:08:13,600 --> 00:08:18,960 Things are going to throw you off and there's times when you need to correct. 117 00:08:20,480 --> 00:08:25,360 And I'm not too worried about haggling over whether the kind of correction that we think 118 00:08:25,360 --> 00:08:29,680 is needed is a tweak or a real kind of, whoa, lurch the wheel. 119 00:08:32,000 --> 00:08:36,880 We may feel differently about that according to where we stand and the kind of issues we see 120 00:08:36,880 --> 00:08:39,280 in this very complex, it seems to me that's fine. 121 00:08:41,440 --> 00:08:44,800 I'd be a bit nervous of the language of crisis because that might sound a little bit like, 122 00:08:46,080 --> 00:08:51,760 I think almost everybody else has gone wrong and I'm an iron people who agree with me on 123 00:08:51,760 --> 00:08:55,280 how the savior, I think that's pretty unhelpful. 124 00:08:56,800 --> 00:08:58,960 This is not like let's have another reformation. 125 00:09:04,800 --> 00:09:12,720 So there's a sense of, let's calm down a bit, but equally let's not think all we need is one or two 126 00:09:12,720 --> 00:09:13,440 minor tweaks. 127 00:09:16,000 --> 00:09:18,400 Yeah, let me throw this in, I could say a lot more, but this for now. 128 00:09:18,400 --> 00:09:26,160 And the thing that leads me to think that increasingly is the more biblical interpretation 129 00:09:26,720 --> 00:09:33,280 and preaching that I read from the first 1600 years of the church, so fathers, yes, 130 00:09:33,280 --> 00:09:39,920 medievals, yes, but crucially, I guess, for people like us, also mainline Protestant reformers, 131 00:09:39,920 --> 00:09:44,480 the more of that I read, the more it strikes me that some of the fundamental things they are 132 00:09:44,480 --> 00:09:50,400 doing with the Bible, not just around the fringes, but again and again and again, utterly centrally 133 00:09:50,400 --> 00:09:59,360 bread and butter for them, are not always central and bread and butter for us, for contemporary 134 00:09:59,360 --> 00:10:00,320 evangelicals. 135 00:10:01,280 --> 00:10:04,640 And some of it we've even been warned against. 136 00:10:05,360 --> 00:10:11,120 So that is, as it were, if you could plonk Calvin down in one of our churches, I mean, 137 00:10:11,120 --> 00:10:15,840 there's a lot that he might not like, depending on the kind of church that it is, but I think one of 138 00:10:15,840 --> 00:10:23,360 the things that he would find weirdest is some of the central things we do and or think we 139 00:10:23,360 --> 00:10:24,640 shouldn't do with scripture. 140 00:10:25,920 --> 00:10:29,040 I think he'd find some of our handling of scripture kind of weird. 141 00:10:29,280 --> 00:10:31,200 Okay, so let's focus on that then. 142 00:10:31,200 --> 00:10:36,560 So what do you think are some of those bread and butter things to them that aren't quite 143 00:10:36,560 --> 00:10:41,600 so natural to us or what would cause Calvin most discomfort? 144 00:10:43,600 --> 00:10:48,800 Yeah, that's, I mean, it's always a slightly tricky game to play because who really knows 145 00:10:48,800 --> 00:10:50,000 it can get a bit anachronistic. 146 00:10:50,640 --> 00:10:54,720 But as you look at the, you've described things happening in the early church, the medieval 147 00:10:54,720 --> 00:11:01,520 period, particularly in the time of the Reformation, things that are bread and butter ideas and ways 148 00:11:01,520 --> 00:11:04,880 of reading the Bible, what there do you find most helpful that you think? 149 00:11:04,880 --> 00:11:09,680 Yeah, as I've tried to think more about this very, very broad movement, we've already named 150 00:11:09,680 --> 00:11:15,440 check to it, the theological interpretation of scripture, TIS, as we know, massively broad, 151 00:11:15,440 --> 00:11:18,960 done by Roman Catholics, done by evangelicals, done by people who are quite liberal. 152 00:11:19,520 --> 00:11:20,960 So it's going to be really selective. 153 00:11:20,960 --> 00:11:23,200 It's a broadly shared set of interests. 154 00:11:23,200 --> 00:11:27,280 As far as I can see, it revolves around three convictions. 155 00:11:28,320 --> 00:11:33,600 And you've mentioned these, but the way I headline them is doctrine, biblical interpretation, 156 00:11:33,600 --> 00:11:40,320 for doctrine, seeking explicitly to see doctrine come out of our biblical interpretation and 157 00:11:40,320 --> 00:11:44,800 biblical interpretation in light of doctrine, the assumption that doctrine is going to illumine 158 00:11:44,800 --> 00:11:45,520 fundamentally. 159 00:11:46,960 --> 00:11:51,200 Some parts of evangelicalism, people would go, that's not news. 160 00:11:52,320 --> 00:11:55,840 For others, that's something people have wanted to move away from. 161 00:11:57,120 --> 00:11:57,760 That would be one. 162 00:11:57,760 --> 00:12:00,720 Second would be the actual practice of interpretation. 163 00:12:00,720 --> 00:12:06,240 Again and again, what you see, I think, in older interpreters is that it's deliberately 164 00:12:06,880 --> 00:12:09,600 canonical and therefore figural. 165 00:12:10,640 --> 00:12:17,840 That means just the assumption, the full canonical context of any Bible passage is going to be 166 00:12:18,640 --> 00:12:22,640 absolutely crucial and fundamentally determinative in its meaning. 167 00:12:23,680 --> 00:12:28,080 Now, again, for some evangelicals, they go like, thanks for the 168 00:12:28,080 --> 00:12:31,680 fact that I already knew that. 169 00:12:33,200 --> 00:12:37,920 For others, there'd be a nervousness of going, quote, going there too quickly. 170 00:12:40,480 --> 00:12:46,320 But early generations seem to me to be going there quickly an awful lot of the time. 171 00:12:46,320 --> 00:12:53,120 And related to that would be interpreting figurally or, these terms are difficult, 172 00:12:54,160 --> 00:12:56,000 might call that allegorically. 173 00:12:56,000 --> 00:12:59,040 And I'm going to have to spend some time defining what we mean by allegorical because it can mean 174 00:12:59,040 --> 00:12:59,680 different things. 175 00:13:01,920 --> 00:13:09,120 But a much greater contentment with that, seeing figural or allegorical or the fathers would say 176 00:13:09,120 --> 00:13:11,920 spiritual meanings. 177 00:13:11,920 --> 00:13:15,200 So doctrine, canonical and figural interpretation. 178 00:13:15,200 --> 00:13:22,080 And the third would be, and you've already mentioned this, interpretation very much done in 179 00:13:22,080 --> 00:13:29,280 and for the church, meaning in the light of Christian experience. 180 00:13:31,680 --> 00:13:36,320 I find Puritan exegesis is doing that again and again. 181 00:13:38,320 --> 00:13:41,760 Contemporary evangelical preaching, not always. 182 00:13:43,760 --> 00:13:51,040 That will mean that godliness is thought then to be absolutely crucial for biblical interpretation. 183 00:13:51,040 --> 00:13:54,720 What I find interesting with students is when you put godliness on the table in relation to 184 00:13:54,720 --> 00:13:58,720 exegesis, what Meyers commonly says, we guess of course biblical interpretation should lead 185 00:13:58,720 --> 00:13:59,280 to godliness. 186 00:14:00,080 --> 00:14:00,560 That's where they go. 187 00:14:01,920 --> 00:14:03,280 Of course, everybody's always thought that. 188 00:14:04,320 --> 00:14:12,640 But what I find students don't easily say, first of all, is godliness is going to be crucial for 189 00:14:12,640 --> 00:14:14,880 discerning well what is in the scriptures. 190 00:14:15,920 --> 00:14:19,040 Now, when you put that on the table, no evangelical is going to disagree with that. 191 00:14:19,040 --> 00:14:24,160 But if you look at, I don't know, popular courses in how to interpret the Bible or 192 00:14:24,880 --> 00:14:30,800 a typical little training course in a church on training Bible study leaders, at least in my 193 00:14:30,800 --> 00:14:35,760 experience, courses I've been in and previously put together, it's not been common to headline. 194 00:14:36,720 --> 00:14:41,280 Godliness is absolutely crucial for discerning what God is saying in his word. 195 00:14:41,280 --> 00:14:47,040 So yeah, those would be my headline areas where Calvin might look at us and say, 196 00:14:49,440 --> 00:14:57,760 in some parts of contemporary evangelicalism, those three things in light of and for doctrine, 197 00:14:58,640 --> 00:15:06,320 canonically, figurally, in the church, in light of and out of Christian experiences and 198 00:15:06,320 --> 00:15:11,040 sanctification, that's where you locate biblical interpretation. Those things have not always rung 199 00:15:11,040 --> 00:15:16,640 very loudly. And I think that would raise a Calvinian eyebrow. 200 00:15:17,600 --> 00:15:24,800 Very good. Very good. To lay out those three things, I find really helpful because there you 201 00:15:24,800 --> 00:15:28,640 can start to see where some of that course correction that we mentioned might be helpful. 202 00:15:28,640 --> 00:15:33,840 So the idea that we want to read the Bible, we want to read the Bible, we want to read the 203 00:15:33,840 --> 00:15:40,080 Bible. So the idea that we want to read the Scriptures to be able to make theological 204 00:15:40,080 --> 00:15:47,840 conclusions and judgments. We have often been told that theology is something of a framework 205 00:15:47,840 --> 00:15:53,360 and a straight jacket that mustn't be imposed on the Bible, that it somehow threatens the 206 00:15:53,360 --> 00:15:57,680 Bible rather than emerging naturally from it. That's the sort of idea that you do sometimes 207 00:15:57,680 --> 00:16:03,440 here. The idea that we want to read the Scriptures in light of the whole canon and to see 208 00:16:03,440 --> 00:16:10,640 the connections, the very strong emphasis on a kind of redemptive historical reading. 209 00:16:10,640 --> 00:16:17,680 I read, to understand a passage, I need to think at what point in history are we, what's 210 00:16:17,680 --> 00:16:23,680 been revealed up to that point. And you will find some writers saying the only information 211 00:16:23,680 --> 00:16:29,440 I should really be thinking with are the ideas that are already present at that point in 212 00:16:29,440 --> 00:16:33,600 redemptive history. And I'm not really allowed to look on for spoilers. 213 00:16:35,760 --> 00:16:42,720 And then, yes, that last one about the importance of godliness in the interpretation of Scripture. 214 00:16:44,880 --> 00:16:52,080 We think of much more objective, these are the rules to follow in order to get a right reading. 215 00:16:52,080 --> 00:16:55,840 And you might read Shakespeare in just the same way as you read the Scriptures 216 00:16:55,840 --> 00:17:01,360 and succeed in the same ways. We've not so much spoken about the enabling of the Spirit, 217 00:17:01,360 --> 00:17:04,480 the community of faith within which to read the Bible. 218 00:17:04,480 --> 00:17:14,000 Yeah. Yeah. Just on that latter one, in terms of spirituality and godliness for Bible reading. 219 00:17:14,880 --> 00:17:21,440 Of course it is true, and pastors find this again and again, that when they teach people 220 00:17:21,440 --> 00:17:26,240 some, as it were, simple method and rules, if you like, for interpreting the Bible, 221 00:17:26,240 --> 00:17:33,680 that's massively helpful. Here is how the genre of narrative works. Here's why it's important 222 00:17:33,680 --> 00:17:39,440 in the epistle, you see a therefore, ask what it's there for. You're struggling with a particular 223 00:17:39,440 --> 00:17:43,920 passage, well, have you read the context it's in, the chapter before? To teach those simple 224 00:17:43,920 --> 00:17:51,680 exegetical rules method, if you like, is massively right and helpful. And you can find Christians 225 00:17:51,680 --> 00:17:56,800 all through history, just taking it for granted that that is good and right and should be believed 226 00:17:56,800 --> 00:18:05,360 and practiced. It's absolutely that. But if I look back on my years as a pastor and think about 227 00:18:06,080 --> 00:18:09,520 the Christians in the church and their own reading of the Bible, 228 00:18:09,520 --> 00:18:16,960 one of the things that I wonder if I did as well as I could, which is a very English way of saying, 229 00:18:16,960 --> 00:18:27,600 I really don't think I did, is whether the, if you like, the person who's known and walked with the 230 00:18:27,600 --> 00:18:35,280 Lord for many years loves the Lord steeped in his word. But for whatever reason, he's not 231 00:18:35,280 --> 00:18:42,240 a person who's been to the Lord, steeped in his word, but for whatever reasons of background or 232 00:18:42,240 --> 00:18:49,200 gifting, they don't have a mind that naturally takes in rules of linguistic comprehension. 233 00:18:50,240 --> 00:18:53,600 And even if they can take them in, they can't easily articulate them back in a way that's 234 00:18:53,600 --> 00:19:00,240 satisfying to someone with a mind like mine. I wonder if a person like that felt, that their 235 00:19:00,240 --> 00:19:07,040 weren't a great reader of the Bible. But I think as the Lord's opened my eyes on this over the years, 236 00:19:07,920 --> 00:19:11,680 both in the classroom and in church, I think I've again and again met people who, 237 00:19:12,720 --> 00:19:19,520 for whatever reason, may not have been academic high flyers in our education system. 238 00:19:20,480 --> 00:19:24,240 And they couldn't quite articulate to you what they were doing with the Bible, but again and 239 00:19:24,240 --> 00:19:32,800 again they found the Lord in his word, in rather profound ways. Sometimes in ways that went beyond 240 00:19:32,800 --> 00:19:38,720 a method I could describe, but if I look down, honestly I thought, you know, you're right. 241 00:19:41,440 --> 00:19:47,520 And one of the things I would want to do in the church I'm in now, one of my ministries in churches 242 00:19:47,520 --> 00:19:52,160 I help oversee, the life groups, midweek Bible study groups, is trying to find a way where we 243 00:19:52,160 --> 00:20:00,640 combine. Yes, let's teach each other some basic, as it were, exegetical method. How do you interpret 244 00:20:00,640 --> 00:20:05,120 prophecy and how would that be different from apocalyptic? We want to help people with that. 245 00:20:06,720 --> 00:20:13,760 But to do so in a way that encourages people, you know the Lord, his spirit is in you, 246 00:20:14,800 --> 00:20:20,240 it's through the spirit that the Lord breathed out the word, that sounds like quite a good setup 247 00:20:20,240 --> 00:20:27,600 for getting the Bible right and seeing the Lord in his word and being very encouraging of that. 248 00:20:30,240 --> 00:20:34,240 And I think it is true that in a number of evangelical circles 249 00:20:37,040 --> 00:20:40,480 the moves in biblical interpretation which happened, you know, through historical criticism 250 00:20:41,280 --> 00:20:47,120 18th century and onwards, which made method a big deal, and that's part of a much bigger picture 251 00:20:47,120 --> 00:20:51,840 than in the modern West. If we can only get the method right it'll all be fine. 252 00:20:53,200 --> 00:20:58,720 That there is a truth in that but it ought to be seen I think as a very very qualified truth. 253 00:21:01,040 --> 00:21:08,720 I think when we look at how Christians have read scripture down the centuries, 254 00:21:08,720 --> 00:21:13,520 that sort of balance is one of the things that I find really confirming about the sort of 255 00:21:13,520 --> 00:21:19,760 conversations we're having. So you go back to something like Augustine's On Christian Teaching 256 00:21:19,760 --> 00:21:24,880 which is this terrific handbook for interpreting the Bible and it's something that we look at in 257 00:21:24,880 --> 00:21:29,040 that module on hermeneutics. Sometimes called the first primer on preaching ever written. 258 00:21:29,040 --> 00:21:35,520 Absolutely. So there he's got a section dedicated to exactly the sort of rules 259 00:21:36,400 --> 00:21:42,880 for interpretation exegesis that you're talking about. Ask how the language works, figure out some 260 00:21:42,880 --> 00:21:48,000 grammar, look at some different translations, maybe learn some geography. Knowing some of that 261 00:21:48,000 --> 00:21:57,360 help you to recognize some unfamiliar things. He's absolutely clear with no hint of apology 262 00:21:58,320 --> 00:22:04,240 that that's an important part of how we should be reading scripture. But I'm really struck 263 00:22:04,240 --> 00:22:14,640 when I come to that work what a small proportion of the overall comment that is. There's so much 264 00:22:14,640 --> 00:22:19,120 more that he wants to talk about as well. So that's absolutely there and it's assumed and it's good 265 00:22:19,120 --> 00:22:24,000 and right and shouldn't be obscured and that should give us great confidence that those sorts of 266 00:22:25,200 --> 00:22:30,080 skills and techniques are good and we should continue to teach them and continue to look for 267 00:22:30,080 --> 00:22:36,480 fresh ways of doing that. But there's so much more going on as well and when he comes to talk about 268 00:22:36,480 --> 00:22:42,960 how the reader scriptures should prepare themselves for reading the Bible. One of the first things he 269 00:22:42,960 --> 00:22:49,360 says is the fear of God and that I think is so important in the context of understanding why is 270 00:22:49,360 --> 00:22:55,520 it that there are those in our churches who've walked with the Lord for so many years who love 271 00:22:55,520 --> 00:23:02,080 the Lord dearly and from whom we would expect to have much to learn because this is someone who 272 00:23:02,960 --> 00:23:08,800 loves the Lord and has walked with him for a long time and that has given them a special vantage 273 00:23:08,800 --> 00:23:16,000 point to read and to hear particular things well. So this yeah thank you this is the book that used 274 00:23:16,000 --> 00:23:20,720 to by Augustine used to be translated often on Christian doctrine. That's right. 275 00:23:20,720 --> 00:23:25,040 Day Doctrine of Christiana but now increasingly on Christian teaching because it's not a handbook of 276 00:23:25,040 --> 00:23:32,640 doctrine it's about the teaching. Yeah that's right. Of scripture. So you just tell us a bit 277 00:23:32,640 --> 00:23:39,440 more what are the things that are in that that you might not find in a 21st century evangelical 278 00:23:39,440 --> 00:23:46,800 primer on how to teach the Bible? Sure that's a great question Tim. Two or three things that 279 00:23:46,800 --> 00:23:55,920 that you might not find. One of the first things is a discussion of how things and signs relate 280 00:23:56,480 --> 00:24:07,040 about how we all use words as signs of things to communicate and that's a normal part of our 281 00:24:07,040 --> 00:24:12,400 conversation and normal part of how language works because he's wanting Augustine's wanting 282 00:24:12,400 --> 00:24:19,840 to talk about how does biblical language work. This lies behind the sort of 283 00:24:19,840 --> 00:24:29,360 figural interpretation that you mentioned earlier and so he says things like logs or stones are 284 00:24:29,360 --> 00:24:35,280 things and we use the word log or the word stone for those but he says there's actually something 285 00:24:35,280 --> 00:24:40,400 else going on when scripture comes to the log that Moses threw into the water to make it 286 00:24:40,400 --> 00:24:46,320 potable. There's something else going on with the stone that Jacob rests his head on and those are 287 00:24:46,320 --> 00:24:53,280 things which God is using as a sign of something further. So that's a whole discussion that he gets 288 00:24:53,280 --> 00:25:01,040 into. The serpent that's raised up, the brass serpent, isn't merely a thing. God has 289 00:25:01,040 --> 00:25:07,760 orchestrated that event such that it's also a sign to us and therefore there are layers of 290 00:25:07,760 --> 00:25:16,160 ultimately of Christ. Exactly. So that's one thing that you find in that book, a question of signs 291 00:25:16,160 --> 00:25:24,080 and things. You find a lot too about the moral dimension of interpretation like we were saying 292 00:25:24,080 --> 00:25:31,440 a moment ago about the importance of the fear of God and the broader context of what is scripture 293 00:25:31,440 --> 00:25:38,400 doing? What's God using scripture to do? And ultimately for Augustine that means placing, 294 00:25:38,400 --> 00:25:44,160 interpreting the interpretation of scripture and the reader of scripture within the broader 295 00:25:44,160 --> 00:25:52,400 context of God drawing his people to know and enjoy him. So that's an important part of the 296 00:25:52,400 --> 00:26:03,600 work and especially the very special nature of enjoyment of God. We enjoy God in a way which is 297 00:26:04,560 --> 00:26:11,360 to be unique. God is to be loved and enjoyed. His beauty is to be 298 00:26:13,520 --> 00:26:19,040 desired for its own sake in a way that's really special. And so that's the 299 00:26:19,040 --> 00:26:26,160 really important in terms of a context of tracing back what's happening when we read the Bible. 300 00:26:26,160 --> 00:26:32,560 It doesn't just go back to me and to me as a reader with particular tools. Actually if I trace it back 301 00:26:32,560 --> 00:26:39,680 further it goes back most primitively to God and what God is using scripture to do in his world. 302 00:26:40,640 --> 00:26:43,600 And that's important I think. Yeah, yeah. 303 00:26:43,600 --> 00:26:49,520 And I haven't thought about this much recently but one of the things that I have appreciated 304 00:26:49,520 --> 00:26:56,480 and I want to think more about in the book is in the fourth section Augustine talks about rhetoric 305 00:26:57,520 --> 00:27:01,520 and he talks about, and this was his bread and butter, so this is what he was raised on. He was 306 00:27:01,520 --> 00:27:06,080 trained to be a professor of rhetoric. This is what he did as his day job for a long time until 307 00:27:06,080 --> 00:27:12,080 his conversion. And he talks about the fact that he was a professor of rhetoric and he was a 308 00:27:12,080 --> 00:27:17,840 professor of rhetoric for a long time until his conversion. And one of the observations he makes 309 00:27:17,840 --> 00:27:26,320 there, which I'm increasingly interested by, is that you can have different sort of levels of 310 00:27:26,320 --> 00:27:33,200 rhetoric. You can have quite sort of gentle normal rhetoric suited and then you can have 311 00:27:34,720 --> 00:27:41,520 sort of slightly grander rhetoric. And even more than that you can have the sort of the biggest, 312 00:27:41,520 --> 00:27:48,320 most profound sort of rhetoric. There are these different sort of layers and that those layers 313 00:27:48,320 --> 00:27:55,120 are suited to particular, to communicating particular sorts of things. And so that, 314 00:27:55,120 --> 00:28:02,560 and so the importance or the depth or the profundity of what we're talking about should be 315 00:28:02,560 --> 00:28:08,480 matched by our rhetoric. And I think there's quite, there's something quite special in that. 316 00:28:08,480 --> 00:28:12,800 And one of the areas I want to think about that more is, and what does that mean for, 317 00:28:12,800 --> 00:28:17,360 for how we communicate well and for the sorts of illustrations we use. 318 00:28:20,160 --> 00:28:26,400 Does that push me to want to look for particular kinds of illustrations suited to particular kinds 319 00:28:26,400 --> 00:28:32,240 of points that we're communicating, for example? So those would be a few of the things that I 320 00:28:32,240 --> 00:28:37,600 appreciate. Okay, fantastic. That is a, you can have it for free potted summary of Augustine's 321 00:28:37,600 --> 00:28:42,640 on Christian teaching. Tremendous. I'd love to spend the rest of our time actually just 322 00:28:42,640 --> 00:28:46,640 working through those three ideas that you've just drawn out. Cause I think that takes us in 323 00:28:46,640 --> 00:28:52,640 really helpful directions. The first one that you mentioned was, so there were three things as I 324 00:28:52,640 --> 00:28:58,560 heard them. The idea that actually the world is charged with signs that things signify things. 325 00:28:59,520 --> 00:29:03,920 And so we'll think about that. And then the idea of experiencing and drawing near to God 326 00:29:03,920 --> 00:29:07,600 in reading the scriptures and then think about how we communicate these things. 327 00:29:09,520 --> 00:29:15,600 The world charged with signs. I remember sitting in a library in Cambridge and someone, 328 00:29:15,600 --> 00:29:21,360 an older scholar saying to me, you need to realize that not every blade of grass is eaten 329 00:29:21,360 --> 00:29:29,200 and not every stone a temple. He was wary that the sort of things that you're describing 330 00:29:29,200 --> 00:29:35,760 generates a kind of maelstrom, a free for all of that reminds me of that. I think that might mean 331 00:29:35,760 --> 00:29:45,040 that. How do you not open the door to that in ways that become thoroughly distracting and 332 00:29:45,040 --> 00:29:49,920 uncontrolled? That's one of the big questions around theological interpretation retrieval. 333 00:29:50,720 --> 00:29:56,560 I think what's becoming increasingly clear to me, as you know, I'm about to have study 334 00:29:56,560 --> 00:30:01,440 leave and this is what I want to get into more. What's becoming increasingly clear to me in 335 00:30:01,440 --> 00:30:07,840 reading the primary, older literature and also later recent writing on it. 336 00:30:10,480 --> 00:30:16,320 That's an issue that Christians have consciously grappled with and seen as an issue 337 00:30:16,320 --> 00:30:25,920 from the very first. Early centuries origin from Alexandria, widely thought to have gone off the 338 00:30:25,920 --> 00:30:32,560 deep end on that one and be far too to use a more contemporary word uncontrolled. He's seeing 339 00:30:33,440 --> 00:30:37,920 meaning in detail after detail, which leads many modern readers scratching their heads. 340 00:30:37,920 --> 00:30:42,720 There are certain contemporary theologians who have attempted to rehabilitate him a little bit 341 00:30:42,720 --> 00:30:47,760 and say not as crazy as you think if you really think about it. I think they've succeeded to a 342 00:30:47,760 --> 00:30:52,880 certain extent but the Calvin still raises an eyebrow. There's more than an eyebrow. 343 00:30:54,880 --> 00:31:02,800 Potentially a mob, I think, if someone's doing it in his church. If you're trying it into what 344 00:31:02,800 --> 00:31:07,840 origin is doing, there is a kind of method in the madness, but it's still a madness. 345 00:31:07,840 --> 00:31:14,160 Lots of people thought origin was bonkers in his own day. I mean, Chrysostom and lots of others. 346 00:31:14,160 --> 00:31:17,760 So he was thought to be a bit of an outlier. The reason he was thought to be a bit of an outlier 347 00:31:17,760 --> 00:31:26,560 was he was finding spiritual or figural or allegorical detail in a particular word and 348 00:31:26,560 --> 00:31:34,240 was doing so without paying sufficient attention to the sentence and the paragraph and the chapter 349 00:31:34,240 --> 00:31:41,600 and the book in which that detail was found. And so the crits of him from contemporaries 350 00:31:41,600 --> 00:31:47,360 would be very like what you heard from this contemporary person in Cambridge. So it's not 351 00:31:47,360 --> 00:31:54,400 a modern insight to think some of the ancients went a bit loopy here. And all through the middle 352 00:31:54,400 --> 00:32:05,360 ages, people were debating how do we see the fullness of meaning that God has put in his word 353 00:32:05,360 --> 00:32:12,880 without authorizing anything meaning almost anything or stereotypically going, oh, look, 354 00:32:12,880 --> 00:32:16,000 there's something read in the Bible. That'll be about the blood of Jesus. 355 00:32:16,000 --> 00:32:22,960 Now, they didn't always get it right. And there was massive debate. But that I mean, it's increasingly 356 00:32:22,960 --> 00:32:34,000 clear to me that I think the story that historical critics from the 18th century onwards told about 357 00:32:34,000 --> 00:32:40,480 biblical interpretation was, and this is not to exaggerate very much, that there was 1500 years 358 00:32:40,480 --> 00:32:49,440 of relative lunacy. And then the reformers began to see the exegetical light. I think that story 359 00:32:49,440 --> 00:32:57,760 has been pretty successfully debunked as not right. Better to say, if there's a big turning point in 360 00:32:57,760 --> 00:33:01,920 the history of biblical interpretation, it doesn't start with the reformers. It starts with 361 00:33:01,920 --> 00:33:07,840 after the reformers, the historical critics. And what the reformers were doing was basically 362 00:33:07,840 --> 00:33:13,840 engaging in a conversation that had been going for 1500 years. Now, things moved on. They had 363 00:33:13,840 --> 00:33:17,920 their own insights. There were improvements. Yes, of course there were improvements. It wasn't just 364 00:33:17,920 --> 00:33:24,560 more of the same old, but they were largely when Calvin says of Oregon, he's basically lost the 365 00:33:24,560 --> 00:33:29,600 plot a lot of the time. But I think some allegorical interpretation is quite good. So I'm going to do 366 00:33:29,600 --> 00:33:36,160 it. That's just engaging within the parameters of a conversation that had been happily happening. 367 00:33:36,160 --> 00:33:42,400 For quite a long time. So you can find Aquinas in the middle ages, I mean, very influentially 368 00:33:43,360 --> 00:33:49,440 solidifying what had often been said previously. There were four senses in scripture. Often 369 00:33:50,480 --> 00:33:54,960 you get other people like, I just need to dig into more of this. There's a character called Nicholas 370 00:33:54,960 --> 00:34:01,840 of Lyra who thinks that that opens the barn door a bit too wide and would rather talk about two 371 00:34:01,840 --> 00:34:11,200 kinds of literal sense. So the standard story, the Medieval's had this settled system, which allowed 372 00:34:11,200 --> 00:34:16,560 them to see multiple, sometimes rather fanciful meanings in scripture. And we've really got to 373 00:34:16,560 --> 00:34:22,720 put the lid on that. And the reformers helped by beginning to do that is significantly untrue, 374 00:34:23,440 --> 00:34:29,280 merely as historical description. I think what you've got is the church for 1600 years saying, 375 00:34:29,280 --> 00:34:34,720 in one way or another, there is often a richness of meaning in any scripture, 376 00:34:36,240 --> 00:34:43,520 but it must not be allowed to be a free for all. The additional meanings in this debate, 377 00:34:43,520 --> 00:34:49,120 what do we call those? Do we call them spiritual? Allegorical, tropological, 378 00:34:49,120 --> 00:34:57,200 anagogical and all these technical terms come out. Do we call them a rich multiple place? 379 00:34:57,200 --> 00:35:02,800 A rich multiple plain sense, which seems to be Calvin's preferred way of talking. 380 00:35:04,000 --> 00:35:11,440 And what we will we allow ourselves in that. But common note, all of these additional senses must 381 00:35:11,440 --> 00:35:16,720 all constantly be grounded in the literal historical. You just find that in writer after 382 00:35:16,720 --> 00:35:24,800 writer after writer. And I'm increasingly persuaded that a right way forward for us 383 00:35:24,800 --> 00:35:32,080 to seek an ongoing renewal of our biblical interpretation would be consciously to join 384 00:35:32,080 --> 00:35:41,120 that conversation. Knowing the parameters within which it was conducted, working from within that 385 00:35:42,160 --> 00:35:47,680 in light of the developments in biblical interpretation that we now have that they 386 00:35:47,680 --> 00:35:53,040 didn't have. I mean, I mean, narrative would be one example as far as I can see. There are 387 00:35:53,040 --> 00:35:58,560 there are tools that have been developed in how narrative works, which you don't find on the 388 00:35:58,560 --> 00:36:04,160 surface of lots of older biblical interpretation that I think are genuinely helpful and relatively 389 00:36:04,160 --> 00:36:12,080 new. So a sense of grounded in the older conversation, acknowledging that there is 390 00:36:12,080 --> 00:36:17,600 new light that's been shared. So I've now entirely forgotten what the question was that provoked that 391 00:36:17,600 --> 00:36:23,360 rather ranting manifesto. But that's what I'm feeling. We are with Augustine's first point about 392 00:36:24,480 --> 00:36:29,040 how we write the interpret scripture and the significance of signs of meanings, however we 393 00:36:29,040 --> 00:36:34,160 express those. That was wonderful. I want to ask, let's imagine somebody's thinking, 394 00:36:34,960 --> 00:36:39,120 I just don't know anything about this whole story. I've just I've never heard someone tell the story 395 00:36:39,120 --> 00:36:43,520 of how people have read the Bible over the centuries. Or maybe someone is familiar with 396 00:36:43,520 --> 00:36:48,320 the idea that everything was wrong until the reformers came along and then the reformers 397 00:36:48,320 --> 00:36:54,960 introduced grammatical, historical, sober exegesis. And from that point on, things are reliable. 398 00:36:54,960 --> 00:37:00,240 What for you guys would be the best thing to read as a kind of introduction to that, 399 00:37:00,240 --> 00:37:06,400 to for a kind of balanced take? I've just been talking. Do you want to have a go? Then I'll come in. 400 00:37:06,400 --> 00:37:15,840 One of the pieces that we read together in that module we teach is there's a chapter from Keith 401 00:37:15,840 --> 00:37:23,200 Stangland's book, The Spirit and the Letter, or something to that effect. And that sets out, 402 00:37:24,320 --> 00:37:28,720 it's a chapter on sort of the medieval period, if I'm remembering it correctly, 403 00:37:28,720 --> 00:37:36,720 starting kind of with Augustine, moving through that fourfold pattern, taking in Thomas Aquinas, 404 00:37:36,720 --> 00:37:44,080 who wants to say the literal historical sense of scripture, the way their words run, 405 00:37:44,320 --> 00:37:54,240 is the foundation for any layers of those richer meanings. And then leading up towards the 406 00:37:54,240 --> 00:38:02,400 Reformation period, I find that a very good, accurate, accessible summary of that period. 407 00:38:02,400 --> 00:38:09,120 That would be one place to go, perhaps. Yeah, I'm slightly wary. I will answer. 408 00:38:09,120 --> 00:38:14,960 I can remember when I was a pastor, and people who weren't pastors would say, 409 00:38:14,960 --> 00:38:19,200 now clearly the book you must be reading is, and I'd think, yeah, and when will I? 410 00:38:19,200 --> 00:38:27,200 And when will I? Have you seen my unread pile? If someone wanted to read at one volume, 411 00:38:27,200 --> 00:38:34,080 I think the best is Todd Billings's book, the title of which I've now forgotten. Help me out. 412 00:38:34,080 --> 00:38:36,960 The Word of God for the People of God. Thank you. It's a great book. 413 00:38:36,960 --> 00:38:41,440 It is a great book. The Word of God for the People of God by J. Todd Billings. 414 00:38:42,560 --> 00:38:48,000 I like it because it's sober and it's sensible. It doesn't sound like I've got the answer to all 415 00:38:48,000 --> 00:38:55,920 your problems. It's careful and thoughtful and judicious and very, very clear. 416 00:39:00,240 --> 00:39:07,200 I suspect many pastors would read that and feel, I just think I was already doing this. 417 00:39:10,240 --> 00:39:17,120 It may be, at most, this is giving me language to describe what I've always done and had a sense 418 00:39:17,120 --> 00:39:21,200 of what is right. So I can remember banging on about this stuff to someone who's a 419 00:39:21,840 --> 00:39:26,880 thoughtful pastor and he looked at me and he said, all this figural allegory, 420 00:39:28,480 --> 00:39:32,080 I just would call that rich typology and I've always thought that's right to do. 421 00:39:34,320 --> 00:39:41,520 And I think Billings knows that. Craig Carter in the introduction to another book on this 422 00:39:41,520 --> 00:39:49,360 that does the rounds says basically, if you're an evangelical preacher, you've probably already 423 00:39:49,360 --> 00:39:55,360 been doing all the stuff I'm talking about. It may be that it just gives you a language for being 424 00:39:55,360 --> 00:40:00,960 really clear why this is good to do in ways that you can now spell out and maybe that has a value 425 00:40:00,960 --> 00:40:07,520 of its own. But I have found others who, when they encounter this, have a sense of, okay, 426 00:40:07,520 --> 00:40:14,480 that this is telling me why it is good and right to begin to explore doing one of two things which 427 00:40:15,360 --> 00:40:23,040 my existing method, as I'm aware of it, suggests to me is a bit iffy. And this is suggesting to me 428 00:40:23,040 --> 00:40:30,080 where my existing method might need some supplementation or some flax. The other 429 00:40:30,080 --> 00:40:36,080 thing I'd suggest reading, if someone had time or inclination, and a preacher could well do this 430 00:40:36,080 --> 00:40:44,080 around sermon preparation, I guess. Calvin's sermons, increasingly being published in excellent 431 00:40:44,080 --> 00:40:50,880 English translations. You'll know more about which ones are out, but there's Genesis, there's Samuel, 432 00:40:50,880 --> 00:40:58,560 there's Job, infancy narratives I've enjoyed. Pastor Epistles as well. Of course, Pastor Epistles. 433 00:40:58,560 --> 00:41:06,240 Recently retranslated. Ephesians has been a well-loved volume for a long time. Galatians is available, 434 00:41:06,240 --> 00:41:15,120 like I say, the infancy narratives. A small volume on the death of Christ from Isaiah. 435 00:41:15,840 --> 00:41:23,520 Another one from Banner of Truth recently on the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension 436 00:41:23,520 --> 00:41:30,320 of Christ. Lots to enjoy. It's not that he got everything right. We don't have a pope. That's 437 00:41:30,320 --> 00:41:35,840 all fine. We're allowed to think that wasn't a great sermon. He probably thought he preached some 438 00:41:36,480 --> 00:41:43,840 iffy sermons. But as I've been reading those, I've just been building up a picture of what he thought 439 00:41:43,840 --> 00:41:51,440 it was entirely legitimate to do with the Bible. And I found that sort of opened up new areas for 440 00:41:51,440 --> 00:41:56,880 me to think about and explore. Lovely. Two anecdotes from me that I think have just helped 441 00:41:56,880 --> 00:42:01,440 crystallize things for me. One is, what do you do in that moment in a Bible study when someone puts 442 00:42:01,440 --> 00:42:07,280 their hand up and says, oh, this reminds me of, and they want to take you to another Bible passage. 443 00:42:07,280 --> 00:42:12,560 I think there was a point in my kind of training in Christian ministry where that was a kind of 444 00:42:12,560 --> 00:42:19,520 an alarm bell ringing because my job was to study this passage with these people, and we didn't want 445 00:42:19,520 --> 00:42:27,520 to get distracted. And I think a lot of what we've been saying so far about God's authorship of his 446 00:42:27,520 --> 00:42:34,960 scriptures, a right reading of them is going to have all that God has says in view and expect 447 00:42:34,960 --> 00:42:41,040 connections. There was just a lovely moment in family Bible reading a couple of years ago where 448 00:42:41,600 --> 00:42:48,880 I realized I'd learned to relax because my kids were just starting to spot connections between 449 00:42:48,880 --> 00:42:53,120 things that they'd been reading or they'd heard in Sunday school with what we read that morning. 450 00:42:53,120 --> 00:42:57,200 And when they were putting their hands up and saying, this reminds me, we're reading about Jesus, 451 00:42:57,200 --> 00:43:02,000 this reminds me of what happened to David. That's a thrilling moment where you're actually starting 452 00:43:02,000 --> 00:43:11,680 to see something of a kind of, of an imagination to be ready to see those connections and reflect 453 00:43:11,680 --> 00:43:19,280 on them. That was my first anecdote. What was my second one? It's gone entirely from my mind. 454 00:43:19,280 --> 00:43:21,280 Never mind. Where should we go next? 455 00:43:21,280 --> 00:43:25,280 Well, actually, just a thought on that. I think there's a rightness to the, 456 00:43:26,640 --> 00:43:31,680 to feeling potentially a little bit alarmed if in a Bible study someone keeps going, 457 00:43:31,680 --> 00:43:41,520 this reminds me of, because that can be a strategy for avoiding listening hard to what the 458 00:43:41,520 --> 00:43:47,600 Lord is saying in the particular passage we're looking at. I'm not, I think I'm not, I hope I 459 00:43:47,600 --> 00:43:52,160 wouldn't jump on people immediately. But if I can see that what we're effectively doing is 460 00:43:54,480 --> 00:44:00,800 lightly skimming over a number of passages and not listening hard to the Lord in any of them. 461 00:44:01,520 --> 00:44:06,640 I think if I'm the leader, I'd want to say, well, that's interesting, but show, before we go there, 462 00:44:06,640 --> 00:44:16,240 shall we just see well what's being said in this particular passage? But the kind of this reminds 463 00:44:16,240 --> 00:44:24,960 me of that you're talking about with your incredibly well-taught children is, is effectively 464 00:44:24,960 --> 00:44:32,480 spotting what we might call typological or figural links. I see something in this passage about 465 00:44:32,480 --> 00:44:39,520 Jesus. We have looked hard at this passage about Jesus, and I just cannot help thinking of another 466 00:44:39,520 --> 00:44:47,120 passage, which is about David. And I now draw on careful reading of that passage, when that's 467 00:44:47,120 --> 00:44:52,160 what's going on. Yes, absolutely. Let's encourage that all the more. 468 00:44:53,120 --> 00:45:02,000 What about then, so we started with Augustine and that idea of the, the ways that the Lord 469 00:45:02,000 --> 00:45:10,560 has designed to signify and refer to other things and sometimes more than one thing. 470 00:45:11,440 --> 00:45:17,040 That idea of enjoying God through his word. So we've said in a couple of points already, 471 00:45:17,600 --> 00:45:22,000 of course, every Christian would say yes to that, but are there other particular ways that 472 00:45:22,000 --> 00:45:26,160 we could make that a little more central or learn a bit more about it? 473 00:45:26,160 --> 00:45:32,160 That's a good question. I suppose one of the things that does is it helps to remind us 474 00:45:32,160 --> 00:45:39,920 about what the, what the ultimate intention of scripture is. At what point have you 475 00:45:41,840 --> 00:45:51,920 finished really engaging, really understanding scripture? It's not simply when you've understood 476 00:45:51,920 --> 00:46:02,080 the original meaning of a biblical passage. Actually, the passage itself, scripture itself, 477 00:46:02,080 --> 00:46:08,720 wants to accomplish something further than that. It's drawing you in, it's leading you towards 478 00:46:09,600 --> 00:46:14,400 the better knowledge and enjoyment and love of God. And this is one of the things that Augustine 479 00:46:14,400 --> 00:46:22,320 draws out really well in that volume is, he says, you haven't really understood a passage 480 00:46:22,880 --> 00:46:29,440 until you understand how it is that it builds up love for God or love for neighbor. If that's the 481 00:46:29,440 --> 00:46:40,240 summary of the law, if that's a function, a purpose of the Bible, then that's one of the goals that we 482 00:46:40,240 --> 00:46:48,160 have as where we ought to be trying to get to in our reading. So perhaps that would be one way of 483 00:46:49,440 --> 00:46:52,560 seeing how we can benefit from that. Tim, what would you add? 484 00:46:53,760 --> 00:46:58,800 Oh, yeah, it's a great question. A couple of slightly random things occur. Just thinking about 485 00:46:58,800 --> 00:47:04,160 small group Bible study, but perhaps this relates also to how we help people with individual 486 00:47:04,160 --> 00:47:13,760 Bible reading. At least in the little circles I inhabit, I think I see increasingly recommendation 487 00:47:13,760 --> 00:47:23,520 that Bible studies begin with a question like what strikes you in this passage? So rather than the 488 00:47:23,520 --> 00:47:28,080 first question being, I don't know, something sort of that tees up the application, you know, 489 00:47:28,080 --> 00:47:32,800 when was the last time you found yourself losing your temper or beginning with just a straight 490 00:47:32,800 --> 00:47:40,320 observation? What does verse three say about Jesus or something? Not beginning there, but beginning 491 00:47:40,320 --> 00:47:46,640 with a kind of almost a whole person response. What strikes you? People could answer at all sorts of 492 00:47:46,640 --> 00:47:51,600 levels. It could be what strikes me is when you read that out, I simply didn't understand anything 493 00:47:51,600 --> 00:47:58,640 about that passage at all. All the way through to what struck me was this extraordinary thing about 494 00:47:58,640 --> 00:48:05,520 Jesus that made me rejoice. But it invites a whole person response. And when I see a question like 495 00:48:05,520 --> 00:48:17,680 that used, I think that that can open up just the expectation that what this will be about is me 496 00:48:17,680 --> 00:48:22,960 and the Lord, me as a person responding to the Lord in and through this word. 497 00:48:25,440 --> 00:48:31,120 So I think there are good anthropological as well as theological reasons why something like that 498 00:48:32,640 --> 00:48:38,960 as an opener very much sets the tone for what are we actually doing as we 499 00:48:39,760 --> 00:48:46,480 gather to do this thing we call study the word. And that broadens our pool of applications in a 500 00:48:46,480 --> 00:48:51,840 sense as well. It's about me and the Lord and responding to the Lord or us responding to the 501 00:48:51,840 --> 00:48:58,000 Lord. It gives a real richness to the different ways we might be enjoying the Lord and appreciating 502 00:48:58,000 --> 00:49:03,600 his beauty through the word. Actually that in and of itself is an important application. 503 00:49:04,960 --> 00:49:11,840 The other thing that occurred to me, this kind of comes from somewhere else, but I think it's related 504 00:49:11,840 --> 00:49:17,040 in terms of helping ourselves and others have a sense of enjoying the Lord in his word, 505 00:49:18,240 --> 00:49:25,920 is to take our own thinking and directly thinking of other Christians to the just to the reality of 506 00:49:27,040 --> 00:49:36,080 where do we see this theological reality or this spirituality. Where do we see the Lord already 507 00:49:36,080 --> 00:49:50,800 doing it in us. That is I think relatively common in Puritan sermon application as I'm beginning 508 00:49:51,360 --> 00:49:57,680 to explore that. I think it's relatively uncommon in evangelical preaching as I've heard it in the 509 00:49:57,680 --> 00:50:04,400 circles that I've been in. There's on the whole there's a tendency to want application to land 510 00:50:04,400 --> 00:50:11,280 on a and here's something to do better. Here's an area in which to be better and of course it's not 511 00:50:11,280 --> 00:50:16,240 that we exclude that. That must be right. We must keep pressing on to the goal that's been set for 512 00:50:16,240 --> 00:50:25,680 us. But if every application is basically let me identify an area in which you are not yet 513 00:50:25,680 --> 00:50:33,360 doing well enough. It's going to be quite hard for scripture reading to be, to be honest, 514 00:50:33,360 --> 00:50:39,600 enjoyable except in some somewhat masochistic sense. And it comes back to that point that 515 00:50:39,600 --> 00:50:45,360 Alden was making about the rhetoric idea. Worst case scenario if your application is about things 516 00:50:45,360 --> 00:50:50,720 you should be doing better you will deliver that in an authoritarian aggressive way. Best case 517 00:50:50,720 --> 00:50:59,360 scenario it's a tentative suggestion but if the content of those minutes in the sermon is let us 518 00:50:59,360 --> 00:51:06,000 rejoice in either the beauty of who God is and how he's revealed here or how wonderfully in his mercy 519 00:51:06,000 --> 00:51:11,600 and grace he's doing these things amongst us then your actual rhetorical register is going to be 520 00:51:11,600 --> 00:51:16,720 very different. It's going to sound a little more joyful. And the people's experience of the 521 00:51:16,720 --> 00:51:21,600 sermon and of preaching and reading scripture is going to be different and more varied and 522 00:51:21,600 --> 00:51:28,800 more textured and it's not going to have that same feeling. 523 00:51:28,800 --> 00:51:32,480 I mean this would be a whole other part. I think there's a whole bunch of theological issues that 524 00:51:32,480 --> 00:51:37,600 play in. Where this doesn't happen I think there's a whole bunch of theological issues that kind of 525 00:51:37,600 --> 00:51:46,080 drive it below the surface to do with how we think about salvation. Is it essentially to do with 526 00:51:46,080 --> 00:51:52,160 is it essentially to do with justification? Is it essentially to do with having been raised with 527 00:51:52,160 --> 00:51:57,600 Christ? And I know there are debates around this but I think if a certain kind of justification is 528 00:51:58,160 --> 00:52:03,840 frankly the controlling centre of our understanding of salvation I think that's going to lead us more 529 00:52:03,840 --> 00:52:10,160 to primarily you must do better. But if there's a strong sense of we have been raised with Christ 530 00:52:10,160 --> 00:52:15,440 I'm inevitably going to look it's going to be obvious to me that the Lord must be doing the 531 00:52:15,440 --> 00:52:21,680 things that I see instructed in the passage. The Lord must be doing among us. If he weren't we might 532 00:52:21,680 --> 00:52:29,680 not be Christian. So he must be. So let's point those out as well as exhorting to go on. And 533 00:52:29,680 --> 00:52:36,320 you're right I think that will add it'd be very hard to deliver that without a sense if you're the 534 00:52:36,320 --> 00:52:44,880 pastor without people getting a sense of here is a pastor who likes us. Yeah. And loves us. 535 00:52:46,400 --> 00:52:52,320 We're not perfect but he appreciates what he sees the Lord do in us and that just makes you feel 536 00:52:52,320 --> 00:52:58,800 rather differently towards your elders. I just took a crafty look at the little clock that's down 537 00:52:58,800 --> 00:53:04,560 there. We've been going for a while. I could go longer but we should probably bring this to a 538 00:53:04,560 --> 00:53:12,560 close. David you've been feeding us questions the last few minutes or so. Anything practical. 539 00:53:12,560 --> 00:53:16,080 You're an elder in the church. You're regularly stuck in the ministry. I mean you've been preaching 540 00:53:16,080 --> 00:53:22,000 a lot lately I know as well as lots of other things within pastoral ministry. Could you leave 541 00:53:22,000 --> 00:53:30,480 us with one thing where you found your own life as a Christian in church or ministry as an elder 542 00:53:30,480 --> 00:53:34,720 shaped by reflection on some of these things or ways in which you'd like it to be more so? 543 00:53:35,440 --> 00:53:46,720 Yeah gladly. The anecdote from earlier. I was just thinking about where I've gone too often for help 544 00:53:46,720 --> 00:53:55,280 in understanding a passage. So this is anecdote and testimony really. I think my instinct very 545 00:53:55,280 --> 00:53:58,720 often would be pull down the most recent commentary from the Shelf and see what it is. 546 00:53:58,720 --> 00:54:06,320 See where we're up to on this sort of debate. And struck by how a lot of modern commentaries 547 00:54:06,320 --> 00:54:14,720 are still very caught up with some of those questions about historical context, some of the 548 00:54:14,720 --> 00:54:19,280 scholarly debate and responses to critical readings of the New Testament and so on. 549 00:54:20,000 --> 00:54:28,480 And you know I read a section on that and I find out what the response to those scholars is and I 550 00:54:28,480 --> 00:54:32,080 discover that we don't quite know where that place was but it might have been one of these two places. 551 00:54:32,080 --> 00:54:34,000 And which bits of this might come from Q. 552 00:54:34,000 --> 00:54:43,120 And I'm no further on. I find that online for free I can read Augustine who will reflect on 553 00:54:43,120 --> 00:54:49,360 the faith of the Syro-Phoenician woman for example and will as he reflects on her 554 00:54:50,560 --> 00:54:55,920 making her plea before Jesus and humbling herself he will give an illustration and he 555 00:54:55,920 --> 00:55:02,320 speaks about how God's grace is like the rain. It runs off the high places. It gathers in the low 556 00:55:02,320 --> 00:55:09,280 places. Such a beautiful little picture to say as we humble ourselves before the Lord then that is 557 00:55:09,280 --> 00:55:15,280 where God's grace naturally gathers and brings life. The valleys he says are green and fertile 558 00:55:15,280 --> 00:55:22,560 because that's where the water gathers. So just for my own encouragement and devotional reading 559 00:55:22,560 --> 00:55:27,920 and for help as I'm thinking how do I preach and communicate this. I've just I found so much help 560 00:55:27,920 --> 00:55:34,560 there and so that's been one thing that's encouraged and helped me. The other thought is just 561 00:55:36,800 --> 00:55:43,440 the way that I think we are encouraged to think about being formed as disciples of Jesus over the 562 00:55:43,440 --> 00:55:49,920 long haul and growing in our love for him and appreciation for him in the scriptures which 563 00:55:49,920 --> 00:55:58,640 we're never going to exhaust and that just says slow down and it says be patient to me. So the 564 00:56:00,160 --> 00:56:07,200 thought of we could run a six-week course that will equip people to read the Bible well. 565 00:56:08,720 --> 00:56:14,480 A six-week course can do all sorts of good and I think some things that we've talked about today 566 00:56:14,480 --> 00:56:20,960 would help us think well what would most helpfully go into those six weeks but it also I think 567 00:56:20,960 --> 00:56:27,760 encourages us to think there's a longer and slower work here. If central to the Christian 568 00:56:27,760 --> 00:56:33,360 calling is not getting on and being very busy for the Lord but actually enjoying him reflecting 569 00:56:33,360 --> 00:56:40,480 him and coming to bear his image more and more as we gaze on him then that encourages me 570 00:56:40,480 --> 00:56:46,640 week by week to go to the word for something slightly different. Yeah terrific thank you. 571 00:56:46,640 --> 00:56:50,480 This has been a great conversation. We know we're going to continue to think about these things 572 00:56:52,000 --> 00:56:55,840 wanting to learn from others, wanting to learn from the past. Of course and we know this the 573 00:56:55,840 --> 00:56:59,840 last thing we're saying is Augustine was the golden age if he says it that's obviously the 574 00:56:59,840 --> 00:57:06,000 that gives you your sermon. No he's we read him and think on a bunch of areas really not sure 575 00:57:06,000 --> 00:57:11,280 I'm not sure you should say that from that passage but discovering alongside others that 576 00:57:11,280 --> 00:57:18,400 there are treasures there that genuinely refresh us and renew us. Thank you so much. 577 00:57:20,640 --> 00:57:25,680 We really trust you've enjoyed this podcast. We're going to be back I'm not quite sure where the 578 00:57:25,680 --> 00:57:29,040 next one will come out but we already know what the next one's going to be. We're going to be in 579 00:57:29,040 --> 00:57:35,040 Galatians with David Shor again because he's recently preached through Galatians as well 580 00:57:35,040 --> 00:57:39,440 have done doing lots of other thinking about it. Indeed so yeah I'm most of the way through 581 00:57:39,440 --> 00:57:45,360 preaching Galatians I'll be a bit further on by the time we record and it's one of those books 582 00:57:45,360 --> 00:57:51,280 that I think a lot of us feel quite nervous about how do we preach this how do we teach it. 583 00:57:51,280 --> 00:57:57,440 It's pulled at his most spiky and a lot of dense passages to try and work through so 584 00:57:57,440 --> 00:58:00,720 we'll think about that letter and how we how we preach it and live it out. 585 00:58:00,720 --> 00:58:11,440 Great looking forward to that see you next time.