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About Jesus - Steve (Stephen) Sweetman A
Communal Hermeneutic Hermeneutics is the
process whereby we attempt to understand what someone or something
communicates to us without inserting a bias into the process.
Biblical hermeneutics, then, is the process whereby we attempt to
understand what the Bible communicates to us without inserting a bias into
the process. Being serious students
of the Bible for decades, and believing Biblical hermeneutics is
important, in the mid 1990's my friend and I asked our then pastor if we
could teach a class on Biblical hermeneutics. Surprisingly,
he, holding a bachelor of philosophy degree, said "no."
My friend with a bachelor of Biblical studies degree (1978)
and me a Bible college education (1975 - 1977) were dumbfounded.
Why would a pastor, called to care for God's people refuse to help
them understand the Bible?
We process Biblical
issues through various lenses, one being our western-world, twenty-first
century cultural lens. That's
a mistake. The Bible was
written in past eras, cultures and languages that are far removed from us
today, and thus, must be understood in that light as we try to process a
present-day application. Another lens through
which we process Biblical issues is our personality, which in all reality,
is a biased filter. We, as in
all aspects of life, filter Scripture through who we are.
Think about it this way. If
I view a 1965 Ford Mustang, I see it from my specific angle.
If ten people surround that car they see it from ten different
personal angles. If I
incorporate what all ten people see from their personal perspective, I get
a complete picture of that 1965 Ford Mustang, a car my brother bought new.
In Biblical terms, we
need the input from others as we attempt to process what the Bible is
communicating. A variety of
personal lenses can provide a more complete Biblical picture.
Attempting to understand the Bible through a communal lens is what
I call a "communal hermeneutic."
It's the reason why we have seminaries, Bible colleges,
commentaries, books, and in part, our brothers and sisters in Jesus.
Jesus maintained that we
cannot survive life on bread alone (Matthew 4:4).
If we desire a holistic life, we must feast on our spiritual food
placed before us in the Bible. With
the nutrients derived from our personal feasting, we then come together
for a spiritual potluck brunch. I
am not talking about a Sunday sermon which has its rightful place.
I am talking about a gathering of spiritually-fed people sharing
their spiritual food with each other.
It's a communal hermeneutic approach to the Bible that creates
spiritually-mature Christians in a spiritually-mature church community.
Postscript
From my experience at
leading communal hermeneutic gatherings over the years, some guidelines
are needed for the gathering to succeed.
There must be a respected, Biblically literate teacher who is
capable of steering a discussion away from arguments, unrelated issues and
blatant heresies. The leader
should not dominate nor dictate. All
in attendance should be free to express their views without fearing
aggressive criticism. Listening
and asking questions for the sake of clarification is primary.
Long-winded and ultra-dogmatic speeches are to be avoided while an
underlying spirit of gracious acceptance of each other must prevail.
It's not about clobbering one another with a pet doctrine.
It's about everyone leaving the gathering with a much better, but
not perfect, understanding of what the Bible wants to communicate, and
that, by means of a communal hermeneutic.
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