Scripture interpretation

[votivesoul]

Originally Posted by Amanah

I invite the Elders to please comment on or correct the following

One problem with Scripture interpretation is the framework through which you view the relationship between God and mankind.

Covenant Approach:
(Biblical approach)

- Focuses on specific covenants that God established with mankind, such as:
- Adamic (creation)
- Noahic (after the flood)
- Abrahamic (with Abraham and his descendants)
- Mosaic (the Law given at Sinai)
- Davidic (God's promise to David)
- New Covenant (established through Jesus Christ)
- Emphasizes the progressive revelation of God's redemptive plan through these covenants.
- Sees God's dealings with mankind as both conditional and unconditional, with an emphasis on His sovereign grace and faithfulness.
- Highlights the unity and continuity of God's plan across different covenants.

Dispensationalism
(Fairly recent development)

- Views God's relationship with mankind as a series of dispensations or periods, each with its own unique rules and expectations.
- Emphasizes a literal, futuristic interpretation of biblical prophecy.
- Typically divides history into 7-8 dispensations, such as innocence, conscience, human government, promise, law, grace, and kingdom.
- Sees God's dealings with mankind as primarily conditional, based on human response to divine revelation.

Key differences:

- The covenant approach focuses on specific covenants, Dispensationalism focuses on periods of time.
- The covenant approach highlights continuity and progression
Dispensationalism tends to emphasize discontinuity between different periods.
- The covenant approach emphasizes God's sovereignty and grace, Dispensationalism often stresses human responsibility.

I don't think any of these schemas are correct.

There isn't anything within the pages of Holy Writ which prescribes, let alone suggests, let alone merely hints at interpreting the Scriptures in the ways detailed above.

There is only one given method of Scriptural interpretation in the Bible:

John 16:13-15 (ESV),

13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. 14 He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. 15 All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

The question then becomes, how does the Spirit of Truth guide us into all truth?

To answer, we need to understand the following:

What does it mean for the apostles and prophets to be the foundation of the Church, with Christ Himself being the Cornerstone (Ephesians 2:21)?

More specifically how did the Apostles and Prophets in the beginning of the New Covenant era interpret Scripture?

Christ's Apostles and Prophets inherited His method of teaching. Christ's method of teaching the Scriptures came mostly in public parables, followed by a private lesson on what the parables meant. Jesus also taught openly, took on challenges, asked questions, answered questions, called out the religious elite for their hypocrisies, etc. Christ did all this as a Rabbi among the Judeans of His time.

This Rabbinical approach was not invented by Christ, but was common to the time, and Jesus followed suit. Jesus did not reinvent the wheel. The main difference between Christ and the other rabbis of that era was that Christ made His pronouncements without citing the oral traditions of previous rabbis. He proclaimed and stated His teachings upon His own authority, as given to Him by His Father. This was unique.

But otherwise, Christ embodied the long-standing prophetic tradition of the Holy Scriptures, and so did His Apostles and Prophets, namely, employing a balance of concepts called peshat and midrash.

The peshat and midrash are the most commonly and easily cited example of Biblical interpretation available to any readers of the Scriptures.

What is peshat? What is midrash?

Peshat is an attempt at understanding the Scriptures in their literal sense.

Midrash is an attempt at understanding the Scriptures in their figurative or metaphorical sense.

An example:

Genesis 1:1 (ESV),

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

The peshat of this text is that God literally caused the heavens (skies) and the earth (land) to come into being, just as they are, just as humanity has perceived them, time immemorial, even scientifically speaking.

Isaiah 66:1 (ESV)

1 Thus says the Lord:
“Heaven is my throne,
and the earth is my footstool;
what is the house that you would build for me,
and what is the place of my rest?

The midrash of Genesis 1:1, found here in the words of a prophet, are that in the beginning, God created His throne and His footstool, so that Genesis 1:1 doesn't just simply relate to the skies and planet under which and upon which we live, but also to the idea of the celestial temple of God, from where He reigns over all of His creation.

Another example:

Deuteronomy 25:4 (ESV),

4 “You shall not muzzle an ox when it is treading out the grain.

The peshat of the text is, whenever you own a beast of burden, like an ox, and you yoke that ox to a grinding mill, by law and command of Jehovah, you shouldn't place a muzzle over the animal's mouth in order to physically restrain the animal's ability to stoop down and take occasional bites of the grain and flour it is helping you to mill.

1 Corinthians 9:9 (ESV),

9 For it is written in the Law of Moses, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain.” Is it for oxen that God is concerned?

Here we see Paul's use of midrash as an interpretive schema. Whatever the literal meaning of Deuteronomy 25:4, Paul sought to look beyond and through the text in order to discover a figurative or metaphorical meaning, and he did: that itinerant prophets and teachers, when visiting a local congregation have the right to eat at the members' tables, free of charge, simply for the spiritual ministry they provide to the church while there.

Another example:

Hosea 11:1 (ESV),

When Israel was a child, I loved him,
and out of Egypt I called my son.

The peshat: a literal reference to the Exodus account, detailing the time when Israel was a fledgling nation called by God out of their bondage in Egypt.

Matthew 2:13-15 (ESV),

13 Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” 14 And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt 15 and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt I called my son.”

The midrash is that Hosea 11:1, not just as a literal text harkening back to the Exodus, is also a future looking prophetic text of the Messiah's flight to Egypt to avoid being murdered by Herod, then coming back to Judea from Egypt when the threat was over.

As such, Christ Jesus, midrashically speaking, is a type of "Israel", that is, a son who stands in for the whole nation of Israel, just as Caiaphas ignorantly prophesied (John 11:49-50).

Both the Old and New Covenant Scriptures are replete with this kind of interpretive schema. It's the only one clearly given to us by God in His Word, and it has His seal of approval, from the Prophets of Old, to His Son, to the Apostles and Prophets His Son called to establish the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth.