I recently responded to this tweet (linked) which has troubled me since I first read it.
I asked the author straight up how he comes to the interpretations he does, and how they are not at all influenced by his social, educational, and theological beliefs/circumstances, but for whatever reason, I received no reply. Here, I want to demonstrate briefly why such hermeneutical convictions aren’t as helpful as they might first appear.
Before doing so, I want to affirm that a Christian disciple should, to the best of their ability, seek to understand oneself and live in the world in a way that is informed by the Bible. I’m a lecturer in Biblical Studies and when I’m finished with my students, my hope is that having taken my class they would love Jesus more dearly, worship him more reverently, and walk with him in obedience. If that doesn’t happen, I’ve missed the mark.
And one of the things I seek to teach my students, and what I think the author of the above tweet misses here, is that hermeneutics is a two-way street.
I’ll deal with the second part of the tweet first, and then come back to the first part.
So, on the notion that:
My personal experiences are NOT the lens though which I view, interpret, understand, and respond to Scripture.
I’d respond by saying, first of all, that the Bible was not composed in a cultural vacuum, nor was it received in a cultural vacuum, and nor do I receive it some 2,000 years later in a cultural vacuum. Whether I like it or not—indeed, whether I’m conscious of it or not—my experiences, family background, education, theology, relationships, churches I’ve been to, podcasts I’ve listened to, YouTube videos I’ve watched, etc., all shape and influence the way I read the Bible.
To deny this, as the author of the tweet does when he says his experiences are not the lens through which he comes to Scripture is naïve. We all carry cultural / familial / relational / theological / educational baggage that shapes the kind of people we become, how we view the world, and how we read the Bible.
So, what is one to do? The least any of us can do is admit our presuppositions and remain humble/open to correction as we read Scripture. Which is to say, as we exegete Scripture, it too will exegete us. As I read the Bible, the questions I bring to it will be shaped by the experiences I’ve had and also shape how I might interpret a given passage. But if I maintain a posture of humility, the Bible will also push back: it will challenge my questions; it will ask questions of me; it will change me.
And that means that the next time I come to read my Bible, I’ll be a slightly different person coming with new experiences, new questions, and (hopefully!) a little wiser and humbler. In this way, engaging with Scripture is like a hermeneutical “dance” that never ends so long as I’m willing to engage honestly.
This means, further, that I never truly “arrive”. I’m a finite person with limitations and there’s always something new to discover. This is where a culturally diverse theological community comes in. I learn to read the Bible not just by myself, but with others in community. And if that community is diverse, they will be asking questions and seeing things because of their experiences that I never thought to consider.
One of the joys of a theological education in South Korea for me was the diversity of voices and the questions and understanding they brought that I lacked, not because I’m unintelligent, but because I didn’t have the same lived experiences to bring those questions out. Doing theology w/ Koreans, Romanians, Kazakhs, Iraqis, Kenyans, Tanzanians, Brazilians, Vietnamese, Nepalese (among many more), gave me insights I would have otherwise lacked.
Now on to the first part of the tweet:
Scripture is the lens through which I view, interpret, understand, and respond to my personal experiences.
As I’ve already said, I affirm that a Christian disciple should, to the best of their ability, seek to understand oneself and live in the world in a way that is informed by the Bible. No argument there.
But when the first part of the tweet (above) is paired with the second part of the tweet, it sets up a very deliberate dichotomy: If the author views the world through Scripture, and is presumably being “biblical” in his way of life, the natural corollary is that anyone who don’t acquiesce with his views are, by necessity, not biblical (at least not to the author’s taste). And if they aren’t “biblical”, they should be viewed with suspicion and/or disdain (perhaps even treated as heretics?)
In other words, the hermeneutic presented in the tweet is one of exclusion: if the author is being “biblical” by viewing his life and world through Scripture (as he says he is), anyone who sees their life and world differently, by definition, cannot be biblical and must be chastised and summoned to bow before his “biblical” interpretation of the world.
Not only that, but the very real experiences and questions of others who beg to differ on questions/interpretations of the Bible are summarily dismissed as being irrelevant; a mere sideshow to the mission of the church which is to “just preach the gospel”, without regard for its social implications. This is a failure to honour the “theological other” because they are not being "biblical" to one's taste and as such are unworthy of respect.
Fundamentally, I want Christians to love God, each other, and their neighbours well. Part of that process is the responsible reading of the Bible and a desire to practice hermeneutical humility, or, what Vanhoozer calls “Pentecostal plurality” by which he means:
There is a single meaning in the text, but it is too rich that we may need the insights of a variety of individual and cultural perspectives fully to do it justice . . . The single correct meaning may only come to light through multicultural interpretation.1
To cut oneself off from this possibility by presuming to have the only truly scriptural lens in the face of other legitimate points of view is tragic.
Lastly, some helpful resources on biblical hermeneutics:
Peter Cha, “Doing Theology in a Multicultural Community” in Torch Trinity Journal (http://www.ttgst.ac.kr/upload/ttgst_resources13/20124-223.pdf)
Matthew R. Malcolm, From Hermeneutics to Exegesis, B&H Academic.
David I. Starling, Hermeneutics as Apprenticeship, Baker.
Anthony C. Thiselton, The Hermeneutics of Doctrine, Eerdmans.
See Kevin J. Vanhoozer, “‘But That’s Your Interpretation’: Realism, Reading, and Reformation” in Modern Reformation (July/August 1999): 27.