The naked text

Michael Spenser at the blog Internetmonk has an interesting post on hermeneutics:



There was a lot of confidence in the Bible and a lot of faith in God in this method. But the Bible wasn't treated rightly, and it took a long time for me to realize that the inspiration of scripture wasn't magic in the words, but the actual message of the book. It always seemed insulting to say the Bible was just like any other book, but it is! That's the wonder of inspiration. All the same rules for proper interpretation. The same approach to context, sentences and grammar. The same concern with the original situation the book speaks to and the worldview of the author. I was told my education would ruin the Bible because I would come to believe it wasn't inspired. Of course, what did we mean by authority and inspiration? How about "The authority of the Bible is in the God it presents, and especially in Jesus, the focus and final Word of the whole Biblical narrative?"



George MacDonald, in one of his "Unspoken Sermons" entitled "The Higher Faith", says:



But to the man who would live throughout the whole divine form of his being, not confining himself to one broken corner of his kingdom, and leaving the rest to the demons that haunt such deserts, a thousand questions will arise to which the Bible does not even allude. Has he indeed nothing to do with such? Do they lie beyond the sphere of his responsibility?

. . . Sad, indeed, would the whole matter be, if the Bible had told us everything God meant us to believe. But herein is the Bible itself greatly wronged. It nowhere lays claim to be regarded as the Word, the Way, the Truth. The Bible leads us to Jesus, the inexhaustible, the ever unfolding Revelation of God. It is Christ “in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,” not the Bible, save as leading to him.



This topic indeed seems blasphemous to a life-long Baptist, but I feel it is worth investigating. What purpose should the Word of God have in our life? Does God desire we live solely by the words of the Word? Or does He desire us to seek the living Word, the Logos? Are the words more important than the message?

I find myself yearing more and more for preaching that soars beyond the "practical." I long for teachings that plow deeper than the topsoil of the text. No doubt, the words are important. Without them we can never understand the Logos. But are we to merely dwell on them? What does God desire we do with our intellect, our powers of reasoning? Does natural revelation become irrelevant next to the words of the Special Revelation? Does God speak to each man individually? Does He commune with my spirit with words that have never been written down?I do not have any answers, but I believe that there are answers to be found. We Christians have a duty to seek them out.