I have been delaying the writing of these posts as I tried to systematize my thoughts before spewing them out. Unfortunately I’m not sure I am up to it still, but am going to attempt it anyways. For who knows how long, with an unknown amount of posts and words and hopefully many generous exchanges with you, I am going to share why I believe in nonviolence and why I believe this is the only course of action for anybody who wants to follow Jesus.
The first premise I would lay out for this discussion is that a follower of Jesus has to begin their understanding of following Jesus by listening to Jesus first. This sounds obvious, if not absurd, but regardless it is necessary to say. This means we read and interpret Paul, Revelation, the prophets, Moses, the taking of the Promised Land, exile, etc, through the lens of Jesus and his revelation of the Father.
The way I can best describe why this is important is to liken our Biblical hermeneutics to binoculars. Growing up I loved to play with my dad’s binoculars. It was fun to spy on my brothers or try to spot animals from great distances away. It was even more fun to turn them around and make things feel smaller and further away.
What I see in the church far too often is a spinning of the binoculars. We interpret Jesus through the Old Testament and Paul, shrinking Jesus in the process. If we try to disregard something Jesus says or does in the New Testament by saying “but the in the Old Testament…” we are forgetting that Jesus has fulfilled and expanded the Law. That is why he came teaching “You have heard it said…but I tell you…” The same goes with Paul (or any other NT writer for that matter), who was interpreting Jesus’ teachings for specific situations, but was nonetheless trying to follow Jesus.
If we flip our hermeneutical binocular, starting with Jesus, the Old Testament comes into focus, the epistles of the New Testament are read with more understanding, etc. What I am saying is that we have to start with Jesus not just with lip-service, but truly interpret who God is and what the Bible teaches through Jesus. If we cannot start with this common assumption, I cannot move on.
Agree? Disagree?
Peace,
Matt
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3 comments:
Agree. Can we ever truly see anything as the same after the cross? I think it is necessary that our lives be altered accordingly. Jesus conquered sin and death by dying at the hands of sinful men. How do we think that we can achieve lasting victory in other ways if this is what we believe?
Both agree and disagree. I think we must see Jesus as the fulfillment of the law and Matt and Chauncey are correct that we cannot see anything the same after the cross -- though I'd like to hear that statement filled out more. If you'll permit me some pigeon-holing and labels, Matt, I think you're espousing a tried and true Anabaptist hermeneutic. If Reformed hermeneutics can be stereotyped as emphasizing Paul over the other books of the Bible, then Anabaptist hermeneutics can be stereotyped as emphasizing the Gospels over the rest of the Bible. (Of course there aren't only two types of hermeneutics, but you'll see why I mentioned Reformed hermeneutics later.)
I'm not sure what it means to listen to Jesus first if the whole Bible is inspired. I'm of the sort that affirms the canonization process of Judaism and the Early Church as a Spirit-led process in which all the books of the Bible are inspired. I think it's misguided to seek a harmony of all biblical literature (I believe we can see debates between different communities), but I think it's more dangerous to pit Jesus against Paul or vice versa or to see the OT as something less important than the NT. (I'm not saying you're doing this Matt; I've simply seen people make these arguments.) If the whole Bible is inspired, then it's all in play. The NT certainly (re)interprets the OT, but I think scholars are right when they argue that the NT is something of a commentary on the OT. Paul most likely didn't have a copy of Mark with him, but he was well versed in the Hebrew Scriptures.
Jesus and his original audiences were deeply familiar with the OT -- probably most especially Isaiah, the Psalms, and Deuteronomy given how much Jewish literature from that time (including the Gospels) cite those books. I would argue that Jesus doesn't make a ton of sense without some knowledge of the OT. We can come to the Gospels without first reading the OT and be amazed and even convinced of Jesus' messianic claims. To truly understand him, however, we must be students of the same texts he was.
I would argue that Paul is doing precisely what you mentioned in your post -- namely trying to look again at his Jewish faith and the Old Testament given the reality of Jesus and the cross. At the same time, I don't want to give up on letting texts speak for themselves -- especially the OT. The temptation I think is to find Jesus under every rock in the OT and I don't think those readings are always warranted.
This issue came up in Fuller Theological Seminary's weekly newspaper last year when one of our more Reformed professors responded to a Mennonite doctoral student's critique of his chapel sermon on Gomer in Hosea. John Thompson, who teaches historical theology, writes, "An Anabaptist hermeneutic would read Gomer’s story 'in the light of Jesus' so that it may be 'brought under his (Suffering Servant) Lordship,' insofar as Jesus represents 'the clearest revelation of the character of God' that we have.... So if you were to take my sermon as representing a Reformed perspective...you might read it as reflecting the Reformed tendency to stress not only the connection and continuity of the Old Testament with the New, but also to read the Old Testament without importing Jesus into the picture, except where messianic references are warranted by the New Testament."
I'm actually working on a post regarding a canon within the Canon approach, so this issue has been in my mind for a while.
Tyler,
First of all, you have me nailed because I do lean more towards anabaptist than anything else. I'm not Reformed, which causes some friends to pray for me... I will say that I came into my hermeneutic during my studies, then discovered that I was in line with a lot of anabaptist theology. But I love it (mostly).
I'll step fully into the pigeonhole and say that I definitely do emphasize the Gospels over the rest of scripture. I do not think this means we should at all ignore the rest of the bible, nor that we always have to literally start reading at Matthew. But what I do believe is that to understand what it means to be a Christian we have to make Jesus central. At the same time, I agree with you that it is silly to go digging through the OT and find (or place) Jesus under every rock, or try to make every rock represent him in some way.
When I see Jesus fulfilling the OT, I see this as meaning that if Jesus and Moses, for example, seem to be saying different or even contradictory things, I am going to go with Jesus in the end. I take this for granted often, but am not so sure that everybody thinks the same way.
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