The following is a response to a question asked by one of our high school peeps. The question revolved around hermeneutics - defining it and explaining the need for it. I think it might be useful to more than just the person to whom it was addressed (especially being that we have been working through this on Wednesday nights).I hope it is not too disjointed or broken in thought to be of value. May the LORD bless you as you seek to please Him. "Ah. Well hermeneutics is the art of interpretation. It is learning how to rightly divide what has been said by another.
The most skilled folks in this art are able to clearly see what is being said. It takes into consideration many factors in order to come to a proper conclusion. Things like knowing the language and culture come in especially handy here. There are presupposed ideas that go into any statement being studied. Such as, “this was meant to be understood” and “this was first written to ____ audience.”
In the end the goal is to understand the intent of the author. What did the author mean when he/she said it. This is conveniently called “authorial intent.”
Everything up to this point has been under the umbrella of observation and interpretation.Once all of this has been properly ascertained
then the reader can begin to consider how this effects us today. This we like to call the "application stage."
If all this homework is not done or not done properly, wrong conclusions are made and thus lived out.
As for examples of the dangers caused by misapplication, they seem almost too numerous to call out. Back in the 1800’s a slave pastor lead the bloodiest revolt in U.S. history. He rallied his fellow slaves by preaching from Exodus. He spoke of the wicked people the Israelites were to exterminate and then likened them to the white slave owners of their own time. He said that the slave owners needed to be exterminated in the name of God in the same fashion as the wicked nations in the time of the conquering of the promised land. This is of course an extreme example but it demonstrates the need to interpret any document correctly (and I would contend that this need is even exaggerated with respect to the Bible due to its weight and power).
Adding to this, I beleieve that the great need for hermeneutics today revolves around the popular idea of a document as “living.” This sounds good but can be a very dangerous thing in that it relegates whatever is being read to the subjective whims to the reader.
For example, our President is a very intelligent man. Certainly more intelligent than I and he certainly knows the laws and constitution better than I. And yet I strongly disagree with a lot of what he says regarding the constitution. How can this be?
From what I can gather, nearly all the disagreement lies in the fact that he believes that our constitution is a "living document." Meaning that is not a static writing, stuck in 1787. He would contend that it is a document who’s meaning changes with culture and time. He believes that the authors of the constitution wanted it to be understood in this way. You can think of this as a “modern art” approach to literature – the only meaning is the meaning is the meaning you give it. Whatever you derive from it personally is what really matters. I think you can see the problem with this.
This same concept is and has been applied to the Bible. This makes the Bible a book that does not really speak with authority and the only parts that need to be obeyed are the parts that you think speak to you.
With all this said, it seems obvious that the need for proper hermeneutics is very great in our time."
b.e.g. the3rd
