INTERPRETING THE NEW TESTAMENT FOR A FAITH RESPONSE
Wayne McDill
Senior Professor of Preaching
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary

In 1987 the Lilly Endowment funded a major research project in the U.S. to examine the effectiveness of Christian education in the churches for nurturing a strong and vital faith. Symptoms had indicated a growing weakness in this critical task. The study, conducted by Search Institute, involved Southern Baptists, along with five old line churches, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Christian Church (Disciples), the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the United Church of Christ, and United Methodists. Over 11,000 people responded to the lengthy surveys.

The results were not encouraging. Only 32 percent of adults manifested a strong, life-related faith with both a vital relationship to God and meaningful service to people. David S. Schuller, who worked on the project on leave from Association of Theological Schools, summarized his view of the results:

Ministers . . . seek to proclaim faith as a gift of God's grace that involves one in a relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ, and further shows itself in acts of love and concern for justice. But two-thirds of the respondents indicate the words have 'not taken'; the faith they manifest is amorphous, more informed by the surrounding culture than by the church's proclamation.[i]

Among respondents from the old line churches, 66 percent indicated that they never or rarely gave a personal witness to their faith in Christ. Two-thirds did not read the Bible and 57% did not pray. More than half confessed that they had never given time to help the poor, hungry or sick. Over two-thirds had difficulty in accepting salvation as a gift rather than something earned. The survey indicated that not quite half of Southern Baptist adults showed a mature, integrated faith. Some 60 percent understood salvation as a gift from God. While 74 percent read the Bible, well over half did not report engaging in daily prayer. More than 80 percent had taken no action to promote social change or social justice.[ii]

The underlying premise of the study was that the aim of Christian proclamation is to produce a vital and life-changing faith in the hearers. Though not intended as an analysis of biblical interpretation by preachers and teachers, the study was nonetheless revealing in that regard. If the preaching and teaching in the churches does not result in vital faith, there must be a serious weakness in that proclamation. The approach and content of Christian proclamation is directly related to the place of the Bible in it. At least we may say that ones approach to New Testament interpretation affects the potential faith response of those who hear the resulting sermon or lesson.

Contemporary views on biblical interpretation have influenced what pastors and Bible teachers do as they approach the biblical text. Pastors are influenced as well by the pressures of the job. But New Testament faith calls for certain operating principles for faith-building interpretation. We will consider a brief summary of the features of New Testament faith. Secondly, we will consider some key problems in hermeneutics as they bear upon our aim of a faith response. Then will come an analysis of the interpreter's presuppositions, and finally a summary of principles that can guide the interpretation aimed at a faith response.

I. The Nature of New Testament Faith

The biblical view is that God has so ordered His dealings with men that they must be related to Him by faith. The writer of Hebrews insists that anyone who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him (Heb. 11:6). The person who would be rightly related to God can be so only through a confidence and trust in Him. Faith is the one response on man's part that is appropriate to the revelation of God. No other response honors God, with man bringing nothing to contribute and receiving everything from God in return. Those who respond in faith are in Scripture called 'believers' and make up the community of faith.

The classic biblical definition of faith is found in Heb. 11:1. The Amplified New Testament explanation of the verse clarifies its meaning: 'Now faith is the assurance (the confirmation, the title deed) of the things (we) hope for, being the proof of things (we) do not see and the conviction of their reality--faith perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses.' Pistis, the common Greek word for faith, can be either passive and active, on the one hand meaning 'fidelity,' or 'trustworthiness,' and on the other 'faith,' or 'trust.' In the overwhelming majority of cases faith, as the New Testament rendering of pistis, means 'reliance,' or 'trust,'.

The two key words in the passage cited above are 'assurance' and 'conviction', both indicating that faith is an attitude of certainty about some truth claim. Assurance is elegchos,in most verbal uses meaning 'expose'. Here it denotes a proof, proving, or test. It could be said that 'faith is the proving of the things hoped for'. The other key word, 'conviction' (hupostasis), has the meaning of confidence or assurance. In the Revised Version margin here it is 'the giving substance to'. These terms indicate that faith is an attitude; it is assurance, conviction, certainty. In a relational sense faith is an attitude of confidence in the Person believed.

Since the only appropriate response to the revelation of God is faith, it follows that the New Testament should be interpreted with a faith response in mind. However, the biblical understanding of faith is notably different from many popular ideas about faith. Interpreting the New Testament for a faith response will require an understanding of those distinctives.

New Testament faith is objective. In the biblical view faith begins with God and His word. The Apostle Paul compared faith to sight in writing that the believer is to walk by faith and not be sight (2 Cor. 5:7). Sight in the physical realm is demonstrated by the ability to see, to perceive ones environment visually. Faith, in the spiritual realm, is looking away from self to the spiritual realities made known only by the revelation of God. In Hebrew thought this objective reference to the ground of faith is the normal view, with the stress on the worthiness of the object of faith and little attention to the subject. Therefore faith has its focus outside of man. The believer's attention is not turned inward toward himself, but away from himself toward the credibility of the God who is beyond him.

New Testament faith is cognitive. The strength or weakness of faith is related to the accuracy of one's knowledge and understanding of the nature and intention of God. As revelatory knowledge is increased, faith is increased. Faith comes by hearing, writes Paul (Rom. 10:17), and hearing (understanding) comes by the word of God. 'Knowing' is a key factor in man's continuing exercise of his faith in God. Paul uses the idea of knowing as opening the door to a more significant and effective relationship with God (Rom. 6:3, 6, 9, 16). James writes that men are to face the testing of faith with joy because they 'know' what God can do in the midst of these experiences (James 1:3). Faith, then, is not a subjective outreach of man to the unknown, unbelievable, unseen possibilities beyond his own understanding. Faith is rather, in the biblical view, a response on man's part to a clear word from God.

New Testament faith is supernatural The ministry of the Holy Spirit in the operation of faith is vital to its effectiveness in the New Testament view. The Spirit is promised to guide the believer into all truth (John 16:13). The Holy Spirit makes the word of revelation come alive with hope in the heart of man. This new expectancy is the stimulation of faith, even the giving of faith, by the work of the Spirit and the word (Eph. 1:17ff.). The Spirit causes that revelation to be very personal and very real in the particular situation in which the believer finds himself. He becomes expectant and hopeful that the word he hears can actually be workable in his own experience. His spiritual vision is enhanced so that he can see with the eyes of faith rather than trusting his own perception alone (Col. 1:9).

New Testament faith is responsive. The New Testament makes clear that the response of man to the revelation of God must take some practical form. Faith without action is dead, writes James. It is nothing more than credal affirmation, not the dynamic trust that saves (James 2:17-26). Jesus often instructed those who sought healing and ministry at his hands to take some action that indicated their confidence in him. He told one to go and wash in the pool of Siloam (John 9:7), another to go and show himself to the priest (Matt. 8:14), another to pick up his bed and walk (Mark 2:11), another to look about to see whether his eyes were given sight (Mark 8:23), another to stretch out his crippled hand (Matt. 12:3), others verbally to confess their faith (Matt. 9:28). So faith that does not make a specific response to God is not New Testament faith.

New Testament faith is theocentric. The focus of biblical faith is the person and will of God Himself. The revelation of God in history through word and deed is the basis upon which Christian faith is established. Christian faith is not only adherence to a set of doctrinal truths; it is confidence in the God of revelation. The believer trusts in the God who has acted and spoken and made those actions and those words understandable to mankind. Faith is a response to that revelation as contrasted with the discovery of new knowledge. It is not seen in Scripture to be a virtue within the believer so much as a looking away to trust the God who is faithful. The writer of Hebrews urges the reader to fix his eyes on the risen Christ as the constant reference point for his faith (Heb. 12:2).

New Testament faith is effective. Perhaps the most certain fact of all concerning faith in Scripture is the assurance of divine response. Faith is a response to revelation that evokes a counter-response in God, bringing His grace to bear in the situation and in the life of the person. Again and again the biblical materials declare that God will act in response to the faith and confidence of man. Jesus made it clear that one need but ask and God would act in response (Matt. 7:7-11; 18:19; John 16:24). He promised that God would answer his children quickly (Luke 18:8). Paul wrote that even when man's faith is so weak that he has difficulty believing, God continues faithful (2 Tim. 2:13).

New Testament faith is relational. It is not primarily a belief about concepts. It is rather confidence in a Person. The great assurance of the believer is in the presence of God. Jesus promised to be with the believers always, even to the end of the age (Matt. 28:20). The writer of Hebrews quotes the Old Testament promise that He will never leave nor forsake his beloved (Heb. 13:5). The attitude of faith and trust in God issues in a rest and peace in the life of the believer. The believer knows that circumstances, problems, tragedies, mysteries, nothing can intervene between himself and the loving presence of God (Rom. 8:28).

II. Hermeneutical Problems and Faith

Interpreting the Bible, or any phenomenon for that matter, raises three basic questions: (1) What do we have here?, (2) What does it mean?, and (3) What is its significance for us? The first is the question of character in which the interpreter examines the text in every way possible to ascertain its particular features. The second is the question of meaningin which the intended message of the text is discerned in terms of the concepts communicated in it. The third is the question of significancein which the contemporary consequence of the text is derived from its intended meaning. In more common terms we might see these three questions as representing three phases of the interpreter's task: examination, interpretation, and application.

Distinguishing three questions instead of the one question of meaning is intended to call attention first to the biblical text as the interpreter receives it. That text is the unchanging constant in the interpretive process. The first question focuses on the careful examination of the text in all its particulars. Without this careful study (asking the question, 'What do we have here?') one is ill-prepared to raise the question of meaning. Further distinguishing meaning from significancefollows Hirsch and others in this regard, the intention being to distinguish between the original meaning and the contemporary implications of that meaning.[iii]

The central question in hermeneutics is, of course, the question of meaning. Three points of focus in the discovery of a text's meaning are the author, the text, and the reader. The text writer produced the text in the first place and the reader studies it. Much of the contemporary debate about biblical interpretation revolves around the question of which of the three--writer, text, or reader--should be the primary element in determining its meaning. The earliest of modern hermeneutics, beginning with Freidrich Schleiermacher, concentrated on the writer and his original meaning as the text revealed it. Then came a reaction to this historical emphasis that concentrated on the language of the text as the focus of meaning. Today a further reaction places the emphasis on the reader himself as the controlling factor for meaning.[iv]

Reader oriented criticism is based on the assumption that the writer and the text itself are of less importance than what the reader brings to his interaction with the text. Those in this movement have concluded that the search for the original meaning is futile, so that the emphasis should be on the reader himself. His own theological tradition, personal background, and knowledge actually control the meaning for the text. This reader oriented criticism has challenged long standing principles and methods of biblical interpretation. At the heart of the debate is the question of objectivity on the part of the reader of Scripture.

Those advocating reader response criticism may see the subjectivity of the reader as foreclosing any possibility of objective discernment of the text. The question has been raised whether the original message of a text can be ascertained at all, and, secondly, whether seeking the original intention is important for the meaning of that text. Though this skepticism is overdrawn, the emphasis on the reader's preunderstanding has opened the complexity of this issue to serious examination. Grant Osborne puts it simply, that 'the problem of interpretation begins and ends with the presence of the reader.'[v]

Reader oriented interpretation has called attention to several problem areas that bear directly on interpretation aimed at a faith response. The first difficulty to plague the interpreter is subjectivity. In reader-response criticism the subjectivity of the reader is not avoided so much as welcomed and encouraged. The reading situation takes precedence over the text; the text provides some guidance, but only has identity in the mind of the reader. The 'reading strategy' he chooses may allow the reader to experience a text differently each time he reads it. He is free to find his own meaning in the text, without regard for the original meaning of the writer in his historical setting.

Subjectivity in biblical interpretation means that what the reader brings with him to the text may have more influence on the meaning than the text itself. The interpreter's preunderstandings can have a positive impact when his training and knowledge provide him the proper framework for a valid interpretation of the text. On the other hand, he may have personal biases that are counter productive to a valid understanding of the text's meaning. In both cases his biases will affect his interpretation. If he can identify and understand his presuppositions, he can apply them as aids to good interpretation on the one hand and check them on the other when they are hindrances.

A second problem area highlighted by reader oriented interpretation is the possibility of multiple meanings. Since each reader brings his own world view to the text, he can expect to find a meaning that reflects his perspective. The text itself must be completed by the reader for a meaning to emerge. Not only does the meaning differ from one reader to another, it may also differ from one reading to the next by the same person. There is, therefore, no set meaning, in this view, no right meaning. The meaning does not even emerge until the reader interacts with the text, and whatever does emerge is 'truth' to him.

Multiple meanings, or polyvalence, is a natural outgrowth of reader oriented interpretation. This is the case not only when the interpreter intends to take this approach, but also when he does so unconsciously. Any time a reader allows his own agenda to dominate the text and control the meaning, he is risking the loss of the inherent meaning of the text in favor of a meaning more suitable to his own thinking. The proclamation of such an imposed meaning may have little impact for a faith response because authentic faith awaits a revelation from God.

Reader oriented interpretation also calls attention to a third problem for interpretation, an anthropocentric focus. The Bible, as largely narrative, carries the story of God's revelation in history as human drama. The heroes of the faith are very real people who struggle with life's great challenges. It is natural for the modern interpreter to see in their struggle the meaning that most strikes a chord with him. Through the framework of psychology, sociology, anthropology, or just street level philosophy, the interpreter can see varieties of rich meaning in the human drama of Scripture.

This anthropocentric interpretation results in a message focused in the experience of man rather than the person and will of God. It may offer a creative analysis of the struggle but no hope from beyond the struggle. Or, the anthropocentric emphasis may see the Christian life in terms of moralism, ideals, or self-fulfillment instead of a transforming relationship with God through Jesus Christ. The center of reality here is the self, with God on the periphery. Man is his own answer to life's questions, with perhaps a bit of religious flavor. In contrast to this, the inherent meaning of Scripture is essentially theocentric. The entire story revolves around who God is and what He is doing.

Contemporary preachers have apparently been affected by reader oriented interpretation. Preaching today, though perhaps no worse than in other generations, does not take the text nearly as seriously as effective interpretation would require. An interesting study in this regard is reported by David Wells.[vi] Two hundred sermons were analyzed, published between 1981 and 1991, half from Pulpit Digestand half from Preaching, both respected evangelical preaching journals in the United States.

The analysis sought to classify the sermons into four categories related to the content of the sermons with reference to the biblical text. Category 1 was sermons in which both the content and organization of the sermon were determined by the biblical text selected by the preacher. Category 2 included those sermons in which the content was explicitly biblical but the organization was imposed by the preacher. Category 3 sermons took neither content nor organization from the biblical text but were basically Christian in what was said. Category 4 classified sermons in which neither the content nor the organization came from a biblical passage, and in which the content was not obviously Christian.

Sermons from ten years of the two journals may be taken to be examples of the best preaching in the evangelical world. They fell into the categories by the following percentages: 24.5 percent had both content and organization from the text, 22.5 had biblical content with an imposed organization, 39 percent were generally Christian but not text based, and 14 percent were not even discernibly Christian. This means that less than half of these model sermons were explicitly biblical, and one out of seven was not observably Christian at all.

Wells points out that an even more significant finding in the study had to do with the orientation of the sermons. Less than one in five were grounded in or related in any way to the nature, character, and will of God. The issue is not whether the sermons were about God. There are many subjects appropriate for sermons besides the attributes of God. Wells writes that the issue is

whether the reality, character, and acts of God provided an explicit foundation for what the preacher said about the life of faith, or whether the life of faith was presented as making some kind of internal sense without reference to the character, will, and acts of God.[vii]

In this regard more than 80 percent of the sermons analyzed were centered in the experience of man, seeming to indicate that the life of faith does not really require God and the supernatural order. Paul's statement about faith and preaching is relevant at this point, 'Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.' (Romans 10:17).

III. The Interpreter's Presuppositions

Every person who reads the Bible does so on the basis of his own background and assumptions. Though an interpreter may attempt to deal with the text objectively, he will find it impossible to suspend judgment and approach the text completely free of bias of any kind. It is not only impossible to do so, it is not advisable. Each interpreter's own theological tradition is the framework within which he works to interpret the text. It is in that knowledge that he may approach the text intelligently and be prepared to seek out its meaning with some hope of success.

This natural subjectivity is not in itself the problem for New Testament interpretation. The problem with subjectivity is the tendency of the interpreter to approach the text unaware of his presuppositions. This will result in his controlling the meaning of the text with his own unconscious biases. He can, however, identify those preunderstandings that are compatible with the nature of the New Testament and those that are not. Though he will never achieve complete objectivity, he can be aware of those biases that will hinder an understanding of the text's inherent meaning.

The most critical positive presupposition for New Testament interpretation is faith itself. The New Testament interpreter must approach the text in faith if he is to interpret it for a faith response. This is the overarching preunderstanding necessary to a valid interpretation of the text. Sidney Greidanus writes that 'a believing interpreter cannot approach the Bible in a neutral, supposedly objective, fashion but will naturally use a method of interpretation that is informed by that faith commitment.'[viii] He quotes Olthuis as to the necessity of faith on the part of the interpreter of Scripture:

Understanding a text depends on sharing the same sphere of meaning as that text. Thus, an economic text asks first of all to be interpreted economically, a political text politically, and a certitudinal (faith) text from the faith perspective of certitude.[ix]

William Thompson says that the interpreter should being four basic presuppositions with him to the text, all of which reflect his faith.[x] The first is that the nature and activity of God are constant and eternal and good. Secondly, he assumes the continuity of human nature and experience between the ancient world of the text and the present day. Thirdly, he accepts the unity and authority of the Bible, and fourth, he believes in the necessity of Christian experience. Without these faith assumptions the interpreter will be out of phase with the essential nature of the New Testament text.

New Testament interpretation is itself an expression of faith. The interpreter who does not accept the faith of the Scripture writers will not be able rightly to interpret what they wrote. His unbelief will result in a complex set of biases that will close the text to his understanding. Biblical interpretation, like Scripture itself, is a divine/human endeavor. The work of man will be inadequate without the work of the Holy Spirit in illuminating his thinking and disclosing the meaning of the text to him. On the other hand the work of man is vital to the task as well and calls upon the interpreter to come to Scripture with the faith in which it was written.

Even the believing interpreter must beware of pockets of unbelief in his own thinking as he approaches the text. He may be uncertain about the dependability of the Bible. The debate about inerrancy may leave questions in his mind as to the negative effect of the human element in the faithfulness of Scripture. He may be uneasy about the exclusive claims of Christ in a pluralistic day. He may be uncertain because he cannot reconcile doctrinal ideas like free will and determination. He may be reluctant to accept the more radical teachings of Scripture on contemporary moral issues. He may not be at all sure that the principles revealed in the Bible will work in contemporary life. These pockets of doubt will affect his interpretation as he tends to bend the meaning of the text to his own thoughts.

Those who would interpret Scripture faithfully must come to a faith commitment to the faithfulness and authority of the Bible itself. This does not mean they choose to ignore views that cast doubt on the trustworthiness of the biblical text. It rather means that the interpreter comes to a clear decision to accept biblical authority by faith. For the skeptic, no amount of evidence will prove the veracity of the Bible. For the believer, the unanswered questions and problems will not invalidate the trustworthiness of the biblical text. But only the believer can interpret it rightly. So the interpreter can settle once for all that he accepts the authority and veracity of Scripture by a decision of faith. Then, instead of devoting his mental energies to debating the validity of the text, he devotes them to understanding it.

This settled position of full confidence in God and in his revelation in Scripture puts the interpreter in line with the biblical writers. He is able to enter into their thinking and grasp the subtleties of their thought because he has entered into the experience of faith as they did. The believing interpreter is also in line with the work of the Holy Spirit to guide him into the truth. He approaches his interpretive task prayerfully, with the confidence that the Spirit will open the text's meaning to him. He digs in with careful and thorough exegetical work in anticipation that the truths revealed in the text will become clear.

An occupational hazard for the preacher is his tendency to approach his text with his own agenda for its meaning. The pressures of his assignment, particularly for the pastorate, may cause him to disregard the intention of the writer in favor of what he needs his sermon to accomplish. As a result he may unconsciously impose a meaning on the text that was not intended by the writer. This becomes, in practice, a form of reader- response interpretation that the pastor might vigorously reject in theory. Without realizing it he may have let his own preunderstandings and the needs of his ministry control the text and determine its meaning. Consider several of these tendencies of the pastor that affect his interpretation of Scripture.

One bias of the pastor in his interpretation is what we might call the sermonizer's trap. This is his tendency to be looking for a sermon instead of searching out the theological meaning of the text. This desire to find something to preach has him skimming across the tops of scriptural meanings with no desire or intention of plumbing their depths. He looks for something to strike a spark of inspiration and creativity. Whether that creative spark reflects the intended meaning of the text is not as important as its preaching potential. This search for sermon material also affects his selection of texts. He will choose those that readily yield the sermon theme and outline he feels can help achieve his purpose in the church.

The pastor may take a moralistic approach to the text, looking for biblical admonitions he can use to to stir his people up to better behavior. His aim is to straighten them out, step on their toes, or otherwise to challenge them with the error of their ways. There are, of course, many strong moral appeals in Scripture. But the Bible is a mixture of 'is' material as well as 'ought' material. Unfortunately, many a pastor interprets both in terms of moral improvement.

Such a moralistic use of the biblical text undercuts the Bible's own purpose and replaces it with the preacher's agenda. Instead of seeing God as the center of a narrative, the preacher may focus on the human characters because this serves his purpose in challenging his hearers to moral reform. But moral obligation without divine grace does not enhance faith. It rather lays a burden of religious duty on the hearer and gives him further evidence of his failure as a believer.

The pastor may be biased as well toward preaching sermons that are institutionalin their focus. His job as administrative leader of the church has him naturally concerned about its success. Whatever his text on Sunday, he comes to the pulpit with the church's needs on his mind. He may look for texts that offer the best chance of an admonition to the congregation to be more faithful. He wants to see them give more, attend more, participate in outreach, and devote their energies to other institutional matters that will help the church to thrive.

Does institutional preaching encourage faith? Not likely. It is an appeal to people to meet the needs of the church as an institution. There is nothing here to hang ones faith upon. Instead of the inherent meaning of the text, interpretation with this bias focuses on imposed applications about tithing, visitation, attendance, and other efforts that will contribute to the institution. The pastor is rarely satisfied with the congregation's response to institutional preaching. His hearers will begin to sense his disapproval and suspect he is seeking to use them. The outcome is often a loss of confidence and respect between pastor and people.

Ironically, the moral and institutional results the pastor seeks can come only through a faith response. Any other motive will be carnal and unfruitful if not mixed with genuine faith. In his frustration a pastor may be satisfied with any response that seems to get his people moving. But response rooted in selfish desires, legalism, or institutional fervor cannot accomplish the work of God. Paul states it simply, that 'whatever is not from faith is sin.' (Rom. 14.23)

IV. Clearing the Way for a Faith Response

A number of assumptions concerning the New Testament and the interpreter form the basis for this article. Together these ideas also present an argument for approaching the interpretation of the New Testament with a faith response in mind. Let me summarize these ideas before we consider seven principles to guide the interpreter.

(1) The overarching purpose of the New Testament is to make God known in Jesus Christ.

(2) This revelational purpose of Scripture has a further aim of a faith response in the reader.

(3) The only appropriate response to the revelation of God is faith, expressed in worship, surrender and obedience.

(4) The New Testament interpreter should approach the text in harmony with these purposes.

(5) Therefore, the interpreter should make his own aim in handling the text to make God known and call for a faith response.

The challenge in biblical interpretation is always with the reader/interpreter. The writer's world and the text's wording are constant, set and unchanging. Variables that affect meaning are brought to the interpretive process by the reader/interpreter. An analysis of the dynamic interaction of reader and text has helped to identify these complex variables. Nonetheless, we must reject reader-response criticism that celebrates the reader's subjectivity and seeks to formalize it. We recognize that the inherent subjectivity of the interpreter continually threatens to impose a meaning on the text that was not intended in its original writing.

Let me suggest a series of guidelines for interpreting the New Testament for a faith response. They are not intended to be exhaustive or to address the entire interpretive process. Rather they focus on the interpreter and his tendency to clutter an interpretation with his own pre-understandings. To the extent that the word of God as revealed in Scripture is proclaimed faithfully, it will be effective in igniting a faith response in the hearer. The aim of the interpreter must be to bring to the contemporary hearer as clear and accurate an expression of that word as possible. It is to that end that these guidelines are suggested.

1. Seek to identify and neutralize the biases that will tend toward the imposition of a meaning on the text.

The revelation of God in the canon of Scripture is unique and complete. No 'new' message is needed. The theological truths revealed in the New Testament are universal truths for every generation. It is those truths about God and his will that awaken faith and open the way to a new relationship with God through Jesus Christ. To the extent that those universal truths are altered or confused by the biases of the interpreter, to that extent is the dynamic of the biblical message lost, with its faith potential.

It is vital to a faithful interpretation that the interpreter identify and neutralize those assumptions that operate against the biblical message. The danger is that he is not even aware of these biases, and so discovers 'meanings' that were not intended. He will do well to look at the pressures of the pastorate and other preaching and teaching assignments. He will beware the 'sermonizer's trap', the tendency to preach every text in a moralistic way, and the temptation to bend the text toward a self-serving institutional appeal.

2. Cultivate pre-understandings that are compatible with the nature of Scripture and of faith.

Minimizing the subjective element in biblical interpretation does not mean we can eliminate it altogether. Some of the interpreter's pre-understandings are necessary to the interpretive process. The key, again, is for the interpreter to identify and acknowledge his own assumptions. He will examine his theological background, his view of Scripture, and his

own faith, seeking to discern whether these presuppositions are consistent with the nature of the text, effective interpretation, and the dynamics of faith.

The nature of the New Testament text requires a believing reader/interpreter if it is to yield its treasures. He must be willing to adjust his views to that of Scripture. Whatever his contemporary world view, he will leave it open to change and growth as his theology is refined and clarified by exposure to Scripture. He will cultivate that openness, respect, and flexibility in the presence of the text that leaves no cherished assumption immune to reexamination. The whole of the Bible itself is his final authority for understanding God and his will.

3. Commit yourself to discover, as the starting point for interpretation, the intended meaning of the writer.

The best safeguard against a flawed interpretation is a serious commitment to make the intention of the biblical writer the first aim of the interpretive process. Instead of beginning with his own agenda, the preacher must consciously seek to let the text speak in its own terms, even though it may not yield the message he sought in coming to it. Fee and Stuart write that the original meaning of the text is the objective point of control, that 'the reason one must not begin with the here and now is that the only proper control for hermeneutics is to be found in the original intent of the biblical text.'[xi] Osborne emphasizes 'the priority of determining the author's intended meaning as the true core of biblical interpretation.'[xii] Very simply, 'A text cannot mean what it never meant.'[xiii]

New Testament faith is objective, focusing away from the believer to the object of his faith. That objective theological truth will be found in the text writer's intended meaning. The particular details of the text in its original historical setting will point to the universal message. Only as that intended meaning is discerned can its significance for the contemporary hearer be understood. So the interpreter will make his aim to approximate as closely as possible the theological meaning of the text writer. It is the truth of that message that will ignite faith in the hearer.

4. Intentionally pursue a theocentric rather than an anthropocentric interpretation of the text.

Some hermeneutical approaches have tended to make man and his experience the central focus of interpretation. The Bible, on the contrary, is intended to make God known. Its message is essentially theocentric. Only in a secondary sense does it contain truth about human experience. Man is to be understood in light of the person and will of God, not in terms of his own experiences, and never apart from God's intention for him. To interpret the Bible in the framework of psychology, sociology, or anthropology is to miss its essential meaning as theological, and its intended response as faith in God.

The meaning of a text has, nonetheless, great significance for man's experience. The three questions raised in the interpretive process inform us at this point. The question of character calls for a careful examination of the text in its own contexts, asking 'What do we have here?' The central question of meaning seeks to discern the universal theological truth revealed in the text. The question of significance then relates that meaning to the contemporary hearer, asking, 'What is its significance for us?' The interpretive process ends, then, in the declaration of the significance for man's experience of the theological meaning of the text.

5. Clarify your interpretation as carefully worded theological statements of principle.

New Testament faith is cognitive. Cognition is man's ability to receive knowledge, to apprehend an idea. This 'knowing' is the foundation for faith. New Testament faith is also relational, so that the knowing is not only conceptual but personal. But knowing calls for precision of thought. The great weakness of preaching in fuzzy thinking in which nothing very precise or specific is said. It is precise and specific truths about God and his will that evoke faith.

Some New Testament texts offer their truths in propositional form. Most of Scripture, however, is narrative and much is figurative. All of it is particularized to the historical setting in which it was written. The interpreter must translate those particular historical concepts, the underlying ideas in narrative, and the meaning of figures into clearly stated theological principles. As these principles are presented with their contemporary significance, the seed of faith is sown.

6. Communicate your interpretation by the use of rhetorical elements that appeal to the contemporary hearer.

Interpretation necessarily involves communication. Putting the theological concepts that emerge from a passage into words is itself the initial task of communication. The third question ('What is its significance for us?') brings the audience of the interpreter into the interpretive process. He is asking how the meaning he has discovered applies to the contemporary hearers. To communicate that meaning, and thus complete the interpretive process, the interpreter must carefully put the concepts into as precise wording as possible to him and then elaborate on them for the contemporary significance. At this point I am thinking of interpretation as 'interpreting to', focusing attention on the recipients of the interpretation.

This brings us to the use of rhetorical elements: explanation, illustration, argumentation,and application. Each of these rhetorical elements reflects one aspect of the way a person receives a message that energizes his faith. They are normal to any communication. Each element makes a distinctive contribution in the hearer's comprehension of the message. Explanation appeals to the understanding without which faith cannot arise. Illustration provides natural analogies that give the theological concept a point of contact in the thought patterns of the hearer. Argumentation helps overcome rational barriers that would hinder the acceptance of the message and forestall a faith response. Application spells out the practical action necessary for that faith response.

7. Prayerfully expect the Holy Spirit to illumine your understanding of the text's meaning, and that of your hearers as well.

New Testament faith is supernatural. Though the full scope of man's mental capacities is engaged when his faith is ignited, it is nonetheless a spiritual response. The illumination of the Spirit transcends and energizes every human ability. The hearer's understanding, imagination, reason, and volition are all inadequate to perceive the revelation of God unless the Spirit of God makes it known in this supernatural way. The interpreter comes to the text first as a believer seeking the face of God. Only secondarily does he come as a preacher. But he comes always in prayer that the mysteries of the word may be opened to him by the Spirit.

The interpretation and proclamation of the word of God is a divine/human endeavor. However effective the interpreter's exegetical work, his theological analysis, and his homiletical skills, biblical interpretation and proclamation are beyond his abilities. Though God uses man as his agent, he never intends him to operate independently. The interpreter will want to be a knowing participant in the awakening of faith in his hearers, careful to function in harmony with work of the Spirit. Not only does he pray for insight into the intended meaning of the text, he prays for his own faith to be awakened, and for the Spirit to use that message to awaken the faith of others.

If the assumptions of this article are valid, the New Testament interpreter should approach the text from the outset with a faith response in mind, not only his own, but that of any to whom he presents his interpretation. Biblical interpretation is not an academic exercise for intellectual stimulation and entertainment. The interpreter deals with the very word of God. That word was given to be heard. The interpreter becomes a link in the revelational chain as God continues to make himself known to man and call him to theworship, surrender, and obedience of faith.

[i] David S. Schuller, ATS Notes (Vandalia, Ohio: The Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada, June, 1990), p. 2.

[ii] Effective Christian Education: A National Study of Protestant Congregations. A Report for the Southern Baptist Convention(Minneapolis: Search Institute, 1990), p. 22.

[iii] E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Validity in Interpretation (New York: Yale University Press, 1967), pp. 6-8.

[iv] See Grant R. Osborne, The Hermeneutical Spiral(Downers Grove, California: Intervarsity, 1991), pp. 366ff for a thorough summary of the current debate in hermeneutics.

[v] Osborne, p. 367.

[vi] David Wells, No Place for Truth(Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1993), pp. 251, 2.

[vii] Wells, p. 252.

[viii] Sidney Greidanus, The Modern Preacher and the Ancient Text(Grand Rapids: Intervarsity, 1988), p. 105.

[ix] James Olthuis, A Hermeneutics of Ultimacy: Peril or Promise?(Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1987), p. 33, cited by Greidanus, p. 106.

[x] William D. Thompson, Preaching Biblically (Nashville: Abingdon, 1981), pp. 41-43.

[xi] Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart, How to Read the Bible for All its Worth(Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982), p. 26.

[xii] Osborne, p. 367.

[xiii] Fee and Stuart, p. 27.