John Mark Hicks

So, what about the assembly?  [“What about lifestyle?” is, of course, an equally–perhaps more–important question, but this has not been the historic location of hermeneutical debates among Churches of Christ though I hope we will spend more time on that question in the future–and sometimes in the past we have, as with David Lipscomb and […]

In this post I will consider the use of 1 Corinthians 16:1-4 among Churches of Christ as a legal prescription or pattern for weekly giving as an act of worship in the Sunday assembly. My purpose is to illustrate the use of the CEI hermeneutic to establish biblical authority. In my next few posts I will […]

“It ain’t that complicated.” My recent series on “theological hermeneutics” may seem complicated. I may have made it look complicated. But I don’t think it is complicated at all. The method for which I argued does call for inductive Bible study, reflection, contemplation, holistic thinking, attention to the plot (metanarrative) in the theodrama, prayer, communal dialogue, […]

Before I pursue the application of my “three step hermeneutical method” to some common ecclesiological issues among Churches of Christ, I wanted to take a “time out” and stress the transformative and fuller meaning of “Bible reading.” This post begins a three post series to that end. In my next two posts I will offer […]

Is the hermeneutical move from Scripture to application a “Texas Two-Step” or something else? Two or Three? By “Texas Two-Step” I do not mean the country/western dance that moves in sync with 4/4 time.  🙂  I am referring to the basic hermeneutical practice of moving from Scripture to application in “two steps.” Step One:  The […]

It is time for another “Stone-Campbell Web Notes” post. [I actually have no schedule–it is my whim based on what I find interesting. And I am the sole determiner of what is interesting in terms of these Web Notes. 🙂 ] If you are interested in some spirited discussion on traditional issues among Churches of […]

In this last post for this series (link to the first post here) I attempt to offer a balanced–both appreciative and critical–perspective on the hermeneutic that has dominated Churches of Christ for most of their history. It was only in the 1960s that this dominance began to crack as journals like Restoration Quarterly and Mission […]

Be grateful–this post is under 2500 words. 🙂 I plan one more on Stone-Campbell Hermeneutics and I will move to thinking about a biblical-theologial hermeneutic for contemporary Churches of Christ. The Distinction between Moral and Positive Law The distinction between positive law and moral law in the modern era finds its roots in Thomas Hobbes’ […]

My first two posts in this series focused on the Baconian and Reformed character of Alexander Campbell’s hermeneutic. My last post described how Churches of Christ have utilized the Baconian method. In this post I describe how Churches of Christ have embraced the Reformed regulative principle and applied it with a Reformed understanding of command, example and […]

Warning:  this is another “brief” post of over 3000 words.  🙂 In the previous two posts I concentrated on Alexander Campbell–his modern Baconianism as his philosophical-methodological base and his embrace of the Reformed approach to theological hermeneutics. In this piece I want to think more specifically about how Baconianism shaped how Scripture was used in Churches of Christ.  […]