Patterns, Legalism and Grace: J. D. Thomas

February 9, 2009

 Patternism and a healthy theology of grace are not mutually exclusive. 

A previous post noted that Alexander Campbell did not make his particular understanding of the apostolic pattern a test of fellowship. The “ancient order” was not a soteriological category for him. Rather, it was a  matter of communal sanctification, a matter of growth, development and maturation. Consequently, he regarded other communities of faith than his own Christian.  What would “all that we have written on the unity of Christians on apostolic grounds” mean, he asked, “had we taught that all Christians in the world were already united in our own community?” (Millennial Harbinger 1837).

In this post I turn my attention to J. D. Thomas (1910-2004), Professor of Bible at Abilene Christian University for thirty-three years. He is the author of probably the most significant hermeneutical manual for Churches of Christ–We Be Brethren (1958).  It assumes (practically everyone assumed it in the 1950s), explains and applies the command, example, and inference (CEI) hermeneutic in some detail. The issue the illicited the book was the raging controversy surrounding institutionalism.

Between 1950-1970 about 10% of Churches of Christ banded together as non-institutional congregations. The issues are both broad and narrow. Broadly, these congregations rejected the cultural assimiliation of Churches of Christ, as they saw it, into the mainstream of American denominationalism. Narrowly, they opposed the use of church funds (collected in the church treasury for kingdom work) to support human institutions (incoporated entitites like schools, children’s homes, mission boards [e.g., sponsoring congregations], or any parachurch organization). To these churches the support of such human institutions to do the work of the church is analogous to the support of missionary societies to do the work of the church.

Churches of Christ were generally agreed upon an apostolic pattern in the 1940s:  five acts of worship (a capella singing, praying, teaching, Lord’s supper, and giving), congregational polity with a plurality of elders and deacons, silence of women in the assembly except for singing, etc. This was supported by the standard hermeneutic: command, example and inference (CEI). But the institutional controversy raised specific questions about how to use church funds and how to apply the received hermeneutic.

Thomas defends patternism, explains the hermeneutic and applies it to institutional issues. Roy E. Cogdill (1907-1985), one of the premier defenders of noninstitutionalism in the 1950s-1960s, reviewed Thomas’ book in 1959. That review, a series of articles, is available here. For Thomas, the NT contains a pattern–”a teaching that is binding or required of Christians today” and the “pattern principle” is “what bound the New Testament characters binds us, and what did not bind them does not bind us.”  And this pattern is “established by command, necessary inference, and example” (p. 254).

Thomas provided guidelines for how to apply the hermeneutic. His book has a glossary to define terms such as “generic authority,” “incomplete command,” “hypothesis of uniformity,” “hypothesis of universal application,” “excluded specific,” “overlapping classification,”  and “expedient.”  Sounds fairly technical, huh? Well, that is the point–Thomas took the standard CEI hermeneutic and gave it a “scientific” formulation in hopes of adjudicating the dispute between institutionalists and noninstitutionalists. My question has become–is reading the Bible for discipleship really that difficult?  See my series on “It Ain’t That Complicated.”

At the same time, Thomas is very concerned that the debate between institutionalists and noninstitutionalists reflects–on both sides–a deficient theology of grace. “Our real problem, and the place where we have become ‘bogged down’,” Thomas writes, “is in our tendencies to Legalism” (p. 119).  And “we should admit that we have all had Legalistic tendencies throughout the whole Brotherhood in tim past” (p. 116).  Hear his plea (239, 241):

The man who has not yet realized what it means that the Christian religion is a non-Legalistic, grace-faith system has not yet been able to be thrilled by its true meaning and beauty…When we truly realize the relatinship of faith and owrks in the Christian system–that we work because of our faith and to complete it, and not because of our relation to the Saviour, we find motivation for working even ‘beyond our power,’ yet with the greatest happiness and joy as children of the Most High God!…Matters such as ‘Love the Lord with all your heart,’ and ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,’ and ‘Christ liveth in me,’ cannot be reduced to little precise legal obligations.  Too many of us have thought of Christianity in too small terms and we have therefore failed to see its majesty and immensity and transcendent grandeur…All of us who have been in the church very long have been guilty of some Legalistic inclinations….none of us are ‘without sin.’ We have all no doubt argued strongly for points that we actually were not able to clearly prove to others. Perhaps there has been a degree of selfishness in the most of us, in being critical of the views of others without the ability to show clearly whereiin we were right. Tolerance, humility and a greater love for the Lord and for each other are in order if we want to solve our problems (and if we want to be saved). We must appreciate the fact that WE do BE BRETHERN, and that the tie that binds us in Christian unity is more important than our opinions.

 J. D. Thomas once told me that he was significantly influenced by the teaching and writing of K. C. Moser and that Moser’s understanding of grace was exactly the same as R. C. Bell, another of Thomas’ heroes in the faith and a primary representative of the Tennessee Tradition.  In fact,  Thomas once recalled that both R. C. Bell and G. C. Brewer were among the few who had a “good comprehension of grace” in mid-20th century Churches of Christ (Firm Foundation, “Law and Grace (2) 100 [23 August 1983] 579). And, I have argued, that it was partly the teaching of R. C. Bell and J. D. Thomas at Abilene Christian University that paved the way for a shift in the Texas Tradition toward a Tennessee (e.g., G. C. Brewer, K. C. Moser, James A. Harding) understanding of grace (see Thomas, The Biblical Doctrine of Grace). This shift, along with the popularity of Moser’s writings, led to “The Man or The Plan” controversy in the early 1960s. [As an aside, Harding College had actually kept this grace tradition alive through the teaching of J. N. Armstrong, Andy Ritchie, F. W. Mattox, and ultimately Jimmy Allen; and Harding College Press actually printed some of Moser's writings in the 1950s.]

My point is that though J. D. Thomas was a good patternist–a defender of patternism and CEI as a sound hermeneutic–he nevertheless preached a healthy theology of grace. The two are not mutually exclusive.

The question to pursue, however, is when does patternism subvert the gospel of grace in such a way that it actually becomes a legalism.  That question belongs to a future post.

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

Patterns, Legalism and Grace: Alexander Campbell

February 6, 2009

It is not legalism to seek patterns or to live by patterns.    

It is legalism to use those patterns in such a way that they undermine salvation by grace through faith.

That is my summary of what I thought was the sentiment of Cecil May, Jr.’s concluding comments in his February 3, 2009 Freed-Hardeman Lectureship speech (see my previous post).

In this post and in a subsequent one, I will illustrate how this point has functioned in the thinking of two significant leaders in the Stone-Campbell Movement: Alexander Campbell and J. D. Thomas. Both were patternists (to differing degrees), but did not permit their patternism to trump the fundamental truth of the gospel: we are saved by grace through faith and not by works.

In the 1825 Christian Baptist Alexander Campbell inaugurated his famous series “A Restoration of the Ancient Order of Things.” He thereby introduced “restoration” as a key term in the self-understanding of the Stone-Campbell Movement.  A patternism of some sort inheres in the idea of “restoration” as Campbell used it.

Campbell assumed (1) “there is a divinely authorized order of Christian worship in Christian assemblies” and (2) “the acts of worship on the first day of the week in Christian assemblies is uniformly the same.” The “authorized order” is the “same acts of religious worship” that “are to be performed every first day in every assembly of disciples” (CB 3 [4 July 1825] 164-166). Campbell believed there is a pattern (his favorite word for it, in good Reformed fashion, was “order”). Subsequent essays explained the role of breaking bread (Lord’s Supper), fellowship (contribution), and praise (singing). In addition, the “ancient order” included topics such as congregational polity (bishops, deacons) and discipline.

Campbell’s series intended to identify particulars where the “church of the present day” needed to be brought up to the “standard of the New Testament.” To “restore the ancient order of things” is to “bring the disciples individually and collectively, to walk in the faith, and in the commandments of the Lord and Saviour, as presented in that blessed volume” (CB 3 [7 February 1825] 124-128).

It is clear that the “ancient order” is serious business for Campbell. It is a matter of obedience to the commands of the New Testament. The series was a call to the church of his day to conform to the “order” contained in the New Testament, that is, to conform to the apostolic pattern in the New Testament.

The interesting question, however, is whether he thought the “order” he discerned within the New Testament was a test of fellowship among believers. Did he believe that conformity to this order was necessary to salvation? Was it his intent to identify the marks of the church that defined the true church so that every other body of believers who did not conform to those marks was apostate and thus outside the fellowship of God?

This was implicitly raised in the Christian Baptist by one of Campbell’s critics. Spencer Clack, the editor of the Baptist Recorder, wondered whether Campbell’s “ancient order” functioned similarly to the written creeds to which Campbell mightily objected (CB 5 [6 August 1827] 359-360). Campbell’s response is illuminating. He maintained that his “ancient order” was no creed precisely because he had “never made them, hinted that they should be, or used them as a test of christian character or terms of christian communion” (CB 5 [3 September 1827] 369-370, emphasis mine–and thanks to Bobby Valentine who was the first to call my attention to this statement).

The pattern–the ancient order–was not a test of fellowship. It did not define Christian character. Campbell believed it was biblical and apostolic, but he did not believe obedience to it was a condition of salvation. The pattern was not a soteriological category, but rather an ecclesiological one.

If he did not identify these ecclesiological particulars as tests of fellowship, then what was the purpose of the series? He tells us. He believed that the restoration of the ancient order, though not necessary for fellowship and salvation, was “the perfection, happiness, and glory of the Christian community.” In other words, it was a means toward the unity of all believers. Restoration of the ancient order was not for the purpose determining true vs. apostate churches, but rather to set out a program upon which all believers might unite on the New Testament alone. If everyone would “discard from their faith and their practice every thing that is not found written in the New Testament of the Lord and Saviour, and to believe and practise whatever is there enjoined,” then “every thing is done which ought to be done” (CB 3 [7 March 1825] 133-136). He wanted to “unite all Christians on constitutional grounds” rather than on the basis of human creeds (CB 5 [6 August 1827] 360-61). The “ancient order,” according to Campbell, was the only legitimate (constitutional) and practical means of uniting all Christians, and it enable communities to discard their creeds and stand on the New Testament alone.

Theologically, this essentially means that eccelsiological patterns are matters of sanctification rather than justification (to use the classic terminology of Campbell’s era). The discernment, recognition and implementation of apostolic patterns were matters of growth and maturation. They were not the foundation of the church–who is Jesus, and the confession that he is the Christ, the Son of the Living God–but rather the sanctification of the church in conformity to a constitutional model of reading the New Testament.

Campbell never applied the “ancient order” as either a test of salvation or fellowship.  However, he did attempt to persuade others that a return to the “ancient order” was the way to restore unity to a divided Christianity.

Subsequent participants in the “Restoration Movement” turned the “ancient order” into a test of fellowship as the fundamental identity of the New Testament church, the distinguishing mark between the true church and apostate churches.  That was never Campbell’s intention and he would have regarded it as a subversion of the gospel itself–substituting the “ancient order” for the confession of Jesus as the Messiah as the true test of faith.

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

“It Ain’t That Complicated” — Applied Theological Hermeneutics I –

August 1, 2008

“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, and participation in God’s story. The more difficult part is living out the story rather than understanding it. Complications most arise when our sinful natures resist embracing God’s intent for our lives or we look for something that is not there (expecting something that God did not provide).

Spiritual Process

Understanding the divine drama within Scripture and discerning the divine intent for our lives is as much a spiritual as an intellectual act. Our sinful natures blind our intellects and debilitate our spiritual sensibilities. Consequently, every hermeneutical adventure must begin with prayer.

Every hermeneutical act participates in the cosmic and spiritual struggle to embrace and embody God’s intent for us. Through it we seek to discern the kingdom of God at work in the world and in our lives.

The agent of this spiritual work of God is the Holy Spirit.  The role of the Spirit in redemption is the application of that redemption to the life of the community and individuals, and this includes spiritual transformation. Good hermeneutics is part of that transformation. God created us for hermeneutics (see my series on that point), but chaos corrupted its goodness. The Spirit transorms our hearts and minds to read the Story “better,” that is, we understand, internalize, apply and live it.

We can hinder that process by our attitudes and heart, but the Spirit can also overcome our cognitively misguided hermeneutical conclusions by the power of his transforming presence. In other words, we might have a terrible cognitive hermeneutic, but yet live transformed lives. But the reason for transformed living is not found in how well we have understood everything correctly, but because God has been at work in us. The whole person reads the text, and the Spirit works on the whole person (volition, affections and intellect). Every aspect of the human person needs the transforming work of the Spirit, including our intellects as we read Scripture.  Sin affects our minds and our minds need the Spirit’s redemptive work not merely to read Scripture but to know God more deeply.

Insight is something the Lord gives. For example, after Paul encouraged Timothy to “be strong in the grace that is Christ Jesus” and used various analogies to press his point upon his son in the faith, he paused to ask Timothy to “reflect on what I am saying, for the Lord will give you insight into all this” (2 Timothy 2:6).

We read and then we reflect.  In this hermeneutical process, God will give the insight. It is a synergistic or cooperative act between God and his people.  God gives his witness through Scripture and we read the text. And then we reflect on the text relying on the wisdom God provides because we are assured that God continues to act through Scripture to give insight. God is active not only in the giving of Scripture but also in the interpreting of Scripture through the presence of his Spirit. God gives the fruit of wisdom to those who listen, to those who have ears to hear.

Many think this introduces too much subjectivity in the hermeneutical act.  But subjectivity is part of the process; it is unavoidable.   This is does not mean that there are no objective or empirical boundaries (see my “Created for Hermeneutics” series), but it does mean that discernment, internalization and application involve subjective dimensions of the mind and heart.  There is a danger in both rationality and subjectivity, but locating the hermeneutical work of the Spirit in sanctification and transformation reminds us that it is a process of growing into the image of God in Christ by the power of the Spirit. Both rationality (cognitive thought) and subjectivity (personal reflection) need the transformative presence of the Spirit to lead us to God.

One of the objections to this understanding is that if the Spirit helps us read the Bible, then why don’t we all read it alike? The Spirit is our sanctifier and is at work in believers to lead them to holiness.  But we don’t all have the same level of holiness.  We should not expect more in the hermeneutical arena than we also find in the moral arena. Seeing hermeneutics as part of the broader theological topic of sanctification reminds us that we are all in process, that no one has it completely right, and there is always room for more depth, discernment and insight. There is always room for more growth in understanding as well as holiness. At the same time, there is also room to see a broad consensus or agreement between believers who discern the same theodrama in Scripture and at work in the world today. We confess, for example, that the Father created the world, the Son became incarnate for the sake of our redemption, and the Spirit transforms us into the image of Christ. That is no minimal consensus but the structure of the metanarrative itself!

Simple or Complex?

At one level, I believe the hermeneutical process is quite simple. At another level, it is quite profound.  The Gospel of John, for example, has many simply stated truths but they are nevertheless deeply profound in meaning.  Just as the words and meanings of Scripture can be both simple and profound, so the process is as well.

But profund does not necessiarly mean complex or complicated.

I have argued in an earlier series that the “Command, Example, Inference” (CEI) method of Churches of Christ within the Stone-Campbell Movement is quite complex. It has all kinds of hidden rules about “binding examples,” implied commands, generic/specific categories, prohibitive vs. permissive silence, the law of exclusion, etc.

None of these “rules” are spelled out in Scripture. Rather, they are extraneous rules applied to the text of Scripture from a different hermeneutical paradigm than the literature of Scripture evidences. These rules do not emerge from the nature of Scripture itself, that is, they do not emerge from the genre of the literature. Rather, the rules emerge from the combination of (1) a Baconian framework, (2) a legal goal (what is “authorized”) that invokes a legal hermeneutic designed for legal texts, and (3) a constitutional literary model of Scripture.

I suggest that the understanding and application of those rules is a complicated process that is nowhere near “simple.”  It is only “simple” to those schooled in the rules as if they grew up speaking that language; for them it is “common sense.” For those who were raised with CEI as a hermeneutical method the application of the method is as “simple” as speaking English and they can’t understand why those who speak Spanish don’t understand its simplicity.

But the history of Churches of Christ reveals the illusion. It is not simple. Our history is strewn with divisions over the application of this method–one or multiple cups at communion, Bible classes or no Bible classes, may assemblies be divided, handclapping, instrumental music, Bible Colleges, use of church treasury, kitchens in the building, etc., etc., etc.  All involved the tweaking and use of CEI. The application was not so simple.

A More Simple Way?

My series has assumed that Churches of Christ are at a hermeneutical crossroads.  On the one hand, we may continue the task of “constructing a pattern” out of the details (data) of Scripture and then implementing (obeying) the pattern. The pattern is not there per se. We must discern it, isolate the data, rearrange the data, and put it into a system (pattern) which we can duplicate.  Thus, we have “five steps” of salvation, “five acts” of worship, and “three works of the church” (evangelism, benevolence, edification based on Ephesians 4:12).

We generate the true “marks of the church” such as membership rules, worship rules, polity rules, etc. None of these appear in the text as lists, systems, or rules. Rather, we construct them according to the hermeneutical process we know as CEI.  These are the rules that are regulated by “positive law” (though we may no longer use that term in the 21st century) and are thus necessary for a faithful church, authentic fellowship and “sound doctrine.”

On the other hand, I have been suggesting that we do something which I believe is much more simple but yet also profound.  I have suggested that we:

  • Read Scripture to discern the theological substance (identify the metanarrative).
  • Apply that theological substance to our context (recontextualize the metanarrative)
  • Live that substance as participation in God’s story (participate in the metanarrative)

How does that work practically? Well, that is what I hope to illustrate in this series. 

Through prayer, the transforming work of the Spirit, and communal dialogue, perhaps we can read Scripture in a way that enables us to participate in the theodrama to which Scripture bears witness. This is my hermeneutical goal and I hope this series will draw us into the story so that we might embody the metanarrative in our own lives for the sake of the world in which we live.

 

More to come next week (I hope)…..after a brief trip to the Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio and the Hall of Fame game! 

 

Shalom

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

Theological Hermeneutics X — “Texas Two-Step” or What?

July 4, 2008

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.”

  1. Step One:  The text says “X”
  2. Step Two:  Therefore, we do “X”

This hermeneutic serves a form of restorationism that seeks to reduplicate the New Testament church just as it appears in the New Testament. Do what they did; it is the “safe” way to restore the church. They did “X” (the text says), and therefore we must do “X” (according to hermeneutical and patternistic assumptions). I regard this as a kind of naive primitivism which no one really practices but is nevertheless the rhetoric of Churches of Christ in the 20th century.

But it was never that simple. As we saw with Baconian induction/deduction, it has been far more complicated than that within the heritage of the Stone-Campbell Movement. Indeed, J. D. Thomas’ We Be Brethren laid out the principles for generic/specific, inclusion/exclusion, etc. The rules for understanding the nature of prohibitive silence, laws of exclusion, binding examples, implied commands, etc. are not explicit in the text itself but involve a process of discernment by which we decide in which cases we will do “X” just like Corinth (or Rome or Jerusalem, etc.) did “X” and where we will not do “X” just as they did (e.g., covered heads). In other words, there was always an intermediate third step.

  1. Step One:  The text says “X1″ and “X2″
  2. Step Two:  “X1″ is something intended for the church universal but “X2″ is not.
  3. Step Three: Therefore, we must do “X1″ but ”X2″ is optional.

Step two is the essence of “theological hermeneutics.”  It is a theological step. It is a process by which contemporary readers of Scripture discern the normativity of ethics and ecclesial practices in order to become the community God intended in creation and will bring to fullness in the Eschaton. Step two is about theology, that is, the substance that arises out of the metanarrative that forms us into the image of Christ.

Within Stone-Campbell hermeneutics this middle step is often hidden and sometimes even denied. Nevertheless, it is present in every hermeneutical conclusion.  For example, Churches of Christ have concluded that Scripture mandates that the Lord’s Supper be eaten every first day of the week and only on the first day of the week.  But Scripture never explicitly says this. Rather, we proceed with a multi-step method to get there.

  1. Step One:  The church in Troas ate the Supper on the first day of the week (Acts 20:7).
  2. Step Two:  Assumptions–(a) Troas did this every first day of the week [Paul waited seven days, right?--and certainly not because that is when the ship left. right?]; (b) the text functions to exclude other times because it records this occasion [what it does not include it excludes]; (c) there are no other texts which indicate a specific time for eating the Supper [denying Acts 2:46 or the Lord's on institution of the Supper on Thursday evening apply to the question]; (d) Troas’ eating assumes an implied command to eat on the first day of the week [though no such command appears anywhere in the New Testament]; (e) since the Supper is commanded, there must be somewhere in Scripture where we are told when to eat [thus dictating what Scripture must tell us, and if it must tell us, then we will find it!], etc.
  3. Step Three: Therefore, faithful churches eat the Supper only on the first day of the week and every first day of the week.

It is important to note the nature of Step Two in this example.  Here Step Two applies legal reasoning as if the text is a legal genre. It does not involve a theological reflection on the fact that Troas ate the Supper on the first day of the week and neither does it read Acts 20:7 within the Luke-Acts narrative. Rather, it treats the event as a legal precedent and thus Step Two functions as a legal rationale with a legal hermeneutic.  But Acts is not a legal document; it is a narrative. Step Two, in this case, violates the simple reading of the text in straight-forward grammatical-historical fashion as a narrative. The traditional hermeneutic actually complicates the text rather than simplifying it. The complexity of the traditional hermeneutic is actually quite astonding once one engages the discussions that have surrounded CEI and its applications (how many cups at the table? are Bible classes authorized? the complexities of the instrumental music discussion in terms of generic/specific and expedience/element distinctions, etc.).

This does not mean that all intermediate steps within Churches of Christ were purely legal. Sometimes there is theological reflection and sometimes there is cultural discernment (e.g., most Churches of Christ don’t require covered heads when women [silently] pray in the assembly). But when it comes to ecclesial practices, it usually is a matter of legal reasoning based on hidden hermeneutical and theological assumptions about the role of positive law in the Christian faith, the nature of Scripture as a legal (constitutional) document, and the function of Scripture to provide “legal authority.”

An Alternative Second Step

When approaching a particular text in Scripture, I suggest an explicit and self-aware ”three-step” hermeneutical method.  Again, “steps” are pedagogical devices and not timeless rules. And the number “three” is not sacred either (except in terms of Trinity!). In fact, we can make the three steps into fifty, I suppose.  Yet, I think there are two basic moves:  from (1) text to (2) theology, and then (2) theology to (3)application.  Below I proffer a possible way of thinking through a text theologically along with a simple example (which could be pursued in much greater depth than I do here) that dovetails with my previous post on methodology.

 

Three-Step Method

 

         Step 1:  The Affirmations of the Text:  Exegesis.

                  Contextualized Significance:  What did the text call them to do?

                  Contextualized Meaning:  Why did the text call for this behavior?

 

         Step 2:  Normative Substance of the Text:  Theology.

                  Theological Substance:  What theological substance inheres within the text’s meaning?

                  Redemptive-History:  How is this substance reflected within the theodrama?

                  Theological Center:  How does it cohere with the theological centers of the theodrama?

 

         Step 3:  Application of Meaning to Modern Audience:  Homiletics.

                  Recontextualized Meaning:  How does this substance translate into contemporary culture?

                  Recontextualized Significance:  What does the theology of the text call us to do?

 

Example Text:  1 Timothy 2:9-10.

            I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God.

 

Step 1:  The Affirmations of the Text:  Exegesis.

 

Contextualized Significance:  What did the text call them to do?  Women should dress with “decency and propriety” which means they should not wear clothing that is ostentatious or reflects their noble status.  The context is probably a worship assembly, or at least, the lifestyle of the Christian community.

 

Contextualized Meaning:  Why did the text call for this behavior?  Women ought to give evidence of their piety (theosebeian) through good works rather than through their social standing.

 

Step 2:  Normative Substance of the Text:  Theology.

 

Theological Substance:  What theological substance inheres within the text’s meaning? The substance is humility/service as the proper evidence of one’s piety.

 

Redemptive-History:  How is this substance reflected within the theodrama?  The problem is not expensive clothing per se, or attention to beauty,  but the attitude which divides people according to class and social status.  The principles of redemptive-history reflect the union of God’s people in humility rather than along the lines of social standing  (cf. Amos 4:1-3; 6:1-7).  Arrogance translates into social injustice and luxurious lifestyles (Ezek. 16:49-50; James 5:5).

 

Theological Center:  How does it cohere with the theological centers of the theodrama? Fear of God and humility are paired in Scripture (cf. Prov. 15:33; 22:4).  Humility versus pride is a dominant theme in Scripture (Prov. 3:34; 11:1; James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5).  The basic attitude of worship is humility (Is. 66:2; James 4:10; 1 Peter 5:6). It is the recognition that we creatures rather than the Creator, and as creatures we share the task of imaging God in the world. We see in Jesus himself the display of humility and service rather than pride and luxury.

 

Step 3:  Application of Meaning to Modern Audience:  Homiletics.

 

Meaning Recontextualized:  How does this substance translate into contemporary culture?  The Christian lifestyle must be a humble one (shall we say “simple” one?), and in the context of the worship assembly humble dress is demanded.  Issues of economic lifestyle and modest dress are culturally relative.  The theological substance, however, rejects pride and extravagance among God’s people.   

 

Significance Recontextualized:  What does the theology of the text call us to do?  It calls us to dress and live humbly in whatever cultural setting in which we find ourselves.  What does this mean for American churches and Christians? Anyone dare go there in their leadership within a church? Can we really hear the call of this text in our own setting? Dare we obey it?

 

This is a fairly simple illlustration though it is not without questions itself.  For example, is the theological principle really about humility/service where the problem was the ostentatious dress of women in Ephesus or is the problem more about seductive dress (the accessories of prostitutes)? Perhaps we don’t have to choose since either flows from the fundamental notion of “modesty.”

 

More importantly, this text illustrates that our modern applications do not always reproduce the Pauline application. Paul’s application excluded gold and braided hair from godly female dress, but we certainly don’t exclude such today (e.g., wedding rings).  I don’t think this is a problem.  Rather, it reflects the point that what we apply to the modern believer is not the text itself (“don’t wear gold”) but what we apply is the theological substance of the text (e.g., modesty, humility, service). The applications may vary according to circumstances, cultures and time, but the substance remains the same. And the substance remains the same because it is rooted in the theological reality of God himself revealed within in the theodrama.

 

What’s the Point?

 

If, in practice, everyone does at least a three-step, is not everyone following the same hermeneutical method?

 

Actually, no.  For my purpose, the significant difference between the traditional Stone-Campbell hermeneutic (the “hidden” three-step) and what I have proposed above is the substance of the second step.  While the traditional hermeneutic basically construes the second step as a legal maneuver in order to discern legal authority through a legal hermeneutical lens, I suggest we see the second step with a theodramatic lens.  In other words, instead of seeking “legal authority,” we are seeking how to participate in the theodrama in ways that embody the divine intent and goal.

 

In essence, I am suggesting metanarrative theology is the substance of the second step rather than constitutional law. The theological hermeneutic is to discern the character and mission of God through the theodrama as it culminates in the Christ Event. This discernment, then, enables us to recontextualize that theological substance for our contemporary world.

 

Why Such a Long Series?

 

My intent is not to be original. Indeed, I have learned much from others, and I believe that in many ways this is how Paul himself, for example, read Scripture. He read it with the lens of theological substance through the prism of Christ. [Perhaps I need a series on that to illustrate my point?]

 

I have often heard the critical barb that while many spend their time in deconstructing the traditional hermeneutic (CEI), nothing is ever offered in its place.  I don’t think this is accurate.  What it reflects is that the only hermeneutic that is deemed legitimate is the one the critics already practice or will reach the same conclusions that they cherish (e.g., any hermeneutic which does not conclude that instrumental music is sinful can’t be right).  Anything else, of course, is not as simple, not as coherent, not as practical, etc.  Anything else is not a hermeneutic at all.

 

This is unfortunate. I believe many writers such as Tom Olbricht (cf. Hearing God’s Voice) or C. Leonard Allen (Cruciform Church, especially the new edition) have offered hermeneutical alternatives.  They are not CEI–and that is the problem in the eyes of critics–but they do offer a way of reading Scripture that moves away from the Baconian assumptions of CEI as taught and practiced by traditional Churches of Christ.

 

So, my point in this series as been to offer an alternative–a way to read Scripture theologically.  My formulation is not set in stone; I’m still thinking about parts of it.  I have written this rather hurriedly as a daily discipline.  It is not perfect.  But it is, I think, suggestive of a better alternative.

 

Shall we read Scripture as constitutional law through legal hermeneutical criteria for Step Two?  Or, shall we read Scripture as a theodrama which calls us to participate in the story in ways that image God? Which, in fact, is more coherent with the nature of Scripture itself, Scripture’s own self-description, and its own language? Which one is more biblical?  Which one is more faithful to the nature of Scripture itself? 

 

I’ve given you my answer.  You will have to answer for yourself.

 

In my concluding hermeneutical series–to come shortly after I take a break from this topic–I will attempt to illustrate the method that I have advocated in this series.  In other words, finally, I will get practical.  :-)

 

Shalom

 

John Mark

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

Theological Hermeneutics VII – The Christ Event

July 1, 2008

After a ”deserved” break (for you as well as me), I now return to my series on “theological hermeneutics.” (For the previous articles, see the heading “Hermeneutics” on my Serial Index page.)

My last few posts in this series emphasized the redemptive-historical character of Scripture as a function of the narrative plot of God’s story. In particular, I have suggested (along with others, of course–it is not my invention or solitary insight) that we read Scripture as a Five Act drama: Creation, Israel, Ministry of Jesus, Church and Eschaton. In this reading, it is appropriate to think of Creation and Eschaton as the bookends, the intent (creative purpose) and goal (eschatologial telos), of God’s story. Israel and the Church are the historical implementation of the divine intent within in a broken world with mixed results as both Scripture andecclesiastical history make clear.

In this post I want to suggest that the Christ Event (or, more specifically but not limited to, the ministry of Jesus) is the eschatological realization of the divine intent and goal within history. Whew! I need to unpack that one but it deserves a book. Here is a brief attempt.

What I mean by “Christ Event” is the broad conception of Christology itself.  The “Christ Event” is the incarnation, ministry, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus of Nazareth. It is fundamentally an act of God in and through the flesh to redeem the cosmos.

In this post I will concentrate on the “ministry of Jesus” since it is, I think, often underplayed in the history of theology, particulary in Stone-Campbell theology. Yet we should always think about the “Christ Event” holistically rather than compartmentalizing it or neglecting some of its aspects (e.g., Evangelicals tend to emphasize the death of Christ more than any other dimension–just compare how many songs we sing about the cross in contrast with how many we sing about the ministry or resurrection of Jesus).

The ministry of Jesus is not simply the historical evidence of the messianic office of Jesus (which is its primary function in Stone-Campbell thinking). For example, the miracles of Jesus in this frame are often regarded as simple authentifications of the message rather than eschatological signs of the reign of God.  Neither is the ministry of Jesus simply the active obedience of Jesus to secure active righteousness for the sake of imputation in a Reformation doctrine of justification (as is often the case in historic Reformed theology). For example, the obedience of Jesus is seen more in the context of meritorious achievement rather than a path of discipleship. I want to suggest–without denying the substance of the above–that the ministry of Jesus is itself the implementation of the divine intent of creation and the realization of the eschatological goal within history. It is the climatic moment in the history of redemption because it embodies the intent and goal of God’s story.

On the one hand, the ministry of Jesus is the presence of the Incarnate God at work to reverse the brokenness of the world, that is, the mission of Jesus is to reverse the curse. He is the true image of God–indeed, the one through whom the cosmos was made. He is the true Israel–all that Israel should have been; he is the remnant of Israel. He is the beloved Son of God who lives out the original divine intent in creation as humanity was intended to do. He is the fleshly and personal emodiment of God’s creative intent which should not be surprising since he is the instrument of creation itself.

On the other hand, the ministry of Jesus is the presence of the eschaton. The future arrived in the person and ministry of Jesus. His ministry is an eschatological ministry–he raises the dead, heals the sick, includes the outsider, brings good news to the poor. The eschatological hopes of Israel are realized in the minsitry of Jesus (e.g., Matthew 4:12-17). His death is an eschatological one–it is no mere physical death but a participation in the eschatological death (curse) that hangs over the creation. His resurrection–and this is the easiest one to see–is an eschatological event; it belongs to the future but appears within the flow of history as the firstfruits of the Eschaton. The incarnation itself, I would suggest, is an eschatological reality as the person of God dwells with his people on the earth which is both the original walk of God in the Garden and the hope of Revelation 21:1-4.

Without fully arguing this point, permit me to stress its significance. As the historic instantiation of divine intent and the proleptic realization of God’s eschatological goal, the ministry of Jesus (as part of the Christ Event) is the “pattern” (model, or whatever synonymn or metaphor one might want to employ) for living out the story of God. He is the story of God lived. He is the embodiment of both divine intent and the divine goal. The climax of the story of God appears within history as the fulfillment of divine intent and in anticipation of the appearance of the Eschaton itself. He is the image of God–what God intended his creation to be. He is the Son of Man–not in the sense that he is is human, but in the sense that he is the presence of the Eschaton (“Son of Man” is an eschatological title).

Understood in this way, the ministry of Jesus is the ministry of the church; the mission of Jesus is the mission of the church. I have made this point previously but it is important to stress this in the context of redemptive-historical hermeneutics. The ministry of Jesus is not simply the central act in terms of the middle act of five acts, but it is the central act because it is both the embodiment of the original (first) act and the last (fifth) act. It is beginning, center and goal of history itself. Consequently, the ministry of Jesus is the climactic moment in redemptive history. It serves, then, as the hermeneutical lens for thinking about divine intent and goal as we seek to live out the story of God in the present. The ministry of Jesus–or, speaking more holistically, the Christ Event–is our hermeneutical lens.

Israel was created to be the image of God in the world, but it was flawed. The church was created to be the image of God in the world, but it is flawed. The image of God is lived in Jesus. Neither Israel (as is clear from the Hebrew Scriptures) nor the church (as is clear from the Epistles) are the pattern for the image of God but rather Jesus–the Christ Event–is that pattern.

How this plays out in terms of specific ecclesiological issues that have dominated discussions within Reformed and Stone-Campbell hermeneutics is an important question to which I will soon turn. But the theological substance is what is important to me at this point. It is to see Christology–rather than ecclesiology–as the core pattern for living out the story of God and embodying the narrative of God in our present lives both individually and communally. 

Ultimately, our ecclesiology must be an expression and application of Christology. Ecclesiology cannot stand on its own. Rather, it is built on the foundation of Jesus Christ; it is built on the foundation of the ministry of Jesus. Just as Israel found its fulfillment in the ministry of Jesus, so the church continues the ministry of Jesus. Everything before the ministry of Jesus pointed toward it and everything after the ministry of Jesus should be grounded in it.

Part of my point is that to find the “pattern” for the church in the Acts and the Epistles is to get the cart before the horse. The pattern for the church is the ministry of Jesus. The Acts and the Epistles are illustrations of how the church lived out the ministry of Jesus as it spread across the known world. The Acts and Epistles do not constitute “patterns” (specified, detail instructions about how to “do church”) for the church but rather guides (explanations, interpretations and applications of the “Christ Event”) for how to live out the pattern exhibited in the ministry of Jesus himself who is both the Image (intent) and Eschaton (goal) of God.

17 Comments | Hermeneutics, Theology | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by John Mark Hicks

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