Nurturing the Nations Nurturing the Nations Reclaiming the Dignity of Women in Building Healthy Cultures The Bible

Part 3 THE BIBLICAL FOUNDATIONS 7 The Bible 8 The Trinity 9 Servanthood 10 The Transcendence of Sexuality 11 God’s Maternal Heart

Final Authority! In your culture, what do people base their life and thinking on? What do you think is the final authority in your life?

God’s Self Disclosure His Works – reveal Him to all mankind –Creation – The entire universe including The spiritual and physical realms (i.e. Heaven and Earth) The macro (the furthest galaxies) and the micro (atoms) –Man – The imago Dei His Word – reveals Him to those who would be saved –Written Word – The Bible (O.T. and N.T.) –Living Word –Christ, the living word (John 1:1, 14)

Sola Scriptura: The Scripture Alone

Question: How do we interpret the Bible?

Hermeneutical Principles Hermeneutics: “The art of finding the meaning of an author's words and phrases, and of explaining it to others.” Principle: “the cause, source or origin of any thing; that from which a thing proceeds…” Webster’s 1828

Two Aspects of Hermeneutics 1 st - Exegesis: brings out of the text(s) “the meaning the writers intended to convey and which their readers were expected to gather from it.” –Exegesis deals with the questions: “What does the text say?” “What does it mean?” –It is interested in grammar and history. This has been called the grammatical-historical approach to the interpretation of Scripture.

Two Aspects of Hermeneutics 2 nd - Exposition: has as its purpose to make the meaning of the text relevant to people today in their own cultural setting. –Exposition answers the question, “How does this apply?”

Three Different Approaches to Hermeneutics Which one do you use?

Three Approaches ABC Focus The Bible, The Texts themselves The Human Authors of the text The Reader of the text perception of God Questions Ask! What does it say? What does it mean? What were the authors thinking at the time they wrote the text? Imagine, what does this text mean to me?

Three Approaches ABC Name of approach Grammatical -Historical Approach Higher Critical Method Imaging Approach School of Feminism 1 st Wave Maternal Feminists 2 nd Wave Modern Feminist 3 rd Wave Post-Modern Feminists

Three Hermeneutical Approaches The Grammatical-Historical Approach The Higher Critical Method (HCM) The Imaging Approach

The Grammatical-Historical Approach Focus is on the text itself Answers the questions –What does it say? –What does it mean?

The Grammatical-Historical Approach The Assumptions of the G-H Approach –God existed as the Infinite-Personal God –He revealed Himself through His works and His Word –He has revealed Himself in the scriptures, truly but not exhaustively –The Holy Spirit used, as agency, human beings to record the Scripture

The Higher Critical Method (HCM) This approach views the Scripture as it would any other “classic” literature This has been the tool of the largely non- evangelical, so-called “liberal” church This has been the perspective of religious/ “Christian” 2nd wave feminists

The Higher Critical Method (HCM) The Assumptions of the HCM –Operating consciously or unconsciously from a materialistic set of assumptions –The authors of Scripture were godly men writing from their own personal experience and perceptions of God –Interpretation is to seek to understand the mind of the authors at the moment that they wrote the text –A man-centered approach

The Imaging Approach The focus is not on: – the text itself (GHA) – the writer’s perception of God (HCM) The focus is on the readers’ of the text perception of God This has been the perspective of third wave feminists who seek to re-image and name God It is also, perhaps unconsciously, the perspective of some evangelical feminists

The Imaging Approach The assumptions of the Imaging Approach –Built on a postmodern mindset –There is no meta-narrative –There is a skepticism of both absolute truth of an older age and the rationalism of the modern world –All truth is created by the individual

The Forest Two Ways to Look at Scripture 1 St - “stand in the forest” and study the individual trees (individual verses) 2 nd - “stand outside the forest and examine the forest from the top of the mountain

Basic Hermeneutical Principles

This is HIStory The Person and work of Christ is the central focus of the entire Scripture. This is HIStory - His Story. The Living Word makes clear the written Word.

The Bible is to Interpret the Bible An individual text should be interpreted: –First, within immediate context –Second, within the book itself –Third, within the body of work of the particular author (i.e., Moses or Paul) –Fourth, within the given testament (O.T. or N.T.) –Fifth, within the entire Scripture

The Meta Narrative The Meta Narrative, the big story, the Biblical worldview is to interpret the smaller details.

Clarity The less clear things are to be understood in light of the clear passages.

Prescription vs. Description The explicit teachings (prescription) is used to interpret examples (description).

Silence Where the Bible speaks, I speak; Where the Bible is silent, I am silent!

Distinctions There are some things in Scripture that are True. There are some that are probable. There are some things that are possible.

The Bible and Culture The Bible is to critique our culture, not the culture critique the Bible.

Come Reason Together!