The Spirit and critical study (2)
In my previous mail service, I highlighted the dilemma we find ourselves in when there is a noise between our feel of hearing God speak through Scripture and our experience of engaging in more cogitating study of the same texts. I characterised these 2 sets of experiences as follows:
Immediacy — Delay
Clarity — Ambivalence
Relevance — Distance
Familiarity — Strangeness
In that location are two possible responses to this dilemma. A common one is to retreat from the right hand side, and have refuge in the left. There are multiple problems with this. For i, we deny that the dynamic on the right is present in Scripture. For another, nosotros also accept to deny that we detect the dynamic on the correct nowadays in our own feel and in the experiences of others in our fellowship. To stick with the left means endmost ourselves down culturally and relationally, and in the cease refusing to grow and learn. We get stuck in a cornball moment that is frozen in fourth dimension, some short while afterward nosotros first came to faith.
Only an equally popular response is to move to the right and abandon the left manus side. This can be constitute easily enough inside academic theology, either among those of no organized religion or those who would accept formerly described themselves as people of organized religion. And it is not uncommon to find this response amongst people who were told that, to be disciples, theyhad to remain on the left hand side, then when the dissonance became too much, they 'popped' over to the right. And this side, in its fullest class, is not hospitable to faith. As Paul Ricoeur highlights, criticism creates a desert, considering putting the 'self' at the heart as the perceiving bailiwick makes all other things the object of study, to be scrutinised and assessed rather than engaged with—to exist treated with a 'hermeneutic of suspicion' rather than a 'hermeneutic of retrieval'. Yet, Ricoeur goes on to say, those who wish to alive accurate lives long to exist 'called again, beyond the desert of criticism.'
This kind of response is besides found (information technology seems to me) amongst those who say 'The evangelical/charismatic tradition was important to me in the past' but cannot own it now. Very often the things on the left are the things that brought them to faith, merely they feel that the things on the right are the ones that are bringing them maturity. This creates a real paradox, in that it appears that 'mature' faith does not have the power to bring others to new faith—which must be at odds with just about every matter that we read in the Bible itself.
It is, in fact, possible to live with and continue to inhabit both sides of this dilemma—but to do so requires the formation of a particular attitude, or (perhaps better) the formation of certain characteristics or qualities.
The first ispatience. If 'beloved is patient' (1 Cor 13.four) and if nosotros dear God, shouldn't we be patient with God? We unremarkably recall of an unanswered prayer as one that has not been answered instantly, rather than (for example, from 'Heavenly Man' Pastor Yun's story) later on five months of intense intercession. Are we prepared both to listen carefully, expecting to hear God, but also patiently, read to wait if nosotros don't hear immediately? Just such patient attentiveness is surely the mark of maturity hither.
The 2d isdiscernment, which is perhaps the supreme gifting of the Spirit. I explored previously how 'judgement' was closely associated with the work of the Spirit; it must also surely be continued with the prophetic, which involves discerning what God is doing and maxim, and this explains why they are linked together in 1 Cor 12.10. Discernment or judgement is merely needed when at that place is ambivalence or a conflict of views; where there is clarity and unanimity, discernment has no office.
The third quality needed is the perhaps surprising one of discipline. In his Grove bookletScripture and Authorization Today,Richard Bauckham talks of the need for a 'historically disciplined imagination' in the process of constructing meaning as we read Scripture. Since there is a distance betwixt the context we are in and the context of the text, there is a claiming to connect the two. Meaning cannot reside in the text alone, every bit this leaves it at a altitude from the states. Neither can meaning reside in ourselves as readers, since we then brand the text mean what nosotros want it to. No, significant must reside in the disciplined interaction between modern reader and ancient text if we are going to be genuinely open to what God is saying to the states through it.
Finally, in inbound the strange and often unfamiliar world of Scripture, we need the quality of wisdom.Richard Briggs suggests (in Reading the Bible Wisely) that this is the key virtue we need. There is familiarity in Scripture—in the characters and their situations we often find our ain situations mirrored. Only we need to exist wise in this, and deep familiarity is ane that has to be learnt, every bit we recognise that Scripture'southward logic and outlook is often very unlike from our own.
These four things then take their place in our experiences as follows:
Immediacy — Patience — Delay
Clarity — Discernment — Ambiguity
Relevance — Field of study — Distance
Familiarity — Wisdom — Strangeness
It is clear that the work of the Spirit in these iv areas is essential for our reading. (If you are in doubt of that, consider a context of Bible reading where these 4 qualities are absent.) But it is too clear that the Spirit's role isnon to bring additional information, or to be part of a technique, or to supply a magic reply that we would non otherwise have had access to. The role of the Spirit in us every bit readers must exist coordinating to the role of the Spirit in the get-go writers of Scripture—forming them, giving insight and allowing discernment, rather than dictating words.
To agree on to both sides will involve both criticism of possible meanings of the text we are reading, only likewise a realist commitment to discern and to human activity on what nosotros find. To do this, nosotros demand to emulate Paul's approach in i Cor 14.xv: I will (pray/study) with the Spirit but I will (pray/report) with my mind also. And if we practise so, this will be very bonny to others. People do want answers but they don't just desire simplistic answers, and answers that have been sifted and thought through will exist answers that take credibility.
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