JardinPrayer
February 10th 2004, 07:30 PM
I horned in on a cool thread between John Reece and Jaltus where they were discussin exegesis with the following post. They've decided to delay further exploration of their original topic, so I decided to horn back out again and spin this off to it's own thread.
Here's what I wrote:
I am just getting started on my hermenutics journey, so I hope some of you will be able to offer some insights that will help me reconcile what I'm learning about the Christian position on valid interpretation of scripture and the secular position.
As a brand new Christian (saved about 5 years ago), I was daunted by the task of reading and understanding the bible. I picked up a book called, "Don't Know Much About the Bible," by Kenneth C. Davis, who claims to be Christian but writes from a more distanced "scholarly" perspective. He cites "bible scholars" but does not use the term "theologan." I was pleased to see how the book followed the structure of the bible - book for book - and asked all the questions most of us have about what it all means, then offered explanations from a "scholarly" perspective. I "learned," for instance, that most bible scholars today believe that Moses likely did not actually part the Red Sea, rather led the Israelites through the "Sea of Reeds," which was easy to wade through on foot, but would deter men on horse or camel back. I was pleased with such a practical explanation for something that seemed so unbelievable and eagerly absorbed everything Davis had to offer. I also "learned" :
So, Moses, then, did not write the Pentateuch as so many Christians claim. There was lots more. It made sense to me (lots of it still does, and I still recommend the book to those embarking on biblical study for the first time) and it made my transition to reading the bible itself much more comfortable.
A few years passed and my church began offering a "Bible Training Institute," which offered a certificate of Theology as part of a sattelite program from Oral Roberts University. I signed up and the first class I was given was Hermenutics. There, I learned that what qualifies one to be an interpreter of the Word of God is much more than a lot of smarts and a lot of scholarly curiosity.
Here is the short paper I was required to write after learning what this particular institution has set forth as appropriate hermenutical conduct and the qualifications of a bible interpreter:
As Christians, we desire to follow God through the acceptance of Jesus’ divine origin, sinless life, and purchase of our salvation with his blood. We yearn to be more Christ-like every day and to feel assured that we please our Heavenly Father with our thoughts, words, and deeds. God has chosen to reveal Himself to us in the written word – the Bible. His messages, His desires for us, His requirements for us as His children, are contained in the pages of the scriptures. In His infinite wisdom, our Father has provided us with a book that must be approached with reverence, respect, hunger, and integrity in order to understand, and therefore, obey its contents. Most of us find this a daunting task. Many of us own bibles and rarely open them except possibly when directed to do so during Sunday services. For those of us in whom the hunger burns, our quest for more illumination on the word of God leads us back to those pages every day. But, we cannot hope to grasp all they have to offer without the aid of interpretation. And, to interpret the word of God properly, there are requirements to be adhered to. Without the science of hermeneutics clearly defined and the art of hermeneutics applied with integrity, we would be lost to all God wants us to know. Here are the qualifications anyone desiring to assume the role of biblical interpreter must possess.
An interpreter must be born of the Spirit and the Word. To be born again (born of the Spirit) means to be connected with the very heart of God’s love. It means we have received the understanding of the new covenant and carry the joyous awareness that Christ lives in us. It is in this most blessed state that we must approach the word of God. Without this rebirth in the Spirit, we are preoccupied with the “self,” and limited in our ability to comprehend a higher authority, the meaning of Jesus’ sacrifice for our salvation, or the concept of eternal life in Heaven. And, without those concepts, the most we can hope to draw from the Word is a legalistic interpretation (literal, clinical, devoid of illumination) that, at best, will give us part of the picture and, at worst, will give us an entirely incorrect one.
An interpreter must have a passionate hunger (and thirst) for the word of God. Hunger is the primary evidence that we have been born again. A newborn baby knows only what its requirements for survival and basic comfort are. His tiny mouth is always searching the enormous new world for sources of nourishment. So it is with those who have received the Holy Spirit and have had their eyes opened to the enormous new world of life in Christ and eternal life with God in Heaven. The promise of the new covenant is such an awesome, vital, beautiful thing, we desire nothing so much as to know more about it, to understand it more fully, and to find new opportunities to live in it. Imagine making an attempt at interpretation without that hunger. Firstly, we wonder if the desire to interpret the word of God would even exist at all. Assuming it does, imagine taking a casual (passionless) approach to it…flipping open to a random page, glancing at a verse, taking a stab at interpretation, and closing the book satisfied your work is complete. Or, perhaps not feeling satisfied your work is complete, but yawning at the thought of spending more than 15 minutes pouring over those dense passages. The requirement of hunger to be a qualified interpreter becomes immediately obvious, does it not?
And interpreter must possess an attitude of humility. Humility means taking your proper place in life – to accept yourself and live your life to the fullest based on what you know of Christ. To be humble is not to be shy or unconfident – it is to show a distinct lack of pride and arrogance that can lead to spiritual blindness. It is to place God higher than anything in your life, including your ministry, your bible study, or anything else. An interpreter, when beginning his/her task with a spirit of humility, gains the grace and blessing of God which can only lead to an illumination of the word. Without humility, how would an interpreter lift meaning out of God’s word? Wouldn’t that be like plugging your ears while someone is talking and then trying to tell someone else what they are saying?
An interpreter must possess an attitude of reverence and respect for the word of God. The bible speaks to us, if only we will let it say what it wants to say. When we approach God’s word with respect, we are much less likely to abuse or misinterpret it. So often, our tendency is to use scripture to project our own ideas. We open the word, lift a passage out of context and wield it like a sword against someone who disagrees with us. The unfortunate result can only be a loss of understanding for both parties involved in that encounter. However, if we open the book aware that God is with us, wanting to show us truth and reverent of the awesome gift that is, it seems undeniable that His gentle grace will light our way and shine through us as we impart our respectful interpretation to others.
An interpreter must accept the total inspiration of the scriptures. While there may be many translations of the scriptures we know as The Bible, at its core, each phrase and thought has been guarded by the Holy Spirit over a period of thousands of years without inaccuracy – preserved intact by God eternally. If an interpreter misses the reality of the inspiration of God upon the writers of His eternal word, s/he will also miss the fullness of the impact of those words. God gave us a commitment – a contract – by choosing to put His word in writing. Our responsibility as interpreters is to make that same commitment to the word by teaching it responsibly, without obscurity. We are to simply and surely state, “This is what God says.”
An interpreter must approach the word of God in true faith. We can know the natural laws and our “reason” functions on what we know. When we add (not replace) faith, we know what else (all things) is possible (miracles). Faith brings an understanding that is otherwise unavailable. God wants us to know and believe his word, so He will not lie. We may be fallible in our understanding, which is precisely why our faith is so vital to our successful interpretation. Once again, without faith, we can, at best, achieve a legalistic understanding, without illumination.
An interpreter must approach the word of God with a renewed mind. When we are born again, we are born of a “new mind,” able to discern what is the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect (Romans 12:2). When a qualified interpreter looks at the word of God with a spirit-filled, renewed mind, it is as if God Himself is whispering directly to his/her heart. Our ability to discern what is, indeed, of God increases many times over and what once seemed like page after page of mysterious, inaccessible text suddenly reads us, speaks to us, and inspires us to Godly achievements. An interpreter who approaches the word from the flesh will be able to provide the Greek, Latin, and Hebrew translations, tell us the origin of a word or the various interpretations of a phrase, but will s/he find God’s message to His children in a lexicon? Not entirely.
An interpreter must depend on the Holy Spirit’s illumination. God brings us truth in three primary ways. There is truth given through revelation (imparted truth), whereby God shows us truth we could not arrive at through reason alone. There is revelation recorded through inspiration by God as the infallible written word. And then, there is truth received through illumination, brought about by the influence of the Holy Spirit, coming full circle as the spirit of revelation. The revelation is the thing we are shown, whereas the illumination is the manner in which it is shown to us. Without these blessings, we are left with reason alone.
An interpreter must maintain a spirit and attitude of prayer. This qualification flows naturally from the previous one. If we wait on God in prayer, He will reveal His will to us. Without it, we once again are left to rely on our fallible reason. With openness, prayer, sincerity, and truth, we can approach the word of God in a manner that will yield rich rewards.
An interpreter must meditate on the Word. To meditate is to think deeply, ponder, talk with oneself. An interpreter should ask a question and then answer it with the word. God says very clearly in Joshua 1:8 that we are to meditate on His law day and night in order to guarantee our success. How often have we had a spontaneous reaction to something a loved one has said to us, then, upon reflection, realized we got it all wrong? God’s word is not something that can be approached casually or carelessly. Indeed, no task of interpretation, biblical or otherwise, can be successful without meditation. And in meditation, we provide an environment for God to speak to us directly truths that will be confirmed and illuminated when we next open the pages of His word.
An interpreter must be intellectually honest. Jesus describes in the parable of the sower, the various fates of those who encounter the word. He describes two types of people who may hear the word, but not believe, or believe for a while but fall away in time of testing. Those with intellectual honesty – the capacity to see the truth in the word and hold it precious – will prosper, we are told. We can, and often do, make the word say whatever we want it to. The very same verse can be used by the same person to “prove” two opposing points on separate occasions! This approach to interpretation cannot fulfill or satisfy, for it is fruitless.
An interpreter must recognize the unity of the Spirit and the Word. The goal of hermeneutics is knowing God and being His people…that is why we do the task. It is the Holy Spirit that keeps us mindful of that. The role of the Holy Spirit in hermeneutics is to integrate the academic and spiritual sides of interpretation appropriately (not necessarily evenly). The Spirit of God will never contradict the word. So, if you believe you have received a gift of the Spirit and it cannot be supported by scripture, you will realize your flaw in interpretation. The Holy Spirit gives the interpreter an awareness of relationship with God through Jesus Christ, and then puts him/her into that relationship.
An interpreter must recognize the unity and harmony of progressive revelation in the scripture. The law came by Moses from God. Grace came by Jesus from God. The old testament is full of symbolism pointing to things fulfilled in the new testament. God shows the progressive revelation of truth and salvation to man in the written word. If it was preserved in the bible, it is relevant to man. An interpreter who recognizes this will be able to see trends, patterns, symbols that would easily elude him/her otherwise. Without the recognition of progressive revelation, we would simply see stories of lineage, obedience, disobedience, miracles, and mysteries – flat and limited in relevance and meaning to man throughout the centuries to follow.
An interpreter must understand the relationship of the Old and New Testaments. Let us examine the story of Abraham and Sarah, who, having a promise of a child from God, decided to “help God along,” by compensating for their advanced age in turning to Hagar. Hagar and Ishmael represent the Old Testament – the promise of God to the Israel of the flesh. Even then, God saw through the centuries and millennia and knew He would send us the Christ. Ishmael was loved as the seed of Abraham and given a nation by God, however, when Sarah’s promise was fulfilled and Isaac was born, we see a symbol of the New Testament, and the new Israel – the spiritual Israel – the Israel that comes to the Father through faith rather than flesh. Succinctly put, Christ is, in fact, the theme of both the Old and New Testaments. However, an interpreter must be able to recognize the relationship, as discussed above, in order to see the true message.
An interpreter must be diligent in the use of study resources. We have had a couple of thousand years to compile a number of valuable resources to help us study the word of God. Among those that we have at our disposal are concordances, study notes, intralinears, maps, chronological bibles, and bible dictionaries and encyclopedias. There are even some resources we might not initially consider, like names and customs books. In such a text, an interpreter can learn what a “covenant” or “sacrifice” really means in the context of the time and place it was taking place according to scripture. In today’s western culture, it is not intuitive to understand what is meant when we say Jesus was offered by God as a sacrifice for our sins and that his blood purchased our salvation. We can say it, but do we truly understand what that means? We don’t make sacrifices in our culture, so how can we understand the significance of this without a little research. How many times does an unsaved person hear the words, “Christ died for your sins,” and is unmoved simply because the concept is totally lost on them? Equally perilous to the interpreter is coming to the task with pre-conceived notions of what meaning s/he will find in the word. A fresh start is vital, however that does not mean it is necessary to completely reinvent the wheel. The tools and resources available to an interpreter allow us an access to illumination that is unsurpassed by those of previous generations. They are gifts and should be used with gratitude.
An interpreter must be of sound mind. “For God did not give us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and of a sound mind.” (2 Timothy 1:7). Timothy reminds us of this, perhaps because it not native to man to have complete confidence in things not seen and to stand certain in the face of criticism. Our soundness of mind is a gift from God. Should we interpret with the Holy Spirit influence at the wheel, we should not fear being called “crazy.” We are promised clearly – there is almost no interpretation necessary to start us on the path to correct and appropriate interpretation. Herein we see the beauty, perfection, aesthetic sense, and tremendous love of God.
I wrote this to conform to the teachings of the class, but have wrestled with the parts of me that want to stick to the practical methods and the explanations they yield and the guidance of the Holy Spirit for my teacher. I'll end now and open this to discussion (or smackdown, as the case may be!).
Here's what I wrote:
I am just getting started on my hermenutics journey, so I hope some of you will be able to offer some insights that will help me reconcile what I'm learning about the Christian position on valid interpretation of scripture and the secular position.
As a brand new Christian (saved about 5 years ago), I was daunted by the task of reading and understanding the bible. I picked up a book called, "Don't Know Much About the Bible," by Kenneth C. Davis, who claims to be Christian but writes from a more distanced "scholarly" perspective. He cites "bible scholars" but does not use the term "theologan." I was pleased to see how the book followed the structure of the bible - book for book - and asked all the questions most of us have about what it all means, then offered explanations from a "scholarly" perspective. I "learned," for instance, that most bible scholars today believe that Moses likely did not actually part the Red Sea, rather led the Israelites through the "Sea of Reeds," which was easy to wade through on foot, but would deter men on horse or camel back. I was pleased with such a practical explanation for something that seemed so unbelievable and eagerly absorbed everything Davis had to offer. I also "learned" :
So, Moses, then, did not write the Pentateuch as so many Christians claim. There was lots more. It made sense to me (lots of it still does, and I still recommend the book to those embarking on biblical study for the first time) and it made my transition to reading the bible itself much more comfortable.
A few years passed and my church began offering a "Bible Training Institute," which offered a certificate of Theology as part of a sattelite program from Oral Roberts University. I signed up and the first class I was given was Hermenutics. There, I learned that what qualifies one to be an interpreter of the Word of God is much more than a lot of smarts and a lot of scholarly curiosity.
Here is the short paper I was required to write after learning what this particular institution has set forth as appropriate hermenutical conduct and the qualifications of a bible interpreter:
As Christians, we desire to follow God through the acceptance of Jesus’ divine origin, sinless life, and purchase of our salvation with his blood. We yearn to be more Christ-like every day and to feel assured that we please our Heavenly Father with our thoughts, words, and deeds. God has chosen to reveal Himself to us in the written word – the Bible. His messages, His desires for us, His requirements for us as His children, are contained in the pages of the scriptures. In His infinite wisdom, our Father has provided us with a book that must be approached with reverence, respect, hunger, and integrity in order to understand, and therefore, obey its contents. Most of us find this a daunting task. Many of us own bibles and rarely open them except possibly when directed to do so during Sunday services. For those of us in whom the hunger burns, our quest for more illumination on the word of God leads us back to those pages every day. But, we cannot hope to grasp all they have to offer without the aid of interpretation. And, to interpret the word of God properly, there are requirements to be adhered to. Without the science of hermeneutics clearly defined and the art of hermeneutics applied with integrity, we would be lost to all God wants us to know. Here are the qualifications anyone desiring to assume the role of biblical interpreter must possess.
An interpreter must be born of the Spirit and the Word. To be born again (born of the Spirit) means to be connected with the very heart of God’s love. It means we have received the understanding of the new covenant and carry the joyous awareness that Christ lives in us. It is in this most blessed state that we must approach the word of God. Without this rebirth in the Spirit, we are preoccupied with the “self,” and limited in our ability to comprehend a higher authority, the meaning of Jesus’ sacrifice for our salvation, or the concept of eternal life in Heaven. And, without those concepts, the most we can hope to draw from the Word is a legalistic interpretation (literal, clinical, devoid of illumination) that, at best, will give us part of the picture and, at worst, will give us an entirely incorrect one.
An interpreter must have a passionate hunger (and thirst) for the word of God. Hunger is the primary evidence that we have been born again. A newborn baby knows only what its requirements for survival and basic comfort are. His tiny mouth is always searching the enormous new world for sources of nourishment. So it is with those who have received the Holy Spirit and have had their eyes opened to the enormous new world of life in Christ and eternal life with God in Heaven. The promise of the new covenant is such an awesome, vital, beautiful thing, we desire nothing so much as to know more about it, to understand it more fully, and to find new opportunities to live in it. Imagine making an attempt at interpretation without that hunger. Firstly, we wonder if the desire to interpret the word of God would even exist at all. Assuming it does, imagine taking a casual (passionless) approach to it…flipping open to a random page, glancing at a verse, taking a stab at interpretation, and closing the book satisfied your work is complete. Or, perhaps not feeling satisfied your work is complete, but yawning at the thought of spending more than 15 minutes pouring over those dense passages. The requirement of hunger to be a qualified interpreter becomes immediately obvious, does it not?
And interpreter must possess an attitude of humility. Humility means taking your proper place in life – to accept yourself and live your life to the fullest based on what you know of Christ. To be humble is not to be shy or unconfident – it is to show a distinct lack of pride and arrogance that can lead to spiritual blindness. It is to place God higher than anything in your life, including your ministry, your bible study, or anything else. An interpreter, when beginning his/her task with a spirit of humility, gains the grace and blessing of God which can only lead to an illumination of the word. Without humility, how would an interpreter lift meaning out of God’s word? Wouldn’t that be like plugging your ears while someone is talking and then trying to tell someone else what they are saying?
An interpreter must possess an attitude of reverence and respect for the word of God. The bible speaks to us, if only we will let it say what it wants to say. When we approach God’s word with respect, we are much less likely to abuse or misinterpret it. So often, our tendency is to use scripture to project our own ideas. We open the word, lift a passage out of context and wield it like a sword against someone who disagrees with us. The unfortunate result can only be a loss of understanding for both parties involved in that encounter. However, if we open the book aware that God is with us, wanting to show us truth and reverent of the awesome gift that is, it seems undeniable that His gentle grace will light our way and shine through us as we impart our respectful interpretation to others.
An interpreter must accept the total inspiration of the scriptures. While there may be many translations of the scriptures we know as The Bible, at its core, each phrase and thought has been guarded by the Holy Spirit over a period of thousands of years without inaccuracy – preserved intact by God eternally. If an interpreter misses the reality of the inspiration of God upon the writers of His eternal word, s/he will also miss the fullness of the impact of those words. God gave us a commitment – a contract – by choosing to put His word in writing. Our responsibility as interpreters is to make that same commitment to the word by teaching it responsibly, without obscurity. We are to simply and surely state, “This is what God says.”
An interpreter must approach the word of God in true faith. We can know the natural laws and our “reason” functions on what we know. When we add (not replace) faith, we know what else (all things) is possible (miracles). Faith brings an understanding that is otherwise unavailable. God wants us to know and believe his word, so He will not lie. We may be fallible in our understanding, which is precisely why our faith is so vital to our successful interpretation. Once again, without faith, we can, at best, achieve a legalistic understanding, without illumination.
An interpreter must approach the word of God with a renewed mind. When we are born again, we are born of a “new mind,” able to discern what is the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect (Romans 12:2). When a qualified interpreter looks at the word of God with a spirit-filled, renewed mind, it is as if God Himself is whispering directly to his/her heart. Our ability to discern what is, indeed, of God increases many times over and what once seemed like page after page of mysterious, inaccessible text suddenly reads us, speaks to us, and inspires us to Godly achievements. An interpreter who approaches the word from the flesh will be able to provide the Greek, Latin, and Hebrew translations, tell us the origin of a word or the various interpretations of a phrase, but will s/he find God’s message to His children in a lexicon? Not entirely.
An interpreter must depend on the Holy Spirit’s illumination. God brings us truth in three primary ways. There is truth given through revelation (imparted truth), whereby God shows us truth we could not arrive at through reason alone. There is revelation recorded through inspiration by God as the infallible written word. And then, there is truth received through illumination, brought about by the influence of the Holy Spirit, coming full circle as the spirit of revelation. The revelation is the thing we are shown, whereas the illumination is the manner in which it is shown to us. Without these blessings, we are left with reason alone.
An interpreter must maintain a spirit and attitude of prayer. This qualification flows naturally from the previous one. If we wait on God in prayer, He will reveal His will to us. Without it, we once again are left to rely on our fallible reason. With openness, prayer, sincerity, and truth, we can approach the word of God in a manner that will yield rich rewards.
An interpreter must meditate on the Word. To meditate is to think deeply, ponder, talk with oneself. An interpreter should ask a question and then answer it with the word. God says very clearly in Joshua 1:8 that we are to meditate on His law day and night in order to guarantee our success. How often have we had a spontaneous reaction to something a loved one has said to us, then, upon reflection, realized we got it all wrong? God’s word is not something that can be approached casually or carelessly. Indeed, no task of interpretation, biblical or otherwise, can be successful without meditation. And in meditation, we provide an environment for God to speak to us directly truths that will be confirmed and illuminated when we next open the pages of His word.
An interpreter must be intellectually honest. Jesus describes in the parable of the sower, the various fates of those who encounter the word. He describes two types of people who may hear the word, but not believe, or believe for a while but fall away in time of testing. Those with intellectual honesty – the capacity to see the truth in the word and hold it precious – will prosper, we are told. We can, and often do, make the word say whatever we want it to. The very same verse can be used by the same person to “prove” two opposing points on separate occasions! This approach to interpretation cannot fulfill or satisfy, for it is fruitless.
An interpreter must recognize the unity of the Spirit and the Word. The goal of hermeneutics is knowing God and being His people…that is why we do the task. It is the Holy Spirit that keeps us mindful of that. The role of the Holy Spirit in hermeneutics is to integrate the academic and spiritual sides of interpretation appropriately (not necessarily evenly). The Spirit of God will never contradict the word. So, if you believe you have received a gift of the Spirit and it cannot be supported by scripture, you will realize your flaw in interpretation. The Holy Spirit gives the interpreter an awareness of relationship with God through Jesus Christ, and then puts him/her into that relationship.
An interpreter must recognize the unity and harmony of progressive revelation in the scripture. The law came by Moses from God. Grace came by Jesus from God. The old testament is full of symbolism pointing to things fulfilled in the new testament. God shows the progressive revelation of truth and salvation to man in the written word. If it was preserved in the bible, it is relevant to man. An interpreter who recognizes this will be able to see trends, patterns, symbols that would easily elude him/her otherwise. Without the recognition of progressive revelation, we would simply see stories of lineage, obedience, disobedience, miracles, and mysteries – flat and limited in relevance and meaning to man throughout the centuries to follow.
An interpreter must understand the relationship of the Old and New Testaments. Let us examine the story of Abraham and Sarah, who, having a promise of a child from God, decided to “help God along,” by compensating for their advanced age in turning to Hagar. Hagar and Ishmael represent the Old Testament – the promise of God to the Israel of the flesh. Even then, God saw through the centuries and millennia and knew He would send us the Christ. Ishmael was loved as the seed of Abraham and given a nation by God, however, when Sarah’s promise was fulfilled and Isaac was born, we see a symbol of the New Testament, and the new Israel – the spiritual Israel – the Israel that comes to the Father through faith rather than flesh. Succinctly put, Christ is, in fact, the theme of both the Old and New Testaments. However, an interpreter must be able to recognize the relationship, as discussed above, in order to see the true message.
An interpreter must be diligent in the use of study resources. We have had a couple of thousand years to compile a number of valuable resources to help us study the word of God. Among those that we have at our disposal are concordances, study notes, intralinears, maps, chronological bibles, and bible dictionaries and encyclopedias. There are even some resources we might not initially consider, like names and customs books. In such a text, an interpreter can learn what a “covenant” or “sacrifice” really means in the context of the time and place it was taking place according to scripture. In today’s western culture, it is not intuitive to understand what is meant when we say Jesus was offered by God as a sacrifice for our sins and that his blood purchased our salvation. We can say it, but do we truly understand what that means? We don’t make sacrifices in our culture, so how can we understand the significance of this without a little research. How many times does an unsaved person hear the words, “Christ died for your sins,” and is unmoved simply because the concept is totally lost on them? Equally perilous to the interpreter is coming to the task with pre-conceived notions of what meaning s/he will find in the word. A fresh start is vital, however that does not mean it is necessary to completely reinvent the wheel. The tools and resources available to an interpreter allow us an access to illumination that is unsurpassed by those of previous generations. They are gifts and should be used with gratitude.
An interpreter must be of sound mind. “For God did not give us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and of a sound mind.” (2 Timothy 1:7). Timothy reminds us of this, perhaps because it not native to man to have complete confidence in things not seen and to stand certain in the face of criticism. Our soundness of mind is a gift from God. Should we interpret with the Holy Spirit influence at the wheel, we should not fear being called “crazy.” We are promised clearly – there is almost no interpretation necessary to start us on the path to correct and appropriate interpretation. Herein we see the beauty, perfection, aesthetic sense, and tremendous love of God.
I wrote this to conform to the teachings of the class, but have wrestled with the parts of me that want to stick to the practical methods and the explanations they yield and the guidance of the Holy Spirit for my teacher. I'll end now and open this to discussion (or smackdown, as the case may be!).