Traditionally Unbound Interpretation of Scripture!

This is the inaugural entry in a collaborative blog. Its intent is to collect insights from among a core group of friends, seeking to labor for the Master in His harvest fields. Our hope is to share with one another, and with anyone else with patience to read, what the Lord is teaching us through an honest look through the scriptures.

The guiding principles for our journey through scripture on this blog are the following:

Scripture Interprets Itself -- This is the idea that the biblical authors are consistent in their terminology, and especially in their usage of other scripture. For example, in Matthew 12:31, when Jesus explains that the the Ninevites "... repented at the preaching of Jonas," we can use the description of the event in Jonah 3:5-8 to better understand what was Jesus's concept of repentance.

Context is Sometimes a Whole Book -- Context is not three verses up and three verses down. Expanding the context to the entire book (or more!) helps tremendously. We can understand that Ephesians 3-6 contains not a disparate series of commands, but an illustration of the fruit of the regeneration discussed in chapters 1 and 2. One indivisible message unfolds, and not a series of fragments stapled together.

Cultural Arguments are (Usually) Bad -- I think it's often either a peacock display of scholarolatry or a desire to explain away something we don't want to obey. Whatever the motivation, lots of teachers major on cultural explanations. For example, 1 Cor. 11:5-6 tells us that women should not shave their heads. Well, lest we become judgmental, we would rather say that Corinthian prostitutes shaved their heads, and this instruction is to be culturally interpreted. But culturalizing the principles makes us wonder which other ones might be "merely cultural," and is typically a very slippery slope.

Utility is no Excuse -- Just because a passage can be used for some purpose doesn't mean it should. 1 Cor. 16:2a sounds so much like weekly tithing, that the modern culture sees no other use for the passage. But 16:2b-3 makes it so clear that it was not a normative collection, that we would look like fools to anyone who actually read it if we interpreted it that way.

Scripture Survives Translation -- If a standard, Mark-1 Christian needs a Greek-priest to tell him what the Bible really means, then none of us can really trust what we read. Scholarship is not bad, but as it is often used it's usually unhelpful, especially when it undermines confidence in the Bibles we can hold in our hands.

For other principles, I'll leave it to the comments. Suffice it to say, I hope this blog will become a useful repository (and group-memory), so that the fellowship, debate, and study we find in our community of brethren (and sistren) won't fade away with each passing Thursday.