Transcription
Now, we are going to spend several hours together. In fact, 14 altogether, on one of the most interesting and significant documents in the New Testament: 1 Corinthians. Now, my reason for doing First Corinthians is twofold. First of all, uh, it is simply unparalleled in the New Testament as a place to raise all of the important questions about interpretation. Uh, there are probably more hermeneutical problems per square inch in 1 Corinthians than anywhere in the New Testament. So, we're going to deal with the kinds of things that are involved in hermeneutics. That's the scientific word for interpretation.
And the second reason for going to First Corinthians is that this letter is Paul's attempt to give Christian answers to some very ticklish problems in an early missionary church. Now, Paul's theology is getting a workout on the street, if you will. And that's precisely what we want to happen to our theology. It needs to get its workout on the street. And so the answers that Paul gives to these ticklish problems are extremely important for us today. So, we're also concerned with the content of First Corinthians.
So, what we hope to do then is two things in the process. We want to do some "how-to," uh, with the idea that you can go from First Corinthians to other places in the New Testament and carry the methodology over. This is how to study, uh, the New Testament. Now, I'm going to be working on the basis of the Greek text, but I'm well aware that, uh, we're working together out of an English text, and we'll talk about what that means in the process of this morning's lecture. But, uh, we we want to not only say, "This is what we do," but in the first session, and not only today, but especially in the first hour tomorrow, uh, we're going to spend some time actually showing you, "This is how this is what I'm doing," next kind of thing. Now, after I do that, once that's all from there on, it's just simply going to serve as a model. But at one point, we'll try to show you, "This is what I'm doing," now, and why we're doing that.
So, the first thing then is to talk about Bible study, and hopefully, in the process of that, to give some models. But secondly, then, we want to interpret First Corinthians to get at its content, and of course, to get at what God is saying to us. Now, of course, we're not going to cover all of First Corinthians in 14 hours. And given that our first sessions are going to be introductory and look at the book as a whole, uh, we'll only have 12 hours of, uh, looking at specific sections. So, we're going to take blocks of material, but in the process, we'll cover almost all, uh, the interesting, uh, bits of material.
One of the things we can't do, of course, is to stop at any one piece of text and spend a lot of time, uh, answering all kinds of questions. Now, I'm not going to evade the difficult texts. I know that 1 Corinthians 11:10 says, "Therefore a woman ought to have authority on her head because of the angels." Now, I know that's what the text says. I don't have the foggiest—no, I do. I have the foggiest as to what it might possibly mean, but it's the foggiest, uh, you understand. I'm not going to avoid that text when we come to it. Uh, but on the other hand, I'm not going to pontificate as to the true meaning of that text because it's a very difficult one.
Well, there are lots of texts like that, and if we don't hit every text of that kind, uh, you'll have to forbear, uh, partly because I don't know the answers, but partly because I'm not so convinced that, uh, every single text that has its difficulty is so significant. So, we're going to take paragraphs, blocks of text.
Now, I want to begin this morning by saying some words about the necessity of exegesis and hermeneutics. These are our big words: exegesis and hermeneutics. As I tell the students at the seminary, "Surely, exegesis and hermeneutics shall go with you all the days of your life," as long as you dwell at Gordon-Conwell Seminary, and hopefully beyond.
Now, just definitions. Exegesis is simply the science of interpreting a piece of text. That is, it has to do with what an author said and what he intended by what he said. I tend to put this in my, my own kind of flip language. Uh, exegesis has to do with the "then and there." What was somebody saying when he wrote? Exegesis has to do with the author and his intended recipients, the then and there.
Now, hermeneutics is ordinarily a word that is, is bigger. Exegesis is a part of the whole hermeneutical scheme. But I tend to limit the word hermeneutics to the second question after exegesis, namely, "How do we get from the then and there to the here and now?" That is, if, if something was said back then in that situation, how do we move from then and there into our present situation? How does it become a word from God to us?
Now, I'm going to use these words, and I'm going to—that's why I put them on the board early—because in the process of using, I want you to understand what I'm talking about. Uh, it's easier to use some technical vocabulary along the way, and then we don't have to always, uh, qualify everything with, you know, 15 words or so. So, exegesis and hermeneutics. I want to say some words about why we must do these two tasks of exegesis and hermeneutics.
Number one: God's word comes to most people by way of translation. How many of you here, in fact, can read Greek? Can handle the Greek New Testament? Okay. There are some three or four. Well, that's to your great advantage. The rest of the people here, uh, must read the New Testament in translation. Now, this presents problems, whether you like that or not. And the reason it presents—of course, even knowing Greek presents problems because sometimes it's possible to read the Greek without knowing what it means. But the point is that a translation of the New Testament presents problems because every translation, even those awful things called interlinears, which are not translations, uh, every translation involves interpretation. You cannot possibly translate without having done some exegesis and learning something about the exegetical procedure, because translation is ultimately the crowning fruit of good exegesis.
Now, let me illustrate the difficulty this morning by asking some of you to have, uh, a text to read from four different translations. We're going to look at 1 Corinthians 7:36. And I want somebody who has a King James, uh, Val—okay, then I want somebody who has a New American Standard, okay, right over here, a New American Standard. Now, how about somebody with an RSV, Revised Standard Version? Okay, right down here. And then somebody with the NEB, and I put it down here in the front. Okay. Now, these are four translations of 1 Corinthians 7:36. Now, I don't want you to read the whole verse. I want, I want just that part that, uh, uh, that at the beginning, "If any man has," okay.
Val, let's hear the King James version. "But if any man think that he behave himself uncomely toward his virgin, if she pass the flower of her age, and so require, let him do what he will, he shall not let him marry."
Now, "if any man thinks he behaves uncomely toward his virgin, whatever that means." Now, that's a very literal rendition of the Greek text. It doesn't mean anything because precisely, you don't have any idea what it means for a man to behave uncomely toward his virgin, what the virgin means. Okay? It doesn't mean a thing to us in English, but it's exactly what the Greek text says. Okay? Now, that's one way of translation, not a very good one, because it keeps the ambiguity of the, of the Greek into the English, and therefore has tried to keep from interpreting, but in the process has left us without knowing anything. Okay?
Now, listen to the, uh, New American Standard Bible. "But if any man thinks that he is acting unseemly toward his virgin daughter, if she should be full of age, and if it must be so, let him do what he wishes; he does not sin; let her marry." Let her marry, yeah. Okay. Now, that's what the text now says. "Is any man thinks he's behaving unseemly toward his virgin daughter?" And now it's a father and a daughter. And, uh, he doesn't sin, let her marry. That's very interesting because the Greek doesn't say that. What the Greek says is, "Let them marry." But now it's the father not sinning and giving permission to his daughter to marry.
Okay, now let's listen to the RSV. "If he thinks that he is not behaving properly toward his betrothed, if his passions are strong, it has and it has to be, let him do as he wishes, let them marry." Yes. Now, we're talking about a man who is betrothed. In fact, the Today's English Version, if somebody has that, it says something, it just comes right out and says, "If, if anyone is, uh, refers to that being engaged to his fiancée." So now we have, "If any man thinks that he is behaving unseemly toward his virgin," is translated by interpretation. Now, "if anybody thinks that he is not behaving properly toward the one to whom he is engaged, then if his passions be strong and if it be, let them marry."
Okay, now I want you to hear the New English Bible. "But if a man has a fiancée and feels that he is not behaving properly towards him, if that is, his instincts are too strong for him and something must be done, he may do as he pleases; there is nothing wrong in it. Let them marry." Yes. Now, it says, "If anybody has a partner in celibacy." Now, what does that mean? Well, that means that there are Christians who have taken upon themselves, as married people, the vow of celibacy with regard to sexual intercourse, and they're going to live together as husband and wife without sex. If any man thinks that he is behaving improperly, however, in this celibate relationship, let them go ahead and consummate their relationship by marriage, meaning by sexual relations.
Now, that's not at this point any commentary. Uh, that's not learning from a lot of teachers. That's merely pointing up to you that translation involves interpretation, and it has to. Now, somewhere along the way this week, we're going to probably get to that text and say a word about it. But the point for now is that it is absolutely imperative that we do some groundwork because you may be reading one of these Bibles, and it might, in fact, be precisely the wrong interpretation. But it's the Bible you hear it from, God as God's word, and you make it become the absolute truth without recognizing that this absolute truth came to you mediated by what way of exegesis and hermeneutics. Now, the point is, you need to know that.
Now, this also illustrates, if you will, the reason why you need to learn to use several translations in the process of good study. I don't mean to suggest you need to read several translations just in the process of reading, in the kind of devotional reading that all of us hopefully do. But when it comes to studying the Bible, and that's a different thing from reading it devotionally, when you come to studying it to find out what the text means, it is to your great advantage to have two or three or more good translations. And almost always, uh, three or four translations will point up to you where the problems in the text lie because of the differences that you will find. And then you're going to have to find out, well, how, what am I going to do about these differences? And that, of course, leads us back into the text itself as to what does the text mean. And that's where we're going to talk about how do we do that? How do we get back to that text itself?
So, the first reason we have to do exegesis and hermeneutics is because translations, which are in fact interpretations, demand it.
Now, secondly, we need to learn, we need to wrestle with exegesis and hermeneutics because, as a matter of fact, we do it all the time. That is, all of us sitting in this room, whom do exegesis and hermeneutics of one sort or another. Now, that's the problem. That is, all of us do it. The real question is whether or not we're going to do it well.
I had a teacher in graduate school in my theology class who used to remind us, and I am forever grateful to it to him for it. He said to us, "Always remember, every human being on the face of the earth is a theologian." Isn't somebody who's simply professional who is a theologian. Everyone has a theology. The only real question is whether you're a good one or not. And that's precisely the way it is when it comes to reading scripture. Everybody does a limited amount of exegesis and a whole lot of hermeneutics. But the real question is whether you do it well, because you're going to do it. You're going to forever, whenever you read the text, make those transfers into the 20th century in your own mind that are, in fact, hermeneutical procedures. You don't think about you're doing it, but you're doing it all the time. You read the text and you do a kind of an immediate transfer from the first to the 20th century. The real question is, are you doing that well?
And that brings us, uh, to, to the need. Now, for example, let me just serve as examples as what I mean by our doing it. There are some Christians I know who never, ever intend to obey a very clear imperative in the New Testament. It is found in 1 Timothy 5:23. The imperative is, "No longer drink only water, but use a little wine for your stomach's sake." Now, I know Christians who never intend to obey that imperative, ever. "No longer drink water, but use a little wine."
The same Christians do a rather remarkable thing, however, with 1 Corinthians 11:14, where Paul says, "Does not nature itself teach you that for a man to have or to wear long hair is degrading to him?" Now, that becomes a word for all time. That comes right out of the first century into the 20th. And if anybody has long hair, which of course is always defined by the current standard of what, what you know, how long is long, uh, you're a sinner in his eyes because you're disobeying the word of God. Even though he has never come to grips with the reality that Paul says, "Does not nature teach you?" And as a matter of fact, if we take seriously that Paul means nature when he says nature, the real thing that nature teaches us is what? Now, that hair grows long. That is, that men have hair equally as long as women's hair. Now, that's what nature would teach us. So obviously, Paul doesn't mean nature, not in the sense that we would ordinarily mean. He must mean something like, "Does not custom, does not culture teach you?" That is, it is a cultural phenomenon altogether. If everybody wore long hair, then how does this text, in fact, relate if culture teaches us that long hair is the norm?
Now, I'm not going to try to resolve those right at this moment. I'm only suggesting to you that the people who treat one text and leave it in the first century and say that belongs to Timothy and it has nothing to do with Christians in the 20th century, they might be right. But on what grounds do they come to that conclusion about the text in 1 Timothy? But take the text in, in 1 Corinthians 11, and make that apply to all ages. That is, it's a hermeneutical question. They are doing the hermeneutics, but never asked the questions as to how they're doing it and why. Well, I'm going to insist that you do that. I'm going to force you into that on every page in First Corinthians.
Now, the other way, of course, is to simply try to lead a group of Christians through First Corinthians if you don't think the hermeneutical and exegetical questions are real ones. For example, "How does Paul's opinion," and this is, these are examples of the questions that are raised as you just begin to lead a group of Christians through First Corinthians, "How do Paul's opinion in chapter 7:25 to be taken as God's word?" This is especially true when they like the, when they dislike the implications of that opinion, namely, that it's preferable to remain single. Or, "How does excommunication in chapter 5 relate to today's church, especially when someone excommunicated can simply go down the street to another church?" Or, "What is the point of chapters 12 to 14, for example, if one is in a local church which forbids speaking in tongues and prophecy?" So, what's the point of the text then? Or further, "How do," this is the way I phrase the question, "How do we get around the clear implications of 11:2-16 that women should have a head covering when praying and prophesying?" And how do we allow that which is the point of that passage, namely head covering for women, to be cultural and therefore not for today? I mean, that's just what people are doing. Yet, on the other hand, they take the very thing that is not the point of the passage, namely male-female relationships, and they make that something that is valid for all time.
Now, my question is a hermeneutical one: How did they get to that? The very point of the passage, which has to do with covering hair, that stays in the first century. But the thing that is not the point of the passage, namely female-male relationships, that's moved into the 20th century, and you know, people pontificate on that. Now, how do they do that? Well, they do that because there's some loose hermeneutics going on. Exactly so. And so, we're going to just simply have to deal with exegesis and hermeneutics.
Well, that brings me to the third reason, and this is the most important and is really, really first. And that is that the nature of scripture itself demands it. That is, the real reason we have to wrestle with the questions of exegesis and hermeneutics is that it is the nature of scripture itself that has laid this requirement upon us.
Now, let me explain. George Ladd of Fuller Seminary has given as good a definition of the Bible in terms of the nature of scripture and inspiration that I know. And here it is: "The Bible is the word of God given in the words of men in history." Now, that is precisely the nature of scripture. The Bible is the word of God given in the words of men in history. Now, there are a lot of Christians who are deeply disturbed by that reality. That is, they tend to prefer that that weren't the way it is, and then they simply brush aside the fact that that's the way it is. But in so doing, they destroy the very thing that God himself has chosen to do, namely, to speak his word not by speaking great voices from heaven and having what I call a collection of sayings of God, such as we have sayings of Chairman Mao or sayings of Chairman Daley, former mayor of New of Chicago, but we have God speaking to his creatures in, uh, historical situations in which they existed. That is, he didn't speak transcendently above and beyond where they were. Fact, the, the only thing that even comes close to being like that anywhere in scripture are the Proverbs, and even the Proverbs are conditioned by the historical situation into which they came.
Now, my point is that that's the way scripture has come to us. This is the way God has chosen to give scripture. And I say, "Praise God for it." It is precisely because God spoke his word in real situations to real people in a real historical context that I have confidence that God is going to speak to my real situation in my real context in my real history. That is, God is not above history; he moves right squarely within the context of human history. The Incarnation should have clued us in. God did not reveal himself by coming down in some kind of angel ophony or some theophany trumpets and said, "Hey, look here, I am." Now, he came incarnate. The Son of God wore diapers, if you will. He moved into real history, into a real world, and he lived out a real human life. And it wasn't a fake human life. It wasn't some kind of human life that was different from yours and mine. It was God living out a truly human life. In fact, the church has forever pronounced heresy upon those who make Jesus Christ so divine that they have missed the true humanity.
Now, you understand that I can, I, I appreciate why the church has erred in that direction. If you're going to err, I suppose it's better to err on the right and to the left, but it is equally error to have so divine a Christ that you have totally obliterated the human as it is to have a human Christ in which there is no expression of the deity. Now, the church, frankly, through the years had difficulty finding expression to that reality that he is at one and the same time truly God and truly man. And finally, in Chalcedon in 451, it resolved that by saying a lot of things that he's not, you know, he's not divisible, he's not all, you know, one, but in the, but he is both God and man simultaneously, both together. Now, now that means there is a real Incarnation. God has lived out a truly human life on planet Earth. That should give us great courage. That's how God chose to come and make himself known to us.
Now, that's exactly how he's revealed himself to us in scripture. He didn't blow trumpets and speak great eternal aphorisms or what I would call, you know, the Bible would have been a simple thing if we had just had so many propositions, right? Okay, everybody turn to proposition number 113, proposition number 275. I mean, that would have been the simplest thing in the world, instead of all of these genealogies and all of this history of Israel, including Jephthah, you know. Uh, we always have to wrestle with the hermeneutical questions like, "How are all these the word of God to us?" Now, please understand, they are the word of God. The question is, how does it become the word of God to us?
You know, I know Christians who find the will of God by putting out fleeces. Now, if I'm stepping on your toes, you love me anyway. That's a, that's a command. You know, that's not an option for you, okay? Of all the things that, that one, of all the bonehead plays. Now, now Gideon was told what to do very specifically and clearly told what to do, and then he turns right around to God after God has told him what to do and says, "I'm not so sure. Fleece me." You know? So God condescends. You know, God is gracious, but he still doesn't trust God. And so he turns the thing over, says, "Do it the opposite." Now, God is gracious and he condescends into, but what is going on in that story is Gideon's lack of trust in God. God has already told him what to do. Now, don't use Gideon as a model for finding the will of God, especially when we live in the new age and have the privilege of the Holy Spirit.
How in the world, and if you're going to use Gideon, then you might as well use Jephthah. I know Christians who find the will of God by using Gideon as an example, but they haven't yet killed their daughters when they came home from a triumph in, in God's will, because they made a vow. Now, how is it that we don't, Jephthah, that was bad because he killed his daughter? No, it was bad, just as bad for Gideon not to trust God. Now, the point is, if we're going to use these patterns for models, we'd better find out what, what God is saying. But in the process of this, this is how God chose to give us his word. It presents some problems for us at times, but, but still, for me, I, I, I am ready to affirm and thank God in the process of the affirmation that he has given us his word precisely as he has. And the reason for this is that it's to our great advantage.
If it were kind of what I call eternal propositions given in the heavens and somehow dropped down, you know, like the Book of Mormon or something such, uh, then, then one has real problems. There's no interpretation necessary. All you have to do is have the Urim and the Thummim and read a language that never existed and translate it in King James English 200 years after the King James English is being used with over 1,000 grammatical errors and then have the glasses taken away and the plates taken away, and you've got a magical book, and all you've got to do is believe it. But it's asking too much of me to believe that. It, it stretches my credibility beyond my capacity to believe. Now, I'm not saying God couldn't have done that, but praise God, he didn't do that. The way he chose to reveal himself is to speak right down in history where we are.
Now, here's the point. Precisely because the word of God is both things simultaneously, that it is, it is the word of God, that that word has been given to us in the words of men in history, we have two responses. The first and the most important, and the one response to which everything is moving, is the response of obedience. Because it is the word of God, we must bow before it and obey it. But secondly, we must also study it. Because it is given in the words of men in history, we have to deal with those words and that history. We have to make some decisions as to what Paul probably meant when he said such and such to the Corinthians. That's hard work, but it's required work because that word that God spoke was first spoken in that situation, and we need to find out what God was saying in that situation so we can find out what God is saying in our situation.
Now, sometimes that makes some people think that we're sitting in judgment upon the word of God. That's not so. We are making historical judgments as to the meaning of texts in terms of what was being said back then and there. But once we have come to make some historical judgments by the help of God and the work and the hard work of study, then we have a single response, and that is obedience. That is the final task of exegesis and hermeneutics is a call to decision, a call to response, a call to obedience.
Now, I happen to be one of those who is deeply concerned at both levels. I would like to suggest to you that the real stance that we're going to take in this course, and one that I hope that somehow I can communicate to you in a variety of ways, is that we come to the text of scripture on our knees with our eyes wide open. On our knees because it is God's word, because it is that which calls us to obedience to him. But with our eyes wide open because it is given in the words of men in history, and we have to do some hard work in the process of hearing God's word.
Now, the great question, of course, is how do we get from the then and there to the here and now? And we must learn to do the task of interpreting, the task of hermeneutics.
Now, since, therefore, First Corinthians is an epistle, we're going to go next to say some things about the hermeneutics of the Epistles. That is, how do we move from then to now? The first thing for us to note is that all of the Epistles in the New Testament, although they're not all of the same kind, that is, James is hardly an epistle at all. It is called an epistle, but in fact, it is a collection of Christian homilies of some kind. But even James, it fits into this category. That is, it is true of all of the Epistles. All of them have two things in common, and it's not only 1 Corinthians, but 2 Corinthians, Romans, Philemon, Colossians. All of them have two things in common.
Number one: They are all occasional documents, or to use another term, they are ad hoc documents. They are written to that situation. That is, the epistle to the Romans is not, in fact, a theological treatise on Paul's understanding of Christian theology. It is an occasional document that was written out of a context of the Apostle Paul into the context of the church at Rome. Now, I grant you that in the process of this, it turns out to be a rather large and excellent compendium of a certain area of Pauline theology. And the very fact that it's not a systematic theology, and we need to be aware of that, should warn us ahead of time of some of the things that you all go on in that epistle. Paul isn't telling us everything he knows theologically. He is concerned at one specific level, and that has to do with his task as missionary to the Gentiles and the relationship of Jew and Gentile together in the Church of God. Now, that determines everything that's set out, if you will. That predetermines the, the, uh, the text, what's going to be said. That every last thing in the Epistles is, in fact, occasional. By that I mean, it was occasioned by the situation. It was not simply somebody sitting down and writing, "Hey, I've got some great ideas theologically, I'm going to spin them off and then, you know, and let them sit in the church." Nor was he thinking, "Boy, the church is going to go on a long time after me, I'd better get my theological ideas out so that it has something to go on." Matter of fact, there were problems in the churches, and Paul was simply directing himself to those immediate problems. These are occasional documents.
Now, the second thing that they all have in common is that they were written in the first century. Now, it is precisely these two factors, that is, that they are occasional documents, and secondly, that they are first-century documents, that creates so many difficulties for us at times. Let's just say a word about the fact that they are occasional. We have to take seriously that these are letters, you understand, uh, not treatises, letters, real letters. They fit into all the forms of the ancient letter. I could read several, I could read thousands of copies of ancient letters, and the form is precisely the form of the ancient letter.
Now, the very fact that they are occasional gives us difficulties. One of those difficulties is that the author assumes so many things on the part of the recipients. That is, he and the recipients are already, you know, wired into where they are, and we aren't. Boy, there are those moments when I read First Corinthians, Paul says, "Finally," at the end of chapter 11. Yeah, if I get chapter 11, it'll come out better. Yeah. So then, "My brethren, when you come together to eat, wait for one another. If anyone is hungry, let him eat at home, lest you come together to be condemned." About the other things, "I will give directions when I come." Dirty bird! I mean, if he were sitting down and writing a treatise on a variety of things that Christians are supposed to know, he would have never done that. But there are some things that they need further instructions about, but apparently they're not a problem. So when he gets there, he's going to inform them about those things. Wouldn't I have liked to have had that little bit of information?
Or take 2 Thessalonians, chapter 2, verses 4 and 5. Now, there has been so much ink spilled on this text that it's difficult for anyone really to stand up and pontificate. He talks about the man of lawlessness being revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called God or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. I want you to notice verse 5: "Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you this?" And now you know what is restraining him. He had already told them about all of this, and so all he has to say now is, "Now you know what's restraining him." But we don't know. If he had just, if he had just not told them before, then he would have clued us in. But he didn't tell them before, so he doesn't clue us in. And so everybody makes guesses. There are at least seven different possible valid interpretations of that text, all of them valid precisely because the document is occasional, and he leaves out some information because they know what's going on and we don't.
Now, when it is left out, I have another view about hermeneutics, and that is that God doesn't so much care about you and your and my finding out about it. That is, what isn't told is merely a matter of speculation, and speculation and the word of God are not the same thing, and speculation isn't where the action is, and that's certainly nothing that we should be involved in. Now, in terms of, of, of exegesis, I'm always exegetically concerned. I would like to know what Paul was saying to the Thessalonians. But in terms of the word of God to us, since we don't know, I can leave it alone. I would like to know, you understand, but I can leave it alone.
Now, look down at the end of that, uh, that, uh, chapter. I mean, yeah, in chapter two, uh, "So then, brethren," he says in verse 15, "stand firm and hold to the traditions what you were taught by us." And there you have it again. They stand firm to these things you've already been taught, but now we're not, uh, clued in. Now, the documents are occasional, and there's evidence of it, and it is also the kind of thing that's going to give us some problems at times.
The other part of this being occasional that's going to give us difficulty, he says that we are on one end of a telephone conversation. That is, we know what the answers are, but we don't know what the questions are. Now, in order to understand what the answers mean, it's very many times necessary for us to come to grips with what the questions are. But we must always be aware that our reconstruction of the questions is somewhat hypothetical. We do have the answers, but those answers are answers on one end of the telephone. Have you ever tried to do that in our family? You know, the phone rings, and my daughter picks up the phone, she's a senior in high school. I can usually tell by the tone of her voice who's on the other end. I don't even have to hear the conversation. I mean, you know, if it's Doswell, I, you know, I know two people. It's not our boyfriend, and it's not our closest girlfriend. That's, I, I already can rule those two out. But when it's one of those two, I can tell by the tone of her voice that it's one of those two. Then the question is, which one is it? Then you start listening to the, you know, the tidbits. Fathers don't really do things like that, so I was illustrating from somebody else's family. Or have you ever, yeah, I, my wife will get on the phone, and she'll carry on this long conversation. It'll take me sometimes 10 minutes to figure out who she's talking to. It's the most interesting conversation. It is the most enlightening conversation. I'm finding out things that I hadn't known. And I keep thinking, "Who in the world, and what is being asked?" Drives me batty. And finally, most of the time, I have to ask, "Who, who are you talking to?" And the moment she tells me to whom she's talking, everything begins to fall into place. I begin to understand why these things are being said in response to some things that are being said on the other end.
Now, that's what's going on in our letters. We're at the one end of that telephone conversation. And one of the things we're going to notice in the next hour is that at least part of First Corinthians is a response to a letter. "Now concerning the things about which you wrote." When I taught at Wheaton College, the final exam for First Corinthians was a take-home. The take-home final was: "Write the letter that the Corinthians wrote to Paul on the basis of these answers." Now, that is a good test question, mean, but good because I can really find out whether you know what this answer means if you can reconstruct the question on the other side. And the other end, that is the clearest evidence you have really come to grips with a text, mean. But fun, sadistic. They're occasional, that's going to give us trouble.
There are going to be those times, and here's where I think this might disturb some of you, but, but if you'll bear with me, I've been with a text, I guess, long enough now to feel a certain confidence in saying this: I think that we need the integrity at times to simply say, "I don't know." I don't know. Now, it might be that in time I will come to know, but there are an awful lot of texts in First Corinthians where I'm going to simply say to you, "I don't know." I don't feel badly about that anymore. Now, I realize that everything in scripture is God's word, and that I should press on to find out what I don't know. But as a matter of fact, what I do know is plain enough. My trouble is obeying that. I'm not having difficulty understanding, uh, most texts. I'm having difficulty getting with it. So I'm not terribly concerned about that obscure text that I don't know about. I'm more concerned with getting on to the obedience in those texts that I do.
Along the way, we're going to have to come to say, "I don't know." But that's a good thing to say. It's a humbling thing, but it's, it's good. It's good for us to learn that kind of humility in the presence of God and his word.
Now, the second thing is that they belong to the first century. And that means that we are removed from them in time and in culture and in thought. That is, we simply are one long step removed. Now, the great thing about that removal, however, is they are human beings, and we are human beings. And they are sinners, and they were sinners, and we are sinners. And that puts us in some categories where we can really sit and listen to them. That is, the, the really essential things we have in common. But the way we live out those essential things in our culture, we don't have necessarily in common. Some yes, some no.
Now, that leads us then to the three steps of the hermeneutics of the Epistles. This lecture is going to spill over into the next tape, but that's okay because what we're going to do next is to simp—this is, for all practical purposes, a two-hour lecture, but we'll take the break, uh, when it's necessary. Three steps to the hermeneutics of the Epistles.
The first step is exegesis. Exegesis asks the question: "What did it mean?" Now, what this means is that at step one, we have to shed our 20th-century bifocals that we bring to the text, and we must go back and sit in the first century in Corinth in the year 55 AD. Now, that's not going to be easy, and that's not going to mean that necessarily at every point one reading an English Bible is going to be able to do that. But one always needs to keep this awareness before him: "I've got to go back and listen to what they would have heard. I've got to somehow reconstruct the situation as to how this letter or this section of the letter is an answer to their problem or a response to their needs." What was their problem? What were their needs? And how does this speak to that?
And secondly, I've got to think with the author. I've got to understand his mentality. I've got to understand where he's coming from. I've got to be aware of his urgencies, what impels him, what compels him. And that we come by doing a lot of things together.
Now, here is the absolute rule. What I call Gordon Fee's absolute rule of exegesis hermeneutics, number one. And there aren't very many rules after this one because the, the absolute is the one that covers the whole field. The true meaning of a passage is what the author intended it to mean and what the recipients could have understood it to mean. Now, that's such a truism, you wonder why does he spend so much time belaboring that point? Because that is precisely the point that we so often miss. Listen to it again: "The true meaning of a passage is what the author intended it to mean and what the recipients could have understood it to mean."
Now, please, this does not mean they always do understand it. 1 Corinthians 5:9 makes it quite clear. "They didn't understand a previous letter Paul had written." "I wrote in my letter for you not to associate with immoral men, and you completely blew it. You understood that to mean immoral people outside, and I meant immoral people inside." Now, the point is, they should have understood it. That is, he didn't write something that was beyond their possibilities of understanding. He wrote in such a way that he intended them to understand, and they should have understood. And that's true with everything he writes. So, the true meaning of the text is what the author intends the passage to mean.
Now, why emphasize that? Well, because exegesis has to do with author's intent and nothing more. What did he intend when he said that? I think I can illustrate this one in a contemporary way. In 1 Corinthians 13:10, Paul says, "But when the perfect is come, the imperfect will pass away." Now, in the process of this text, it's in a context that says, "For our knowledge is imperfect, our prophecy is imperfect." Goes earlier than that. It says, "Prophecies will pass away, tongues will cease, knowledge will pass away. Knowledge is imperfect, prophecy is imperfect, but when the perfect comes."
Now, there is a longstanding tradition in Protestantism that comes out of Princeton University in reformed theology at the end of the last century that makes the perfect in that text refer to the New Testament canon. When the New Testament canon comes, that's the perfect. Then the imperfect, namely the gifts of the Spirit, which are intended only until the canon comes, and once the canon comes, there's no longer any need for tongues and prophecy and that kind of thing. "When the perfect comes, no more need for prophetic word, then that will pass away."
Now, there is one great difficulty with that interpretation. It can't possibly mean that. Now, why can it possibly mean that? Because there isn't even a ghost of a chance that Paul could have meant that. And since Paul couldn't have meant that, that's not what the text means. And furthermore, there isn't a ghost, ghost of a chance that the Corinthians could have understood that. They are simply left out of that possibility. That they could have said, "You could have sat in Corinth for, you know, for the rest of your life in the year 55, if you will, and never, ever, ever have understood that." Nor could they have even understood that possibility. "What do you mean, canon? What do you mean, New Testament?" You know, "We've got a Bible. What's wrong with the Bible? Bible is the Old Testament. It's the only Bible they had. They had Jesus Christ and the prophets and the promise of the coming of the Lord. Who needs a New Testament?"
Now, they're not even wired into those possibilities. Now, since that's not a possibility, that means the text can't possibly mean that. That is, there are some options that can be eliminated, and that's one that can be eliminated. That is not a possibility. It has to mean something. Uh, we'll look at that when we come to it, but it can't mean that because the true meaning of a passage is what the author intended it to mean. That's going to become very important for us when we come to a point of illustration. But the point for now is that exegesis must come first. Okay.
The second step: What is God's word to them? Now, I'm not trying to suggest that what the author was trying to say to them, in fact, it's not God's word to them. But what I am trying to say is that in the midst of all of these things that is being said, there is a point. There is something that God is trying to get across. There is a message from God in this word, in these words. I mean, there is a word from God. What is that word from God? What is he trying to say?
Now, my point here is that everything is God's word, but that we are not after what is incidental in a passage. We are after the point that God is trying to make. Now, I'm not suggesting that what is incidental is irrelevant to us. Many things said incidentally do help us build what I'd call a systematic framework for all of our theological understanding in the New Testament. But when we look at this text, the thing we're after is, "What's the point of this text? What is God trying to communicate in this text?"
I have a great example here in 1 Corinthians chapter 6, verses 1-11. Paul says, uh, "This, this business, do you not know?" Paul says, "That the saints will judge the world?" Verse 3: "Do you not know that we are to judge angels?" Now, I don't have any idea what that means. I affirm that to be true, you understand. When the eschaton, when the end comes, the church is, in fact, going to be involved in, in the process of judging the world and judging angels, whatever that means. But to take that and to try to build an eschatology about judgment and how Christians judge is simply to blow the text. That is not the point of the text. And all that is, is affirmed in that text. That's all that happens there. It, it just simply said we're going to do it. But how and what? Okay. And so, in the process of an eschatology, I'll be aware of that text when I'm trying to build a full eschatology in the New Testament as to what it's going to be like in the end, if that's really important to us to have it all worked out in fine detail. Now, that text is going to become a part of it. But to come and make that the point in this text is to miss the text. The point in this text, obviously, is that a man is taking another man to court. And the thing Paul's trying to say is, "Stop it." And this business about judging angels is only one of the premises on which he's going to scream this, "Stop it," to them.
Now, what is incidental is not the point, you see. What we're after is, "What is the word of God to this situation? The point of the text." Well, that brings us to the third step.
What is God's word to us? And that's hermeneutics. That is, what is God saying now to us? Now that he has spoken to the Corinthians, and we have heard what he said to them. And the answer to question number three is the answer to number two. That is, God is speaking to us precisely what he said to them, only now it is translated into a new context.
The problem that we have is that this is where most people want to begin, understandably so. You don't read the Bible to find out what Paul said to the Corinthians. You're reading the Bible to find out what God's saying to you. But the, the problem is that we can't begin at step three. We've got to begin at steps one and two, because step three only becomes the word of God. We can only hear the word of God addressed to us when we, in fact, have gone through the process of hearing what the word of God is that is being addressed to that situation.
Now, if we don't do that, we've got one of two things that are going to happen. On the one hand, there are going to be some words that we find in scripture that are never going to leave the first century. Some things address us, and some don't. We simply leave some things alone. But on the other hand, there are also going to be those texts that never belong to the first century. That is, they somehow become God's word right out of the text to us, but they never become God's intended word. That is, what God is intending us to hear, we never hear because we simply started from our situation, thinking what we're in, using our framework and our grid, and everything that is being said, it comes to us, and then we don't hear what God is wanting us to hear.
Okay, now we're going to pick it up from here because our time is up now, and we'll pick it up in the next lecture, uh, and and go on with some illustrations and what all of this means to us.