I wrote this as a comment on Troy's blog. I thought I would share it here.
Scripture was written for the original audience with an original intention. This meaning can be discovered sometimes without any real knowledge of the setting or culture. Other times this meaning cannot be understood without the original context.
After knowing the original meaning of Scripture we must rely on the Holy Spirit to help us transfer the principle of Scripture into our reality. How is that principle lived out? What areas of my life are not in line with that principle? What do I need to change?
Although the meaning and/or principle never changes, the practical application of it might throughout the many years and through the many different people. Loving our neighbor will mean something completely different on a practical level to you as it does me because our neighbors are different people.
Despite the changing applications, the Scripture is unwavering in its principles. Applying those principles throughout the generations and different locations does take a different face some times, although other times it does not.
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2 comments:
This was the comment I left:
Troy –
Though I do not want to discount the role of the Holy Spirit to speak throughout time, the fact is the Bible is written by human people in a specific time, place, and circumstance (context). For example, if I write you a letter and tell you a story, someone who comes around 100 years later will still need to go back and find out what was going on in the culture before they can properly understand the depth of that story. Can s/he get the general gist? Sure – but not the entire story. The fact is, the human authors were writing to a certain group of people and when we rip it from that context and immediately put ourselves in it we deprive it of its original intent and thus lose original meaning.
In regard to the divine role in the Scripture, I think I disagree with what you mean by “God had us in mind.” There are truths that surpass time because God created the world to function in a certain way. So, what was true for the 1st century CE hold true today. God make us to love one another and love God. That holds true for all humankind for all time. As you and Regan both pointed out, what that looks like will change, but is a constant truth. I guess if you phrase it, “God had all of humanity in mind” it seems less prideful than the sentiment that “God wrote the Bible for me (and me alone being the implication)”.
For posterity's sake, here is my other reply.
I could be mistaken, but I think we are probably meaning the same thing but approaching it and saying it differently. Although it might come down to us disagreeing on the importance of the original meaning of a passage. I guess we will find out.
"The same passage may speak newly to you every time you read it."
I would say that this is the work of the Holy Spirit in the reader's life, not some spiritual residue left over from the inspiration of the original writer that has withstood translation or even resides in the original language, if we even have that. That is the amazing thing about Scripture being the word of God and us being spirit-filled followers. God can use a passage of Scripture with a completely different meaning to convict us of something that was not originally intended. (I am now getting into my next blog post so please excuse me if I repeat myself next week) The same can be done with our interaction with the world around us. God can use an experience in reading a book, watching a movie, planting a garden, helping the needy, or any other earthly act - not just the "good" ones - to teach us some truth about him.
However, that does not negligate that the passage we are reading has an actual original meaning that might not even line up with what the Spirit is leading us to understand. The original meanings of Scripture are what keep us in check and allows us to test the Spirit as is described in I John 4:1. If not, then any interpretation that I come up with would be legitimate without any source of truth to check it against. That just cannot be the case because a multitude of people come up with a multitude of different meanings, yet there is a truth. How could we test a "spirit's" guidance if we believe there is no original meaning to test it against? It is that original meaning that is the spiritual testing point. If not, then there really is no test to check whether what we believe the Spirit is leading us into is really from God. We are just left to our whims and our assurance that what we believe is true despite other people believing otherwise.
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