THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN SUFFERS VIOLENCE (PART I)

“Understanding the Principles of Bible Interpretation”

By Akin Ojumu

The careful cultivation of the mind should rank among the highest priorities of every Christian. This is not intellectualism for intellectualism’s sake. Neither is it an exercise in academic pride. It is the disciplined practice of allowing the Word of God to occupy, shape, and govern every corner of the mind through diligent study, careful reflection, sound interpretation, and faithful application.

Colossians 3:16

“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.”

If the Word of Christ is to dwell in us richly, then we must labor to understand what that Word actually means. And that requires interpretation.

THE DISCIPLINE OF BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION

Scripture must be interpreted rationally, carefully, and responsibly, just as we would interpret a letter, historical document, speech, legal text, or any other piece of communication.

Words do not possess whatever meaning a reader wishes to assign to them. They communicate meaning within a particular language, historical setting, literary context, and grammatical structure.

The first question in biblical interpretation, therefore, is not:

“What does this verse mean to me?”

It is:

“What did the biblical author intend to communicate to the original audience?”

Only after establishing what a text meant in its original context can we responsibly ask how its truth applies to us today.

The formal discipline devoted to this task is called hermeneutics.

Hermeneutics is both the science and the art of discovering, explaining, and applying the meaning of a text. Rather than importing our assumptions, traditions, experiences, desires, or theological prejudices into Scripture, sound hermeneutics employs established interpretive principles to determine what the inspired author actually intended to communicate.

Several related terms are important.

1. Hermeneutics

Hermeneutics is the overarching discipline concerned with the principles and rules by which texts are interpreted. It provides the framework.

2. Exegesis

Exegesis is the actual process of drawing meaning out of a biblical passage by carefully examining its vocabulary, grammar, syntax, historical background, literary setting, and context.

The exegete asks:

What does the text say, and what did the author mean by saying it?

3. Eisegesis

Eisegesis does the opposite. Instead of drawing meaning out of the text, the reader reads and inserts meaning into it.

The reader arrives at Scripture with a predetermined idea and then bends, stretches, isolates, or manipulates the biblical text until it appears to support that idea.

Eisegesis does not allow Scripture to speak. It forces Scripture to say whatever it is the interpreter has already decided it must say.

4. Narcigesis

An informal term sometimes used to describe an especially self-centered form of eisegesis is narcigesis.

The word combines narcissism—an excessive preoccupation with oneself—with eisegesis—the practice of imposing foreign ideas upon a text.

Narcigesis is, therefore, narcissistic eisegesis.

It happens when readers take biblical narratives that are fundamentally about God, His redemptive purposes, His covenant dealings, His Messiah, or His people and transform them into stories primarily about themselves.

Suddenly:

You are David. Your problem is Goliath. Your critics are the Philistines. Your promotion is the Promised Land. Your financial problem is Jericho. Your enemies are Pharaoh. 

And every biblical story somehow becomes another episode in the great drama starring you. The reader inserts himself into the text, places himself at the center of the narrative, and frequently imagines himself to be its hero.

That is not biblical interpretation. That is Scripture being conscripted into the service of self.

THE GRAMMATICAL-HISTORICAL METHOD

To guard against these abuses, biblical interpreters have historically relied upon what is commonly called the grammatical-historical method.

The objective is straightforward:

Determine what the biblical text meant according to its language, grammar, literary context, and historical setting.

Several foundational principles guide this approach.

1. Historical Context

Every biblical text entered history at a particular moment. It was written or spoken within a particular culture, to particular people, facing particular circumstances.

Responsible interpretation therefore requires us, where relevant, to investigate the political conditions, geographical setting, religious environment, customs, institutions, controversies, and historical circumstances surrounding the passage.

Who was speaking? Who was listening? What had happened? What problem was being addressed? What assumptions would the original audience have understood immediately that a modern reader might completely miss?

Historical context helps us hear the text as its first hearers would have heard it.

2. Literary Context

No verse of Scripture exists in isolation. Every sentence belongs to a paragraph. Every paragraph belongs to a larger argument or narrative. Every book possesses its own purpose, structure, themes, and literary form.

Context matters. A verse ripped from its surroundings can be manipulated into saying almost anything. We must therefore consider what comes before a passage, what follows it, how it fits within the author's argument, and what kind of literature we are reading.

Historical narrative must be read as historical narrative. Poetry as poetry. Wisdom literature as wisdom literature. Prophecy as prophecy. Parables as parables. Apostolic instruction as apostolic instruction. Apocalyptic imagery as apocalyptic imagery.

Failure to respect literary genre and context is one of the fastest ways to butcher Scripture.

A text severed from its context can easily become a pretext for whatever the interpreter already wants to believe.

3. Grammatical Structure

Words communicate meaning within sentences.

Therefore, careful interpretation requires attention to vocabulary, grammar, syntax, verb forms, clauses, conjunctions, modifiers, sentence structure, and the relationships between words.

Sometimes differences that appear insignificant in English become important when the original language is examined.

This is why serious biblical interpretation may require consultation of the languages in which Scripture was written—primarily Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.

We do not study Greek or Hebrew in order to manufacture secret meanings hidden from ordinary Christians. We study them because the Bible was actually written in those languages.

4. Scripture Interprets Scripture

Scripture is not a collection of unrelated religious sayings. It possesses a coherent theological message.

Consequently, obscure or difficult passages should be interpreted in light of clearer passages addressing the same subject.

A proposed interpretation of one verse should immediately raise suspicion if it places that verse in contradiction with the unmistakable teaching of Scripture elsewhere.

The clearer text helps illuminate the difficult one. The many inform the one. And the whole counsel of God guards us against building doctrines on isolated phrases.

These principles are particularly important because, in this series, we are going to examine one of the most frequently quoted—and frequently abused—statements of Jesus.

Matthew 11:12

“From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force.”

To be continued.