In preparation for our Hermeneutics class, I’ve been previewing one of our “textbooks.” Here’something I read recently and was encouraged by. It’s a good reminder not only to preachers, but to teachers and writers of the Word too.
The hermeneutical enterprise also has three levels. I will discuss them from the standpoint of the personal pronoun that defines the thrust. We begin with a third person approach, asking “what it meant” (exegesis), then passing to a first-person approach, querying “what it means for me” (devotional), and finally talking a second person approach, seeking “how to share with you what it means to me” (sermonic). When we try only one and ignore the others, we end up with a false message. Those who take only a third-person approach are seminary profs with their heads in the clouds, speaking to no one but their own kind. THose wh otake only a first-person approach are subjective and living in a monastery, with God’s Word relative only for themselves. Those who take only a second-person approach are also subjective but use the Bible as a club, always challenging everyone but themselves. We must study Scripture with all three in the order presented, always seeking the passage’s meaning then applying it first to ourselves and then sharing it with others.
–Grant R. Osborne, from The Hermeneutical Spiral