At the close of the last post I wrote: I do not know of any Christian who thinks that God will renege on the Noahic Covenant (cf. Isa. 54:9-10). As far as this covenant at least is concerned, no spiritualizing, no symbolic hermeneutics, no typologizing or allegorizing is allowed to derail the literal meaning of God’s covenant promise. What God says is what God means! As I continue with this fourth personal rule I want to build on that crucial …
Category: Parameters of Meaning
The Parameters of Meaning: Introduction The Parameters of Meaning: Rule 1 The Parameters of Meaning: Rule 2 The Parameters of Meaning: Rule 3 This personal rule to help decipher the meaning of a Bible text is too lengthy for a single post. As it is so crucial to my outlook I shall have to break it into two parts. Now we come to Rule four. This “rule” is, for me, of preeminent importance. Parameters of Meaning – Rule 4: Any …
The Parameters of Meaning: Introduction The Parameters of Meaning: Rule 1 The Parameters of Meaning: Rule 2 Parameters of Meaning – Rule 3: Avoid importing foreign hermeneutical grids which dictate beforehand how one is going to interpret a passage. This distorts exegesis. This criterion is straightforward. Do not come to the text of Scripture with your mind already made up with a theology which every text must be fitted to. Again, we all tend to do this, so we must …
While in this article I talk about “induction,” “deduction,” and “abduction,” please understand that I use these terms quite carefully. Although not common in the literature, these terms may help the reader of Scripture become more aware of how he is reading and interpreting the text – at least at a basic (though important) level. I should say that these twelve “rules” are designed to identify meanings which can be confidently seen in the wording of the biblical text, …
This is the second in a series of articles on what I call ‘the parameters of meaning.’ The first post, which is a rundown of the Twelve “Rules”, is here. Basically, what I have in mind is that texts can only suffer certain interpretations as viable. As an example of this; If a person says to me that they are a postmillennialist, I am obliged not to interpret them as meaning that they hold that Christ will return and then …
I want to discuss twelve guidelines for Bible interpretation which I have formulated and used. These guidelines help me a lot in Bible Study. They are not meant as replacements for hermeneutics manuals of course, but I think they do a lot of legwork. In my opinion Rule 4 is the most important one. These “Parameters of Meaning” as I call them, help establish the boundaries of valid interpretation and ferret out views not supported from the text of Scripture. …