Finished reading: The Doctrine of Scripture by Brad East 📚

A joyous, lyrical volume on Scripture. Brad’s (enviably) clear prose, free of scholarly jargon or copious footnotes, could mislead readers as to the deep learning that undergirds all that’s said in these pages. But there’s a wealth of knowledge funding this lively book. Even as un-Protestant as it is (Brad denies sola scriptura and the scriptural attributes of clarity and sufficiency), it is still a marvelous book. I hope that tells you something. The chapters on “Ends” and “Interpretation” were highlights for me.

Currently reading: Gardner’s Art through the Ages: A Global History by Fred S. Kleiner 📚

1947-Y-No. 2 by Clyfford Still

PH-218 by Clyfford Still

PH-21 by Clyfford Still

Brad East:

The home of Holy Scripture is worship. It is the public, not the private, reading of Scripture that is definitive for Scripture’s role in the life of the church. The assembly of the faithful gathered, in expectant silence, to hear the word of the Lord read aloud from the testimony of the apostles and prophets: that is both the initial and the enduring primary location—in reality and in doctrine—for encounter with and reception of the biblical text. […]

“Private” interpretation of Scripture, that is to say, interpretation of the text that occurs elsewhere than in the liturgy, is nevertheless always dependent upon and symbiotic with it. The further one moves away from the liturgy, the more one’s reading of the text will become detached from the nature, uses, and ends that the church confesses, by God’s gracious will, to be true of the text. Think of Scripture as a living thing: it requires its native habitat for deep roots, good light, and rich air. That habitat is the living people of God in convocation, eager to receive together the living word of God spoken aloud for all to hear. Removed from that habitat, text and reader alike grow malnourished, emaciated, desiccated. Neither can be transplanted to another environment without loss.

The problem here is not that Brad is wrong (he isn’t), but how strongly this line of thinking runs against the grain of evangelical piety. I imagine many churchgoers could begrudgingly affirm what Brad is saying here. But the reason it would be difficult for them to assent to it is because their entire practice of the faith has misled them as to the true ‘home’ of Scripture. Private interpretation, including quiet times and personal Bible reading, is not thought of as “dependent” on public reading; private interpretation is the main thing. To ask one of these churchgoers to endorse what Brad is saying is like asking a person who was taught his whole life that drinking alcohol is sinful if he wants to grab a pint with you at the local pub. Even if he can agree that the Bible does not condemn drinking as sinful, he still will be reluctant. His conscience has been malformed. I think evangelical piety creates a similar dynamic with respect to the Bible’s function within the church. If we agree with Brad that the gathered people of God is the primary location for Scripture to be read/interpreted/exegeted—and that reading it apart from that context is, at best, merely a means to serving that more primary function—then it would seem that our practice is leading us astray here.

Brad East:

There is no one right way to read the Bible. That is the first thing to say about interpreting Scripture. There are as many fitting ways to read the Bible as there are ends of the Bible; indeed, there are as many fitting ways to read the Bible as there are occasions and persons to do such reading. That does not mean there are no unfitting ways to read the Bible. It only means that to exclude some does not mean to exclude all but one, or only a handful. That would presume a finite number of ways of reading the Bible. On the contrary, “we have no warrant for putting a limit to the sense of words which are not human but divine.” And if the sense is unlimited, then so are the ways by which to arrive at it. Like other complex activities—especially games: chess, basketball, tennis—there are rules, norms, and predictable patterns. But there is always development and innovation within the ongoing tradition of the practice. We will never reach a time when the possibilities of chess are exhausted, or when a coach can no longer draw up a new out-of-bounds set play. So for interpreting Scripture: new ways of reading, new readings of Scripture, will continue so long as Scripture endures in the church. Which is to say, until the End.

This is such a key point. I tried to gesture at this reality here. My sense is that as potentially liberating as this perspective can be for some, many Bible-believing (or, perhaps more precisely, biblicist) Christians are often resistant to such notions. Raised on inductive Bible study methods (which are ‘scientific’ and thus potentially repeatable by anyone), they are uncomfortable with the thought of such open-ended ways of reading. So far from liberation, this approach seems to them to unleash anarchy.