On the Use and Interpretation of Scripture: Private Prayer

Having completed my discussion of the use and interpretation of Scripture in liturgical contexts, I can turn to the remainder of the topic, beginning first with private prayer.

Lectio Divina

A particular famous and important use of the Scriptures in private prayer is of course the practice known as sacred reading, or in Latin, lectio divina. This has sometimes been worked up into a fairly detailed four-stage method of prayer, but this is perhaps not true to its real nature.

Instead of the most common description of sacred reading as being about particular stages, I want to look "under the hood," as it were, and see what is particular to this form of the use of Scripture which can perhaps illuminate other non-liturgical uses.

The primary thing we notice in attending to this monastic practice of sacred reading, is that it is not merely the text which is sacred, but the manner in which it is read. Moreover, there is reason to think that for monks this was for a long time the only way to read a text, rather than merely one, that it was what it is to read a sacred text.

The conviction then is that the proper way to read the sacred text is to do so in a particular way. Only later does that way become understood as a particular method of prayer. So embedded in this particular method are some convictions about what it is to read properly.

First, and most clearly, reading is done with no particular goal beyond edification. The reading is not targeted at reading any particular amount, or to establish some point or other, or to address a particular question. Of course, these had always been ways Scripture is used, but the prayerful sacred reading of Scripture, as practiced by the monks, was not this.

The assumption is made that God will be met in the text, and if that assumption is correct, if God will be met there, then it will be the transcendent God who cannot be controlled and refuses to be at our beck and call. Indeed, the more sure we are that we will meet God in our reading of the text, the more careful we inevitably will be that we approach without a presupposition of what we will find.

The reading is undertaken slowly as if we were savoring every bite. (And the word ruminatio, rumination, is associated with this practice, after all.) There is an attitude of reception, of waiting, of hearing. This is very different from exegeting Scripture for the purpose of proving a point, or just the scholarly task of hearing what the text says.

Prayers

Scripture also forms a great source of material for private prayer. The psalms are not merely a great source of prayers for liturgy, but they are also prayers which can be used at need as one's own prayers.

And there are of course a whole host of quasi-liturgical devotions, whose words are substantially from the Scriptures, for example, the rosary, the angelus, novenas, and so forth. As a general rule, the observations I have already made about the Scriptures as liturgical source texts apply here.

But there is an additional aspect to the use of the Scriptures as sources of private prayer, and that is that they are chosen by the individual in a way that the liturgy is not. (And for quasi-liturgical devotions, there is a spectrum here.)

The private use of the Scriptures as prayer then is something chosen, and the question of how the individual can adopt the words of Scripture as her own prayer becomes manifest. What remains, however, once a given text is used and is appropriate, is that it can be a tremendous asset to many to have words provided. This is particularly true at times when words fail, or with individuals who may not know how they feel until they find words for it.

Translation

The question now is what implications the use and interpretation of Scripture in private prayer may have for the remainder of the church's life. In one sense, the answer is not at all, and in another, it is immeasurable in every way.

In the former sense, the understandings reached in private prayer have no authority for the church. What one encounters in sacred reading, or the understanding one uses in taking a text as one's own prayer, is not therefore the correct use of the text in preaching or otherwise ordering the church's life. As I have already argued, the liturgical use is primary, and therefore cannot be dependent upon the private use.

This does not mean that the preacher's private prayer and encounter with God in Scripture is irrelevant. It simply means that, once the prayer is over, the preacher must now ask the questions of what must be preached, and there is no question of taking the encounter in private as normative in public. What is to be preached must be judged on a liturgical basis (as I have already argued) and is not to be subject to any particular private encounter, even that of the preacher himself.

But if the prayer is genuine, it will also be that the encounter with God in the text will be transformative, as any true prayer and encounter with God can be expected to be. And this will in turn bear its fruit in all areas. As a Christian becomes more and more conformed to God, especially through prayer and contact with God, we can expect that all their life will become more embued with the will of God, and this applies to their use of Scripture no less than the rest of life.


On the Use and Interpretation of Scripture: Index

On the Use and Interpretation of Scripture: Supervening Liturgical Authority

We turn now to the last liturgical category for the use and interpretation of Scripture: its use as an authority prescribing or prohibiting liturgical actions.

For some, this follows from a general rule that Scripture must be the authority for all of life. In this of course there is broad agreement, though the exact parameters of what it means in practice are highly controversial. So we will do well, in accord with my general procedure in this series, not to attempt a general, over-arching account, but rather to attempt merely to understand this one small piece.

Positive Obligations from Scripture

We can of course find in Scripture some positive commands regarding worship. For example, that we pray, that we confess our sins, that we give thanks to God, that we celebrate the sacraments, all these are commanded in Scripture.

Beyond this, Scripture occasionally commands certain texts, for example, the Lord's Prayer, as normative for prayer. I have already noted the importance of the Lord's Prayer and lamented its neglect by some churches which proclaim a very high view of the importance of the Scriptures.

What is striking, however, is that the positive obligations from Scripture are so spare. The tractarians as well were impressed by this fact, and concluded from this and from minor references to liturgical practice that the apostles taught liturgical practice, but it was not the role of the epistles (let alone the Gospels) to command this practice to the church.

Here we see a striking variance from the historic position of the Reformed, who proclaim that only what is commanded may be done. As evidence of this, they point to the strong language in the Old Testament which seems to absolutely prohibit any human invention about how to best worship God. For the Reformed, God tells us what God wants from us in worship, and that is the end of the matter.

But of course this is a useless doctrine when it comes time to write a prayer. Did God command this or that particular sentence of thanksgiving? No, of course not. The Reformed plead that God did command, for example, thanksgiving. Yet, the Scriptures do not tell us what the sentence must say. So if we are actually writing a liturgy, we cannot possibly hope to find complete instructions in the Scriptures.

At best we find general heads, and we are left to fill them out. But then we have a loophole through the Reformed principle which is big enough to drive the entire Tridentine liturgy through. We are left then with the Lutheran position.

Adiaphora

The Lutheran position then is that some things are obligatory, and some things are prohibited, and in between them are things indifferent. One may do them, but one may not make them a condition of church unity. Of course, the problem with that, again, is that they are a condition of church unity, when we look at the actual folks in the pews.

The exact language of a thanksgiving prayer will serve again as example. The exact wording is an adiaphoron. Now, think of the average worshipper: it is a condition of their participation that they pray that particular prayer, because that simply is the prayer the group is using. And there may well be no other church around for them to attend.

The actual worshipping dynamics of congregations, as I have argued before, always involve people who decide what will happen and other people who simply must take what is offered and do not get to decide. And precisely because of this, talk of "freedom"--or adiaphora in the Lutheran fashion--is quite out of place.

The Authority of the Church

And so who will write that thanksgiving prayer? We cannot find it in Scripture. We cannot say that because it is not in Scripture, anything orthodox will do, without stepping on toes, since the priniciple of adiaphora preserves the right of all to reject the practice without losing unity.

The Anglican solution is to argue that particular churches have the right to order their ceremonies as they see fit, and impose them on worshippers, but must do nothing contrary to scriptures, and must not require to be believed what cannot be proved from the Scriptures. Notice that requirements about practice can be imposed--which is a good thing, since public worship necessarily involves the imposition of requirements about practice.

But this still leaves unsaid why the church should have this authority. And here, we appeal a good old Tractarian idea: the ministerial commission. As we all know, the talk about lay ministry in the Episcopal Church has not replaced the central authority of the rector over worship, nor could it. Indeed, I will subscribe to that hoary old Tractarian conviction that there is a ministerial commission, given to the church, and to particular individuals within it, to order the life and worship of the church. This commission resides in the bishops and the lower clergy to whom they have delegated that task through ordination.

Interpretation?

So now we can get to the point! What does this tell us about the use and interpretation of the Scriptures when it comes to their role as the authority for our worship? It tells us that the task of deciding what must be done, when the scriptures do not give us prohibitions or commands, falls upon the clergy, and primarily upon the bishops.

But the interpretation of the Scriptures is controversial. Not everyone will agree on which points have been prohibited or commanded by Scripture. (For example, some believe that blessing same-sex marriages is prohibited, others disagree.) Who is to make the authoritative determination for the church? For either we do the controversial practice or we do not; someone must decide.

Clearly there is no way to separate this deciding (what do the Scriptures require or prohibit for our worship?) from the first one (what should we do when the Scriptures leave us free?). There is no way to constitute an authority for the second which will not, ipso facto be determining the first.

The bishops (and the lower clergy under their deputation) thus for the first time in these essays have a distinctive magisterial role, but one which is entirely practical. (Homiletic, already treated, is another, but does not involve authoritative statements in the way liturgical decisions do.) The bishops have an authoritative role in interpreting the scriptures as far as necessary to determine whether a given practice is commanded, prohibited, or left open to the church to decide: and in the last case, to make that decision.

This process requires that the bishops act with integrity. It is not plenary authority to do what they please with the liturgy; it is an authority constrained by the Scriptures. But, and this is absolutely crucial, the recognition of that constraint is not imposed by someone else. One might disagree with or object to the bishops' decisions about some liturgical question, or biblical interpretation weighing in upon it, but the determination of what to do still resides in the bishops' hands, and they are not acting illegitimately simply because their interpretation differs from one's own.

On the Use and Interpretation of Scripture: Index

On the Use and Interpretation of Scripture: Ritual Object

We move on to a perhaps surprising topic for some: the use of Scripture as a ritual object in the liturgy. Here we are concerned with the physical object rather than the particular words within it.

For some, Scripture is so primarily and only a text, that it ceases to be a thing, an actual written thing. Some react to the reverence shown the book of the Gospels (especially by the Orthodox who enthrone it) as tantamount to idolatry. (These are, of course, the same Christians who reject statues and bowing to altars, and such.)

Now what is odd here is that our monotheistic fellows in other Abrahamic religions, with far more stringent rules about the veneration of material objects, do not shirk when it comes to their sacred texts. We know of Torah scrolls, made with painstaking care by specially trained scribes, kept in special chests, and treated with much reverence. Muslims always place the Koran on the highest shelf and treat it with special respect in a variety of ways.

So how does Christian liturgy treat the Bible as a ritual object, and what can we learn from this?

Size and Dignity of Book

Bibles are famously large. In the modern age we have perhaps missed this, with inexpensive printing on very thin paper, but any look (still) at a so-called "pulpit Bible" will show that making a Bible on good weight paper at a large size for public reading means making a very large book indeed.

Rubrics commonly direct that biblical readings be made from dignified volumes. Moreover, as a general rule, readings come from complete bibles or from lectionaries, and should not come from random sheets taped here and there. By using as a ritual object a complete text (or a complete lectionary) one knows that this is an excerpt, and perhaps more importantly, that the reading comes from somewhere, indeed, comes from something which existed prior to this reading!

Signs of Reverence

In the Middle Ages, the very best illumination was reserved for the text of the Scriptures. This was not a kind of sumptuary legislation, as if decoration of other books would be wrong, but it was an indication of importance: with limited time and money, start on the most important book.

Particularly books of the Gospels are decorated splendidly, and given special honor in liturgy: they are carried in processions, and serve as signs of Christ's presence, the idea being that they carry the words of Jesus. Indeed, the Western liturgical tradition objects to the use of a processional cross in the gospel procession precisely for this reason: it is the book itself which is the marker in that procession. (For a like reason, processional crosses should not be used when the paschal candle is in the procession, but the candle should come first.)

Many churches arrange to have candles mark the reading of Scripture; either the Gospel alone, or all the readings. Special reading desks, reserved for this purpose are commonly seen; one very popular style in the United States is to have a grand eagle-shaped lectern to hold the text.

Ordination Rites

Of particular importance is the use of the Bible in the ordination rites. In the western liturgy, this is generally the only time the Bible is given prominence outside of its use as a source of text for proclamation.

In the historic western pattern for the ordination of a bishop, the period of silent prayer before the laying on of hands features deacons holding the open book of the gospels over the head of the kneeling candidate. In contemporary Anglican rites, the Bible is given to all candidates for ordination (of whatever order). In neither case is the text being used to read from: it is instead being used as a pure symbol.

(This does not mean the written words are far from mind: in the historical episcopal ordination rite, the book of the gospels is the one from which a reading has just been proclaimed a bit earlier; in the Anglican rites the handing of the Bible is accompanied by a formula which often relates to the text, if only obliquely.)

Non-liturgical Uses

Notice the image of the fundamentalist preacher holding his bible as he speaks. Do we not see here as well the use of the Bible as a ritual object? He may turn through it, read it, but we also see its use as an object. The English cliche of the "Bible-thumper" shows this as well.

Also to consider, with some interest, is the general tendency of Christians not to show particular reverence to the text of the Scriptures outside the liturgy. One used to see a "family bible" placed in a position of honor in some households, and there are those who imitate Muslim practices by wrapping the text in cloth and storing it specially.

Some conclusions

What do these scattered observations tell us about the use and interpretation of Scripture? I list them first, if only to remind us that the use of Scripture includes these uses even if they do not involve reading.

But beyond that, these uses express the community's love for the Scripture, and highlight it as important. When these uses are not in place (allowing for liturgical expression to vary from place to place, of course), when there is really nothing special done for the physical objects, we can properly wonder if we are seeing a community which does not value the words as much either.

For this reason, liturgical leaders should take seriously the injunctions to read from dignified books, and should relish opportunities to show such signs of honor as fit in a particular liturgical context.

We also see, in the ordination rites, that the Scriptures are particularly associated with ordained ministry. By no means as if I were saying that lay people need not be concerned, but rather, that ordained ministry is being associated particularly with the text. As a source of inspiration, as a guide, as a mark of authority: in all these ways, the community indicates a relation of intimacy and importance between scriptural text and ordination.

This is, perhaps, the most important reason for expecting ordinands to have serious training in the Scriptures. Whatever value that training may have in preaching and other tasks aside, there is independently a value placed upon the leader knowing the text. And here, for the first time in this series, do we see a role emerging for private study and its importance: in the use of the book of the Scriptures at ordination, we see an expectation that such private study will occur.

On the Use and Interpretation of Scripture: Index

On the Use and Interpretation of Scripture: Source Text

Next we are concerned with the use of Scripture in providing a corpus of texts for other purposes. Hymns, poetry, prayers, and so forth, all draw from Scriptural roots, often borrowing phrases quoted whole, modified slightly, paraphrased, or alluded to. The Scriptures form a set of images, stories, metaphors, and such, which can be deployed in other and different contexts from where they began.

Scripture in Prayers

The use of Scriptural text in prayer is ancient, but often neglected today. It is difficult in an ex tempore prayer to effectively make use of Scripture, and the result is that churches which laud ex tempore prayer as the only genuine prayer tend to have a fairly low dose of Scriptural content in the prayer. (Ironically, such churches are often found to hold very high doctrines of the importance of Scripture!)

We are not concerned here with whether prayer is "Scriptural" in some sense of being obedient to it. Of course, prayer ought to be orthodox; and if orthodoxy is captured by being "Scriptural", then prayer ought to be such. Instead, the concern here is whether the language of Scripture is also the language of prayer.

Perhaps the most important example here is the Lord's Prayer. As Anglicans have always pointed out, when Jesus was asked to teach how to pray, he responded with a set form of words and a rubric ("go into your closet and shut the door"). The wholesale use of prayers from Scripture as one's own prayer is deeply embedded in the traditions of liturgical worship. The Lord's Prayer, the psalter, canticles, and so forth, must always have pride of place.

The use of Scripture as a source text for prayer is not only however that it gives us texts to pray; it also gives us phrases and ideas. So prayers do not merely refer to the contents of the Bible by treating the Bible as a source of true statements about history and theology, but also as a source of images, metaphors, and so forth. "Here I raise my Ebenezer" went the traditional words of "Come thou font of every blessing." The Episcopal Church has now dropped those words, under the (surely correct) assumption that almost everyone who sings them has forgotten—or never learned—1 Samuel 7.

Meaning and Interpretation

Immediately with all these uses of Scripture as source texts runs the worry that the text will be taken in a way which does violence to its meaning. I believe that this worry fundamentally misunderstands the nature of scriptural interpretation. It operates with the idea that there is a "meaning", which is determined separately and apart from the actual use of the text in the Church, and which the Church's use in prayer must then be respectful of. This is the right description, because if interpretation is not to be separate and apart from the actual use of the text, then we would see the actual use of the text as source material as precisely one of those things which interpretation must take into account, rather than judge over.

But this does not mean that a text cannot be misused in quotation. Of course it can be. What it means is simply that the judgment whether it has been misused cannot be made on the basis of fidelity to some separately acquired meaning. And the caveats about historical continuity now apply. We must be extremely cautious about deciding that a traditional use of a text in quotation is a misuse. If we are tempted to say that indeed it is, we must now step back and re-evaluate that perhaps it is rather our criteria for judging use and misuse which should be amended.

Two examples will make the point. The liturgy grabs one verse of Psalm 118 and embeds it in the Eucharistic Prayer, in which it functions as an acclamation of Jesus Christ, the one who "comes in the name of the Lord." And many worshippers have gone further and re-interpreted the text as referring to themselves. (This is a convenient modern idea, but has no basis in liturgical history; it then drives the text to be re-translated to avoid the "he" since the worshippers are both men and women.) But this is not what Psalm 118 means, the Biblical Scholar proclaims; it does violence to the psalm; the psalm is a Royal Psalm, about King David, and not about Jesus.

The second example of the use of Scripture as quotation is the celebrated quotation of Isaiah in Matthew, in which we are told that a "virgin will conceive", now applied to Mary. Not even a mis-applied quotation (since in Isaiah, we are told, it was about Ahab and the immediate political context), but a misquoted and mis-applied quotation, since Hebrew almah does not imply virgin, as Matthew is using it.

What to do?! Notice now the validity of the historical caution. If we decide that the antecedently determined meaning must control all use in quotation, then we must jettison not merely the Benedictus in the Eucharistic Prayer, but also large stretches of the New Testament—for starters. This should tell us that the rule being proposed is the wrong rule.

Many adopt a quite bizarre rule, one which says that it's ok for Scripture to misquote and misuse Scripture, but not ok for us to do so. This cannot be right. Instead, what we must give up on is the idea that these are misuses or misquotes at all.

Matthew is quoting Isaiah, we must say. We can comfortably say that Isaiah never intended what Matthew gets out of it, but so what? Isaiah does not own the text, and have we not learned that "authorial intention" is the shakiest of grounds to base a hermeneutic upon?

But once we say this, that Matthew is quoting Isaiah, we must also say that this is not the only way one may quote Isaiah. The other ways remain; the other uses of Scripture remain. If one is worried that we will not be able to hear about Ahab and his situation because Matthew has altered the meaning of the text, then this worry can be put to rest. Since we are not engaged in a search for "the meaning of the text", we need not worry that affirming Matthew means discarding other uses and interpretations.

On the Use and Interpretation of Scripture: Index

On the Use and Interpretation of Scripture: Homiletics

One of the primary means of using Scripture in the liturgy, after the reading of it, is preaching based upon it. The primary role of the liturgy is thus underscored not only by reading it in liturgy, but in regularly commenting on it in the context of the liturgy. This is then the primary means by which the Scripture is commented on in the Church. But it is specifically liturgical; and some features of this commentary are particular to that context.

Objective Setting

By the objective setting, I mean those features which depend not on the particulars of a given congregation or preacher or moment. We are concerned then with the ritual context in which the homily is found, the particular liturgical festival or occasion, and so forth.

A homily is intended not merely to explain a given text, but to explain it for a purpose, that is, for the purpose of its setting in that particular liturgy. A Eucharistic homily thus differs from a homily preached at an office. Preaching at an ordination differs from preaching at a funeral. Preaching in Easter differs from Christmas, and both from Lent or Advent.

There is no question, therefore, of giving a homily which simply explains a text as a written commentary might; the homily is necessarily directed to the occasion and setting. Moreover, because of the priority of liturgy in the Church, the liturgical homily, with its particular setting and role, stands over written commentary.

This is not to require that every use, to be appropriate, must be preachable. Many are not, and indeed, this is the point. It is the preachable uses which enjoy priority. The homily is not intended to give a comprehensive explanation of a text, and there are explanations of the text which are not appropriate for homiletic. Perhaps a given text is read only on a particular sort of occasion, which occasion does not provide for a given interpretation. One might suppose that this is to be lamented: that the text should be taken some other time, so that the proposed interpretation can be preached.

But this would be to understand the priority of liturgy and liturgical use incorrectly. There is no antecedent correct interpretation which it is the job of the liturgy to enact or preach. Rather, the liturgical interpretation has priority (though without replacing the other uses), and that priority has its own integrity.

Crucially, liturgical contexts are given antecedently. Except on rare occasions, one does not begin with a homily and then seek a liturgy in which to embed it; likewise, liturgical procedure chooses readings first and only then begins consideration of homiletic: and the choice is made (generally not by local communities) with regard for the entire year and not simply a single occasion.

Nothing wrong has happened because a given text is read and not homilized about, or that a homily can only say some things and not everything. This is, in fact, of the nature of liturgical preaching, and it does not mean that liturgical preaching is only of secondary importance to some understanding of the text reached before; rather, it means that liturgical preaching enjoys a priority, with these characteristics as part of why it has that priority.

Subjective Setting

Different communities differ, as do different preachers. One day it may be raining; the deceased at a funeral may be well known or indigent. Appropriate preaching is responsive to all these various changes in communities and situations.

The dynamic of liturgical preaching is driven then by the relation between the fixed text of Scripture and the dynamics of actual liturgical communities, as mediated by liturgical designers who have done their work without knowing the details of the particular community.

Different interpretations are made in a homily, as a result, depending on all these factors. What establishes the correctness of the homily must be judged by the internal canons of liturgical appropriateness, and not by fidelity to some antecedent interpretation of the text or of the particular liturgical situation. One preaches on 1 Corinthians 15 at many funerals, but the content can and should vary appropriately.

Moreover, what is said in one community about 1 Corinthians 15 may be quite different from what is said in another. This does not result in any question of which is correct, merely because they may disagree in the words spoken. The job of a homily—which is a liturgical job—is to be part of a particular ritual, just as much as the lighting of candles, playing of music, or reading of prayers.

This does not mean that all preaching is equally appropriate, of course. One must judge the homily, but the judgment must be with respect to the liturgical situation in all its particularity, rather than to some idealized reading of a text or even of a liturgical context.

Locality of Reference

Any given homily is only about certain parts of the Bible. Because of the necessarily contextual setting of a homily, there is no need for the sort of consistency required of other uses of Scripture. Because a text may have many meanings; because, that is, there may be many hermeneutical filters which could illuminate it; because there is no interpretation of Scripture prior to the homily which could judge it—there is no reason that a given text must always be given the same explanation, or even compatible explanations; still less that one text must be given an explanation compatible with that given a different text.

Two points are crucial here. First, that there is (in general) no violation of appropriate homiletic in giving different readings of the same text on different occasions, or giving readings of different texts on separate occasions which could not be joined into a single homily. This follows necessarily from the reality that there is no antecedent correct interpretation to be found, which in turn follows from the priority of the liturgical use of Scripture.

Second, this places hermeneutical filters and techniques at the service of the homilist and not as a master. Moreover, because a homilist must be attentive to the objective and subjective contexts of the homily, it is unlikely that any hermeneutical filter could be determined in advance without, on some occasion or other, producing bad homiletic. (One thinks here of those Lutheran preachers who feel constrained to preach justification by faith alone in every sermon.)

The Judgment of Homiletic

I have insisted that homiletic cannot be judged by fidelity to antecedently chosen hermeneutical criteria or preceding interpretation. I have, however, been vague and inspecific about what the criteria are which distinguish good from bad homiletic.

Homiletic, embedded in the liturgical context, must function together with that context. It cannot, therefore, operate as a challenge to the basic assumptions or mechanisms of the liturgy. (If such a challenge is necessary, then one has an obligation to stop engaging in the offending liturgy rather than enacting it while criticizing it.) This is true both for objective and subjective factors.

A homily must serve the rite, offering words that enable the hearers to more effectively participate in the liturgy. A homily which so enrages the hearers that they leave (or stay only through a mistaken sense of propriety) is a failure, even if the words would be true on some other occasion. Or rather, such a homily may be successful, but not as a homily; that is, its interpretation of text has failed to be what it should be, and thus is no longer a use or interpretation of Scripture in that community.

A homily must be responsible, both to the wider Church, and to the ongoing life of a given congregation. Even when a homilist is invited to preach in an unfamiliar community and expects never to return, the homily should be responsible as if the preacher needed to stay around and deal with fall-out, as if the preacher were prepared to be judged for the content of what is said.

Finally, a homily is not a lecture, nor is it bible study. Homilies which are so inattentive to liturgical context that they are lectures have left the liturgy entirely. Likewise, homilies which are really introductions to group bible study (so-called "dialogue sermons," for example) have deviated so strongly from their liturgical moorings that they are no longer homilies, but something else. While in both these cases they may be very good lectures or bible studies, they no longer enjoy the priority properly ascribed to the homily.

On the Use and Interpretation of Scripture: Index

On the Use and Interpretation of Scripture: Readings in the Liturgy

The primary criterion of Scripture is its use in the liturgy, specifically its use as the key readings in the liturgy. From this comes the essential criterion of canonicity, as well as the other uses of Scripture in the church.

Canonicity

Only some books are read and not others. Because the question of what is read must be made: one either reads a given book, or not, the question is inescapable. The practice of course derived from the synagogue with its own practice of readings. Immediately one notices some qualifications necessary.

First, there are readings from non-biblical literature. These are most often found in the morning office, as patristic readings. They were prescribed by the Rule of Saint Benedict, and are found in other liturgies as well. Recently some Anglican liturgies have made their use optional. Special services, especially weddings, often find such readings.

We can note some facts about these additional non-Scriptural readings which explain why, despite their use in the liturgy, they are not thereby Scripture. They arose only later, and always surrounded with the rule that they can augment, but never replace, the Scriptural readings. Second, they are limited to only some services and not used in others, while Scriptural readings are used in nearly all services.

A second qualification is the use of hymns from non-biblical sources, especially in contexts where biblical texts are normally found. For example, in the Anglican office one finds the use of the Te Deum and the Gloria in Excelsis as canticles for some days and not others. We should note, however, that in the Roman Office, the Te Deum has its own place, and the Gloria is not found in the office at all. Perhaps even more interesting is the extensive use of "canons" of antiphons in the Orthodox services, which have come to replace almost entirely the singing of the biblical canticles with which they were associated.

However, we can see that these hymns are used as the expression of the worshippers: quite rather than being read to the worshippers, they are sung by the worshippers themselves as their own prayer. And, most importantly, while some of them have come to replace or even supplant biblical texts, they are not allowed to introduce upon the readings in the liturgy proper.

So the liturgy marks out, by particular forms, certain texts, which are read from the Scriptures at particular moments, and surrounded by particular ceremony and responses. These texts are taken from the normative canon of Scripture, and it is this selection which determines the canon.

Choice of Books

The texts chosen vary from church to church. Different churches have made different judgments about canonicity, with different reasons. Broad agreement was reached fairly early, with disagreement arising in the sixteenth century about the "apocrypha": Jewish texts in the Greek and Latin Bibles but not in the Hebrew.

One can judge that what a church reads in worship, as a canonical reading, is what that church takes to be canonical. But there are some constant worries. For example, Anglicans have always read from the apocrypha, but have a rule that the texts thus read are not to establish points of doctrine. The Orthodox have always admitted the Revelation of John as canonical, but do not read it in services.

So the actual practice of churches is a bit fuzzy. I judge, however, that the choice to read a text in church as scripture establishes its canonicity for that community; while a decision not to read it is determinitive neither way. So we must say that the apocrypha are canonical for Anglicans, and we must understand the decision not to base doctrine upon them in some other way. The Orthodox, who insist that the Revelation is canonical, must be taken at their word, though it is not read in services.

For every church cannot read everything, or at least, thus has been the case.

Choice of Readings

The choice of readings offers the fear that we establish a canon within the canon. Such choices are made often for practical reasons, but an examination of lectionaries will show that other concerns are also often present.

Sometimes a text is excluded because it is ugly: this is often the case with various psalms in various liturgies. More often, it is excluded from reading because, essentially, the compilers of the lectionary do not know how it could be read and understood as Scripture by their community.

They express, thus, a sort of half-doubt about canonicity. They do not wish to read texts about which the worshipping community will react with marked hostility; in this they reflect (or try to) the judgments the community itself makes. It is just this which is invoked to exclude the Revelation of John from Orthodox liturgy; and likewise, one can imagine just such motives behind the particular omissions from various New Testament epistles in the Daily Office lectionary of the Episcopal Church.

However, the lectionary compilers are not excluding such readings from the church. One finds that, in fact, no broad exclusion is made; merely that the particular reading is not included in the lectionary. But the actual practice of the churches allows readings outside the lectionary for various purposes; importantly, no judgment is made that the text is in principle incapable of being used as scripture, merely that it is pastorally inadvisable in the particular setting.

One must always be wary, however, that a continued practice of this sort does result, ultimately, in a loss of canonicity for that community. Lectionary authors are therefore advised to be extremely careful with such cases.

Liturgical Honorific

The readings are marked by particular honorifics. Most notably in the West is the acclamation "thanks be to God" after readings; in recent years this is preceded by the declaration of the reader: "The Word of the Lord." Moreover, liturgy renders an honorific immediately by the near constant use of Scripture in liturgy. Nearly every service has a reading, even if reduced to a single sentence or two. (And, in those cases, it is still regarded as a reading.)

One finds directions about reading from dignified books, elevated platforms, surrounded by lights, and so forth. The reading of the Gospel, in particular, is associated with special honor played the Gospel book and the management of its reading in liturgy.

In these ways and more the church confesses something about the reading of Scripture. But most importantly, what it confesses is that Scripture should be surrounded by reverence. It should be treated as important, and this is crucial. Nothing is so strange to the liturgical worshipper as the fundamentalist preacher holding his Bible, with no actual reading having occurred, as he pages around in his sermon identifying bits and explaining them. It looks so undignified; the text is being made to serve the speaker. At no point can the text simply be heard.

The Puritans insisted that a homily should be associated with every reading, but Anglicans followed liturgical tradition in refusing. In particular, we trust that the reading, by itself, is capable of doing something. In not demanding a homily at each reading, we mark a conviction about the power of the text itself.

On the Use and Interpretation of Scripture: Index

On the Use and Interpretation of Scripture: Index

A series on the use and interpretation of Scripture.

1. Prolegomena
2. Liturgy: Readings
3. Liturgy: Homiletics
4. Liturgy: Source Text
5. Liturgy: Ritual Object
6. Liturgy: Supervening Authority
7. Private Prayer
8. Private Study
9. Canon Law
10. Dogmatic Polemic
11. Dogmatic Foundation
12. Conclusion


Index of Indexes

On the Use and Interpretation of Scripture: Prolegomena

What is the correct way to use and interpret Scripture? This is a very important question, and part of what makes it difficult is the way that presuppositions are made which prejudice the results, presuppositions which are taken as obvious, so obvious they need not be stated, and yet which, when stated, lack defense.

So in this series of posts I wish to explore this question for two purposes: to outline what I believe is the correct way to understand the use and interpretation of Scirpture, and second, to explore the way that hidden presuppositions can color the results.

This impinges upon me the need to describe where I start.

Historical Continuity

I take it as a given that the Church is a historically continuous entity, and that nothing can be essential for all Christians which did not exist for some. (This leaves open the possibility, of course, that something can be essential for all Christians after some point; to defend such a possibility in a particular case requires a clear explanation of what changed at that point.)

We are investigating the proper use and interpretation of the Scriptures within the Christian Church. There may be uses and interpretations of Scripture which are found outside the Church; nothing here prevents such investigation, but neither can that investigation be relevant to the ecclesiastical task.

We necessarily find, therefore, that the Church existed before the New Testament; that it is incorrect to state that the Scriptures give birth to the Church. The Church existed fully and completely on the Day of Pentecost; moreover, no word of the New Testament was penned except by members of the Christian community seeking to inform or govern other members of the community, and the text was received as such as any other communication from the same author would have been. (We can see this in Paul most directly, who clearly writes as if a live communication would have the same authority as a written, and indeed, stresses that his written communication should be received as if he were present in person. Clearly, then, the written text of Paul's letters derives its authority—at least for its first hearers—from the authority of Paul, and had no particular additional authority that other forms of communication from him would not share.)

Under this heading also, we must be committed to a robust conviction of the historical continuity of the Church in its use of Scripture. Just as we cannot unchurch the first generation of Christians, we cannot unchurch the rest. We may well have criticisms to make, but we cannot make them in such terms that we render unrecognizable the Church of a given age, or rather, to make a criticism of a certain depth requires that we cease recognition of this or that group as being the Church. And, if this in turn means we must see a fundamental break in the continuity of the Church, we must go back and reform our criticism. It is thus that historical continuity is a brake upon arbitrary claims of new understanding which render all previous understanding unimportant. (Such a break happened, for example, in the thought of the Protestant Reformers; their accusation that the medieval Church simply was not the Church must tell us that in fact their accusation was incorrect [or the historical continuity of the Church would be lost].)

Finally, historical continuity operates in a "softer" fashion, requiring us to examine the use and interpretation of the Scriptures throughout the history of the Church and not merely at present. We are not obliged to sanction every practice, but we must be very hesitant about jettisoning this or that as being a fundamental misunderstanding; this would be very close (if not too close) to saying that the practitioners in question have made such a fundamental misunderstanding that they are unchurched.

Liturgical Priority

Because the Canon of Scripture was initially determined specifically with reference to what is read in church, we must not lose sight of this fact. The Canon is simply and plainly, what is read in the church as Scripture. What distinguishes the Bible from other books is, in the first instance, that it is used liturgically in a different manner from other books. Only as a secondary question comes the use of the Bible as a doctrinal or juridical standard, as a tool in private prayer, and so forth.

Whatever ascriptions of authority the Church makes for the Scriptures are made in virtue of this primary liturgical use. It is because the text is received and heard in this manner that it can be confessed as Scripture. Two consequences follow: first, the Church is not of one mind about what can be read in this way, and second, the exact bounds of the Canon admit some curious flexibility.

Any description of the use and interpretation of the Scriptures which insists on a clear bright line rule, or that the Scriptures are self-authenticating (as John Calvin and Karl Barth seemed to think) must fall. We would be forced to do violence to the historical continuity of the Church if we begin asserting that the disagreements about the bounds of the canon are determinative for the being of the Church. Likewise, we must take account of the complex ways the Scriptures are used in the liturgy, in all their actual complexity. (For example, we must note that the Orthodox accept the Revelation to John, but do not read it in services; we must note that Anglicans do read the Apocrypha in services, but do not permit doctrine to be established from it.)

Actual rather than Ideal Use

We must focus on the actual use and interpretation of Scripture in the Church, in all its breadth, and not on only some small subset. Barth, for example, writes in KD 1/1 as if the principal point of the Scriptures is to ground homiletics and dogmatics. True enough that the Scriptures are importantly used for those purposes. But we must also consider that the Scriptures are used as sources of prayers, as material for lectio divina, as historical information, as a source of artistic and literary material, as the occasion for Bible study, as liturgical objects in their own right (consider the book of the Gospels!), and so forth.

We may well judge that a given use is inappropriate, but we must not simply disregard certain uses, or start with the assumption that this or that use is inherently determinative. This focus on actual use exists in some tension with the liturgical priority rule. If we find that we are using the rule of liturgical priority in such a way as to preclude an independent look at some other use of the Scriptures, we have gone too far. Likewise, if this independent look cannot be related faithfully back to what is done liturgically, then we must be prepared to mount a criticism of the liturgical practice (which may, in turn, do violence to the insistence on the historical continuity of the Church), or else we must criticize the independent look.

Thus, the liturgical priority becomes not a way to judge all other uses, but rather a way of ensuring that the other uses are interrelated and not with violence to each other. The liturgy functions as the hub of a wheel.

Public Interpretation

All seem to be always agreed that the Scriptures are not of private interpretation. But the issue here is not about whether the ideas are published; the question is whether they have authority. To agree that the use and interpretation of Scripture is a public task, one which must ultimately be responsible to a public standard, is to grant the legitimate use of authority in determining the bounds of that use and interpretation.

This grounds the canon and the liturgy as well: canonical text is that read as Scripture in the services of the Church by the authority of the Church; the liturgy is that public worship which is officially done by the Church as such and not simply the particular worship of this or that group. In both cases, the existence of authority is central to the normative status of the result.

Moreover, while the Scripture is often appealed to over and against a local authority (local in time or space), it is in the last analysis the job of that very authority to judge the question. If the authority judges wrongly, we can only (in extreme cases) separate ourselves from it: and if we do so in such terms that the historical continuity of the Church is threatened, we can know that it is we who are in error.

The process by which the authority of the Church established the canon of Scripture is continuous with its authority in other matters: there is no special "Scripture-sanctioning" authority in the Church, nor are the structures and procedures for its exercise radically different in these cases than in others. As we have seen, the Church establishes the canon by liturgical legislation.

We cannot therefore begin by assuming any particular priority of authorities. It is incorrect to say that the Church stands under the Scripture, if we mean by this some transhistorical judgment of the Church by the Scripture. At most, we can use this language of "standing under" only as a recognition that the Church must be responsible to its own past (historical continuity) and its present (structures of authority). And nothing about those qualifications is limited to the Scriptures: the obligation to be responsible to the past may also apply in the case of creeds, immemorial liturgical customs, and so forth.

Incorrect Starting Places

We must not start by thinking that the job of the Scripture is to communicate truths from God to human beings. This immediately restricts the use of Scripture to being primarily or only a question of determining the meaning of what the text says.

We must not assume that any single hermeneutical category will suffice for the entire Scripture, or for all uses and interpretational goals, or for all time. There is no question (at least, not at the outset) of presuming that we can find a "hermeneutical key" which will shed light on all the Scripture. Most importantly, the "discovery" of such new categories, if they are intended as totalizing statements of the correct method or procedure for interpreting the Scriptures, will do great violence to the historical continuity of the Church.

If we are led to a negative hermeneutical category—one which tells us not to read a text in this or that way (examples include Bultmann and Spong)—we must be particularly attentive to the historical continuity of the Church: if that way of reading was once permissible and is so no longer, we must hesitate until we have a clear indication of when the change occurred and why. We cannot allow ourselves to simply dismiss earlier reading as uninformed, primitive, or "culturally alien".

We must not assume that every use or interpretation of the Scripture will yield a consistent "meaning". We must not assume that a given passage (or the text as a whole) has "a meaning"; we must not say that an interpration of passage X is incorrect because it yields an answer different from the interpretation reached of passage Y. We must allow, as well, that interpretations can differ as the uses of Scripture differ: a use may be permissible in homiletics but impermissible in dogmatics. (For this reason, the Barthian clam about dogmatics as a check upon and a monitoring of homiletics must be partially incorrect.)

We cannot adopt maxims such as sola scriptura or let Scripture be interpreted by Scripture itself except as they can be justified as any other hermeneutical principle must be. In particular, we must be attentive to the use of such maxims as negative principles, often intended to exclude prior strategies of reading the text; these must be rejected when they amount to an assault on the continuity of the Church.

Interpreting the Prolegomena Itself

The principles (both positive and negative) which I outline here are not theological starting places; they are principles which can be defended. They are not assumptions but merely indications (with some reasoning attached) of what I believe are the only appropriate places to start this investigation.

On the Use and Interpretation of Scripture: Index