Comment on 8:1-4
What are the breasts of the church except the sacrament of baptism? And well does he say "sucking," as if the baptized were seeking him as a draught of snowy milk. "Finding you without," he says, "I shall kiss you," that is, finding you outside the body, I embrace you with the kiss of mystical peace. No one shall despise you; no one shall shut you out. I will introduce you into the inner sanctuary and hidden places of Mother Church, and into all the secrets of mystery, so that you may drink the cup of spiritual grace.
Ambrose, Consolation on the Death of Emperor Valentinian, 75 in J. Robert Wright, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: OT IX (Downers Grove: IVP, 2005), 362.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Saturday, May 29, 2010
The Goal of Study
Read whatever chapter of Scripture you will, and be ever so delighted with it--yet it will leave you as poor, as empty and unchaged as it found you unless it has turned you wholly and solely to the Spirit of God, and brought you into full union with and dependence upon him.
William Law, The Power of the Spirit (Fort Washington, PA: Christian Literature Crusade, 1971), 19 quoted in Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire, 140.
William Law, The Power of the Spirit (Fort Washington, PA: Christian Literature Crusade, 1971), 19 quoted in Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire, 140.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Origen and Literal Meaning
Let no one suspect that we hold that Scripture does not contain real history, or that the precepts of the Law are not to be observed to the letter, or that what is written of the Savior did not happen in reality...Much more numerous are the truly historical passages than those which are to be taken in the purely spiritual sense.
Origen, On First Principles in George Montague, Understanding the Bible, 35
Origen, On First Principles in George Montague, Understanding the Bible, 35
Hermeneutic of Love
Whoever, therefore, thinks he understands the divine Scriptures or any part of them so that it does not build the double love of God and of our neighbor does not understand them at all.
Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, in George Montague, Understanding the Bible, 47
Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, in George Montague, Understanding the Bible, 47
Friday, May 14, 2010
Exegesis is a dust cloth...
But, inconvenient or not, we are stuck with the necessity of exegesis. We have a written word to read and attend to. It is God's word, or so we believe, and we had better get it right. Exegesis is the care we give to getting the words right. Exegesis is foundational to Christian spirituality. Foundations disappear from view as a building is constructed, but if the builders don't build a solid foundation, their building doesn't last long.
Because we speak our language so casually, it is easy to fall into the habit of treating it casually. But language is persistently difficult to understand. We spend our early lives leaning the language, and just when we think we have it mastered our spouse says, "You don't understand a thing I'm saying, do you?" We teach our children to talk, and just about the time we think they might be getting it, they quit talking to us; and when we overhear them talking to their friends, we find we can't understand more than one out of every eight or nine words they say. A close relationship doesn't guarentee understanding. A long affection doesn't guarantee understanding. In fact, the closer we are to another and the more intimate our relations, the more care we must exercise to hear accurately, to understand thoroughly, to answer appropriately.
Which is to say, the more "spiritual" we become, the more care we must give to exegesis. The more mature we become in the Christian faith, the more exegetically rigorous we must become. THis is not a task from which we graduate. These words given to us in our Spiritures are constantly getting overlaid with personal preferences, cultural assumptions, sin distortions, and ignorant guesses and pollute the text. The pollutants are always in the air, gathering dust on our Bibles, corroding our use of the language, especially the language of faith. Exegesis is a dust cloth, a scrub brush, or even a Q-tip for keeping the words clean.
Eugene Peterson, Eat This Book, 53
Because we speak our language so casually, it is easy to fall into the habit of treating it casually. But language is persistently difficult to understand. We spend our early lives leaning the language, and just when we think we have it mastered our spouse says, "You don't understand a thing I'm saying, do you?" We teach our children to talk, and just about the time we think they might be getting it, they quit talking to us; and when we overhear them talking to their friends, we find we can't understand more than one out of every eight or nine words they say. A close relationship doesn't guarentee understanding. A long affection doesn't guarantee understanding. In fact, the closer we are to another and the more intimate our relations, the more care we must exercise to hear accurately, to understand thoroughly, to answer appropriately.
Which is to say, the more "spiritual" we become, the more care we must give to exegesis. The more mature we become in the Christian faith, the more exegetically rigorous we must become. THis is not a task from which we graduate. These words given to us in our Spiritures are constantly getting overlaid with personal preferences, cultural assumptions, sin distortions, and ignorant guesses and pollute the text. The pollutants are always in the air, gathering dust on our Bibles, corroding our use of the language, especially the language of faith. Exegesis is a dust cloth, a scrub brush, or even a Q-tip for keeping the words clean.
Eugene Peterson, Eat This Book, 53
Eating the Word
Christians feed on Scripture. Holy Scripture nurtures the holy community as food nurtures the human body. Christians don’t simply learn or study or use Scripture; we assimilate it, take it into our lives in such a way that it gets metabolized into acts of love, cups of cold water, missions into all the world, healing and evangelism and justice in Jesus' name, hands raised in adoration of the Father, feet washed in company with the Son.
Eugene Peterson, Eat This Book, page 18
Eugene Peterson, Eat This Book, page 18
Monday, April 19, 2010
C.S. Lewis
"An author doesn't necessarily understand the meaning of his own story better than anyone else."
In a letter to professor Clyde S. Kilby about his novel Til We Have Faces. 10 Feb 1957
W.H. Lewis ed. The Letters of C.S. Lewis (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World Inc., 1966) 273.
In a letter to professor Clyde S. Kilby about his novel Til We Have Faces. 10 Feb 1957
W.H. Lewis ed. The Letters of C.S. Lewis (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World Inc., 1966) 273.
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