Articles
With What Do You Walk Away Part Three
With What Do You Walk Away?
Part Three
(To get a full understanding of where the article is going will require a reading of the first two.)
In the last installment the subject was concluded with a comment made “when I stated that the “church of Christ” is non-denominational (another term utilized is un-denominational), and not a part of a council, synod, and/or convention, the gentleman with whom I was speaking said, “so you make your own rules.”
In essence, every member of a religious organization: Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, Assembly of God and/or church of Christ, “affirm that they follow the Bible as their only rule of doctrine and practice,” and hold to the doctrine of “sola scriptura.” Why is that the case? The apostle Paul indicated that “God is not a God of confusion, but of peace” (1 Cor. 14:33).
The discrepancies in doctrine that exist among individuals and churches have a common thread, i.e., their source of Biblical interpretation: D. R. Dungan's Hermeneutics: A Text-Book: Chapter IV
1. Creeds: Some will read the scriptures considering what their religious creeds dictate. If they read the scriptures based upon a creed, the interpretation will reflect what the reader had already determined the outcome.
2. Clergy: Turning the interpreting over to a clergy, i.e., “group or body of ordained persons in a religion, as distinguished from the laity,” i.e., “the ordinary people who are involved with a church but who do not hold official religious positions.” In this process, if you want to know what the scriptures mean, you ask the clergy.”
3. Pulpit: Turning the interpretation over to the pulpit, i.e., the preacher. In such an arrangement, the hearer assumes the preacher knows what he’s talking about.
4. The Mystical Method: This method “originated in heathenism—Because of its origin it is called "mythical." It was maintained that no man could interpret the communications from the deities unless be was en rapport with said divinities.”
5. The Allegorical Method: “This method treats the word of God as if it had only been intended to be a kind of combination of metaphors--a splendid riddle.”
6. Spiritual Interpretation: “This method differs only in liberality from the Mystical. Instead of supposing that a few persons are favored above the rest of mortals, it regards such power to be within the reach of everyone.”
7. The Hierarchical Method: “This method differs from the Mystical, or Mythical, not so much in the manner of receiving the knowledge from heaven, as in the assumption of authority in presenting it. It affirms that the church is the true exponent of the Scriptures. As the church was built before the New Testament Scriptures were finished, and was appointed as their guardian, it has, therefore, the right to interpret them.”
8. The Rationalistic Method: “It is very nearly the rule of unbelief. Though many of these exegetes have professed to strive only to know the exact meaning of Scripture, yet they have done more to compel the Bible to harmonize with the latest philosophies than anything else.”
9. The Apologetic Method: “It maintains the absolute perfection of all statements in the Bible. It was brought into being by the Rationalistic Method, as the mind swings from one extreme to another. As the former denied everything but what agreed with the views of the exegete, this view finds its adherents to everything, and anything that can be found in the Bible, and regards it all as from God.”
10. The Dogmatic Method: “This method is noteworthy for two things: first it assumes the doctrine to be true; and, second, it regards it as certainly true by being proven. It proceeds by assumption and proof.”
11. The Literal Interpretation: “This is most commonly employed by dogmatists, in order to maintain a view that cannot be supported in any other way.”
12. The Inductive Method: What is it? A leading or drawing off a general fact from several instances or summing up the result of observations and experiments. In the uses of this method of interpretation, all the facts are reported, and from them the conclusion is to be reached.
Without a standard of Biblical Hermeneutics there will be no consistence of belief.
Make your own rules? Not by a long shot!
When you engage another person in conversion, With What Do You Walk Away? “Take heed therefore how ye hear: for whosoever hath, to him shall be given; and whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that which he thinketh he hath” (Lk. 8:18). Better yet, with what do you want the hearer to Walk Away? “But let your speech be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: and whatsoever is more than these is of the evil one” (Matt. 5:37), and “Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer each one” (Col. 4:6).
- With_What_Do_You_Walk_Away_Part_Three.pdf (82.43 kB)
