Tuesday, September 20, 2011

The hermeneutics of Jesus and his followers VI


Wouldn’t it be wonderful to interpret the scripture just as Jesus did? Wouldn’t it be helpful to use Jesus hermeneutic in all biblical interpretation? Is it possible to understand and employ Jesus hermeneutic? If Jesus had a specific hermeneutic and, if we could understand it, why wouldn’t the followers of Jesus use his hermeneutic only? The answers to all of these questions should be a resounding yes/of course. Jesus most definitely taught his followers a unique distinctive hermeneutic so I will try to uncover it.

Looking at Jesus and his followers presuppositions:
#3 The scribes and Pharisees –- the rulers of the Jews were apostate and in danger of the imminent day of the Lord’s wrath, foretold of in the prophets, which would come to their generation. Ultimately, the hermeneutics of Jesus would overthrow the specularia of Moses and establish but one covenant… the new covenant. Jesus of Nazareth was the  unique promised Messiah.

All of the history of the scripture…. the entire story was pointing to one grand plan of God. God was going to set to rights the creation by bringing forth the Messiah. If one missed the Messiah, they missed God and his plan. Missing the Messiah was the ultimate example of missing the mark -- sin. When the Jews incited the Romans to crucify Jesus, they in effect killed their only Messiah and that is the ultimate apostasy. Rejecting and killing God Incarnate was the ultimate final apostasy.

Using scripture as a justification (John 7:46-49) the Jews rejected Jesus for religious and hermeneutical reasons. This was after God proclaimed this to them:
Exo 25:8-9  And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them.  (9)  According to all that I shew thee, after the pattern of the tabernacle, and the pattern of all the instruments thereof, even so shall ye make it.
God had become the tabernacle and dwelt among them and they rejected him. This is the ultimate apostasy.

Hebrews the Rosetta Stone of the New Covenant:
One of the ways that God could speak clearly to the Jews was to employ their hermeneutical devices in speaking to them.  The bulk of the New Testament writings are made up of DRASH that helps to interpret the Old Testament Prophecy. Of all the books in the New Testament, Hebrews is directed at Jewish believers who were in danger of joining the unbelieving Jews in the apostasy of rejecting Jesus as Messiah.

One of the main presuppositions of the scribes and the Pharisees was called the specularia of Moses. By this they meant that all of the scripture must be filtered through Moses writings. They used Numbers 12:5-8 as the proof text for this Mosaic Specularia. DRASH uses phrases from the scripture to show interpretation. Hebrews chapters one through three establish the supremacy of Christ. Chapter three explains the supremacy of Christ over Moses and there is DRASH in the passage as the writer of Hebrews uses the language of Numbers 12:7 in referring to Moses being faithful in all of God’s house, and then the writer  goes on to say that Jesus was greater than Moses thus overthrowing the earlier Mosaic Specularia.

1 comment:

  1. Tradition has killed many a relationship! Some of us are so stuck in the traditional way of doing things, that we are losing so many souls for Christ that it is pathetic. Some are so bent on doing things the old way, keeping things the old way, but what they fail to realize is that we have to change and grow with the times. We are not going to reach this new generation with ancient ways. I’m not saying conform, I’m saying transform; use the old ways but maybe spruce them up if you have to. I’m not saying water down the ways of God, but enhance it by using up to date ways. How about tweeting your service, using a conference call line for your weekly prayer meeting so that those who cannot make it into the church can still join in and also do this for your Bible Study. Put both on the web and stream it live so that others can join in. The world is growing and building and moving and so should we.

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Paul the Mystic, Paul the Rabbi: A confusing dichotomy that is detrimental to the mystical message.

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