One or two people have expressed interested in reading this paper I wrote recently on the function of the words of institution of the Lord's Supper. I believe it will soon be available on a wonderful new website that Neil Robbie and James Oakley are preparing to help ministers who celebrate the Supper. Will let you know where and when.

The words of 'The Laughing Policeman' to the tune of 'As Time Goes By'.

(Not me, Paul)

Hays (see previous post) suggests several ways in which we may learn to be imitators of Paul in our interpretation of Scripture:

(i) Read Scripture primarily as a narrative of election and promise, as a witness to God's righteousness.

(ii) Read Scripture ecclesiocentrically - it is a word for and about the community of faith.

(iii) Read Scripture in the service of proclamation. That is to say, homiletical and prophetic readings can sometimes be more faithful that rigorously exegetical ones.

(iv) Read Scripture as participants in the eschatological drama of redemption. We have to participate in it and we have to recognise our parts properly.

(v) Appreciate the metaphorical relation between the text and our own reading of it. Cherish the poetics of interpretation, allowing rhetoric to lie down peacefully with grammar and logic.

Do we then overthrow the canon by this hermeneutic? On the contrary, we uphold the canon. Will the imaginative freedom of Paul's example ultimately destroy Scripture's authority if we dare to read the text as freely as he did? On the contrary, only when our interpreters and preachers read with an imaginative freedom analogous to Paul's will Scripture's voice be heard in the church. We are children of the Word, not prisoners.

Ultimately Hays offers two constraints to limit our interpretation of the Scriptures: 'the criterion of God's faithfulness to his promises' and what he calls 'the most powerful check against arbitrariness and error':

No reading of Scripture can be legitimate... if it fails to shape the readers into a community that embodies the love of God as shown forth in Christ. This criterion slashes away all frivolous or self-serving readings, all readings that aggrandize the interpreter, all merely clever readings. True interpretation of Scripture leads us into unqualified giving of our lives in service within the community whose vocation is to reenact the obedience of the Son of God who loved us, and gave himself for us.

We could apply this criterion fruitfully to all kinds of readings of Scripture, but for me (surprise, surprise) this resonates most strongly with the interpretation of the Song of Songs. The 'literal' interpretation so prevalent in the last 200 years has, it seems to me, singularly failed to meet this criterion, whereas the 'Christological' interpretation that was generally held before then, clearly achieved this kind of effect. And so it is that I begin with the premise that the effective interpretation is the 'true' one.

Richard Hays' book: 'Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul' is a fascinating read and in lots of instances I find his readings of Paul highly persuasive. Basically, he takes a literary approach to the text, looking for allusions (though he prefers the term echo, since it doesn't require authorial intent) to the OT. He doesn't want to restrict Paul to any one hermeneutical methods, claiming that he is driven much more by his hermeneutical goal, which Hays thinks is primarily ecclesiological.

Having recently read Walter Kaiser's 'The Use of the Old Testament in the New', I find myself very much in sympathy with this statement:

to read Scripture as a book of messianic testimonies that point to the crucified Messiah, Jesus, requires a great deal more ingenuity than to read it as a narration that foreshadows God's purpose to raise up a worldwide community of people who confess his sovereignty and manifest his justice.

You'll see that Hays thinks the narrative of the bible is all important, and in this he sees the gospel as the expression of God's righteousness which both incorporates the Gentiles and maintains his promises to the Jews.

Hays does allow for Pauline 'echoes' from non-scriptural texts such as Sirach and Wisdom of Solomon, but he pays little attention to these.

The really interesting point is whether and how far Paul's 'methodology' should be a model for our own interpretation of both Old and New Testaments. He breaks this question into three components:

(i) Are Paul's actual interpretations of scripture normative?
(ii) Are Paul's methods exemplary?
(iii) What are the appropriate constraints on interpretive freedom?

Some would say: No, No, GHE
This is certainly consistent but hardly satisfactory for Christians.

Others (Longenecker): Yes, No, GHE
This is profoundly unsatisfactory in my view - essentially Longenecker argues that Paul gets the right answers by the wrong methods! And since these methods are a fundamental part of his message (ecclesiological and eschatological hermeneutics) Longenecker ends by undermining Paul absolutely.

No one really thinks: No, Yes, ?
Although I wonder if some who try to argue for a 'trajectory' model for understanding women's ministry/homosexuality/etc. are close to this.

Hays thinks: Yes, Yes, theological constraints NOT methodological ones
I basically agree, though I think there are methodological constraints (actually so does Hays, kind of) to do with being a 'good reader' which involves a lot more than traditional GHE and recognises the importance of the community of faith as the intended audience with the necessary spiritual insight to interpret the word.