Category: Interpretation

The Church and the Scriptures

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 158 Leave a Comment on %s
My recent articles on the place of the Scriptures, their relationship with the Church, and the proper manner it which they are to be regarded have drawn more than a little comment (and some fire) including on other blogsites. In this article I want to take time to answer some specific points and to add some further observations. A Reform article, by Michael J. Kruger (Professor of NT at Reform Theological School in Charlotte),…

There Is No “Bible” in the Bible

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 84 Leave a Comment on %s
There are certain ideas that, once introduced, tend to change how people think of everything else. This is certainly the case with the Bible. For of all the ideas about the Scripture, the most recent is the notion of “the Bible.” The word “Bible” simply means “book.” Thus, it is a name that means “the Book.” It is a particularly late notion if for no other reason than that books are a…

Knowing God’s Will

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 37 Leave a Comment on %s
“What is God’s will for my life?” No question is either more poignant nor more misguided on the lips of a Christian. It cuts particularly deep because it is most often spoken by the young or by those who feel they have lost their way. It is misguided because it makes a large number of false assumptions about the nature of our relationship with God as well as false assumptions about our…

Hidden in Plain Sense

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 43 Leave a Comment on %s
Regardless of the tools and methods used in interpreting the Scriptures, the Fathers had a common assumption – they agreed that the truth was hidden behind the letter of the text. They believed that something was hidden and that it was God Himself who had done the hiding. There were a variety of methods employed for revealing what was hidden, some more concerned about the text itself than others. Many modern believers…

History and the Gospel

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 18 Leave a Comment on %s
I remember a grumpy student once saying: “I hate history! It’s just one darned thing after another!” And so it is. For although we study history, we think of it as a simple collection of events, a way of telling the story of the world. Like a well-written newspaper account, we expect history to state the facts as accurately as possible and leave for the reader the task of interpretation. Is it…

Again – The Sin of Democracy

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 32 Leave a Comment on %s
In light of the present discussion of reading the Bible, I offer this reprint. Our modern age has drunk the kool-aid of philosophical democracy (the autonomous authority of the individual) to the dregs and seeks to use the Bible to underwrite the project. A book that could not have been owned by an individual prior to the printing press in the 15th century (by reason of cost) cannot be used philosophically to…

Making Known the Mystery

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 70 Leave a Comment on %s
The trouble with reading Scripture is that almost everybody thinks they can do it. This idea is rooted in the assumptions of Protestant thought: only if the meaning of Scripture is fairly obvious and more or less objective can it serve as a source of unmediated authority for the believer. If any particular skill or mastery is required, then the skillful masters will be the mediators of meaning for all the rest.…

The Scope of Passover and Penal Substitution Theory

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 141 Leave a Comment on %s
One of the terms used in the early fathers when interpreting the Scriptures was the “scope” of Scripture. By this they meant backing away from the detail of the text to see the larger picture, the “scope” of a broad reading. This technique was particularly valued in the so-called Antiochene School of interpretation, which is usually associated with a more historical/literal reading of Scripture. The failure to see the “scope” of the…

Creation and Evolution

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 349 Leave a Comment on %s
The crucifixion, death and resurrection of Christ is the proper beginning point for all Christian theology. Christ’s Pascha should be the source for all Christian reflection. It is clear that the disciples themselves did not understand the Scriptures nor Christ Himself until after the resurrection (Luke 24:45). We cannot approach Pascha as a midpoint in a historical narrative. It is the beginning. That which came before is only understood by reading backwards…

The Christian Reading of the Old Testament

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 23 Leave a Comment on %s
A fitting mediation for the season on the Scriptures… “That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet…” This is a familiar line in the gospels – particularly in St. Matthew. It signals a moment that the gospel writer (and thus the tradition) sees an action or saying of Jesus as somehow being a “fulfillment” of something within the Old Testament. The confession of the primitive Church is that what…