Spiritual Interpretation of the Bible<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Jonathan Edwards, says one scholar of Edwards, "devoted most of his waking life to meditating on Scripture... praying fervently for the Spirit's help\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/02\/27\/spiritual-interpretation-of-the-bible\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Spiritual Interpretation of the Bible\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Jonathan Edwards, says one scholar of Edwards, "devoted most of his waking life to meditating on Scripture... praying fervently for the Spirit's help\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/02\/27\/spiritual-interpretation-of-the-bible\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-02-27T06:02:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-02-25T01:57:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/files\/2012\/02\/EdwardsPic2-292x300.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/02\/27\/spiritual-interpretation-of-the-bible\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/02\/27\/spiritual-interpretation-of-the-bible\/\",\"name\":\"Spiritual Interpretation of the Bible\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-02-27T06:02:35+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-02-25T01:57:04+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\"},\"description\":\"Jonathan Edwards, says one scholar of Edwards, \\\"devoted most of his waking life to meditating on Scripture... praying fervently for the Spirit's help\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/02\/27\/spiritual-interpretation-of-the-bible\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/02\/27\/spiritual-interpretation-of-the-bible\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/02\/27\/spiritual-interpretation-of-the-bible\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Spiritual Interpretation of the Bible\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\",\"name\":\"Jesus Creed\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith in the 21st century\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\",\"name\":\"Scot McKnight\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight is a recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. 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{"id":25668,"date":"2012-02-27T00:02:35","date_gmt":"2012-02-27T06:02:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?p=25668"},"modified":"2012-02-24T19:57:04","modified_gmt":"2012-02-25T01:57:04","slug":"spiritual-interpretation-of-the-bible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/02\/27\/spiritual-interpretation-of-the-bible\/","title":{"rendered":"Spiritual Interpretation of the Bible"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

$\"\"$ <\/a>Jonathan Edwards, says one scholar of Edwards, \u201cdevoted most of his waking life to meditating on Scripture\u2026 praying fervently for the Spirit\u2019s help interpreting and applying the Bible\u201d (169, from The Theology of Jonathan Edwards<\/em><\/a>, ed. M.J. McClymond, G.R McDermott). I wonder, and perhaps you do, how much the current pastor reads the Bible \u2014 devoting \u201cmost\u201d of one\u2019s \u201cwaking life\u201d to the Bible. There is no doubt that the pragmatics and professionalization of the modern pastorate makes that kind of life almost impossible.<\/p>\n

And how good is that for the church?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The authors estimate that Edwards wrote more than 5000 pages of printed material as exposition of Scripture. This all goes back to a resolution he made as a young man to spend his life studying Scripture. This posture of his led to his Bible reading being a sensate experience \u2014 spirit laid on spirit. Some have said Edwards was pre-critical, but another scholar (Robert Brown) said Edwards\u2019 approach should be called \u201chybrid traditionalism,\u201d and the interesting thing is that he tended to use modernist methods to prove traditionalist conclusions.<\/p>\n

He struggled to defeat Enlightenment deists, Roman Catholics, and hyper evangelicals who are more or less something like rhema word interpreters today.<\/p>\n

Back to that sensate reading: he sought a harmony between text and heart. He believed in divine illumination leading beyond the literal reading; \u201cSpirit-empowered interpretation\u201d and there was an inexhaustibility to Scripture. The authors of this book seem not to want to say too much, but they say Edwards tilted toward the spiritual. I\u2019d say he did more than tilt. His \u201cspiritual interpretation\u201d permits the reader to put the Bible together. Of course, this sounds like the so-called \u201ctheological interpretation of Scripture\u201d today as well as the narrative\/Story approaches and it can sound like confessional approaches, but Edwards searched for what I would call a deeper sensate reading: an intellectual interiority of communion with God <\/em>(as he understood God and God\u2019s redemptive history in this world).<\/p>\n

He was a typological reader \u2014 and the authors pull out a quote that shows Edwards saw types in every dimension of Scripture, and not only in things like cities and people and events, but also in the events in the life of Jesus. All of Scripture was captured and swallowed into a larger sense.<\/p>\n

As compared with those who fought for \u201cperspicuity\u201d (text is plain and clear in its fundamental message) Edwards pursued the \u201cfecundity\u201d of Scripture.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how they sum it up: \u201cSpiritually interpreted, the Bible became a pulsating, dynamic field of interacting signs\u201d (180).<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"