2 minute read
Biblical interpretation has drastically evolved over the centuries, but one principle that has remained relatively stable has been the affirmation of a pivoting Christocentric hermeneutic. Jesus followers at least profess that the whole sweep of the Bible’s redemptive narrative from Genesis to Revelation should be perceived through the lens of Jesus. The Old Testament looks forward to Jesus. The gospels show us His life, ministry, teaching, death, and resurrection. Then Acts and the epistles look back upon Jesus. The totality of the story centers on Jesus.
Most would agree that the epistle writers likewise labored to interpret Scripture through the lens of Jesus as they struggled to flesh out the infant Jesus community‘s beliefs and practices as an emerging sect of Judaism. Paul, in particular, consciously did so. Not gonna lie. The dude does a lot of things with the biblical text that seem utterly bizarre to modern Western sensibilities yet were perfectly in alignment with how scholarly Jews in the first century Pharisaical tradition engaged the sacred texts. What was unique was his distinctly Christocentric reinterpretation.
Here’s where things get complicated, though. Protestant advocates of Sola Scriptura are loath to admit this, but it was the oral traditions about Jesus and the apostles that were originally used to decide what texts belonged in the biblical canon, but those faded and were replaced with time. As the Church got further and further from the events of the New Testament an interpretative puzzle emerged. Yes, Paul earnestly tried to be Christocentric in his letters, but who interprets who? That is, do we read Jesus through the lens of Paul or Paul through the lens of Jesus?
I once thought we should read Jesus through the lens of Paul & Co. because 1) they followed Jesus chronologically in terms of progressive revelation and 2) Paul’s prose seemed more applicable and extrapolatable than Jesus’ quizzical teaching. What I’ve since come to believe is that our Pauline go-to has inadvertently usurped “Jesus as Lord” in much of Western Christianity. This Paulicentric hermeneutic has resulted in bad theology dating back to at least Augustine. I’m not 100% on board with the “Red-Letter Christian” movement, but I think they’re on the right path.
The original beatniks… Oh, to hell with the formatting of this series. I have no idea what the Beat writers would’ve thought about a restored Christocentric hermeneutic. They probably would’ve been bored by the jargon and considered it a stupidly religious in-house dispute. So, I just want to say this: Our Lord said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well… Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” Let’s come to the Father through the Son, not through Paul.
