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One of my theses for my forthcoming book on missional hermeneutics is that missional leaders must read the Scripture in the borderlands where the Church and World intersect so that both Christ followers and non-Christians can hear the Gospel when the word is proclaimed or taught.

Yet each of these contexts present different challenges for the interpreter. Here is a bare bones sketch of some of my ideas about the challenges presented by each.

Challenges for hearing the Scriptures in the Church:
1) over-familiarity with the text
Hearing the message of the text can be hindered at times from an (supposed?) over-familiarity with the Bible.
2) fear of sounding heretical:
3) Reading the Bible in the Church creates a tendency to play it safe with the text.
4) the boxes that we build theologically:
5) Predestination, freewill, belief that there are no actual tensions between texts, etc.
6) ignorance of the text in the Church
While some in the Church are over-familiar with the Bible, there are countless others who are ignorant of its basic teaching.
7) emphasis on discipleship as the attainment of knowledge rather than the shaping of person for deployment in God’s mission
There has been an overemphasis on stressing knowing the details of the Bible without reflecting adequately on the function of the details or the demand of a given text on the life of its readers.

Challenges of Reading for the World
1) Religious/cultural pluralism
2) Contested truth claims – avoid straw men
3) Ignorance of the biblical message
4) Political correctness/sensitivity
5) Elephants in the room - can’t avoid problem passages

What else would you add?

In its first stanza, the ancient hymn “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” captures the essence of the Advent season:

O Come, O Come Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

Advent is the season in which the Church worships in celebration of the 1st Coming of Jesus Christ and longs for His Final return. The theme of Exile is a poignant one for Advent. The birth of Jesus Christ was envisioned in the 1st century as a signal to all that the massive disruption of the Babylonian Exile was truly over and that the long awaited savior from God had arrived to renew the Kingdom. In the Bible, this teaching is most explicit in the genealogy found in Matthew 1:1-17. A quick reading of the genealogy reveals that in the midst of the long list of names there are four that are emphasized: Abraham, David, the exile to Babylon, and Jesus Christ. Abraham stands at the beginning because he is the figurative father of Israel, and he was the recipient of God’s promise that all nations of the earth would be blessed through him (Genesis 12:1-3). David is emphasized because he represents God’s ideal ruler who will extend salvation and reign over a kingdom of justice and peace. Why is Exile mentioned? Because the exile to Babylon in 587 B.C. effectively put an end to the Davidic Kingdom and raised questions about the viability of God’s promises. The Jews had returned home from exile in 538 B.C. and even rebuilt their temple in 516 B.C., but as the 1st century A.D. dawned, they remained under foreign rule and were hardly living in the reality of the Old Testament promises. They longed for a renewal of God’s mighty acts of salvation. Although they were in their homeland, they felt as though they were still living in a spiritual exile.

Matthew’s genealogy announces that Jesus Christ (or better Jesus the Messiah) is the fulfillment of all of God’s promises. This is filled out in Matthew 1:18-25 where Jesus’ two names are described. God will no longer be “far away” because Jesus will embody and fulfill the Scripture from Isaiah 9 by bearing the name “Emmanuel”, which means “God is with us” (Matt 1:23). God’s people will no longer carry the sting of exile because the name Jesus means “the Lord saves [his people from their sins]” (Matt 1:21).

What are the implications for today of these Scriptures?

1) Exile remains a powerful metaphor today.
Persons around the world live with a sense of displacement and longing for a true home. In the most extreme cases, poverty and/or war have driven persons far from their native lands in search of the possibility for a prosperous life. Such persons often face hardships in their new countries as they seek to overcome cultural barriers without the aid of friends or extended family. Many will never or rarely see or hear from those that they left in their homelands. They live as strangers in a strange land. Feelings of Exile are the reality of immigrants around the world.

Many native born citizens of the United States or other countries around the world live in a sort of self-imposed exile within their own countries for economic reasons. For example, as the world economy changes, it is becoming common for Americans to move across the country for employment. Give current uncertainties, Americans may experience this more than previous generations. My own story is not unusual. I grew up in Akron, Ohio. I lived there for my first twenty-two years, even attending the local university. From Akron, I moved to Lexington, Kentucky to attend seminary. Then, I moved to Richmond, Virginia to pursue the PhD. I currently reside just north of Orlando Florida where I teach on Asbury Theological Seminary’s Orlando campus. My family is far from our native Midwest. My closest relative is more than 800 miles away. In our neighborhood, there are very few native Floridians. In fact, with nine years in the state, we are virtual “old-timers” in our neighborhood. The neighbors on my street are from Kentucky, Arizona, Canada, Brazil, England, and New York respectively!

Such a reality represents missional opportunities for Christians. Reach out to those around you who are far from family during this Christmas season. Open your home to the lonely and displaced during this season. Embody the reality that Jesus has come to end Exile and to bring the love of God near to all who seek Him.

2) Jesus calls us home and sends us Out.
The Gospel is more than merely an announcement that Exile is over. Salvation is truly come in Jesus. But because salvation has come, many of our common expectations and practices are subverted. Exile is over, but this doesn’t mean a return to a physical homeland or some old status quo. Instead, Jesus’ announcement serves as a call to mission. In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus does represent the end of Exile and beginning of God’s long awaited age of salvation, but living as a follower of Jesus Christ means going into the world. If Matthew’s Gospel begins with the announcement that Exile is over, it ends with the announcement of a sort of return to Exile. In the Great Commission (Matt 28:16-20), Jesus sends his disciples to the ends of the earth to “Make disciples of all nations.” However, unlike the experience of Exile, Jesus promises to be present with his followers as they seek to impact the world. “Behold, I will be with you always” is how Matthew’s Gospel ends. The child born Emmanuel “God with us” brings this promise to a reality in His post-resurrection state. The Risen Lord and Savior abides with his Church in its mission. As followers of Jesus Christ, we may find ourselves a long way from the place of our birth, but when we live our lives on mission for God, we are never far from our truest home.

Reflection:
1) How are you participating in God’s mission this Advent season? To whom will you reach out?

5) What sort of person do I need to become in order to take seriously God’s call to live on mission?
© 2008 Brian D. Russell; Rev. 12/09

I am teaching a new exegesis course in the Spring term at Asbury Theological Seminary - Orlando. It will focus on the interpretation of the Psalter. Here are the required texts:

Recommended commentaries:

In Steinbeck’s classic East of Eden, Liza Hamilton serves as the matriarch of faith for her family. She is a pugnacious advocate of biblical morality and reads the Scriptures daily as the guide for her life. Yet there are cracks in her pious veneer. Steinbeck describes her use of the Bible sublimely:

Her total intellectual association was the Bible…In that one book she had her history and her poetry, her knowledge of peoples and things, her ethics, her morals, and her salvation. She never studied the Bible or inspected it; she just read it… And finally she came to a point where she knew it so well that she went right on reading it without listening. (p. 43)

The final line is haunting. When we hear today’s Scripture lesson, it is too easy to read it quickly and then move on because of its wide familiarity within our culture. “O the good Samaritan – I know what that one’s all about.” Yet biblical texts that are familiar to us are often the very ones whose messages have often been muted rather than unleashed. Let us come to the story of the Good Samaritan with fresh eyes and ears that truly see and truly hear.

There is much more to this story than a cutting critique of religious leaders who don’t serve or than a mere model of brotherly love. In this text, Jesus explodes expectations for God’s people and tears down expectations about status in ways that invite his hearers to become part of God’s mission in the world today.

Eternal Life
Our text opens with a confrontation between Jesus and a lawyer (an expert on the Mosaic law). It is clear by the language of “test” that this is no mere friendly exchange. The same language was used of the devil earlier in the Gospel. Notice that the lawyer couches his challenge in the language of eternal life. He is interested in personal salvation. He may have been expecting Jesus to make some claim about himself as the source of salvation, but Jesus does not move in this direction. Instead, Jesus responds with a question for the lawyer. He asks, “What do the Scriptures say?” The lawyer answers by quoting from Deuteronomy 6:5 and Lev 19:18. He responds in essence: Love God and love neighbor.

These core texts hold together the dual affirmation that one’s relationship with God is manifest in one’s relationship with others and that our life with others is rooted fundamentally in our relationship with God. The lawyer is dead-on right.

Jesus fully affirms his answer. But notice the action implicit in Jesus’ reply, “Do this and you will live.” Life with God involves more than knowing correct answers. It is about actual practice. It is interesting that Jesus does not include the word “eternal” in his answer. It is a simply “you will live.” In other words, central to the Gospel is its insistence that Kingdom living is a present reality and not merely a hoped for prize at the end of life. It profoundly matters how one lives today. This may have jarred the lawyer. Rabbi Akiba who was born later in the 1st century captures something of the spirit of the attitude of students of Scripture from Jesus’ day: “Study of the Law is of higher rank than practicing it.” Perhaps sensing that Jesus is pressing for a deeper commitment, he asks for clarification: “Who is my neighbor?”

It is at this point that we have to be careful about our own attempts to mute the power of this story. It is too easy for us today to answer the question “Who is my neighbor?” with a quick reply of “Everyone.” Of course this is the correct answer, but Jesus is intent in this passage on pushing us to think about a different question: “Who is not my neighbor?” Before we reply, “No one”, let us engage Jesus’ story.

The Practice of Life
It is in response to these questions that Jesus further subverts the lawyer’s question and calls all who are listening to a profound realignment with God and neighbor by telling a short story with four characters: a unnamed traveler who is assaulted, robbed and left for dead; a priest who passes the injured man; a levite who likewise does not stop to aid the man; and a Samaritan who stops, applies first aid, carries him to an inn, cares for him that night, and leaves enough money with the innkeeper to nurse the man back to health.

It is easy to read this story as a moral lesson in doing good to a fellow human being. This is in fact part of the story. It is also possible to read the story as a critique of religious leaders who are too busy practicing the formalities of religion to apply its teaching to their daily lives. But there is much more here.

Let’s look at some of the details of the story and see if we may have overlooked anything. First, let us notice that the injured man is not identified. Jesus’ audience probably assumed that the man was an Israelite, but the text does not tell us his identity. He is merely an individual who desperately needed kindness, mercy, and hospitality. This invites us to reflect on our own commitments. How much is the likelihood of our loving a neighbor dependent upon ethnicity, gender, or religious background of the person in need? By not identifying the injured man, this text suggests that such issues ought not to control our actions.

Second, both the priest and levite see the injured man yet go out of their way to avoid helping their fellow traveler. This is contrary to expectations. Such figures were expected to show mercy and embody compassion.

By having the priest and levite pass by without helping, Jesus’ audience would have expected a “hero” to emerge who would help the fallen man. If most of us are honest, we recognize that in such situations, we tend to imagine a hero or heroine who is like us. Jesus’ audience may have expected the hero(ine) to be a common Israelite who would model faithfulness and justice. But this is not the story that Jesus narrates, is it?

The unlikely hero who rises up to step into a moment of need is not a member of God’s people. He is an outsider. He is a Samaritan. Moreover, it is a Samaritan who is traveling inside of Israel and who actually exceeds the expected actions of an insider. The Samaritan acts in extraordinary ways to be a neighbor to a fellow human being.

The person who acts as the neighbor in the story is ironically the very person whom the lawyer as well as most of Jesus’ audience would not have considered to be their neighbor yet alone a person who embodies the values of God’s kingdom.

What caused the Samaritan’s actions? The text offers a key phrase: “moved to pity.” Compassion fueled the Samaritan’s deeds. This is a critical note because elsewhere in the Gospel of Luke we are told that this is Jesus’ motivation. The idea is that the Samaritan is touched inwardly by the need of another in such a way as to move him to action. Compassion is the fuel of mission. It drove Jesus. It drove the Samaritan. Does it drive us?

Go and Do Likewise
“Go and do likewise” is a call to conversion for the lawyer and all who heard Jesus that day. Kingdom living is radical. It challenges our assumptions about status and membership. It demands that we manifest the Gospel through our acts and deeds toward others. It assumes a willingness to break down boundaries that separate the human family.

But there is a final subversive element present that calls us to a profound realignment with God’s mission. The presence of a Samaritan who embodies the values of God’s kingdom would have presented Jesus’ audience with a fundamental challenge. It points to the openness of God’s kingdom to persons whom some may consider outside of the boundaries of God’s grace. Who represents the Samaritans in our local communities today? Whom do we consider to be beyond the limits of God’s grace? What would it mean if such persons embodied the Gospel more profoundly than we?

When Jesus said, “Go and do likewise”, he was implying the inclusion of the Samaritan in the Kingdom. Are we ready to reach out to embrace those persons who already embody love for God and love for neighbor and include them within our communities as we seek to follow the Risen Lord Jesus into the world to make disciples of all nations. Let us pray diligently that the Lord would so fill our lives with compassion that we will be able to boldly “Do likewise” when such moments arise. Amen.

Here is another snippet of my forthcoming book (re)aligning with God: Reading Scripture for the Church and the World. It will be published by Wipf and Stock in late 2010.

There is no substitute for a careful and deliberate engagement with the biblical text. The Scriptures may be likened to the earth’s vast oceans. There are multiple levels and depths of meaning. If one only studies the seas from a single shoreline, one may observe and record accurate observations, but much will be missed. It is vital for interpreters to go as deeply as possible into the text and to read it carefully from a variety of angles in order to engage it in its fullness. This book focuses on a missional approach to the Bible, but such an approach assumes a deep engagement with the text. I will turn now to a brief introduction or perhaps refresher on good reading practices.

The primary determinant for the meaning of a text is its context. It is vital to read the Bible in large chunks rather than in isolated verses. Reading Scripture is an intimate dance between the reader and the text. The wise reader must be acutely aware simultaneously of the broad movements of the wider Scriptures and the specific details of the portion of text being interpreted. To focus only on the big picture risks missing the nuances of the Bible, which fill out and unpack its larger truths in the lived lives of its original audience. The temptation is to flatten out the Bible by making its individual sections conform to our assumptions about the big picture. To focus only on the specific details runs the danger of missing the message of the whole. It is like having a closet without hangers or shelves. All of our clothing is scattered randomly without any discernible organizing principles.

What are key elements or tools for the interpretation of the Bible?

© 2009 Brian D Russell

One of my favorite courses to teach at Asbury Theological Seminary is Introduction to the Old Testament. This class is one of Asbury’s required biblical studies courses. In this course, I introduce students to the historical background, literature, and theology of the Old Testament. My distinct contribution to the genre of OT Intro courses is my framing of the course within a commitment to global mission and a full presentation of missional hermeneutics within the course lectures.

For those who are interested, here is a video that captures the missional framework for the course. I am also including of copy of the syllabus and the book list:

Let me know if you have any questions about this course in particular or about the Orlando campus of Asbury Theological Seminary.