Characteristics of a Hermeneutical Community - An Introduction; In the series: GEMEINDETHEOLOGIE: Who & How?
Ens,
looking at the Anabaptists' view of a hermeneutical community, posits that their
understanding of the Bible resulted in its practical application in life. For
most Anabaptists, right living had to be "a prerequisite to or concomitant
to right knowing," and therefore became "one of the qualifications for
proper interpretations." This interpretation-application necessitated a
community and "brought together scripture (sole authority), Spirit
(essential interpreter-teacher), and church (discerning body)."[1] Here, the Anabaptists
furnish us an embodiment of a community seeking to identify the will of the
author of Scripture for the purpose of implementing it. In doing so, they
elegantly provide a universal paradigm for understanding the ethos of a
Christian hermeneutical community. At least two parts of this paradigm, the
centrality of Scripture combined with the necessity of the work of the Spirit,
seem to recur in most other discussions about Christian hermeneutical
communities, confirming its universality. While the elegance of this model is
in its simplicity, its outworking is not necessarily simple. As will be seen
in the following posts, the interaction between Scripture, Spirit, and community is not one-dimensional
and unidirectional, but multi-dimensional and multi-directional.
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