Hermeneutics

One of the songs we sang at Church on a recent Sunday was Above All, made popular in 2003 on a Michael Smith album. I was looking for some interesting tidbits about the song (I love to find the inspiration for songs) and found an online article by Pastor David Schrock that questioned whether we, as believers, should take issue with the song.

Caution, I showed this online article to Patrick, and he read it and suggested I write a devotion about it. There are two implicit cautions. First, my training in theological concepts is infantile at best (I expect Patrick to add his Pastor’s note to the end that he has on a couple of devotions I’ve written). Second, I’m writing this because my friend asked me to, but I have yet to possess the same feeling of desire that I have had for other devotions.

If you asked me a 50k foot question on what theology is, I’d say (and I agree with Cambridge dictionary), that theology is the study of God and religious belief. But our understanding of God subjective because we humans don’t have the language or precision, nor the full interpretation of the Bible to accurately define God. I just read an article this morning trying to define Christ as being 100% God and 100% man with the implications associated. I can honestly say that I have more questions after reading the depth of the article than I did before I read it. If we are using the milk vs food analogy, some of these theological topics are eight course meals. That presents a problem for me. I learn by defining things for myself using my own terms. That works great for objective things like mathematics but not as well for subjective topics. Let me give you an example…

One of my actuarial exams covered government programs and one of the topics (that I had to memorize), was the 11 principles that define a social insurance program like social security. The author that wrote the book did a good job identifying principles but since the topic was subjective, I felt some of his defined principles overlapped. I had to memorize his schema in order to regurgitate it when I took the exam. After all, it was a written essay so it was a part of a much bigger question.

Anyway, back to the song. The chorus of the song ends with this:

Like a rose, trampled on the ground

You took the fall and thought of me

Above all

Pastor Schrock took issue with whether Jesus thought of me, above all. Did that imply that Jesus thought of me above God the father? Lest you think this isn’t serious, he mentions in his article that he was theologically opposed to the song because of this concern and would not sing these last two lines. This opposition lasted for over 10 years until he used hermeneutics.

Hermeneutics is the study of general principles of biblical interpretation. Four major types of hermeneutics have emerged: Literal Interpretation, Moral, Allegorical and Mystical. Most recently it has been come to mean a deep reading of the literary and philosophical text. The process of hermeneutics generally includes 4 steps:

1). Historical and cultural context (the setting)

2). Literary context (the style)

3). Observation (content of the scripture)

4). Application (the implications of the scripture)

Pastor Schrock decided, after more than a decade of wrestling with this, to apply hermeneutics to the entire song and not just eisegesis or interpreting this part of the song according to his preconceived ideas to evaluate the meaning. (Exegesis is how one interprets a specific text and uses the principles of hermeneutics to the passage to draw out the meaning). Eisegesis comes easier to us because that is how we naturally read and try to interpret the Bible. The problem with this approach is that it is likely to give us the wrong answer. For example, when I was a kid, parents had Chicken Pox parties where they exposed their kids to a friend’s child with Chicken Pox to get it over with. I don’t think any parent today would even remotely consider doing that and likely consider it wrong that this previous generation did. Was it wrong back then? Contextually, the historical setting not only condoned it but promoted it.

Exegesis, which is what Patrick does in his sermon every Sunday morning, uses all the hermeneutics principles to draw out the meaning of the section of the Bible he is preaching on. It is much harder and more laborious because you have to separate your own feelings of today to interpret.

On the 6th page of his paper, Pastor Schrock concludes that he can indeed sing those last two lines of the chorus. He declared it true that God, who is above all things, made himself lower than the angels that he might redeem a people for his own possession. In Jesus’ death, he didn’t simply make a way for us to come to him. He came to us and above all created things, He raised us up to heavenly places with Him. That is a glorious truth and worth singing without reservation.

The next time you have the opportunity to sing a song, think about the words and their meaning to your soul. Let the Holy Spirit and the principles of hermeneutics help you to exegesize the true meaning to you and be richly blessed by the effort.

Sorry to take you down such a deep rabbit hole of theology. If you’re like me, your eyes glazed over trying to remember the terms and went straight to the meaning. The true underlying meaning of scripture is more akin to the real estate location, location, location… except it is context, context, context. I can’t wait to see what note Patrick adds to the bottom of this…

Pastors Note: Hate to disappoint the author of this, but I need not add anything of personal opinion, because it isn’t necessary. However, I will add one thing from the greatest Author of all time… Our Lord!

“Whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.” -1 Peter 4:11 ESV