Theological Interpretation of Scripture Matters—10
Reading with the Holy Spirit
Question: What difference does it make to my interpretation of the Bible that I am a Spirit-endowed Christ-follower?
Hermeneutics has to do with making sense. Hermeneutics of the Bible has to do with making sense of biblical texts and the Bible as a whole. Spiritual hermeneutics (or pneumatic hermeneutics) has to do with how the Holy Spirit shapes understanding, and spiritual hermeneutics of the Bible has to do with how the Holy Spirit shapes our understanding of the Bible.
Early church theologians often insisted that a faithful understanding of the Scriptures depended on the guidance of and insight from the Holy Spirit. Pagans could read the biblical materials, of course, but they were unable to grasp Scripture’s full meaning. In the modern period, though, the Bible has become more and more a “public text” to be read only according to “its literal sense.” The only acceptable understanding of the biblical text is one that is equally available to and approved by everyone.
Turn the pages of most any contemporary “exegetical handbook” and you will find interpretive tools, approaches, and strategies aplenty. Most probably, every one of those approaches has come to biblical studies from the public university. Even if they have been tweaked to account better for ancient texts, they are hardly specific to the Bible. Current interest in postcolonial theory, for example, was discussed in the Modern Language Association’s interpretive manual over three decades ago.1
Have our interpretive techniques advanced to the point that the Holy Spirit is superfluous? What difference does it make that we read the Bible as people of the Spirit? What difference ought it to make?
Major ecclesial and theological traditions have underscored the role of the Holy Spirit in the formation of the biblical canon and in its reception, and our theologians continue to emphasize the Spirit’s work in making sense of Scripture. This emphasis is altogether absent in major academic journals concerned with biblical studies, however. The importance of the Holy Spirit for biblical hermeneutics has entered the conversation among some academics. This is especially true among two communities:
Among theological interpreters, the Holy Spirit’s work is explored, for example, by Stephen Fowl in his book, Engaging Scripture. He proposes, first, the centrality of the Spirit in the process of understanding, and second, the importance of recognizing and bearing witness to the work of the Spirit in others’ lives, particularly as these practices are nurtured through friendships. In his book, The Word of God for the People of God, Todd Billings urges that we recognize the Spirit’s work in indigenizing God’s word in Scripture in various contexts in ways that invite God’s people to live in the new reality of God’s Spirit. This invites spiritual discernment as a dimension of faithful reception of the Bible: “reading Scripture as the church, yet submitting as the church to the life-giving word of the Spirit through Scripture” (p. 109). For my part, I have emphasized that to speak of the Holy Spirit’s work in the interpretive process is to deny the hermeneutical autonomy of individual readers of Scripture and, indeed, to qualify the utility of “technique” in biblical interpretation. We affirm our dependence on the Spirit and on the community of God’s people generated by the Spirit, just as we recognize that the Spirit forms us as and within an interpretive community, the church of Jesus Christ, continuous through history and across the globe. Those who come to Scripture as people of the Spirit highlight the Spirit’s work in readying us to read Scripture through inculcating in us dispositions and postures of invitation, openness, and availability. An integrated life of devotion to God and our willingness to participate in a repentance-oriented reading of Scripture—these dispositions and concomitant practices are the fruit of the work of the Spirit in our lives.2
Stephen E. Fowl, Engaging Scripture: A Model for Theological Interpretation (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2008). ISBN 9781606081129. 228 pp.
J. Todd Billings, The Word of God for the People of God: An Entryway to the Theological Interpretation of Scripture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010). ISBN 9780802862358. 245 pp.
Joel B. Green, Seized by Truth: Reading the Bible as Scripture (Nashville: Abingdon, 2007). ISBN 9780687023554. 185 pp.
Among pentecostal theologians and biblical scholars,3 serious work begun in the 1990s has foregrounded the role of the Holy Spirit in biblical interpretation. As John Christopher Thomas argues, the community is the place of the Spirit’s activity, the place where testimony to the Spirit’s activity is given and received, and the place for serious discussion and discernment regarding the Spirit’s work and the meaning of Scripture. Moreover, he writes, Scripture is not static in terms of its significance, but dynamic. Accordingly, “for Pentecostals, the Holy Spirit’s role in interpretation cannot be reduced to some vague talk of illumination, for the Holy Spirit creates the context for interpretation through his actions and, as a result, guides the church in the determination of which texts are most relevant in a particular situation and clarifies how they might best be approached.”4 In all of this, he insists, a Pentecostal hermeneutic prioritizes the authority of Scripture, since the church’s experience must be judged in relation to the Bible.
Recommended Reading
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Leulseged Philemon, Pneumatic Hermeneutics: The Role of The Holy Spirit in the Theological Interpretation of Scripture (Cleveland, TN: CPT Press, 2019). ISBN 9781935931829. 244 pp.
Philemon, an Ethiopian Christian scholar, documents the limited theological analysis of the Holy Spirit’s role in biblical hermeneutics, despite widespread agreement on its importance. He argues that pneumatic hermeneutics—interpretation guided by the same Spirit that originated Scripture—is essential to Christian biblical reading.
The book’s opening chapter focuses on the Spirit’s interpretive role in current discussions of theological interpretation, revealing both its integral importance and the notable absence of comprehensive pneumatological insights. As a potential antidote to this lacuna, it offers pentecostal interpretive approaches, which emphasize the Spirit's hermeneutical role and demonstrate that Scripture reading is a Spirit-inspired Christian practice.
Through critical examination of pentecostal triadic approaches—emphasizing interaction between Spirit, Scripture, and community—the work argues that understanding the Spirit’s interpretive role requires examining how the Spirit creates and sustains the church as a Christian community.
Philemon emphasizes that the church is fundamentally the community of the Spirit, and effective pneumatic hermeneutics focuses on the Spirit's ongoing work within the community of believers. This community-centered approach provides a robust framework for integrating pneumatic hermeneutics into theological interpretation of Scripture.
Kenneth Archer, A Pentecostal Hermeneutic for the Twenty-First Century: Spirit, Scripture and Community, Journal of Pentecostal Theology Supplement 28 (Bloomsbury: T&T Clark, 2004; repr., Cleveland, TN: CPT Press, 2009). ISBN 978-0567083678. 240 pp.
Archer extends Thomas’s work (see above) vis-à-vis the triadic negotiation of Scripture, church, and Spirit. He posits a text-centered, reader-oriented approach—one that prioritizes the relative stability of Scripture, yet opens wide the gate to allow for the pneumatological convictions of the pentecostal church. It is not difficult to sense a certain tension in this characterization of the interpretive task, since Archer’s proposal rests on the Spirit’s voice both in community discernment and in undergirding the clarity of Scripture. The point is that the Spirit is dynamically present in and through both Scripture and the Christian community.
The Spirit’s voice is not reduced to or simply equated with the biblical text or the community, but is connected to an[d] interdependent upon these as a necessary means for expressing the past-present-future concerns of the Social Trinity. The Holy Spirit has more to say than Scripture, yet it will be scripturally based. The community must read and discern the signs and the sound of the Spirit amongst the conversation well beyond our more limited interests.5
For Archer, the term “dialogical” (or dialectical) is key: experience of the Spirit shapes a community’s reading of Scripture, yet Scripture provides the lens through which the community perceives the Spirit’s work.
Amos Yong, The Hermeneutical Spirit: Theological Interpretation and Scriptural Imagination for the Twenty-first Century. Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2017. ISBN 9781532604898. 340 pp.
Yong continues here his ongoing (and stimulating!) project concerned with the question: What difference does it make that we live after Pentecost? Two overarching proposals emerge in this collection of essays: (1) Pentecostal pneumatology makes the Trinitarian commitments of theological interpretation more robust. (2) Pentecostal hermeneutics need not be sectarian or idiosyncratic, limited to pentecostal circles only, but may contribute meaningfully to the church catholic.
The book provides close readings of various texts across the biblical canon as a model for theological interpretation suitable for the twenty-first-century global context. Yong concludes with a vision for "Trinitarian Hermeneutics for the 21st Century," advocating for theological interpretation of Scripture “after Pentecost.”
Yong offers a distinctly pentecostal approach to biblical hermeneutics that emphasizes the Holy Spirit’s ongoing interpretive role while engaging contemporary global and multicultural contexts. The book demonstrates how Pentecostal theological perspectives can contribute meaningfully to broader conversations about theological biblical interpretation.
See Stephen Greenblatt and Giles Gunn, eds., Redrawing the Boundaries (New York: MLA, 1992).
See Joel B. Green, “Spiritual Hermeneutics,” in Third Article Theology: A Pneumatological Dogmatics, ed. Myk Habets (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2016), 153–72.
I write “pentecostal” rather than “Pentecostal” in order to include those with pentecostal faith commitments who are not members of (formal) Pentecostal churches.
John Christopher Thomas, “Reading the Bible from within Our Own Traditions: A Pentecostal Hermeneutic as Test Case,” in Between Two Horizons: Spanning New Testament Studies and Systematic Theology, ed. Joel B. Green and Max Turner (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 119.
Kenneth J. Archer, “The Spirit and Theological Interpretation: A Pentecostal Strategy,” in The Gospel Revisited: Towards a Pentecostal Theology of Worship (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2011), 132.