We have a chap in our congregation who’s finishing his degree in theological studies, probably with exegesis as his emphasis, at one of the Catholic universities here. He’s started teaching on the Psalms on Sunday evenings at church and tonight he had some difficulties.
I enjoy him because he’s still involved in the academic world and after an absence, I find I miss some of those things. Because he’s still involved in the academic world and is probably as inexperienced as I am, he has some difficulty making the transition into a position of teaching where the learners are very removed from the academic world. I think he’s a good teacher and will make the adjustments, but I understand the difficulties it poses for him (I also wish I could assume more when I teach).
Tonight, for example, he taught something that has been otherwise been developing along in discussions at church and which he’s been thinking about along the way. He found the idea in a commentary by a Dutch guy, it seems, and presented it to us. The idea is that to understand the Psalms we need to understand that there are two kinds of people within the covenant community and these two people are the righteous and sinners. The righteous are those who not only enjoy corporate election but also personal election. Sinners only have corporate election. In other words: in Psalms these two terms are very clear labels for believers and unbelievers within Israel. He believes this is distinction is clear and necessary for understanding the Psalms.
This may be true (I’m going to read this Dutch guy’s remarks on it, and I want to find out what other associations there are on the idea; ever heard of it?), and it certainly sounds plausible. I think the mistake he made though, was to assert it on the basis of the Dutch guy’s authority and then support it with a systematic theological argument: we are justified by faith, we have righteousness and are saints, let us no more call the saints sinners—or at least be careful.
If it is true that this hard distinction prevails in the Psalms, then it surely has consequences for the way we think and speak. But before we are going to accept this new wrinkle (part of the problem is that we have—inevitably—people in the congregation who confuse the category of a wrinkle with that of a heresy crept in unawares) or even think through its theological implications, however, we need to proceed by way of exegetical proof. That is the part that was missing: but it was illuminating for that reason.
Even though the congregation has some problems always suspending judgment, considering, and refraining from bringing in the heavy artillery of the systematic theology they are in possession of before doing the work of exegesis, considering context, progressive revelation and Biblical theology, had he proceeded in the proper order, he would probably have avoided some of the dissatisfaction. (If you make it through that sentence, then you get a Hermenaut award.)
He is terribly quick on his feet. How many times when confronted with a spontaneous question have you been able to pull a reply out of a verse in a book like Ezekiel? I am usually useless if I have to depart from my notes. And he knows his theology. But what I think he forgot was to proceed in proper order and this resulted in a perception characterized by a lack of proportion.
I have been away from my M.Div long enough to have no clear recollection, though no doubt I was taught the right procedure. I may have been foolish or I may not have seen how it was supposed to go. Weighing the foolishness option is the consideration that those seminary days were the days when my interest was not at all in the pastoral matters since I wanted to be an academic. In seminary, were you ever taught the rationale for the proper order for presenting something to the congregation? (What has most influenced me in this reflection, was actually a conversation with the teacher as we whiled away the end of the class in a post-graduate seminar. I learned more about pastoral theology from that casual conversation that I remember learning in all the courses I took in Bible school, Bible college and seminary.)
The answer is in our confession, and in our regular assertions: the Scripture is our only rule of faith and practice. I understand that exposition is necessary, and exposition is my preferred mode of teaching, but tonight I was able to see a bit more clearly how crucial exposition is to the persuasion that a teacher hopes for. First you have to show them what the Scripture unambiguously means, and then you develop the implications.
Unknowing 