THE RANDY WHITE GUIDE TO HERMENEUTICS

SESSION 8 | THE SCHEMATIC OF SCRIPTURE, PART 2

THE LESSON, IN A NUTSHELL

Your understanding of the grand schematic as well as the minutia of details is foundational to the theology that will develop because of interpretation.

If you do not know both the context and the content, your theology will be flawed.

WHAT IS THEOLOGY? (ALSO INCLUDED IN PART 1)

The word theology means, in its etymology, “the study of God.” In its usage, theology is a collective of positions on Biblical issues. Every student of God’s Word has a theology, whether well developed and refined or lose and ill-defined. It is natural for every adherent of Scripture to develop positions from the pages of Scripture.
Most of the time these theological positions must be developed upon conclusions from numerous texts of Scripture rather than narrow sets of “chapter and verse.” For this reason, theology will always be controversial, and theologians will always disagree. And the disagreements will almost always be grounded in hermeneutics. Those who interpret Scripture differently will come to different theological conclusions.

One of the great dangers of theology is that we develop our conclusions based on what we have heard rather than what we have read in God’s Word, using solid principles of hermeneutics. In fact, most students of the word should be very leery of so-called Systematic Theology textbooks. They are inevitably one-man’s conclusions on the most important doctrines of the Christian faith, and they are often built on a flawed hermeneutic. Sadly, virtually none of them explain the hermeneutic that developed their theological conclusions. I would personally prefer to read historical theology, because it is honest in its assessment, that it is a book about the theological positions of men through time. With few exceptions, a systematic theology is one man’s historical theology at a certain point in time.

Every good student of God’s Word can develop their own theology, and do it very well, without being influenced by the incorrect thinking of the past.

THE SCHEMATIC OF SCRIPTURE

A schematic is the roadmap or diagram that gives meaning to the working parts of the whole. In Biblical interpretation, it is important to develop a good understanding of the Bible’s schematic in three areas. In part 1, we learned the importance of a dispensational schematic and an historical schematic. Now we add one more.

THE CONTEXTUAL SCHEMATIC

The ability of parachuting into a text of Scripture and quickly discerning where the passage lies dispensationally and historically brings benefits that cannot be understated. But beyond this, the ability to see the immediate context and use it to guide interpretation of the words at hand is of utmost importance.

This involves some measure of creating and understanding an outline of the passage, and typically of the book. But the creation of outlines is fraught with danger. The outline can easily become the “tail that wags the dog.” Because of this, here are some “outline issues” to avoid:

• Avoid using someone else’s outline. If you must, select an outline that comes from someone who is known to understand the nature of Scripture, the dispensational schematic, and the historical schematic in the same way you would.

• Avoid using thematic outlines. They may be “cool” or “cute,” but they typically miss the important details in favor of the theme. This same warning applies to alliterated outlines.

• Avoid excessively detailed outlines, especially in the epistles. It is a frustrating truth that Bible writers wrote casually and not professionally. Their purpose was to communicate a truth, not to write a treatise (except Luke, who wrote a treatise!).

• Avoid the need for a “western-style scholarly outline.” The authors were eastern thinkers who never took a course in academic methods of thesis-writing (for which we are grateful).

In an ideal situation, a pastor or teacher has time to outline a book before he teaches it verse-by-verse. However, ideal situations almost never exist. The pastor who insists on outlining an entire book before teaching it is either very rare or simply does not teach through many books of the Bible, which would be very sad. But whether the outline is prepared prior to teaching or as teaching, the preparation of an outline is necessary both for presentation and for understanding the contextual schematic.

While books have been written on how to outline Scripture, it really is a simple process that anyone can learn to do. The best way to do it, I’ve found, is to simply read the passage normally, looking for a change of subject. When the subject changes, draw a line and make a new outline point. Next give that outline segment some kind of descriptive title, and move on to the next change of subject. As you do this, you will begin to recognize major subject changes through the work, and you will become skilled at segmenting your outline in a Western style, with larger subjects broken into supporting subjects.

Once you know the pericope (a segment) of a text, you can begin to work on the passage in a verse-by-verse and word-by-word manner, shedding light on the subject using a dialog approach to the text (asking questions of the text) and using extensive cross-references. More will be said about these in a latter lesson.

THE MINUTIA OF DETAILS

One should not claim to know a passage to the depth needed to interpret that passage without knowing the minutia of details within the passage. This is especially true and of utmost importance in doctrinal passages such as Genesis 1-3 and the epistles, along with parts of the Gospels. It is equally true in prophetic passages. Within historical books, word-by-word studies are not typically as necessary to understand the flow of events.

Perhaps the best way to know whether you know the minutia is to test yourself. Either create a test of your own or have someone else drill you on the details. The interpreter who knows the details of the flow of events, the characters involved, the instructions given, the important words, etc., will be ready to teach the text. And this teacher should teach in such a way that a willing student would go away with all the tools to pass the same test! This means that content knowledge is far more important that any kind of personal application which the pastor or teacher can pass on. If the student knows the content then that content itself will apply when, where, and how the student’s life needs it.