Critiques of charismatic hermeneutics, like critiques of revivals, often come from academicians or seminary-trained ministers criticizing popular charismatic interpretation. Popular interpreters often take Scripture out of context, and as our culture moves increasingly further toward communicating in sound bites and concise tweets, the ability to follow an entire argument will become increasingly scarce. Having said that, popular, devotional interpretation, also referred to as experiential reading, does contribute an insight that many of us academicians, for all our methodological precision, have missed.
That is, we need to hear Scripture with faith, embracing it in our personal lives. A reader may embrace a false idea when taking Scripture out of context, but a reader who understands it in context yet does not embrace its demands on one’s trust also misses its function as Scripture. As Christians, we read the Bible with personal faith – not only to understand it but to embrace its message and theological worldview as true for the world in which we live.
By experiential reading, I mean believing to the depths of our being what we find in the text. For example, it is one thing to affirm academically that God loves us. It is another to welcome that truth into our hearts that have felt wounded and untrusting. Scripture already holds authority and is true, but it is experienced as authoritative when one personally embraces its truth. This transpires in light of personal and collective experience. Experiences similar to those in Scripture often make Scripture more believable or close to us than it feels to those who do not have such experiences. For example, those who have experienced miracles often find them more plausible than those who have not.
When we read Scripture dynamically, as stories of how the God with whom one has a relationship has worked with his people throughout history, we naturally receive the narrative differently than someone for whom it is simply information or myths.Those who read experientially, with faith, read with hope.
This content is by Craig Keener, but edited and posted by Defenders Media.
For more on how to interpret Scripture in light of Pentecost, read Spirit Hermeneutics (2016).
