conjectural navel gazing; jesus in lint form

an arc of interpretation

The Bible shows the way to go to heaven, not the way the heavens go.

Galileo Galilei

I have been wondering about Biblical interpretation. Again. Yes, again. It' what I do. I read about it almost every day. There are more interpretive lenses than there are interpreters. Each person brings multiple interpretive lenses.

I know. I like those phrases. I can't help it.

"Lenses of Biblical interpretation..."
"an arc of interpretation..."

They're just so damn pretty. I like pretty. I can't seem to help that either. Ah well.

I am playing in the waters of providence and inclusivity. Is there an interpretive arc to Romans which is Paul's understanding of God's providence in including all of humanity into the promise of salvation. Yeah, I like the language. I read too many of these books about "promises of salvation."

But there it is again. If there is such a thing as covenant theology which states that God is unchanging, but the covenant changes according to the needs/aspirations/abilities of humanity, then maybe the above language says something more than "Tripp really likes this language." Perhaps.

God's greatest desire is the fruition of God's original statement, "It is good." And God is willing to go toe-to-toe with us in order to make it good. God will wrestle. God will deal. God will join covenant after covenant, witness us break each and every one of them, sign up again, and bend over backward to get to us.

The arc of interpretation in Paul's letter to the Romans is just this desire. Providence is the fruition of God's original statement "It is good." The trouble is that we seem to forget that such a thing is true.

Y'all enjoy your day. Go speak plain English somewhere, would ya? I need someone to balance me out.

Posted by tripp at October 21, 2007 06:07 AM