Wit & Wisdom Hermeneutical principles . . . are not restricted to any “elite” but are available to all who have the interest and energy to learn them. —Grant R. Osborne The primary purpose of the Bible is to change our lives, not increase our knowledge. —Walter Henrichsen The safest road to hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts. —C. S. Lewis The [Holy Ghost’s] . . . words can have no more than one simplest sense, which we call the Scriptural or literal meaning. —Martin Luther Such a system of polyvalence [multiple meanings] . . . would have us understand a text not in terms of its syntactical or semantic structures, but in the variety of ways in which that text is “actualized” in our minds. —Walter C. Kaiser Jr.
his limits, by the extent to which he leads his readers away from the meaning of his author. —John Calvin A modern metaphor can never be used to define but only to illustrate. —Grant R. Osborne Church history is important but not decisive in the interpretation of Scripture. —Walter Henrichsen The father of modern linguistics, Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–1913), made a ringing protest against this preoccupation with the history of words. He compared linguistics to chess: The issue is not the history of the game, but the state of the board. —Anthony C. Thiselton The Bible will become dearer to you every day . . . only if you go deep into it! If you keep to the surface, you will weary of it. —James Stalker
We may have a clearer understanding of Isaiah 53 than Isaiah had. What we do not have is a new meaning of Isaiah 53. —David M. Atkinson
The earnest Bible student will diligently apply himself not only to the study of isolated parts but will search for those relationships between the parts as clues to what God intended to reveal. —Irving L. Jensen
Since it is almost his [the interpreter’s] only task to unfold the mind of the writer whom he has undertaken to expound, he misses his mark, or at least strays outside
When two or more unrelated texts are treated as if they belong together, we have the fallacy of collapsing contexts. —James W. Sire
Compiled by Dr. David Atkinson, pastor of Dyer Baptist Church, Dyer, Indiana.
FrontLine • November/December 2012
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