by
Robert W. Wall

Not long ago, I asked another Wesleyan biblical scholar, Professor Richard Hays of Duke Divinity School, whether he thought it possible to construct a Wesleyan hermeneutics of Scripture. He responded only by wishing me "good luck," adding that once he was asked to read a paper on this very topic, only to give up in complete frustration. Even though Hays did allow that the possibility exists in theory, one may well wonder with Stanley Fish whether "theory's day is dying and the hour is late."¹

Indeed, I suspect this essay will be read by post-modem pragmatists like Fish as yet another "last minute" attempt to build yet another theoretical model, this one supposing the possibility and importance of a distinctively Wesleyan approach to Scripture. They may wonder why I make the effort, which seems to them too parochial and anachronistic. For justification, they may even appeal to Frank Spina's survey of those biblical scholars serving Wesleyan communions, which shows that scant connection apparently exists between the core convictions of their Wesleyan heritage and their actual exegetical conclusions.² By this evidence, one is tempted to agree that no interpretation of Scripture is or can be distinctively "Wesleyan" in either methodological or theological interest.³

Before responding to such a pessimistic analysis, let me note that this non-relationship between Wesleyan theology and Wesleyan biblical interpretation is characteristic of the entire modem academy. Most Scripture scholars are still engaged in a variety of "descriptive" tasks, while theologians are left to settle the normative claims of faith and witness. At issue is whether theological reflection is any longer a methodological interest of modem biblical scholarship, or whether the subject matter of biblical teaching is even useful for theological discourse. In my view, most biblical scholars remain largely disenchanted with human relations and current audiences, and seem more concerned with disciplinary tasks that seem relevant to the text qua text rather than with the ultimate issues of life which are of a theological sort. It comes as no small surprise, then, that the results of modem biblical scholarship are not very conducive to theological reflection.⁴

Yet, especially the recent emergence in the postcritical milieu of "canon" as a heuristic category of biblical-theological reflection challenges this status quo on at least two different fronts.⁵ On the first, an emphasis on the canonicity of Scripture concentrates its subject matter and final "shape" as normative for every Christian confession of and witness to God (as norma normata): the whole of Scripture constitutes a certain compass for a biblical people. By the very nature of its subject matter as God's word, then, Scripture helps to draw the church's theological boundaries and supply the language and grammar of normative Christian faith.⁶ This precious conviction about Scripture's authority as a written "rule of Christian faith" asserts that the church's collection(s) of sacred writings bear(s) trustworthy witness to the Sacred One and accordingly must receive our most devoted attention. In this sense, we continually move toward and position ourselves before the canonical texts as sacred ground where we expect to hear the "voice" of the Lord God Almighty.⁷

Yet, to posit an "objective" witness to God in the whole of the canonical texts says nothing about how the faith community retrieves it in order to nurture its theological understanding. In fact, Scripture's timeless and trustworthy "truths" find their way into the community's life only by every new effort to reinterpret their meaning for today-"discoveries of original meaning hitherto hidden."⁸ It is, in fact, the canonicity of Scripture that both justifies and requires its interpretation for believers today (as norma normans).⁹ Sometimes faithful interpretation merely confirms the faith of our foreparents. More often, however, the talented interpreter of Scripture responds to a hermeneutical crisis, when Scripture itself fails to exercise its canonical authority because its community of faithful readers finds its teaching either incomprehensible or irrelevant. ¹⁰

But "there's the rub." While the Christian Bible is an authorized medium of divine revelation for the church, it nevertheless comprises texts that remain severely gapped in two different ways:

(1) Many biblical texts are "intertexts," composed with other biblical texts in mind and heart, and still other texts, unknown or unintended by the author, that come to the interpreter's mind in canonical context.¹¹ The talented interpreter listens for echoes of other biblical texts, however low their volume, and looks for allusions, however dim their reflection, that link biblical texts together, the one glossing and thickening the meaning of the other.¹²

(2) There remain other gaps of the full meaning of biblical texts that the interpreter slips into in order to complete the meaning of the text for the current faith community. Therefore, the "plain sense" of every canonical text unfolds throughout its history as every talented interpreter adapts its meaning to ever-changing social locations. Biblical interpretation always revises the meaning of Scripture, as well as the faith tradition of its readers, with the authority to transform the terms of present faith and witness under the aegis of the Spirit. For this reason, interpretation is a necessary but disturbing activity, which presumes that the talented interpreter makes the timeless ever timely for a particular community of Scripture's faithful but skeptical readers.

Note the importance of "theological location" as a tacit but critical feature of the interpreter's social context: the talented hermeneut is also a faithful tradent.¹³ If the interpreter's faith is keenly Wesleyan, the rendering of Scripture's full meaning should necessarily underscore and embellish the (especially soteriological) accents of the Wesleyan theological tradition. This is the particular "gap" of Scripture's meaning that is filled by a Wesleyan's interpretation of Scripture. This affirmation of a particular theological perspective, embodied and conveyed in "privileged interpretations" of Scripture, should intend to form and even transform the faith of believers who not only belong to that same faith tradition but are enabled to preserve its theological perspective. Rather than discrediting privileged interpretations as lacking sufficient "objectivity," then, the church should celebrate and advance them as an aspect of the interpreter's vocation.¹⁴

Of course, we must recognize that every faith tradition is inherently gapped. Therefore, the scholar's search for the Wesleyan meaning and significance of biblical texts should not be marked by a triumphalism, which has discredited some of our work in the past. Nor should we fall prey to the romanticism that fails the critical task. A Wesleyan interpretation of Scripture must allow for countervailing accents that are also well supported by the "plain sense" of canonical Scripture, as well as by other non-Wesleyan interpretive traditions.¹⁵ To presume the simultaneity between every faith tradition of the whole, without also adequately discerning the importance of each in turn, undermines the integral nature of the "one holy, catholic, and apostolic church," thereby distorting its full witness to God.

That is, while Scripture's message for the whole church will surely be distorted without its Wesleyan meaning, so also will its message be distorted if understood only in Wesleyan terms. The mutual criticism that engages and learns from other interpretive traditions and from the full witness of Scripture only deepens the significance of each part which makes up the whole church and its biblical canon. We are all scholars of the church of God, who should embrace the catholic task of nurturing the theological understanding of those believers in our care "for building up the whole body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and knowledge of the Son of God" (Eph. 4:12-13).

My concern is the prospect of a Wesleyan approach to Scripture, and I seek to proffer a theoretical frame of reference that guides in the formation of Christian faith and belongs in a privileged way to the Wesleyan tradition. In my view, such is needed in response to the practical failure among most Wesleyan scholars to produce a vital scholarship from and for the Wesleyan church community. Sharply put, we have been too easily domesticated by the influences of the modern academy (theological methods) and of evangelical Protestantism (theological convictions). If the goal of biblical interpretation for the church is praxis, then a model of interpretation that features a Wesleyan theological reading of biblical texts must help to shape the theological understanding and spiritual vitality of its Wesleyan constituency. Only then will the Wesleyan voice be preserved into the next generation for the church catholic.

A Wesleyan Conception of Scripture

I propose one such model of a Wesleyan interpretation of Scripture in order to continue our conversation together.¹⁶ Because theoretical models have a certain structure, which then insures the transmission of the interpreter's theological and methodological interests, what follows is an attempt to re-conceive select features that constitute a Wesleyan approach to biblical interpretation.

Recall my earlier observation that hermeneuts are tradents.¹⁷ That is, interpreters of Scripture participate in particular histories of interpretation consisting of methodological and theological interests, whose intention is to preserve the identity of a particular people within and for the wider interpretive community. I proceed from the conservative assumption that Wesleyan interpretation participates in an interpretive history inaugurated by the Wesleys. The programmatic model of Wesleyan hermeneutics, which continues to support this particular history, was forged especially by John Wesley-by his conception and use of the Scriptures.

Before I stand on the shoulders of others to find my way in this matter,¹⁸ let me agree with my colleagues in Wesleyan studies that the founder and framer of our particular history was himself an early modern interpreter of Christian traditions, canonical and ecclesial (esp. patristic and Anglican), whose interpretations were informed by his own intellectual culture and personal experience.¹⁹ It seems wrongheaded for us to assume, then, that the subject matter of Wesley's interpretation of Scripture is somehow normative for current Wesleyan interpreters, fixed in his time for our time. Rather, what remains from Wesley in retrospect is the core conception of biblical interpretation, however vague and sometimes muddled in practice, which continues to "filter" a Wesleyan meaning of Scripture down to those whose contingent crises, cultural and theological, threaten to undermine a distinctively Wesleyan confession and incarnation of the Bible's normative witness to God for today. In what follows, I want to sketch four features of Wesley's conception and use of Scripture that are of decisive importance in my mind for a Wesleyan approach to biblical interpretation today.

1. The Sacrament of Scripture. Every perspective of Scripture's authority decisively shapes how the text is interpreted. Wesley's view of Scripture is no exception. As is well known, he claimed to be homo unius libri- a claim justified by even a cursory reading of his sermons and other works, where the primacy and sufficiency of Scripture is clear and certain. Wesley understood true Christianity to be a biblical religion. Yet, surely Outler is right in distinguishing Wesley's conception of biblical authority from the sola Scriptura tradition of the magisterial Reformation.²⁰ Hence, for example, nowhere does Wesley appeal to Scripture as "infallible" nor posit divine revelation exclusively in the propositions of Scripture, verbally inspired by God.²¹ The Wesleyan objection to the fundamentalist Protestant formulation of biblical authority is not so much that it lacks empirical evidence, but that it lacks theological perspicacity. Not only does it seem to follow the errors of christological docetism, but it also fails to understand adequately the canonicity of Scripture. Let me explain this observation from a Wesleyan perspective, which views Scripture as a sacrament of divine revelation and is to be linked to Wesley's robust vision of divine grace.²²

First, the revivalist ethos shaped by Wesley's ministry shifted emphasis from the "faith which is believed" (fides quae creditur) to the "faith which believes" (fides qua creditur). The result was hardly to set aside the sacramental cast of true religion inherited from the Church of England, but rather to qualify it. Rather than merely a confession or confirmation of the believer's placement among the people of God, sacraments are the via media of the Sacred which issue in the transforming experience of salvation. In this sense, then, Wesley viewed Scripture as the privileged medium of God's self-disclosure. The reading and hearing of the biblical word in evangelistic preaching and pastoral teaching create the context wherein the word of God is heard and understood as the instrument of prevenient grace, thereby restoring human freedom and enabling the Spirit to bring people freely to saving faith in and fervent love for God. This is the primary role that Scripture performs, then, and on this basis its authority depends. God "authors" Scripture not to warrant some grand system of theological ideas to guide people in orthodox confession, but rather to lead sinful people into thankful worship of a forgiving Lord.

Despite his rhetoric to the contrary, there is ample reason, envisaged especially by his homiletical use of Scripture (see below), that Wesley did not think Scripture's authority to be unilateral and absolute but rather conversational and relational.²³ Rather than coercing faith, Scripture restores the human capacity to respond to God freely. Scripture's appeal is not primarily intellectual but affective and moral, and the ethics of its interpretation are therefore consequentialist. That is, Scripture invites the lost to be found: the poor to be rich in faith; the suffering to experience compassion; the marginal to find a caring community; and the one who hears and is enlightened by Scripture's invitation to new life is made responsible to accept it.

While the biblical promise of transformation is certain, it is also possible to resist. Scripture does not force compliance, even though its actual effect is more convincing than if issued as an edict. Since Scripture bears witness to a God who invites assent by loving concern and not by power plays, its canonicity as a sacrament of divine revelation is understood finally in a profoundly relational way: Scripture discloses God by inviting faith in a God-for-us, who is then confirmed by our concrete experience of God's grace.

Second, even as sacraments require priestly agency for their gracious effect, so also Scripture requires human mediation under the aegis of Spirit and in "proper" consideration of other religious authorities.²⁴ Neither can Scripture interpret itself nor stand alone. The act of interpretation is therefore a collaborative enterprise, which looks above, around, and within in prayerful devotion, and reaches far behind to older Christian wisdom still available. A theological reflection upon Scripture takes place within a pluriformed whole which includes the whole of Scripture and the history of its interpretation as well as the interpreter's own situation before God and among the community of neighbors.

While the role of the strong interpreter should be underscored according to this model, Wesley's sacramental view of Scripture is not sacerdotal-a point even more fully embodied in the populism of the American Methodist experience. In this limited sense, Wesley's hermeneutics are indeed more Protestant than Catholic. The authority of the interpreter is granted as "gift" rather than as "office;" the vocation is for ministry within a community of disciples who are also gifted, rather than for maintenance of a priestly hierarchy which then manages the spiritual and theological formation of the rank-and-file faithful. The interpreter's real credentials are those of vital piety imbued by learning, which are then recognized by the congregation that alone grants authority for the interpreter to guide them into biblical understanding.

2. The Simultaneity of Scripture. In my opinion, the essential characteristic of the Bible for Wesley is its simultaneity. According to Wesley, to presume the simultaneity between every part of the whole, without also adequately discerning the "plain sense" of each in turn, undermines the integral nature of Scripture and distorts its full witness to God. On this basis, one might well contend that the critical aim of exegesis, which successfully exposes the pluriformity of Scripture, is "to put the text back together in a way that makes it available in the present and in its (biblical) entirety-not merely in the past and in the form of historically contextualized fragments."²⁵

In this sense, then, the "plain sense" of individual biblical texts (e.g., Rom. 3:23) or of whole biblical traditions (e.g., Pauline), although foundational for scriptural interpretation, has value only in relation to this more holistic end. We should note and celebrate the fact that much of Wesley's theological innovation appealed to the non-Pauline writings for its biblical justification. Indeed, especially his soteriology is possible only by the creative integration of the deeper-logic of Pauline teaching (which emphasizes justification by faith) and the non-Pauline teaching (which emphasizes sanctification by faithfulness), which are found together in the NT.²⁶

Perhaps Wesley presses for a more holistic reading of Scripture to correct the regrettable tendency of Protestant hermeneutics to prioritize the NT generally and the Pauline corpus specifically over the rest of the biblical canon. The pitfall of the Protestant hermeneutical tradition is its tendency toward a ''canon within the Canon,'' a reductionism which in its worse form approaches Scripture much like a church pot-luck supper, where one can eventually find something edible if one is hungry enough. Biblical interpretation takes from Scripture whatever appeals to the reader's taste. Wesley clearly believed that every Scripture in every case embodied a straight-forward meaning ("plain sense") that complied with the rest of Scripture ("wholeness"). Thus, "the Scripture of the Old and New Testaments is a most solid and precious system of divine truth. Every part is worthy of God, and all together are one entire body" ("Preface" to Notes, par. 10).

Wesley certainly agreed that the Christian Bible is the church's "rule of faith" (or "analogy of faith") by which authorized theological and moral boundaries are marked off around the confessing community. The theological subject matter of the "proper" interpretation of Scripture will never disagree with the subject matter which believers have always witnessed and confessed to be true about the God made flesh in Christ Jesus our Lord. Even though this point is a cardinal article of catholic hermeneutics, which comes to us from Irenaeus through Calvin to Wesley, the particular content of this confessed "faith," which reflects biblical teaching, differs in important ways between faith traditions. Biblical interpreters whose faith is shaped by the accents of differing theological traditions will (and should) find different analogical meanings apropos to their particular theological and ecclesial locations.

It therefore seems crucial for us to describe the core convictions of this "divine truth" that unifies the whole of Scripture. In Wesley's case, the grand themes that make up this "system of divine truth" are those which frame the ordo salutis-justification and sanctification, divine grace by human faith and works, love for God/neighbor and holiness of life.²⁷ Perhaps it even more apropos to our tradition to call this a "way of salvation," since, more than a "system of divine truth," it is an experience of divine grace that issues in a "way" of holy living. In any case, every part of Scripture, studied independently from the whole, bears witness to this same soteriological reality whether as promise (OT) or fulfillment (NT). That is, a Wesleyan approach to biblical interpretation will seek after and recover those meanings from every biblical passage that either calls (priestly task) or corrects (prophetic task) a "proper" understanding of salvation among Wesleyan believers.²⁸

One final point. D. Jacobsen contends that different hermeneutical programs are shaped by different religious sociologies and epistemologies, which result from fundamentally different views of Scripture's authority and character that are deeply ingrained in a faith tradition and passed on to its interpreters. He argues that the socio-religious shaping of the Wesleyan tradition naturally inclines its biblical interpreters toward viewing their task as "open-ended and conversational." Meanings made of Scripture are more fluid and contextual. Jacobsen believes this is so because Arminius (whom Wesley follows at this point) understood Scripture's authority in functional terms, whether to confirm the actual experience of conversion or to interpret the holiness of life for a particular setting. In effect, the simultaneity of Scripture not only bears witness to the simultaneity of the church catholic, but also to every experience under heaven that is transformed by the grace of God. Those of Calvinist traditions, on the other hand, tend to press for a uniform interpretation of Scripture and its single meaning that justifies a creedal and uniform "orthodoxy"-one book, one faith. Scripture's authority is viewed in propositional terms to confirm the written text as the vox Dei.²⁹

3. The Soteriological Use of Scripture. According to Wesley, the proper interpretation of Scripture should lead people into the way and experience of salvation. In this sense, the Wesleyan "analogy of faith" is not only soteriological in theological content, so that the meaning made of every Scripture articulates the salvific purposes of God. The intended effect of Scripture's performance is also soteriological, so that the beneficiaries of sound interpretation will be liberated from their sin and its destructive results. The soteriological cast of Wesleyan hermeneutics is both theological and practical. In this light, Scripture's functional role is to facilitate saving faith, both its transformed life and transforming practice. For Wesley, the best evidence of Scripture's authority is the experience of a transformed life, since the deeper logic of his theological conception is that sound doctrine follows from and supplies an interpretation of the experience of divine grace. In this sense, then, Scripture not only nurtures theological understanding, but also the sort of person who knows and responds to God's Word.

Again, the revivalist ethos that helped to shape Wesley's conception of salvation also helped to shape this presumption of Scripture's usefulness. The idea of "scriptural holiness" presumes that Scripture functions to inspire an understanding of holiness that allows grace to form a new capacity for a holy life in the world rather than as the legal arrangement with God which only "cheapens" grace and allows sin and selfishness to persist. The God of Wesley's Bible is no nominalist: God's grace results in public and historical proof of God's saving activity. Holiness is the primary characteristic of the transformed life that does not retire from the world, but resides as light in the midst of darkness. Nor does Scripture teach that holiness is a capacity of grace given only to a privileged few; rather, grace finds all, no matter their class or rank. Nor does Scripture bear witness to a quiet holiness that remains the inward evidence of personal salvation. Scripture forms an understanding of divine grace that is practical and participatory, empowering the believer's ministry toward others in opposition toward everything and anyone that opposes the Creator's good intentions for everything and anyone.

In making these observations, I am separating Wesley's conventional rhetoric about Scripture's importance from his core convictions about its practical usefulness, which were primarily pastoral and evangelical. Biblical interpretation is concerned with awakening a faithful commitment to God in the present rather than in researching the past in order to warrant an orthodox creedalism. It is this emphasis in Wesley, as several have noted, that agrees theologically and methodologically with the postmodern interest in human "liberation."³⁰ I suspect there is a fairly robust hermeneutical agreement here as well, especially in understanding the interpreter's role in facilitating the dynamic dialogue between text and context, where the word of God is located and where the preferred meaning of the biblical text effects saving faith in those who hear and respond to it.³¹ The conservative Protestant objection to the contextual cast of liberation exegesis, which moves from external referents in need of liberation to the biblical text for hope and direction, is rooted in the tacit positivism of the magisterial Reformation and its sola scriptura principle (see above), which more naturally moves from biblical texts to their author's intended meaning and only then to external referents.³² This seems similar to Wesley's tacit objection to Protestant hermeneutics as practiced by the mainstream clergy of the Church of England.

4. The Sermonic Midrash of Scripture. Let me start this final point with an impression, sharply stated. Wesley's hermeneutics are more midrashic than "rational," following the principles of premodern Jewish/Christian interpreters rather than those of modern Protestant interpreters of Scripture. In this regard, it seems significant to me that Wesley left behind no systematic treatment of Scripture's conception, no hard rules to follow when interpreting its meaning. Rather, his "real" (not rhetorical) conception of Scripture emerges when preaching.³³ In fact, Wesley himself would probably dispute the value of my theoretical construct and instruct us to listen again to him preach! The salient features of Wesley's unrecorded hermeneutics are embodied in his sermons, where he follows the methods of those who first reflected on the good news in Christ in the context of their own Scriptures and faith communities.³⁴

Admitting the limitation of using one model (Jewish exegesis) to inform another (Wesleyan exegesis), let me indicate two characteristics of homiletical midrash that parallel in my mind Wesley's use of Scripture in his preaching ministry.³⁵ Especially homiletical midrash is a "contemporizing" hermeneutic, suitable for a sacramental view of Scripture, which supposes that interpreters mediate between God's Word and their own worlds. All truth which belongs to God is latent in Scripture and waits to be discovered at the appropriate time by the appointed interpreter. There can be no single, original sense of a multivalent Scripture that can effectively broker the Word of God for every people of God. Meanings change with time and place. Midrashic exegesis, therefore, does not pursue meaning with blinders on, but with a prior understanding of those historic contingencies or theological commitments that might threaten the community's faith. The goal of biblical commentary is never simply to clarify the meaning of the biblical text per se, but rather to clarify how the text ciphers the messiness of the readers' own context in order to liberate them from it. Midrash is not so much a commentary on Scripture as it is a commentary on life. Therefore, the interpreter 5 anointing" is discerned as much by knowledge of the audience as by knowledge of the biblical text.

Biblical writers themselves felt some freedom in adjusting their own sacred texts, either in citation or by allusion, so they conveyed God's Word for the new crisis of faith in the clearest manner possible. In this sense, congruence exists between text and life, not between text and text: the community's rationale for submitting to its Bible as its Canon has less to do with the consistency of its propositions and more with its adaptability to the changing demands which threaten the legitimacy of our Christian faith. Further, biblical writers interpreted their own Bibles in ways which authorized a certain understanding of their community's faith and life; the sacred text either cited or alluded to became God's "commentary" on the context. A midrashic interpretation of the Bible underscores the importance of the situation of faith which the living God continues to address through the community's Bible. Not only is authority understood in terms of the relevancy of the text for the ongoing context of faith (rather than in terms of, for example, propositional congruence), but the church's ongoing interpretation of the Bible is controlled by how well interpretation "re-presents" the text in ways which have meaning for the context.

The literary structure of homiletical midrashim makes this point, since typically the opening commentary on biblical texts is but the means to a concluding appeal for the audience to have "stronger" (e.g., messianic) faith (as in haggadic midrashim) or a more obedient (e.g., Torah observant) life (as in halakhic midrashim). The form of Wesley's homilies is strikingly similar. Exegesis of suitable scripture around a specific theme leads by stages to an exhortation for self-examination, concluding with an appeal for holiness of life.

Second, what controls midrashic interpretation to keep it "on line" is its theological subject matter and its spiritual effect. Thus, the intertextuality of midrash follows the conviction that all Scripture coheres around a self-consistent body of themes (see above under "Simultaneity of Scripture"). In this case, Wesley's sermons were centered by the grand themes of the ordo salutis, and became theological commentaries on how God's salvation related to his audience in practical ways. Further, Wesley's concluding appeals presume a transforming result. The preaching of Scripture intends certain results-conversion, repentance, changed life, moral action, deeper devotion, community building. Wesley never measured the orthodoxy of a sermon by theological proposition alone but by practical result as well. Indeed, the orthodoxy of biblical theology should always yield the orthopraxy of Christian perfection.

Conclusion

I conclude feeling even more tentative about the project of Wesleyan hermeneutics than when I began. Am I correct, however, to presume that we possess from Wesley a particular perspective on Scripture, and that this perspective forges in turn those presuppositions of biblical interpretation that help to shape in a decisive way what it means for Wesleyans to be the church and to act like the church should for the glory of God? Am I right to sponsor a hermeneutics whose agenda is to "retribalize" Wesleyanism in order to nurture, even to reform the theological understanding and praxis of the whole church? I think so. Moreover, the Wesleyan interpreter has primary loyalty to Wesleyan communions of believers, as prophet or priest. In this regard, the Wesleyan interpreter should cast biblical meaning/theology in a way that enables our particular cloud of Christian witnesses to understand and embody more fully a distinctively Wesleyan form of saving faith and holy life. What I am less certain of is how best to do this.

Footnotes

¹Stanley Fish, "Consequences," in Against Theory, ed. W. T. Mitchell (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), 128. But see A. Bloom's biting response to Fish's point in Giants and Dwarfs (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990), 13-31.

²F.A. Spina, as found elsewhere in this journal issue.

³I appreciate the keen insight and civil ecumenism reflected by G. Lyons' important essay, "Hermeneutical Bases of Theology," WTJ 18 (1983), 63-78. I join his efforts in encouraging holiness scholars to become more current and "critical" in their hermeneutical methods. My proposal, however, is grounded in the hope that these same scholars become more self-critically' "Wesleyan" in their reading of biblical texts.

⁴S.M. Schneiders begins her work, The Revelatory Text (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1991), with a similar critique of guild protocol. Following the lead of H-G. Gadamer, she argues that most scholars are primarily interested in historical "information" rather than in interpersonal "transformation," in particular methods leading to data-collection rather than in understanding leading to universal truth. The "full" meaning of a biblical text pursues the information it may yield, but as a means to its more existential aspect-meaning that explains "self" in relation to God and neighbor, community and creation. I stand with Dr. Schneiders in these criticisms.

⁵See R. W. Wall, "Reading the New Testament in Canonical Context" in Hearing the New Testament: Strategies for Interpretation, ed. J. B. Green (Grand Rapids, Mi.: Eerdmans, forthcoming). Also, my "Introduction" to R. W. Wall and E.E. Lemcio, The New Testament as Canon (JSNTS s 76, Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1992), 15-26.

⁶This point concentrates the "canonical approach" to biblical interpretation pioneered by B. S. Childs, already in his programmatic "Interpretation in Faith" Interp 18 (1964) 432-49, but then brilliantly introduced in his commentary on Exodus (OTL, Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1974) and Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979). In his work Childs addresses the question: which form of the biblical text bears witness to the truth about God and God's salvation most acutely and accurately for Christian readers? While Childs would deny that the text in its final, canonical form has a monopoly on the Gospel truth, he would contend that this particular placement of the Gospel truth has been privileged by the church to be normative or "canonical" for its faith and life. The biblical text in its final, canonical form is the primary medium, then, of Christian theological interpretation and reflection (following K. Barth). For a balanced critique of Childs' canonical approach, see J. Barton, Reading of the Old Testament (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1984), 77-103. The more polemical objection raised by J. Barr in his Holy Scripture: Canon, Authority, Criticism (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1983) that the canonical form is not necessarily 'superior" (at least in an historical sense) has since been nicely handled by M. Brett in his Biblical Criticism in Crisis? (Cambridge: University Press, 1991).

⁷I am aware that this particular aspect of a canon's importance, as the authoritative and distinctive deposit of divine revelation, is currently under sharp attack. Most of this criticism is concentrated by the claim of a canon's special character and unique importance on its readers. Typically there are two observations made: (1) Each canon shares certain qualities with other canons, which seems to undermine the claim of its special character. Therefore, to place confidence in one canon but not in another requires an act of non-rational faith. For this reason, Childs underscores the canonical role of Scripture to bear witness to Jesus Christ, whose particular life and vocation justifies the "special character" of the Christian canon. (2) Especially M. Foucault argues that every canon privileges and legitimizes a particular ideology (whether socio-political or intellectual). Further, canons of various disciplines and groups are used by those "priests" in charge to maintain their power over the rank-and-file by controlling which texts are used and by determining the rules by which the "official" meaning of these texts is discerned. For this reason, Childs also underscores the importance of a holistic reading of Scripture, which provides ample illustration and justification for ideological diversity among its diverse Christian readership. Scripture bears witness to, in J. A. Sanders' apt phrase, a "pluralizing monotheism." It delineates a debating ground on which self-correcting and mutually-informing conversations take place, which promise even greater clarity in the church's hearing and obedience to God's Word.

⁸F. Kermode, Forms of Attention (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, -1985), 75.

⁹Throughout the history of forming the Christian Scriptures (as well as the Jewish Scriptures), the idea of a biblical canon was concerned not only with the question of a normative literature, but also with the question of its proper interpretation. To accept the canonicity of the Christian Bible is to insist that interpretation must be done again and again on it in search of God's will and word for each and every new situation. While Scripture's multivalency and the interpretive situation's fluidity allow for great freedom, methodological and theological controls do exist which limit and even rank the possible meanings made of a canonical text. Certainly only a few interpreters have requisite authority or "talent" to find God's will and word in Scripture. More importantly, the subject matter of interpretation must never disagree with the subject matter of Scripture, which bears witness to the God made flesh in Christ Jesus.

¹⁰See M. Fishbane's brilliant analysis of this point in "Inner-biblical Exegesis," in The Garments of Torah (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1992), 3-18.

¹¹I suspect that most NT writers wrote their compositions with their Scriptures in mind. The writings of the NT are christological midrashim on the OT. However, the case that biblical texts are intertexts can be made quite apart from authorial intentions. That is, whether or not biblical texts were composed with other biblical texts in mind, the simultaneity of Scripture commends its intertextuality, and is a canonical rather than authorial property.

¹²The intertextuality of Scripture only underscores the fundamental importance of what Childs commends as the "holistic reading of Scripture," where Scripture's final shape as well as the entirety of its subject matter lead us in edifying conversation with God's Word Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), pp.717-27.

¹³In his important book, The Soul of the American University (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), George Marsden well notes that while the post-modernist challenge to the myth of objectivity in the academy has concerned social class and gender, this same line of inquiry could be applied to religious commitments and values as well (433-35). That is, the interpreter's core convictions about God also lead to a particular understanding of the subject matter of one's inquiry. Marsden argues, of course, that the public academy, especially that which upholds a democratic people, ought to tolerate and provide a forum for different religious commitments even as it supports the diversity of social class and gender.

¹⁴In this sense, I continue to unpack the thesis illustrated by "Law and Gospel, Church and Canon," WTJ 22 (1987), 38-70. From a Pentecostal perspective, the very same point is made nicely by J. C. Thomas, "Women, Pentecostals and the Bible: An Experiment in Pentecostal Interpretation," JPT 5 (1994), 41-56. In his essay, Thomas argues that faithful interpretation of God's Word occurs only when the discrete roles/experiences of Spirit, community, Scripture, and teacher are properly integrated. When one of these authortative voices" lacks volume, a distortion of meaning will result.

¹⁵According to P. Ricoeur, the "sense" of a text is ascertained by properly arranged words and logically developed ideas. Critical exegesis arrives at this "sense" on which all (ideally) might agree. Only on this basis of what a text actually says can readers then determine its "full" meaning-both its truthfulness and contemporary significance-for their more particular and differentiated lives and faiths. See P. Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory (Fort Worth: TCU Press, 1976), 8-22.

¹⁶Much of what follows agrees, in different words and methodology, with J. Stanley's "postmodern" scheme recently introduced in his "Postmodern Holiness." One of the more intriguing features of his essay is Stanley's extended autobiographical introduction, which is characteristic postmodern commentary. Autobiography underscores the contextual cast of interpretation and helps to frame meaning as-at least in part-subjective, self-critical and provisional. As Stanley clearly indicates, the postcritical interpreter does consider the literary d historical "evidence" of critical exegesis in determining the meaning and significance of a biblical text. There is a sense in which the "full" or objective meaning of a biblical text is the integral collection of the interpretive community's various subjectivities, including those belonging to holiness interpreters like Stanley.

¹⁷Of course, Gadamer also links the interpreter with the history of a tradition. Yet, rather than the deposit of core convictions and moral values found in "classic" texts, which the interpreter then translates for the "next generation," a tradition is itself hermeneutical. That is, there exists certain hermeneutical presumptions and protocols that also belong to a tradition which must guide the interpreter when translating a tradition in and for a new context.

¹⁸Since I am not a scholar of Wesley nor the son of one, my evaluation of recent studies of Wesley's view of Scripture is more "instinctive" than academic. Forgive me if my "instinct" is to select only those features which agree with my hermeneutical assumptions. With that qualification, my consideration of several recent studies of Wesley's idea of Scripture and its interpretation has found most helpful for this discussion the fine study by S. Jones, John Wesley's Conception and Use of Scripture (Ph.D. diss., SMU, 1992), which promises to set the standard for this topic in Wesley studies. Also useful is D. Thorsen's The Wesleyan Quadrilateral (Grand Rapids, Mi.: Zondervan, 1990), 125-50, whose discussion of this topic is more theologically interested; W. Amett, John Wesley - Man of One Book (Th. D. diss., Drew University, 1954); and most recently, R. Maddox, Responsible Grace (Nashville: Kingswood Books, esp. 36-47

¹⁹Too much has been made of the well-documented inconsistency between Wesley's conception of Scripture and its interpretation, and his actual use of Scripture. What seems clear is that Wesley's Scripture is a "means of grace" and must always be subordinated to the ministry of salvation. Therefore, while pressing in theory for the authority of its "literal meaning,' and even for the oracular character of its very words, Wesley's interpretation of Scripture is really midrashic-(and follows therefore the Bible's own unwritten rules of interpretation!) - often adding or subtracting from the biblical text in order to find its theological address in meanings that indicate the "way into heaven." I believe this is the case even though Wesley himself considered the "original" meaning an important feature of sound exegesis.

²⁰"Methodists in Search of Consensus," in What Should Methodists Teach? (ed. D. Meeks, Nashville: Kingswood Books, 1990), 37.

²¹So R. Cushman, John Wesley's Experimental Divinity (Nashville: Kingswood Books, 1989), 81.1 caution us not to import back into Wesley's age those terms (e.g., "infallibility" or "inerrancy") which have taken on a more recent connotation during the "modernist vs. fundamentalist" debates of this century. Surely Wesley did not think Scripture "fallible" in its witness to God or any-thing less that an "infallible test" (his words) of faith and life. Rather, it is simply to contend that in consideration of Wesley's actual use of Scripture, especially in his preaching ministry, its authority is always posited in and proven by its redemptive performance rather than in its "inerrant" propositions. Thus, Jones argues that Wesley's appeal to the Bible's infallibility envisages Scripture's reliability as a source and norm for Christian doctrine, not the assured result of empirical analysis of its scientific or historical statements (Jones, 26-35).

²²L. Shelton, "John Wesley's Approach to Scripture in Historical Perspective," WTJ 16 (1981): 23-50; and followed by Thorsen, 136-37.

²³For the difference between these two classes of authority, see Schneider, 55-59. An argument for a similar point is made by B. P. Stone, "Wesleyan Theology, Scriptural Authority, and Homosexuality," paper presented to the Wesleyan Theological Society, Dayton, Oh., 1994, 3-9.

²⁴Cf. A. Outler, "The Wesleyan Quadrilateral-in John Wesley," in Doctrine and Theology in the United Methodist Church (ed. T. Langford, Nashville: Kingswood Books, 1991), 75-88. In the same volume, T. Campbell demonstrates that the idea of a "quadrilateral" of religious authorities was conceived by Outler rather than by Wesley: "The Wesleyan Quadrilateral," 155-61. According to Jones, Wesley actually appealed to five: Scripture, Reason, Christian Antiquity, Church of England, and human experience (80-136). While united and integral in witness to a single Godhead, when properly understood, only Scripture is competent to "norm" all aspects of the Christian's life. Reason and the Fathers collaborate with Scripture in matters of theological understanding, whereas experience collaborates with Scripture in matters of life. I find most interesting Wesley's appeals to the Church of England, which helps to draw the boundaries of that context of faith and life that Scripture then interprets.

²⁵So J. Levenson, The Hebrew Bible, The Old Testament, and Historical Criticism (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1993), 79.

²⁶So Wall, "Law and Gospel."

²⁷So S. Jones, 60, with many others. I have tried to summarize this same theological core in, "The Relevance of the Book of Revelation for the Wesleyan Tradition," under the rubric "A Wesleyan Location for Hermeneutics" (paper presented to the Wesleyan Theological Society, Oklahoma City, 1993).

²⁸Childs defends the wholeness of Scripture by arguing that while the OT and NT sound different notes-one by Israel and the other by the Church-both bear witness to the same God and salvation. While the prophetic voices of Israel, congregated in the OT, issue God's promise of salvation, the apostolic voices of the Church, congregated in the NT, claim that God's promised salvation has been fulfilled through the messianic ministry of the Risen Jesus and has been made present in his Spirit. See Biblical Theology of Old and New Testaments (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 721-22. This seems right to me.

²⁹D. Jacobsen, "The Calvinist - Arminian Dialectic in Evangelical Hermeneutics," CSR 23 (1993), 72-89. Jacobsen's intriguing conclusion is that Reformed hermeneutics is better suited for the mind-set of "modern" interpreting, while Wesleyan hermeneutics is better suited for postmodern interpretation. Indeed, the methodological interests of many conservative Reformed interpreters seem "positivistic." Their approach to a text is to capture the fixed meaning-perhaps from the mind of its author-for all time. Such positivism has utterly failed to convince or compel. On this basis, he predicts the ascendancy of Wesleyan interpretation within the postmodem evangelical subculture! The dialectical cast of postmodem hermeneutics, which moves in a controlled yet creative way between text and reader to locate its current meaning, seems better equipped to correct the pitfalls of modem interpretation.

³⁰Esp. T. Runyon, "Introduction: Wesley and the Theologies of Liberation," in Sanctification & Liberation, (ed. T. Runyon, Nashville: Abingdon, 1981), 9-48.

³¹See C. Rowland and M. Comer, Liberating Exegesis (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1989).

³²My observation is similar to the criticism of Schüssler Fiorenza that an imperialist reading of Scripture seeks to establish timeless patterns and rules, whereas a liberationist reading of Scripture is "critically open to the possibility of its own transformation," In Memory of Her (New York: Crossroads, 1983), 34. That is, the meaning of Scripture is itself transformed by the interpreter's attempts to understand the will and Word of God for the current people of God.

³³Should we be surprised that the "tradition" which informed Wesley's faith included the Book of Homilies?

³⁴I am not arguing that Wesley self-consciously followed the methods of the biblical writers; however, perhaps a case could be made that apostolic hermeneutics was an aspect of Wesley's ideal of restoring apostolic Christianity to the Church of England. In this case, his use of Scripture was patterned after the biblical writers in pursuit of an authentically NT faith and order.

³⁵Current discussions of the intersection of Jewish and early Christian hermeneutics remain very complex and hotly contested between interested scholars, Jewish and Christian. In this brief discussion of midrash, I need to set aside the various historical (e.g., the middot of midrashic praxis) and literary (e.g., the genre of midrashim) problems in defining "midrash" and treat only the topic of midrash as an interpretive method, which itself is a complex and contested topic. See the still useful article by R. LeDeaut, "Apropos: a Definition of Midrash," Interp 25 (1971) 259-82; also, the introduction by J. Neusner, What is Midrash? (GBS, Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987).

Edited by Michael Mattei for the
Wesley Center for Applied Theology
at Northwest Nazarene University
© Copyright 2000 by the Wesley Center for Applied Theology

Text may be freely used for personal or scholarly purposes, provided the notice below the horizontal line is left intact. Any use of this material for commercial purposes of any kind is strictly forbidden without the express permission of the Wesley Center at Northwest Nazarene University, Nampa, ID 83686. Contact the webmaster for permission or to report errors.