Gospel-Centered Hermeneutics
I’m looking forward to reading Gospel-Centered Hermeneutics, due out next March.
“The focus of Gospel-Centered Hermeneutics is not word studies but ‘Word study’: a sustained reflection on the priority and centrality of the good news concerning Jesus Christ as the distinct way that Scripture interprets Scripture and, indeed, all of reality. Goldsworthy’s attention to the role of biblical theology in biblical interpretation is particularly welcome, providing a refreshing contrast to what often gets produced by the contemporary hermeneutics industry. And by highlighting the gospel of Jesus Christ, he puts the evangel back into evangelical hermeneutics.” —Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
While there are many books on hermeneutics, Graeme Goldsworthy’s perception is that evangelical contributions often do not give sufficient attention to the vital relationship between hermeneutics and theology, both systematic and biblical.
In Gospel-Centered Hermeneutics, Goldsworthy moves beyond a reiteration of the usual arguments to concentrate on the theological questions of presuppositions, and the implications of the Christian gospel for hermeneutics. In doing so, he brings fresh perspectives on some well-worn pathways.
Part I examines the foundations and presuppositions of evangelical belief, particularly with regard to biblical interpretation.
Part II offers a selective overview of important hermeneutical developments from the sub-apostolic age to the present, as a means of identifying some significant influences that have been alien to the gospel.
Part III evaluates ways and means of reconstructing truly gospel-centered hermeneutics.
Goldsworthy’s aim throughout is to commend the much-neglected role of biblical theology in hermeneutical practice, with pastoral concern for the people of God as they read, interpret and seek to live by his written Word.
I’ve found Goldsworthy’s previous book, Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture, to be valuable.
January 9th, 2007 at 12:57 am
From an ordinary person here, who has some time ago stumbled into the wealth and necessity of allowing Scripture to interpret Scripture, I found the opening chapters of Piper’s ‘Don’t Waste Your Life’ to be a very inviting and concise introduction to the existence over essence quagmire we’ve gotten ourselves sunk. Not only culturally, but also biblically (as far as interpretation goes.) Piper says, ‘into this morass of subjectivity came a Professor of Literature…E.D.Hirsch. Reading his book Validity in Interpretation…was like suddenly finding a rock under my feet in the quicksand of comtemporary concepts about meaning… If there is no valid interpretation based on real objective, unchanging, original meaning, then my whole being said,”Let us eat, drink, and be merry. But by no means let us treat scholarship as if it really matters.” ‘
His opening chapters should be mandatory reading for every lay-leader, would-be church planter, or Bible speaker/teacher of every sort. Especially ones taught or trained in North America.