Indirect Meaning and Interpretive Effort
The goal of biblical hermeneutics is to understand the original, intended meaning of the Word of God. To assess the original, intended meaning of the various Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, the literary genre of respective works must be taken into consideration. If an interpreter does not take literary genre into consideration, then, to some degree, he will fall short understanding the intent and meaning of the text.
The chapters on Narrative, the New Testament Epistles, and Prophecy highlight the function of indirect meaning in interpretation. It takes effort to notice indirect meaning. For example, narrative is the most common literary genre of the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, and, as Kaiser explains in Chapter 8, “Narrative is clearly the main supporting framework for the Bible.”[1] The implications of this are significant! The meaning of the main supporting framework for the Bible is accessed and assessed indirectly. As Kaiser explains, “[N]arrative presents its principles and purposes indirectly.”[2] This implication and observation highlights the importance of understanding literary genres for interpreting the Bible. The meaning and sense of narrative, the most common literary genre, is largely indirect. However, even in more direct literary genres, like the Epistles, even in those texts Kaiser and Silva discuss that much of their meaning is also implied, e.g., meaning and understanding of the Epistles is derived from ascertaining the “specific historical needs” at back the intent of the author’s writing to original audience.[3]
Patient Effort
A reader and interpreter cannot expect the text to do all the work. A significant degree of interpretive-responsibility is intentionally and necessarily transferred to the audience. In the same way a preacher cannot do all the work for a person listening to a sermon, likewise the text cannot (does not) do all the work for the reader. “It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out” (Prov. 25:2). With respect to narrative, what responsibility does the reader have to hear, and what effort is required in order to search out the meaning of the text? Much, indeed.
Patient effort is required to access and assess the meaning of Narrative, Poetry and Wisdom, Gospels, Epistles, and Prophecy. In the parable of the sower and the seed, Jesus explained “the seed is the word of God” (Luke 8:11) and “the good soil” are “the ones who, when they hear the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patient endurance” (Luke 8:15). No wonder, prior to this explanation, Jesus concluded the parable with the forceful imperative: “Let anyone with ears to hear listen” (Luke 8:8). The patient effort required to discern both the direct and indirect meaning contained in the Scriptures, whether ranging from Narrative to Prophecy, only heightens the interpreter’s duty to constantly be praying, “Open my eyes, so that I may behold wondrous things out of your law” (Psalm 119:18).
[1] Walter C. Kaiser Jr. and Moisés Silva, Introduction to Biblical Hermeneutics: The Search for Meaning, rev. and exp. ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007), 123.
[2] Walter C. Kaiser Jr. and Moisés Silva, Introduction to Biblical Hermeneutics, 124.
[3] Walter C. Kaiser Jr. and Moisés Silva, Introduction to Biblical Hermeneutics, 177.