Theology: Hermen Who? - Part 3

Part 3: Authorial Intent - What did the Author intend to say?

Despite what we hear in most churches and universities today we can not start our interpretation with the question 'What does that mean to me?"

This is so basic that we don't give it a second thought in our everyday life because its fundamental in communication. When you listen to a news report of soldiers dying in Afghanistan do you then say to your self, "I feel like they are telling us how life is hard and we should pray for world peace". Or your wife asks you to stop at the store for milk and to you that means she needs you to go to the bar with some friends and relax.

When we read the bible we need to ask ourselves the question, "What did God say?" It simply does not matter what are feelings/opinions are on a verse what matters is what does it say. Now those feelings/opinions may help us understand and determine the correct interpretation but we must always start with the author.

In our Baseball illustration we saw that Context played a big part in correctly interpreting the story, specifically in this case it was the 'Setting' that helped. Next week we will get into the different considerations we need to think about before reading scripture.