For the past couple of days we have been considering timeless patterns found embedded in scripture. To see how the idea of pattern and timelessness works, I want to share the metaphor of Martial arts and the patterns found within them. The major martial arts of the world from antiquity until today use patterns or forms within their training to teach the body self control and to move or respond. These forms have been passed on from school to school and master to student. Both then and now these forms are transferred from master to student, via an oral and physical transmission. There are specific steps to follow, going in specific directions, with a prescribed number of steps. Within these steps are specific movements that simulate a response to an assailant or multiple assailants. These form the individual parts of the pattern that each school, master, and student can recognize as part of their particular martial art. But through time and the way each form is nuanced physically by both the master and the student the form in the strictest sense will not be performed exactly from person to person.
What has usually taken place is that there is a physical difference of limitation that each of us have that changes the exact “words” or form for each one of us in the strictest sense of movement, but the “message” or key pattern is consistent and recognizable to all within the martial art practiced. By using the patterns individuals are able to get the message and the movement from their individual master or school and ultimately from the founder himself despite time, distance, culture, and language. While at the same time their own body produces nuances that are unique to them. Maybe at some level this metaphor breaks down. But the strict pattern found within the structure of the martial art is being transferred student to student,which can be recognized as real and “truth” for all within the martial art system. Just as the hermeneutic or pattern which is found within scripture can be recognized as real and truth for all within the church. Michael Casey writes,
The ancient expositors of the bible were conscious that its words were full of mystery. By their own experience they knew that there was a power in the inspired word that transcended the overt purpose or meaning of a particular text. How often the reading of scripture becomes the occasion of a major illumination or conversion. Whereas many modern exegetes are reluctant to see more in the bible than its historical-critical meaning, tradition has long accepted the possibility of a sensus plenor, a “fuller sense” that discloses itself to the faith filled reader.
The fuller sense as Casey describes it is speaking of something beyond the pattern found within scripture. It is speaking of what the Holy Spirit reveals from scripture to the individual who comes to it in humility and faith. This does not change the pattern or the message but the patterns found within scripture are there to maintain and confirm that the message that we are hearing proclaimed or proclaim ourselves is consistent with God’s eternal purpose through time.
Finally, the nature of scripture then and now is in one sense the same. It is the same in the timeless patterns found throughout scripture that maintain its consistent message. These patterns are the boundaries within which we view scripture and the boundaries from which we are to dialogue with and proclaim a clear gospel message to our world today.
Picture: Scriptures on my People, by yngrich
Quote: Michael Casey, Sacred Reading: The Art of Lectio Divina
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