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

     As we continue to look at the timeless pattern of scripture, we need to realize that scripture is more than a series of writings of words that were given to a group of people within a particular period of time.  It is more than some anecdotal information that we can adapt for use in our lives.  Though scripture was given to a certain group of people and at a particular point in history, it is more than that.  We are not of that time, language or people and yet it does have a message for us today.  The Bible itself says:

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two edged sword.  Piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.  And hidden from its sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account. (Heb. 4:12-13, ESV)

The scripture is supposed to have an impact on our lives today.  Its message can be made relevant in our world by  doing just what the biblical thinkers did in times past.  Using its patterns to dialogue with the ideas and messages being put forth in our day to proclaim its message in our world. Though monotheism is a key encoded pattern in scripture it is not the only one.  Dr. Gary Salyer, puts forth some additional  key patterns that he sees within scripture.  Woven into the fabric of the New Testament he believes that there is a wisdom pattern and servant pattern.  The importance of these patterns can not be underestimated.  The wisdom pattern, is not just words or ideas that help us live but its main emphasis is found that it was pre-existent.  That this word or logos became flesh in the person of Jesus Christ and that it was pre-existent points out further that Jesus is God, thus aligning itself with the monotheizing pattern above.

     There is an additional pattern that Dr. Salyer puts forth.  That is the pattern found in the person of Jesus, the pattern of being a servant, a servant unto death.  These last two patterns, carried through the oral period 30-65 CE, unto the present are found within the Christological hymns of scripture.  This last hermeneutical pattern of the servant not only shows us a pattern to follow, but in so doing, this particular pattern additionally functions to keep us on track as people.  Without this key pattern we could go off on many paths that could lead us astray.  By having this pattern as part of what we are to emulate, God reveals to us a pattern that we are reluctant to follow.  As part of our nature this is not what we as man would devise. 

  So far we have seen the patterns or templates that are embedded in within scripture.  A hermeneutic if you will, from which to maintain a consistent message beyond culture and time.

Picture: NYPL – Gutenberg bible, by jblyberg

Quotes: Gary Salyer,D., Dame Wisdom as the Mother of New Testament Christology

                ___________, Christological Hymns as Oral Hermeneutical Bouys for the Early (Oral) Period of Emerging NT Tradition

Scripture is not so much a treasury of wisdom from antiquity, as it is primarily a paradigme provided by our ancestors in the faith for ways to decline the nouns and conjugate the verbs of God’s creation of and redemption of the world.  It is also a paradigm for ways to decline and conjugate the nouns and verbs of believers in any generation who are called to pursue integrity of reality.  It is a paradigm on ways to monotheize and to narrate the current episodes of the ongoing  story of creation and redemption, and on ways to prepare for that eschaton when the story will culminate in the fullness of that integrity.

This pattern or imprint is what we discover when we decode scriptures by hermeneutics.  The term hermeneutics, means the art and science of interpretation.  It is through this art and science that we attempt to interpret scripture and apply it in our day.  Donald Bloesh states:

In the hermeneutical task we should focus on what scripture intends to teach us.  What scripture intends to teach is what the Spirit intended to say to the people of that time in this text and what He intends to say to us today in a different period of history. 

     The Hermeneutic patterns found within scripture consistently address who God is, who we as humans are and how we are supposed to behave in relationship, who Jesus Christ is, and what role He personified while here on earth. These imprints are throughout scripture but they are not overtly addressed as such.  They are woven within the fabric of the text and lead us to the important message of scripture for our day.

     Sanders, when addressing scripture as canon states, the true shape of the Bible as canon consists of its unrecorded hermeneutics which lies between the lines of its literature.  When giving and example of this hermeneutic in scripture, Sanders writes, there was apparently a fourfold process: The ancient biblical thinkers depolytheized what they learned from others, monotheized it, Yahwized it and then Israelitized it.  The monotheistic imprint is one key to scripture and something that not only gave these early biblical thinkers a key to proclaiming the message of scripture for their culture and the world around them, but is an imprint that we need to bear in mind today.  This is but just one of the imprints or hermeneutical lenses from which we are to interpret scripture.  Over the next few days we will continue looking at the timeless pattern of scripture.

Picture: MMUMC Holy Bible, by Pirate_j

Quotes: Donald Bloesh, Holy Scripture: Revelation, Inspiration, and Interpretation

                James Sanders, Canon and Community