A Book Review from Books At a Glance
by Ryan M. McGraw
There is a growing healthy dissatisfaction today with reducing Bible study (and sermons) to history and grammar lessons. Scholars specifically, and Christians generally, are yearning to hear from God through his Word. This good instinct is leading many into recovering older Christian models of Bible reading in which people assumed that the Bible was God’s word, that the Spirit spoke to God’s people through it, and that reading was a spiritual exercise by spiritual people. Taking his cue from John 6:44-47, where Jesus described true believers as “taught by God,” Brandon Smith seeks to give his readers more God-centered alternatives to reading Scripture by drawing lessons from the early church, Middle Ages, and Reformation periods. Though his principles are better than his concluding practical examples, this book can nonetheless give readers the nudge they need to expand their hermeneutical horizons in seeking to read Scripture to see and know God.
After introducing the importance of learning from premodern exegesis, Smith divides his book into two large sections: “retrieving premodern sensibilities” and “practicing the sensibilities.” Flagging three “sensibilities” of premodern exegesis – the “letter and history” of biblical texts, “the theological and Christological unity of Scripture,” and “how Scripture impacts personal and ecclesial communion with God” (121-122) – chapters 2-4 expand each in turn, drawing examples from early church, medieval, and Protestant exegetes. In his summary in chapter 5, Smith comes close to adding a “fourth sensibility” from viewing earlier authors as models of how to worship with the church (116). The final four chapters apply these “sensibilities” to two OT texts and two NT texts, seeking to illustrate the fruits of premodern exegesis for preparing sermons. Rather than flattening out differences among early church, medieval, and early modern Protestant exegetes, Smith argues that a common thread is prioritizing virtues in readers over monolithic interpretive method (7). Unlike other recent attempts to retrieve pre-Enlightenment models of interpretation, Smith avoids oversimplification as well as potentially misleading catch-phrases like “Christian Platonism” and “sacramental ontology.” Though his study is less penetrating than Christopher Hall’s semi-classic Reading the Scriptures with the Church Fathers, his reach is wider, including authors like Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Augustine, Gregory the Great, John of Damascus, Hugh St. Victor, Thomas Aquinas, Nicholas of Lyra, Matin Luther, William Tyndale, John Calvin, and others. Part one is easy to read, interesting, clear, nuanced, and helpful in guiding readers to see how varied authors took care to understand God’s Word and see Christ as its unifying center, while fostering the devotion of readers and hearers. His examples should lead readers to yearn for more as these common helpful threads recur rhythmically throughout church history.
The second part, including four sample sermons employing premodern principles by way of “exegetical essay or sermon manuscript” (122), however, is a bit anti-climactic. Smith notes that his examples “represent the way I personally would work out teaching or preaching these texts” (182), modelling “premodern sensibilities.” However, while listening to the text, pointing to Christ, and making application, his examples from Numbers 16-17, Malachi 1-2, John 7 and Hebrews 2 neglect the gripping experimental rhetorical form that usually marked premodern exegesis. His “sermon” on Numbers 16-17 illustrates what I have in mind. The introduction is non-experimental (122-123), contra premodern authors like Peter van Mastricht, who argued for an experimental hook embedded in sermon introductions. Beyond introductions, premodern exegesis often engaged readers in direct ways that modern conservative preachers often do not, through direct address and application, searching questions, and interspersed doxology. Smith’s exposition on pages 124-131 seems rather flat, factual, and relatively mundane. Where are the searching questions and doxological exclamations that marked most premodern exegesis? This lengthy exegesis is simply summarized observations about Numbers 16-17, largely making readers spectators rather than participants. Likewise, the rhetorical form of the Christological/applicatory section is mostly informative, indirect, and under-experimental (131-137), not matching apostolic moves between indicative and imperative, sprinkling in interrogatives throughout. Almost all the material is in the indicative mood, making readers (and hearers) observers more than worshipers.
Moreover, Smith tends to expound other texts rather than use them to help promote understanding and application from his own text. The material almost reads like saying, “This text says the following, but these other texts really say what I want to convey instead.” The sermon on Malachi 1-2 ends with an exposition of Melchizedek without any real application to the audience(146-148). In the third sermon, Smith finally interjects three questions about the text(155). The answers, however, rather than driving hearers toward communion with the Triune God, give information about the Feast of Tabernacles, the Spirit’s relation to Jesus, and why Galilee is important. Keeping to his pattern, Nehemiah 9 takes over the exposition here (156). The only kinds of imperatives he uses are things like, “Think about” (162), or, “Let’s believe” (163), making application look purely informative. While giving models of applying the sensibilities of premodern exegesis is a good move, Smith’s examples ultimately fail to deliver.
Ultimately, these examples do not match how premodern preachers and the biblical writers handled texts, directed people to Christ, and drove them towards communion with God. Engaging form often mimicked theological goals. Augustine’s long-lasting De Doctrina Christiana, for instance, followed three parts on interpretation with one part on rhetoric. In this final part, he urged preachers, among other things, to be informative, persuasive, and moving, instructing them how to engage hearers directly, even teaching them how to modulate their voices to prevent losing attention. However, the apostle Paul, whom Augustine followed, provides an even more powerful counter-model for teaching, directing to Christ, and engaging hearers, all to promote communion with God. Ephesians largely presents indicative statements for half of the book, followed by a string of experimental imperatives. While this pattern persists in his epistles, Romans 8 illustrates well a blend of indicative, imperative, and interrogative that looks more like what premodern preachers did. “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus (v. 1, NKJV), leads to a string of indicatives through verse 8. While still indicative, verses 9-11 take a step towards readers with “but you,” “in you” (three times), and “to your.” This continues through verses 12-17. Though remaining indicative, this section builds on the imperatives of 6:12-14, introduced by searching questions (6:1-2, 15). Paul reaches the height of his address in 8:31-35 with seven piercing questions, which both drive home truths and make them directly personal. Paul’s pattern of indicative, imperative, and interrogative is even more penetrating and engaging in books like Galatians and 2 Corinthians, not to mention his doxological interjections (e.g., Rom. 11:33-36). Rather than merely explaining texts, pointing to Christ, and indirectly telling readers that they can do something with what they learned, premodern exegetical proclamation looked more Augustine and Paul than Smith’s examples. Without such features, readers will likely leave thinking that premodern exegesis is only about less biblical-theologically robust exegesis, sidetracked by parallel texts, only engaging hearers indirectly.
Stating principles is far easier than practicing them. Such practical deficiencies here highlight something vitally important. Recognizing features in precritical exegesis that seem to be missing in modern teaching and preaching makes us feel painfully that we are often missing something. Yet we need more work in the direction of capturing the devotional doxological instincts of precritical exegesis, transforming them into exegetically persuasive heart-gripping sermons. Though the Spirit has seen to it that the church has never fully lost divine action, through a Christ-centered Bible, in devout preachers, hearers, and readers, perhaps people are starting to wake up to weaknesses in all these areas at once. Maybe instead of looking for precritical sensibilities, some scholars are actually attracted to Christian sensibilities, regardless of when those Christians lived. This is likely what will resonate most with believing readers taking up this book. We should be thankful for exhortations like this one to look beyond our immediate contexts for foundational principles of communion with God, even as we continue to feel the pressure of building a better model for reading and preaching the Word.
Ryan M. McGraw
Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary