Aspects of Biblical Generalization
ASPECTS OF BIBLICAL GENERALIZATION (5 parts)
PART 1: THE PRACTICE OF GENERALIZATION IS ASSUMPTIVE.
#1. The practice of biblical generalization assumes truths not directly stated in the text. This particular feature of generalization, if not well understood, may seem to advance the sense of risk.
#2. If some particular truth is assumed, though not immediately stipulated in a passage of scripture, then some might conclude that there is no reason for that assumption.
#3. However, another aspect of generalization is that it requires an increase of faith. An uptake in faith is necessary, in order to push generalizations from the Bible into personal circumstances.
#4. “for they had not gained any insight from the incident of the loaves, but their heart was hardened”, Mark 6:52.
#5. The Lord’s disciples were “…terrified…” (Mark 6:50) at Jesus’ appearance, walking on the water. And that reaction was obliged to lack of “…insight…”. The only insight available to them was from the miracle of the “…loaves…”, Mark 6:33-44.
#6. One generalization is, that if the Lord could feed 5,000 with 5 loaves and two fish (Mark6:38) then, He could do anything. And that, included walking on the water.
#7. That finding is not directly stated in the text! But it is the truth. It is called “insight”. The disciples could not see it because “…their heart was hardened”.
#8. A kind of diagrammatic event materializes. The will of
God came to bear on the actual temporal conditions. From that particular
circumstance, the Holy Spirit generated what we may call “the language
circumstance”, which becomes the text. The “language circumstance”
is the linguistic representational form of the actual. It is the written text,
where the language circumstance becomes the starting point for generalization.
Generalization is the hunt for the extended meaning of the language
circumstance in time and events.
ASPECTS OF BIBLICAL GENERALIZATION.
PART 2: DIRECT TEXTUAL STATEMENTS: THE STARTING POINT.
#1. The field of biblical interpretation deals with what is directly stated in the text. Generalization from the text establishes, another kind of statement. (a)There are those statements directly stated and (b) there are statements generalized from that which is directly stated.
#2. It is not the case that what is directly stated is not enough; but it is the starting point and not the stopping point.
#3. The textual statements are the fixed platform from which generalizations can be safely reached. The text of scripture can be treated as history, subject to literary criticism; rationalization is brought to bear and minimalism appears. Or it can be treated as the source of meaning bearing representations.
#4. The actual biblical events were transformed into the language manifold of scripture by the supernatural genius of the Holy Spirit. The text links us to the actual events (past) and personalities.
#5. Generalization links the text to time, situation, circumstance and human experience (present). The meaning of the text is manifested by the act of generalization.
#6. The actual historical events and then the revealed language manifold enwrap and hold, not an inherent logic amenable to human reason, but something else.
#7. That something else is an ABSOLUTE GRAMMAR (set of rules) permitting the indexing of the meaning of the text to human circumstance.
#8. The word of God generates its own grammar that is detectable by the human mind. The ABSOLUTE GRAMMAR is not, in any way, an experiential logic. Its portfolio is to link revealed language to the human mind.
#9. Abraham is a proof case for the ABSOLUTE GRAMMAR.
ASPECTS OF BIBLICAL GENERALIZATION.
PART 3: ABRAHAMIC FAITH.
#1. Abraham came to believe in something not directly stated in the promise of God made to him.
#2. “He said, ‘Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you'”, Genesis 22:2.
#3. The patriarch was faced with a kind of contradiction. Abraham had been given the promise of God regarding his future. “Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go forth from your country, and from your relatives and from your father’s house, to the land which I will show you; and I will make of you a great nation…'”, Genesis 12:1, 2.
#4. The promise of God had been contradicted by the command of God. In that dilemma, Abraham sought for a way to resolve the differential.
#5. The resolution, he concluded, would have to be found in the ABSOLUTE GRAMMAR of the word of God. Human logic fell by the wayside.
#6. The promise of God to make a great nation of Abraham could not be fulfilled if Isaac were dead. Nature could supply no possible resolution to the contradiction. Unaided human reason was of no consequence in terms of how any conceivable resolution could have been formulated.
#7. Abraham was confronted by his human lived experience. Death was final and that, without contradiction.
#8. So, the issue was, does human experience and its representational power overrule the promise of God? Was revelation fully subordinate to the temporal dimension and human wisdom?
#9. If the patriarch had turned to nature and to human experience, then, faith in God was subject to be capped by human reason and that, backed by human lived experience.
#10. Biblical faith in God compromised beyond repair and held hostage to time. Faith subject to man!
ASPECTS OF BIBLICAL GENERALIZATION.
PART 4: THE ABSOLUTE GRAMMAR.
#1. Abraham turned again to the language of the Lord’s promise. When he did that the patriarch reached a conclusion, that was by all human reason and experience, outlandish!
#2. “By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was offering his only begotten son; it was he to whom it was said, ‘In Isaac your descendants shall be called’. He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type”, Hebrews 11:17-19.
#3. Abraham had come to a conclusion; he had reached a truth not directly stated in the language of the promise nor directly stated in the command to sacrifice Isaac.
#4. As it turned out, Abraham’s belief in a resurrection of his only begotten son, did not transcend the words of God. It was a result of how he understood the words of God.
#5. The revealed language manifold received by Abraham was comprehended by him to be linguistic representations that bore meaning into the world of men and into human circumstances. Therefore, Abraham generalized from the word of God, concluding that nothing temporal, not even death, was beyond His reach.
#6. The almighty does not operate on the basis of rational based human logic, but by the ABSOLUTE GRAMMAR. This set of rules has its source in God Himself. It is God alone who determines outcomes. He is in Himself the ABSOLUTE GRAMMAR!
#7. If the Almighty summons one back from the dead, then that ABSOLUTE RULE (grammar) supplies the necessary conditions. Nothing more is required. Thus David defeated Goliath (1Samuel 17); Israel escaped Egypt (Exodus 13, 14); Peter walked on water (Matthew 14); Lord Jesus walked out of the tomb (Luke 24).
#8. The ABSOLUTE GRAMMAR is a generalization from the revelation. It is not directly stipulated in the text of scripture. But it can be reached by this revealed approach to the Bible.
#9. The Bible is no mere historical narrative; it is much much more. This book is the ABSOLUTE GRAMMAR for life on earth, in time and material circumstance. There is nothing human about its source, its appearance in time; its meanings.
ASPECTS OF BIBLICAL GENERALIZATION.
PART 5: MOVEMENT FROM THE REVEALED LANGUAGE MANIFOLD, TO GENERALIZATION and ON TO RESOLUTION.
#1. The basic elements of the natural rules of observation are generally known and respected. Those rules (some consider to be universal) are used to observe and understand every particle of temporal existence.
#2. Natural observation is helpful up to a point. But beyond that circumscribed use it runs into cross-purposes with biblical faith.
#3. With great frequency in the Bible, the rules of natural observation were used to displace the revealed will of God.
#4. In those biblical examples wherein the people of God relied on the rules of natural observation they were guilty of faithlessness. 1 Samuel 17 is instructive.
#5. The Israelites, drawn up in order of battle against the Philistines, were dismissive of victory and especially so after the appearance of Goliath, v.1-10.
#6. “When Saul and all Israel heard these words of the Philistine they were dismayed and greatly afraid”, v.11.
#7. The rules of natural observation were in the commanding position among the Israelites. David came center stage and led the people of God to complete and unexpected victory, v.31-58.
#8. One generalization from this episode is this: Material circumstances do not determine outcomes! The generalization defies the natural rules of observation.
#9. Generalizing from revealed truth was essentially a very different form of observing temporal events, situations, circumstances and states of being.
#10. Generalization from the Bible to temporal conditions, turns the hallowed scriptures into a kind of supernatural observatory of time and materiality. Every biblical generalization challenges the primacy of the rules of natural observation.
#11. Examples of biblical faith all teach that the rules of natural observation instill fear and suppress faith; while supernatural observations given by the word of God, inspire hope, even in the greatest darkness and distress.
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