Robert Lowery

For more than twenty-five years I have had the privilege of teaching a class entitled Scripture in Context with my friend and colleague, Dr. Gary Hall.  The first part of the semester we spend discussing the historical setting of the Old and New Testaments and about two thirds of the semester are spent focusing on the history of the interpretation of the Bible.  I always like to hear Gary’s insights about how the earliest Christian commentators approached the Scriptures.

Yesterday I covered a one thousand year period that we call Medieval times.  We focused on what happens when there are poor hermeneutical choices made to support the traditions of the Church.

At the end of the lecture I issued a caution.  I told the students that I fear that too many of us consult commentaries written in the last several decades and we miss much when we do not reach farther back to see the insights deeply devoted individuals had as a result of their spending time in the Word.  Such a failure to do so reflects a certain arrogance on our part:  We are far more sophisticated in our approach to Scripture and the ancients, especially the commentators who lived in the three or four centuries after the church was born, really do not have much to offer to us.  Or so we think!  Each year I teach the history the students marvel at how we continue to deal with issues that countless Christians have had to reflect on over the centuries.

We must spend time with the Church Fathers.  Of course, they can be just as wrong as any other commentator, regardless of the century in which one wrote.  Chronological proximity to the writers of the New Testament does not guarantee that the interpretations offered by the fathers are always accurate.  Even with the pages of the New Testament we find people who did not hear Paul correctly, to cite just one author.

Whenever I study a passage of Scripture–for lecture or for sermon or for a writing project–I always try to get a sampling of interpretations throughout the centuries.  And I have never been disappointed or have gone away hungry.  For example, as I continue work on my commentary, I am currently working through the volume on Revelation (edited by William C. Weinrich) that is a part of The Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, edited by Thomas C. Oden (more details below).  It is one of twenty-eight volumes encompassing all of Scripture and offering us the key writings of the early church fathers.

Let me list some helpful resources that will connect you with past interpreters, specifically Christian preachers and teachers who  lived during the first two or three centuries after the church was born:

• Bercot, David W.  A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs.  Peabody: Hendrickson, 1998.
• Coxe, A. Cleveland, ed.  The Ante-Nicene Fathers: Translations of the Fathers Down to A.D. 325, 10-Vol. Set.  Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971. {See volume IX for a general index (including subjects and Scriptures).
• Goodspeed, Edgar J.  Index Patristicus.  Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1993.
• Lampe, G.W.H.  A Patristic Greek Lexicon.  Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969.
• Liddell, Henry George and Scott, Robert, ed.  Revised and augmented throughout by Henry Stuart Jones with the assistance of Roderick McKenzie.  A Greek-English Lexicon, Ninth Edition with a Revised Supplement.  Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.
• Oden, Thomas C., gen. ed.  Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture Series.  Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press.  Numerous volumes.
• Commentaries by F.J.A. Hort, B.F. Westcott, J.B. Lightfoot, and H.B. Swete, among others.

Here is my challenge to you.  Do not read only the most recent interpreters of Scripture but go back about eighteen hundred years and reflect on the wisdom of some of the earliest disciples of Jesus. We will be richer for it.

Related posts:

1. Spending Time with the Church Fathers