Union with God Through a Transformative Homiletics 1433196220, 9781433196225

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Advance Praise for

Union with God Through a Transformative Homiletics “This beautifully written, interdisciplinary text, one which drinks plentifully from the springs of Sacred Scripture as lived and contemplated throughout the centuries, brings together a young Korean Pentecostal pastor’s effort to show the transformative power of a preacher’s union with God, in Christ, through the Spirit. Embracing a Christian message which not only embodies the mind, but also sets the heart on fire and moves our hands to Christlike action, this work is sacramental in that it embodies this holy encounter between God and us. It brings forth not only a rich, ancient harvest of Christian wisdom and life but also provides new seeds, a vibrant method for preachers and their assemblies wishing to be set afire experientially with the love of the Spirit present in the world today.” —​Eduardo C. Fernández, SJ, Professor of Pastoral Theology and Ministry, Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University and Graduate Theological Union “Dr. Woori Han, engaging his beloved Korean Pentecostal ministry of preaching, provides a contemporary and much needed dialogue between this rich faith tradition, contemporary hermeneutics exemplified by Paul Ricouer’s approach to an existential reading of a text, and the Roman Catholic practice of lectio divina, as explored in the homilies of the Cistercian mystic and theologian, Bernard of Clairvaux. The freshness of this wholistic approach suggests the possibility of a transformative reading of the Word of God in a way that broadens the revelatory grace at work in evangelical preaching. Union with God Thorough a Transformative Homiletic is an important ecumenical contribution to the field of homiletics, honoring both the biblical witness and those gathered to hear the Word of God as the testimony of their own lives. In such a dialogic preaching event, both preacher and assembly experience God’s Word as truly ‘fulfilled in their hearing’ (Lk. 421).” —​Paul A. Janowiak SJ, Associate Professor of Liturgical and Sacramental Theology, Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara; Author of The Holy Preaching: The Sacramentality of the Word in the Liturgical Assembly “Woori Han offers a critical vision of the spiritual interpretation of Biblical texts for the Korean Pentecostal context. Drawing on the work of Paul Ricoeur, Han builds on the historical tendency toward literal interpretation in Korean Pentecostalism to offer an

augmented vision that names God through the sense of the text and referentially into the lives of hearers. Turning to the mystic Bernard of Clairvaux, Han then shows how a process of spiritual reading can build on this Ricoeurean hermeneutic in a way that augments and strengthens lively Biblical interpretation for preaching. Han offers a powerful, critical vision for renewing Korean Pentecostal preaching by building on and transforming its strengths and living traditions.” —​David Schnasa Jacobsen, Bishops Scholar in Homiletics and Preaching, Boston University School of Theology “The preacher and the hearers become one in the Lord through the help and working of the Holy Spirit. Preachers should engage in biblical text studies and clearly communicate the original meaning of the text. Woori Han provides a new understanding of the research on these areas. He also emphasizes intellectual and experiential encounters through a new approach to the reading and the interpretation of the Bible. I hope that the book will serve as a catalyst for reproducing the Pentecostal message, which is the core of the history of the early church in the book of Acts. I also hope that the book will serve as be valuable study material for all the Lord’s workers who long for a Pentecostal revival.” —​YoungHoon Lee, Senior Pastor, Yoido Full Gospel Church, Seoul

Union with God Through a Transformative Homiletics

This book is part of the Peter Lang Humanities list. Every volume is peer reviewed and meets the highest quality standards for content and production.

PETER LANG

New York • Berlin • Brussels • Lausanne • Oxford

Woori Han

Union with God Through a Transformative Homiletics

PETER LANG

New York • Berlin • Brussels • Lausanne • Oxford

Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Control Number: 2022032200

Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek. Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the “Deutsche Nationalbibliografie”; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://​dnb.d-​nb.de/​.

ISBN 978-​1-​4331-​9622-​5 (hardcover) ISBN 978-​1-​4331-​9623-​2 (ebook pdf ) ISBN 978-​1-​4331-​9624-​9 (epub) DOI 10.3726/​b19586

© 2023 Woori Han Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., New York 80 Broad Street, 5th floor, New York, NY 10004 www.peterl​ang.com All rights reserved. Reprint or reproduction, even partially, in all forms such as microfilm, xerography, microfiche, microcard, and offset strictly prohibited.

To Taeil Han, Geusmok Jeong, Dongjin Kim, and Seungho Yang who show me sacred and sacrificial love

Table of Contents

Introduction Chapter One:  History and Development of Early Korean Pentecostalism Chapter Two:  Biblical Hermeneutics of the Classical Pentecostal Tradition Chapter Three:  Paul Ricoeur’s Hermeneutical Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning Chapter Four:  Saint Bernard of Clairvaux’s Concept of Loving God Chapter Five:  A Transformative Engagement with the Scriptures for Contemporary Korean Pentecostals Conclusion

1 15 37 63 101 125 151

Appendix 155 Bibliography165 Index 177

Introduction

If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. ( John 8:31–​32 NRSV)1

As an ordained pastor in the Assemblies of God of Korea, I see my faith community focused on the blessing and enrichment of individuals’ personal lives. I have agonized over how to achieve the proper balance between emphasizing the individual’s dynamic experience of encountering the Holy Spirit (e.g., divine healings, miracles, speaking in tongues) and the individual’s inner sanctification or purification of the Holy Spirit (i.e., union with God in Christ through the Spirit). This book represents my attempt to achieve harmony between these two religious beliefs and practices (outer and inner manifestations) for contemporary believers who have cultivated a critical and nonsimplistic worldview. I believe that the preacher’s efforts to discover the authorial intention and historical context of the text (to gain information) and also to engage in the existential aspect of the text (to be transformed) have the potential to transform both the preacher and their ecclesial community through communion with God in Christ through the Spirit.

1 Unless otherwise noted, all quotations from the Bible are from the NRSV translation.

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Scholars of the Assemblies of God of Korea (AGK)2 are actively pursuing the relationship between homiletics and biblical hermeneutics and are developing a deeper hermeneutical understanding of the text. These scholarly approaches to the text are not limited to Korean Pentecostals. Rather, a growing worldwide movement within Pentecostalism is developing this perspective. However, this approach has not yet resulted in an academic discourse on the preacher’s role in the transformative reading of Scripture, a role that involves participating in the existential aspect of the text.3 As Kevin J. Vanhoozer articulates, the experiential knowledge of God involves an exercise of one’s intellect, imagination, and spirituality. He highlights that “[t]‌o know God as the author and subject of Scripture requires more than intellectual acknowledgement. To know God is to love and obey him, for the knowledge of God is both restorative and transformative.”4 Furthermore, according to Sandra M. Schneiders, an influential scholar of Christian spirituality, the Scripture is “potentially, and through the process of interpretation, a place of meeting, the locus of encounter and conversation between God and humanity.”5 In other words, the preacher undergoes a mystical, dialogical engagement with the biblical text. In this process of reading the text, the world of 2 The Assemblies of God in Korea (AGK) denomination, 기독교대한하나님의성회, consists of three congregational associations: (1) the union of Yoido Full Gospel Church and Seodaemun, (2) Full Gospel, and (3) Gwanghwamun. 3 The following are some of the resources that deal with the techniques for encountering God and participating in God’s living Word when reading the biblical text. Contemporary works by Protestants include Susan Annette Muto, Approaching the Sacred: An Introduction to Spiritual Reading (Denville, NJ: Dimension Books, 1973); Susan Annette Muto, A Practical Guide to Spiritual Reading (Saint Bede’s Publications, 1994); Jeanne Guyon, Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ ( Jacksonville, FL: SeedSowers, 1981); Carolyn Stahl Bholer, Opening to God: Guided Imagery Meditation on Scripture (Nashville: Upper Room Books, 1996); Morton Kelsey, The Other Side of Silence: Meditation for the Twenty-​First Century (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1997); M. Robert Mulholland, Shaped by the Word: The Power of Scripture in Spiritual Formation (Nashville: Upper Room Books, 2001). Contemporary works by Roman Catholics include John H. Wright, A Theology of Christian Prayer (New York: Pueblo Publishing, 1979); Mary Catherine Hilkert, Naming Grace: Preaching and the Sacramental Imagination (New York: Continuum, 1997); Paul Janowiak, The Holy Preaching: The Sacramentality of the Word in the Liturgical Assembly (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2000); Rhodora E. Beaton, Embodied Words, Spoken Signs: Sacramentality and the Word in Rahner and Chauvet (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2014); Enzo Bianchi, Lectio Divina: From God’s Word to Our Lives (Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2015); Thomas J. Scirghi, Longing to See Your Face: Preaching in a Secular Age (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2017). 4 Kevin J. Vanhoozer, “What Is Theological Interpretation of the Bible?” in Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible, ed. Kevin J. Vanhoozer (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2005), 24. 5 Sandra M. Schneiders, The Revelatory Text: Interpreting the New Testament as Sacred Scripture, 2nd ed. (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1999), xix.

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the preacher is shaped by a prayerful and meditative dialogue with God, who is present sacramentally in the text. To put it more clearly, the preacher can see the Scripture as a sacrament, that is, a means or gateway to the sacred, and interpret it accordingly since the sacred text renders Christ present to us.6 This dialogue with the text means experiencing the love of God and allowing the text to become an event in and for the now. Then, the biblical text can communicate the faith and love of Christ to the reader, who encounters the event projected by their prayerful and meditative reading.7

A Transformative Homiletic Drawing upon these hermeneutical insights for the further development of the homiletics of Korean Pentecostals, I focus on the writings of French philosopher Paul Ricoeur (1913–​2005) and French Cistercian mystic theologian Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–​1153). In his treatise titled Interpretation Theory, Ricoeur opens up the possibility of facilitating the reader’s experiential encounter with the text through a tensive dialectical process, one that moves from the first naïveté (a surface semantics) through critical reflection to the second naïveté (a depth semantics).8 The process starts with the reader participating in the world “behind” the text and the world “of ” the text from a historical, literary, or sociological criticism point of view and moves to the world “in front of ” the text. When this happens, the reader may be transformed by the world the text opens to them. The reader’s participation in the existential aspect of the text through the process of a transformative engagement with the Scripture is often unfamiliar to Pentecostal Christians, even though God invites the reader to experience the real presence of Christ veiled in the outer sacrament of the Scriptures. In other words, the text produces a surplus of meaning that allows the reader to engage with the deeper meaning of the text through metaphors and symbols and thus opens the reader to the possibility of encountering God’s presence by participating in a communicative event of the Bible. Biblical scholar Jeannine K. Brown highlights that “Scripture begins a conversation that is interpersonal and potentially life changing, because it is God who initiates the dialogue.”9 6 Hans Boersma, Scripture as Real Presence (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2017), 1–​2. 7 Wright, A Theology of Christian Prayer, 127–​8. 8 Paul Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning (Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1976), 94–​5. 9 Jeannine K. Brown, Scripture as Communication (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007), 13.

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The fundamental questions I address in my reflection on Ricoeur’s interpretive method are as follows. How did he develop the concept of the dynamic relationship between the world of the text and of the interpreter? Why did he concentrate on a semantic approach to the examination of language when most contemporary linguists presumed that the meaning of a sentence was reducible to its structure of signs and words? How do Ricoeur’s hermeneutical insights enable preachers to hear a fresh word and gain a new perspective on the world of the text by appropriating the sense and reference of the text for the benefit of their congregations? I focus for a different reason on the homilies on the biblical text Song of Songs written by French Cistercian abbot and theologian Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–​ 1153). Bernard’s homilies provide rich expressions of the significance of a transformative engagement with the text in the act of reading the text. In relation to the communicative nature of the Bible, he provides detailed descriptions of a mystical and dialogical engagement with a text that reveals a surplus of meaning. Bernard has been viewed as a master of prayerful reading of Scripture and as a mystic who reached union with the divine, based on God’s love, through his transformative reading of Scripture. A prayerful and meditative reading of the biblical text helps the preacher enter into the mystery of God, and this mystery becomes present to the preacher as a reader of the text and thus to the gathered community. Kathleen Norris, a key voice in Christian spirituality, regards prayer as mystery, saying, “Prayer is not doing, but being. It is not words but the beyond-​words experience of coming into the presence of something much greater than oneself. It is an invitation to recognize holiness, and to utter simple words—​Holy, Holy, Holy—​in response.”10 The prayerful and meditative reading of Scripture draws the reader into the mystery of a close relationship with God, with God inviting the reader to take off their shoes and stand on holy ground (Exod. 3:5). For Bernard, the mystical and dialogical engagement with Scripture is regarded as the core value of the faithful’s love toward union with God in Christ through the Spirit.11 Bernard emphasizes that the world of the reader is shaped by encounters with God that are contemplated and mediated by the Word. He considers the Bible the pure and perennial source of the spiritual maturity of the believer. Bernard’s homilies on the Song of Songs illustrate how the reader’s spirituality matures through their transformative reading of Scripture when engaging in mutual union with the divine based on God’s love. In other words, Bernard aims to expand the reader’s ability to engage in a prayerful and meditative reading of 10 Kathleen Norris, Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith (New York: Riverhead Books, 1998), 350. 11 Bernard of Clairvaux, “On Loving God,” in The Works of Bernard of Clairvaux, vol. 5, trans. Robert Walton (Washington, DC: Cistercian Publications, 1974), 93–​132.

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the biblical texts. Bernard’s way of reading Scripture helps contemporary readers understand what he means by an experiential encounter with the text. In addition, his account of his union with the divine invites readers to seek both the objective of biblical study (information) and also to enter into the existential aspect of the text (transformation). A key contributor to the contemporary discussion on Christian spirituality, Thomas Merton, expresses the significance to the preacher of participating in the existential aspect of the text through their prayerful reading of Scripture. For Merton, “[T]‌he most important need in the Christian world today is this inner truth of God’s love nourished by a Spirit of contemplation: the praise and love of God, the longing for the coming of Christ, the thirst for the manifestation of God’s glory, truth, justice, Kingdom in the world.”12 The act of contemplating God draws the preacher into the unfathomable abyss of God’s beauty, truth, and goodness. The preacher then leaves the abyss and conveys to others what they have smelled, heard, tasted, touched, and seen through the contemplation of God’s glory (1 John 1:1–​4). At this time, the message is not merely about delivering biblical interpretation based on facts, which spring from the author’s intended meaning inscribed in the text and historical or scientific hermeneutical methodologies. It is also about sharing the mystery that conveys God’s love to both the preacher and the hearers.13 Finally, through this transformative reading of the biblical text, preachers who have encountered the loving God hope that their congregants will experience this love through their preaching. Preachers are also being shaped sacramentally through the Spirit by the community’s experience of the holy encounter. This reciprocity between the preacher and the gathered community enhances the union of the people of God in Christ with God through the working of the Holy Spirit, who is present sacramentally in them. This is what I call a transformative homiletic, and I consider it an essential element of the spiritual formation of the both the preacher and the congregation. This type of homiletic builds up the body of Christ. Thus, to paraphrase St. Ignatius of Loyola, the love of the Spirit propels both the preacher and the congregation to see more clearly, to love more dearly, and to follow God more nearly. In sum, the transformation of the preacher’s life by their encounter with God changes the lives of others, and this supports the 12 Thomas Merton, Contemplative Prayer (New York: Doubleday, 1996), 115. 13 For an overview of the history of hermeneutical theory, see Robert M. Grant with David Tracy, A Short History of the Interpretation of the Bible, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984); Richard E. Palmer, Hermeneutics: Interpretation Theory in Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger, and Gadamer (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1969).

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transformation of the faithful into the image of God through the works of the Holy Spirit (2 Cor. 3:18).

Biblical Interpretation by Assemblies of God Preachers in Korea I regard the process of biblical interpretation of Scripture as an essential element of spiritual formation and of the movement from loving God for one’s own sake toward loving oneself for God’s sake. Loving God for one’s own benefit is primarily developed by a reading of the Scriptures with a focus on prosperity and is based on one’s hope for wealth, success, and health. Sermons prepared through this process of biblical interpretation of the text are generally intended to meet believers’ needs and heal their pain and suffering through God’s grace and love. In contrast, loving oneself for God’s sake is stressed through the process of reading the Bible that focuses on the union of the individual and the community with the divine, relying on mature growth in the love of God. This focus is designed to purify and deepen the soul’s love of God. The purpose of reading the biblical texts in this way is to have an encounter with the God who is present sacramentally in the Word, and that encounter takes place through the contemplation of God’s glory by the hearing of God’s voice in the texts (Luke 4:21). Furthermore, Scripture contains a call and asks the reader to listen and respond to God’s Word. God speaks to the reader through the text, and the reader hears God speaking by reading the Bible. This type of reading involves opening oneself to a revelation and entering into the field of dialogue. As the reader listens, the reader acknowledges that God is present sacramentally in the text and is drawn into God’s presence. The listening reader makes room within for the other’s indwelling and desires to trust the speaking other. This process of a prayerful and meditative reading of the Scriptures allows both the reader (the preacher or interpreter interpreter) and the gathered community to hear God’s voice and be transformed into the likeness of God. In this book, I examine the preaching by pastors of Yoido Full Gospel Church as representative of the AGK denomination.14 This Pentecostal church is located in 14 For more on the history of Pentecostalism, see Harvey Cox, Fire from Heaven: The Rise of Pentecostal Spirituality and the Reshaping of Religion in the Twenty-​First Century (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 1995), 213–​41; Allan Heaton Anderson, An Introduction to Pentecostalism: Global Charismatic Christianity, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 151–​ 3; Michael J. McClymond, “Charismatic Renewal and Neo-​ Pentecostalism: From North

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Seoul, South Korea. With about 800,000 church members, the Yoido Full Gospel Church is the single largest Christian congregation in the world. David Yonggi Cho founded the church in 1958 and is now its senior pastor emeritus. In 2008, Young Hoon Lee became the church’s second senior pastor. My analysis of the sermons preached from January 2017 to April 2019 in the Yoido Full Gospel Church shows that the focus of reading and interpreting the biblical texts is primarily on the enrichment of congregants’ personal lives, physical and psychological healing, financial wealth, and prosperity through a positive attitude of the mind and speech, personal faith, and vision (see the appendix for a week-​by-​week analysis of the sermons during this period). After the Korean War, sermons prepared in this way of reading the Bible supported people’s hopes of adapting to the rapid social and cultural changes occurring in Korea at that time. These sermons played a significant role in alleviating the agony of people who were suffering physically and mentally and also in leading them to God. This is one reason for the unprecedented growth of the AGK Yoido Full Gospel Church after the Korean War.15 This approach is based on the belief that God helps and rescues the children of God so that God’s people will acknowledge God; in other words, “I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me” (Ps. 50:15). In addition, reading the Bible with special emphasis on the stories of God’s miraculous healing, blessing, and restoration has the positive function of helping people begin to love God because of the blessings and prosperity they receive and teaching them that their hopes can be fulfilled with God’s assisting grace. At the same time, however, this pursuit of the prosperity gospel may play a role in limiting the believer’s heart and keeping the believer from concentrating on the fullness of God’s message. In contrast to this limited reading of the biblical texts, the transformative reading of Scripture that I am proposing, which requires a prayerful openness and willingness to be shaped by the Word, engages with the multiple levels and senses of the biblical texts. Richard B. Hays, a primary contributor to biblical interpretation, highlights that “[t]‌exts have multiple layers of meaning that are disclosed American Origins to Global Permutations,” in The Cambridge Companion to Pentecostalism, ed. Cecil M. Robeck and Amos Yong (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 39; Deuk-​ man Bae, 오순절 운동의 역사와 신학 [A history and theology of the Pentecostal movement] (Daejeon, South Korea: Daejanggan Press, 2012), 217–​56. 15 See Sang-​Yun Lee, A Theology of Hope: Contextual Perspectives in Korean Pentecostalism (Baguio, The Philippines: Asia Pacific Theological Seminary Press, 2018), 103–​7; Won-​suk Ma, “When the Poor Are Fired Up: The Role of Pneumatology in Pentecostal/​Charismatic Mission,” in The Spirit in the World: Emerging Pentecostal Theologies in Global Contexts, ed. Veli-​Matti Kärkkäinen (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009), 41–​2; Anderson, An Introduction to Pentecostalism, 295–​6.

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by the Holy Spirit to faithful and patient readers.”16 Ongoing engagement with the complex nature and multiple dimensions of the text allows an encounter with God through the Scripture by the Spirit. The encounter leads both the preacher as a reader and the whole community to the transformation of their life to be more Christlike. J. Todd Billings, a leading voice in biblical interpretation, clarifies the world projected by reading the Scriptures in a transformative manner. He writes that the Christian’s reading of the Bible takes place along the path of Jesus Christ and is enabled by the Spirit to shape God’s people into the image of Christ with the possibility of a transformative vision of the triune God.17 Connecting the reader’s and the whole community’s lives with the God who is present sacramentally in the text is not a one-​time, temporary event but a cyclical movement, like a progressive spiral. In other words, a transformative reading of the Bible helps the preacher finding a vision of God that shapes the ways in which the preacher and the gathered community understand themselves and others. Thus, if the AGK and other Korean Pentecostal denominations want their sermons and interpretations of the biblical text to go beyond fulfilling congregants’ needs, then the transformative reading of Scripture I propose in this book should be considered an essential element of the process of reading the biblical texts. This approach to reading the biblical text becomes an event in and for the present as the preacher ponders the text in prayer, meditation, dialogue, and praxis while considering the community of faith.

A Transformative Approach to Reading and Interpreting the Bible The purpose of this book is to describe a transformative process of reading and interpreting the biblical text, an approach that has been mostly overlooked in the hermeneutics of the AGK. I describe this process in light of Paul Ricoeur’s and Bernard of Clairvaux’s hermeneutical understandings of the text. This understanding will help AGK and other Pentecostal preachers and also preachers in other faith traditions to interpret and read the text not just as a way to discover the literal meaning of the words but also as a process for gaining a surplus of meaning 16 Richard B. Hays, “Reading the Bible with Eyes of Faith: The Practice of Theological Exegesis,” Journal of Theological Interpretation 1, no. 1 (2007): 14. 17 J. Todd Billings, The Word of God for the People of God: An Entryway to the Theological Interpretation of Scripture (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010), xiv.

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that allows them to become involved more deeply and broadly in the world of the text. The hermeneutical tool of a transformative reading is a theoretical and practical resource for preachers who seek to embrace the ongoing engagement between the world of the text (its initial meaning and reference) and the world of the preacher (the preacher’s way of being in the world). It is based on the faith that the text, as Schneiders puts it, is “a mediation of transformative divine revelation.” The ongoing engagement between the two worlds is never-​ending due to the text’s surplus of meaning. In this sense, the text is a “privileged mediator of the encounter between God and humanity.”18 In addition to reading the biblical text in a transformative manner, the preacher makes the text active by praying, meditating, and dialoguing with the text. According to Schneiders, the reader is encountered and transformed by the text through the act of interpretation: By engaging the text, performing it like the violinist playing the music encoded in the score, or the actor playing the role encoded in the script, we allow the text to become an event in the now. The sentences in the text, the competence and imagination of the reader, and the context of the present time mutually interact in the process of actualizing the text. The meaning is not a substance or a static cognitive content but an event in which the reader is taking part around the issues of her or his present situation, in particular, her or his current relationship with God. That engagement changes the reader.19

In this actualizing of the text and its meaning in and for the present, the reader’s act of reading the text is the attachment of the soul in an ascending and long-​ lasting orientation toward God. The reader encounters the eminent presence of God through the written texts of Scripture and anticipates the help and actions of the divine agent (the Holy Spirit). In other words, the reader approaches the biblical text as a means of encountering the living God with a view to enabling their transformation into Christ’s image.20 Through the practice of reading Scripture in this transformative way, the preacher enters into an encounter with the living God, seeking to understand the voice of God in the context of the community of faith. From the perspective of the transformative homiletic, to preach is to promote an encounter between the living God and the community of faith so that the Word may be heard by the members of the assembly. 18 Schneiders, The Revelatory Text, 177, 178. 19 Sandra M. Schneiders, “Biblical Foundations of Spirituality,” in Scripture as the Soul of Theology, ed. Edward J. Mahoney (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2005), 16. 20 Billings, The Word of God for the People of God, 103.

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In addition, the biblical text becomes more than just a text because “preaching brings back to living speech” what has been written.21 In this regard, the Scripture takes its place as “a link in a communication chain.”22 God’s self-​revelation in the midst of the events of the community of faith is brought to discourse as testimony. Then comes the turning point: “Writing, in its turn, is restored to living speech by means of the various acts of discourse that reactualize the text. Reading and preaching are such actualizations of writing into speech. A text, in this regard, is like a musical score that requires execution.”23 A sermon prepared through a transformative reading of the biblical text reactualizes Scripture as discourse (a reliving of the event within the community of faith), promoting the encounter possible between the text and the whole community. A transformative reading of the biblical text draws attention to the limitations of a reading that approaches only the surface meaning of the text without an encounter with God that transforms believers into the image of Christ through the Scripture, thus, allowing a prayerful and meditative dialogue with God. Therefore, in this book I argue that a literal reading and interpretation of the biblical text prevents the preacher from reading the biblical text in a transformative manner, which means the preacher is not transformed by the text. This, in turn, has ramifications for the congregants’ own transformation. Ricoeur’s and Bernard’s hermeneutical concept of a transformative reading of the text can be regarded as an interpretive model through which Pentecostals and others can move beyond their literal approach to the meaning of the text and thus engage with the multiple levels and meanings of the text through the liveliness of the hermeneutical encounter with Scripture. The reader is invited by the guidance of the Holy Spirit to what is beyond the written text. As Origen wrote, “It is not granted to everyone to seek what is ‘beyond the written’–​–​the only way is to become one with it.”24 In this book, I use Schneiders’s definition of the interpreter’s transformative reading of the text as the basic premise of my analysis of the AGK’s, Paul Ricoeur’s, and Bernard of Clairvaux’s hermeneutical understandings of the text in their writings and sermons. Schneiders defines the transformative reading of the text as “an interaction between a self-​aware reader open to the truth claims of the text and the text in its integrity, that is, an interaction that adequately takes into account the complex nature and multiple dimensions of the text and the reader.”25 21 Paul Ricoeur, “Naming God,” in Figuring the Sacred, trans. David Pellauer and ed. Mark Wallace (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1995), 218. 22 Ricoeur, “Naming God,” 219. 23 Ricoeur, “Naming God,” 219. 24 Origen, Commentary on the Gospel According to John 13:5:32. 25 Schneiders, The Revelatory Text, 3.

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My approach to the study of a transformative reading of the text relies on methods drawn from the disciplines of history, biblical hermeneutics, hermeneutics, and homiletics. Using a historical method that engages sociocultural and economic perspectives, I first analyze the Korean Pentecostal homiletical approach in its context—​the 1907 Pyongyang Revival, the Japanese colonial regime 1910–​45, and the post-​World War II period when Korea passed from the poverty of the Korean War of the 1950s to prosperity in the 1980s—​in order to delineate contextual features of Pentecostal pastors’ hermeneutical understanding of the text. I argue that the early Korean Pentecostal interpretive method is closely aligned to a literal approach to the meaning of Scripture. Some pastors in Korea are still using this interpretive method today. Then, using biblical interpretive methods, I explore the similarities and dissimilarities between the early Korean Pentecostal hermeneutical understanding of the biblical text and the classical Pentecostal hermeneutics of the early 1900s based on three major classical Pentecostal figures: Charles Fox Parham, William Joseph Seymour, and George Floyd Taylor. Their hermeneutical understanding of the text is assessed by a scholar of Pentecostalism, Veli-​Matti Kärkkäinen, and various Pentecostal scholars: Grant Wacker, French L. Arrington, and Kenneth Archer. After a discussion of the close relation between these two hermeneutical understandings, the works of contextual scholars of Pentecostalism such as Gordon Anderson, Gordon D. Fee, and Howard M. Ervin are compared to the literal, early Korean Pentecostal hermeneutical approach to the text in the three distinct periods identified above. Here, I discuss the notable differences among scholars of Pentecostalism regarding their perspectives on the implications of the literal interpretation of the biblical text. Next, using hermeneutical methods, I engage the critical hermeneutics of Paul Ricoeur and some of his views regarding the literal approach to the text, paying particular attention to Ricoeur’s notion of moving from the surface semantics (the first naïveté) through critical reflection, to the depth semantics of the text (the second naïveté). I then examine the possibility of constructing a homiletical discourse on the basis of Ricoeur’s interpretive method. Here, I argue that Ricoeur’s interpretive method provides a hermeneutical context for facilitating the experience of the preacher’s encounter with the text and supplies a vocabulary for the preacher to describe the dynamics of a transformative reading of Scripture. Employing Ricoeur’s hermeneutical method, I then delineate the implications of Bernard of Clairvaux’s teachings on the spiritual formation of the faithful based on the soul’s love of God for a transformative engagement with the Scriptures, which can be described as a prayerful and meditative dialogue with the God who

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is present sacramentally in the text. In doing so, I briefly examine the nature of mysticism in a preliminary inquiry to help explain the concepts of Bernard’s mystical experience. I then explore the history and background of Western Christian mysticism from the early medieval period to the time of Bernard and analyze Bernard’s notion of love that proposes a reorientation of the faithful’s love of God. Then, through sermon analysis, I explore Bernard’s homilies on the Song of Songs in order to argue that Bernard’s mystical experience developed on the basis of his loving God, which enhances the possibility of deepening the spiritual maturity of the faithful for a transformative reading of the Scriptures. I then apply the transformative reading of the text, complemented and informed by Ricoeur and Bernard, to the AGK’s method of interpreting Scripture to construct an interpretive model for the AGK and also to understand how this type of reading can play a role in deepening the spiritual maturity of its members. Here, I argue that the spiritual maturity of the faithful of the AGK can be deepened as the congregation experiences the loving God that preachers have encountered through their own transformative reading of the text. The assembly’s experience of this holy encounter in turn enhances the preacher’s experience because the preacher is shaped sacramentally through the Spirit in the assembly. Thus, this transformative homiletic draws both the preacher and the congregation closer together as one body in the love of the Spirit. The underlying purpose of this book is to provide a critical evaluation of the AGK’s hermeneutical method of reading Scripture and to discuss the preacher’s role in the transformative reading of the biblical text. The notion of reading for transformation refers to how the world of the preacher is formed and transformed by the new reference of the text. The primary motivation for reading the biblical text in a transformative way is to comprehend the Scripture as God’s means of communicating in the present to transform the reader. The end goal of a transformative reading of the Scripture is to develop a greater and deeper relationship with God. Thus, reading and interpreting the text in a transformative way enables the reader to encounter God. This encounter takes place through the mutual influence of the world of the reader and the world of the text. As a leading scholar of biblical interpretation, J. B. Green, argues, this mutual influence of the two worlds has a circular character: “We discern God’s character and will in Scripture, but it is God’s character and will that guide our reading of Scripture.”26 Thus, the transformation of the reader’s and the congregation’s life is characterized by the image of God developing on the basis of

26 Joel B. Green, Seized by Truth: Reading the Bible as Scripture (Nashville: Abingdon, 2007), 23.

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a prayerful and meditative dialogue within this relationship through a transformative reading of the biblical text. Not surprisingly, in the history of Pentecostal hermeneutics, numerous preachers have regarded the literal approach to the meaning of the text as fundamental in the process of reading and interpreting a biblical text. Although scholars of Pentecostalism such as Gordon Anderson, Gordon D. Fee, and Howard M. Ervin have focused on authorial intention and historical context of the text in an effort to prevent the biblical text from being interpreted and read only literally, the concept of a transformative reading and interpretation of the text has not been considered in detail by the AGK since the emergence of the Korean Pentecostal Movement during the 1907 Pyongyang Revival. Given this conviction, the AGK’s hermeneutical understanding of the text requires a theoretical method and a framework of hermeneutics for the believer that will facilitate a transformative interpretation through its appropriation of the sense of the biblical text.27 Thus, based on my critical analysis of the early AGK method of interpreting the biblical texts, I offer an alternative hermeneutic, one based on the thought of Paul Ricoeur and Bernard of Clairvaux. Ricoeur’s and Bernard’s hermeneutical understanding of the text can be regarded as an interpretive resource for approaching the text in a transformative way that differs from the literal approach to the text, which is barely able to see beyond the text to the world to which the text refers. A transformative engagement with the text allows the reader to enter into the world to which the text opens and to engage in an ongoing dialogue with the text’s subject matter. It enlarges both the preacher’s and the assembly’s way of being in the world through their experiencing the presence of God, who is present sacramentally in the text by the help and work of the Holy Spirit. I hope that my interdisciplinary study of homiletics and biblical hermeneutics on the preacher’s reading of the Bible in a transformative way will show contemporary believers how to form a long-​lasting relationship with God. Bernard of Clairvaux’s spirituality, which promotes the soul’s love of God, and Ricoeur’s hermeneutical insights, which facilitate the richest encounter possible between the preacher and the text, are examples of ways to move beyond a literal reading of the biblical text to a transformative reading.

27 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 80–​1.

CHAPTER ONE

History and Development of Early Korean Pentecostalism

The early Korean Pentecostal hermeneutical approach to the text (1907–​82) is closely related to shamanism and four forms of emancipation: individual, social, political, and economic. Shamanism refers to an essential aspect of the indigenous faith system of South Korea and is the basic template of the Korean consciousness on which its other faith traditions have been built. It has two dimensions. The first dimension refers to the individual and involves the person’s hope for wealth, honor, and physical health. Two Korean terms express this hope: gibok sinang, which is the faith that God will intervene directly in one’s life to solve one’s difficulties and obstacles, and shinyu, the divine healing of physical and psychological illness. The second dimension is located on the social level, and it puts emphasis on the achievement of social emancipation and prosperity. These two dimensions undergird shamanism. In other words, shamanism in Korea is the indigenous faith system, manifested in two dimensions, that promotes the restoration of a person’s physical and psychological health and financial welfare but also alleviates the misery of people who are suffering in the social dimension. Significantly, the literal approach of early Korean Pentecostals to reading the biblical texts developed on the basis of this unique form of outer signs related to healing or liberation.

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Modern History of Korea Modern Korea’s sociohistorical background is the context for understanding the early Korean Pentecostal interpretive approach to the biblical text. Korea is one of the eight East Asian countries and is geographically located at the main crossing between China and Japan. This geographical location contributes to Korea’s sharing of a common cultural heritage with China and Japan. The Chinese culture developed by creating its own philosophy, religion, and social order. Since Korea’s northern border is connected to China, Chinese sociopolitical development influenced Korea more than Japan. Beginning in the 13th century, however, Japan grew into a purpose-​oriented nationalistic island. This is reflected in the way it received Western civilization. Although the Japanese government positively accommodated Western technology, science, education, and fashion, it did not make any move to accept Christianity. In the late 19th century, Japan became a distinct non-​Western industrial country that was engaged in colonialism. Because of this, Japan began to affect the political authority of Korea in practical ways through its colonialization efforts. Thus, to help in comprehending the early Korean Pentecostal hermeneutical understanding of the text, I discuss three periods: the Choson Dynasty (1876–​1910), the Japanese colonial period (1910–​ 45), and lastly the period after the Second World War (1945–​82).

Choson Dynasty (1876–​1910) Korea in the latter half of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century was a complex kingdom due to internal disturbances and external threats caused by the expansive policies of her neighbors. These internal and external struggles affected the course of the nation’s modernization. In the middle of the 19th century, Japan quickly transitioned to a modern industrialized nation by opening its doors to America. China, which had made contact with the Western world earlier than Japan, absorbed Western modernism more slowly due to its adherence to its own traditions. Having shared a close history with China, Korea remained distant from the Western world until Japan compelled it to sign the so-​called Treaty of Kanghwa in 1876. After that, the influence of Japan intensified in Korea, and Japan’s role was strengthened under the pretext of modernizing Korea. This was followed by the Korean-​American Treaty of Amity and Commerce signed in 1882. During this period, Korea was divided into two factions. One group can be referred to as the Neo-​Confucianists, who were supported by China, and the other group became known as the Enlightenment party, which was influenced by

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Western concepts of political, social, and economic processes. This conflict played a crucial role in causing the First Sino-​Japanese War (1894–​95), which broke out primarily regarding dominion over Korea, and in that war China handed the victory to Japan. As a result, China lost its influence over Korea, and Japan demanded that the domestic administration of Korea execute large-​scale reforms. The so-​ called Reformation of Kabo (1894) became a significant foundation of the process of modernization of Korea, and, at the same time, it served as a preliminary step for Japan to prepare for the capitalist invasion of Korea. A year after the Reformation of Kabo began, the queen of Korea (Min), who wanted to establish close ties with the Russian government, was assassinated by a Japanese minister, Miura Goro, who had come to Korea to expand Japanese influence by eliminating pro-​Russian officials. Russia’s adoption of a policy of advancing southward via the Korean Peninsula made friction between Manchuria and Japan inevitable, which eventually led to the outbreak of the Russo-​Japanese War (1904–​5). After its defeat in that war, Russia was forced to recognize Japan as the dominant power in Korea through the Treaty of Portsmouth, which was concluded with the mediation of Theodore Roosevelt. Perceived by the world as having attained superiority over Korea, Japan obtained diplomatic sovereignty over Korea through the imperialist Eulsa Treaty in 1905, and five years later the annexation of the Choson kingdom by Japan was officially announced. By this time, the groundwork had been laid for a new community of Koreans with a fresh sense of national identity.

Japanese Colonial Regime (1910–​1945) Accompanied by a pattern of modernization through the advancing of Western imperial powers and of structured nationalistic fronts in opposition to them, Korea gradually underwent a shift due to social reforms under the influence of Japan. The Japanese colonial regime in Korea can be separated into three periods according to its strategy of governance. The first period is the military government (1910–​19), which Koreans call the “dark period.” In this harsh time, the military general, who was appointed by the Japanese emperor, possessed vast authority, including the right to decide on internal affairs within Korea and to exercise power over Korea. All political activities were prohibited, and the press was tightly controlled. From 1910 to 1919, tens of thousands of Koreans were arrested for political activities. The people had suffered under the colonial government, and both education and Christianity were essential in promoting their national consciousness, which was bolstered during the national movement that followed. The Protestant church influenced the Korean people through medical services, education, and the

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spread of the Bible. In due course, a nationwide Korean movement for independence from the Japanese occupation crystallized into a demonstration in March 1919. The news of the end of World War I brought new hope to colonized people throughout the world. In part, President Woodrow Wilson of the United States lit this fuse by promoting the principle of national self-​determination. Thirty-​three delegates of Koreans and representatives of each of the three religious traditions in Korea—​Christianity, Eastern religions, and Buddhism—​supported the Korean independence movement. Soon after, Korean leaders established a provisional government in Shanghai, China, in an effort to achieve national independence. During this dark period, the Presbyterian pastor Ik-​D u Kim led revival movements whose ministries chiefly focused on the power of miracles and healing through faith and prayer. The second period in the era of the Japanese colonial regime became known as the cultural administration (1920–​36). During this period, the Japanese colonial regime shifted from a policy of repression to one of appeasement in order to suppress the national independence movement of the Korean people. This policy can be divided into four categories. The first policy was that of the gendarmerie, the military police, which was replaced by a regular police force; second, Koreans were appointed to work and serve on provincial and county councils and received the same wages as Japanese; third, the harsh restrictions on religious, youth, educational, social, and intellectual activities were lifted; and lastly, the prohibition of the Korean press was withdrawn, and, in the following years, Choson Ilbo and Tonga Ilbo, which are still leading newspapers in Korea, were established by prominent Koreans. The Japanese used these new policies and the freer atmosphere as a means of maintaining the tight control of the colonial regime. Due to the removal of religious restrictions, influential revival movements arose under the leadership of the spiritual evangelist Yong-​Do Lee, whose mystical revivalism mainly concentrated on a Christ-​centered faith. The third period began with the outbreak of the war between China and Japan in 1937. This war greatly diminished the national identity of Korea (1937–​ 45) under the Japanese colonial regime because a large number of Koreans were mobilized for the war and forced to fight for Japan. Under the slogan of “Japan and Korea as one body,” Koreans were compelled to take part in the Pacific War, which broke out against the United States in 1941, as if they were Japanese. In addition, all Koreans were required to worship at Shinto shrines, which Christians found extremely offensive. Conservative Korean Protestant Christians were persecuted for refusing to worship at Shinto shrines. Furthermore, Koreans were forced to change their names to Japanese names, the publication of books in Korean was banned, and the use of the Korean language in schools was severely restricted.

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However, the vast majority of Koreans rejected assimilation into Japanese culture by not interacting socially with Japanese people. As Koreans tolerated the third era of the Japanese colonial regime, both nationalism and modernism in Korea increased. Under the pressure of the harsh Japanese policies, a revival movement started, led by the Holiness pastor Sung-​ Bong Lee. Lee primarily emphasized the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the teaching of the imminent second coming of the Christ.

Post-​World War II: From Poverty to Prosperity (1945–​1964) Japan’s defeat by the United States at the end of World War II resulted in Korea’s liberation from Japan but also led to Korea’s great national tragedy: the division of the country into North Korea and South Korea. The most significant developments during this period were national discord and the Korean War (1950–​53), national vulnerability and an authoritative regime, and the Korean nationalist movement for industrial and economic development. From 1945 to 1953, Koreans experienced the jubilation of emancipation from the Japanese colonial regime and, at the same time, agony and confusion due to the outbreak of the Korean War. The termination of the Japanese colonial regime in Korea in 1945 was achieved not by the actions of Koreans but by the military power of the United States. The oppression of the Japanese colonial regime and the sudden end of the Korean War did not provide Koreans the sociopolitical and physical resources required to prepare a competent political organization for their own governance. While the northern part of Korea was occupied by Russian troops in August 1945, the southern part of Korea was taken over by the U.S. military in September 1945. Although they had been allies during World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union (U.S.S.R.) were no longer willing to collaborate regarding Korea due to the start of the Cold War. Although the U.S.S.R. refused to raise the issue of the division of Korea with the United Nations, the United States agreed to bring the matter to that body. Thus, on May 10, 1948, under the supervision of the United Nations (U.N.), South Korea held her first general election. Syng-​man Rhee was soon elected president in the first presidential election held on July 20, 1948, and the first government of South Korea was established on August 15 of the same year. Two years later, however, on June 25, 1950, North Korea, which had strengthened its army under the totalitarian Communist rule, invaded South Korea. The U.N. Security Council considered North Korea’s invasion of South Korea a breach of the peace and called upon its member nations for unconditional support. The resulting war caused about 2.5 million civilian war casualties, and 80 percent of Korea’s industrial, public, and transportation facilities

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were destroyed. North Korea proposed an armistice through the U.S.S.R., and a truce was concluded with the approval of the U.N. forces. At the time of this partition and hostilities, Christianity in Korea experienced enormous losses due to the persecution of Christians in North Korea and the schism with South Korea. However, Christianity in South Korea experienced new growth as a result of both the independence from the Japanese colonial regime and the migration of North Korean Christians to South Korea. In addition, during this period Western missionaries from various faith traditions, including Pentecostalism, arrived in South Korea. In 1953, much of South Korea’s infrastructure had been destroyed, and almost all families had a family member or a close relative who was missing or had been killed during the three years of war. South Korea’s economic condition was even worse than before World War II, and the country depended on massive financial support from the United States. Politically, South Korea was still led by its first president, President Syng-​man Rhee. Even though he was intelligent, energetic, and politically astute, he was considered too authoritarian. The Liberal party promoted Rhee’s reign and used his administration to advance the personal economic and political fortunes of its members. In 1960, Rhee ran for his fourth consecutive presidential term and was elected by a blatant manipulation of the votes, which led students to riot against the injustice of the ruling party. Rhee resigned under intense U.S. pressure on April 26 and left for exile in Hawaii. However, the most conservative Christians in Korea approved of his presidency, not just because he was a Christian but also because he allowed religious freedom.1 During the political confusion of the Second Republic (1960–​61) of Bo-​Son Yoon, military troops seized the essential positions in Seoul under the leadership of General Chung-​Hee Park on May 16, 1961. Park maintained a military dictatorship for 18 years by rationalizing his long-​term seizure of power. Under the regulation of the military government, South Korea’s economic lift-​off began through economic growth and rapid industrialization in the early 1960s. The economic renewal, which pulled the country out of severe poverty, was implemented by the military-​led government for almost three decades. The military government, led by Park, forced the country to transform from an agricultural to an industrial society. The policies of the industrialized country, which were enacted in a unilateral military fashion, played a role in hindering the establishment of a democratic society in South Korea. In addition, the sociopolitical changes in Korea, which emerged in this rapidly progressing industrial culture, caused inequality in wealth. 1

Byeong-​Seo Kim, 한국 사회와 개신교 [Korean society and Protestant churches] (Seoul, South Korea: Hanul Academy, 1995), 160.

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During the second half of the 20th century, which is characterized as the postwar period, South Korean churches experienced a great revival as they took advantage of the new socioeconomic conditions, and the Pentecostal style of spiritual movement, in particular, served as a catalyst for the exponential growth of South Korean churches.

The Three Waves of the Korean Pentecostal Movement During the period of the Choson Dynasty and in the context of political conflicts among Japan, China, and Russia, Korea faced a vast economic, social, cultural, and spiritual vacuum. Japan assumed the authority to govern Korea due to its victories in the Sino-​ Japanese War (1894–​ 95) and the Russo-​ Japanese War (1904–​5). In 1905, through the imperialist Eulsa Treaty, Japan ended the diplomatic sovereignty of Korea, and in 1907, the Korean Army was dismissed by Japan. Initiated in 1910, the rule of Japan over Korea continued until the end of World War II in 1945. Korea was used as a reason for Japan to invade China and Russia. Consequently, Korea’s national plight of anxiety, despair, humiliation, and agony during this period made many Korean people seek new spiritual foundations by leaving their indigenous faith traditions (Confucianism and Buddhism) behind. The 1907 Pyongyang Revival broke out during this critical time.

The Emergence and Early History of the Korean Pentecostal Movement: The 1907 Pyongyang Revival The most important root or origin of the Pentecostal movement is a revival that began in 1906, a year before Korea’s Pyongyang Revival, on Azusa Street in Los Angeles under the leadership of William J. Seymour. This movement highlighted the direct individual experience of God through baptism in the Holy Spirit, which was largely believed to produce spiritual gifts such as divine healings, prophetic visions, and speaking in tongues. This revival directly affected the Korean Pentecostal Movement (KPM). For example, in the late 1920s and the 1930s, as many as a dozen independent Western Pentecostal female missionaries came to Korea. Among these was Mary C. Rumsey, a former Methodist who had been baptized in the Spirit at the Azusa Street Revival. She initiated the Pentecostal movement in Korea by establishing the Korean Pentecostal church in 1932 in Seoul with Hong Huh, a former worker in the Salvation Army. They took the statement of the faith of Azusa as their creed and doctrine and awakened the

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Pentecostal movement in Korea by engaging in a ministry of divine healing and baptism in the Holy Spirit with the speaking in tongues.2 The 1907 Pyongyang Revival marked the beginning of the Pentecostal movement in Korea. It is considered part of the KPM because it shares characteristics of the broader Pentecostal movement, such as baptism in the Spirit. This first wave of the KPM took place while Korea was in the midst of the national crisis of Japan’s annexation and invasion. From January 2–​17, 1907, Methodist and Presbyterian missionaries prepared to hold a New Year’s revival gathering at the Central Church (Pyongyang Jang-​Dae-​Hyun Church), the largest and oldest church in Korea, which could accommodate around 1,500 people at the time. Presbyterian lay staff from all over the country came to Pyongyang. For the meeting, the mission station’s Bible class programs were scheduled during the day, and at night it was decided to hold revival gatherings.3 During the first few days, the gathered members did not show any sign of intensified enthusiasm. However, after the evening worship service on January 6, when a prayer session was held, a powerful outburst of the Spirit was initiated. A missionary who participated in the session described this moment as follows: Two or three most earnest prayers, one after another, were followed by such an outpouring of the Spirit as I had never before witnessed, great strong men, half a dozen at a time, pleading for forgiveness and confessing their sins in great agony of spirit. […] From that day on there was not a day without some new proof of His presence with us individually and collectively.4

On January 12, another prominent scene of renewal and repentance arose when William N. Blair, a Presbyterian missionary, preached during the worship. Blair preached that the Korean people should embrace the Japanese as Christians. This had a great effect because a large number of Koreans confessed their lack of affection for the Japanese.5 Two days later, on January 14, the powerful religious experience came to its climax. One of the missionaries leading the meeting, Graham Lee, summoned the congregation members to pray together with him. After a short 2 See Walter J. Hollenweger, Pentecostalism (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1997), 20; Sebastian C. H. Kim and Kirsteen Kim, A History of Korean Christianity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 139–​43. 3 William N. Blair, Gold in Korea, 2nd ed. (Topeka, KS: H. M. Ives and Sons, 1947), 60; Yong-​Kyu Park, 한국 기독교 교회사 [History of the Korean church] (Seoul, South Korea: Korea Institute of Church History, 2004), 858–​60. 4 W. B. Hunt, “Impressions of an Eye Witness,” The Korea Mission Field 3 (March 1907), 37. 5 William Newton Blair and Bruce F. Hunt, The Korean Pentecost and the Sufferings Which Followed (Edinburgh, Scotland: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1977), 69.

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sermon, Lee encouraged the gathered people to pray aloud. The whole congregation started to pray out loud in harmony. Numerous voices created a harmonious sound that touched the members’ minds. Lee gave a vivid account of the events that night: After prayer, confessions were called for, and immediately the Spirit of God seemed to descend on that audience. […] Sometimes after a confession the whole audience would break out in audible prayer, and the effect of that audience of hundreds of men praying together in audible prayer was something indescribable. Again, after another confession they would break out in uncontrollable weeping, and we would all weep, we could not help it. And so, the meeting went on until two o’ clock A.M. with confession and weeping and praying.6

The day after this revival, on January 15, the evening meeting was similar to the previous day’s meeting. After a short sermon delivered by Korean pastor Seon-​Ju Kil, people prayed, wept, and confessed their sins while wailing miserably.7 The participants in the meeting had the same experience as on the day before. Blair described the atmosphere and mood of the revival meeting on that day, saying, “It seemed as if the roof was lifted from the building and the Spirit of God came down from heaven in a mighty avalanche of power upon us.”8 After this climax, the people who had participated in the Bible class and had experienced the outpouring of the Holy Spirit returned to their hometowns, and there they initiated revivals.9 This revivalist fervor also spread to other areas of Pyongyang. On January 16, the revival was no longer restricted to adult congregations; it had spread to children and high school students. This occurred in the Advanced School for Girls and Women and also in the boys’ school at the Central Church. On the following day, the revival reached the primary school for girls. Two days later, on January 19, the revival burst out among the Women’s Union Normal Class in Pyongyang when they gathered for worship at the Central Church. This continued until January 22.10 In mid-​January, the evangelical contagion was dispersing into many other parts of the country after the end of the Central Church’s mission station Bible classes. By the end of January, revivals had spread to northern cities in Hamhung Province, and by February revivals were occurring in most of the major cities, such 6 Graham Lee, “How the Spirit Came to Pyeng Yang,” The Korea Mission Field 3 (March 1907), 33–​7. 7 W. L. Swallen, “Letter to Dr. Brown,” January 18, 1907. 8 Blair and Hunt, The Korean Pentecost and the Sufferings, 73. 9 Blair and Hunt, The Korean Pentecost and the Sufferings, 75. 10 Lee, “How the Spirit Came to Pyeng Yang,” 36.

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as Seoul, Incheon, and Daegu. In fact, by June of 1907, when the revivalist fervor had waned, every Protestant mission in South Korea had been influenced by the evangelism in the country.11 The Korean church and the entire nation were shaken by the 1907 Pyongyang Revival.

The Second Wave of the Korean Pentecostal Movement Led by Native Pastors during the Japanese Colonial Regime (1910–​1945) After Korea was annexed by Japan in August of 1910, both Korea and Korean churches suffered extreme hardships for almost three decades. In order to suppress and regulate the resistance of the Koreans, Japan established a far-​reaching military government. During this harsh political crisis, Korean Christianity played a significant role in encouraging the national consciousness of Korea and was viewed as actively seeking to heal the national tragedy described as Japanese colonialism. Because of this, Korean Christianity was regarded as a threatening political organization by Japan, and the Japanese government began to systematically persecute Korean churches. On December 29, 1910, 125 people, including 98 Christian leaders, were indicted and brought to trial, and 105 people were convicted of conspiring to kill Japanese Governor-​General Terauchi. This provided a crucial foundation for the 1919 demonstration of the March First Independence Movement of Korea. Although the support of Korean Christians and churches was critical in the national independence movement, the movement failed to succeed in liberating Korea from Japan and suffered a large number of casualties: 7,645 killed and 15,961 injured.12 Moreover, the churches involved in the independence movement were persecuted by Japanese rulers because the existence of the Christian community was considered a threat. As a result, the Japanese government forced Koreans to worship at Shinto shrines, arrested Korean church leaders and pastors, and forcibly closed down not only the mission schools but also the American Mission Board.13 11 L. H. McCully, “Fruits of the Revival,” The Korea Mission Field 3 ( June 1907): 83–​4; H. M. Bruen, “The Spirit at Taiku,” The Korea Mission Field 3 (April 1907), 51–​3; C. A. Clark, “Seung Dong Church of Seoul,” The Korea Mission Field 3 (August 1907), 121–​2; “The Religious Awakening of Korea,” The Korea Mission Field 4 ( July 1908), 105–​7. 12 Blair and Hunt, The Korean Pentecost and the Sufferings, 98; Gil-​Sop Song, 한국 신학 사상사 [History of theological thought in Korea] (Seoul, South Korea: Christian Literature Society, 1987), 132–​46; Ki-​Back Lee, A New History of Korea, trans. Edward W. Wagner and Edward J. Shultz (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), 344. 13 Taek-​Bu Jeon, 토박이 신앙 산맥 [The history of Korean indigenous Christianity] (Seoul, South Korea: Christian Literature Society of Korea, 1977), 191; Kyung-​Bae Min, 일제하의 한국 기

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The persistent persecution of the Korean church by the Japanese government led Korean Christians to yearn for inner faith and pursue spiritual matters. Most of the nationally prominent leaders were imprisoned due to their participation in the independence movement, and thus, in this dark period of Korean Christianity, individual native pastors led the second KPM. Ik-​Du Kim (1874–​1950). Early missionary enterprises in Korea mostly focused on providing medical services and modern education, and they helped early Korean Christians to respond to diseases and illnesses from a scientific perspective. By the 1930s, however, a prominent evangelist, Ik-​D u Kim, was mainly concentrating on miraculous signs and divine healing. Before this time, the exercise of divine healing had not been well known by most Koreans. Kim sensed the power of the Holy Spirit when he read Mark 16:17–​18, and it made him believe that God had furnished him the power of healing and miracles through prayer and faith. After three days of praying and fasting in the mountains, his wife was cured of a severe pain in her throat. Kim was firmly convinced that divine healing is the will of God, so he prayed to be awarded the power. In 1901, he experienced divine healing when he cured a possessed woman through prayer.14 From April 25 through May 1, 1920, Kim led revival meetings in Daegu; these were huge national revival gatherings characterized by spiritual gifts, miracles, and exclamations of praise. Throughout these revival meetings, hundreds of people were cured of diverse diseases such as blood disease, paralysis, and lumbago. By this time, these revival meetings were being called miraculous healing meetings, and Kim’s revival movement helped bring Korean people into the church. Reportedly, 288,000 Koreans converted to Christianity while more than 200 lay people became ministers from the 1920s to the 1930s.15 Yong-​Do Lee (1901–​1933). Methodist minister Yong-​Do Lee was one of the pastors who laid the foundation for the revival movements during the 1930s. In 1926, Lee and his friend Hwan-​Shin Lee were for the first time invited to hold a revival meeting at the request of local believers in Yong-​Do Lee’s hometown, 독교 민족 신앙 운동사 [Faith movement of Korean Christianity under Japanese colonialism] (Seoul, South Korea: Korean Christian Publisher, 1991), 322. 14 In-​Seo Kim, 김익두 목사의 자서전 [Autobiography of Rev. Ikdu Kim], vol. 5 (Seoul, South Korea: Shinmangaesa, 1976), 98–​100; Hyun Choi, The Giants in the Korean Church (Seoul, South Korea: Korean Literature Mission, 2003), 143; In-​Seo Kim, Autobiography of Rev. Ikdu Kim, 102–​3. 15 Min, 일제하의 한국 기독교 민족 신앙 운동사 [Faith movement of Korean Christianity under Japan colonialism], 304; Sean C. Kim, “Reenchanted: Divine Healing in Korean Protestantism,” in Global Pentecostal and Charismatic Healing, ed. Candy Gunther Brown (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 273.

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where he was recuperating from an illness. On the first night, before Hwan-​Shin Lee had started delivering his sermon, Yong-​Do Lee was overwhelmed by emotion and started to weep uncontrollably, and soon the rest of the congregation members began to cry with him. The same situation happened the next night. The congregation members experienced the powerful work of the Holy Spirit while they repented their sins. This revival experience not only affirmed Yond-​Do Lee’s calling as a minister of God but also led him to begin to lead a mystical religious life.16 In February 1929, Lee was offered the chance to lead a revival meeting at Pyongyang Central Church, and this had a large impact on the whole city.17 As a result, a significant number of churches throughout Korea asked him to lead revival meetings, where he inspired numerous congregation members. In the following year, prayer groups, formed during these revival gatherings, played a crucial role in spreading the revival movement all over the country. Sung-​Bong Lee (1900–​1965). Holiness pastor Sung-​Bong Lee, impressed by the sermons of Ik-​D u Kim, became an influential revivalist after Ik-​D u Kim and Yong-​Do Lee in Korea. In 1937, he was asked to lead a revival meeting at a church in Pyongyang, where thousands of people gathered.18 Some of the participants in the revival meeting were experienced in encountering the power of the Holy Spirit, and a few of them were healed of their diseases. Ja-​Sil Choi, the future mother-​ in-​law of Yong-​Gi Cho, was also present at the revival meeting and experienced the baptism of the Holy Spirit accompanied by speaking in tongues.19 However, Sung-​Bong Lee’s revival movements faced obstacles that prevented them from spreading all over the country. Since the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1941, the Japanese government had been trying hard to merge all Protestant churches into one denomination, and in 1943 the Japanese authorities came to the conclusion that the Holiness Church, the Baptist Church, and the Salvation Army had to 16 Victor Wellington Peter and Jongho Byun, Autobiography of Rev. Yong-​Do Lee (Seoul, South Korea: Jangahn Publisher, 2004), 20–​1; Peter and Byun, Autobiography of Rev. Yong-​Do Lee, 33; Jong-​Ho Byun, 이영도 목사의 자서전 [A biography of Rev. Yong-​Do Lee] (Seoul, South Korea: Shinsangkwan, 1969), 10–​15. 17 Byun, 이영도 목사의 자서전 [A biography of Rev. Yong-​Do Lee], 17–​18. 18 Sung-​Bong Lee, 자서전 [Autobiography] (Seoul, South Korea: The Word of Life, 1993), 17–​19. 19 Because of this experience, Choi decided to study at the Holiness Seminary; however, the Holiness Church refused her admission because they would not accept anyone who spoke in tongues as a student or member. For this reason, Lee recommended that she study at the Full Gospel Seminary in Seoul, which had been organized by the Assemblies of God, and she was admitted to the seminary at 1956. See Ja-​Sil Choi, 나는 할렐루야 아줌마 였다 [I was a hallelujah lady] (Seoul, South Korea: Seoul Publishing House, 1999), 79–​84.

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be dissolved because of their emphasis on the teaching of the imminent second coming of the Christ.20 During this period, the Japanese government prohibited revival gatherings of these denominations and all other Christian denominations.

The Exponential Growth and Stabilization of the Korean Pentecostal Movement after the Korean War (1958–​1982) From 1958 to 1982, South Korea’s process of becoming a democracy was challenged by extremely unstable political developments. This was evident from the First Republic (1948–​60) of Syng-​Man Rhee, whose dictatorial ways and manipulation of the elections resulted in a student riot in April 1960. The Second Republic (1960–​61) of Bo-​Son Yoon was unable to maintain public order, which incited a military coup in May 1961. Chung-​Hee Park, during the Third and Fourth Republics (1963–​72 and 1972–​9), sought to set South Korea in the direction of economic renewal and prosperity but in the process inflicted harsh human rights violations and subverted democracy. During this period, especially after the mid-​1960s, the third wave of the KPM began to form under the influence of Yong-​Gi Cho with the assistance of his mother-​in-​law, Ja-​Sil Choi, who had participated in a revival meeting led by Sung-​Bong Lee. In March 1958, after having graduated from the Full Gospel Seminary, Choi established a tent church in the slum area of the impoverished village of Dae-​Jo-​Dong, Seoul. As soon as Choi began to minister, she purchased a U.S. Army tent without any financial assistance from missionaries. When Cho was asked to preach at the opening worship of the church, only five members attended: Choi, Choi’s three children, and Cho. After this initial service, even though no one came to the church for several months, Choi started doing house-​ to-​house visits and met a woman who had suffered from paralysis since the birth of her child seven years earlier. The paralyzed woman was invited to the tent church, and after several days she was completely cured by experiencing the baptism of the Holy Spirit. This experience played a decisive role in bringing village people who suffered from diseases to the church. As sick people were filling the church in order to be healed, Choi and Cho built a small shack beside the tent church, and Cho moved into it to minister together with Choi. Soon after, their church was famous for healings, miracles, and exorcisms; a substantial number of people came to the church, and most of them were cured of their diseases.21 20 Song, History of Theological Thought in Korea, 350–​60. 21 International Theological Institute, The Faith and Theology of YFGC II (Seoul, South Korea: Seoul Publishing House, 1993), 98; Meehyun Chung, “Mission and Gender Justice from a Korean Protestant Perspective,” in Putting Names with Faces, ed. Christine Lienemann-​Perrin, Atola

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Cho began to recognize that the people living around the church needed not only spiritual salvation but also material blessings because they were suffering from absolute poverty and diseases caused by the Korean War. He therefore based his sermons mainly on the themes of spiritual blessing, divine healing, and material blessing. Two years after the tent church was founded, the members of the church had increased to six hundred people, most of whom were poor. In 1961, as the number of members of the church reached 1,000, which was more than the total number of people living in the village, the church moved to the Seoul Revival Center at the West Gate, which could accommodate up to 1,500 people, with the support of Pentecostal missionary J. W. Hurston. Although Hurston remained a supervisor of the church until 1970, the entire directorship of the Revival Center was handed over to Cho.22 Cho continued his ministry, highlighting the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and a large number of the congregants experienced the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, which restored the Christian lives of these discouraged people of God. In 1964, the church became one of the largest churches in Korea, second only to the Young-​ Rak Presbyterian Church with its 3,000 congregants. The number of members of Cho’s congregation steadily increased every year, and in 1972, when the church leaders realized that the six worship services on Sunday could no longer accommodate the 10,970 church members, they decided to move to Yoido in Seoul, where the church is currently located, to a new facility with 10,000 seats. Five years after the church was settled at Yoido, its membership had reached 100,000, and in 1986 it had 600,000 members. The church held seven worship services each Sunday, three on Wednesdays, and one on Saturdays. In 1994, the membership of the church exceeded 700,000.23 Longkumer, and Afrie Songco Joye (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2012), 227; John Stetz, “Korea Field Chairman’s Report,” Pentecostal Evangel (March 10, 1963): 12; Choi, 나는 할렐루 야 아줌마 였다 [I was a hallelujah lady], 208–​68. 22 Young-​Hoon Lee, “Life and Ministry of David Yonggi Cho and the Yoido Full Gospel Church,” Asian Journal of Pentecostal Studies 7, no. 1 (2004): 5; International Theological Institute, The History of the Korean Assemblies of God (Seoul, South Korea: Seoul Publishing House, 1993), 260–​ 1; Maynard L. Ketcham, “Cho Yonggi—​C.A. in Korea,” Pentecostal Evangel (April 12, 1964): 11. 23 Young-​Hoon Lee, “Life and Ministry of David Yonggi Cho,” 6; Sebastian Kim and Kirsteen Kim, A History of Korean Christianity, 217–​ 19; Michael J. McClymond, “Charismatic Renewal and Neo-​Pentecostalism: From North American Origins to Global Permutations,” in The Cambridge Companion to Pentecostalism, ed. Cecil M. Robeck and Amos Yong (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 39. See also Allan Heaton Anderson, An Introduction to Pentecostalism: Global Charismatic Christianity, 2 ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 151–​2; Deuk-​Man Bae, 오순절 운동의 역사와 신학 [A history and theology of the Pentecostal movement] (Daejeon, South Korea: Daejanggan Press, 2012), 220–​5.

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Since the Korean War, South Korea had had a difficult time establishing democracy in the country and was economically unstable. In this situation, the third wave of the KPM experienced an explosive revival.

Pentecostalism in Korea in Light of Its Two Dimensions This brief history of the KPM provides the foundation for assessing the cause of the movement’s explosive growth and the homiletical approach manifested throughout the course of its history. I use two interpretive tools to assess the early Korean Pentecostal hermeneutical understanding of the biblical text. The names of these tools reference the biblical narrative of the first-​century Christian mission: the Luke-​Acts model, which primarily focuses on physical healing or liberation (individual, social, political, and economic)—​gifts that emphasize outer manifestations of the Holy Spirit. The Pauline Epistles model, in contrast, mainly pays attention to spirituality as it relates to the sanctification or inner purification of the heart by the Holy Spirit, and it stresses inner signs and prayer seeking the presence of the Spirit. In my opinion, the early Korean Pentecostal interpretive method is based on the Luke-​Acts model and therefore delivers the message with a focus on exterior but not interior transformation. This is why I use the Pauline Epistles in constructing my discussion of the contemporary AGK’s hermeneutical understanding of the text. To explain this, the following section first clarifies what these two models are about and then examines how AGK preachers developed their sermon message through the lens of the Luke-​Acts model.

The Two Models: Luke-​Acts and the Pauline Epistles The main theme of the Luke-​Acts model can be characterized as the liberation of the poor and oppressed. In Luke 4:18–​19, Jesus reads the words of the prophet Isaiah 61:1–​2, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” This proclamation of Jesus refers not only to the year of Jubilee but also to the arrival of a future eschaton. In Luke 4:21, Jesus proclaims to the Jewish people in the synagogue, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” It is noteworthy that this declaration of Jesus alludes to the year of Jubilee when the poor are evangelized, the prisoners are liberated, the blind

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recover their sight, debts are remitted, and sins are forgiven. Furthermore, the year of Jubilee refers to the re-​creation of a just community or society based on both the liberation of Israel from the nation of Babylonia and the right of all Israelites to be safe. Thus, it can be inferred that the good news referenced in this passage includes not only individual personal salvation but also sociopolitical liberation. The liberation and the revolutionary elements of the last days between the second coming of Christ and Pentecost are revealed in Acts 2. Not only will the Israelite kings, prophets, and priests receive the outpouring of the Holy Spirit by God, but also slaves and women, who were oppressed during the 1st century, will experience the Spirit by God. In these last days, the Spirit’s blessings will be granted to people who have been subjugated. By the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the weak, powerless, subjugated, and oppressed will become powerful and emancipated. The second model for assessing the early Korean Pentecostal approach to the text is that of the Pauline Epistles. The primary subject of this latter model lies not only in the experience of the Holy Spirit but also in the emphasis on inner purification by the Spirit. Unlike the model in Luke-​Acts, which puts more emphasis on the experience of God’s liberation, the writings of Paul highlight the teachings on the relationship with God in the Spirit. According to Paul, the Spirit “helps us in our weakness […] and intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words” (Rom. 8:26) in a very unpredictable manner in which the Spirit continues to remain in us as master. In other words, the Holy Spirit prays in us, which does not mean that God replaces us with the Spirit; our substance is not replaced by God’s substance. It is an intimate relationship of a communication of dynamism and the ability to act, and we continue to act. This point is explicitly identified in Roman 8:14–​15: “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. […] You have received the spirit of sonship and […] cry, ‘Abba, Father.’ ” This is related to what the Church fathers called the deification of the human being. This feature is implied in the biblical texts, especially in Paul’s texts: “Christ is all in all” (Col. 3:11) and Christ lives in us (Gal. 2:20; Phil. 1:21); “In Christ Jesus you are all sons of God […] you have put on Christ” (Gal. 3:26–​ 27); and finally, God will be “everything to everyone” (1 Cor. 15:28). It should be acknowledged that we are and will be the subject of activity and existence participating in the sphere of God’s activity and existence. This is also the inherent fruit of the Spirit, the eschatological principle of our life. The gifts that emphasize the outer manifestation of the Holy Spirit, such as healing, speaking in tongues, prophesying, and liberation, are significant, and these charisms have been extensively studied. However, it is evident that these gifts are not given automatically. According to Paul, every spiritual activity needs prayer for the presence of

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the Spirit and a life that seeks the inner activities of the Holy Spirit—​in short, a pneumatic spirituality.24 The apostle Paul teaches crucial lessons by introducing the situation in the church of Corinth, which was an intensely busy society and had diverse activities developed with numerous cross-​currents. The Corinthians were “enriched with all speech and all knowledge” and were “not lacking in any spiritual gift” (1 Cor. 1:5, 7).25 Paul points out that the danger lay in the excessive emphasis on outer manifestations, such as spectacles of abundant vitality and experiences of the gifts (speaking in tongues and prophesying) of the Christians of Corinth. This situation implies moral danger (see, for example, 7:1), but this danger tends to exist as a form of difficulty that the outer manifestation, lacking the spiritual virtue of inner purification, will inevitably encounter. As mentioned earlier, the outer signs and inner purification need to coexist, just as the teaching of the apostle Paul testifies.

Analysis of the Early Korean Pentecostal Hermeneutical Method The two models described above are helpful in assessing the early Korean Pentecostal approach to the meaning of the Scriptures. Having attempted to identify their hermeneutical understanding of the text based on the two models, it is clear that though the early Korean Pentecostals emphasize different aspects, either the individual or the social dimension of liberation, their literal approach to the meaning of the text was developed on the basis of the Luke-​Acts model shaped by an emphasis on shamanism. Some theologians, such as Jong-​Soon Lee and Dong-​Sik Yoo, claim that the Korean people have a unique emotional makeup that is deeply related to the dominant culture of the Korean people.26 This unique form of sentiment is rooted in shamanism, which emerged as a result of the combination of Koreans’ own indigenous beliefs and Taoism and has had a profound impact on the cultural system of the Korean people. Shamanism, as an indigenous belief system in Korea, has two fundamental characteristics: the first is the alleviation of the agony of people who are suffering from oppression at the social level and the second is the promotion of the restoration of an individual’s physical and psychological health and financial 24 Theodore of Mopsuestia, Commentary on the Lord’s Prayer and on the Sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist, ed. Alphonese Mingana (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 1933), 90. 25 Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit, 33. 26 A prominent Pentecostal scholar, Walter J. Hollenweger, also emphasizes that “all founding pioneers are Koreans, who are deeply rooted in Korean popular culture and integrate this culture selectively into their spirituality.” See Hollenweger, Pentecostalism, 103.

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welfare. Lee and Yoo claim that these features are continuously revealed in the early Korean Pentecostal approach to the text.27 In short, the belief system of a large number of Koreans who became Christian through the Pentecostal movements was dependent on the historically dominant culture, which was shamanism. Harvey Cox, a theologian and former professor at Harvard Divinity School, agrees with this view of the importance of shamanism in Korean Christianity and maintains that “one of the key reasons for Korean Pentecostalism’s extraordinary growth is its unerring ability to absorb huge chunks of indigenous Korean Shamanism and demon possession into its worship.”28 Following Lee and Yoo, the early Korean Pentecostal method of interpreting the Bible was influenced by shamanism in several specific ways. The Korean people perceived Christianity as a form of shamanistic, pragmatic religion and, as a result, they identified the Christian faith or the experience of the Christian God as a means of liberation from their individual physical and psychological illnesses and from the national predicament through prayer along with the supplications of a minister. In fact, most scholars researching the early Korean Pentecostal interpretive method evaluate it in line with Lee and Yoo based on these two emancipation motifs, which is the Luke-​Acts model. Systematic theologian Jang-​Hyun Ryoo has examined the first wave of the KPM in relation to the early Korean Pentecostal literal approach to the text. He assesses it through the three levels of liberation: national, social, and political.29 According to Ryoo, the 1907 Pyongyang Revival was not an ahistorical, apolitical revival movement; it was a collective repentance movement in which the 1905 Eulsa Treaty was signed as repentance for the sins of the Korean people. In other words, according to Ryoo, the 1907 Pyongyang Revival was a spiritual movement that laid the foundation for the driving forces of national liberation that were aroused thereafter. Ryoo argues that this national feature of the KPM was evident in the practice of faith of the Korean pastor Seon-​Ju Kil, a leader of the 1907 Pyongyang Revival. Additionally, Ryoo emphasizes that through his literal approach to the text, Kil mainly delivered a message of hope to those who were suffering from oppression and exploitation under the Japanese colonial regime, suggesting that they would Jong-​Soon Lee, “오순절주의의 특성과 신학적 의미” [Characteristics and theological implications of Pentecostalism], Theology and Practice 48 (2016): 341–​53; Dong-​Sik Yoo, 기독교 신앙과 한국 종교 [Christian faith and Korean religion], 15–​38. 28 Harvey Cox, Fire from Heaven: The Rise of Pentecostal Spirituality and the Reshaping of Religion in the Twenty-​First Century (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 1995), 222. 29 Ryoo, “한국 성령운동의 사회적 고찰” [A study of the social characteristics of the Holy Spirit Movement in Korea], 123–​52. 27

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soon be freed from their suffering. Thus, it can be said that Kil developed the revival gathering as a movement to save the nation from Japanese oppression and that he emphasized the characteristics of this national liberation in his sermons and highlighted them through his unique way of reading the Bible.30 Second, Sung-​Ho Lee has analyzed the second wave of the KPM from the viewpoint of Minjung liberation theology.31 The Minjung can be described as the poor and powerless people who were suffering political repression and economic exploitation during the Japanese colonial regime. According to Lee, Minjung liberation theology was prominently expressed in Ik-​D u Kim’s literal approach to reading the Bible and characterized as the work of the Holy Spirit. According to Lee, Kim distinguished the true love revealed by the fruit of the Spirit as “spiritual love” and “physical love.” Since the latter describes the love for people suffering from illnesses and marginalization, Kim understood that to love them was to love Jesus. Ryoo also affirms that through Kim’s enthusiastic sermons, the Minjung was able to gain comfort and peace in life and could also experience the presence of God by powerful works of the Holy Spirit. Moreover, through Kim’s message of eschatological hope that the kingdom of God had been promised to them, the Minjung had courage and hope in the midst of their agony.32 Furthermore, theologian Jong-​ Ho Byun claims that Kim’s love for the Minjung was deepened theologically through Yong-​Do Lee’s understanding of both the historical Jesus and the Holy Spirit. According to Byun, Lee expressed his love for the Minjung as love for God. In other words, the love of God means that Jesus and the Minjung become one in the moment of suffering, deviating from the schema of subject and object, and this implies a mystical unity of suffering in which the anguish of the Minjung becomes the agony of Jesus and the suffering of Jesus becomes the suffering of the Minjung. This led Lee to believe that one should go to the sick, the poor, and the sinners in order to meet the living Jesus and to experience the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus. Yoo emphasizes that the revival meetings led by Lee had the character of Minjung liberation, with its love for the poor and those who were oppressed by the Japanese colonial regime and with its love for God. He argues that with that love, the pain and suffering of the Minjung 30 Sunju Kil, 길선주 설교 전집 [Selected sermons of Sunju Kil] (Seoul, South Korea: Kidokgyo Press, 1968), 28. 31 The literal meaning of Minjung is the mass of people or a group of ordinary people; however, in this book the term Minjung refers to a certain group of people who have been socially, politically, and economically marginalized. 32 Sung-​Ho Lee, 김익두 설교 전집 [Selected sermons of Ik-​ D u Kim] (Seoul, South Korea: Hyemoon, 1969), 22–​30; Ryoo, “한국 성령운동의 사회적 고찰” [A study of the social characteristics of the Holy Spirit Movement in Korea], 136.

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were healed. Therefore, Kim’s and Lee’s literal approach to reading the biblical texts during the second wave of the KPM, characterized by the works of the Holy Spirit, was a reaction based on love for the Minjung.33 Lastly, the scholar Sang-​Yun Lee develops his theological discussion in relation to the third wave. He illuminates the third wave of the KPM as being motivated by hope for economic liberation after the Korean War. According to Lee, the messages of Pentecostal preachers after the Korean War mainly focused on material blessings and prosperity and paid more attention to economic growth than to political issues. He concluded that the excessive weight on the material blessings of the Korean Pentecostals in this period corresponded to the significant weight placed on the various political issues and practices of Chung-​Hee Park’s administration related to the economic recovery of Korea after the Korean War. In the context of the post-​Korean War period, the third wave of the KPM experienced extraordinary growth. Lee explains that one of the diverse causes of this explosive growth can be found in Yong-​Gi Cho’s sermon messages, which chiefly accentuated the significance of miracles in overcoming human difficulties and receiving blessings from God, concentrating on hope for material blessings and prosperity based on Cho’s literal reading of the biblical text. Consequently, Lee asserts that the third wave of the KPM can be understood in the context of economic liberation after the Korean War and argues that the Pentecostal accent on hope for material blessings and prosperity played a crucial role in the exponential growth of the third wave of the KPM after the Korean War.34 In sum, the early Korean Pentecostal literal approach to the meaning of the text during the three waves of the KPM developed on the basis on the Luke-​Acts model. This shows that the unique early Korean Pentecostal way of reading the Bible during the three waves of the KPM cannot be understood apart from the unique culture of shamanistic Korea. In addition, individually, socially, politically, and economically oppressed Koreans heard the gospel and were healed by the early Korean Pentecostals’ sermons and practices through powerful works of the Holy Spirit. The early Korean Pentecostals delivered a message based on outer 33 Byun, A Biography of Rev. Yong-​Do Lee, 168; Ryoo, “한국 성령운동의 사회적 고찰” [A study of the social characteristics of the Holy Spirit Movement in Korea], 111; Jong Ho Byun, 이영 도의 일기 [The diary of Rev. Yong-​Do Lee] (Incheon, South Korea: Choseok Press, 1986), 176; Dong-​Sik Yoo, “한국 교회와 성령 운동” [The Korean church and the Holy Spirit Movement], in A Study of the Pentecostal Movement in Korea (Seoul, South Korea: Korea Christian Press, 1982), 13; Ik-​D u Kim, 김익두 설교 모음 [Ik-​D u Kim’s essential writings] (Seoul, The Korea Institute for Advanced Theological Studies, 2008), 57–​61; Peter and Byun, Autobiography of Rev. Yong-​Do Lee, 20–​33. 34 Sang-​Yun Lee, A Theology of Hope, 103–​7.

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signs through a literal reading of the biblical texts in order to overcome the enormous political, economic, social, cultural, and spiritual vacuum in Korea at that time. In contrast, contemporary Korean Pentecostals should highlight discourse on prayer that seeks the presence of the Spirit and emphasizes a long-​lasting relationship with God, based on the Pauline Epistles model, to compensate for the early Korean Pentecostal understanding of the text. The messages conveyed in the early Korean Pentecostals’ literal approach to the biblical text reflected their love for the oppressed Koreans. However, their literal approach to the meaning of the text, which primarily focused on aspects of the outer signs, limited preachers’ ability to influence the spiritual formation of believers through spiritual practices that included a prayerful and meditative dialogue with God. Such a dialogue can lead to the transformation of the reader’s world. The next chapter focuses on the works of Pentecostal scholars who are seeking alternative paths to the literal approach to the text of the classical Pentecostals by exploring the historical contexts of the biblical text and its authors in order to better comprehend the textual meaning of the Scriptures.

CHAPTER TWO

Biblical Hermeneutics of the Classical Pentecostal Tradition

The classical Pentecostals in the early 19th-​ century United States primarily sought to read and interpret the biblical text in anticipation of experiencing the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Their interpretive methods influenced the early Korean Pentecostal hermeneutical understanding of the text. Both primarily read the Bible in a literalistic fashion, applying it to their immediate context. Grant Wacker, a leading scholar on Pentecostal hermeneutics, claims that the classical Pentecostals interpreted the Bible under the conviction that “exegesis is best when it is as rigidly literal as credibility can stand.”1 An extreme example of a literal reading of the text is the handling of snakes and drinking of deadly poisons based on a literal interpretation of Mark 16:15–​18. Similarly, the Korean evangelist Ik-​D u Kim focused on the literal sense of this text in his reading of the divine healing and miracles in Mark 16:17–​18, as explained in the previous chapter. In this view, the signs in Mark 16 were understood as present signs that could take place in the immediate context, not as past signs that occurred in the New Testament church. The classical Pentecostal interpreters regarded the Scriptures as a primary sourcebook for their daily lives, and they sought to subjectively share the experiences of apostolic life by experiencing all of 1 Grant Wacker, “The Functions of Faith in Primitive Pentecostalism,” Harvard Theological Review 77, no. 34 (1984): 365.

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the various charismatic gifts described in the New Testament. In other words, the biblical narratives served as the sole ultimate authority for their Christian belief and also as a normative source for their Christian lived experience. The lived experience formed by the Scriptures functioned as the classical Pentecostals’ interpretive principle that guided them to read the biblical text literally. Furthermore, just as for early Korean Pentecostals, the classical Pentecostals’ lower socioeconomic status in society can be considered a factor that caused their hermeneutical understanding of the text to concentrate mainly on the charismatic and supernatural manifestations of the Holy Spirit, enabling them to live holy Christian lives. Understood in this light, their method of interpreting the biblical text is much more complex than simply preferring to emphasize the immediacy of the biblical text rather than pay attention to the author’s original intent or the historical context of the biblical text.

Biblical Hermeneutics of the Classical Pentecostal Tradition Charles Fox Parham, William Joseph Seymour, and George Floyd Taylor are regarded as primary examples of classical Pentecostal hermeneutics. Each figure’s approach to the biblical text reveals his unique way of reading the Bible. Their approaches to interpreting the Bible played a key role in laying the foundation for the supernatural and charismatic ethos of classical Pentecostalism.

Charles F. Parham Charles Fox Parham (1873–​1929) was born in Iowa and grew up in Kansas. Parham is generally considered the founder of Pentecostalism.2 He published his first book in January 1902, which solidified his experience into a theological unit containing his underlying hermeneutical approach to the text. Parham named the book Kol Kare Bomidbar (Hebrew for “a voice crying in the wilderness”), a reference to John the Baptist, because he viewed his own journey as full of difficulties and trials. Nevertheless, the book upheld Parham’s optimism that Holy Spirit baptism would open a new era in Christian living. By 1919, Parham had published 2 John Thomas Nichol, a leading voice in Pentecostal studies, views Charles Parham as the founder of Pentecostalism because he was the identified leader in the Midwest both before and during the Azusa Street Revival and because he published the first Pentecostal periodical, Apostolic Faith. John Thomas Nichol, Pentecostalism (New York: Harper and Row, 1966), 81.

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his second book, The Everlasting Gospel, which deals with eschatological concerns such as the prophetic significance of the League of Nations. Moreover, Parham laid the foundation for the formation of Pentecostal theology when he founded Bethel Bible College in Topeka, Kansas, in mid-​October 1900. A series of events that took place in early January 1901 at the college was crucial to the beginning of modern Pentecostalism. Some Pentecostal scholars understand these events as the beginning of the Latter Rain movement that teaches that God is pouring out God’s “latter rain” in the modern day as God did on the Day of Pentecost (the “early rain” revival in Acts 2) to prepare the world for the second coming of Christ.3 Parham’s interpretive method, rooted in the traditional authority of scriptural exegesis, may be considered the product of both ideological and social forces in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Considering this hermeneutical innovation to be a rehabilitation of genuine biblical doctrines, Parham delivered a message that fit the needs of people in social flux. He attempted to understand the relationship of speaking in tongues to baptism in the Holy Spirit as evidenced in the Bible. His hermeneutical understanding of the biblical text influenced the theology of William J. Seymour, the preacher who initiated the Azusa Street Revival—​the movement that highlighted the direct individual experience of God through baptism in the Holy Spirit and that also influenced the Korean Pentecostal Movement.4 In addition, Parham developed an aspect of Pentecostal hermeneutics that would allow his Pentecostal successors to revisit the core Christian doctrines. A leading voice in religious studies, Douglas Jacobsen, claims that “Parham was very much a believer in the Bible. […] [And he also] wanted to help others understand the mysterious ways of God in the world.”5 Having accentuated the witness of justification as baptism in the Holy Spirit, Parham theologically sought to 3 James R. Goff, Jr., Fields White unto Harvest: Charles F. Parham and the Missionary Origins of Pentecostalism (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1988), 62–​3, 86, 155; Charles Fox Parham, Kol Kare Bomidbar: A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Baxter Springs, KS: Apostolic Faith Bible College, 1902); William W. Menzies and Robert P. Menzies, Spirit and Power: Foundations of Pentecostal Experience: A Call to Evangelical Dialogue (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2000), 16; George Floyd Taylor, The Spirit and the Bride (Dunn, NC: George F. Taylor, 1907); Kenneth J. Archer, A Pentecostal Hermeneutic for the Twenty-​First Century: Spirit, Scripture and Community (London: T&T Clark, 2004), 94–​110. 4 Goff, Fields White unto Harvest, 165; Vinson Synan and Charles R. Fox, Jr., William J. Seymour: Pioneer of the Azusa Street Revival (Alachua, FL: Bridge Logos, 2012), 35; Charles F. Parham, The Sermons of Charles F. Parham (New York: Routledge, 2018), 25–​38; Vinson Synan, The Holiness-​Pentecostal Tradition: Charismatic Movements in the Twentieth Century (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1997), 89. 5 Douglas Jacobsen, A Reader in Pentecostal Theology: Voices from the First Generation (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006), 31.

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“displace dead forms and creeds or wild-​fanaticism, with living truths.”6 In this, one can see that Parham emphasized a shift from biblical doctrines to Christian experience, maintaining that the Christian experience was “the only Bible sign given as the evidence of the Baptism of the Holy Ghost.”7 Parham’s theology of Pentecost was renewed when he read a St. Louis-​based holiness periodical entitled Everlasting Gospel reporting that a young lady, Jennie Glassey, had suddenly received the miraculous ability to speak certain native dialects after accepting the call to Africa as a missionary.8 Parham’s newly defined theological platform of Pentecostalism had three main doctrines: (1) the ability to speak certain unknown native languages, xenolalia, serves as the biblical evidence of Holy Spirit baptism; (2) those who receive Pentecostal power are the “sealed” brides of Christ who will take on a pivotal role during the eschaton; and (3) these xenoglossic tongues have the goal of empowering missionary work for a dramatic end-​time revival.9 Parham’s interest in other aspects of Christian experience beyond this baptism derived from preachers who “fail in the real conversion [to gain] an experimental knowledge of salvation from sin.” For Parham, real conversion was “conscientiously following the directions of God’s Holy Spirit and meeting with deserved success.”10 Parham’s emphasis on empiricist ministry stemmed from his literal reading of the Bible. Much of his theological concept involved applying a literal interpretation to the biblical texts. Further, Parham stressed reading the Bible just as it is.11 His literal approach to the text is illustrated in detail by his understanding that Christian experience in the 20th century “should tally exactly with the Bible.”12 Parham’s literal approach to the text helped him define the classical Pentecostal doctrine of baptism in the Holy Spirit and its relationship to tongues. And, his own religious experiences led him to read and interpret the text literally. Because 6 Parham, The Sermons of Charles F. Parham, 6. 7 Parham, The Sermons of Charles F. Parham, 38. 8 Goff, Fields White unto Harvest, 72–​3. Parham enthusiastically reported Glassey’s experience in Apostolic Faith: “Glassy [sic] now in Jerusalem, received the African dialect in one night. […] She received the gift while in the Spirit in 1895, but could read and write, translate and sing the language while out of the trance or in a normal condition, and can until now. Hundreds of people can testify to the fact, both saint and sinner, who heard her use the language. She was also tested in Liverpool and Jerusalem. Her Christian experience is that of a holy, consecrated woman, filled with the Holy Ghost. Glory to our God for the return of the apostolic faith.” Apostolic Faith (Topeka, Kansas) 1, no. 1 (May 3, 1899), 5. 9 Goff, Fields White unto Harvest, 132–​3. 10 Parham, The Sermons of Charles F. Parham, 11. 11 Parham, The Sermons of Charles F. Parham, 13. 12 Sarah E. Parham, The Life of Charles F. Parham, 52.

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Parham read the biblical text literally, he viewed narratives recorded in the Bible as actual occurrences in history or as prophecies of what would happen in the future.13 Thus, much of his approach to biblical hermeneutics was developed on the basis of anti-​intellectualism, disregarding scientific exegesis of the text.

William J. Seymour The African American pastor of the Azusa Street Mission, William J. Seymour (1870–​1922), was the child of former slaves and was reared in a Catholic home in southern Louisiana. Seymour became a participant in the Wesleyan holiness movement and enrolled in Charles Parham’s short-​term Bible school in Houston in 1906. There, Seymour studied and accepted Parham’s theology of the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Although Seymour was not allowed to take a seat inside the classroom due to Jim Crow segregation laws, Parham made space available for him in the hallway outside the classroom; from there, he could listen to Parham’s Pentecostal teachings. Seymour wholeheartedly adopted Parham’s theology of Pentecost regarding tongues, even though he had not yet experienced this outer phenomenon himself.14 Soon after Seymour started his studies under Parham, he was invited to help Julia Hutchins pastor a Holiness congregation in Los Angeles, California, in February 1906. However, the congregation rejected Seymour’s teaching that speaking in tongues was evidence of baptism in the Holy Spirit. Although the congregation did not respond to Seymour’s Pentecostal teachings, others were more receptive to his message. Edward and Mattie Lee invited Seymour to stay at their home. They began prayer meetings there, and soon after several people started to speak and sing in tongues. Within days, the services had grown so large that they began searching for a more suitable place for their meeting. They found an old building, which had earlier been an African Methodist Episcopal church, at 312 Azusa Street. The meetings that started there drew the attention of thousands of Christians who were aspiring to experience baptism in the Holy Spirit.15 In addition, Seymour redefined the doctrine of the baptism of the Holy Spirit in terms of glossolalia, which he had been taught by Parham. Seymour taught that baptism in the Holy Spirit “was merely an empowering encounter with the Holy 13 Roger Stronstad, “Trends in Pentecostal Hermeneutics, Part One,” Paraclete 22, no. 3 (1988): 1; Parham, The Sermons of Charles F. Parham, 42, 88, 135. 14 Cecil M. Robeck, Jr., The Azusa Street Mission and Revival: The Birth of the Global Pentecostal Movement (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2006), 4; Synan and Fox, William J. Seymour, 35. 15 Synan and Fox, William J. Seymour, 36.

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Spirit that was evidenced by speaking in tongues. But it came only to those who had been saved and sanctified.” Further, Seymour had come to believe that baptism of the Holy Spirit was “a gift of power upon the sanctified life.”16 At Azusa Street, Seymour conducted three services a day, seven days a week, where he delivered this message and doctrine, and people attended the revivals to experience baptism in the Holy Spirit. The Azusa Street Mission, under Seymour’s leadership, served as the primary catalyst for the emergence and spread of Pentecostalism.17 Seymour found that he needed to provide theological guidance for the Pentecostal movement. Seymour and his associates at the Azusa Street Mission utilized the mission’s periodical, The Apostolic Faith, as their teaching medium, and soon they had formulated a rudimentary theology for the movement as a whole.18 Their book Doctrines and Discipline of the Apostolic Faith Mission of Los Angeles, California, mostly adopted from a discipline of the African Methodist Episcopal church, states the doctrines, identity, and constitution of Seymour’s own congregation.19 These resources represent the theology of a congregation centered on pastoral concerns, the most significant of which was supporting the faithful to receive and maintain “a true Pentecost.”20 Within these pastoral concerns, one can see that a three-​step view of the progression of the Christian life formed the core of Seymour’s theology. The first step was conversion, or justification. In justification, one enters into a relationship with God, acknowledging one’s sins to God and asking God to forgive one’s sins so that God’s grace in Christ’s redemptive death on the cross will offer forgiveness for the guilt of all one’s sins.21 Jacobsen uses a biblical metaphor to describe this: “the 16 Robeck, Jr., The Azusa Street Mission and Revival, 63, 123. 17 Cecil M. Robeck, Jr., “Azusa Street Revival,” in Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, ed. S. M. Burgess and G. B. McGee (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988), 36. 18 Jacobsen notes the role of Seymour’s voice in the papers as a whole: “The theology articulated during the heyday of the revival seems for the most part to have reflected the general consensus of the leadership of the mission. Understood in this way, to speak of Seymour’s theology is to speak of the theology of the mission as a whole. Only later, as the revival died down and Seymour become the sole leader of the Azusa Street congregation, did his voice begin to stand out in clear profile from those of his former associates.” Jacobsen, Thinking in the Spirit, 61. 19 Synan and Fox, Jr., William J. Seymour: Pioneer of the Azusa Street Revival, 21. 20 Jacobsen, Thinking in the Spirit, 68. 21 A short article (most likely sermon notes) by Seymour found in the Apostolic Faith entitled “The Way into the Holiest” helps to describe this point: “A sinner comes to the Lord all wrapped up in sin and darkness. He cannot make any consecration because he is dead. The life has to be put into us before we can present any life to the Lord. He must get justified by faith. There is a Lamb without spot and blemish slain before God for him, and when he repents toward God for his sins, the Lord has mercy on him for Christ’s sake, and put[s]‌eternal life in his soul, pardoning

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person was ‘born again’ at that moment, and most Holiness Christians believed that one should be able to identify the date and time when this first work of grace took place.”22 Sanctification, the second step, was the act of cleansing the individual of their sinful nature so that the general impulse to sin was removed from the human heart. Sanctification made it possible for the faithful not to sin. In a sermon to the Azusa faithful entitled “Sanctified on the Cross,” Seymour preached: “Sanctification makes us holy and destroys the breed of sin, the love of sin and carnality. It makes us pure and whiter than snow. […] Any man that is saved and sanctified can feel the fire burning in his heart, when he calls on the name of Jesus.”23 These first two steps were related to standard Holiness theological doctrines. The third step was the baptism in the Holy Spirit, which was clearly distinguished from the historic Holiness doctrine. Seymour said, “Too many have confused the grace of Sanctification with the endowment of Power, or the Baptism with the Holy Ghost; others have taken ‘the anointing that abideth’ for the Baptism, and failed to reach the glory and power of a true Pentecost.”24 Seymour understood baptism in the Holy Spirit as an empowering work of God, saying that baptism in the Holy Spirit “means to be followed with the love of God and power for service.”25 Continuously, Seymour highlighted that Pentecost has surely come and with it the Bible evidences are following, many being converted and sanctified and filled with the Holy Ghost, speaking in tongues as they did on the day of Pentecost.26

Seymour advocated the notion that speaking in tongues “provided an important distinction that held profound implications for world evangelization.”27 He seemed to believe strongly that baptism in the Holy Spirit brought the power of God on the faithful, which helped them speak in all the languages of the world.28 him of his sins, washing away his guilty pollution, and he stands before God justified as if he had never sinned.” William J. Seymour, “The Way into the Holiest,” Apostolic Faith 1, no. 2 (1906): 4. 22 Jacobsen, Thinking in the Spirit, 69. 23 William J. Seymour, “Sanctified on the Cross,” Apostolic Faith 2, no. 13 (1908): 2. 24 William J. Seymour, “The Apostolic Faith Movement,” Apostolic Faith 1, no. 1 (1906): 2. 25 William J. Seymour, Doctrine and Discipline of the Azusa Street Apostolic Faith Mission (Los Angeles: Azusa Mission, 1915): 92. 26 William J. Seymour, Untitled article, Apostolic Faith 1, no. 1 (1906): 1. 27 Cecil M. Robeck, Jr., “William J. Seymour and ‘the Bible Evidence,’ ” in Initial Evidence: Historical and Biblical Perspectives on the Pentecostal Doctrine of Spirit Baptism, ed. Gary B. McGee (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1991), 77. 28 William J. Seymour, “The Precious Atonement,” Apostolic Faith 1, no. 1 (1906): 2.

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Furthermore, Seymour taught his associates to preach on all of these topics: “justification, sanctification, healing, the baptism with the Holy Ghost, and signs following.”29 An untitled article in Apostolic Faith accentuates Seymour’s early idea regarding the evangelization of the world through the gift of tongues: “The gift of languages is given with the commission, ‘Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature.’ ”30 Such an experience meant the restoration of the gospel; the supernatural events that had taken place in Jerusalem were now taking place in most Pentecostal congregations in Los Angeles in 1906—​sickness was being healed and foreign languages were being spoken without prior knowledge or study.31 The three steps of the Christian life formed the core of Seymour’s theology, which he developed on the basis of several essential passages in the New Testament. The foundation of Seymour’s theological understanding of the three-​step Christian life, related to the role of speaking in tongues, is expressed by an anonymous article in Apostolic Faith entitled “Tongues as a Sign.” The article starts with an assertion regarding revelation, arguing that since humans are fallen creatures, they cannot receive the things of the kingdom of heaven, but God employs signs and wonders to awaken humans from spiritual death. The author (who was likely Seymour himself ), referring to a passage in Mark 16:16–​17, cites the performance of all manner of miracles as signs or evidence of those who were baptized: Here a belief and baptism are spoken of, and the sign or evidence given to prove that you possess that belief and baptism. This scripture plainly declares that these signs shall follow them that believe.32

Referring to John 15:3 and 17:7, Seymour repeatedly emphasizes that the resurrected Jesus came to the disciples whom Jesus had already sanctified. He focuses on John 20:22 to articulate that these disciples had already received the Holy Spirit when Jesus breathed on them. When it comes to the sign of tongues, Seymour considers Jesus’ command to his disciples to stay in Jerusalem in Luke 24:49 to be fulfilled in Acts 2. According to Acts 2:4, those who were filled with the Holy Spirit were able to begin to speak in other tongues. Seymour cites the story of Peter and Cornelius in Acts 10, saying that one can see that “the speaking in tongues was the sign or evidence to Peter that the Gentiles had received the Holy Ghost.”33 After Peter had preached the 29 30 31 32 33

Seymour, “The Precious Atonement,” 2. Seymour, Untitled article, Apostolic Faith 1, no. 1 (1906): 1. Seymour, Untitled article, Apostolic Faith 1, no. 1 (1906): 1. William J. Seymour, “Tongues as a Sign,” Apostolic Faith 1, no. 1 (1906): 7. Seymour, “Tongues as a Sign,” 8.

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Word, “Pentecostal signs followed.” In addition, Seymour claims that the pattern continued in Acts 19:1–​6, which occurred about 29 years after Pentecost, after Paul had preached the Word to the Ephesians; “when Paul laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied” (v. 6). Seymour concludes the article by saying: “How foolish so many of us have been in the clear light of God’s Word. We have been running off with blessings and anointing with God’s power, instead of tarrying until Bible evidence of Pentecost came.”34 Thus, Seymour’s literal reading of the Bible helped him to highlight that speaking in tongues is the biblical evidence of baptism in the Holy Spirit, just as Parham claimed, and the sign of achieving the third step of the Christian life.35 Seymour’s experiences leading the revival at the Azusa Street Mission influenced him to interpret the words of the Bible literally and to focus on speaking in tongues, prophesying, and dramatic healings. Just as Parham did, Seymour accepted the historicity of the Bible, emphasizing the re-​experiencing of the biblical narrative by taking the biblical accounts literally. In other words, Seymour attempted a literal approach to the text, which led to the validation of experience and prevented him from taking into account the literary aspects of the biblical text.

George Floyd Taylor George Floyd Taylor (1881–​1934) was an early leader of the Pentecostal Holiness Church. Taylor, a North Carolinian, was a passionate spokesperson for the belief that speaking in tongues is biblical evidence of the baptism in the Holy Spirit, just as Parham and Seymour proclaimed. Taylor originally intended to become a Methodist pastor, but he joined the new, radical Holiness Church being organized in North Carolina by Albert Blackmon Crumpler. When Taylor became a member 34 Seymour, “Tongues as a Sign,” 8. 35 Seymour later broadened his understanding of tongues as the Bible’s evidence that baptism in the Holy Spirit included the concept of unity. It is possible to “[l]‌ose the Spirit of Jesus, which is divine love, and have only gifts which will be as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal, and sooner or later these will be taken away. If you want to live in the Spirit, live in the fruits of the Spirit every day. […] Tongues are one of the signs that go with every baptized person, but it is not the real evidence of the baptism in the everyday life. Your life must measure with the fruits of the Spirit. If you get angry, or speak evil, or backbite, I care not how many tongues you may have, you have not the baptism with the Holy Spirit. You have lost your salvation. You need the Blood in your soul.” Seymour, “To the Baptized Saints,” Apostolic Faith 1, no. 9 (1907): 2. See also Dale T. Irvin, “ ‘Drawing All Together in One Bond of Love’: The Ecumenical Vision of William J. Seymour and the Azusa Street Revival,” Journal of Pentecostal Theology 6 (1995): 32.

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of Crumpler’s Holiness Church, the church was not yet Pentecostal. However, once the Azusa Street Revival got underway, Pentecostalism began to be known in North Carolina, and Taylor felt compelled to look into the new movement.36 Taylor came into contact with Gaston Barnabas Cashwell, who was a Holiness preacher and had received the Pentecostal experience during the Azusa Street Revival. Although Taylor was at first skeptical of the Pentecostal message that speaking in tongues was the sign of the baptism of the Spirit, he soon became a confirmed faithful and received the baptism in the Holy Spirit at the Dunn meeting, an East Coast counterpart to the Azusa Street meeting, led by Cashwell in January of 1907.37 Further, Taylor denounced those who refused to accept the new Pentecostal teachings in the Holiness Church. His central goal was to construct a theology for the Pentecostal movement, so Taylor continued to deliver Pentecostal Spirit-​baptism without offering specific proof that would appeal to those with a rational mindset. Just as Parham and Seymour underscored, Taylor was convinced that the manifestation of speaking in tongues at the moment of one’s baptism in the Spirit was the most crucial sign a faithful person could experience. In a passage explaining what Taylor accepted—​seven operations of the Spirit and the manifestation that accompanied each—​he acknowledged that he might have made some errors in describing the first six manifestations of the Spirit, noting that individual experiences might differ from his own stated perspective. Readers, he wrote, ought to feel at “liberty to rearrange these manifestations if they choose.” However, Taylor stated, “When we come to the manifestation following the Baptism of the Spirit, we have a ‘thus saith the Lord.’ ”38 In Taylor’s point of view, the biblical text was clear, the testimony of the apostles was explicit, and the precise interpretation was incontrovertible. Taylor said, “The manifestation following the Baptism is speaking with tongues!”39 Jacobsen describes Taylor’s hermeneutical understanding of speaking in tongues as the sign of the baptism of the Spirit in Christian life as follows: Taylor asserted, perhaps more unconditionally than any other Pentecostal theologian, that everyone who received the baptism of the Holy Ghost would speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. He allowed no room for dialogue on this 36 Jacobsen, A Reader in Pentecostal Theology, 57. 37 Jacobsen, Thinking in the Spirit, 84; Vinson Synan, “Cashwell, Gaston Barnabas,” in Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, ed. S. M. Burgess and G. B. McGee (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1988), 110. 38 Jacobsen, Thinking in the Spirit, 96. 39 George Floyd Taylor, The Spirit and the Bride (Dunn, NC: George F. Taylor, 1907), 25.

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matter, and he rejected the idea that any other corroborating criterion should be added to the mix.40

Parham and Seymour had suggested that speaking in tongues is the biblical evidence of baptism in the Holy Spirit. Taylor believed that those who received the baptism in the Holy Spirit ought to be able to speak in other tongues. According to Taylor, speaking in tongues had no relation to any natural human ability. When one received the baptism in the Holy Spirit, “[T]‌he Spirit will manifest Himself with the tongue.”41 Taylor further elaborated on the relationship between speaking in tongues and the Holy Spirit by writing that speaking in tongues in languages previously unknown to the utterer is the Holy Spirit taking the tongue of the believer and making the believer speak in a language of which the recipient of the Holy Spirit knows nothing.42 Along with Parham and Seymour, Taylor quite clearly believed that speaking in tongues had to do with real human languages that were being spoken without prior study and that it was therefore a missionary sign. Taylor understood speaking in tongues as the power given to the disciples for preaching the gospel to every creature, as did Seymour. Taylor noted that the power that Jesus said would accompany the Baptism of the Spirit was the power to preach the gospel to every creature, and the 120 received this power not at college but on the day of Pentecost. Taylor encouraged his Pentecostal successors to wait until the genuine manifestation was given, and he assured them that those who received the baptism would speak in tongues as the Holy Spirit gave utterance.43 Therefore, Taylor’s literal approach to the text was based on the belief that speaking in tongues as a sign of the baptism in the Holy Spirit was an essential element of the Christian life, just as Parham and Seymour emphasized. Further, his principal commitment in his theological hermeneutics was the claim that speaking in tongues was related to human speech—​the ability to speak in a language or languages previously unknown to the utterer, which did not depend on the person’s capacity because it was God speaking through the speaker. This understanding led him to agree with Seymour that speaking in tongues was a missionary sign. Like both Parham and the leader of the Azusa Street Revival, Taylor’s literal reading of the biblical text relied on trying to validate the biblical narrative experientially rather than on employing various methodological approaches to the text such as literary and historical analyses. 40 Jacobsen, Thinking in the Spirit, 96. 41 Taylor, The Spirit and the Bride, 50. 42 Taylor, The Spirit and the Bride, 36. 43 Taylor, The Spirit and the Bride, 46, 50, 62.

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Analysis of the Classical Pentecostal Hermeneutical Method The interpretive method of the three major classical Pentecostal figures analyzed above has been assessed by a scholar of Pentecostalism, Veli-​Matti Kärkkäinen, and various Pentecostal scholars, including Grant Wacker, French L. Arrington, and Kenneth Archer. These scholars have developed four characteristics of the classical Pentecostals: (1) they regard the Scriptures as the sole ultimate authority for Christian faith and living, which shapes their theological and hermeneutical understanding of the world, (2) they approach the text mainly with the expectation of experiencing the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, (3) they pursue a way to read the Bible based on explaining the relationship between the biblical narrative and their spiritual experiences, and (4) their hermeneutical understanding of the text primarily relies on the primacy of the supernatural and charismatic religious experience.

Veli-​Matti Kärkkäinen As an influential theologian who values the role of the Spirit in biblical interpretation, Veli-​Matti Kärkkäinen stresses that a supernatural and charismatic ethos lies at the core of the Pentecostals’ way of reading the Scriptures and that the supernaturalistic and charismatic horizon of Pentecostalism is “marked by living in and from the eschatological presence of God.”44 This supernatural and charismatic ethos was concisely expressed in the beginning of the International Roman Catholic-​Pentecostal Dialogue as the “essence of Pentecostalism.” As Kärkkäinen describes it, such an ethos entails the personal and direct awareness and experiencing of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit by which the risen and glorified Christ is revealed and the believer is empowered to witness and worship with the abundance of life as described in Acts and the Epistles.45

44 Veli-​ Matti Kärkkäinen, “Pentecostal Hermeneutics in the Making: On the Way from Fundamentalism to Postmodernism,” Journal of the European Pentecostal Theological Association 18 (1998): 76–​7; Steven J. Land, Pentecostal Spirituality: A Passion for the Kingdom (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993) 184, cited in, Kärkkäinen, “Pentecostal Hermeneutics in the Making,” 77. 45 Veli-​Matti Kärkkäinen, Spiritus Ubi Vult Spirat: Pneumatology in Roman Catholic-​Pentecostal Dialogue (Helsinki: Luther-​Agricola Society, 1998), 50–​1.

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In other words, Pentecostalism’s outer sign of charismatic gifts incorporates an awareness of God that is personal and direct through the Spirit, as if “the supernatural claims of the gospel were really true.”46 This supernatural and charismatic spirituality in classical Pentecostals’ reading of the Bible was spread mainly through preaching and personal testimonies. Kärkkäinen considers this charismatic activity to be characterized by the place of the sermon in Pentecostal worship. Kärkkäinen highlights that the sermon “reached for an immediate experience for the listeners and was not characterized by a hermeneutics that spent its time exegeting a text in an historical-​critical manner. The preacher focused on the immediate meaning of a text.”47 He further characterizes how the classical Pentecostals approached the text in light of this pattern of immediacy by suggesting five concepts: (1) they see the Bible as the inspired Word of God, which is authoritative and wholly reliable, and this has often led to the role of human authors as passive instruments; (2) they have not identified a historical gap between themselves and the biblical text, and thus the Scriptures have been mainly understood with an emphasis on the immediate meaning and context; (3) they have preferred to read the Bible literally rather than interpret it in light of its historical context and the author’s original intent; (4) their interpretive method was theologically influenced by their Christological ‘full gospel’ pre-​understanding, where Christ stood at the core of the charismatic life, which thus might have limited multiple interpretations and dimensions of meaning of the text; and (5) the main preacher and interpreter was the local pastor, most of whom had only a lay level of biblical education.48 These five concepts briefly outlined by Kärkkäinen present several significant themes of the classical Pentecostals’ approach to hermeneutics: the classical Pentecostals’ recognition of the inspiration of the Bible; the immediacy of the biblical text to the interpreter; the ahistorical, literalistic approach to the text; the stabilization of the doctrinal position of the “full gospel”; and the lack of incentive to invest one’s time in advanced theological and hermeneutical training.

Grant Wacker Another voice in the evaluation of the classical Pentecostals’ interpretive method is that of Grant Wacker. Wacker claims that the classical Pentecostals maintained a mixture of primitive and practical impulses as the driving force for their 46 Wacker, “The Functions of Faith in Primitive Pentecostalism,” 361. 47 Kärkkäinen, “Pentecostal Hermeneutics in the Making,” 78. 48 Kärkkäinen, “Pentecostal Hermeneutics in the Making,” 78–​9.

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movement: “The genius of the pentecostal movement lay in its ability to hold two seemingly incompatible impulses in productive tension. I call the two impulses the primitive and the pragmatic.”49 These two impulses can be described as the longing to be aware of God’s mind and will as purely and directly as possible within every aspect of one’s life.50 According to Wacker, the classical Pentecostals sought to live in a heavenly city and expected the restoration of the New Testament church with accompanying signs and wonders. This orientation led them to see all of life in a fundamentally new way. Furthermore, absorbed in heavenly things such as speaking in tongues, the classical Pentecostals paid little attention to earthly affairs, from the simple and legitimate pleasure of life to major political issues. The lives of the classical Pentecostals were concentrated on the full gospel of personal salvation and baptism in the Holy Spirit, which served to dispel “all doubts about the reality of the supernatural and the truth of their distinctive theological claims.”51 Wacker stresses that the worldview of the classical Pentecostals was shaped by the authority resting in the Bible. Spirit-​filled believers felt they could get all the information in the Scriptures they needed to know when they had to make difficult decisions in their lives because they were convinced that the Bible provided “a compendium of answers for all significant questions.”52 Thus, the classical Pentecostals used the Bible as their sole textbook, in particular, the book of Acts, construing their own lives as “transparent appropriations of the New Testament pattern.”53 In other words, the Scriptures served as the blueprint for the normative example of the classical Pentecostals’ mode of existence. As for the classical Pentecostals’ way of interpreting the Bible, Wacker claims that the immediate meaning of the biblical text to the reader became a practical interpretive principle. Wacker highlights that this belief was shaped and supported by the Bible’s ultimate authority in that the biblical writers heard God’s words and dictated them under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. This meant that the Scriptures articulated the historical setting in which they were written, but they were not affected by the setting in any substantial way. In this view, the Bible was exempted from “the taint of time and place,” and thus the classical Pentecostals 49 Grant Wacker, Heaven Below: Early Pentecostals and American Culture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), 10. 50 Wacker, Heaven Below, 11–​12. 51 Wacker, Heaven Below, 19–​22. 52 Wacker, Heaven Below, 70–​1. 53 Gordon L. Anderson, “Pentecostals Believe in More Than Tongues,” in Pentecostals from the Inside Out, ed. Harold B. Smith (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1990), 54.

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were convinced that the Bible was preserved from “errors of any sort—​historical, scientific, or theological.”54 According to Wacker, this perspective led the classical Pentecostals to read and interpret the biblical text as literally as reasonably possible. In other words, the classical Pentecostals simply read the Bible, as an Azusa Apostolic Faith commenter put it, by taking the biblical texts “just as they are written.”55 This point of view is echoed in the Portland (Oregon) Apostolic Faith: “You absolutely lose your own judgment in regard to the Word of God. You eat it down without trimming or cutting, right from the mouth of God.”56 Wacker asserts that the classical Pentecostals undoubtedly simply assumed that “truthfulness required literalism.” He explains in more detail the classical Pentecostals’ literal interpretation of the Bible on the basis of two rationales. The first one is moral: “a literal reading of Scripture implies a humble willingness to bend before the plain meaning of God’s own word.” The second is intellectual: “since God’s rules for the world were clear, God’s Book must be equally clear. Literalism produced clarity.” Therefore, the classical Pentecostals’ hermeneutical principle was based on the concept of reading the Bible with “a good set of eyes, an open mind, and a willing heart” in such a way that “the Bible’s words explained themselves.”57

French L. Arrington Another key mid-​20th-​century voice in Pentecostal studies, French L. Arrington, also analyzed the distinct hermeneutics of the classical Pentecostals. Arrington contributed to the discussion of Pentecostal hermeneutics by offering an essay on the classical Pentecostals’ interpretive method with the biblical text.58 He claims that the classical Pentecostals’ hermeneutical understanding of the text was fundamentally influenced by the interpretive tendencies of the 18th-​century preacher and theologian John Wesley. Wesleyan theologian Wayne McCown points out four hermeneutical principles in Wesley’s thoughts and tendencies: (1) Wesley read and memorized long passages of the Scriptures and sought to interweave them into his mode of self-​ expression so that the fabric of Wesley’s thoughts and tendencies were integrated 54 Wacker, Heaven Below, 72–​3. 55 “Annihilation of the Wicked,” Apostolic Faith 1:4 (1907): 2. 56 “The Baptism of the Holy Spirit,” Apostolic Faith (1909): 3. 57 Wacker, Heaven Below, 75, 76. 58 French L. Arrington, “Hermeneutics, Historical Perspectives on Pentecostal and Charismatic,” in Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, ed. S. M. Burgess and G. B. McGee (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1988), 376–​89.

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by the biblical text; (2) he considered Bible study both a devotional experience strengthened by prayer and also an academic exercise; (3) he understood the Bible as the ultimate authoritative source for doctrine; and (4) he viewed the application of the biblical message as a necessary conclusion to the interpretive task.59 According to Arrington, the goal of Scripture study for Wesley was to determine the will of God and behave accordingly. This view shows Wesley’s “strong affirmation of biblical authority for doctrinal formulation and practical response.”60 Arrington highlights that these thoughts and tendencies of Wesley provided the basis for the way the classical Pentecostals read and interpreted the Bible. This notion serves as the foundational resource for Arrington’s assessment of the classical Pentecostals’ hermeneutical approach to the text. Like Kärkkäinen and Wacker, Arrington asserts that the classical Pentecostals regarded the human authors of the Bible as passive instruments, which resulted in their understanding of inspiration as dictation. In addition, Arrington argues that the classical Pentecostals’ hermeneutical method was developed on the basis of relying on the principle of ahistoricism, which means understanding biblical statements at face value without considering the ancient context in which they were made. The infallibility of the Bible was a central principle of the interpretive method of the classical Pentecostals.61 Arrington goes on to explain that the classical Pentecostals’ hermeneutics involved pneumatic and experiential approaches to understanding the Bible. First, the pneumatic interpretation is rooted in Pentecostalism’s doctrine of divine inspiration that holds that since the Spirit guided the biblical writers, so also human interpreters today ought to seek to receive the same guidance to apprehend the biblical text. Only when the interpreter is guided and illuminated by the Spirit can the deeper insights of the Scriptures be recognized. This pneumatic approach to the text is based on the belief that God is the embodiment of all truth. Thus, the classical Pentecostals were convinced that “there was one truth and therefore one correct interpretation of Scripture.”62 On the experiential aspect of the classical Pentecostals’ hermeneutics, Arrington points out two distinct but interrelated issues. First, experiences drawn directly from their interpretation of the Bible deeply impact the personal and corporate experience of the interpreter. The classical Pentecostals’ emphasis on 59 Wayne McCown and James Massey, Interpreting God’s Word Today: An Inquiry into Hermeneutics from a Biblical, Theological Perspective (Anderson, IN: Warner Press, 1988), 3–​6. 60 Arrington, “Hermeneutics, Historical Perspectives on Pentecostal and Charismatic,” 378. 61 Arrington, “Hermeneutics, Historical Perspectives on Pentecostal and Charismatic,” 280, 382. 62 Arrington, “Hermeneutics, Historical Perspectives on Pentecostal and Charismatic,” 382.

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experience is a result of their inclination to enter into “an existential continuity with apostolic believers” through which the believers draw experiences from scriptural models and patterns. For the classical Pentecostals, according to Arrington, the Scriptures are not only the historical record of God’s working among ancients but also a primary sourcebook for their own lives. Arrington argues that the classical Pentecostals’ interpretive method recognizes the study of the biblical text as a subjective sharing of the experiences of apostolic life. Second, the classical Pentecostals’ hermeneutical process is informed and shaped by experiences. The classical Pentecostals were assured that all the miraculous works of the Holy Spirit that took place in the apostolic church would be experienced identically in their contemporary lives—​ speaking in tongues, divine healing, exorcisms, miracles, dreams, audible voices, and all of the various charismatic gifts described in the New Testament.63 Thus, this similarity allowed the classical Pentecostals to regard the biblical narratives as normative for the Christian experience.

Kenneth Archer Kenneth Archer is a leading scholar in the 21st century who has evaluated the classical Pentecostals’ hermeneutical understanding of the Scriptures. Archer primarily deals with their approach to biblical interpretation from sociocultural and economic perspectives. He claims that the classical Pentecostals’ hermeneutics and practices were developed on the basis of racial integration and charismatic and ecstatic religious experiences. According to Archer, the classical Pentecostal movement attracted people who were socioeconomically and racially marginalized from mainstream society and who yearned to experience the Holy Spirit and see the glory of God.64 Archer asserts that the central theme of the classical Pentecostals’ reading of the Bible was the persistent attention on the supernatural manifestations of the Spirit. For the classical Pentecostals, the charismatic signs served as “tangible evidence that the person and community had a direct encounter with the living God.”65 In this view, their hermeneutical understanding of the biblical text was not part of an attempt to produce a systematic theology or exegetical commentaries. The classical Pentecostals were much more concerned with discovering the truth “for living the Christian life” and experiencing the “Apostolic Faith.”66 Thus, the 63 Arrington, “Hermeneutics, Historical Perspectives on Pentecostal and Charismatic,” 383. 64 Archer, A Pentecostal Hermeneutic for the Twenty-​First Century, 17–​18. 65 Archer, A Pentecostal Hermeneutic for the Twenty-​First Century, 31. 66 Archer, A Pentecostal Hermeneutic for the Twenty-​First Century, 73.

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classical Pentecostals’ lower socioeconomic status in society can be viewed as a factor that led to their way of reading the Bible and their primary focus on the supernatural manifestations of the Holy Spirit. The primary focus of the classical Pentecostals’ hermeneutics was on Christ as the source of salvation, healing, and the baptism in the Holy Spirit, all of which enabled them to live holy Christian lives.

Critique of the Biblical Hermeneutics of the Classical Pentecostal Tradition The hermeneutical approach to biblical interpretation within Pentecostalism is not univocal. The dissenting voices of Pentecostal biblical scholars and theologians who spoke out against the interpretive method of the classical Pentecostals played a role in the development of the use of historical-​critical methods in biblical interpretation by Pentecostals. These are specific procedures utilized to examine the biblical text’s original composition and contexts. The advocates of this approach have endeavored to account for the role of the author’s original intent and the literary genre of the text in the process of interpreting the biblical text by focusing on discovering what the Bible was saying in its original context. This hermeneutical understanding of the biblical text seeks to move from emphasis on the immediate meaning of the text toward the historical contexts of biblical narratives and the intent of the inspired authors.

Gordon Anderson Canadian Pentecostal biblical scholar and theologian Roger Stronstad underscores that the charismatic experiential presuppositions of the Pentecostal interpreter are essential in their properly understanding and interpreting the biblical text, saying that “charismatic experience in particular and spiritual experience in general give the interpreter of relevant biblical texts an experiential presupposition which transcends the rational or cognitive presuppositions of scientific exegesis.”67 Stronstad also argues that “Pentecostals bring positive and sympathetic experiential presuppositions” to the interpretation of the biblical text “on the charismatic activity of the Holy Spirit.”68 Even though Stronstad seeks to defend the legitimacy of spiritual experiential presuppositions attuned to the biblical narratives in the New Testament, he clarifies that he is not implying that charismatic 67 Roger Stronstad, “Pentecostal Experience and Hermeneutics,” Paraclete 26, no. 1 (1992): 17. 68 Stronstad, “Pentecostal Experience and Hermeneutics,” 20–​1.

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presuppositions “guarantee sound interpretation.” He highlights that “this is because experiential presuppositions do not stand alone, do not stand in independence from either cognitive presuppositions or historico-​grammatico principles.”69 Taking a different approach to dealing with presuppositions, Gordon Anderson, a leading voice in classical Pentecostal studies, focuses on identifying the intention of the author working under the inspiration of the Spirit in the process of interpreting the biblical text. Influenced by E. D. Hirsch’s author-​centered theory, this Pentecostal scholar agrees with the notion that the original meaning of the text is identical with the intention of the author. For Hirsch, authorial intentionality is the sole practical norm and the only foundation on which the objective of the meaning of the text is guaranteed. Hirsch stresses that the reader’s duty and job “is to reconstruct a determinate actual meaning, not a mere system of possibilities.”70 In other words, the interpreter ought to reconstruct the mental state of the author in order to understand the determinate meaning of the text. According to Hirsch, words alone do not create meaning, but making meaning is what people do: “a word sequence means nothing in particular until somebody […] means something by it. There is no magic land of meanings outside human consciousness.”71 For Hirsch, what is decisive in the meaning of a word is the author’s exercise of their sovereign subjectivity; as a result, the stability of the meaning of the text is rooted in the author’s will. Furthermore, Anderson concurs with Hirsch’s concept that the Pentecostal hermeneutic strives to comprehend a fixed and objective meaning of the text through “different (but legitimate) methodological, personal, historical, and theological presuppositions in its interpretive work.”72 For Anderson, the foundational task of the process of interpretation of the biblical text is “the effort to discover what the author intended the text to mean to the original audience and to find out what the original hearers understood.”73 The central purpose of this interpretative method is to understand the objective meaning of the text, that is, the intention of the author. According to Anderson, the objective meaning of the text is ascertained by identifying the reader’s own biases and implementing historical and grammatical exegesis: An unwillingness to identify personal biases or to admit that they exist does not mean they have no influence. It only means the interpreter does not yet have a clear picture 69 Stronstad, “Pentecostal Experience and Hermeneutics,” 25. 70 E. D. Hirsch, Validity in Interpretation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967), 47. 71 Hirsch, Validity in Interpretation, 4. 72 Gordon L. Anderson, “Pentecostal Hermeneutics: Part I,” Paraclete 28, no. 1 (1994): 11. 73 Gordon L. Anderson, “Why Interpreters Disagree,” Paraclete 24, no. 1 (1990): 2.

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of his/​her own biases. If this is in fact the case, it is unavoidable that those biases will influence the conclusions drawn, without the interpreter being aware of their influence.74

Anderson argues that the reader’s prejudices ought to be identified and overcome to the degree that it is possible so as to grasp the objective meaning of the text. This means that the objective meaning of the text is acquired when it is not affected by the reader’s ideas and contexts. The reader’s exegetical task then begins by identifying the reader’s biases. Through historical and grammatical exegesis, readers are able to develop their theological beliefs. Anderson notes, “[A]‌fter the exegetical work is done all the relevant passages must be studied to determine what kind of a synthetic or systematic doctrine emerges.”75 For Anderson, the interpretive goal is not to impose theological doctrines on the canon but to allow the doctrines to emerge from the canon through the process of identifying one’s biases and doing exegesis. However, this does not mean that readers come to the same conclusion through the process of interpretation. Anderson claims: There is too much room for decisions to be made in the process of interpretation to screen out those elements that result in varied conclusions. What can be hoped for, and ardently urged, is that interpreters will approach their work aware of what they are doing and how they ought to do it. It is not too much to expect those who interpret the Bible should diligently follow the basic principles of hermeneutics. As this is done the church will be better able to avoid heretical extremes and to discover the sound doctrines the Bible seeks to impart.76

Thus, Anderson seeks to maintain a certain distance between the reader and the text in order to ascertain the original author’s intention. Unlike the classical Pentecostals’ interpretive method, which puts emphasis on the immediacy of the text, Anderson values grasping the author’s intention in the process of biblical interpretation by identifying the reader’s own prejudices and acknowledging the literary nature of the biblical text.77

Gordon D. Fee Another account highlighting the employment of historical-​critical methods for a Pentecostal hermeneutic that differs from the classical Pentecostal interpretive 74 75 76 77

Anderson, “Why Interpreters Disagree,” 8. Anderson, “Why Interpreters Disagree,” 8. Anderson, “Why Interpreters Disagree,” 9. Anderson, “Pentecostal Hermeneutics: Part I,” Paraclete 28, no. 1 (1994): 1–​11.

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method can be found in that of Gordon D. Fee, who is a New Testament and also a Pentecostal hermeneutical scholar. Fee’s biblical hermeneutics calls for genuine obedience to God, considering the Bible as the final authority for faith communities. According to Fee, God cannot be discovered or known from below because “our vision of God was distorted by the Fall.”78 Thus, God chose to reveal and to communicate Godself to humankind through the Bible, so all must be authenticated by Scripture.79 Fee considers the Bible the Word of God as given, revealed, and spoken in the words of humans in history. Additionally, Fee asserts that the Bible has eternal relevance since it “speaks to all humankind, in every age and in every culture.” However, according to Fee, God’s Word also has historical particularity in that each document is influenced by the language, time, and culture in which it was originally written and, sometimes, by its oral history before it was written down. Fee therefore stresses that the hermeneutical process with the biblical text requires that there be an interpretive tension between its eternal relevance and its historical particularity. In this view, deciphering the certain amount of ambiguity recorded in the biblical text requires the task of interpretation.80 Fee suggests that the task of interpreting the text involves the interpreter at two levels. The first task of the reader is exegesis. Exegesis is the careful and systematic study of the Scripture to discover the original author’s intended meaning, to hear the Word as the original audience was meant to hear it. In other words, the reader must try to understand what was said to the original recipients back then and there.81 The second task of the interpreter is called hermeneutics. This can be described as “seeking the contemporary relevance of ancient texts.”82 It is related to learning to hear the ancient texts in the here and now. As for the relation between exegesis and hermeneutics, Fee argues that proper hermeneutics starts with solid exegesis to determine the original intent of the biblical text: “This is the ‘plain meaning’ one is after. Otherwise biblical texts can be made to mean whatever they mean to any given reader.”83 Thus, for Fee, the task of interpreting the biblical text is to understand the original intent and setting of the

78 Gordon D. Fee, Gospel and Spirit: Issues in New Testament Hermeneutics (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1991), 29. 79 Fee, Gospel and Spirit, 25, 29. 80 Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart, How to Read the Bible for All It’s Worth, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003), 20; Fee, Gospel and Spirit, 25. 81 Fee, Gospel and Spirit, 3–​4. 82 Fee, Gospel and Spirit, 28. 83 Fee, Gospel and Spirit, 29.

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text, then to hear the Word of God in that original intent and setting, and finally to apply the discovered meaning to the interpreter’s own situation.84 Understanding the Bible in this light, Fee identifies two distinctive interpretive features of the classical Pentecostals’ approach to the normativity of the baptism in the Holy Spirit: (1) the baptism in the Holy Spirit is subsequent to the experience of salvation, and (2) speaking in tongues is its initial and physical evidence. According to Fee, there are two general objections to the interpretive method of the classical Pentecostals. First, Pentecostals need to distinguish between the didactic and the historical scriptural texts without misusing the historical parts of the text to justify their doctrinal arguments. Second, Pentecostals mistakenly take the descriptive history of the primitive church and try to make it the “normative experience for the ongoing church.”85 Fee highlights that the classical Pentecostals’ attitude toward the Bible “regularly has included a general disregard for scientific exegesis. […] In place of scientific hermeneutics there developed a kind of pragmatic hermeneutics—​obey what should be taken literally.”86 Significantly, Fee also argues that “in general the Pentecostals’ experience has preceded their hermeneutics. In a sense, the Pentecostal tends to exegete his or her experience.” According to Fee, the classical Pentecostals’ reading of Scripture mainly focused on “the dynamic, life-​transforming quality of the apostolic experience in Acts 2.” Following this approach, the classical Pentecostals wanted to experience something similar to the spiritual experiences in the New Testament and thus made such experiences normative for the Christian life. Fee argues that their hermeneutical problem may be posed in several ways: “How is the Book of Acts the word of God? That is, does it have a word which not only describes the primitive church but speaks as a norm to the church at all times?”87 Fee emphasizes that the reader ought to take into account the literary genre of the biblical text as well as questions related to grammar, philology, and history. In his view, the genre of Acts as historical narrative must first be recognized. Further, Fee claims that the Gospel of Luke must also be taken seriously as a literary genre.88 Fee asserts that in the interpretation of biblical history, in this case the Gospel of Luke, the reader’s primary task is to uncover the author’s intent in the recording of that history. Then, it is important for the reader to grasp Luke’s broader intent in writing this historical narrative. Fee believes it is a reasonable 84 Fee, Gospel and Spirit, 8–​11. 85 Fee, “Hermeneutics and Historical Precedent,” 120, 121 (quotation). 86 Fee, “Hermeneutics and Historical Precedent,” 121. 87 Fee, “Hermeneutics and Historical Precedent,” 122, 123. 88 Fee, “Hermeneutics and Historical Precedent,” 124–​5.

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hypothesis that the author of Luke “was trying to show how the church emerged as a chiefly Gentile, worldwide phenomenon from its origins as a Jerusalem-​based, Judaism-​oriented sect of Jewish believers, and how the Holy Spirit was ultimately responsible for this phenomenon of universal salvation based on grace alone.”89 This historical nature of Acts, viewed as normative for believers, is related to Luke’s main intention. This means that the didactic value, or what the narrative was intended to teach, is the primary intent of the narrative. In order to have normative value, historical precedents should be related to the biblical author’s intention. That is, if it can be shown that the biblical author’s intended purpose in the narrative was to establish precedent, then that precedent ought to be considered normative.90 Fee argues that Christian theology, ethics, experience, and practice may be classified as primary or secondary, relying on whether they are derived from what is intended or are derived incidentally by implication. Fee insists that the classical Pentecostals’ doctrine of the baptism in the Spirit accompanied by tongues belongs to the secondary level. He points to a problem with the classical Pentecostals’ hermeneutics of historical precedent: “the use of historical precedent as an analogy by which to establish a norm is never valid in itself. Such a process (drawing universal norms from particular events) produces a non sequitur and is therefore irrelevant.”91 In order to solve this hermeneutical issue, Fee suggests that if a biblical precedent is to justify a present action, the principle behind the action must be taught elsewhere, where the primary intent is to teach this. He emphasizes the necessity of observing how the theme of the baptism in the Holy Spirit and its relationship to tongues is repeated in other biblical texts. For Fee, the primary, normative way of life is to be filled with the Spirit and to walk and live in the Spirit.92 Therefore, for Fee, the charismatic and spiritual experience of the Spirit as a normative value for Christian living needs to be “adhered to by all Christians at all times and in all places, if they are truly to be obedient to God’s word.”93

Howard M. Ervin As a leading scholar in the studies of pneumatic hermeneutics, Howard M. Ervin approaches the task of interpreting the biblical text as a question of epistemology 89 Fee, “Hermeneutics and Historical Precedent,” 125. 90 Fee, “Hermeneutics and Historical Precedent,” 125–​6. 91 Fee, “Hermeneutics and Historical Precedent,” 126–​7, 128 (quotation). 92 Fee, “Hermeneutics and Historical Precedent,” 127–​9. 93 Fee, Gospel and Spirit, 102.

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that is distinct from the classical Pentecostal interpretive method. Ervin views Western culture as providing two ways of knowing: through reason and through sensory experience. When epistemology is understood in this way, theology is left with the perennial dichotomy between faith and reason. Ervin insists that focusing on only one element of the dichotomy reveals that one “has opted for an epistemology that either abdicated faith for reason, or conversely sought to validate faith epistemologically by a category of special pleading in the interests of a propositional theology.” In contrast, emphasizing personal faith alone means one “has tended to abdicate the role of reason in favor of faith in terms of the immediacy of subjective personal experience.”94 The consequence for hermeneutics leads to the problematic options of destructive rationalism versus dogmatic intransigence or nonrational mysticism. Instead, Ervin suggests “an epistemology firmly rooted in the biblical faith with a phenomenology that meets the criteria of empirically verifiable sensory experience (healing, miracles, etc.) and does not violate the coherence of rational categories.”95 Although Ervin assents to approaches of the New Hermeneutic that are responsive to the numinous, he does regard the demythologization of Scripture, which is somewhat connected to the New Hermeneutic, an unnecessary exercise because the modern mind of the believer is more “amenable to the miraculous or even the pseudo-​miraculous.”96 Further, Ervin points out that the demythologization of Scripture is difficult for the modern mind to understand as it fails to identify the biblical text as the Word of God.97 The essence of Ervin’s pneumatic hermeneutic is that the Holy Spirit mediates understanding, giving the reader an existential awareness of the miraculous in the biblical worldview: “the word of God is fundamentally an ontological reality (the incarnation). The biblical precondition for understanding that Word is man’s ontological re-​creation by the Holy Spirit (the new birth).”98 While the cultural, social, and existential commonality of humanity enables an understanding of the “word-​ events,” receiving the Word of God requires a willingness in faith, and “failure to distinguish the transcendent nature of the speaking subject in the word-​event leads to confusion.”99 94 Howard M. Ervin, “Hermeneutics: A Pentecostal Option,” in Essays on Apostolic Themes: Studies in Honor of Howard M. Ervin, ed. Paul Elbert (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2007), 23. 95 Ervin, “Hermeneutics: A Pentecostal Option,” 23. 96 Ervin, “Hermeneutics: A Pentecostal Option,” 26–​7. 97 Ervin, “Hermeneutics: A Pentecostal Option,” 27. 98 Ervin, “Hermeneutics: A Pentecostal Option,” 28. 99 Ervin, “Hermeneutics: A Pentecostal Option,” 27.

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Regarding the relationship between the Word of God “as the spoken existential word” and the Scriptures as the written word, Ervin thinks that the Word of God is distinct, but not separate from, the sacred literature, the Scriptures. To explain this notion, Ervin cites the following by Eastern Orthodox theologian Georges Florovsky: Therein lies the miracle and the mystery of the Bible, that it is the Word of God in human idiom. And in whatever the manner we understand the inspiration, one factor must not be overlooked. The Scriptures transmit and preserve the Word of God precisely in the idiom of man. […] The human idiom does not betray or belittle the splendour of revelation, it does not bind the power of God’s Word. The Word of God may be adequately and rightly expressed in human words.100

Ervin adds that, because of the incarnation, linguistic, literary, and historical analyses are essential as the first step in interpreting the biblical text. However, the task of interpreting the Scriptures needs to be met with a human rationality that is “joined in ontological union with the mind of Christ” and that is “quickened by the Holy Spirit [so] that the divine mystery is understood.”101 As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2:9–​10, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him, God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.” Thus, according to Ervin, how one interprets and reads the Bible is more than an exercise in semantics or descriptive linguistics: When one encounters the Holy Spirit in the same apostolic experience, with the same charismatic phenomenology accompanying it, one is then in a better position to come to terms with the apostolic witness in a truly existential manner. […] One then stands in ‘pneumatic’ continuity with the faith community that birthed the Scriptures.102

In short, according to Ervin, the interpretive approach in biblical interpretation is a truly existential and phenomenological response to the initiative of the Spirit.103

100 Georges Florovsky, Bible, Church, Tradition: An Eastern Orthodox View (Belmont, MA: Nordland, 1972), 15. 101 Ervin, “Hermeneutics: A Pentecostal Option,” 29. 102 Ervin, “Hermeneutics: A Pentecostal Option,” 33. 103 Ervin, “Hermeneutics: A Pentecostal Option,” 34.

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The Classical Pentecostals and the Early Korean Pentecostals The work of Ervin and the other scholars discussed in this chapter reveal that the classical Pentecostals’ unique way of reading the Bible was similar to that of the early Korean Pentecostals. Throughout the chapter, I have identified the core features of this similarity. For the classical Pentecostals, the Bible served as the sole ultimate authority for Christian belief and practice and was a normative source for their lived experience. This lived experience was formed by the Scriptures and functioned as the primary principle of their biblical interpretation. Further, this view was maintained mainly to shed light on the biblical narrative in a way that would enable them to experience the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Thus, the emphasis on supernatural and charismatic religious experiences served as the doctrinal framework that guided the classical Pentecostals to read and interpret the Bible literally, integrated with an emphasis on socioeconomically and racially marginalized people outside of mainstream society. In other words, just as was true for the early Korean Pentecostals, the classical Pentecostals’ emphasis on the immediacy of the biblical text represented an attempt to have authentic experiences with God and also to practice love for those who were oppressed by relying on the perspicuity of Scripture. Some Pentecostal scholars argue that the classical Pentecostals mainly read the Bible ahistorically, which served to limit their grasp of the original intent and literary senses and settings of the text. These scholars might agree with Russell Spittler’s argument that “Scripture had not dropped from heaven as a sacred meteor that arrived intact.”104 This is related to discovering what the Scripture says in its original context. However, emphasizing only the historical contexts of biblical narratives prevents the reader from engaging in a transformative reading of the Bible, which is a properly existential project. The next chapter explores the interpretation theory of Paul Ricoeur in order to develop the hermeneutical concept of the reader’s world being transformed by the new world that the text opens to the reader.

104 Russell P. Spittler, “Scripture and the Theological Enterprise: View from a Big Canoe,” in The Use of the Bible in Theology: Evangelical Options, ed. Robert K. Johnston (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 1997), 63.

CHAPTER THREE

Paul Ricoeur’s Hermeneutical Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning

French philosopher Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutics attempts to mediate between objectively reconstructing the meaning of a text in its original context and achieving a new and deeper insight into what a text reveals, which Ricoeur refers to as appropriating a text. Ricoeur’s approach emphasizes the historical context of the text and also the possibility of facilitating the reader’s experiential encounter with the text, thus going beyond the affirmation of the historicity and immediacy of the biblical text characteristic of the early Korean Pentecostal interpretive method. Unlike Pentecostal scholars who seek to discover the author’s original intent in the process of interpreting the biblical text, Ricoeur insists that the intention of the author is in no way normative for the task of interpretation. Rather, he asserts that the reader needs to understand the propositions about the world that are opened up by what the text points to.1 Ricoeur’s proposal is a viable interpretive option for contemporary Korean Pentecostals who have a more critical and less simplistic worldview than that of their predecessors. In their more socioeconomically and intellectually developed context, contemporary Korean Pentecostals need to personally re-​experience the 1 Josef Bleicher, Contemporary Hermeneutics (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980), 217–​ 18; Paul Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning (Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1976), 80–​8.

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text by moving away from an emphasis on the immediate meaning of the text toward the historical contexts and symbolic nature of Scripture. In the process of interpreting symbols, Ricoeur proposes employing a dialectical movement between explanation and understanding in which the reader moves from understanding to explanation and then from explanation to comprehension. In other words, the reader moves from a surface semantics (the first naïveté) to a depth semantics (the second naïveté). According to Ricoeur, the explanation, or what he calls the critical consciousness, will then mediate between the first stage of understanding and the second stage of understanding. The result, in the second naïveté, enables the reader to appropriate and comprehend on a deep level the meaning or symbols of the text. When this happens, the reader is offered a possible way of being in the world—​a new way of living in the world—​by the world created by the biblical text. Ultimately, the reader’s mode of being is transformed through such an encounter.2

Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning In Ricoeur’s interpretation theory, the meaning of human actions and events is mediated through spoken and written discourse. Ricoeur views hermeneutics as “the theory of the operations of understanding in their relation to the interpretation of texts.”3 Ricoeur’s hermeneutical theory structures interpretation using four categories: (1) language as discourse, (2) speaking and writing, (3) metaphor and symbol, and, lastly, (4) explanation and understanding. Ricoeur develops his theory for the interpretation of texts through a detailed explanation of each category. In the first stage, Ricoeur examines spoken discourse as an event of meaning involving both sense and reference. In the second, his attention shifts from spoken to written discourse, concentrating on how meaning in a written text relates to the speaker, hearer, code, mode of discourse, and reference. In the third stage, Ricoeur’s exposition focuses on an analysis of the surplus of meaning with the concept of metaphors and symbols. In the last stage, Ricoeur concentrates on the hermeneutics of reading, explaining the process of how one comprehends an inscribed text (guess, validation, explanation, and understanding). His interpretation theory concludes with an account of how one appropriates the meaning of a text and a new way of being in the world. This chapter examines the particulars of each of these categories of Ricoeur’s interpretation theory. 2 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 74, 75, 87, 94–​5. 3 Paul Ricoeur, “The Task of Hermeneutics,” in Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences, trans. and ed. John B. Thompson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 3.

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Language as Discourse The achievements of modern linguistics have resulted in more attention being given to the structure and system of language. This tendency, triggered by the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure’s proposal of structural linguistics, has led to the neglect of the meaning of language relative to the structure or system of language and, as a result, in the larger context the discussion of the problem of discourse has declined.4 In this context, Ricoeur attempts to reestablish the original position of the discourse. Here, Ricoeur discusses the problem of discourse through the dialectic of event and meaning while examining the structural model of langue (French for “language”) and parole (French for “word”). Ricoeur argues that Saussure’s work, which depends on the fundamental distinction between langue and parole, led to the withdrawal of the problem of discourse. Ricoeur thus attempts to legitimize the distinction between semiotics (the study of signs, or expressions that communicate meaning) and semantics (the study of the meanings of words) by highlighting that language relies on two entities, signs and sentences.5 In addition, by searching for criteria for differentiating between semiotics and semantics, Ricoeur is able to examine the dialectic of event and meaning in discourse. Langue and Parole: The Structural Model. Saussure criticizes traditional linguistics in his treatise Course in General Linguistics, published in 1916. Whereas traditional linguistics focuses on the historical evolution of languages, Saussure aims at describing a language at a specific point in time, usually the present. This contrasts with most of Saussure’s predecessors. They approached language diachronically (focusing on change through time), but Saussure dealt with language in a synchronic way (focusing on the events or phenomena of a particular period without considering historical antecedents). Regarding Saussure’s study of language, Ricoeur defines langue as the code—​ or the set of codes—​and parole as a particular message.6 Ricoeur argues that the meaning of discourse is further diminished by Saussure’s language dichotomy because the structural model is applied to larger linguistic entities beyond phonological systems (sounds, written patterns, gestures). This implies a theoretical comprehension of the axioms that govern semiology in general. Ricoeur divides the axioms of the structural model into four areas: (1) a synchronic approach has to 4 Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics, trans. Wade Baskin and ed. Perry Meisel and Haun Saussy (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011). 5 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 1–​7. 6 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 3.

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precede any diachronic approach, so exploring the history of changes comes after describing the synchronic states of the system; (2) a finite set of discrete entities has its own combinatory capacity; (3) no entity in the structure of the system has its own meaning—​thus, the meaning of a word comes from its confrontation with other lexical units of the same system; and (4) in such a system, because all the relations are inherent to the system, they have nothing to do with external and nonsemiotic reality.7 Ricoeur argues that these axioms have ahistorical features through the concept of diachrony because they exclude the act of speaking. This makes the text an isolated object that is not confined by a historical boundary; here, no preunderstanding can exist, so the hermeneutic circle becomes impossible. Thus, language must be observed not only as a system but also as an event. In this regard, Saussure’s distinction between language as langue and as parole needs to be overcome by the act of speech, and in order to unify the two, not only the structural and semiotic but also the functional and semantic aspects of language are required. Ricoeur claims that such a narrow analysis of language must be balanced by semantic analysis, namely, “a two dimensional approach for which language relies on two irreducible entities, signs and sentences.”8 Semantics versus Semiotics: The Sentence. Ricoeur sees the distinction between semantics and semiotics as the key to analyzing the whole problem of language. He therefore replaces parole with discourse, which Saussure considered a secondary concept to legitimate the distinction between semiotics and semantics that corresponds to the two distinct units of the sign and the sentence in language.9 The distinction between semiotics and semantics is made clear by the sentence, which is realized in discourse. Only the sentence is actual because Ricoeur thinks that merely expanding the lexicon through the methodology of semiotics cannot pass from the word as the sign to the sentence. Ricoeur therefore asserts that the sentence is not just an expansion of words but a new entity.10 Furthermore, Ricoeur develops five characteristics of discourse, supplementing Saussure’s views, through the phenomenology of speech. First, discourse should take place in the present (in the structuralism represented by Saussure, the system has a potential and atemporal character). Second, discourse involves a series of choices of particular meanings that can be accepted or sometimes excluded. Third, 7 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 4–​6. 8 Ricoeur, “Structure and Hermeneutics,” 33; Ricoeur, “Structure, Word, Event,” 84–​5; Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 6 (quotation). 9 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 8 10 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 7.

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these choices produce new combinations. Here, the new combinations are made to emit new sentences and to understand the sentences. This is related to the act of speaking and of comprehending what is spoken. Fourth, language as used in discourse has a reference; that is, “to speak is to say something about something.” Here, “to say something” is related to the matter of meaning, and “to say something about something” means moving from meaning to reference. This reference points to something outside the spoken discourse. As a result, discourse is associated with external reality. Fifth, someone speaking to someone is the nature of the act of communication (in structuralism, however, it is expressed as something anonymous, done not by a specific speaker but by a combination of signs). The system of signs therefore should be realized and supplemented through the act of communication.11 To sum up, Ricoeur concentrates on a semantic approach to the examination of language because semantics identifies that although a sentence is comprised of individual signs and words, its meaning is not reducible to those signs and words. Instead, the meaning of a sentence is a synthetic product of the sentence as a whole, not merely of its structure of signs and words. Ricoeur does not, however, exclude semiotics. His intention is to emphasize an aspect of semantics that had been overlooked relative to semiotics and to “legitimate the distinction between semiotics and semantics.”12 The Dialectic of Event and Meaning. Ricoeur also explores the criteria that differentiate semantics and semiotics. He establishes the dialectic of event and meaning in discourse. This dialectic of event and meaning is based on the structure of the subject and the object. He first looks at one side of the event and then describes the other side of the meaning.13 Discourse is both an event and a predication; discourse is an act, and it attributes (predicates) characteristics to a subject. Based on the above examination of the features of discourse through the phenomenology of speech, the fact that discourse takes place in time could mean that discourse has an epistemological weakness because temporal events vanish while semiotic systems remain. The first thing, therefore, that a semantics of discourse has to do is to determine the ontological priority of discourse resulting from the actuality of the event.14 By paying attention to the message in discourse, Ricoeur emphasizes the durational and successional actuality in an event. According to Ricoeur, through the 11 Ricoeur, “Structure, Word, Event,” 86–​8. 12 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 7. 13 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 8. 14 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 9.

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message, discourse may be spoken over and over again instead of temporarily vanishing or being spoken in another language. That is to say, the message of discourse is a successional actuality through a recurring and transformational process. Discourse thus preserves an identity of its own because the propositional content it contains (what is said) is not just a transitory event.15 However, it can be said that although discourse as an event can maintain its identity and establish actuality through the message, its actuality is not necessarily identified with objectivity and universality. In other words, it is necessary to look at what preserves the propositional content, or what is said. Only then can the ontological priority of discourse be justified. Ricoeur finds this objective aspect of an event of discourse in the fact that a sentence always needs a predicate (the part of a sentence that contains a verb and states something about the subject). Ricoeur agrees with Benveniste’s statement that the grammatical subject may be missing in a sentence but not the predicate. A significant aspect of the predicate is revealed on the basis of the antithesis between subject and predicate. When a subject bears a singular identification, what the predicate says about the subject is considered a universal characteristic of the subject. A subject defines a fact or thing through grammatical devices such as proper names, pronouns, demonstratives, and definite descriptions to represent something unique. The predicate, on the other hand, appears as a specific kind, class, or type that classifies a quality, relation, or action.16 In this context, it can be said that meaning can be revealed when the functions of the predicate are related to the function of the subject. The subject here has singularity, whereas the predicate becomes universal, conceptualizing the proposition as the object of the speech event and giving a specific content to it. This process of discussion shows that discourse is not merely an event that vanishes quickly, as the simple confrontation between langue and parole suggests. In addition, discourse has its own structure, but it is not the analytical structure that structuralism refers to. Rather, discourse has a synthetic structure of meaning in which the functions of identification and predication interplay.17 On the basis of this, the discussion of the dialectic of event and meaning is made possible through the interaction of subject and predicates. Discourse relies on the concrete whole that is the dialectical unification of the event and the sense in the sentence. The role of the discourse aspect as an event is to grant actuality to the discourse against the abstraction of the langue. It is only justified as a way 15 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 9. 16 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 10–​11. 17 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 11.

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of opposing the reduction to the structural aspects of language as langue because the notion of speech as an event prevents the discussion of discourse from falling into a linguistics of the code and offers instead the key to a linguistics of the message. Thus, discourse as an event establishes its own position only when it visually reveals the relation of actualization.18 If discourse is not a unilateral monologue, then it must be understood. This is the aspect of discourse as meaning, not as an event. The word meaning here refers to the clear meaning that results from the synthesis of the identification function and the predication function. What we understand is not a transient event but the durational meaning of the event, namely, the intertwining of noun and verb. Here, the dialectic of the event of sense is evident. In the meaning of the intertwining of noun and verb, event is suppressed and surpassed at the same time, which attests to the relationship between noesis and noema.19 Thus, in Ricoeur’s hermeneutics of discourse and event, it can be said that “if all discourse is actualized as an event, all discourse is understood as meaning.”20 The Utterer’s Meaning and the Meaning of the Utterance. In the dialectic of event and meaning in which the discourse, which is actualized as an event, is understood as meaning, the concept of meaning enables two interpretations. Meaning is both what the speaker intends to say and what the sentence means. Here, the former is associated with noesis, referring to the speaker’s intention, whereas the latter is related to noema, in which the combination of the identification function and the predication function yields meaning.21 The fact that discourse is connected to its speaker is related to the aspect of the event in the dialectic of event and sense because discourse pays attention to the specific situation of the speaker. However, if the speaker’s meaning does not end by simply being reduced to a psychological intention, it can be approached in terms of the propositional aspect of the self-​reference of discourse. That is to say, the meaning of the speaker influences the meaning of the utterance.22

18 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 11. 19 In the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl, noesis refers to the act of understanding and noema relates to the object that is understood. A specific noema may generate multiple acts of noesis. See Edmund Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie II: Phänomenologische Untersuchungen zur Konstitution [Ideas regarding a Pure Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy II: Phenomenological Analysis regarding Constitution]. (The Hague, Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff, 1952), 161. 20 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 12. 21 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 12. 22 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 13.

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A question arises here regarding the basis on which this is possible. Focusing on semantics, which is distinguished from semiotics, Ricoeur notes that “the inner structure of the sentence refers back to its speaker through grammatical procedures.”23 The reference to a speaker is first made through the personal pronoun, among several grammatical devices. The personal pronoun has a new meaning each time it is utilized. The I, which appears as a logical subject in the sentence, becomes the person who refers to themself in the act of speech. Therefore, the personal pronoun’s only function is to “refer the whole sentence to the subject of the speech event.”24 Along with this personal pronoun, the tenses of the verb are concentrated around the present, referring to the “now” of the speech event, and the adverbs of time and space cause the discourse to refer back to the speaker again. Ricoeur asserts that these grammatical devices of the self-​reference of discourse have two advantages. On the one hand, they reflect a new standard of the difference between discourse and linguistic codes, and on the other hand, they are able to define the speaker’s meaning semantically in a nonpsychological aspect.25 Ricoeur further reifies his discussion by presenting two elements that reinforce this semantic approach: (1) the characteristics of locutionary (saying) and illocutionary (doing) acts and (2) the semantic features of the interlocutionary act. First, looking at the locutionary and illocutionary acts, it is the speaker who does what they say when they say something. For instance, when one says, “I promise to do something,” one actually promises—​puts oneself under the obligation of doing what one says one will do. This “doing” is effected by the grammatical devices (the tenses of the verb and adverbs), as mentioned above. Hence, the locutionary and illocutionary acts follow a specific grammar, and through such grammatical devices psychological concepts such as believing, wanting, or desiring gain a semantic existence.26 The interlocutionary act is characterized by preserving the symmetry with the illocutionary aspect of the act of speech. This is made possible by acknowledging that there is another speaker who is addressed in the discourse, which is one of the significant aspects of discourse. Since the speaker and the listener exist in a pair, language inevitably has the form of communication, and consequently, “[D]‌ialogue is an essential structure of discourse.”27

23 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 13. 24 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 13. 25 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 13–​14. 26 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 14. 27 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 15.

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This being together as the existential condition is required in any dialogical structure, and this suggests a way which the fundamental solitude of each human being can be overcome. The something which is transferred through dialogue in the being-​together is not the experience as experienced but its meaning. Since the experience is private, each human being is in a state of solitude, but the meaning of the experience is public, which overcomes the noncommunicability and solitude of communication.28 In summary, in the dialectic of event and meaning, language is itself the process by which a private experience turns into a public one. Language accordingly is an externalization, thanks to which an impression is surpassed and becomes an expression. In addition, exteriorization and communicability are simultaneously achieved by transforming the psychic experience of the speaker into the noetic. The turning of this psychic experience into public communication and the exteriorization of the personal can be expressed as the subjective pole of the dialectic of event and meaning in discourse. Therefore, to mean is what the speaker does and at the same time to mean is also what the sentence does.29 Meaning as Sense and Reference. Ricoeur examines two aspects of the objective side of discourse, the utterance meaning: (1) the what of discourse and (2) the about what of discourse. Here, the what of discourse is related to the matter of sense, and the about what of discourse is its reference. The object side of meaning thus is subdivided into two categories: sense and reference.30 Ricoeur tries to associate the issue of sense and reference with the distinction between semiotics and semantics, and he asserts that language is directed beyond itself only at the sentence level; signs only point to other signs within the system. Whereas the sense is immanent and objective in a sentence, the reference expresses the movement in which language transcends itself. The what of discourse is sense, which is immanent in the sentence, and the about what is the reference that goes beyond the sentence. In other words, the sense is related to the identification function and the 28 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 15–​16. 29 In communication, personal experience struggles to become public. As Ricoeurian scholar David Klemm puts it, “For self-​awareness to have content and therefore genuine meaning, the self must appropriate the expressions of its desire to be and effort to exist in the symbols, narratives, actions, and institutions that objectify it. Because for Ricoeur the ‘I am’ always precedes the ‘I think,’ we live deeper than we think.” David Klemm, “Searching for a Heart of Gold,” in Paul Ricoeur and Contemporary Moral Thought, ed. John Wall, William Schweiker, and W. David Hall (New York: Routledge, 2002), 101. 30 Paul Ricoeur, The Rule of Metaphor: The Creation of Meaning in Language, trans. Robert Czerny with Kathleen McLaughlin and John Costello (New York: Routledge, 2003), 222–​8; Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 19.

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predicative function in the sentence and the reference is correlated with the world outside of language. Discourse thus has the meaning of both sense and reference. The sense overcomes the temporality of the event by linking the identification and predicative functions together in the sense, whereas the reference relates to the world beyond the sentence.31 Here, Ricoeur requires a significant precondition for the relationship between sense and reference, which is that language gets a reference only when it is utilized. This means that the same meaning may or may not refer to something, depending on the situation or circumstance of the act of discourse. In other words, if no sentence is used, then no inner mark establishes a dependable criterion of denotation. Consequently, this shows that the dialectic of sense and reference is an extension of the previous dialectic of event and meaning.32 Because the speaker’s intention is expressed as a speech event and this speech event has its own structure in the sense, it develops through this into a form that refers to something again.33 Moreover, Ricoeur points out that this dialectic of sense and reference only says something about the relationship between the ontological condition of being in the world and language. Language is not a world of its own; human beings live in a variety of contexts and situations and express their experience in language. This notion of bringing experience toward language is an ontological condition that constitutes the reference. This is because there must be something to say first—​people have to have an experience to bring that experience to language. If language were not fundamentally referential, it is questionable whether it would or could have meaning. It is understood through meaning that a sign stands for something, and if a sign is not directed toward something in discourse, then eventually semiotics remains a mere abstraction of semantics. According to Ricoeur, this is because “the semiotic definition of the sign as an inner difference between signifier and signified presupposes its semantic definition as reference to the thing for which it stands.”34 The most concrete definition of semantics, therefore, is the 31 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 19–​20. 32 Klemm explains the sense and reference dynamic as follows: “Whereas the sense of discourse is objective and immanent in the discourse while pointing beyond itself in indicating something outside it as referent, the referent must be given independently of the grasping of the sense, though it is locatable only through the clues in the sense. The referential function of discourse relates language to the world and thereby establishes the correspondence-​relation by which discourse can claim to be true.” David E. Klemm, The Hermeneutical Theory of Paul Ricoeur: A Constructive Analysis (Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University, 1983), 79. 33 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 20. 34 Ricoeur highlights the relations between the signifier and the signified as follows: “These two aspects are the signifier—​for example, a sound, a written pattern, a gesture, or any physical medium—​and the signified—​the differential value in the lexical system. […] [T]‌he signifier and

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theory that “relates the inner or immanent constitution of the sense to the outer or transcendent intention of the reference.”35 This general signification of the problem of reference is very broad; not only the meaning of speech but also the meaning of the speaker, which is the subjective side of discourse, is expressed in a referential language that reveals the speaker in the structure of the discourse. Discourse simultaneously refers out to the world and back to the speaker; therefore, discourse is carried out and used to refer to a speaker and a world together, back and forth.

Speaking and Writing Ricoeur focuses on two purposes of written discourse. First, he notes that the shift from speaking to inscription has its own conditions of possibility in the theory of spoken discourse, particularly in the dialectic of event and meaning.36 Second, Ricoeur wants to approach the problem of distanciation that accompanies the transition from speaking to writing. Distanciation is considered a necessary byproduct of the process of writing. The semantic autonomy of a text means that once an author writes a text and makes it available for people to read, that text has an independent existence separate from the author’s ability to control it.37 Ricoeur explores what happens when the act of speech is replaced by writing by focusing on the medium, the speaker, the hearer, the code, the mode of discourse, the reference, and the hermeneutical problem of distanciation. I deal with each of these points in order. Message and Medium (Fixation). Transitioning from speaking to writing, the discourse is fixed and the human facts disappear.38 Instead of relying solely on immediate vocal and facial expressions and gestures, discourse is fixed in some exterior bearer (a medium) such as stone, papyrus, or paper. Now, the meaning is delivered by material marks. But the significant fact at this point is that language as the signified allow for two different kinds of analysis—​phonological in the first case, semantical in the second.” He accentuates that language needs to be treated as a “self-​sufficient system of inner relationship” and also claims that the semiotic approach to linguistics ought to be balanced by a semantic analysis, namely, “a two-​dimensional approach for which language relies on two irreducible entities, signs and sentences.” Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 6. 35 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 20–​2. 36 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 25. 37 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 25; Paul Ricoeur, “The Hermeneutical Function of Distanciation,” in Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences, trans. and ed. John B. Thompson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 93–​106. 38 Human facts here mean the immediate vocal, physiognomic, or gestural expressions. See Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 26.

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discourse is fixed but language as langue is not. This is because the eventful characteristics of discourse only exist in the present moment; they become fixed through writing.39 Here, Ricoeur is pointing out the linguistic characteristics of semantics rather than the linguistics of semiotics (or signs). Writing ultimately rescues the event of discourse because “what writing actually does fix is not the event of speaking but the ‘said’ of speaking.’ ”40 In writing, the grammatical marks express this dialectic of event and meaning in an exterior and public way. The meaning of discourse exteriorizes itself in the sentence and at the same time confirms the locutionary act and the inner structure of the sentence as the same. Because of this externalized meaning, the illocutionary act can also be expressed in the propositional meaning.41 Ricoeur refers to this externalized meaning as the semantic autonomy of the text. This is especially evident in the relationship between the speaker and the listener, who are bipolar in terms of their dialogue. Message and Speaker. First, looking at the semantic autonomy revealed in the relation of the message to the speaker, when the face-​to-​face relation between speaking and hearing is replaced by the more complex relation between reading and writing, the face-​to-​face dialogical situation is exploded. In spoken discourse, the speaker is there, in the genuine sense of being there, because the speaker belongs to the situation of interlocution. Consequently, what the speaker means and what the discourse means appear to be the same thing.42 In the case of written discourse, in contrast, there is a dissociation between the mental intention of the author and the textual meaning. The written discourse here does not just remain in the fixation of the previous oral discourse but also refers to the semantic autonomy of the text. However, the semantic autonomy of the text does not necessarily exclude the authorial meaning and conception.43 In Ricoeur’s phrase, “[T]‌he text’s career escapes the finite horizon lived by its author.”44 Here, Ricoeur emphasizes the dialectic of event and meaning. Through this event and meaning dialectic, Ricoeur is able to overcome the priority given to the author’s intention, which is considered to be characteristic of the Romanticist tradition of hermeneutics represented by Friedrich Schleiermacher and Wilhelm Dilthey. If one grasps the relation between event and meaning as nondialectic, then one may fall into one of two tendencies in interpreting the text: (1) the intentional 39 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 26. 40 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 27. 41 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 26–​7. 42 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 29. 43 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 29–​30. 44 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 30.

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fallacy and (2) the fallacy of the absolute text. The intentional fallacy presumes that the reader is able to know the author better than the author knew themself through the reader’s interpretation of the text. Romanticist interpretation is a representative example of this kind of interpretation because it sets the criterion for the valid interpretation of an author’s writing as identifying the author’s intention through an investigation of the author’s other writings and social context. Ricoeur argues that in such cases the reader may fall into the fallacy that views the author’s intention in the text as the criterion for its interpretation.45 At the opposite extreme is the “fallacy of the absolute text,” namely, the fallacy of treating the text as having no author. This means that the author and their context are irrelevant to the interpretation of a text. For Ricoeur, the fallacy of the absolute text “forgets that a text remains a discourse told by somebody, said by someone to someone else about something.”46 In this sense, texts are not natural objects, so the semantic autonomy of texts reveals and facilitates the dialectic of event and meaning in texts. Ricoeur comments: The authorial meaning becomes properly a dimension of the text to the extent that the author is not available for question. When the text no longer answers, then it has an author and no longer a speaker. The authorial meaning is the dialectical counterpart of the verbal meaning, and they have to be constructed in terms of each other.47

For Ricoeur, these concepts of author and authorial meaning and intent raise hermeneutical problems related to semantic autonomy. Message and Hearer. The shift from speech to writing changes not only our understanding of the author and the speaker but also the circumstance of the listener and the reader, that is, the semantic autonomy in relation to the hearer. In spoken discourse, dialogue is understood as an interpersonal event in which speaker and listener participate in numerous plans for exchanging meaning, whereas in 45 Klemm, The Hermeneutical Theory of Paul Ricoeur, 79; Friedrich Schleiermacher, Hermeneutik und Kritik [Hermeneutics and Criticism], ed. Manfred Frank (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1977), 325–​8; Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 30. 46 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 30. 47 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 30. Regarding semantic autonomy from the original context of discourse, discourse that is spoken in a particular psychological and sociological context will be read under completely new circumstances through written language. According to Ricoeur, the text is an open literary work that transcends the psycho-​sociological context of discourse. Text is fixed through writing and decontextualizing from the circumstance of discourse and ought to be recontextualized itself in a new situation in the act of reading. The written text consequently is able to have semantic autonomy from the original situation of discourse by transiting from the relations of speaking and hearing to those of writing and reading. Ricoeur, “The Hermeneutical Function of Distanciation,” 101.

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written discourse this dynamic relationship of exchanged meaning and event is exploded. Written discourse is usually not addressed to a specific reader but instead is opened to a universe of unknown readers. This causes a kind of paradox, as Ricoeur notes: “Because discourse is now linked to a material support, it becomes more spiritual in the sense that it is liberated from the narrowness of the face-​ to-​face situation.”48 However, this universalization of the hearer is only potential. Reading is a social phenomenon that is constrained by specific limitations because the reader of the written discourse is subject to certain social situations and historical limitations. “A work also creates its public,” Ricoeur insists; “it enlarges the circle of communication and properly initiates new modes of communication.”49 Therefore, text appears as a dialectic of meaning and event. This dialectic is exhibited between the semantic autonomy of the text, which creates the hearer of the text, and the response of the reader, which makes the text significant. Reading thus is in dialectical opposition to the semantic autonomy of the text. This means that the reader is presented with the problem of appropriating the meaning of the text instead of understanding the meaning of the author. As a result, the rights or privileges of the reader and of the text converge in a dialectical manner, thereby generating the whole dynamic of interpretation. In Ricoeur’s words, “Hermeneutics begins where dialogue ends.”50 Message and Code. Ricoeur considers a third implication of the shift from speaking to writing, namely, the production of literary genres. He recognizes that the function of literary genres is significant in the relationship between meaning and code. The various literary genres are generative devices that produce various modes of discourse, such as poem, narrative, or essay. Literary genres thus are related to discourse in that they form an overall framework for individual sentences. To this end, literary genres serve as codes of writing “only in an indirect, but nevertheless decisive way.” In this respect, literary genres produce “organic wholes irreducible to a mere addition of sentences.”51 This is accomplished by treating discourse as the stuff to be shaped when discourse is transferred to the realm of production through literary genres, just as production takes place when a form is applied to some matter to shape it. Here, literature presented through writing has the status of language both as written and as a work because the written text embraces the productive rules of literary composition. On this basis, Ricoeur speaks of inscription as “a material support, the 48 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 31. 49 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 31. 50 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 32. 51 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 32.

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semantic autonomy of the text as regards both the speaker and the hearer, and all the related traits of exteriority characteristic of writing.” In this way, works of discourse, through writing and literary genres according to the rules of literary composition, tend to correspond with each other without being identical processes.52 Hence, literary genres related to writing apply dynamic forms to sets of sentences. The written discourse here is presupposed to be submitted to literary genres through which people have access to the act of producing works of art. According to Ricoeur, the author is not only the speaker but is also the producer of the work.53 Message and Reference. Another consideration in the transition from speaking to inscription is the issue of the referential function of discourse. In spoken discourse, the reference is associated with the question of whether it can show the thing referred to as part of a situation common to both speaker and hearer. The indicators used here provide singular identifications. These singular identifications take place within the spatio-​temporal here and now, especially in an interlocutionary situation. In this respect, all references of spoken discourse depend on monstrations (showings of itself ), and these monstrations rely on the situations of those who participate in the dialogue. In the end, all references in a dialogical situation are entirely situational. In the context of writing, however, a gap appears between identification and monstration due to the absence of a common situation between the writer and the reader. The text has semantic autonomy separate from the present of the writer. The written discourse as text manifests a semantic autonomy that severs it from the present of the writer and opens it to an unknown range of potential readers living in an undetermined time.54 Ricoeur continues by proposing that there is a twofold expansion of the reference in the shift from speaking to writing. The first-​level change in the spatio-​ temporal reference of written discourse is expressed in writings such as letters, travel reports, geographical descriptions, diaries, historical monographs, and other descriptive accounts of reality. These sorts of written discourse imply a disintegrating of the immediate and shared referential experience of spoken discourse. Moreover, in these kinds of written discourse, the immediacy of place and time, which is the nature of spoken discourse, is no longer shared by the writer and reader. Rather, Ricoeur claims, “[T]‌he heres and theres of the text may be tacitly referred to the absolute here and there of the reader.”55 That is, the text is freed from the limits of 52 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 33 (quotation), 33–​4. 53 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 33. 54 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 34–​5. 55 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 35.

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situational reference. Thus, the freedom from situational reference brought about through writing results in the formation of a world in the text, which for Ricoeur is the collection of references opened up by the texts. In Ricoeur’s thinking, worlds are not the imaged situations of those who lived in a particular time and place; rather, they “designate the nonsituational references displayed by the descriptive accounts of reality,” meaning that the text’s references are free from the limits of the situational references.56 A second-​level extension of the referential function of discourse is related to writing as the channel of literature. It can be said that the spatio-​temporal connections between author and reader are not quite as close in some forms of literary writing as they are in other forms of writing. For instance, in fictional narratives, the situational gap between writer and reader may span centuries. Since the text was inscribed, cultures and customs may have come and gone. Descriptions in the text may be obfuscated or incomprehensible. However, Ricoeur does not mean that this destroys the referential function of the text. Instead, he emphasizes that discourse must be about something because the reference is not repealed but is divided or split. Ricoeur argues that the elimination of the descriptive reference frees the power of reference to aspects of being in the world that cannot be said in a direct and descriptive way but can only be alluded to indirectly. He credits this possibility to the referential values of metaphoric and symbolic expressions.57 Here, Ricoeur accentuates the relationship between his concept of world and the text, saying: For me, the world is the ensemble of references opened up by every kind of text, descriptive or poetic, that I have read, understood, and loved. And to understand a text is to interpolate among the predicates of our situation all the significations that make a Welt [world] out of our Umwelt [environment]. It is this enlarging of our horizon of existence that permits us to speak of the references opened up by the text or of the world opened up by the referential claims of most texts.58

Therefore, through the emancipation from situational references, the text forms the ensemble of references—​the world. In addition, the world of the text liberates the power of a more comprehensive and fundamental reference through the channel of literature, namely, metaphoric and symbolic expressions. Through this liberation, written discourse has the potential to project a world of its own.

56 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 36. 57 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 36–​7. 58 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 37.

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Inscription and Productive Distanciation. The final step in Ricoeur’s examination of the transition from speaking to writing relates to the act of reading and interpreting texts. When the problem of writing is related to reading, a hermeneutical problem arises. Here, as the exteriorization of discourse is ultimately justified, a new dialectic of distanciation and appropriation emerges. Distanciation can be understood literally as alienation. Reading is the task of discovering a new proximity that suppresses the cultural distance and encompasses the otherness by rescuing the meaning of the text from the estrangement caused by distanciation. This is where appropriation takes place. Its purpose is to make one’s own what was alien. Here, that which is foreign is a sort of “distance” that can be seen as the actual spatial and temporal gap between the reader and the discourse. Thus, the dialectic of distanciation and appropriation can be understood as “a struggle between the otherness that transforms all spatial and temporal distance into cultural estrangement and the ownness by which all understanding aims at the extension of self-​ understanding.”59 For instance, when the tradition (the historically transmitted cultural heritage) loses the naïveté of the first certainty, then one has to retrieve its meaning beyond the estrangement. Interpretation, ontologically or philosophically understood, is “an attempt to make estrangement and distanciation productive.”60 To sum up, Ricoeur’s explanation of the dynamics related to the transition from spoken to written discourse provides an understanding of the meaning within a text that relies on the concepts of (1) the author and authorial meaning, (2) the semantic autonomy of the text in relation to the hearer, and (3) productive distanciation and appropriation. Ricoeur’s semantic analysis emphasizes that written discourse exists in a particular way and generates meaning.

Metaphor and Symbol In this section, I discuss Ricoeur’s concentration on extending the theory of interpretation through the concepts of metaphor and symbol, which produce a surplus of meaning. Ricoeur first explores the innovative semantics of the theory of metaphor as a preparatory analysis leading up to his theory of the symbol. With the significance of his theory of the symbol, Ricoeur attempts to extend his interpretation theory by including not only verbal double-​meaning but also nonverbal double-​ meaning. This section begins with an analysis of the theory and rule of metaphor. The Rule of Metaphor. Ricoeur begins his analysis by introducing his theory of metaphor. Previously, he examined the shift from spoken to written discourse; 59 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 43. 60 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 43–​4.

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here, he explores the literal and figurative meaning of a metaphor with regard to the semantic characteristics of a sentence. Ricoeur considers the metaphor “the touchstone of the cognitive value of literary works.”61 He seeks to incorporate the surplus of meaning of metaphors into the arena of semantics with his theory of verbal signification.62 According to Ricoeur, the traditional notion of the metaphor originated in Aristotle’s use of metaphors in his Rhetoric and Poetics.63 Classical rhetorical theory considers the metaphor a trope and a figure that can be substituted for another to generate new meanings. The transposition of names and words, substituting a literal meaning with a figurative meaning, produces new integrations. In this understanding, according to Ricoeur, the purpose of a figurative signification is either “to fill a semantic lacuna in the lexical code or to ornament discourse and make it more pleasing.”64 Ricoeur schematizes the substitution theory of the rhetorical model of the metaphor (which he disagrees with) as follows: (1) metaphor is a trope, a figure of discourse that concerns denomination; (2) it represents the extension of meaning of a name through deviation from the literal meaning of words; (3) the reason for this deviation is resemblance; (4) the function of resemblance is to ground the substitution of the figurative meaning of a word in place of a literal meaning, which could have been used in the same place; (5) hence, the substituted signification does not represent a semantic innovation, and a metaphor can be translated by replacing the literal meaning for which the figurative word is a substitute; and (6) since it does not represent a semantic innovation, a metaphor does not furnish any new information about reality. This is why metaphors are considered to have emotive functions in discourse; they evoke emotions.65 According to the rhetorical model, a metaphor does not say anything new and is simply is used to ornament language. Ricoeur does not accept the presuppositions 61 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 45. 62 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 45. 63 Aristotle, “Rhetoric,” in The Complete Works of Aristotle, vol. 2, trans. W. Rhys Roberts and ed. Jonathan Barnes (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), 2152–​69; Aristotle, “Poetics,” in The Complete Works of Aristotle, trans. I. Bywater, 2316–​40. 64 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 48. 65 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 49; Ricoeur offers a more abridged description of the substitution theory of the rhetorical model of metaphor, describing the sequence as “the opposition between the ‘ordinary’ word and the ‘strange’ word, and the deviating character of the second when compared with the first; the transfer of the meaning of the ‘borrowed’ word to the thing to be named; the ‘substitution’ of one word for another that could have been used in the same place; the possibility of ‘restoring’ this other word; the ornate character of metaphorical style; and the pleasure one takes in this style.” Ricoeur, The Rule of Metaphor, 53.

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of classical rhetoric and instead develops his own tension theory of the metaphor. First, Ricoeur rejects the first presupposition that a metaphor is “simply an accident of denomination, a displacement in the signification of words.”66 Instead, a metaphor is better understood as a phenomenon associated with the operation of predication produced at the level of the sentence or discourse. In other words, two or more terms are embraced in tensive relationship with each other. This semantic approach to metaphor has to do with the semantics of the sentence more than the semantics of a particular word.67 Second, Ricoeur refrains from taking a literal approach to metaphoric meaning. The semantic autonomy of a metaphor in a sentence proposes that before considering any deviation from the literal meaning of the words, it is important to address the operation of predication at the level of the sentence. The tension occurring in the metaphoric utterance is not between two terms but rather between literal interpretation and metaphoric interpretation. In this sense, the metaphor is sustained by the absurdity that results from attempting to interpret the utterance literally.68 Thus, according to Ricoeur, the metaphorical meaning of an utterance only emerges when the literal interpretation self-​destructs or transforms itself with the help of a sort of twist of the words, an extension of meaning thanks to which we can make sense where a literal interpretation would be literally nonsensical. Hence, a metaphor appears as a kind of riposte to a certain inconsistency in the metaphorical utterance literally interpreted.69

Third, Ricoeur rejects the classical rhetorical concept of resemblance within metaphoric interpretation. For Ricoeur, the metaphoric principle of resemblance functions not in the role of resemblance but in the tension and conflict between two incompatible concepts. Ricoeur puts it this way: “What is at stake in a metaphoric utterance, in other words, is the appearance of kinship where ordinary vision does not perceive any relationship.”70 The function of resemblance is to bring together things that do not go together and also to assist in the formation of a new relationship of meaning between terms that previously seemed to be unrelated. Thus, it is the work of resemblance that functions in between the gaps of the metaphoric conflict and the tension, the “bringing together of what once was distant.”71 66 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 49 (quotation), 52. 67 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 49–​50. 68 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 50; Paul Ricoeur, “Biblical Hermeneutics,” Semeia 4 (1975): 93. 69 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 50. 70 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 51. 71 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 51.

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Fourth, Ricoeur opposes the classical understanding of the semantic innovation of metaphor but instead emphasizes a more dynamic approach to metaphoric interpretation. For Ricoeur, the semantic innovation of a live metaphor comes from the tension between words—​more specifically, between the literal and metaphoric interpretations. He highlights this as follows: In this sense, a metaphor is an instantaneous creation, a semantic innovation which has no status in already established language and which only exists because of the attribution of an unusual or unexpected predicate. Metaphor is more like the resolution of an enigma than a simple association based on resemblance; it is constituted by the resolution of a semantic dissonance.72

As long as the response to the discordance in the sentence remains tensive and enigmatic, live metaphors bring a new extension of meaning.73 Conversely, such inventive metaphors tend to become dead metaphors if the metaphoric utterance loses its tensive power to discordant elements. As Ricoeur comments, “There are no live metaphors in the dictionary.”74 Fifth, Ricoeur refuses to follow the classical presupposition that a metaphor is utterly translatable. The classical understanding of metaphor is based on the fact that a metaphor does not create any semantic innovation and thus can be replaced with another meaning of a word. Ricoeur’s semantic examination of metaphoric utterances calls into question the classical understanding of metaphor that provides a literal translation of metaphors, highlighting that tension metaphors create their own meaning. He acknowledges that metaphors can be paraphrased but argues that possible paraphrases are infinite and cannot capture the entire innovative meaning. In addition, Ricoeur is opposed to the statement that metaphors are simply ornaments of discourse; he argues that metaphors are important because they provide new information. Metaphors, in short, tell people “something new about reality.”75 72 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 52. 73 Ricoeur highlights that metaphor is “the solution to the enigma” that it presents to the hearer and the reader. Ricoeur, The Rule of Metaphor, 214. 74 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 51–​2. 75 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 52–​3. Karl Simms, a philosophical hermeneutic scholar, explains in detail the relationship between live and dead metaphors. He writes, “Metaphors are only valuable because they force the listener or reader to interpret them. This work of interpretation—​ hermeneutics again—​is itself an intrinsic part of the metaphoric process. As a process, it involves the linking of the word to the context of the whole sentence in which it is located, but also in the cultural context of the discourse in which the sentence is located. This is what it means to be alive—​to be an interpreting being—​and so it is the metaphorical dimension of language that is most alive in language. Metaphor is that part of language which invites us to do hermeneutics.

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From Metaphor to Symbol. Ricoeur’s analysis of the double-​meaning structure of symbols contributes to the development of his tension theory of metaphor. In the linguistic dimension of discourse, the linguistic nature of a symbol is manifested by the fact that is it possible to establish a semantics of symbols that accounts for their structure in terms of a double meaning or two orders of meaning. In other words, the symbol can be subjected to a semantic analysis. However, in the nonlinguistic dimension of discourse, a symbol always refers to something beyond the linguistic element. This sort of external complexity of a symbol creates a surplus of meaning in symbolic discourse. For instance, symbolic language points to itself and beyond itself, not only providing new information about reality but also projecting new visions of the world in poetic discourse. In Ricoeur’s analysis, it is the double meaning of symbols that sets them apart.76 Regarding poetic language, according to Ricoeur, poetry serves as a context in which to explore the multivalent referentiality of symbols. As a first approximation, poetic language seems to be unbounded or liberated language that is free of lexical, syntactical, and stylistic constraints. However, Ricoeur insists that the poetic world is just as hypothetical a space as is the scientific and mathematical order, saying, “The poet, in short, operates through language in a hypothetical realm. In an extreme form we might even say that the poetic project is one of destroying the world as we ordinarily take it for granted.”77 Yet, this unbounded nature of poetic language is inevitably based on the use of ordinary language. As Ricoeur claims, “A poem is not some gratuitous form of verbal word play. Rather, the poem is bound by what it creates.”78 Ricoeur claims that poetic language projects new ways of being in the world through new linguistic configurations. He highlights, “What binds poetic discourse, then, is the need to bring to language modes of being that ordinary vision obscures or even represses. And in this sense, no one is more free than the poet.”79 Ricoeur argues that the poet’s speech is freed from the ordinary vision of the world because it is tied to the world the poem creates. He says that what asks for symbols For this reason, Ricoeur is not so much interested in dead metaphors, as in living ones, and particularly in newly coined metaphors. It is these metaphors that force us to do the work of thinking, because they present a new idea in a new way. It is the primary function of language to provide new knowledge; metaphoric language—​so long as ‘metaphoric’ is correctly defined—​also provides new knowledge, but in a way that makes us arrive at it through the work of interpretation.” Karl Simms, Paul Ricoeur (New York: Routledge, 2003), 73–​4. 76 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 53–​4. 77 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 59. 78 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 60. 79 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 60.

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is always something powerful. Because of this, Ricoeur states, “Language only captures the foam on the surface of life.”80 The Mutuality of Metaphor and Symbol. Ricoeur examines three ways in which metaphorical functioning is identified by the specific characteristics of symbols. He introduces the first way that theories of metaphor and symbol enhance each other by using the concept of the root metaphor. Although a symbol has incredible stability, a symbol poses the same risk as a metaphor—​the risk of becoming trivial by constantly transforming the construct of meaning. However, the intersignifications of metaphors save metaphors and symbols from complete evanescence. To put it more clearly, one metaphor calls for another, and each one keeps the other alive by preserving its force to arouse the whole network. This metaphoric network depends on what Ricoeur terms root metaphors. For instance, within the Hebraic tradition, root metaphors for God are king, father, shepherd, and judge, as well as rock, redeemer, and suffering servant. According to Ricoeur, these root metaphors operate on two levels. On the one hand, [root metaphors] have the power to bring together the partial metaphors borrowed from the diverse fields of our experience and thereby to assure them a kind of equilibrium. On the other hand, they have the ability to engender a conceptual diversity, I mean, an unlimited number of potential interpretations at a conceptual level. Root metaphors assemble and scatter. They assemble subordinate images together, and they scatter concepts at a higher level.81

Thus, root metaphors generate and organize a network that serves as a junction between the symbolic and metaphoric levels of discourse. The second way that symbols identify metaphorical functioning can be explained by the dependence of symbol and metaphor on common human experience and expression. Ricoeur claims that “certain fundamental human experiences make up an immediate symbolism that presides over the most primitive metaphorical order.”82 This symbol system embraces images of house, path, fire, wind, stone, and water. Ricoeur notes that symbol systems constitute a reservoir of meaning with metaphoric potential. We can access this deep layer only when it is formed and articulated on the linguistic and literary level since metaphors cling to the intertwining of the symbolic infrastructure and the metaphoric superstructure.83 In this way, in symbolic discourse the interdependent interaction of nonlinguistic 80 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 63. 81 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 64. 82 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 65. 83 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 65.

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and linguistic signification affects the constructions of fundamental human experience and understanding. Ricoeur emphasizes that a third way is found in the realm of reference. For Ricoeur, every discourse is considered in terms of its internal organization and its referential intention to say something about something. Ricoeur asserts that a model constitutes the referential function of a metaphor. He describes both metaphors and models as instruments of redescription, saying that “a model is essentially a heuristic procedure that serves to overthrow an inadequate interpretation and to open the way to a new and more adequate one.”84 The redescriptive power of a model is to offer a heuristic fiction to see things differently by changing one’s language about the subject of one’s investigation. This change of language proceeds through the transposition of the features of the heuristic fiction to reality in a double movement of heuristic fiction and redescription.85 Moreover, this concept of model also applies to metaphors. Living metaphors have the power to bring two separate categories into emotional content by using language. According to Ricoeur, poetic language “reaches reality through a detour that serves to deny our ordinary vision and the language we normally use to describe it.”86 In doing this, poetic language aims at a reality that is more real than its appearance.87 Poetic discourse creates its own new worlds through the dynamic of semantic tension. Ricoeur describes this as follows: This redescription of reality is guided by the interplay between different resemblances that give rise to the tension at the level of the utterance. It is precisely from this tensive apprehension that a new vision of reality springs forth, which ordinary vision resists because it is attached to the ordinary use of words. The eclipse of the objective, manipulative world thus makes way for the revelation of a new dimension of reality and truth.88

In poetic discourse, the tensive use of language refers to the metaphorical “is” that is equivalent to the “is like” quality of the metaphorical utterance. Thus, Ricoeur highlights that poetic language does not describe how things literally are but what they are like.89

84 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 66. 85 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 66–​7. 86 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 67. 87 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 67. 88 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 68. 89 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 68.

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Explanation and Understanding This section deals with issues regarding the range of attitudes that a reader may entertain when confronting a text. In the previous sections, I described how Ricoeur explored discourse at the levels of speaker, writer or author, and meaning. Ricoeur addresses the hermeneutics of reading by seeking to answer the following two questions: What does it mean to understand a discourse that is a text or a literary work? How do we make sense of written discourse?90 Ricoeur’s responds to these questions by claiming that the act of reading generates a dialectic of explanation and understanding. The relationship between understanding and reading is similar to that between the event of discourse and the utterance of discourse; the relation between explanation and reading corresponds to the verbal and textual autonomy and the objective meaning of discourse. According to Ricoeur, “In explanation we ex-​plicate or unfold the range of propositions and meanings, whereas in understanding we comprehend or grasp as a whole the chain of partial meanings in one act of synthesis.”91 Thus, interpretation can be explained as the ongoing process in which explanation and understanding create meaning. Ricoeur asserts that if all discourse is generated as an event and is understood as meaning, mutual understanding depends on sharing in the same realm of meaning. He states that understanding the speaker’s meaning and the utterance meaning is a circular process. Understanding is more directed toward the intentional unity of discourse, whereas explanation is more directed toward the analytic structures of the text. Understanding and explanation thus tend to be at the two ends of a developed dichotomy.92 For Ricoeur, the dynamic of interpretive reading is a dialectic movement that moves from understanding to explaining and then moves from explanation to comprehension. At the first stage of the dialectic movement, understanding is a “naive grasping” of the meaning of the text as a whole. At this initial stage, understanding is a guess. A later stage, which satisfies the concept of appropriation, is the move from explanation to comprehension, namely, “a sophisticated mode of understanding, supported by explanatory procedures.”93 An event of meaning appropriation, which is a new way of meaning being disclosed by the reader that emerges as one of the results of this process of interpretation, corresponds to the distanciation related to the full objectification of the 90 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 71. 91 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 72. 92 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 72. 93 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 74.

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text. Through this interpretive reading of texts, readers come not only to a better understanding of the texts but also of themselves. The journey of appropriation is the process of guessing, explaining, and understanding.94 From Guess to Validation. The necessity of guessing the meaning of a text is associated with the semantic autonomy of a text. This means that the verbal meaning of the text no longer coincides with the meaning or intention of the author in the context of the dialectic of event and meaning. According to Ricoeur, “This intention is both fulfilled and abolished by the text, which is no longer the voice of someone present. The text is mute. An asymmetric relation obtains between text and reader, in which only one of the partners speaks for the two.”95 The text is like a musical score, and the reader interprets a text just as the orchestra conductor obeys the instructions of the notation. Hence, Ricoeur claims that understanding is not merely to repeat the speech event but is to generate a new event. This begins from the text in which the initial event has been recorded.96 In other words, the reader has to guess the text’s meaning because the authorial meaning or intention is beyond the reader’s reach. Here, Ricoeur opposes Romanticist hermeneutics, which can be characterized as believing that a reader can understand an author better than that author understood themself. Ricoeur argues that the Romanticists overlooked certain circumstances created by the difference between the verbal meaning of the text and the mental intention of the author.97 It is the verbal intention of the text that commands the primary interpretive attentiveness, not the authorial meaning and expression. Since an accurate understanding can no longer be found by returning to the author’s situation, Ricoeur argues that the reader should construe the meaning of the text by other means. The reader has to guess at the verbal meaning and intention of the text. Ricoeur asserts, “To construe the meaning as the verbal meaning of the text is to make a guess.”98 Although Ricoeur does not suggest rules for making good guesses, he provides three methods for validating the guesses one does make. The first way the reader can validate their guesses is to construe the verbal meaning of a text as a whole. This is related to the analysis of discourse as a work rather than as a written text. Concretely, the whole discourse as a work becomes 94 Paul Ricoeur, “What Is a Text? Explanation and Understanding,” in Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences, trans. and ed. John B. Thompson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 107–​26. 95 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 75. 96 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 75. 97 Ricoeur, “What Is a Text? Explanation and Understanding,” 111–​14; Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 75. 98 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 76.

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the whole because its parts appear as a form of a hierarchy of topics, of primary and subordinate topics. This means that the whole discourse as a work has a plural construction by a circular process in which the whole is implied in the recognition of the parts and, reciprocally, the parts are construed by the whole. Therefore, to construe a detailed conclusion, it is initially necessary to guess the whole.99 The second way the reader can validate their guesses is to construe a text as an individual. Here, a one-​sidedness is revealed that grounds the guess character of interpretation. This happens when reconstructing the perceived object by linking one sentence with various sentences because the text as a singular whole may be viewed from a number of sides but never from all sides at once. This presupposes that the work of discourse as a unique work can be approached by a process of narrowing down the scope of generic concepts. These generic concepts include the literary genre, the class of texts, and the types of codes and structures that intersect within the text. This localization and individualization of the unique text is essentially a guess.100 The third way for the reader to validate their guesses is to construe potential horizons of meaning. Here, the potential horizons of meaning are revealed through symbolic and metaphoric language, which adds the problematic of the secondary meaning to that of meaning in general. In other words, the secondary meaning, which appears through symbolic and metaphoric language, opens the work to several reading methods while surrounding the perceived objects. Before applying the rules for the various reading methods to the work of interpretation, the reader must first guess what the rules are.101 According to Ricoeur, the procedure of validation by which readers test their guesses relies on a logic more of probability than of empirical verification. The genius of guessing and the scientific aspect of validation are balanced and form the basis for the dialectic between understanding and explanation. At the same time, this gives an acceptable meaning to the concept of the hermeneutical circle. Therefore, in this hermeneutical circle, a preferred interpretation must have more probability than another interpretation.102 From Explanation to Comprehension. The dialectic between understanding as guessing and explanation as validation roughly corresponds to the dialectic between event and meaning. This is because understanding as guessing creates a new event that begins from the text in which the first event has been objectified, and 99 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 76–​7. 100 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 77–​8. 101 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 78. 102 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 78–​9.

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the explanation becomes an objective semantic validation of it. It then is associated with a dialectic of sense and reference. The reader’s act of reading and response to a written text is twofold.103 Ricoeur claims that, first, the text is treated by the reader as a worldless entity, and, second, a new ostensive (interior) reference is created by the execution that the act of reading implies. The first way of reading is typified by the various structuralist schools of literary criticism whereby there is a suspension or suppression of any kind of ostensive reference in the text. Prolonging the suspension of the ostensive reference means that the text no longer has an exterior reference, only an interior world. The structural analysis of texts as a closed system of signs offers an explanatory basis for the subsequent interpretation of the text. However, such structuralist explanations are merely explanations, not interpretation. Ricoeur highlights that “[h]‌ere, the text is only a text, and reading inhabits it only as a text, thanks to the suspension of its meaning for us and the postponement of all actualization through contemporary discourse.”104 This initial stage of reading therefore serves as the basis for a second, more sophisticated interpretation of a text. The second way of reading attempts a broad interpretation in the context of the world beyond the text. In-​depth questions regarding the connection and disconnection points between the world of the text and the world beyond the text are raised by the interrogation of the world introduced by the structural analysis of the text. Structural analysis leads the reader from a surface semantics to a depth semantics. In other words, structural analysis is a necessary step between a surface interpretation and a depth interpretation.105 The non-​ostensive reference of the text is the world opened up by this depth semantics that is related to the sense of the text. Ricoeur insists that “[t]‌he sense of the text is not behind the text, but in front of it. It is not something hidden, but something disclosed.”106 What has to be understood about the text at this point is not the initial situation of discourse, its author, and the author’s situation but rather the possible worlds opened up by the reference of the text. In other words, “To understand a text is to follow its movement from sense to reference: from what it says, to what it talks about.”107 The structural analysis of a text not only justifies the objective approach but also rectifies the subjective approach to the text. Ricoeur underscores that the sense of the text comes from the text as a new way of looking at things, 103 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 80. 104 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 84. 105 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 86–​7. 106 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 87. 107 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 87–​8.

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as a requirement to think in a certain manner.108 In this respect, the text not only speaks of a new world but also creates a new mode of being in the world. Productive Distanciation and Appropriation. The ultimate aim of all hermeneutics relates to the reader’s appropriation of a new way of being in the world.109 According to Ricoeur, “The text speaks of a possible world and of a possible way of orienting oneself in it. The dimensions of this world are properly opened up by and disclosed by the text.”110 This new world and way of being are created by means of distanciation and appropriation. Ricoeur argues that productive distanciation, which can be described as the alienation between reader and text, is transformed into an epistemological instrument. He writes, “The dialectic of explanation and understanding […] constitutes the epistemological dimension of the existential dialectic. On the basis of this dialectic, productive distance means methodological distanciation.”111 The semantic autonomy of a text becomes the mediation between writer and reader. The dialectic between explanation and understanding or comprehension in the interpretation of the text generates not only an existential but also an epistemological concept of distanciation between reader and text. However, the reader’s appropriation of the text is made possible by this distanciation.112 Ricoeur claims: To “make one’s own” what was previously “foreign” remains the ultimate aim of all hermeneutics. Interpretation in its last stage wants to equalize, to make contemporaneous, to assimilate in the sense of making similar. This goal is achieved insofar as interpretation actualizes the meaning of the text for the present reader.113

Ricoeur explains appropriation by the concept that meaning is actualized by being addressed to somebody. He highlights that interpretation is completed as appropriation when reading becomes an event of discourse.114 What ought to be appropriated is not the intention of the author of the author’s original readers or the expectations of the original readers. Rather, Ricoeur emphasizes that

108 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 88. 109 For more on the theme of appropriation, see Paul Ricoeur, “Appropriation,” in Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences, trans. and ed. John B. Thompson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 144–​56. 110 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 88. 111 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 89. 112 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 89–​91. 113 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 91–​2. 114 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 92.

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[w]‌hat has to be appropriated is the meaning of the text itself, conceived in a dynamic way as the direction of thought opened up by the text. In other words, what has to be appropriated is nothing other than the power of disclosing a world that constitutes the reference of the text.115

The genuine referential power of the text is not the coinciding with the inner life of another person’s ego but the revealing of a possible way of looking at things. For Ricoeur, this link between disclosure and appropriation enlarges the horizon of the text. In this sense, appropriation is not related to any kind of person-​to-​person appeal. Instead, “[T]‌he world horizon of the reader is fused with the world horizon of the writer.”116 Furthermore, appropriation is not reliant on the original addressee’s response to the text. The meaning of a text is open to all readers of the text due to its nature of relating to all times. As Ricoeur puts it, “Since the text has escaped its author and his situation, it has also escaped its original addressee.”117 The universality of the sense of a text is ensured by the text’s separation from the original author and addressee. One view of the appropriation of a text is that when the meaning of the text is appropriated, the interpretation depends on the reader’s ability to achieve finite comprehension. However, this sort of misconception may be removed if one keeps in mind that “what is made one’s ‘own’ is not something mental, not the intention of another subject, presumably hidden behind the text, but the project of a world, the pro-​position of a mode of being in the world that the text opens up in front of itself by means of its non-​ostensive references.”118 The process of interpreting is not one in which the reader projects their a priori self-​understanding upon the text. Instead, it is a process by which the disclosure of new modes of being proposes to the reader a new capacity for knowing themself through the text. According to Ricoeur, “If the reference of the text is the project of a world, then it is not the reader who primarily projects himself. The reader rather is enlarged in his capacity of self-​projection by receiving a new mode of being from the text itself.”119 In this sense, appropriation is no longer considered a kind of possession; instead, it implies a moment of dispossession of one’s egoistic ego. Ricoeur claims that “[o]‌nly the interpretation that complies with the injunction of the text, that follows the ‘arrow’ of the sense and that tries to think accordingly, initiates a new self-​understanding.”120 In this way, it is the text that gives a 115 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 92. 116 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 93. 117 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 93. 118 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 94. 119 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 94. 120 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 94.

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self to the ego through the fusion of horizons between text and reader that creates new meaning and understanding. Therefore, the entire process of interpretation enhances and enlarges for the reader a new way of being in the world.

Homiletical Discourse Based on Ricoeur’s Theory Ricoeur’s interpretation theory has homiletical implications for the preacher’s process of interpreting and reading a biblical text. It can be said that the whole homiletical process is included in the hermeneutical process in that the hermeneutical process that begins with the preacher choosing the text to preach does not end until the Word is preached. As explored above, Ricoeur’s hermeneutical method is a reminder that interpretation is the product of a tensive dialectical process that moves first from understanding to explanation and then from explanation to comprehension. This means that the interpretive process is not static but is a dynamic relationship between the world of the text and our world; it does not move in a single direction from the biblical world to our world. This section explores the need for the preacher to create new worlds for the listener through the use of poetic language because poetic language participates in this sort of dynamic relationship. This approach is based on the nature of discourse, which emphasizes the tension of alienation and estrangement within and in front of the text. I have developed six characteristics of homiletical discourse on the basis of Ricoeur’s interpretation theory for contemporary Korean Pentecostals that clarify the implications of the interpretive process. First, Ricoeur’s interpretive process with the text means that the goal of the reader’s exegetical process is not to grasp the author’s mental intention.121 The preacher as a reader of a biblical text cannot read and psychologize the intention of the author because the text’s semantic autonomy presumes a new meaning independent of the intention of the author.122 Once a text is freed from the author’s intention, it is more likely to disclose a world of more significant reference with a limited range of interpretations. Even if the preacher could grasp the intention of the author, it might not be the most significant meaning of the text that needs to be proclaimed today.123 When the preacher as a reader is not restricted to the notion of what the author was intending as the primary content of the preacher’s sermon, that preacher 121 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 75. 122 Paul Ricoeur, “The Hermeneutical Function of Distanciation,” 101–​2. 123 Nancy L. Gross, If You Cannot Preach Like Paul . . . (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2002), 94–​5.

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may discover an opportunity for the gospel to break into the world of the hearers through the contextualization of the author’s thought. In other words, God’s word is not limited to antiquity when it is encountered by the contextualized word. The gospel is renewed and refreshed by the Spirit of God whenever it is proclaimed again in a new culture, context, and language. Hence, the preacher must have the ability to know how the text points to the way God is working in our world today.124 Second, Ricoeur’s interpretive method provides insight into the opportunity for the reader to hear a fresh word and gain a new perspective on the world of the text. As Ricoeur has highlighted above, the text takes on a life of its own when the written word is freed from the author’s ability to correct its interpretation. This means that the world to which the text points is appropriated by those who live in a particular time and place; in fact, it is appropriated by different people in different ways. This does not mean, however, that any interpretation is as valid as any other. This is to say that a surplus of meaning is created when a given text enters into different relationships with different people, which means that the sense of the text no longer belongs only to the situation of its writing. Therefore, a surplus of meaning allows more than one particular meaning to potentially coincide with the direction of the text.125 Ricoeur’s concept of surplus of meanings gives the reader the opportunity to hear a new, fresh view of the world of the text because it offers the reader permission to hear voices that have never been heard before. Homiletics scholar Thomas Long stresses the need to listen to the ideas and viewpoints of a variety of experts and scholars to test the preacher’s insights and hunches.126 According to Long, “Obviously the greater the number of responsible voices we can gather at the table, the richer and more interesting the conversation will be.”127 Most commentaries cover historical, literary, and theological ground, and they can refine and challenge the preacher’s prejudices and pre-​understanding of the text. Therefore, the preacher as a reader needs to be open to a fresh word and a new perspective on the world of the text by expanding their biblical scholarship to develop a new interpretation that no one else has given voice to. Third, Ricoeur’s process of interpreting the text opens up the possibility for the reader to engage in the world to which the text opens.128 In this hermeneutical process, the text is characterized as a subject in a radical way. When the preacher as 124 Gross, If You Cannot Preach Like Paul . . ., 96–​7. 125 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 36–​7. 126 Thomas G. Long, The Witness of Preaching, 2nd ed. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005), 95. 127 Long, The Witness of Preaching, 96. 128 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 92.

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a reader is convinced that the text is a subject with which they are entering into dialogue, the preacher as a reader discovers a critical methodology that is consistent with the conviction that God speaks to the reader through the text. Confidence in the preacher’s exegetical skills to find a new meaning of the text is replaced by confidence in the text to create a new event for the preacher. The possibility of the new event emphasizes to the preacher as a reader that the text literally means more than it says and points beyond itself to the world that it refers to.129 Dominican theologian William Hill calls this the sensus plenior, which is “a sense that God himself intends beyond the explicit meaning of the words.”130 The preacher as a reader will hopefully experience this new world that is opened up by the potential of the text. To put it more clearly, the preacher as a reader needs to be equipped with the skills to follow the direction of the pointing to that which is being pointed out.131 In the process of interpreting, the preacher as a reader has to see where the text is looking and see beyond the text to the world to which the text refers. In addition, the preacher as a reader ought to listen attentively to the text by asking questions of the text.132 The preacher ought to regard the text not only as an object to be analyzed and critically examined from many angles but also as a subject with which the preacher enters into dialogue with the conviction that God speaks to the preacher through Scripture. Herbert McCabe, in The New Creation, says that the uniqueness of this communication is that as humans “we are on speaking terms with God.”133 In this way, the preacher as a reader is more likely to be exposed to the new event that the text has the power to create through an encounter with the world to which the text points.134 Fourth, Ricoeur’s interpretive theory guides the reader to surrender her or his ego and narcissistic intellectual tendencies in front of the world of the text.135 This is related to the subjectivity of the text, which follows closely from the previous argument, and suggests that the reader should highly esteem and rely on the 129 Gross, If You Cannot Preach Like Paul . . ., 101–​2. 130 William J. Hill, “Preaching the Word: The Theological Background,” in Search for the Absent God: Tradition and Modernity in Religious Understanding, ed. Mary Catherine Hilkert (New York: Crossroad, 1992), 171. 131 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 93. 132 Long, The Witness of Preaching, 81; According to Mary Catherine Hilkert, human beings are actually constituted as “hearers of the word,” to use Karl Rahner’s noted expression. Hilkert says, “[H]‌umanity has been fashioned as ‘openness for the incarnation.’ ” Mary Catherine Hilkert, “Naming Grace: A Theology of Proclamation,” Worship 60 (1986): 439. 133 Herbert McCabe, The New Creation (New York: Continuum, 2010), 3. 134 Gross, If You Cannot Preach Like Paul . . ., 102. 135 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 87, 94–​5.

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universal power of the world disclosed in the text. The preacher as a reader needs a variety of analytical methods to gather knowledge of the background of the biblical text in order to proclaim the Word faithfully while holding the analytical tools in proper perspective. Being competent in analytical methods will not only serve the ability of the preacher as a reader to hear a fresh word from the text but will also enable the reader to hear what the text might be saying.136 The reader should utilize analytical methods; that is to say, the reader needs to lay aside their own need to know and define the world of the text. In a sense, the tendency of the reader to try to grasp the meaning of the text is reversed. To put it more clearly, the reader ought to be understood by the text that has been given to the community of faithful as a means of grace. This refers to the distanciation from the text, which means that the reader excludes their own prejudices and preunderstanding of the text.137 In order for the preacher as a reader to be understood by the text, the preacher as a reader needs to set aside all fear of being embarrassed by the text, accepting the ambiguity that the text reveals. Homiletics scholar Nancy L. Gross explains the preacher as a reader’s confidence mediated by the text as follows: [W]‌hen we humbly approach Scripture as the unique and authoritative witness to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, when we seek to look together to the world of the gospel to which Scripture points like an arrow, when we are willing to set aside our political agendas in order for all of our thinking and living to be brought into the captivity of the will of God, then God can and will continue to work God’s purpose out through us.138

Hence, the preacher as a reader’s trust in the biblical text is based on the belief that the text leads to more faithful trust. Fifth, Ricoeur’s interpretation theory provides an understanding of the specifically symbolic nature of biblical narratives. His method of interpreting biblical symbols gives the reader a viable hermeneutical option of both the historical and symbolic aspects of the biblical text. In a step where the meaning of the text is naïvely grasped as a whole, the so-​called first naïveté, the reader considers the biblical narrative as a historical record. The reader who reflects this first naïveté is so immersed in the character in the historical context of the text that the reader cannot re-​experience the symbolic character of the text. However, Ricoeur says that one must nevertheless go through the first naïveté to move to the deeper 136 Gross, If You Cannot Preach Like Paul . . ., 103. 137 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 43–​4. 138 Gross, If You Cannot Preach Like Paul . . ., 104.

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meaning of the text. He suggests that through the critical method the reader can appropriate the sense of the symbols in the biblical narratives. In other words, an explanation or critical consciousness is required to re-​experience or appropriate the symbols of the text.139 Regarding the stage of critical consciousness or explanation, Ricoeur underscores that the structural analysis of the text, which leads from a surface semantics (the first naïveté) to a depth semantics (the second naïveté), is required.140 According to Ricoeur, this sort of structural analysis enables the reader to experience the reference of the symbols in the text. In the second naïveté, the reader may first encounter and then appropriate the symbols of the text with a sense for their own existence. Ricoeur insists that the second naïveté is accessible only by interpreting, and he believes that being can still speak to the reader as the second immediacy that hermeneutics aims at.141 Ricoeur’s interpretive method offers a hermeneutical structure for the reader to appropriate the sense of the world opened up by the text itself. Furthermore, Ricoeur highlights that the text potentially has different horizons of sense: The secondary meanings, as in the case of the horizon, which surrounds perceived objects, open the work to several readings. It may even be said that these readings are ruled by prescriptions of meaning belonging to the margins of potential meaning surrounding the semantic nucleus of the work. But these prescriptions too have to be guessed before they can rule the work of interpretation.142

Therefore, the preacher as a reader ought to aim with intentionality to use the exegetical process to appropriate the text for the faith and life of the hearers rather than just focusing on extracting some generalized applications from the text. Instead of focusing only on the sense of the text, the preacher as a reader ought to facilitate the hearer’s ability to encounter the grace and life the biblical text offers by connecting the symbols of the text to the circumstances of the faithful. Lastly, Ricoeur’s interpretive method provides a hermeneutical context for facilitating the experience of the encounter of the preacher as a reader with the text and supplies a vocabulary for the preacher to describe the dynamics of a transformative reading of the biblical text. A transformative reading of Scripture is related to an ontological event in which the preacher’s knowing something existentially changes the preacher. Ricoeur puts it this way: “[I]‌t is the task of hermeneutics 139 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 74, 80–​1. 140 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 87. 141 Paul Ricoeur, “Original Sin,” in The Conflict of Interpretations: Essays in Hermeneutics, trans. Peter McCormick and ed. Don Ihde (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2007), 298. 142 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 78.

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[…] to reconstruct the set of operations by means of which a work arises from the opaque depths of living, acting, and suffering, to be given by an author to readers who receive it and thereby change their own actions.”143 It can be said that the encounter of the preacher as a reader with the text is expressed as an event of meaning that is based on language and results in the preacher’s transformation through the process of interpretation.144 Regarding the encounter between the preacher as a reader and the text, Christian spirituality scholar Sandra M. Schneiders expresses the preacher’s transformative interpretation of the text as “an interaction between a self-​aware reader open to the truth claims of the text and the text in its integrity, that is, an interaction that adequately takes into account the complex nature and multiple dimensions of the text and the reader.”145 Schneiders explains the distinction between reading the text for information and reading the text for transformation by employing Ricoeur’s interpretive method.146 According to Schneiders, the preacher as a reader can read the biblical text primarily for information, “to be intellectually enlightened or to be personally converted,” but the preacher as a reader can also read the biblical text for transformation—​“to go beyond simply discovering what the text says to asking if what it says is true, and if so in what sense, and what the personal consequences for the reader and others might be.”147 Furthermore, according to Ricoeur, the event of meaning is actualized through the dialectic of sense and reference. In other words, the new sense of the text is constituted by the combination of the sense (what it says) and the reference (what it talks about) that arises from the reading of the text for information (what the text is about at the first stage of meaning). The world of the preacher as a reader through the context of the hearers’ lives is formed from the informational reading of the text for transformation by the new reference of the text, which enlarges the preacher as a reader’s capacity for self-​projection by giving them a new mode of being. In this sense, the event of meaning that is a transformative engagement with the biblical text can be expressed as the ongoing engagement between the world of the text (its initial sense and reference) and the world of the preacher as a reader 143 Paul Ricoeur, Time and Narrative, vol. 1, trans. Kathleen McLaughlin and David Pellauer (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1990), 53. 144 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 94. 145 Sandra M. Schneiders, The Revelatory Text: Interpreting the New Testament as Sacred Scripture, 2nd ed. (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1999), 3. 146 Schneiders, The Revelatory Text, 13–​25. 147 Schneiders, The Revelatory Text, 13–​14.

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(the preacher’s way of being through the context of the gathered community in the world).148 Schneiders describes this process as a critical existential interpretation: Appropriation of the meaning of the text, the transformative achievement of interpretation, is neither mastery of the text by the reader (an extraction of its meaning by the application of method) nor a mastery of the reader by the text (a blind submission to what the text says) but an ongoing dialogue with the text about its subject matter.149

Ricoeur expresses this as the reader’s appropriation of the world of sense projected by the text. Because the mode of being in the world projected by a text is often challenging, the reader may be transformed through such an encounter. As Schneiders says, “[T]‌he text is a mediation of transformative divine revelation.”150 Hans-​Georg Gadamer describes the ongoing engagement between the world of the text and the world of the reader as play. [W]‌hen we understand a text, what is meaningful in it captivates us just as the beautiful captivates us. It has asserted itself and captivated us before we can come to ourselves and be in a position to test the claim to meaning that it makes. What we encounter in the experience of the beautiful and in understanding the meaning of tradition really has something of the truth of play about it. In understanding, we are drawn into an event of truth and arrive, as it were, too late, if we want to know what we are supposed to believe.151

Here, Gadamer proposes a version of play that is out of the reader’s control, a play that happens when something captivates us. Likewise, the world projected by the text can be the site of transformation for both the preacher as a reader and for the hearer. This transformation opens up room for both the preacher and the congregation to consider their own way of being in the world—​to gain a new self-​understanding. As Ricoeur highlights, “Only the interpretation that complies with the injunction of the text, that follows the ‘arrow’ of the sense and that tries to think accordingly, initiates a new self-​ understanding.”152 The world of the preacher as a reader in the context of the congregation’s life is challenged by the text’s projection of another mode of being in the world. Therefore, both the preacher as a reader and the hearer are encouraged by the text to begin the process of transformation through a transformative reading 148 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 11–​12, 92–​5. 149 Schneiders, The Revelatory Text, 177. 150 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 94–​5; Schneiders, The Revelatory Text, 177 (quotation). 151 Hans-​Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall, 2nd rev. ed. (New York: Continuum, 2004), 484. 152 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 94.

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of the biblical text. As William Hill says, “[T]‌he Word, which is the bearer of God’s life and meaning for us, incarnates itself in human history, midway between the one who utters it and those who listen.”153 Ricoeur’s hermeneutic mediates between objectively reconstructing the meaning of a text in its original context and existentially appropriating a text. With the help of Ricoeur’s interpretive method, I have argued that the significance of the semantic approach to the examination of language is that of an eventful encounter. Holding understanding and explanation in a tensive dialectical process will bring forth a new dimension to interpretation, rather than interpretation itself being simply a stage between understanding and explanation. In addition, the tensive dialectical process that moves first from understanding to explanation and then from explanation to comprehension plays a crucial role in generating a dynamic interpretive process in which the world of the text and the world of the hearers are engaged in an ongoing dialogue. Ricoeur’s interpretive method, which contributes to the reader’s hermeneutical approach to the text, plays a significant role in facilitating the richest encounter possible between the text and the hearer. By clarifying the nature of the text, Ricoeur helps the reader listen deeply to a fresh word and new perspective on the world of the text. Based on Ricoeur’s hermeneutical theory, it is possible to construct a transformative reading of the biblical text in which the preacher’s mode of being in the context of the hearers’ lives is transformed through the new reference of the text. Through this process, the preacher as a reader engages the truth of the text through the context of the gathered community’s life, entering into the world projected by the text. This world of meaning to which both the preacher and the gathered members are invited opens up new possibilities of meaning. Engaging with the multiple levels and meanings of the text, both the preacher as a reader and the hearers surrender to the new world of meaning. However, a potential consequence of this process of appropriation is a dramatic change in the preacher’s and the hearers’ world. The new understanding generated through the encounter between the world of the text and the world of the preacher in the context of the gathered community leads to the transformation of both the preacher’s and the hearers’ worlds. Therefore, the spirituality of both preacher and the hearers is formed and shaped through the liveliness of the hermeneutical encounter with the biblical text. The next chapter employs Ricoeur’s hermeneutical method to

153 William J. Hill, “Preaching as a Moment in Theology,” in Search for the Absent God, ed. Mary Catherine Hilkert (New York: Crossroad, 1992), 186.

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explore the implications of Bernard of Clairvaux’s teachings on the spiritual formation of the faithful that lead to a transformative reading of Scripture.

CHAPTER FOUR

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux’s Concept of Loving God

The teachings of Bernard of Clairvaux, a 12th-​century Cistercian monk, can lead the reader to a transformative engagement with the Scriptures. For Bernard, the spiritual formation of the faithful is the process of being conformed to the image of Christ, seeking to achieve the empathy that leads to love for others. Bernard came to realize that his prayerful engagement with certain references pointing to God’s love and grace in the Scriptures had drawn him into the mystery of union with God in Christ through the Spirit, as described in his treatise On Loving God and his homilies on the Song of Songs. This close relationship with God opens the possibility for the reader to prayerfully and meditatively consider their own way of being in the world. The faithful’s world, Bernard says, is formed by moving from loving God for one’s own sake toward loving oneself for God’s sake.1 Through this experience, the believer is allowed to satisfy God through pure love caught up in the existential horizon of the Scriptures. Just as Paul Ricoeur highlights that the reader is able to appropriate the world of the senses projected by the text, Bernard explores how the Scriptures project another way to the reader 1 Bernard of Clairvaux, On the Song of Songs III, trans. Kilian Walsh (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1979), 50.III.8; Bernard of Clairvaux, “On Loving God,” in The Works of Bernard of Clairvaux, vol. 5, trans. Robert Walton (Washington, DC: Cistercian Publications, 1974), 115–​204.

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of being in the world.2 In other words, God invites the reader through the medium of the Word of God to deepen the reader’s love of God and to enter upon a process of transformation in the reader’s relationship to themself and to their faith community. Therefore, the world of the preacher as a reader, in the context of the gathered community filled with the love of God, enables reading the biblical text in a transformative way in which the two worlds of the preacher as a reader and of the congregation both surrender to the divine by responding to the world projected by the text. Here, the love of the Spirit propels both the minister and the gathered community toward union with the divine, thus conforming with the love of God. Both are “hearers of the Word” in a fresh way. I propose a reorientation, based on the writings of Bernard, of the reader’s love of God. In this reorientation, the reader’s human desire is reformulated by the divine love, and the fruit of God’s love is a transformative reading of the Scriptures. The common theme in the homilies of Bernard is the need for the believer to give themself to mutual union with the divine based on God’s love, which plays an essential role in reading the Bible in a transformative way. This can be described as the faithful’s response to the divine love that is being extended to the believer by God. In other words, the believer is moving constantly toward this love from God. Therefore, the reader’s love of God, which was the foundation of Bernard’s own mystical experience, enhances the possibility of a transformative reading of the Bible.

St. Bernard of Clairvaux’s Mystical Experience In seeking to understand Bernard of Clairvaux’s mystical experience, I first explain the nature of mysticism, which can be described as the transformation and harmonization of one’s entire being and consciousness with the transcendental order by experiencing the strength of the divine love.

The Nature of Mysticism I examine here the nature of mysticism by exploring this question: What is mysticism? The attempt to clearly define this term is often hampered by the equivocal meaning of the word itself. The unclear nature of mysticism has been furthered by its association with religious sentimentality and abnormal phenomena. This

2 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 94–​5.

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confusion over a precise definition of mysticism often leads Christians to be prejudiced against mysticism. Various scholars have made many attempts to define the term. Ninian Smart, one of the most influential scholars of religion in the 20th century, distinguishes mystical experience from an “experience of a dynamic external presence.” He describes mysticism as mainly an interior quest that culminates in certain interior experiences that cannot be expressed in terms of “sense-​experience or of mental images.” In Christian and other faith traditions, mysticism displays features of a timelessness that grants bliss or serenity and that normally follows upon a course of self-​mastery and contemplation. Thus, mysticism can be explained as a meditative and contemplative experience of life. Other religious scholars insist that the mystical experience features contact with the transcendent. British scholar William R. Inge succinctly summarizes the concept of mysticism as follows: “[M]‌ysticism means communion with God, that is to say with a Being conceived as the supreme and ultimate reality.”3 According to 19th-​century German Protestant theologian Otto Pfleiderer, Christian mysticism is “the immediate feeling of unity of the self with God; it is nothing, therefore, but the fundamental feeling of religion, the religious life at its very heart and center.”4 Furthermore, Evelyn Underhill, an Anglo-​Catholic writer on Christian mysticism, understands mysticism to be “the expression of the innate tendency of the human spirit towards complete harmony with the transcendental order.” Bernard McGinn, an American Roman Catholic theologian, describes Christian mysticism as a consciousness of the presence of God that is beyond description and transforms the person who experiences it.5 This consciousness of God’s presence can be expressed as union and communion with the divine. Most scholars describe mysticism in ways that emphasize its experiential character. For example, medieval theologian Jean Gerson defines mysticism as “the experimental knowledge of God through the embrace of unitive love.” The experiential nature of mysticism is also evident in St. Teresa of Avila’s understanding of mysticism: “I used unexpectedly to experience a consciousness of the presence of God of such a kind that I could not possibly doubt that he was within me or that I was wholly engulfed in him. This was in no sense a vision.” Likewise, in his 3 William R. Inge, Mysticism in Religion (London: Hutchinson’s University Library, 1947), 8. 4 Otto Pfleiderer, The Philosophy of Religion on the Basis of Its History, vol. 4, trans. Allan Menzies (Edinburgh: Williams and Norgate, 1888), 284. 5 Evelyn Underhill, Mysticism: The Development of Humankind’s Spiritual Consciousness (London: Bracken Books, 1995), xiv; Bernard McGinn, The Flowering of Mysticism: Men and Women in the New Mysticism (1200–​1350), The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism, vol. 3 (New York: Crossroad, 1998), 26.

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sermon 40 on the Song of Songs, Bernard speaks of the mystical experience as being of one mind with God, wed to the Lord of angels. Bernard asks, “When will it [the human] experience this kind of love, so that the mind, drunk with divine love and forgetting itself, making itself like a broken vessel (Ps. 30:13), throw itself wholly on God and, clinging to God (1 Cor. 6:17), become one with him in spirit?”6 Hence, mysticism is a phenomenological indication of an enduring way of life through which the transforming strength of the divine is experienced. This divine power transforms one’s entire being and consciousness.

Western Christian Mysticism of the Twelfth Century Before turning to Bernard’s 12th-​century concept of love and exploring more deeply the nature of mysticism, a brief comment on the background and history of Western Christian mysticism from the early medieval period to the time of Bernard will help to shed light on the world in which Christian mysticism arose. Medieval mystical practice generally took one of two forms. The first type of spiritual practice was an ascetic religious life seeking to abstain from physical or psychological desires, and the second was a spiritual life dedicated to prayer and contemplation. These spiritual practices aimed to reach “complete self-​forgetfulness, a spiritual death of one’s natural self, and a transformation into a godlike self.”7 The values of these medieval spiritual traditions, which place more emphasis on living well for God than on teaching and reading correctly about God, came from monastic culture. In contrast to the medieval Scholastics’ program of study, which moved from question to argument by accentuating the use of logic, precise language, philosophical concepts, and reason, the monastic tradition of spiritual formation proceeded from spiritual reading to contemplation and meditative prayer. Scholars in universities were trained to argue about unresolved issues found in their readings, but monks and nuns in the monasteries were asked to read to prepare themselves for meditation, which led to prayerful reflection rather than arguments over concepts.8 This reading process was based on the love of learning and the desire for God. This tradition motivated the monks to learn and shaped 6 Jean Gerson, as quoted in William R. Inge, Christian Mysticism (New York: Scribner’s, 1899), 335; Teresa of Avila, The Life of Teresa of Jesus: The Autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila, trans. and ed. E. Allison Peers (New York: Doubleday Image Books, 1960), 119; Bernard of Clairvaux, On the Song of Songs II, trans. Kilian Walsh (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1983), 40.III.4; Bernard of Clairvaux, “On Loving God,” in Bernard of Clairvaux: Selected Works, trans. G.R. Evans (New York: Paulist Press, 1987), 195 (quotation). 7 Ozment, An Intellectual and Religious History of Late Medieval and Reformation Europe, 84. 8 Ozment, An Intellectual and Religious History of Late Medieval and Reformation Europe, 82.

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how they trained their desire for God. The monastic life sought to harmonize contemplation and activity, and the monks’ scholarly devotion was pursued for the sake of an inner peace of mind, spiritual experiences, and humble ethical exercises within a community of the vowed faithful. This was the purpose of the monastic life and the ideal that influenced the medieval spiritual traditions. Monasticism in general arose from a much less complicated form of Christian asceticism. In the New Testament era, Christians who sought to keep the Lord’s teaching to take up the cross in order to follow him (Matt.16:24) denied themselves in emulation of Christ. They believed that because Christ suffered, they too could have a relationship with God through suffering. Not only the desert fathers who lived mainly in the wilderness but also many ancient Christian leaders—​for instance, one of the most prominent Christian authors of antiquity, St. Jerome (347–​419)—​had a sense of obligation to go into the wilderness and fast and meditate in emulation of Christ’s 40 days in the desert. Benedict of Nursia (480–​547) was one of the main promoters of a reformed Western Christian monasticism. At the beginning of Benedict’s reform movement, he refrained from all human contact and lived in a cave for three years, obeying Christ’s counsel of self-​denial All these efforts can be attributed to obedience to Christ’s instruction to deny oneself. This severe individual asceticism was appropriately modified by the Benedictines (founded 529), which was organized as a community under Benedict’s inspiration. In the Order of Saint Benedict and most Western monastic orders, the Rule of St. Benedict, which is a book of precepts written in 516 by Benedict for the spiritual doctrine and practical actions of monks and nuns, was regarded as the basic pattern for most Western monastic spiritual life. The Rule of St. Benedict weakened the severe asceticism of earlier centuries. It regularized the lives of the monks and nuns in an organized community and arranged their practical activities for each day: 3.5 hours for the divine office (services of praise and worship), 4.5 hours for reading or meditation, 1 hour for eating, 8.5 hours for sleep, and 6.5 hours for work in the fields.9 Augustine of Hippo (354–​430), who had a significant influence on Western theology throughout the Middle Ages and even up to the present, believed that not every Christian should lead a monastic life. However, he did argue that monks and clergy called to live monastically ought to seek to live the apostolic common life (vita communis). Augustine regarded the monastic or quasi-​ monastic life as the “fullest realization of the City of God on earth.”10 He described his own 9 Owen Chadwick, Western Asceticism (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1958), 28. 10 Gerhart B. Ladner, The Idea of Reform: Its Impact on Christian Thought and Action in the Age of the Fathers (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959), 364.

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mystical experiences not as visions but rather as “intelligible intuitions—​flashes of spiritual light.”11 He depicted the eternal mystical view of God as the center of human beings. In his Confessions, one of the most famous spiritual treatises of the Patristic era, he wrote of a mystical experience of interior transformation and encounter with God that occurred when he began discussing spiritual matters with his mother, Monica. Augustine also portrayed the mystical paradox of a God who is both immanent and transcendent in a description of his own mystical experience.12 He wrote, “[B]‌ut you were more inward than my most inward part and higher than the highest element within me.”13 Moreover, Augustine considered love to be the foundation of all human actions, emphasizing “love and do what you will […] let love be rooted in you, and from this root nothing but good can grow,”14 which is suggestive of a mystical insight. Speaking from his mystical experiences, he mentioned that God visits “the minds of the wise, when emancipated from the body, with an intelligible and ineffable presence, though this be only occasional, and as it were a swift flash of light athwart the darkness.”15 These themes of love and a new identity in and with God that repeatedly appear in Augustine’s writings were an indispensable part of his understanding of the relationship between God and God’s creation. His writings, with their mystical coloring, had a profound impact on religious scholars, including mystics, over the following centuries. Western Christian mysticism is concerned with will, love, and practical piety, and this is at the heart of the mystical union that unifies the believer’s will with God’s through and in Jesus Christ. This christocentric mysticism is generally regarded as based on Augustine’s theology. Late medieval and religious reform movements within Western Christian mysticism included the Cistercian order, 11 Edward Watkin, “The Mysticism of St. Augustine,” in Saint Augustine (New York: Meridian Books, 1957), 116. 12 Augustine wrote, “[W]‌ith you as my guide I entered into my innermost citadel, and was given power to do so because you had become my helper. I entered and with my soul’s eye, such as it was, saw above that same eye of my soul the immutable light higher than my mind–​–​not the light of very day, obvious to anyone, nor a larger version of the same kind which would, as it were, have given out a much brighter light and filled everything with its magnitude. It was not that light, but a different thing, utterly different from all our kinds of light. It transcended my mind, not in the way that oil floats on water, nor as heaven is above earth. […] And you cried from far away: ‘Now, I am who I am.’ I heard in the way one hears within the heart, and all doubt left me. I would have found it easier to doubt whether I was myself alive than there was no truth ‘understood from the things that are made.’ ” Augustine, St. Augustine Confessions, 7.10.16. 13 Augustine, St. Augustine Confessions, 3.6.11. 14 Augustine, “Homily on the First Epistle of St. John,” in Augustine of Hippo: Selected Writings, trans. Mary T. Clark (New York: Paulist Press,1984), 8. 15 Augustine, The City of God, trans. Marcus Dods (New York: Modern Library, 1950), 9.16.

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which was Bernard of Clairvaux’s order. Monks in this period typically took vows (typically of poverty, chastity, and obedience), practiced asceticism, and often lived apart from others in monasteries. The Cistercian order maintained traditional monastic spirituality and considered Christ the central object of union and fellowship, and its mystical practice emphasized union with God through being in love with Christ.16 Another significant figure in the foundation of mysticism in the Western church was John Cassian (ca. 360–​ca. 435), who lived in Egypt as an itinerant ascetic, interviewing prominent abbas of the desert. Cassian’s own spiritual teaching along with the Egyptian Fathers’ ascetic ideals are presented in his two major works, Institutes and Conferences. Benedict recommended in the Rule of St. Benedict that the monks read both these works on the virtues of right living and obedience. This recommendation gave Cassian’s ascetic life of mysticism a positive appraisal from one of the most spiritual monastic leaders of the Middle Ages. Cassian argues for a God who transcends all images and feelings, accentuating that the believer’s prayer “centers on no contemplation of some image or other.” For Cassian, the goal of the monastic life is union with God, “to have the soul so removed from all dalliance with the body that it rises each day to the things of the spirit until all its wishing become one unending prayer.” Cassian also highlights that contemplation is the primary good for the Christian, in which “someone still on the upward road comes at last to that which is unique, namely the sight of God Himself, which comes with God’s help.”17 The first monk to become bishop of Rome, Gregory I, also contributed to the establishment of Western Christian mysticism. Gregory did not write a work specifically dealing with mysticism, but his writings do address mystical subjects and themes.18 As a monk, Gregory was himself devoted to severe asceticism and contemplative prayer for the purpose of attaining a vision of God. Gregory believed that this type of vision was possible for all those living a life of contemplation,

16 Steven Ozment, The Age of Reform 1250–​1550: An Intellectual and Religious History of Late Medieval and Reformation Europe (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980), 87–​121. 17 John Cassian, Conferences, trans. Colm Luibheid (New York: Paulist Press, 1985), 10.11, 3.7, 1.8. 18 One example can be found in Gregory’s commentary on Job 33:16, where he cited Psalm 31:22 and added, “[F]‌or after beholding that inward light, which flashed within his mind with bright rays through the grace of contemplation, he returned to himself; and discerned, by the knowledge he had gained, either the blessings which were there, of which he was deprived, or the evils with which he was here surrounded.” Gregory, “Book 23.41,” in Morals on the Book of Job, vol.3, part 1, trans. Members of the English Church (Oxford: John Henry Parker and F. and J. Rivington, 1847), 36.

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using the mystical experiences of Benedict as a model.19 Furthermore, based on his own mystical experiences, Gregory emphasized that mysticism was full of sweetness, joyfulness, and the indescribable essence of the experience.20 Gregory described his mystical visions as follows: All creation is bound to appear small to a soul that sees the Creator. Once it beholds a little of His light, it finds all creatures small indeed. The light of holy contemplation enlarges and expands the mind in God until it stands above the world. In fact, the soul that sees Him rises even above itself, and as it is drawn upward in His light all its inner powers unfold. Then, when it looks down from above, it sees how small everything is that was beyond its grasp before.21

These descriptions of mystical experiences that permeate his writings played a role in promoting union with God as the goal of every Christian. Augustine, Cassian, and Gregory I created a solid basis for the development of asceticism, monasticism, contemplation, and mysticism. In addition, they presumed that having mystical experiences was the ultimate purpose of those called to be monks and nuns in this earthly life and was a foretaste of God’s vision that would be experienced in heaven. This view of monasticism became widespread in Western Europe in the centuries following Gregory I. When Charlemagne (742–​814) was crowned king of the Franks in 768 and peacefully united much of western and central Europe during the early Middle Ages, the monastery played a crucial role in the church’s reform and renewal. Charlemagne regarded the Rule of St. Benedict as an integral component of the unification and integration of the monastery. However, even though Charlemagne contributed greatly to the development of the church, he also interfered with it and promoted the secularization of the church. He regarded the abbeys as an essential part of the political structure, and he personally appointed many abbots.22 After the death of Charlemagne, his son Louis the Pious (814–​40) continued his father’s policy and made a special contribution to the church. In particular, 19 In the second book of his Dialogues, Gregory mostly dealt with the miracles of St. Benedict. Here, Gregory expressed a vision presented to Benedict in prayer: “[I]‌n the dead of night he suddenly beheld a flood of light shining down from above more brilliant than the sun, and with it every trace of darkness cleared away. Another remarkable sight followed. According to his own description, the whole world was gathered up before his eyes in what appeared to be a single ray of light.” Gregory, Saint Gregory: The Great Dialogues, trans. Odo John Zimmerman (New York: Fathers of the Church, 1959), 2.35. 20 Gregory, Saint Gregory the Great Dialogues, 2.35. 21 Gregory, Saint Gregory the Great Dialogues, 2.35. 22 C. H. Lawrence, Medieval Monasticism: Forms of Religious Life in Western Europe in the Middle Ages, 4th ed. (New York: Routledge, 2015), 64–​7.

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Louis delegated authority to Benedict of Aniane (750–​821) to lead the unification and renewal of monastic life so that every monastery of the Frankish Empire would be under a single and uniform observance. Benedict of Aniane emphasized, first and foremost, the thorough observance of the Rule of St. Benedict and more assiduous adherence to the divine office, the central point in the lives of monks, to the exclusion of all else. In 816, Benedict of Aniane established the Rule of St. Benedict as the basic rule of monastic life at the imperial chapel of Aachen.23 The reform movement, initiated by the charismatic figure Benedict of Aniane, ended as soon as he died. However, the abortive reform of Benedict was the seed of the establishment of new centers of reform in the 10th century. The first and most eminent of these was the Cluny monastery (founded in by William I, Duke of Aquitaine, in 910). This abbey rapidly grew into a large monastic empire, accentuating a thorough adherence to the Rule of St. Benedict, a rigorous ascetical life, and regular liturgical practice. Under the guidance of five spiritual leaders, Abbot Berno (909–​27), St. Odo (927–​44), St. Mayeul (954–​94), St. Odilo (994–​1048), and St. Hugh (1049–​1109), who were known for their virtue and discernment, Cluny had a great impact on church reform for about two hundred years.24 However, Cluny assigned the monks little time for manual work and overemphasized celebration of the liturgy, thereby disrupting the balance of prayer and work in monastic life. In addition, the Cluny monks were accustomed to institutionalized lives and had a large bureaucracy. This resulted in a tendency to overlook the contemplative aspect of monastic life. Consequently, the promotion of the reform and renewal of the church in 10th-​century Cluny became, ironically, a symbol of wealth and the object of a new effort of remodeling and restoration at the end of the 11th century.25 At the end of the 11th century, a number of new monasteries were founded as a reaction against the corporate wealth, worldly participation, and excessive liturgical ritualism of existing monasteries. The abbots of the new monasteries advocated a simpler and more secluded form of ascetical life. Of the several monastic institutes that were founded at this time, the monastery of Camaldolese hermits (founded in 1012), the Carthusian Order (founded in 1084), and Cîteaux Abbey (a reform movement of Benedictines founded in 1098) have lasted until the present. All these reforms had certain features in common that were mostly based on the spiritual aspirations of the period. Significantly, these included a 23 Saint Benedict, RB 1980: The Rule of St. Benedict, ed. Timothy Fry (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1981), 121–​5; Lawrence, Medieval Monasticism, 68–​72. 24 Lawrence, Medieval Monasticism, 76–​88. 25 Lawrence, Medieval Monasticism, 88–​92.

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strong preference for solitude on the edges of existing institutions and a return to the gospel. Cîteaux, which particularly underscored poverty and simplicity, was founded by a group of monks from Molesme Abbey in order to pursue the pristine observance of the Rule of St. Benedict. Under the influence of Robert of Molesme (1028–​1111), who was the first abbot of the order, these monks sought to restore the harmony of prayer, reading, and manual labor in the monastic life.26 Although Alberic (d. 1109) succeeded Robert at Cîteaux, this order seemed doomed because no one was willing to join it. In this context that was ripe for a deeper reform, Bernard of Clairvaux, the most prominent and influential of all Cistercians of the Middle Ages, became a member of Cîteaux in 1113 when Stephen Harding (ca. 1060–​1134) was abbot, with a group of 30 young men that included several of Bernard’s own brothers. Stephen acknowledged in Bernard a God-​sent genius, and Bernard was sent out in 1115 to establish a new monastery near Aube called Clairvaux, the Valley of Light. From here, Bernard became not only the most powerful propagator of Cistercian reform and renewal but also an influential leader of Christendom in the first half of the 12th century. During his 38 years as abbot, Bernard founded 65 new Cistercian monasteries. Largely due to his influence, the Cistercians expanded throughout Europe, eventually possessing 343 houses.27 Bernard can be generally described as a mystic. He emphasized the individual’s own mystical experience, as his predecessors (Augustine, Cassian, and Gregory I) had done. This is revealed in his homilies. For example, in preaching on the Song of Songs, he says, “Today the text we are to study is the book of our own experience,” adding, “[A]‌ny one who has received this mystical kiss from the mouth of Christ at least once, seeks again that intimate experience, and eagerly looks for its frequent renewal.”28 Bernard also encouraged his monks and followers to mysticism by presenting an account of his own mystical experience: I admit that the Word has also come to me […] and has come many times. But although he has come to me, I have never been conscious of the moment of his coming. 26 Andre Louf, The Cistercian Way, trans. Nivard Kinsella (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1983), 34; Michael Casey, “Cistercian Spirituality,” in The New Dictionary of Catholic Spirituality, ed. Michael Downey (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1993), 173–​4; Lawrence, Medieval Monasticism, 158–​166. 27 Louf, The Cistercian Way, 34–​5; Louis J. Lekai, The Cistercians: Ideals and Reality (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1977), 34; Louf, The Cistercian Way, 36; John R. Sommerfeldt, “Bernard of Clairvaux: The Mystic and Society,” in The Spirituality of Western Christendom, ed. E. Rozanne Elder (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1976), 73. 28 Bernard of Clairvaux, Song of Songs I, trans. Kilian Walsh (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1981), 3.1.

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I perceived his presence, I remembered afterwards that he had been with me; sometimes I had a presentiment that he would come, but I was never conscious of his coming or his going. And where he comes from when he visits my soul, and where he goes, and by what means he enters and goes out, I admit that I do not know even now.29

Like Augustine, Cassian, and Gregory I, Bernard’s profound insights and enormous talent led monks to experience God’s love through lives of contemplation. It is evident that the concept of mysticism dominated his treatises and his 85 homilies on the Song of Songs. To sum up, an earlier form of severe individual asceticism developed into a monasticism that was founded on the basis of a community setting. The works and homilies of Augustine, Cassian, Gregory I, and Bernard, reveal their understanding of the monastic life and of the role of mystical experiences as a part of formation in prayer. It is clear that the Rule of St. Benedict played a key role in the reform and renewal of both church and monasteries from the 8th century to the 12th century. The mystical experiences appearing throughout Bernard’s treatises and homilies are based on a love of Christ and a vibrant relationship with Christ. In the following section, I analyze Bernard’s concept of love through an examination of his works and homilies. His concept of love provides a theological vocabulary and enhances the spiritual formation of believers, conforming them to the image of Christ and, through that, building a more profound union with God. I consider this love a primary element in participating in the existential aspect of the text through an ongoing prayerful dialogue with God, that is to say, in the preacher’s engagement with the biblical text in a transformative way.

St. Bernard of Clairvaux’s Concept of Love Bernard’s concept of love is a crucial focal point for deepening the spiritual maturity of the faithful. His work On Loving God explains in detail the theme of love. He wrote this treatise in an effort to examine in depth why and how God should be loved. Chapters 8 to 10, which describe the four ascending degrees of human love, are my main focus. It is clear that Bernard employed this treatise to articulate the emphasis on love as the core value of the believer’s life, seeking to combine affective spirituality with the aura of mystical transcendence.30 I believe 29 Bernard of Clairvaux, On the Song of Songs IV, trans. Irene Edmonds (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1980), 74.II.5. 30 Emero Stiegman, On Loving God: An Analytical Commentary (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1995), 45.

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that Bernard’s concept of love can play an essential role in the spiritual formation of the faithful and their transformative engagement with the Scriptures. Before undertaking a detailed examination of the four degrees of love, I will first explain Bernard’s basic understanding of love. For Bernard, love is a verb; love is something that one does rather than something that one has. This kind of action is described by Bernard as a movement of the will toward a particular person or thing, relying on one’s desire. Bernard utilizes the term affection to illustrate the action of this movement. It can be said that one has affection for something when one determines to love it. Furthermore, love is discovered in the movement of affection from the desire for something to the actual doing of something. It is crucial to understand that love is born from desire as a movement of affection. Thus, for Bernard, true love occurs when a person desires that which God desires and shifts their will toward that object in affection, not simply to pursue a reward.31 Bernard’s thoughts on the four degrees of love suggest how he views God’s love for humans.

The First Degree of Love For Bernard, the central aspect of human existence is love, and it can be said that love has many meanings and levels. Bernard also believes that if one loves God totally, then one does not even think of oneself. However, Bernard highlights that this sort of mature love cannot be achieved in a short amount of time but is the outcome of a lifelong spiritual journey that is to be experienced and learned through several significant steps.32 According to Bernard, the first degree of love is a carnal love of oneself for one’s own sake, for self-​preservation or self-​satisfaction. Bernard states that this is the most natural form of love because human nature has become “fragile and weak” through sin. Love is not achieved through rules but instead is planted in human nature as a pure gift that must be received. Bernard asks, “Who is there who hates his own flesh?”33 However, this kind of love tends to be exposed as a bad habit that allows a person to be guided by these natural motives of self-​preservation in a way that leads to a state of intemperance or sin. If this type of love grows immoderately, according to Bernard, “[I]‌t ceases to be satisfied to run in the narrow channel of its needs, but floods out on all sides into the fields of pleasure.”34 This is 31 John R. Sommerfeldt, The Spiritual Teachings of Bernard of Clairvaux (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1991), 95. 32 Dennis E. Tamburello, Bernard of Clairvaux: Essential Writings (New York: Crossroad, 2000), 85. 33 Bernard of Clairvaux, “On Loving God,” in The Works of Bernard of Clairvaux, 115. 34 Bernard of Clairvaux, “On Loving God,” in Bernard of Clairvaux: Selected Works, 192.

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likely to make one’s conscience insensitive to the condition and circumstances of others and cause one to fall into the difficulty of being caught up in self-​pleasure and self-​satisfaction. If one cannot curb one’s desire to love oneself too much, then the overflow will eventually face the challenging commandment which says, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself ” (Matt. 22:39).35 Making an effort to follow this commandment keeps a person from excessive self-​love and self-​indulgence. There is nothing bad about this type of love per se, even though it seems less than pure. However, there is a risk that it will blossom into a bad thing if allowed. Bernard provides a way to remedy this. Emero Stiegman indicates that this first degree of love ought to advance from an individual’s selfish love to a generosity to others. He highlights that loving others is not just caring about them while allowing them to rely on their own will or circumstances but also involves assisting others in their times of need. Bernard emphasizes that it is at this moment that one realizes that one is freely willing to give up one’s possessions in order to serve one’s neighbors, heeding the words of the gospel: “First seek the Kingdom of God and his justice and all these things will be added to you” (Matt. 6:33; Luke 12:31).36 Thus, this love matures into following the commandment to love others as oneself. The second way to improve the bad element of the first level of love is to learn a healthy form of pleasure. Bernard indicates that if one provides enough to a neighbor in need, one might eventually give away all one has and find oneself lacking what is necessary for life. According to Bernard, when this happens, solace in the form of godly pleasure needs to be sought. Now the believer can pray in full faith and learn to be pleased that God is supplying what the faithful need; as the psalmist said, “You open your hand, satisfying the desire of every living being” (Ps. 145:16). As long as God’s assistance is sought, then the person may learn to endure the weight of tribulations and difficulties. When these two practical applications are completed together, they lead to the faithful being able to exercise the first step of love without falling into the negative aspect of love.37 With regard to observing the commandment to love others as oneself, Bernard asserts that it is necessary to be moved by God in order to love one’s neighbor. Loving one’s neighbors with perfect justice or purity is only possible when one loves them in God; it is impossible to love others in God unless one loves God. Bernard emphasizes that one must love God first so that then one can love one’s 35 Bernard of Clairvaux, “On Loving God,” in The Works of Bernard of Clairvaux, 115. 36 Tamburello, Bernard of Clairvaux: Essential Writings, 96; Stiegman, On Loving God: An Analytical Commentary, 99; Bernard of Clairvaux, “On Loving God,” in The Works of Bernard of Clairvaux, 116. 37 Bernard of Clairvaux, “On Loving God,” in Bernard of Clairvaux: Selected Works, 192–​3.

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neighbor in God (Matt. 12:30–​31). Moreover, the way God makes humans love God is simple. God allows people to experience tribulations because God wants them to perceive the weakness and fragility of the human condition. When one comprehends this, one starts to realize that some type of external help is needed. It is at this moment, in the midst of one’s difficulties, that the person begins to come to God. According to Bernard, this is the result of realizing that the only hope for true self-​preservation lies in the hands of the Creator. Hence, one runs to God, hoping that good things will happen to one. Bernard asserts that this occurs in the moment when “we learn from frequent experience that we can do everything that is good for ourselves in God [Phil. 4:13] and that without God we can do nothing good” ( John 15:5).38

The Second Degree of Love When one realizes that such self-​denying love is only possible through loving God first, one is naturally led to the second degree of love, in which one loves God for one’s own sake. Thus, the end result of the first level of love is realization of the second degree of love. Bernard does not spend much time explaining this second degree of love because it is closely related to the first degree. This second degree of love is not yet loving God for God’s sake; it is still loving God ultimately for one’s own advantage. As Dennis Tamburello notes, Bernard is arguing that in this second level of love even the hardest of hearts will sooner or later be melted by God’s generosity and mercy.39 No one wants to suffer. So, humans turn to a loving God in expectation and hope of assistance. Nature per se does not teach people to do this but teaches them to ask for what may fill their needs in their life. In this process, one gradually begins to advance from self-​centeredness towards God-​centeredness. Through the work of God, one comes to know that one is able to receive the assistance and help that one earnestly needs from God. Once this truth is realized, it is natural to frequently want to be freed of one’s tribulation by God. According to Bernard, if one’s trials increase in frequency and, as a result, one comes to God more often and repeatedly experiences God’s liberation, then surely, even though one has a heart of stone in a breast of iron (Ezek. 11:19, 36:26), one will realize that it is God’s 38 Bernard of Clairvaux, Bernard of Clairvaux: A Lover Teaching the Way of Love, ed. Basil Pennington (New York: New City Press, 2001), 72–​3. 39 Bernard of Clairvaux, Bernard of Clairvaux: A Lover Teaching the Way of Love, 73–​4; Bernard of Clairvaux, “On Loving God,” in The Works of Bernard of Clairvaux, 117; Tamburello, Bernard of Clairvaux: Essential Writings, 97.

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grace that is saving one in one’s sufferings. Bernard asserts that this second level of love is not necessarily noble; he thinks that it is a love derived from selfishness. Nevertheless, it is still love, and just as the first degree leads to the second degree of love, the second degree of love guides one toward the third degree, where one loves God not for one’s own benefit but for God’s sake.40

The Third Degree of Love The third degree of love, as explained earlier, is when the believer loves God for God’s sake, not for their own advantage. According to Bernard, the realization of God’s character plays a crucial role in advancing from the second degree to the third degree of love. What this means is that one’s frequent contact with God to fulfill one’s own needs now makes a small change in one’s heart. Originally, one turns to God out of one’s own self-​centeredness, but then one gradually starts to experience how sweet the Lord is (Ps. 33:9) and forms an intimate relationship with God in one’s life.41 As Bernard puts it, “[T]‌asting God’s sweetness entices us more to pure love than does the urgency of our own needs.”42 Once this sweetness of God is tasted, the very needs that drove one to God begin to be transformed as one makes an effort to follow God’s goodness. Once this transition happens, according to Bernard, one starts to love God truthfully and so loves what is God’s. Tamburello puts it this way: “[F]or now we can love as God loves: unselfishly.”43 In this way, one is drawn into an intimate relationship of admiration of God’s benevolent and righteous character through the divine’s complete love that has been given as a gift to be received. If one begins to establish a close relationship with God, then one considers the command to love one’s neighbor, which came in the first degree of love, as a joy, not a chore. Bernard states this eloquently: “He loves purely and he does not find it hard to obey a pure commandment, purifying his heart, as it is written, in the obedience of love” (1 Peter 1:22). One now desires to act out of a pure love composed of truth (1 John 3:18), deviating from excessive self-​perseverance and self-​ love. Stiegman believes that this gradual change takes place when one comes to realize the fact that loving God is loving what God has created.44 Bernard taught that the graciousness and goodness of God will be seen and experienced when one 40 Bernard of Clairvaux, “On Loving God,” in Bernard of Clairvaux: Selected Works, 193–​4. 41 Bernard of Clairvaux, “On Loving God,” in The Works of Bernard of Clairvaux, 118. 42 Bernard of Clairvaux, “On Loving God,” in Bernard of Clairvaux: Selected Works, 194. 43 Tamburello, Bernard of Clairvaux: Essential Writings, 97. 44 Stiegman, On Loving God: An Analytical Commentary, 122.

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reaches the third degree of love.45 When this happens, one confesses to the Lord “not because he [God] is good to him but because the Lord is good, truly loves God for God’s sake and not for his own benefit.”46 Thus, at the third degree of love, one comes to love God for more than one’s own benefit; one adores God purely due to the Lord’s inherent perfection and sweetness. According to Bernard, if one continues in this third level of love, one’s quest will be successful.47

The Fourth Degree of Love The fourth degree of love, which is very different from the first three degrees, is to love oneself for the sake of God. Bernard regards the person who has attained this level of love as blessed because this person no longer loves themself without loving God. One who is inebriated with the love of God wants to become one with God in spirit (1 Cor. 6:17), saying: “My flesh and my heart have wasted away; O God of my heart, O God, my share for eternity” (Ps. 73:26). Bernard, however, asserts that this kind of experience is rarely given to a person; it is a blessed and holy person who experiences this fourth degree of love even once in their life. Unlike the preceding stages of love that are considered to be achievable for a human (one can come to live through the first three steps of love on a daily basis), human effort cannot sustain the fourth degree of love because it is a present from God that foreshows the pleasures of heaven. This type of love belonging to God is given to those who know how much God loves them. This degree of love cannot be achieved by the human because it belongs only to God. One can only experience this type of love in the fourth level when God offers it as a gift.48 Bernard suggests that it is possible for some believers to experience the fourth degree of love during their earthly life, though in a rare and fleeting way.49 He 45 Tamburello, Bernard of Clairvaux: Essential Writings, 98. 46 Bernard of Clairvaux, “On Loving God,” in The Works of Bernard of Clairvaux, 118. 47 Bernard writes, “The psalmist says: ‘Seek his face always’ [Ps. 104:4]. Nor, I think, will the soul cease to seek him even when she has found him. It is not with steps of the feet that God is sought, but with the heart’s desire. And, when the soul happily finds him, her desire is not quenched but kindled.” Bernard of Clairvaux, On the Song of Songs IV, 84.I.1. 48 Bernard of Clairvaux, “On Loving God,” in The Works of Bernard of Clairvaux, 119; Tamburello, Bernard of Clairvaux: Essential Writings, 98; Bernard of Clairvaux, “On Loving God,” in Bernard of Clairvaux: Selected Works, 195. 49 Bernard emphasizes that the mystical experience is not a continual ecstasy: “Always it is for so short a time! Just as one thinks he has him, he suddenly slips away. If he sometimes permits himself to be laid hold of, it is not for long. Swiftly he departs as if fleeing from your embrace.” Bernard of Clairvaux, On the Song of Songs II, trans. Kilian Walsh (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1976), 32:2.

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describes the nature of this degree of love as a moment of ecstasy. According to Bernard, this mystical experience takes place when one completely loses oneself in God. He explains it more clearly in these terms: “O chaste and holy love! O sweet and gracious affection! O pure and cleansed purpose, thoroughly washed and purged from any admixture of selfishness, and sweetened by contact with the divine will.” Bernard also describes the experience by saying that to lose oneself “as if thou wert emptied and lost and swallowed up in God, is no human love; it is celestial.” One is united with God so as to make one’s human feelings flow into the will of God; all human feelings are melted away. However, this astonishing experience does not last a long time because human beings cannot long escape their current plight.50 Bernard deplores that “if sometimes a poor mortal feels that heavenly joy for a rapturous moment, then this wretched life envies his happiness, the malice of daily trifles disturbs him.”51 Regrettably, the fourth step of love is rare and fleeting due to the temporal needs of the flesh; as Paul says, “What a wretched man I am! Who shall save me from the body of this death?” (Rom. 7:24). To summarize, Bernard’s teaching on the four degrees of love demonstrates the great significance of the attribute of love in enhancing the spiritual formation of the faithful for a transformative reading of the Bible. Since a human being is born of carnal desire, it is inevitable that human love and desire ought to start with the body. When one has come to the conclusion that one cannot be the author of one’s own existence, one starts to inquire after God by faith and loves God based on one’s needs. Through this experience, God gradually begins to make Godself known to one and enables one to love Godself. When one feels and tastes how sweet the Lord is, one is led to the third level, where one loves God not for one’s own benefit but for God’s sake. In the fourth step, which may not be fully attained in this life, in some miraculous way, one forgets oneself, comes wholly to God, and becomes one with God in spirit. Then, one is freed from the weaknesses of the flesh and earthly cares and receives the spiritual body one naturally desires by pursuing the justice of God all and only for love.52 Thus, human love is gradually advanced by God’s grace and love through certain stages and fulfilled at the spiritual level; in other words, the human bears an earthly likeness at first and then a heavenly likeness (1 Cor. 15:49).

50 Bernard of Clairvaux, On Loving God, ed. Hugh Martin (London: SCM Press, 1959), 48, 47; Stiegman, On Loving God: An Analytical Commentary, 123. 51 Bernard of Clairvaux, On Loving God, 47. 52 Bernard of Clairvaux, “On Loving God,” in Bernard of Clairvaux: Selected Works, 204.

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The Centrality of Love in Bernard’s Homilies on the Song of Songs Bernard’s homilies on the Song of Songs emphasize the theme of love in promoting the spiritual formation of the believer for a transformative reading of the Scriptures. The key point of Bernard’s teachings of love can be summarized as follows: “What a great thing is love, provided always that it returns to its origin […] flowing back again into its source it acquires fresh strength to pour itself forth once again.”53 These two lines clearly show the two basic premises of Bernard’s spiritual program: human love is to be directed to God, and God’s grace restores the power that belongs inherently to humanity as the image of God (imago Dei) and enables humans to discover again the dignity of their origin.54 Given this understanding, my analysis of Bernard’s homilies on the Song of Songs will consider the five essential ways in which love motivates the faithful to encounter the world projected by the text. Bernard started writing homilies on the Song of Songs in 1135 and continued to develop them until his death 18 years later. He worked on 86 homilies and was only able to complete the third chapter of the Song of Songs. The work that Bernard had begun was eventually finished by his disciples in the monastery. In modern-​day biblical scholarship, the Song of Songs is mostly considered a love poem that describes a close relationship between a woman and a man, but this literal interpretation of this song is relatively new. During much of the church’s history, the Song of Songs has been interpreted from an allegorical perspective; it has been viewed as the love relationship between God, God’s people, and the church. Bernard follows the allegorical interpretation of the Song of Songs by highlighting the legitimacy of the spiritual nature of the text. The reason for this is that Bernard believes that the Song of Songs primarily concentrates on the heart of the spiritual marriage based on love between God and humans. Bernard uses rich images of love throughout his homilies on the Song of Songs.55 In Bernard’s homilies on the Song of Songs, the first way of love is considered a factor in promoting a believer’s spiritual formation for a transformative engagement with the biblical text. This relationship between God and humans requires the harmony of orderly love. Bernard describes this as follows:

53 Bernard of Clairvaux, On the Song of Songs IV, 83:4. 54 Bernard of Clairvaux, Song of Songs I, ix. 55 Tamburello, Bernard of Clairvaux: Essential Writings, 104–​7.

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For it is not a melody that resounds abroad but the very music of the heart, not a trilling on the lips but an inward pulsing of delight, a harmony not of voices but of wills. It is a tune you will not hear in the streets, these notes do not sound where crowds assemble; only the singer hears it and the one to whom he sings–​–​the lover and the beloved. It is preeminently a marriage song telling of chaste souls in loving embrace, of their wills in sweet concord, of the mutual exchange of the heart’s affections.56

Bernard here emphasizes that an essential principle in the relationship between the lover and the beloved is to share the same goals and aspirations. In other words, to some extent they are inclined to want and enjoy the same things. This view of the relationship does not alter when a person is a considering union with God. This means that the person should first order their love in such a manner as to yearn for that which the divine desires. If the beloved one is in complete accordance with the divine, this mutual desire will be able to play a role in preventing issues that would arise when the person is only partially in harmony with the will of God. Thus, a spiritually mature person, who seeks to bear fruit under the inspiration of God, understands love as a union that enables them to be in consonance with God’s will.57 The second way of love that needs to be highlighted in Bernard’s teachings is that a person is allowed to satisfy God by pure love. According to Bernard, this love can be found in the bride’s way of loving, standing at the highest degree of love. Bernard describes in detail the love of the bride as having no self-​interest: “Pure love does not gain strength through expectation, nor is it weakened by distrust.”58 According to Bernard, the pure love of the bride is not loving the bridegroom for any gain but loving the bridegroom himself. All that will please and satisfy the bride is the return of this love from the bridegroom, not any benefit that the bridegroom brings to her life. God’s love does not consider human appearance and possessions as an essential value. God does not ask the believer for anything other than this pure love of the bride, and only this love will satisfy God. This is nothing other than true love, “holy and chaste, full of sweetness and delight, love utterly serene and true, mutual and deep, which joins two beings, not in one flesh, but in one spirit, making them no longer two but one.”59 The third way of love revealed in Bernard’s homilies is the requirement of the faithful to understand that love is the primary source of spiritual insight.60 Bernard 56 57 58 59 60

Bernard of Clairvaux, Song of Songs I, 1.11. Bernard of Clairvaux, Song of Songs I, 1.11–​12. Bernard of Clairvaux, On the Song of Songs IV, 83.I.3, 83.II.5 (quotation). Bernard of Clairvaux, On the Song of Songs IV, 83.I.3, 83.II.5, 83.III 6 (quotation). Bernard of Clairvaux, On the Song of Songs IV, 85.IV.13.

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is convinced that a person who falls in love with God will naturally aspire to spend a great deal of time meditating upon the Word of God and will then give birth to greater spiritual insights than a person whose love for God in not as deep.61 This is possible because, according to Bernard, the soul who is in love with God “leaves even its bodily senses and is separated from them, so that in her awareness of the Word she is not aware of herself.” Bernard underscores that this occurs “when the mind is enraptured by the unutterable sweetness of the Word, so that it withdraws, or rather is transported, and escapes from itself to enjoy the Word.” He accordingly encourages his hearers to practice meditation regularly as a way to a better understand the precepts of God. He emphasizes that a meditative reading of the biblical text enables one to penetrate obscure passages and find their meaning—​“As the hind penetrates the wood’s dark avenue, so does the contemplative spirit penetrate the obscure meanings of things”—​and asserts that reflective reading enables one to go beyond the literal meaning of the text and find its allegorical senses.62 Bernard describes the abundant fruits of such meditation on the Word: I have said that wisdom is to be found in meditating on these truths. For me they are the source of perfect righteousness, of the fullness of knowledge [Isa. 33:6], of the most efficacious graces, of abundant merits. Sometimes I draw from them a drink that is wholesomely bitter, sometimes an unction that is sweet and consoling. When I am in difficulties, they bear me up, when I am happy, they regulate my conduct.63

Through spiritual insight gained through reading Scripture meditatively, the faithful are helped to grow closer to God and form an intimate relationship with 61 Bernard’s method for reading Scripture is based on the Rule of St. Benedict, which makes lectio (a prayerful method of reading Scripture) a foundation of the spiritual life. Bernard describes the meditative reading of the biblical text with rich saporous imagery: “As food is sweet to the palate, so does a psalm delight the heart. But the soul that is sincere and wise will not fail to chew the psalm with her teeth, as it were, of the mind. Because, if she swallows it in a lump without proper mastication, her palate will be cheated of the delicious flavor, sweeter even than honey that drips from the comb [Ps. 18:11]. Bernard of Clairvaux, Song of Songs I, 7.IV.5. 62 Bernard of Clairvaux, On the Song of Songs IV, 85.IV.13. Bernard says further: “[S]‌uch is the literal sense. […] But, as for me, following the counsel of the Lord, I will search for the treasures of spirit and life hidden in the profound depths of these inspired utterances.” Bernard insists that the Word is inspired and that the reader should be as well: “Now, under the Spirit’s guidance, let us try to draw out the spiritual fruit contained in them.” With the Spirit’s guidance, “[T]exts of Scripture hitherto dark and impenetrable at last become bright with meaning for you, then, in gratitude for this nurturing bread of heaven you must charm the ears of God with a voice of exultation and praise, a festal song” [Ps. 41:5].” Bernard of Clairvaux, Song of Songs I, 7.V; Bernard of Clairvaux, On the Song of Songs IV, 73. I. 1–​2; Bernard of Clairvaux, On the Song of Songs III, 51.I.2. 63 Bernard of Clairvaux, On the Song of Songs II, 43.III.

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God in their everyday lives. Therefore, time spent dwelling upon the Word will significantly promote the spiritual maturity of the faithful and strengthen the bond between God and God’s people.64 The fourth way of love in Bernard’s homilies on the Song of Songs appears when the believer experiences the deepening of spiritual maturity through love, which is the way to enjoy God in bliss. This means that the small pleasures and happiness the faithful can enjoy in this life ought to come through a close relationship with God. Bernard emphasizes that genuine pleasure and enjoyment can only happen in an intimate relationship with the divine, which is formed by love. Bernard puts it this way: “There is far more pleasure in going aside to be with the Word” [2 Cor. 5:13].65 He continues, “[T]‌he final reason for the soul to seek the Word was to enjoy him [God] in bliss.” Although this type of bliss lasts a short time and is rarely experienced, the faithful will be able to experience a deepening of spiritual maturity if they truly and blissfully love God.66 The last way of love taught by Bernard in his homilies on the Song of Songs is that the love of the faithful should be directed toward others with an ordered love. Bernard tells his audience in his 50th homily: Give me a man who loves God, before all things and with his whole being, who loves self and neighbor in proportion to their love for God, who loves the enemy as one who perhaps some day will love, who loves his physical parents very deeply because of the natural bond, his spiritual guides more generously because of grace. In like manner let him deal too with the other things of God with an ordered love. […] Give me such a man, I repeat, and I shall boldly proclaim him wise, because he appreciates things for what they really are, because he can truthfully and confidently boast and say: He set love in order for me’ [Song of Sol. 2:4].67

The genuinely humble person knows who they truly are. Bernard highlights that the person who is truly acquainted with their own human condition will also have empathy for others. Bernard argues that the person who has experienced their own limitations has the ability to empathize with others: “Fellow-​sufferers readily feel compassion for the sick and the hungry. For just as pure truth is seen only by 64 Bernard underscores that a meditative reading of Scripture, which promotes the believer’s spiritual insights, includes not only tasting but also hearing and smelling the precepts of God: “He [David] opened his mouth [Ps. 118:13] and drew in his breath, and when he was filled full he not only belched but also sang. Good Jesus! With what sweetness he suffused my nostrils and my ears when he belched and sang of the oil of gladness with which God anointed him above his fellows [Ps. 44:8]. Bernard of Clairvaux, On the Song of Songs IV, 67.IV.7. 65 Bernard of Clairvaux, On the Song of Songs IV, 85.IV.13. 66 Bernard of Clairvaux, On the Song of Songs IV, 83.III.6. 67 Bernard of Clairvaux, On the Song of Songs III, 50.III.8.

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the pure of heart, so also a brother’s miseries are truly experienced only by one who has misery in his own heart.”68 Furthermore, according to Bernard, the weakness of others prompts a reaction of gentle empathy in the truly humble person who recognizes their own weakness. Bernard describes it this way: “Following the wise counsel of Saint Paul, he must learn to love those who are caught in habits of sin [Gal. 6:1], not forgetting that he himself is open to temptation.”69 Bernard believes that this compassion that results from humility leads to love. The love of the faithful consequently ought to be complemented and fulfilled by God’s grace, which perfects nature by yielding the empathy that leads to love for others. These five practical applications in Bernard’s homilies on the Song of Songs consider love as a motivating element in the godly life of the believer for an encounter with the world projected by the text. They can be summarized as follows: first, cultivate a constant awareness of one’s shared goals and aspirations with God; second, actively seek the pure love of the bride, standing at the highest level of love in order to satisfy God; third, enjoy and spend a significant amount of time meditating on the Word, which is the source of the advancement of the believer’s spiritual maturity; fourth, perceive the pleasure and enjoyment that stems only from an intimate relationship with God established by pure love; and last, be humble and truly aware of one’s own human condition and also attentive to the needs of others with a properly directed love. Bernard’s teachings on the concept of loving God reflect his approach to encountering the world projected by the text and thus having a transformative engagement with the text. His concept of the mystical experience is based on loving God. Through a reading of his treatise On Loving God, I have demonstrated that Bernard’s teaching on the four degrees of love, through which human love is gradually advanced by God’s love and grace through certain steps, plays a significant role in helping the believer to achieve spiritual maturity, thus leading toward union with God in Christ through the Spirit. In considering the four degrees of love, I have identified an essential feature, which is that the spirituality of the faithful is formed by the practice of a willed love that surrenders oneself to the divine. Further, this close relationship with the divine formed by love creates a space for the faithful to prayerfully and meditatively dialogue with the divine, entering into the world projected by the text. According to Bernard, the source of the advancement of the believer’s spiritual formation lies in spending a significant amount of time contemplating and 68 Bernard of Clairvaux, Sancti Bernardi Opera, 3:21. 69 Bernard of Clairvaux, On the Song of Songs II, 44.III.4.

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meditating on the Word. In this context, the act of engaging in a prayerful and meditative dialogue with God, which entails an expansion of the self through encountering the world projected by the text, is significant since the encounter with God through the Scripture by the Spirit transforms the faithful beyond the texts to the One who speaks through them. This contemplative practice is based on God’s mysterious love that transforms the reader’s mode of being. The mysterious encounter with the presence of God and the reader’s transformation and expansion into God, which stem from a prayerful and meditative dialogue, are due to the love and grace of God. In this transformative engagement with the biblical text, the Spirit opens the human heart to a new future, and divine love reformulates the reader’s carnal self-​love. With the assistance of the Spirit, the center of the reader’s existence becomes filled with love for God. Bernard’s concept of the mystical experience as relying on love of the divine, the four degrees of love, and the five practical applications promote the spiritual formation of the faithful and enhances the conditions for the possibility of a transformative engagement with the Scriptures. The soul’s love of God is essential for reading the Bible and preaching the Scriptures in a transformative way. The next chapter explores the concept of a transformative reading of the Bible to develop a holistic approach to biblical hermeneutics for contemporary Korean Pentecostals, taking into account the maturity of the believer’s love of God.

CHAPTER FIVE

A Transformative Engagement with the Scriptures for Contemporary Korean Pentecostals

In this chapter, I explore the concept of a transformative engagement with the Scriptures and develop a holistic approach to biblical texts for contemporary Korean Pentecostals. I conclude the chapter with a sample sermon based on the transformative homiletics I suggest in this book. This transformative reading of the biblical text is based on God’s love for the faithful and on the preacher as a reader’s desire to conform to the image of Christ through empowerment by the Holy Spirit in a way that ultimately builds union with the divine (2 Cor. 3:18). The preacher’s intimate relationship with the divine allows them to discover the authorial intention and historical context of the text (information) and also to engage with the existential aspect of the text (transformation), thus impacting their own life and that of the congregation. Here, reading the biblical text in a transformative way means participating in ontological union with “the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16). By seeking to build communion with God and with one another, the reader is empowered by the Spirit to fathom the divine mystery (1 Cor. 2:9–​10). In this way of reading the Bible, the preacher approaches the biblical text not only by analyzing, criticizing, dissecting, and reorganizing it with the minister’s rational, cognitive, and intellectual abilities but also by embracing the possibility that the preacher’s whole mode of being may be transformed by the encounter with the imminent presence of the divine, who is present sacramentally in the Word through a prayerful and meditative dialogue with God. Such an encounter leads

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the minister to surrender themself and fills the now emptied space of their heart with the love of God, eventually resulting in union between the minister and the divine. In other words, a transformative engagement with the Scriptures involves death to one’s old self and a rising again in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17). This is not a negation of self but the self ’s transformation and expansion into God. The faithful minister is able to build this union with the divine by the mortification and vivification of the Spirit. Preachers, who seek to build union with the divine through being in love with Christ, hope that their faith communities will also have a mystical experience developed on the basis of loving God. This can be encouraged through preaching a sermon that is prepared through the following process: surrendering oneself, filling that void with God’s love, and, lastly, building union with the divine. The preacher’s transformative engagement with the biblical text embraces the multiple narrative worlds of the hearers. The preacher promotes the encounter of the church community’s worlds with the world of the biblical text. According to Dominican theologian William Hill, the preacher’s stammering utterances can actually be a vessel for the Spirit to speak. Therefore, the Holy Spirit, working through the Word proclaimed, provokes deep questions not only within the preacher but also within the faithful. The hearers are drawn to the Word of God as they search for answers to the profound questions that they have been asked.1 The minister and the faith community actualize the Word by becoming disciples and followers of Christ. Being a disciple means more than imitating the deeds of Christ; it means becoming like Christ in mind, soul, and heart. Thus, the preacher and the gathered community are able to become like Jesus by embodying “the mind of Christ everywhere, always, and to everyone” for the purpose of “glorifying God in all they do and say.”2 I therefore suggest a transformative engagement with the Scriptures as an alternative biblical hermeneutic for contemporary Korean Pentecostals. The biblical hermeneutic that I have constructed is comprised of five steps:

• preliminary (recognizing the difference between idol and icon) • exegetical (analyzing the historical contexts and literary genres of the text) • prayerful and meditative (moving from informational to transformational reading)

1 Hill, “Preaching as a Moment in Theology,” 186. 2 Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Hearers and Doers: A Pastor’s Guide to Making Disciples through Scripture and Doctrine (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2019), xxviii.

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• spiritually formational (building union with the divine) • practical (embodying the Word in Christ through the Holy Spirit)

Preliminary Step: Recognizing the Difference between Idol and Icon The preliminary step in a transformative engagement with the text is recognizing the difference between idol and icon.These two concepts can be distinguished based on whether the viewer’s gaze remains on the visible or the invisible. First of all, an idol objectifies and fixes the divine with the human’s gaze. In other words, according to French philosopher Jean-​Luc Marion, the idol “consigns the divine to the measure of a human gaze.”3 Thus, the idol exposes the divine to the human and allows the divine to occur only in the human’s measure. This means that the initiative for approaching God is taken by humans. God is only available to human experience within human measure and in human terms.4 Further, the idol causes the human gaze to aim at the divine but then to return to the idol itself. This means that the human gaze is stopped by the idol itself and is reflected by the idol. The human gaze is wrapped up in and filled with the idol. Philosopher Merold Westphal describes it this way: “[W]‌hen the gaze comes to rest on its object, settles, and freezes there and does not ‘transpierce’ it to something beyond it, the object is taken as an idol.”5 The idol draws the viewer to the idol itself because the idol matches the viewer’s own desire and image of the divine. In this regard, the idol appears as a reflection of the viewer’s aim and functions as the focus of the viewer’s admiration. That is, the idol appears to be a mirror that reflects the viewer’s desires, wishes, and imagination. Thus, the approach to the divine is in the viewer’s terms. The viewer’s aim is imposed upon the divine, and the resulting idol is an expression of that aim.6 Marion summarizes the nature of the idol as follows: “[T]he idol still remains, in one way or another, proportionate to the expectation of the desire; thus it fulfills (sometimes to a degree more than

3

Jean-​Luc Marion, God without Being, trans. Thomas A. Carlson, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012), 14. 4 Marion, God without Being, 15; Christina M. Gschwandtner, Marion and Theology (London: T&T Clark, 2016), 32–​3. 5 Merold Westphal, “Phenomenology of Religion,” in The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Religion, ed. Chad Meister and Paul Copan (New York: Routledge, 2013), 737. 6 Gschwandtner, Marion and Theology, 31, 32; Marion, God without Being, 27.

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expected) the anticipation.”7 In other words, the divine in the idol exists at the level of (and is limited by) the viewer’s desires, wishes, and imagination. The icon functions in a different way. The word icon derives from the Greek word eikon, meaning image or portrait. The icon cannot be captured by the gaze of the beholder. Rather, the icon leads the gaze of the viewer to go beyond the object; the icon serves as a subject that looks at the viewer. Marion writes that “[t]‌he icon summons the gaze to surpass itself by never freezing on a visible, since the visible only presents itself here in view of the invisible.”8 In this sense, according to Paul Moyaert, the icon can be defined as having the power to appear first as the visible and then to change the origin of the intention and gaze of the viewer into the invisible. The ray of light falls upon the viewers and transforms their intentionality into receptivity. They find themselves being gazed upon by the icon. Moyaert explains this in more detail: “The heart of the icon bears invisibility, which fills the icon and plants the all-​penetrating gaze of the invisible in the heart of the believer whose eyes are opened by the icon.”9 This concept of the icon was highlighted by the Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, who asserted that “the honor rendered to the image belongs to its prototype,” quoting St. Basil the Great.10 Further, according to St. John of Damascus (675–​ca. 749), who is considered one of the greatest of the defenders of holy images, the honor presented in the image “is given to the one portrayed in the image.”11 In this context, Marion argues that the formula that Paul applied to Christ, icon of the invisible God (Col. 1:15), should be the norm for Christians. This means that Christ can be understood as the divine icon in that the believer’s sight is guided to the image of the invisible God through the God-​Man Jesus Christ. This icon appears to be the existence or the presence of what Marion refers to as a non-​object. In other words, the icon is a presence that cannot be objectified by the gaze of the viewer. Marion emphasizes that the icon attempts to make visible the invisible and thus to allow the visible to always refer to something other than itself.12 7

Jean-​Luc Marion, The Crossing of the Visible, trans. James K. A. Smith (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996), 34. 8 Marion, God without Being, 17. 9 Paul Moyaert, “In Defense of Praying with Images,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 81, no. 4 (2007): 601, 602. 10 St. Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit, trans. David Anderson (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1992), 59–​60 (18.45). 11 St. John of Damascus, On the Divine Images, trans. David Anderson (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1980), 36. 12 Ouspensky, Theology of the Icon, 56; Marion, God without Being, 17, 18, 21.

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The gaze, therefore, is directed not by the icon itself but by a gaze behind the actual icon.13 This is why Marion explains icons as saturated phenomena, which means that the visible icon is filled with the invisible reality. Moyaert writes that the icon “is without lack because it is superabundant and saturated. […] The icon is saturated with the divine reality that gives itself. In theological terms, it is a continuation of the self-​giving and self-​emptying of Christ.” In other words, Christ as a visible icon is filled with the reality of the invisible God ( John 14:9). Hans Urs von Balthasar, a Swiss Catholic theologian, describes the form (Gestalt) of God, Christ, in this way: “[T]‌he appearance of the form, as revelation of the depths, is an indissoluble union of two things. It is the real presence of the depths, of the whole of reality, and it is a real pointing beyond itself to these depths.”14 Christ manifests the invisible God to the viewer when the viewer sees the Son. Therefore, in a transformative reading of the biblical text, instead of staging an active approach in which the reader’s gaze is only fixed on the immediate meaning of the text (as in the case for the idol), a receptive approach (as in the case of viewing an icon) opens the reader’s gaze to the world projected by the text and anticipates what is being unfolded and what is manifested to the reader. Based on Paul Ricoeur’s interpretive method (discussed in Chapter Three), the new reference of the text draws the reader into “God’s new order of being in Christ,” who is the Word ( John 1:14).15 As a result, the reader’s mode of being is transformed by gazing upon the object that the reader sees; the invisible God allows Godself to be known. Further, this encounter allows the reader to see where the text is pointing and to see beyond the text to the world to which the text points. As von Balthasar puts it, “[T]‌he man Christ sees God as one who is seen (sent) by God and […], therefore, whoever sees him sees the Father—​provided that one sees him as he must be seen and as he intends to be seen.”16 As believers read the text, they find themselves being gazed upon by the divine so that they are drawn into the love and truth of God. This is the experience that St. Bernard of Clairvaux described so eloquently in his homilies and other writings (discussed in Chapter Four). The iconic approach to the Word promotes the encounter between God and the faithful. More specifically, the believer’s iconic experience raises their gaze toward 13 Gschwandtner, Marion and Theology, 32–​3. 14 Jean-​Luc Marion, Being Given: Towards a Phenomenology of Givenness, trans. Jeffrey L. Kosky (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002), 233; Moyaert, “In Defense of Praying with Images,” 602; Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics I: Seeing the Form (New York: T&T Clark, 1982), 1:115. 15 Paul Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 94–​5; M. Robert Mulholland, Shaped by the Word: The Power of Scripture in Spiritual Formation (Nashville: Upper Room Books, 2001), 70. 16 von Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord, 1:319.

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the transcendent itself behind the object through which the transcendent is being visualized. This process transforms the faithful into the image of God (Gal. 4:19).

Exegetical Step: Analyzing the Historical Contexts and Literary Genres of the Text The exegetical step in a transformative reading of the biblical text is to approach the text with a critical, attentive, and faithful attitude by interrogating the text to bring into view the world behind the text. Ricoeur describes the process of interpretation of the text as a dialectical movement between explanation and understanding, between explicating the sense and reference of the text and the holistic assimilation of these two elements, as an expansion of the reader’s existence. The process begins with an initial understanding that naively grasps the meaning of the text, and then the reader subjects this understanding to scrutiny through procedures that modify and expand the initial understanding into the sense that is finally comprehended.17 The initial understanding is the starting point for grasping the meaning of the text. This is a hypothesis that guesses what the text means based on the verbal meaning of the text. In other words, it serves as the basis for planning a methodical explanatory procedure. As Ricoeur notes, “[T]‌here are no rules for making good guesses.”18 In the first encounter with the text, the reader comes to understand the surface semantics of the text based on the reader’s past experience with the text or pre-​understanding the text by writing reflections on their first impressions of the text. Then, the reader moves on to the process of asking what are the focal points of the text that are generally understood and what are the general interpretations of the text in the reader’s tradition of faith. The initial guess of what the text is about and what it says, based on the reader’s pre-​understanding, which Ricoeur calls the first naïveté, is the first stage of the interpretive process. A leading scholar of philosophical hermeneutics, Hans-​Georg Gadamer, asserts that being open to texts includes recognizing one’s own prejudices: “[T]he important thing is to be aware of one’s own bias, so that the text can present itself in all its otherness and thus assert its own truth against one’s own foremeanings.”19

17 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 71–​88. 18 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 76. 19 Hans-​Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall, 2nd rev. ed. (New York: Continuum, 2004), 271–​2.

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Ricoeur also notes that there are methods the reader can use to validate their initial guesses. According to Ricoeur, a more sophisticated mode of understanding, called the second naïveté, is supported by an explanatory procedure. Explanation or critical consciousness, which mediates between the initial stage of understanding and a second, more sophisticated level of understanding, is the process of methodical interrogation of the text through techniques of investigation. Ricoeur describes it this way: “[T]‌he transition from guessing to explaining is secured by an investigation of the specific object of guessing.”20 According to Schneiders, the reader must not assume the authority of their sources but should engage in critical investigation to determine which sources are reliable. Exegesis and criticism, in which historical, literary, and other methods are used to understand the meaning of the world behind the text, are the key elements needed for this critical investigation. Three approaches are central to the historical-​ critical method of interpreting the text. First, the historical-​critical method focuses on the original meaning of the text, paying special attention to what it meant to its first readers, not to modern readers. Theologian John Barton notes that the main task of biblical scholars is to get back to the original meaning of the text and to “eliminate the false meanings that unhistorical readers thought they had found in the text.” This requires situating texts in the historical context of the first readers because biblical texts are a produced by real people in remote times and places and in a particular historical context.21 Second, the historical-​critical inquiry is interested in recognizing the historical context of terms in the text. This is because ancient writers wrote the text in a particular ancient language in keeping with forms in use at the time of composition and their own style. Third, historical criticism approaches the text, as much as possible, without prejudice and listens to what the text simply meant. This is based on focusing on the historical circumstances in which the text was written. As biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann asserts, no biblical text is socially “innocent or disinterested.” Schneiders also comments that the biblical documents were influenced by the thought, culture, and literature of its the place where they were composed.22 20 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 74–​6 (quotation is on p. 76). 21 Schneiders, The Revelatory Text, 98, 114, 158; John Barton, “Historical-​Critical Approaches,” in The Cambridge Companion to Biblical Interpretation, ed. John Barton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 11. 22 Barton, “Historical-​Critical Approaches,” 11–​12; Schneiders, The Revelatory Text, 114; Long, The Witness of Preaching, 89–​92; Walter Brueggemann, “The Social Nature of the Biblical Text for Preaching,” in Preaching as a Social Act: Theology and Practice, ed. Arthur Van Seters (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1988), 131.

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Since the text is not exclusively historical, other dimensions of the text also ought to be considered, such as the literary elements and genres of the text, whether narrative, poetry, epistolary, and so on. A literary reading of the text is equally important to the historical-​critical reading. Schneiders points out that “[i]‌t is as true to say that the biblical text is thoroughly literary as to say that it is thoroughly historical.” Schneiders also mentions that because “all of the text is literary in that it is work composed of words,” the literary approach to the text is “appropriate and necessary.”23 Unlike the historical-​critical method that favors the claim that the meaning of a text is not derived from the text itself, the literary reading of the Bible harmonizes mainly with the assertion that the meaning of a text is drawn from within the text itself. But this does not mean that a literary reading of the Bible is completely free from the historical context of the text. According to Schneiders, “[T]‌he literary methods can never be used in total isolation from historical methods, if only because the text is an ancient one from a foreign cultural context.”24 Furthermore, the literary approach to the text seeks to discover meaning in linguistic or cultural forms encapsulated in language. The literary reading of the text is more interested in “the actual text of Scripture and its immediate interaction with the reader” rather than the context within which the text was originally written and understood.25 This means that the literary research method is concerned with overcoming the gap between the ancient text and the modern reader. Here, the literary qualities of the biblical texts allow the reader to encounter with new immediacy their power and mystery. Schneiders explains it this way: “[L]‌iterary methods are concerned with the way a text works, both within itself and in relationship to the reader, in order to evoke and structure the event of meaning.”26 The literary approach to the text, which concentrates attention upon the text’s stylistic features and pattern of construction, allows the reader to read the biblical text in its original form and understand its literary devices, such as metaphor, imagery, and poetic language, as did its authors and first readers. Therefore, in this exegetical step, which takes into account historical contexts and the literary character of the text, the reader explores the text based on an exegetical process consisting of eight steps to achieve a more sophisticated level of 23 Schneiders, The Revelatory Text, 116–​17. 24 David Jasper, “Literary Readings of the Bible,” in The Cambridge Companion to Biblical Interpretation, ed. John Barton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 21; Yung Suk Kim, Biblical Interpretation: Theory, Process, and Criteria (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2013), 17–​18; Schneiders, The Revelatory Text, 117. 25 Jasper, “Literary Readings of the Bible,” 24. 26 Jasper, “Literary Readings of the Bible,” 27; Schneiders, The Revelatory Text, 117.

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understanding of the text. These steps are: (1) identifying and describing the literary character and genre of the text; (2) analyzing stylistic features and patterns of the passage based on its literary structure; (3) describing and exploring metaphor, imagery, and significant terms and language in the text while listing phrases that need to be unpacked and doing research in Bible dictionaries and Bible encyclopedias or lexicons; (4) placing the text in its larger context by disclosing what happens in the text surrounding the passage selected for exegetical work and considering how the selected passage fits within it; (5) exploring as much as possible about the historical nature of the text (describing both the period illustrated in the text and the period in which the text was written); (6) examining theological themes and issues presented in the text and analyzing the theological vocabulary employed in the text; (7) listening attentively to the text and asking penetrating questions of the text, exploring the text by searching for details that emerge as unusual at first glance, examining the text’s main thoughts and searching for conflict, either behind the text or in the text, and understanding the contextual relationship between the text and what comes before and after it; and (8) engaging at least four commentaries by diverse authors, comparing the questions the reader raised with those of the commentators and discovering concerns or issues raised by commentators the reader did not consider but found interesting, and, finally, researching the concerns or issues that commentators neglected that need to be addressed.27

Prayerful and Meditative Step: Moving from Informational to Transformational Reading The third step in a transformative reading of the Scriptures is to pray and meditate on the sense of the text once it has been comprehended through critical interrogation (the second step) in light of the truthful and meaningful life narratives of the congregation. This suggests that the preacher ought to be well versed in the hearers’ multiple narrative worlds, just as the preacher is familiar with the world of the biblical text. Thomas Long, a leading scholar in the field of homiletics, describes the interaction between a biblical text and the hearer in this way: “[A]‌biblical text intersects some aspects of our life and exerts a claim upon us.” In this sense, 27 Long, The Witness of Preaching, 52–​98; James W. Thompson, “Interpreting Texts for Preaching,” in Teaching Preaching as a Christian Practice: A New Approach to Homiletical Pedagogy, ed. Thomas G. Long and Leonora Tubbs Tisdale (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 61–​74.

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the preacher listens prayerfully to the Bible on behalf of the community and then speaks on Christ’s behalf what the preacher hears in the text. In other words, this step has to do with how faithfully the Scriptures are read and interpreted in relation to the hearers’ contemporary experience and faith.28 Homiletics scholar Lance B. Pape attempts to connect Ricoeur’s understanding of the interpretive encounter with narrative texts as a threefold mimesis in which the process of text-​to-​sermon uses Ricoeur’s approach to interpretation.29 Pape argues that Ricoeur’s theory of narrative as threefold mimesis enlightens at two distinct points in the process of interpretation of the text: (1) “it describes and enhances our understanding of the preacher’s encounter with the biblical text as she prepares to preach,” and (2) “it clarifies our understanding of the congregation’s encounter with the sermon as text-​like oral event.”30 In this regard, preachers are under the authority of the Scriptures and hope to be encountered by the Word, which places them under the special obligation of listening to the text along with the truthful and meaningful life narratives of the hearers. In other words, according to Pape, “[T]‌he preacher is sent to this particular text by and on behalf of a community whose identity is constituted in part by a pledge to submit to the authority of this text.”31 This indicates that the preacher reads and mediates the text as the gathered community’s surrogate. The preacher gathers the community of faith around the Word. Moreover, the preacher focuses on the textual meaning of the biblical text for ecclesial gatherings, recapitulating the text and wrestling explicitly with the communal world it displays. This process begins with the preacher engaging the text through the lens of the ecclesial community members’ multiple narrative worlds; however, it moves further to provide the hearers with a depiction of their life narratives and circumstances illuminated and configured in light of the biblical text. As Pape rightly explains, the sermon is meant to “facilitate an encounter between a particular text and the community of faith such that the biblical text has its say in their hearing.”32 28 Long, The Witness of Preaching, 52 (quotation), 52–​68. 29 Pape explains the concept of preaching as threefold mimesis in this way: “The sermon can be judged according to its ability to discern rightly and represent the congregation’s narrative prefiguration (mimesis1), its willingness to engage deeply and display the narrative world configured by this particular biblical text (mimesis2), and its capacity to render seriously imaginable the new way of being made available through an encounter with this textual world (mimesis).” See Lance B. Pape, The Scandal of Having Something to Say (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2013), 124. 30 Pape, The Scandal of Having Something to Say, 121. 31 Pape, The Scandal of Having Something to Say, 122. 32 Pape, The Scandal of Having Something to Say, 127–​8, 129 (quotation).

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Homily

Biblical World

Congregation’s World

Figure 5.1.  The Integrated Model of Interpretation

The church community gathers to experience the world of the text. Then, some new sense (the second naïveté) emerges as a synergistic interaction between the world projected by the text and the context of the congregation’s life narratives and circumstances. In this sense, the preacher may be imagined as a guide who helps and accompanies the congregation on its journey with the biblical text. This approach to the hermeneutical process can be imagined in the form of a triangle whose points are the homily, the biblical world, and the congregation’s world (see Figure 5.1). The preacher seeks to discover language adequate to the new sense of what the preacher has seen and experienced in and through the process of reading the text on behalf of the particular faith community. The hearers are invited to encounter their own world refigured in light of the text, and God, who is working as the dynamic Word in and through their concrete and real lives, rewards them with a new way of being in the world. Thus, the preacher helps the hearers to navigate and explore the world projected between them and the text, hoping to facilitate the richest encounter possible between the two worlds.33 To this end, the preacher needs to take steps to share their reading of the Scriptures more genuinely with the ecclesial gathering. The preacher engages in the biblical text contemplatively through a prayerful and meditative reading of the image of Christ found there, seeking to mediate the Word in order to guide the hearers toward new possibilities for their lives in light of the preacher’s encounter with the biblical narrative through the lens of spirituality and faith. Homiletics scholar Kay L. Northcutt describes this kind of preacher as a spiritual guide, saying that “preachers who view themselves as spiritual guides and, further, who understand their religious authority to be grounded in their own seeking of God 33 Pape, The Scandal of Having Something to Say, 131–​3; William J. Hill, “Preaching the Word: The Theological Background,” in Search for the Absent God: Tradition and Modernity in Religious Understanding, ed. Mary Catherine Hilkert (New York: Crossroad, 1992), 171–​4.

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attract congregations who seek God and, subsequently, seek guidance from their pastors.”34 The Benedictine monastic spiritual practice of lectio divina (sacred reading) is beneficial for the preacher (and thus the congregation) because it encourages the preacher to engage in a prayerful and meditative reading of the biblical text. The key point here is that the preacher should practice this method of reading the Bible to promote a richer encounter between the congregation and the text. Having spent intimate time with God, the preacher is then able to encourage the encounter of the multiple narrative worlds of the hearers with the world of the biblical text. The practice of lectio divina is comprised of four movements: (1) lectio (reading), (2) meditatio (meditation), (3) oratio (prayer and thanksgiving), and (4) contemplatio (contemplation). It starts with lectio (reading), which is reading the biblical text with focused concentration on the Scripture passage. According to Thelma Hall, this way of reading is “a listening and a hearing, attuned to the inspired word and attentive to the Speaker.” Instead of hurrying through the reading, one reads slowly and calmly, as if reading poetry. As Hugh of St. Victor explains, the reader needs to “move slowly through the scriptural text, much like a hiker moving slowly through a grove, noting carefully the surroundings, and then sampling the fruit that may be found there.” Michael Casey notes that this formation of mind and heart requires a significant investment of time. In this movement, the preacher seeks to reflect on their assumptions about the ecclesial gathering and to find a word, phrase, or image in the text that draws the preacher’s attention in relation their particular community of faith.35 The second movement, meditatio (meditation), reflects on the Word that is slowly pondered in lectio, anticipating the growing relationship between God and the preacher for the faith community. In meditatio, the preacher is engaged in digesting the word, phrase, or image chosen in lectio through conversation with God with the addition of the preacher’s reflection on the lives of the actual congregation. In this movement, the preacher repeats the Word, phrase, or image of the text again and again for the assembly, considering its cultural and social setting, race, ethnicity, educational level, age, gender, learning styles, and theological convictions. This is how the preacher uncovers the significance of the text for the 34 Kay L. Northcutt, Kindling Desire for God (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2009), 80. 35 Thelma Hall, Too Deep for Words: Rediscovering Lectio Divina (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1988), 36; Raymond Studzinski, Reading to Live: The Evolving Practice of Lectio Divina (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2009), 165; Michael Casey, Sacred Reading: The Ancient Art of Lectio Divina (Liguori, MO: Liguori Press, 1995), 21; Leonora Tubbs Tisdale, Preaching as Local Theology and Folk Art (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1997), 62–​3.

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congregation. According to Enzo Bianchi, this experience can be described as rumination, or chewing on the Word over and over again,36 to “taste and see that the Lord is good” (Ps. 34:8). In this movement, therefore, these divine words are pondered in the context of the ecclesial community’s multiple narrative worlds in the hope that the words may be tasted and may permeate the souls of both the preacher and the congregation. The third movement is oratio (prayer and thanksgiving), which is to respond to the Word through prayers of thanksgiving, praise, petition, repentance, and adoration. Having been guided and led by the Spirit, the heart of the preacher will be opened more deeply in order to receive the Word of God through this time of prayer. Furthermore, in this movement, the preacher who prays seeks to enter into a position of more active dialogue with the God of faith. According to Tony Jones, this divine dialogue can be treated as a conversation with a true friend, starting with these questions: “God, why did you give me this word today? Why did I feel this when I meditated on it?”37 In other words, the preacher enters into a conversation with God that demands a move into action. This feature is described in detail by M. Basil Pennington: We will find our Word returning more and more, coloring the way we see and think and act, making the Lord present so that we communicate with him, maybe in thought, maybe in word, maybe just in the sense of presence, of witness.38

Here, the preacher makes an effort to pray and dialogue with God, seeking to understand the meaning of the text in the context of the lives of the congregation and expecting to be drawn to the glory and love of God. In this movement, therefore, the preacher tries to carry the Word within, through intimate prayer and dialogue with God. The preacher can be shaped through such a process, as Philip Doddridge, a British Nonconformist minister, explains: if you pray over the substance of the Bible, it will may impress your memory and your heart yet more deeply.39

36 Hall, Too Deep for Words, 38; Tisdale, Preaching as Local Theology and Folk Art, 70; Enzo Bianchi, Praying the Word: An Introduction to Lectio Divina, trans. James W. Zona (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1998), 55–​6. 37 Tony Jones, Divine Intervention: Encountering God through the Ancient Practice of Lectio Divina (Carol Stream, IL: NavPress, 2006), 78. 38 M. Basil Pennington, Lectio Divina: Renewing the Ancient Practice of Praying the Scriptures (Chestnut Ridge, NY: Crossroad, 1998), 64. 39 Philip Doddridge, The Rise and Progress of Religion in a Soul (New York: American Tract Society, n.d.), 120, Christian Classics Ethereal Library, https://​ccel.org/​ccel/​doddri​dge/​rise/​rise.

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The fourth movement is contemplatio (contemplation), which is to rest and to be silent in the presence of God. Pennington explains that this stage is the time to abide with God within God’s temple. The preacher is able to open to a deeper listening to the Word by resting and being in God’s presence. Pennington notes, “[T]‌here is something wonderful about a deep love, the love after the uncontrolled passion is spent. It is the love of just being with. This is contemplation.”40 In contemplation, the preacher enters into an abiding relationship of love with God, and the divine Word may resonate more intimately in the heart of the preacher who is willing to rest and to be silent in the presence of God. Through this contemplation, the preacher may experience union with God, and this mystical experience will be shared with the congregation through the act of preaching, which flows out of the spoken words of the Word and draws both the preacher and the listener into the presence of God. This is because, as Paul Janowiak highlights, “Christ is present in the proclamation of the Word as an event in which believers are invited to share.”41 This established and intimate relationship of God with the preacher through the act of ruminating on the Word in the form of private prayer will bring forth fruit not only for the preacher but for the assembly as well. This occurs because the preacher has taken the time to be attuned to the voices of a particular biblical text in light of the context of the congregation’s multiple narrative worlds. By engaging this ancient art of lectio divina with faithfulness, the preacher maintains the integrity of the Word with fidelity, close attention, a sense of conscience, and reverence.42 Ultimately, through the scriptural Word, God will enable the preacher to grow in faith so that Christ may live in the preacher’s heart through faith, and so that, rooted and grounded in love, the preacher will have the strength to comprehend the breadth and length and height and depth of the love of Christ. Through this knowledge surpassing love, the preacher may be filled with the utter fullness of God (Eph. 3:16–​19). The preacher shares this love of Christ that fills the entire being with the hearers through the act of sermonic discourse, and both the preacher and hearers together will be drawn into the presence of God, who is the “primal sacramental Word of God.”43 The oral proclamation is not a talk about the Scriptures. When the preaching encounters God in the text and reaches out to the world beyond the text into the very lives and struggles of the hearers, the same divine encounter can happen for the community of faith. 40 Pennington, Lectio Divina, 64 (quotation), 65. 41 Paul Janowiak, Standing Together in the Community of God: Liturgical Spirituality and the Presence of Christ (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2011), 82. 42 Casey, Sacred Reading, 16–​32. 43 Rahner, The Church and the Sacraments, 18.

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Spiritually Formational Step: Building Union with the Divine In the fourth step in a transformative reading of the Bible, the preacher strives to build union with the divine, seeking to conform to the image of Christ through empowerment by the Holy Spirit (2 Cor. 3:18). This is when the preacher experiences God in the light and love of the Holy Spirit, which should be understood not as a single event but as part of an ongoing relationship with God. The attempt to evangelize through words to those whose faith needs revitalizing should be supported by an awareness of the preacher’s own need for ongoing spiritual renewal. The preacher who humbly seeks the guidance of the Spirit for unity with God in this fourth step proclaims God’s Word “with greater clarity, integrity, and effectiveness.”44 This, in turn, enables the preacher and the ecclesial gathering to form a closer relationship with the divine through a more integral and authentic faith. Before explaining in detail the concept of the preacher’s union with the divine, it is appropriate to point out three premises of the nature of the mystical union. First, the faithful’s union with the divine does not mean the annihilation of the self. Rather, as Bernard of Clairvaux highlights, “[H]‌uman feelings melt in a mysterious way and flow into the will of God.”45 Bernard clearly states that the union between God and the soul is not a union of nature or substance but of wills. So, for Bernard the spiritual union of the divine and the believer does not mean they are mixed but that the faithful’s will is absorbed into the will of God. Second, the unity between God and the believer does not refer to a union of equals. God is not in any sense equal to the believer; rather, God engages in an act of humility to share an experience of God’s love with the believer. Bernard clearly explains the nature of the love relationship between God and the faithful: “[T]‌here is no doubt that […] a shared love blazes up, but a love in which one of them experiences the highest felicity, while the other shows marvelous condescension. There is no betrothal or union of equals here.” For Bernard, only Christ is equal with God.46 Lastly, the experience of union with the divine in the believer’s present existence is both incomplete and brief. Bernard asserts that the full experience of love 44 United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Preaching the Mystery of Faith (Washington, DC: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2013), 33. 45 Dennis E. Tamburello, Union with Christ (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994), 67–​8; Bernard of Clairvaux, Bernard of Clairvaux: A Lover Teaching the Way of Love, 76. 46 Tamburello, Union with Christ, 69–​70; Bernard of Clairvaux, On the Song of Songs IV, 67.8 (quotation), 69.4.

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cannot be had in the believer’s present life, saying, “[W]‌e do not deny that the present life, by divine grace, can also experience its beginning and progress, but we unreservedly maintain that its consummation is in the happiness of life to come.”47 He suggests that it is possible for some believers to enjoy an experience of affective union, though in a rare and fleeting way. Bernard speaks of his own experience as follows: [B]‌ut there is a place where God is seen in tranquil rest, where he is neither Judge nor Teacher but Bridegroom. To me—​for I do not speak for others—​this is truly the bedroom to which I have sometimes gained happy entrance. Alas! How rare the time, and how short the stay!48

According to Bernard, this happiness is never complete because the joy of the visit is followed by the pain when God departs. In fact, a believer who has had this experience of the affective union at least once seeks to have it again, eagerly hoping for its frequent recurrence.49 The basic understanding of these three premises of the nature of the mystical union between God and the believer helps to provide three practical applications that promote union with the divine. First, the believer unites with God by pouring all the attention and energy of their soul into Christ. Spiritually mature believers understand the soul’s love of God as a union in which they are in consonance with God’s will. The passionate love of the believer for Christ is an essential factor in fostering union with God. The more the soul of the believer focuses on “the grace of Christ’s incarnation and redemption, the fullness of the paschal mystery,” the closer the soul of the believer will be drawn to the presence of Jesus Christ.50 Furthermore, Bernard often emphasizes to his readers that the whole enterprise of approaching the divine is rooted in Christ, who is the “ultimate source of all virtue and knowledge. […] Hence from him as from a well-​head comes the power to be pure in body, diligent in affection and upright in will.” The nearer believers draw to the Lord, the farther they are from their outward nature that pays attention to their own senses and desires. Now, believers will acquire the habit of being near to the presence of Christ, and the Lord will draw them more and more toward Godself. The Lord purifies all the things of the believers that do not belong to God, and the believers are willing to take the action of total surrender 47 Tamburello, Union with Christ, 71; Bernard of Clairvaux, On the Song of Songs III, 50.I.2. 48 Bernard of Clairvaux, On the Song of Songs II, 23.VI.15. 49 Bernard of Clairvaux, On the Song of Songs II, 32.2. 50 Jeanne Guyon, Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ ( Jacksonville, FL: SeedSowers, 1981), 50; Bernard of Clairvaux, Song of Songs I, 1.11–​12; Janowiak, The Holy Preaching, 163.

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to the divine will. Jeanne Guyon (1648–​1717), a French mystic, highlights that “[t]‌he Christian who has faithfully abandoned himself to the Lord will soon discover that he also has laid hold of a God who will not rest until He has subdued everything.”51 Therefore, God dwells within the faithful believer (1 John 4:15), and finally the faithful one is united with the Lord in spirit (1 Cor. 6:17). Second, the believer unites with God through a mutual relationship, not through the union of equals. Bernard makes clear the distinction between equality and mutuality by saying, “Although the creature loves less, being a lesser being, yet if it loves with its whole heart nothing is lacking, for it has given all.”52 Bernard goes on to say that the soul “will be glorified by its likeness to him by whom it was raised up. Yet because of the difference, it will always have reason to say, ‘Lord, who is like you?’ ”53 However, Bernard also highlights that there is a degree of uplifting for the soul when the believer abides in God and God abides in the believer (1 John 4:16). Bernard correlates the union between God and the soul with the notion of spiritual marriage. He writes, When you see a soul leaving everything and clinging to the Word with all her will and desire, living for the Word, ruling her life by the Word, conceiving by the Word what she will bring forth by him, so that she can say, ‘For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain,’ you know that the soul is the spouse and bride of the Word.54

Thus, the faithful soul is the spouse and bride of Christ and the image of God being restored in God’s likeness. It should be noted that the mutual relationship is established not by any innate merit of the believer’s soul but by the grace of God. Lastly, the believer unites with God by means of communion and fellowship with the Holy Spirit. Bernard is emphatic that it is the Holy Spirit who unites the faithful with the divine, saying that God reveals Godself “through the kiss, that is, through the Holy Spirit. […] It is by giving the Spirit, through whom he reveals, that he shows us himself; he reveals in the gift, his gift is in the revealing.” So, spiritual union with God takes place in and through the Spirit, who is the unity between the Father and the Son. As William of Saint-​Thierry, a 12th-​century French Benedictine abbot, wrote, “May your unity unite us!” The Creator Spirit infuses Godself into the created spirit as God wills, and the person of prayer unites

51 Bernard of Clairvaux, Song of Songs I, 13:1; Guyon, Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ, 51 (quotation), 52–​3, 57. 52 Bernard of Clairvaux, On the Song of Songs IV, 83.III.6. 53 Bernard of Clairvaux, On the Song of Songs IV, 81.I.2. 54 Bernard of Clairvaux, On the Song of Songs IV, 85.IV.12.

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one spirit with God. This is related to Kevin J. Vanhoozer’s statement that sanctification is the final aspect of the work of the Spirit.55 St. Basil the Great, a bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia (330–​79), asserted that the way to know God is from the Holy Spirit through the Son to the Father. And, in turn, the goodness and holiness reach from the Father through the Son to the Holy Spirit. In this way, the believer enters into Trinitarian communion with the Father and the Son in and through the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, Basil underscores that if the believer is in fellowship with the Holy Spirit, the Spirit will show the believer the image of the invisible, and in this vision of the image the believer will see the “unspeakable beauty of the archetype.”56 Basil describes the changes in the believer that will be facilitated by this communion with God through Christ with the assistance of the Spirit as follows: When a ray of light falls upon clear and translucent bodies, they are themselves filled with light and gleam with a light from themselves. Just so are the Spirit-​bearing souls that are illuminated by the Holy Spirit: they are themselves made spiritual, and they send forth grace to others. Thence comes foreknowledge of the future, understanding of mysteries, apprehension of secrets, distributions of graces, heavenly citizenship, the chorus with angels, unending joy, remaining in God, kinship with God, and the highest object of desire, becoming God.57

The Spirit dwells in the midst of creatures and helps to strengthen the solidarity of spiritual communion and fellowship between God and God’s creatures. As such, the believer unites with God by means of koinonia (communion) with the Spirit, who is the life-​giver and the sanctifier.

Practical Step: Embodying the Word in Christ through the Holy Spirit The fifth step in a transformative reading of the biblical text is to embody the Word in Christ through the Holy Spirit. In this step, the preacher relies on the help of the Holy Spirit to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 13:14). This means 55 Bernard of Clairvaux, Song of Songs I, 8.II.5.; William of Saint-​Thierry, On Contemplating God, trans. Sr. Penelope, Cistercian Fathers 3 (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1971), 11 (quotation); William of Saint-​Thierry, Exposition on the Song of Songs, trans. M. Columba Hart, Cistercian Fathers 6 (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1970), 95; Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Is There a Meaning in This Text? (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998), 413. 56 St. Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit, 18.47, 9.23 (quotation). 57 St. Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit, 9.23.

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that the preacher makes Christ the center and principle of their life and lives on Christ’s account. This occurs as the will of the preacher is connected with the will of the Spirit because the Holy Spirit mystically assimilates the faithful to Christ and puts the faithful in full trust in Christ. Yves Congar (1904–​95), a French Dominican theologian, said that “through his Spirit, God the Father makes Christ dwell in our hearts, that is, in the depths of our being where our lives are orientated (Eph. 3:14–​17).”58 Thus, the believer is united with Christ by the Holy Spirit. The preacher embodies the Word of God by participating in the work of Christ because, according to Vanhoozer, Christ is the definitive embodiment of God’s self-​communicative act or the “Word.” Janowiak describes it this way: “Engaged in the sacred act of embodying the word in our world, we participate in Christ’s own answer of self-​offering love to the One who utters it.” This means that the vocation of the preacher as a biblical interpreter is to embody the meaning of the Word by following the path that Christ walked.59 Engaging with the way of Jesus is to become a disciple as a fitting image of Christ, who is “the image of God” (2 Cor. 4:4) and “the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15). In other words, “[I]‌t is the state of being-​in, and abiding with, Christ.”60 The Son leads the preacher, who has stayed and lived with the Christ, to the Father by the Son, who is in everything “towards the Father and for him.” This indicates that the believer can only come to the Father in the Son, as St. John the Apostle writes: “No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man” ( John 3:13). This is also why God calls the faithful into fellowship with the Son in order to sanctify them (1 Cor. 1:9). Therefore, the believer’s filial role in this intimate communion is to faithfully obey and conform to God’s will without at the same time renouncing their intelligence and dignity as a human being.61 In order to conform to the image of the Son through the Lord who is the Spirit, the believer must embody the Word of God in their daily life. To encounter the Word in this way, the preacher ought to actualize the meaning, significance, and truth of the text and embody the righteousness of God through their own life ( James 2:20–​22). This is because, to a great extent, the context of our lives, as Ricoeur argues, is shaped by texts: “For me, the world is the ensemble of references opened up by every kind of text, descriptive or poetic, that I have read, understood, and loved.” George Steiner (1929–​2020), who was a Franco-​American literary critic and philosopher, also asserts that the text can 58 Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit, 100, 101 (quotation). 59 Vanhoozer, Is There a Meaning in This Text?, 440; Janowiak, The Holy Preaching, 184. 60 Vanhoozer, Hearers and Doers, 204. 61 Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit, 104 (quotation), 105.

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become “the informing ‘context’ of our being.” The preacher’s way of living and acting, therefore, can be understood as their interpretation of the Scriptures. This has something to do with the fact that the response to the text by the preacher as a biblical interpreter, as Vanhoozer puts it, “is ultimately not only a matter of reading but of being.”62 The preacher’s message, delivered through a life of thinking, seeing, and acting in a Christlike manner, is a way of reflecting the voice of the Spirit who dwells in the preacher. The Spirit’s voice invites the hearers to the living and eternal Word of God that leads the congregants to Christ and then shapes the life of Christ in them to enable them to walk the way of Christ. Now, the members of the congregation embody the Word of God repeatedly in their daily lives until they become members with the Spirit of the living God and become the living letter of Christ (2 Cor. 3:3). Vanhoozer stresses that “[t]‌he church—​the sum total of those who bear the name of Christ—​bears the responsibility of bearing, of doing, indeed of being the Word of God.”63 The meaning, significance, and truth of the Scriptures ought to be continually extended and embodied in the words, deeds, and lives of the members of the ecclesial community.64 This is why Lesslie Newbigin (1909–​ 98), a British theologian and missiologist, called the church the “hermeneutic of the Gospel,” saying: How is it possible that the gospel should be credible, that people should come to believe that the power which has the last word in human affairs is represented by a man hanging on a cross? I am suggesting that the only answer, the only hermeneutic of the gospel, is a congregation of men and women who believe it and live by it.65

In other words, the church is a living letter from Christ that witnesses the meaning of the text for the glory of God (2 Cor. 3:2). The reason for living a life worthy of the gospel by cultivating godliness and becoming Christlike, ultimately, is to glorify God. Each believer in the church becomes “fit for the purpose of imaging Christ, embodying his mind and heart, everywhere, to everyone, at all time,” by encountering the self-​revealing God who is present sacramentally in the Word proclaimed by the preacher.66 The preacher is also being transformed sacramentally through the Spirit by seeing how God is working in the real, concrete life 62 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 37; George Steiner, On Difficulty and Other Essays (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), 17; Vanhoozer, Is There a Meaning in This Text?, 441. 63 Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit, 108; Vanhoozer, Hearers and Doers, 216, 440 (quotation). 64 Vanhoozer, Is There a Meaning in This Text?, 441. 65 Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralistic Society (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989), 227. 66 Vanhoozer, Hearers and Doers, 206.

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of the congregation and witnessing the ecclesial community’s experience of the holy meeting. This reciprocity between the preacher and the ecclesial gathering strengthens believers’ union with God as the holy people of God in Christ through the working of the Spirit, who is present sacramentally in them.

Putting It All Together In this chapter, I have explained the concept of a transformative engagement with the biblical text and explored the possibility of a holistic approach to biblical hermeneutics for Korean Pentecostals as a contemporary method of interpreting the Scriptures. I have suggested a five-​ step transformative engagement with the Scriptures as an alternative biblical hermeneutic for contemporary Korean Pentecostals. If the minister prepares for preaching by performing these five exegetical procedures, the preacher and the ecclesial gathering will be able together to embody and proclaim the good news of God in this world with their words, deeds, and lives, illuminating Christ through the gifts of wisdom and power nourished by the Spirit for the glory of God. The Word performed in the believers’ way of living can be understood as a kenotic act in that they seek to empty themselves and be filled with Christ’s way, truth, and life. Dominican theologian William Hill describes this clearly: The Word, which is the bearer of God’s life and meaning for us, incarnates itself in human history, midway between the one who utters it and those who listen. But we must take seriously the fragility of the human situation here. God’s act in history is a kenosis; [God’s] intentions remain those of setting up the kingdom in and through the stammering ways in which we strive to give utterance to that Word. It is part of faith to accept that.67

The presence of Jesus Christ stirs that faith in both the preacher and the ecclesial community and leads them deeper into “the grace of Christ’s incarnation and redemption, the fullness of the paschal mystery.”68 Spending time with God and growing in faith through God’s Word draws believers closer to God. As a consequence, they are slowly changed by God’s grace and become more like Jesus. Believers—​transformed by the Word that incarnated itself in human history midway between the preacher and the hearers—​become more kind, generous, and compassionate toward the poor, marginalized, and oppressed by contemplating 67 Hill, “Preaching as a Moment in Theology,” 186. 68 Janowiak, The Holy Preaching, 163, 187.

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the way of life of Jesus Christ with the help of the Holy Spirit. The preacher’s transformative engagement with the biblical text promotes the transmission of the gospel through the imagination of the poor, such as migrant workers or members of multicultural families who are often socioeconomically and racially marginalized in mainstream society.69 I would like to conclude this chapter by presenting an actual example of a sermon that results from a preacher’s engagement in a transformative reading of the text. I prepared the following sermon using the holistic approach to the biblical text that I have described in this chapter.

Don’t You Know Me, Philip? “If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” ( John 14:7–​8) Jesus calls his disciples and teaches them by sharing his daily life with them. It’s like when the author of a book teaches others about their work, something like that. The disciples are with Jesus during his ministry. They eat, drink, and share their lives with Jesus. They can ask Jesus if they have any questions—​how good is it that? They are experiencing heaven. However, today we must face an uncomfortable truth. Even though Philip has been with Jesus for a long time, he does not recognize the Lord. This means that no matter how long we have lived in faith, we ourselves may not recognize the Lord. This should raise our awareness. These verses make me wonder why Philip didn’t recognize Jesus as the Lord. It’s actually simple. He saw the authority and power he wanted to have through Jesus. He looked to Jesus through the lens of his own desire. Therefore, Jesus, who performed countless miracles, must have been very attractive to Philip. The other disciples probably felt the same way. When they saw Jesus’ divine miracles, they might have thought, “Here is someone with so much divine power that he will set us free from Roman oppression. This is the Messiah we have been waiting for.” Because Philip wanted to achieve his own goals through Jesus, he seemed to have no interest in the gospel of heaven that Jesus was teaching with all his heart. Philip was limited to the real world. This characteristic can be seen well in the case of the feeding of the multitude recorded in John ­chapter 6. Jesus asked Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” Philip must have been puzzled by this question. He might have said, “Oh Jesus, what are you talking about? There are so many people, how can you feed them all? Well, let me do some calculations.” After that, he would have told Jesus that 69 Vincent J. Pastro, Enflamed by the Sacramental Word (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2010), 65–​88.

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eight months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each person to have just a small amount of food. And, even if they had that much money, there would be nowhere for them to get such a large amount of food. Philip would have said, “Even if you’re able to get the food, how would we manage to have all that food delivered here? I think it’s impossible!” Philip did his best. Indeed, what he said is not wrong. But, what is he missing? He didn’t think carefully about the intent of Jesus’ question. Philip was a disciple chosen by Jesus. What does that mean? He was always with Jesus. Philip had spent much time with Jesus for a long time. He must have seen the miracles Jesus performed by his side. He must have heard the authoritative proclamations of Jesus. However, he is still confined within the framework of his own thinking. So, he can’t see the situation beyond his usual framework. His sight is limited to seeing what he wants to see through Jesus. Philip is limiting what God can do on his own. He is thinking, “Well, Lord, I think feeding everyone is impossible. But doing something smaller in scale seems possible. I think it would be better to try what’s possible.” If you look into the conversation between Jesus and Philip, you may notice something strange. Jesus asks Philip, “Where can we buy bread?” Philip answers, “Jesus, we don’t have that much money.” This reveals what he values the most. In the past, Jesus showed divine miraculous signs, but this time it will not be possible. Philip doesn’t trust that Jesus will be able to do it. So, he only thinks from a realistic point of view. But, despite Philip’s answer, Jesus does multiply the loaves and fish so there is enough to feed the crowd. Then, we can ask a new question. Why did Jesus ask Philip his question? That answer is that Jesus wanted Philip’s faith to grow. In order for his faith to grow, Philip first needed to have an intimate relationship with Jesus. But, he did not enjoy a close relationship with Jesus; Philip was seeking the authority and power of the world. What we should not misunderstand is that authority and power can be necessary in our lives. However, it is Jesus, the food that gives eternal life, that should be the purpose of our lives. In other words, we need to form a close relationship with Jesus so that we can see God through Jesus. How does it feel to be with a friend whom you have built a friendship with over a long period of time? You can tell what your friend wants just by looking at your friend’s eyes. This is because you know each other very well. We don’t get along easily with everyone. It’s only possible if we give each other our hearts. With this understanding, if you look at Jesus and Philip, it seems natural that Philip would not see God the Father through Jesus. Why is that? It’s because they don’t understand each other’s hearts. In other words, their minds and thoughts are not interconnected. So, Jesus is really saying to Philip. “Don’t you know me, Philip, when I have been with you for such a long time?”

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If you read this passage carefully, Jesus does not scold Philip but instead invites Philip to become closer to him. This is the invitation of the Lord to Philip to be his friend so that they can understand each other’s hearts. That’s why Jesus says this in John 15 verse 4: “Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.” The relationship between the master and the servant is evaluated by the fruit the servant harvests. The servant is evaluated based only on the fruit he harvests. It is not easy for the servant and his master to form a personal relationship. However, before the Lord speaks to us about the fruit, he tells us to abide in him first. “Remain in me, and I will remain in you too.” The Lord wants us to have a personal relationship with him. God said that he is the indwelling God, but are we afraid to have God dwell in our heart? As Jesus said to Philip, he also says to us: “Remain in me, I will remain in you.” This is an invitation to be part of Jesus’ life. Faith is staying together. Faith is living with God, who comes and dwells in our hearts. This is the core of faith. If you have faith but God does not dwell within you, your faith may be like an empty shell. God wants to be with us all the time. He continues to invite us and to call us to follow him. Faith is not something we can believe with our head or with our heart. Faith results from unity of the head, mind, and body. Sometimes, we focus too much on knowledge. Other times, we focus too much on our emotions. Many churches in the world focus on knowledge. They know a great deal intellectually, but they cannot connect with others emotionally. They may not be able to empathize with others, and they may not be full of faith. They are passionate about arguing about the Bible intellectually and scientifically, but their emotions keep dying. In contrast, some churches are so engrossed in religious sensibilities that they do not want to know and study the Bible properly. They are just immersed in the emotional feelings of faith. They feel it is not very important to know and understand the Bible. So, naturally, they do not try to understand the Bible when they read it but instead focus on their feelings in the moment when they are reading the Bible. They interpret the text by focusing on one or two specific verses rather than understanding the larger context. It’s not good to lean to either side. Both are necessary. However, both sides often overlook the practice of faith. As a result, practicing faith does not appear within the community and does not move into the world through the community. Faith becomes a faith that is limited to within the church. So, many Christians only are Christians in the church. However, Jesus was not referring to a faith confined to the church.

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As Jesus personally led his disciples, he showed them the essence of faith. Our lives and our faith should not be separated. It is necessary not only to believe with the head and heart but also to believe with the body. The indwelling God exists in our heads and hearts, and the indwelling God is also present in our bodies. This is why we call our bodies a living sacrifice. Through the movements of our bodies, God is expressed, read, and seen. That is why Jesus invited Philip to the place of life where God indwelled. Only then could Philip experience how God was being expressed through the life of Jesus. We should be able to look at the world that God opens to us instead of looking at what we want, like Philip did. Jesus directly showed his disciples how to sow hope where there is despair, and he showed them how peace can be spread where there is conflict. But Philip was interested in something else. So, he misunderstood Jesus, who was preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God. Jesus asks us today, “Are you seeing what you want to achieve through me? Or are you looking at the God I’m pointing to?” If we see the authority or power we want to gain through Jesus, as Philip did, we are mistaken. In the kingdom of God that Jesus points to, there is no place for the authority and power we desire. To see God through Jesus means to see the calling that God has given to us. As persons who have been created in the image of God, we need to make the effort to become like Jesus and to translate the gospel into our lives. Faith is not just something we think about in our heads. Faith shouldn’t stop with just having empathy for others in our heart. We need to practice and make an effort so that faith can be expressed in our real lives. God should be seen through our words and our deeds toward the companions we are with at every meeting in the church. Going a little further, we also need to express our love through our actions with those outside the church. We have to ask ourselves these questions: Am I meek and humble in my dealings with these people? Am I striving to form a sense of unity and to become one with them with patience and love? If we have such an attitude of faith, we are looking at God through Jesus. Through our weakness and our mistakes, by experiencing how God works in this weakness we can become like Jesus. We refuse to see God through Jesus. This is because we have not yet laid down what we want to achieve through Jesus. Can we say this to others? “Meet and experience Jesus through me. See how God works in my life. See how God works in this community in this church.”

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Is anyone seeing Jesus through us? If not, maybe we are not dwelling with God. Jesus speaks to Philip, asking, “I have been with you for so long, but you still don’t know me? How can you can say, ‘Show us the Father?’ ” Jesus asks us, “Do you see the Father through me?” I hope you will answer that question by saying, “Yes, Lord, I can see the God that you are pointing to throughout all of your life as I try to translate your gospel into my life.” Furthermore, I hope that others will be able to see God through the gospel we are seeking to translate with our lives. If that happens, we will be transformed by encountering God, who works and lives sacramentally in the lives of others. We need an effort of faith to see God through Jesus and not our own wealth and glory. If we have such a commitment, God the Spirit will open our eyes and lead us to the God Jesus is pointing to. I pray that we will all be able to see the very kingdom of God that Jesus is pointing to and that we will live in the kingdom of God even as we live in this world. Jesus asks us now: “Don’t you see me?”

Conclusion

My goal throughout this book has been to provide an understanding of the process of reading and interpreting the Scriptures in a transformative way, one that accents the preacher’s experiential encounter with the text and thus seeks to conform the preacher to the image of Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit. This insight is the basic premise of my analysis of approaches of the Assemblies of God in Korea, Paul Ricoeur, and Bernard of Clairvaux to the biblical text. Beginning in the early 1900s, the early Korean Pentecostals’ literal reading of the biblical text relied on the unique form of outer manifestations of the Spirit. The enormous political, economic, social, cultural, and spiritual vacuum in this turbulent period of Korea’s history led to the foundation of the Korean Pentecostal Movement. The early Korean Pentecostals’ literal approach to reading the biblical text was related to their desire for liberation in the individual dimension (shamanism) and in the social dimension (at the national, sociopolitical, Minjung, and economic levels). The message delivered in the literal approach to the meaning of Scripture was a reflection of Pentecostals pastors’ love for oppressed Koreans, but dealing with the text’s surplus of meaning was not given enough attention in early Korean Pentecostals’ biblical interpretation. Some contemporary Pentecostal pastors in Korea still interpret the Bible using this literal approach. It is necessary,

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however, to engage the historical contexts of the biblical text and its authors in order to better comprehend the textual meaning of the Scriptures. The early Korean Pentecostals were closely connected to the classical Pentecostals in other areas of the world. This is demonstrated by their shared common principles, themes, and methods in reading and approaching the Scriptures. The classical Pentecostals’ way of reading and approaching the biblical text was similar to that of the early Korean Pentecostals. Furthermore, the supernatural and charismatic experiential emphasis on interpretation found in classical Pentecostal hermeneutics stemmed from their love for socioeconomically and racially marginalized people outside of mainstream society. They tended to rely on the immediacy of the biblical text. Classical Pentecostal preachers did not use historical-​critical methods, which embrace the original intent of the literary senses and settings of the biblical text. Discovering what the Scripture says in its original context is integral to the interpretive process of the text, but a hermeneutical approach that values the reader’s world, which is transformed by the new world that the text opens to the reader, is critical. Ricoeur’s hermeneutics makes important contributions to the new, transformative homiletic that I am proposing because it strives to mediate between objectively reconstructing the meaning of a text in its original context and existentially appropriating the text. Therefore, the examination of the language of the text can be an eventful encounter. Ricoeur’s interpretive method offers a way to facilitate a dynamic interpretive process in which the world of the text and the world of the reader are engaged in an ongoing dialogue. I argue that this approach opens up the possibility of constructing a transformative reading of the Bible in which the encounter between the world of the text and the world of the preacher allows the preacher as a reader to approach the text in the context of the gathered community’s life. This encounter leads to the transformation of the worlds of both the preacher and the congregation. Ultimately, this emphasis on the liveliness of the hermeneutical encounter with the biblical text promotes the spirituality of both the preacher as a reader and the hearers. Bernard of Clairvaux’s teachings on the spiritual formation of the believer also have implications for a transformative reading of the Bible. His teachings on the concept of loving God help the faithful to encounter the world projected by the text—​in other words, to have a transformative engagement with the text. Bernard’s teaching on the four degrees of love, through which human love is gradually advanced by God’s love and grace through certain steps, plays a crucial role in helping the faithful to achieve spiritual maturity. Furthermore, a space for the faithful to prayerfully and meditatively dialogue with the divine, as they enter into the world projected by the text, is created by a close and prayerful relationship with the divine

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formed by love and grace. Thus, the five ways of love, based on Bernard’s homilies on the Song of Songs, play a significant role in promoting the spiritual formation of believers through an intimate relationship with God that allows for the possibility of a transformative reading of the Scriptures. I encourage preachers to deepen their reading of the biblical text and be open to the possibility that they will be transformed in the process. When reading and interpreting the biblical text, they should take into account the complexity and multiple dimensions of both the text and the reader. I have developed a holistic approach to biblical hermeneutics for Korean Pentecostals as a contemporary method of reading and interpreting the biblical text. I suggest possible interpretive method changes as a way to discover the authorial intention and historical context of the text (information) and also to engage the existential aspect of the text (transformation), thus impacting the lives of both the preacher who is interpreting the text as a reader and the congregation. This transformative engagement with the biblical text is an engagement in ontological union with “the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16). Fellowship with God and with one another grows, and the preacher as a reader is empowered by the Spirit to experience the divine mystery “revealed to us” and even to reach “the depths of God” (1 Cor. 2:9–​10). I suggest a five-​step transformative engagement with the biblical text as an alternative biblical hermeneutic for contemporary Korean Pentecostals: (1) preliminary (recognizing the difference between idol and icon), (2) exegetical (analyzing the historical contexts and literary genres of the text), (3) prayerful and meditative (moving from informational to transformational reading), (4) spiritually formational (building union with the divine), and (5) practical (embodying the Word in Christ through the Holy Spirit). I argue that sermons prepared by following these five exegetical procedures will enable the preacher and the ecclesial community together to embody and proclaim the Word in this world with their words, deeds, and lives. Such an engagement, in the Spirit, allows the believer to be filled with Christ’s way, truth, and life ( John 14:6). In the course of this project, I have hoped to contribute to the field of homiletics by expanding our understanding of a transformative homiletic that challenges and augments the biblical hermeneutics of Korean Pentecostal preachers, whose interpretive methods often rely entirely on a literal approach to the meaning of the biblical text. The transformative homiletic I propose, which is based on the thought of Ricoeur and Bernard, should be considered an alternative hermeneutic to the literal approach. Such an expanded homiletic will enable Korean Pentecostal preachers to engage the surplus of meaning in the biblical text that will allow them to be shaped and transformed by God, who is dynamically, actively, and sacramentally present in the proclamation and preaching of a particular scriptural text.

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I offer this proposal of a transformative homiletic as an interpretive resource for those who seek to engage not only the world of the text but also the world opened by the text. I would like to conclude by reminding readers of what Jesus said to Philip: “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” ( John 14:9). This transformative vision allows preachers to encounter the Son and the Father in the biblical text. Such an encounter then transforms congregations and testifies that “the word of God of living and active” (Heb. 4:12). This, indeed, is the hope of all Christian preaching.

Appendix

Table 1. Yoido Full Gospel Church’s Sunday Sermons from January 2017 to April 2019 (Source: Yoido Full Gospel Church’s website: http://​www.fgtv.com/​). They show that the focus of reading and interpreting the biblical texts is primarily on the enrichment of congregants’ personal lives, physical and psychological healing, financial wealth, and prosperity through having a positive attitude in terms of the mind and speech, personal faith, and vision. Date

Preacher

1.1.2017

Yonggi Cho

1.8.2017

Yonggi Cho

1.15.2017

Yonggi Cho

Biblical Texts

Sermon Title

Sermon Focus Prosperity, physical healing, and hope

John 1:9–​14

Let’s Prepare for the New Year in This Way

Jesus, the Light of Life

Do to Others What You Would Have Them Do to You

Positive mind, prosperity, and physical healing

Gen. 1:1–​5

Matt. 7:7–​12

Physical healing, prosperity, and health

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Date

Preacher

Biblical Texts

Sermon Title

Sermon Focus Positive visions and faith

Luke. 18:1

Be Joyful always, Pray Continually, Give Thanks in All Circumstances The Prayer to Be Answered by God The Matter of Reaping What One Sows

Blessings through tithes and offerings

1.22.2017

Yonggi Cho

1 Thess. 5:16–​18

1.29.2017

Yonggi Cho

2.5.2017

Yonggi Cho

2.12.2017

Yonggi Cho

Heb. 4:12 For the Word of God Is Alive

2.19.2017

Yonggi Cho

Deut. 1:21–​32

2.26.2017

Yonggi Cho

Gal. 6:7

3.5.2017

Yonggi Cho

Heb. 12:1–​2

ABCD of My Faith

3.12.2017

Yonggi Cho

The Power of Love

3.19.2017

Yonggi Cho

1 Cor. 13:13

3.26.2017

Yonggi Cho

2 Cor. 4:1–​11

Consolation and Hope

4.2.2017

Yonggi Cho

4.9.2017

Yonggi Cho

1 Cor. 13:1–​8

Mal. 3:8

Acts. 2: 14–​19

Mark 5:25:34

A Life That Seemed Like Grasshoppers The Echo

Your Old Man Will Dream Dreams

Works without Love

A Woman who Had Been Subject to Bleeding for Twelve Years

Ongoing prayer for physical healing

Positive thinking and words, and ongoing prayer for physical healing Positive thinking and words Blessing through positive thinking and visions

Positive mind, visions, faith, and words as outer sign Prosperity and love for God Hope, visions, and physical health

Prosperity through positive mind, visions, faith Love God and others Physical health, success, and faith

appendix  | 157

Date

Preacher

Biblical Texts

Sermon Title

Sermon Focus

1 Cor. 15:1–​8

Has Jesus Really Been Risen?

Eph. 6:10–​18

The Master

Physical health and blessed are the faithful

The Work of God Faith and wealth and Three Hundred Warriors of Gideon

4.16.2017

Yonggi Cho

4.23.2017

Yonggi Cho

4.30.2017

Yonggi Cho

5.7.2017

Yonggi Cho

Judg. 1:1–​7

5.14.2017

Yonggi Cho

John. 3:14–​21

5.21.2017

Yonggi Cho

Matt. 9:20–​22

5.28.2017

Yonggi Cho

Acts 2:14–​19

6.4.2017

Yonggi Cho

6.11.2017

Yonggi Cho

Num. 13:25–​ 14:10

6.18.2017

Yonggi Cho

6.25.2017

Yonggi Cho

7.2.2017

Yonggi Cho

Prov. 4:23 Guard Your Heart

Faith and prosperity

7.16.2017

Yonggi Cho

2 Cor. 8:9 God Who Makes You Become Rich

Prosperity

7.9.2017

Yonggi Cho

Matt. 11:28–​30

2 Cor. 4:7–​15

John 14: 5–​9 John 1: 1–​5

Matt. 11:25–​30

Come to Me, All You Who Are Weary and Burdened

Ongoing prayer against the evil spirit

Prosperity and physical health

What Is the Most Positive attitude of Important Thing in faith and mind, hope, Life? and prosperity. Wish, Dream and the Wonderful the Holy Spirit

Prosperity and hope

The Vision and Dream given by the Holy Spirit

Prosperity and visions

My Thoughts Drive over Me

Prosperity and positive mind

The Exploration Prosperity and posiReport of 10 versus tive faith, vision, and 2 words

I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life

Success in life

The Power of Physical health, Speaking Positively wealth, and the words of blessings People Who Are Weary and Burdened

Prosperity

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Date

Preacher

Biblical Texts

Sermon Title

Sermon Focus God’s love and grace

Isa. 40:28–​31

The Life That Receives and Preserves Salvation and Grows God, My God

Life Given by God and the Humanistic Model

Prosperity and faith

7.23.2017

Yonggi Cho

Eph. 3:16–​19

7.30.2017

Yonggi Cho

8.6.2017

Yonggi Cho

8.13.2017

Yonggi Cho

8.20.2017

Yonggi Cho

8.27.2017

Yonggi Cho

9.3.2017

Yonggi Cho

9.10.2017

Yonggi Cho

9.17.2017

Yonggi Cho

1 Cor. 13:1–​3

9.24.2017

Yonggi Cho

3 Joh 1:2, Act. 10:38

10.1.2017

Yonggi Cho

10.8.2017

Yonggi Cho

Isa. 43:19 The Importance of Thinking

10.15.2017

Yonggi Cho

1 Cor. 2:9–​10

2 Cor. 4:10–​11 1 Thess. 5:16–​18 Josh. 1:1–​9

The Experiential Gospel

Positive mind and prosperity

Hope and Courage

Prosperity through hope and courage

Pray Continually and Do Not Be Discouraged

Phil. 2:13 God Who Rescues Us and Fills Our Needs Phil. 4:6–​7

Exod. 17:8–​13 John 3:14–​21

Prosperity, physical healing, and miracles

Ongoing prayer and prosperity

Prosperity and prayer

Do Not Be Anxious about Anything, but Present Your Requests to God

Prayer, appreciation, and prosperity

Holistic Salvation

Prosperity of the soul and physical health through tithes and offerings

The Cross, the Power to Change Our Lives

The Power from Behind

To Save the World

Success in life

Positive thinking, prayer, and faith

Prosperity and prayer Prosperity and physical health

appendix  | 159

Date

Preacher

Biblical Texts

Sermon Title

John 3:1–​18

The Self-​Portrait

Matt. 8:25–​27

Jesus Made the Winds and Waves Completely Calm

10.22.2017

Younghun Lee

Isa. I Am the First and 48: 12–​15 I Am the Last

10.29.2017

Yonggi Cho

11.5.2017

Yonggi Cho

11.12.2017

Yonggi Cho

11.19.2017

Yonggi Cho

11.26.2017

Yonggi Cho

12.3.2017

Yonggi Cho

12.10.2017

Yonggi Cho

12.17.2017

Yonggi Cho

12.24.2017

Yonggi Cho

12.31.2017

Yonggi Cho

1.7.2018

Yonggi Cho

Jon. 4:5–​11

1.14.2018

Yonggi Cho

1.21.2018

Yonggi Cho

1 Kings 19:1–​8

1.28.2018

Yonggi Cho

2.4.2018

Yonggi Cho

1 Sam. 17:32–​37

The War in the Canaan

Matt. 9:20–​22

Despair and Hope

John 11:17–​44

Jesus Wept

John 16:5–​14

Holy Spirit, the Counselor

Luke 8:22–​25

Where Is Your Faith?

Exod. 15:22–​26

The Bitter Water of Marah Became Sweet

Matt. 7:7–​11

Exod. 14:5–​18

The Prayer to Be Answered

Why Do Pain and Sadness Come to Us?

Sermon Focus Prosperity through positive mind and appreciation Positive words and God’s love Vision, faith, and prosperity

Ongoing prayer against the evil spirit Success in life, faith, and prosperity Faith and physical healing

Faith and prayer against the evil spirit Prayer and physical healing

Success in life, faith, prosperity Perseverance, plan, visions, and faith

Prosperity through positive mind

God’s Love, Jonah’s Hope through agony, Patriotism positive words, and prosperity Elijah and the Prophets of Baal

Faith, Sabbath, and prayer

Isa. 40:10 God Is on My Side Visions, faith, and prayer John 15:7 Ask Whatever You Wish Num. 13:25–​33

Have a Dream and Look into It

Prosperity through prayer Visions and prosperity

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Date 2.11.2018 2.18.2018

Preacher Younghoon Lee

Yonggi Cho

Biblical Texts

Sermon Title

Sermon Focus

Josh. 7:1–​5

The Battle of Ai

Prosperity

1 Sam. 17:31–​54 Matt. 11:25–​30

David, a Man of God

John 14:1–​6

Come to Me, All You Who Are Weary and Burdened

Vision, faith, and prosperity

I Am the Way, the Truth, and the Life

Prosperity and faith

A Proud Christian Life

Physical health, appreciation, and prosperity

2.25.2018

Yonggi Cho

3.4.2018

Yonggi Cho

3.11.2018

Yonggi Cho

3.18.2018

Yonggi Cho

3.25.2018

Yonggi Cho

Exod. 15:22–​26

4.1.2018

Yonggi Cho

4.8.2018

Younghoon Lee

John 6:3–​13

4.15.2018

Yonggi Cho

1 Thess. 5:15–​18 1 Thess. 5:15–​23

Gen. 28:10–​15 Heb. 12:1–​13

Ever Follow That Which is Good

Faith and visions

The Bitter Water of Marah Became Sweet

Wealth and physical health

Jesus Who Gave an Prosperity and faith Abundant Life God Who Walks along with Us The Discipline which the Lord Give Us

4.22.2018

Yonggi Cho

Isa. 41:10 For I Am with You

5.6.2018

Yonggi Cho

Josh. 3:5–​13

5.13.2018

Yonggi Cho

5.20.2018

Yonggi Cho

4.29.2018

Yonggi Cho

Isa. 53:1–​6

Jesus, the Life Expert

Rom. 8:1–​17

Conversation with the Holy Spirit

John 6:5–​11

Prosperity

For Tomorrow the Lord Will Do Amazing Things among You

Look with Faith

Visions and prosperity

Faith and appreciation through discipline

Visions and faith

Physical health and wealth

Faith and prosperity

Speaking in tongues and prosperity

Faith and prosperity

appendix  | 161

Date

Preacher

Biblical Texts

Sermon Title

Sermon Focus

Offering Sacrifices with Appreciation for Faith

Prosperity and appreciation

Who Is Willing to be a Neighbor to the Man Who Fell into the Hands of Robbers?

Prosperity

There Was Great Joy in That City

Physical health and visions

Do Not believe in Yourself

Blessed is he who trusts in the Lord

5.27.2018

Yonggi Cho

Ps. 50:23

6.3.2018

Yonggi Cho

Luke 10:25–​37

6.10.2018

Yonggi Cho

6.17.2018

Yonggi Cho

Luke 15:11–​20

6.24.2018

Yonggi Cho

7.1.2018

Yonggi Cho

7.8.2018

Yonggi Cho

7.15.2018

Yonggi Cho

7.22.2018

Yonggi Cho

7.29.2018

Yonggi Cho

8.5.2018

Yonggi Cho

Isa. 28:11–​13

8.12.2018

Yonggi Cho

8.19.2018

Yonggi Cho

John 3:15 Jesus and Nicodemus

Prayer with faith and miracles in words

8.26.2018

Yonggi Cho

Heb. 11:3 Jesus and the Fourth-​Dimension Spirituality

Physical health and wealth

Acts 8:5–​8

Heb. 11:1–​3 Phil. 3:10–​16 Luke 18:1–​8

Gen. 47:7–​10 Gen. 1: 1–​5

Jon. 4:11

Ps. 91:1–​16

He Got Up and Prosperity through Went to His Father agony

Faith is the Assurance of Things Hoped For

A Widow and a Judge

Jacob Who Conquered the Defining Crisis of His Life The Creation and the Word of God God’s Mercy and Grace

The mind, words, and faith controlled by the Spirit

Prosperity through prayer Overcoming life’s struggles through faith

Positive mind, visions, and words Forgiveness

This Is the Resting Overcoming life Place and the Place struggles through of Repose prayer

To Guard You in All Your Ways

Prosperity through positive mind

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Date

Preacher

Biblical Texts

Sermon Title

Sermon Focus

Gen. 32:24–​29

Hope and faith

Mark 10:46–​52

The Principle of Visualization

There Is Still Hope

Visions and hope

Matt. 8:23–​27

Faith That Controls Hardships

Physical healing and faith

Prayer, appreciation, and positive mind.

9.2.2018

Yonggi Cho

9.9.2018

Yonggi Cho

9.16.2018

Yonggi Cho

9.23.2018

Yonggi Cho

Jer. 33:3

9.30.2018

Yonggi Cho

Phil. 4:6–​7

The Life of Prayer and Thanksgiving

The Blood of Jesus and Prayer

Ps. 119:71

Hope in the Heart

10.7.2018

Yonggi Cho

10.14.2018

Yonggi Cho

Heb. 10:19–​20

10.21.2018

Yonggi Cho

10.28.2018

Yonggi Cho

1 John 2:1

The Power to Overcome Sin

11.4.2018

Yonggi Cho

Mark 4:3–​8

The Parable of a Sower

11.11.2018

Yonggi Cho

11.18.2018

Yonggi Cho

11.25.2018

Yonggi Cho

12.2.2018

Yonggi Cho

Acts 16:16–​34

The Affliction Wakes a Sleeper Up

Physical health and wealth

Overcoming weariness

Physical health, and blessings through tithes and offerings

Hearing in the Spirit

The Spirit That Sets Us Free

Success in life and physical health

Luke 10:25–​37

A True Neighbor

Positive visions and hope

John 10:10

Jesus, the Good Shepherd

2 Kings 4:1–​7

Gen. 2:15–​17

Go Around and Ask all Your Neighbors for Empty Jars

The Recovery of the Lost Eden

The words of blessings and prosperity

Blessings through tithes and offerings Prosperity through positive mind

Physical health, and prosperity

appendix  | 163

Date

Preacher

12.9.2018

Yonggi Cho

12.16.2018

Yonggi Cho

12.23.2018

Yonggi Cho

12.30.2018

Biblical Texts

Mark 4:35–​41

Sermon Title

Sermon Focus

The Ruler of the Kingdom of the Air

Physical health, and prosperity through positive mind, faith, and words

John 6:35 The Water and Bread of Life

Visions and faith

Mark 1:32–​34

Cast Out the Demons

Yonggi Cho

3 John 1:2

The Happy Life

1.6. 2019

Yonggi Cho

Ps. 67:1–​7

Children Who Serve God

1.13.2019

Yonggi Cho

1.20.2019

Yonggi Cho

2 Kings 4:1–​7

God Fulfills All the Prayer and faith Needs of Life

1.27.2019

Yonggi Cho

2.3.2019

Yonggi Cho

Matt. 8:5–​13

The Faith of the Centurion

Miracles through faith and prayer

2.10.2019

Yonggi Cho

2.17.2019

Yonggi Cho

Acts 3:1–​10

Thanksgiving to Honor God

Gratitude through faith

2.24.2019

Yonggi Cho

3.3.2019

Yonggi Cho

1 Pet. 2:9–​10

2 Kings 6:14–​23

Ps. 23:4–​6

Ps. 50:23

Mark 8:1–​9

Ongoing prayer against the evil spirit and physical health Physical health, and prosperity through positive mind, faith, and words Blessings through tithes and offerings and appreciation

Those Who Are with Us Are More Than Those Who Are with Them

Prayer and faith

The Lord Is with Us

Blessed life through God’s assisting grace

In the Name of Jesus Christ, Stand Up and Walk The Positive Life

God’s Thoughts and Our Thoughts

Physical health, and serving others Positive life through faith and prayer Blessings through positive mind, faith, and words

164 

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Date

Preacher

Biblical Texts

Sermon Title

Sermon Focus

Jer. 33:1–​3

Leave It Up to God

Physical healing and blessings through prayer

3.10.2019

Yonggi Cho

3.17.2019

Yonggi Cho

Ps. 103:1–​5

How Should We Pray

3.24.2019

Yonggi Cho

John 3:1–​8

3.31.2019

Yonggi Cho

The Fourth The Holy Spirit Dimension and the who works through Third Dimension our visions, mind, thoughts, and words

Prov. 4:23 Guard Your Heart

4.7.2019

Yonggi Cho

4.14.2019

Yonggi Cho

Matt. 8:5–​13

4.21.2019

Younghoon Lee

4.28.2019

Yonggi Cho

Matt. 11:28–​30

I Will Go and Heal Him

Guard your heart with faith Physical health

Look Up to Heaven

Praying for what you need

Peace in Your Heart

Visions, hope, healing, and wealth through the cross

Luke Jesus Christ, the 24:13–​14, Absolute Hope 28–​32 John 14:27

Gratitude, confess our sins, asking for what you need, and prayer

Blessed life, gratitude, and praise

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Index

actualizing the Word  17 Anderson, Gordon  55–​6 Archer, Kenneth  53–​4 Arrington, French L.  51–​3 Assemblies of God in Korea  1, 2n2, 12, 13. See also hermeneutics; preachers; Yoido Full Gospel Church biblical interpretation by  6–​8, 12–​13, 29 sermons of  7, 12, appendix Augustine of Hippo  105–​6, 110, 111 Azusa Street Revival  21, 39, 41–​5 Balthasar, Hans Urs von  129 baptism of the Holy Spirit  40–​3, 47 Barton, John  131 Basil the Great  128, 142 Benedict of Aniane  109 Benedict of Nursia  105 Bernard of Clairvaux  11–​2. See also monasticism, Cistercian homilies on Song of Songs by  4–​5, 104, 118–​22

mystical experience of  110–​1, 123 on loving God  101–​23 on prayerful reading of Scripture  4 on the four degrees of love  112–​7 on union with the divine  139–​42 Bible, the.  See also hermeneutics; lectio divina; Ricoeur, Paul appropriation of  13, 50, 63–​5, 76, 79, 86–​7, 90–​2, 96, 98, 99 as a sacrament  3, 5, 6, 13, 125, 144–​5 as a source of information  1, 5, 50, 97, 153 as a source of transformation  1, 5, 97–​8, 133–​8, 153 dialogue with  3, 13, 75–​77, 94, 99, 111, 123, 137, 152–​3 literal interpretation of  10, 13, 15, 32–​5, 37, 40, 45, 49, 51, 94, 120, 151, 153 surplus of meaning in  4, 8–​9, 151, 153 Billings, J. Todd  8 Blair, William N.  22 Brown, Jeannine K.  3

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Brueggemann, Walter  131 Byun, Jong-​Ho  33–​34   Cashwell, Gaston Barnabas  46 Cassian, John  107, 110, 111 Charlemagne  108 Cho, David Yonggi.  See Cho, Yong-​Gi [Yonggi] Cho, Yong-​Gi [Yonggi]  7, 26, 27–​8, 34, appendix Choi, Ja-​Sil  26, 27 Christlikeness.  See transformation Cîteaux (monastery)  109–​10 classical Pentecostals.  See Pentecostalism, classical tradition of Cluny (monastery)  109 Congar, Yves  143 Cox, Harvey  32 Doddridge, Philip  137 Ervin, Howard M.  59–​61 Fee, Gordon D.  56–​9 Florovsky, Georges  61 Gadamer, Hans-​Georg  98, 130 Gerson, Jean  103 glossolalia.  See speaking in tongues God, encounter with (in the biblical text)  5, 8, 10, 123 Green, J. B.  12 Gregory I, Pope  107, 110, 111 Gross, Nancy L.  95 Guyon, Jeanne  141 Hays, Richard B.  7–​8 healing, divine  7, 15, 18, 25, 27, 29, 37, 45, appendix hermeneutics.  See also preachers; Korean Pentecostal movement; Ricoeur, Paul; transformation alternative hermeneutics for Korean Pentecostals  125–​47, 151–​4

experiential  2, 3, 5, 52–​3, 54–​5, 63, 151, 152 historical-​critical method  54, 55–​8, 131 literary method  132–​3, 152, 153 pneumatic  52, 59–​61 sample sermon based on a transformative reading of the biblical text  146–​50 Hill, William  94, 99, 126, 145 Hirsch, E. D.  55 Hollenweger, Walter J.  31n26 Holy Spirit  30–​31. See also baptism of the Holy Spirit homiletics.  See also Bernard of Clairvaux; Bible, the; God, encounter with (in the biblical text); hermeneutics; Korean Pentecostal movement; lectio divina; Luke-​Acts model; naïveté, first and second; Pauline epistles model; Pentecostalism, classical tradition of; preacher, the; prosperity gospel; Ricoeur, Paul; transformation sample sermon based on a transformative reading of the biblical text  146–​50 transformative  3, 5–​6, 7–​8, 125–​ 46, 151–​4 Huh, Hong  21–​2 Hurston, J. W.  28 icons  127–​30 idols  127–​30 Ignatius of Loyola  5 Inge, William R.  103 Jacobsen, Douglas  39, 42–​3 Janowiak, Paul  138, 143 Jesus Christ  29–​30, 33, 44, 47, 106, 140, 154. See also transformation John of Damascus  128 Jones, Tony  137 justification  42–​4 Kärkkäinen, Veli-​Matti  48–​9 Kil, Seon-​Ju  23, 32–​3 Kim, Ik-​D u  18, 25, 26, 33–​4, 37

i n d e x  | 179

Korea, history of.  See also Korean Pentecostal Movement; Korean War; Minjung liberation theology; shamanism Choson Dynasty (1876–​1910)  16–​7 Japanese colonial regime (1910–​45)  17–​9 post-​World War II (1945–​64)  19–​21 Korean Pentecostal movement  11, 15–​35. See also hermeneutics; Minjung liberation theology; Pentecostalism, classical tradition of; shamanism alternative hermeneutics for Korean Pentecostals  125–​47, 151–​4 exponential growth and stabilization (1958–​82)  27–​9, 34 emancipation of the individual  hermeneutics  7, 15, 29–​35, 37–​8, 62–​ 4, 152–​3 leadership by three native pastors (1910–​45)  24–​7 Pyongyang Revival (1907)  21–​4, 32–​3 Korean War  7, 11, 19–​20, 28, 29, 34 lectio divina  120n61, 136–​8 Lee, Graham  22–​3 Lee, Jong-​Soon  31 Lee, Sang-​Yun  34 Lee, Sung-​Bong  19, 26–​7 Lee, Sung-​Ho  33 Lee, Yong-​Do  18, 25–​6, 33–​4 Lee, Young Hoon [Younghun]  7, appendix Long, Thomas  133–​4 Luke-​Acts model  29–​32, 34. See also Pauline epistles model   Marion, Jean-​Luc  127–​9 material blessings.  See prosperity gospel McCabe, Herbert  94 McGinn, Bernard  103 Merton, Thomas  5 Minjung liberation theology  33–​4, 151 monasticism  Benedictine  105, 109–​10, 136 Cistercian  106–​7, 110–​1

Rule of St. Benedict  105, 107, 108–​ 11, 120n61 Moyaert, Paul  128–​9 mysticism, Western Christian  60, 102–​11 naïveté, first and second  64, 79, 95–​6, 130–​ 1, 135 New Hermeneutic  60 Newbigin, Lesslie  144 Norris, Kathleen  4 Northcutt, Kay L.  135–​6 Origen  10 Pape, Lance B.  134 Parham, Charles Fox  38–​41 Park, Chung-​Hee  20, 27, 34 Paul (the apostle)  30–​1, 45, 61. See also Pauline epistles model Pauline Epistles model  29, 30–​1, 35. See also Luke-​Acts model Pennington, M. Basil  137, 138 Pentecostalism, classical tradition of  2, 3, 6n14, 13, 37–​62, 152. See also Assemblies of God in Korea; Korean Pentecostal movement Pfleiderer, Otto  103 prayer  4, 30–​31, 35, 107, 137 preacher, the.  See also Assemblies of God in Korea; hermeneutics; transformation as reader  135–​8 embodying the Word of God  126, 142–​5 reciprocity of with the gathered community  5, 144–​5 world of  2–​3, 9, 12–​13, 97–​9, 102, 152 prosperity gospel  6–​7, 34 Pyongyang Revival (1907).  See Korean Pentecostal movement Rhee, Syng-​man  19–​20, 27 Ricoeur, Paul  3–​4, 11, 63–​109 explanation and understanding  64, 86–​92

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hermeneutical theory  63–​100, 130–​ 1, 143 homiletical discourse  92–​9 language as discourse  64–​73 langue and parole  65–​6 metaphor and symbol  64, 79–​85 speaking and writing  64, 73–​9 surplus of meaning  3, 8–​9, 79–​85, 93, 151, 153 worlds behind, in front of, and of the text  92–​102, 135–​6, 152 Rule of St. Benedict.  See monasticism Rumsey, Mary C.  21–​2 Ryoo, Jang-​Hyun  32–​3 sanctification  43–​44, 142 Saussure, Ferdinand de  65–​6 Schneiders, Sandra M.  2, 9, 10, 97–​8, 131, 132 Scholastics  104 Scripture.  See Bible, the semantics  66–​7, 70–​72, 89 sermon, sample.  See hermeneutics Seymour, William Joseph  21, 39, 41–​5 shamanism  15, 31–​2, 34, 151 signs (outer and inner)  15, 25, 29, 31, 34–​5, 37, 44–​5, 50, 53 Smart, Ninian  103 Song of Songs.  See Bernard of Clairvaux speaking in tongues  21–​2, 30–​1, 39–​40, 41–​ 5, 46–​7, 50, 58–​9 spiritual formation  9, 35, 101, 104, 123, 152–​3 Spittler, Russell  62

St. Basil the Great.  See Basil the Great St. Bernard of Clairvaux.  See Bernard of Clairvaux St. Ignatius of Loyola.  See Ignatius of Loyola St. John of Damascus.  See John of Damascus St. Teresa of Avila.  See Teresa of Avila Steiner, George  143–​4 Stronstad, Roger  54–​5 surplus of meaning.  See Ricoeur, Paul Tamburello, Dennis  114, 115 Taylor, George Floyd  45–​7 Teresa of Avila  103 transformation  1. See also preacher, the through engagement with Scripture  2n3, 12–​3, 99, 102, 125–​46, 151–​4 to be more Christlike  8, 125–​6, 142–​6 Underhill, Evelyn  103 Vanhoozer, Kevin J.  2, 142, 143, 144 Wacker, Grant  37, 49–​51 Wesley, John  51–​2 Westphal, Merold  127 William of Saint-​Thierry  141 worlds behind, in front of, and of the text.  See Ricoeur, Paul Yoido Full Gospel Church  2n2, 6–​7, 28, appendix Yoo, Dong-​Sik  31–​4