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Taught by God: Ancient Hermeneutics for the Modern Church
In Taught by God , theologian Brandon D. Smith invites modern Christians to rediscover the early church’s approach to biblical interpretation, not just as an historical relic but as a vibrant means of understanding the Bible today. Smith introduces three “sensibilities” that Christians throughout church history have a concern for Scripture’s very words, its theological and Christological unity, and its importance for the church. Through biblical and historical examples, Taught by God challenges the modern church to read and interpret Scripture with the great cloud of historical witnesses. Short, easy-to-understand, and extensively researched, Taught by God invites readers to discover further riches in Scripture. These riches take Scripture’s divine inspiration and the Christian tradition’s reflections on Scripture seriously in order to inspire ever-greater worship of the ultimate author of all Scripture.
208 pages, Paperback
Published March 1, 2024
17 people are currently reading
173 people want to read
About the author
Brandon D. Smith
17 books10 followersBrandon D. Smith works with the Christian Standard Bible and teaches theology at various schools. He's also the author of Rooted: Theology for Growing Christians and They Spoke of Me: How Jesus Unlocks the Old Testament, and co-hosts the Word Matters podcast. He holds a BA in Biblical Studies from Dallas Baptist University, an MA in Systematic & Historical Theology from Criswell College, and is pursuing a PhD in Theology at Ridley College in Melbourne, Australia. He lives near Nashville, Tennessee with his wife, Christa, and their two daughters.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
January 5, 2025
As this is an academic book, I was often lost as a lay reader. I flagged a lot of useful references , so I did learn from this teaching. I enjoyed looking back on the church fathers and their contributions in Bible interpretation. It wasn’t a page turner for me, but overall I enjoyed reading this book.
June 8, 2024
Got taught by Brandon.
March 30, 2025
If you know one thing about the hermeneutics of church fathers it’s probably that they utilized allegorical or spiritual readings of Scripture. This can cause you to ask, “Why should I read the church fathers for interpreting the Bible?” Brandon Smith challenges the view that the church fathers can be easily reduced into such a pattern, showing instead a deep and varied approach to Scripture that emphasized the importance of “the way the words go,” where every word was placed there by God for the reader to better contemplate Himself in Christ. The church fathers, then, are not an outdated source of biblical information but a fount of wisdom for us today.
The author does an excellent job providing a summary of interpretation from the church’s earliest interpreters up through the Reformation. He particularly emphasizes their christologocal interpretation. This is by far the strength of the book, and is perfect if you are looking to start reading the church fathers or have always felt they are too allegorical for use today.
The second half of the book are his test cases where he shows how tracing “how the words go” can be helpful for us today. It is good to see how Smith sees the principles he elaborates can be appropriated, but I almost feel to help the reader see the full utility of the church father’s view as opposed to grammatical-historical methods, he should have used an allegorical reading (like Augustine’s allegorical interpretation of Genesis) or even a strange literal reading (like Augustine’s literal interpretation of Genesis). There are times when we may wonder how the church fathers got their interpretation, and to see how they are useful even there would’ve been great for the purpose of the book.
I definitely recommend the book, especially as an intro into the hermeneutics of the church fathers. But, if you are looking for an in depth explanation of patristics hermeneutics, you may be left wishing it was more detailed.
The author does an excellent job providing a summary of interpretation from the church’s earliest interpreters up through the Reformation. He particularly emphasizes their christologocal interpretation. This is by far the strength of the book, and is perfect if you are looking to start reading the church fathers or have always felt they are too allegorical for use today.
The second half of the book are his test cases where he shows how tracing “how the words go” can be helpful for us today. It is good to see how Smith sees the principles he elaborates can be appropriated, but I almost feel to help the reader see the full utility of the church father’s view as opposed to grammatical-historical methods, he should have used an allegorical reading (like Augustine’s allegorical interpretation of Genesis) or even a strange literal reading (like Augustine’s literal interpretation of Genesis). There are times when we may wonder how the church fathers got their interpretation, and to see how they are useful even there would’ve been great for the purpose of the book.
I definitely recommend the book, especially as an intro into the hermeneutics of the church fathers. But, if you are looking for an in depth explanation of patristics hermeneutics, you may be left wishing it was more detailed.
September 25, 2025
Highly recommend this book to all Christians! In today's age, many Christians (and I myself included) look down at the older scholarship done by the early church fathers, medieval, and even the reformers. Brandon proves that the older saints do exercise good exegetical studies and theological extrapolations. Give this book a read and be challenged!
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November 9, 2024Great little book! Short and readable, but it’s full of gold. Other people have talked at length about ancient hermeneutics and their usefulness for the modern church. Smith is doing this for the church and not the academic - accessible and not snooty
October 1, 2024
Good stuff. Nothing groundbreaking, but I definitely profited.
April 18, 2025
Decently helpful. Concise.
He spent a good bit of time demonstrating how much commonality ancient interpreters have with interpreters today. Fair enough. But I was hoping for more definition and exploration of pre-modern hermeneutics, explaining how premodern interp was distinct and the reasoning behind those distinct methods.
He said we shouldn’t be afraid of them. Excellent! Show me why. Unfortunately I felt like that was under developed.
He spent a good bit of time demonstrating how much commonality ancient interpreters have with interpreters today. Fair enough. But I was hoping for more definition and exploration of pre-modern hermeneutics, explaining how premodern interp was distinct and the reasoning behind those distinct methods.
He said we shouldn’t be afraid of them. Excellent! Show me why. Unfortunately I felt like that was under developed.
May 4, 2024
An important book arguing for the retrieval of premodern sensibilities for proper interpretation of the Bible. Modern scholarship has quietly dispensed with the notion of divine authorship as being the basis of unity in the Scripture (or even a possibility), but Smith demonstrates through a survey of several early Christian writers that this idea has pervaded the vast majority of the church's history of biblical interpretation. Further, Smith does an excellent job of outlining the "method" of the use of Scripture by Scripture (specifically the use of the OT in the NT) which is usually unaddressed or insufficiently addressed by other writers. Through his survey of several early Christian writers, he demonstrates how Christians have historically viewed the Scripture as a unified whole despite meaningful distinctions within this broad point of view. Virtually all Christians attempting to do faithful interpretation of the Scripture have understood meaning-formation (specifically christological meaning-formation) as occurring as the result of God's divine authorship and self-revelation and history. The NT writers and the generations of interpreters immediately after them therefore understood Scripture as necessarily theologically unified and therefore unproblematic in its use of prefiguration, allusion, quotation, and application of a promise/fulfillment paradigm to the OT.
March 5, 2024
First part introducing premodern sensibilities was helpful, the exegetical examples he provides in part 2 are worth the price of the book.
December 28, 2024
Informative read. I am beginning to see the merit of hermeneutical systems such as the four-fold method (granted that it is correctly understood). Smith argues that the early fathers always understood the allegorical, tropological, and anagogical senses to be grounded first and foremost in the literal sense. It seems that in modern discussions of hermeneutics, these four elements are still present, but they are usually discussed with modern terminology. In some ways, I have already been using elements of this method without noticing it. However, Smith's thesis is not about the four-fold method (although it is an integral part of his work). His thesis instead focuses on three "sensibilities" shared throughout the history of the Christian church: (1) a focus on the text itself, (2) theological-Christological unity, and (3) personal transformation.
Although I thoroughly enjoyed this read, I do have a few slight critiques:
(1) I wish that Smith would have written more about the anagogical sense; I left this book with only an elementary understanding of the anagogical. He spent more space explaining the allegorical, since that is usually what people get hung up over; the tropological is straightforward.
(2) Part two of this book contains four examples of practicing the hermeneutics that he presented in part one. In this section, he says, "For each text, I will provide a brief introduction on the sensibilities’ function in the passage, followed by an application of these sensibilities in what amounts to an exegetical essay or sermon manuscript" (p. 122). Yet this was not clear. He could have more clearly showed the readers how he applied his hermeneutics, for it was at times difficult to discern.
(3) In chapter 5, he seems to speak against the use of historical methods for interpretation. I think this is a mistake; Scripture has both a human author and a divine Author, and these two must not be separated. Yes, historical methods may be overemphasized, particularly by critical scholars. But that does not mean that we should avoid historical methods. Contrary to what Smith says, I believe that the rejection of some historical methods may result in misunderstanding the human author's purpose/occasion/intention. In fact, there was one time in this book that Smith used what I would consider to be historical elements for his interpretation (pp. 155–157), but he did not acknowledge it as such.
However, this is a nitpick. I do not think that what he is proposing here with retrievalism of ancient hermeneutics is contradictory to my modern 3-fold hermeneutic of history, literature, and theology (cf. Köstenberger). In fact, I think they complement each other, but he does not acknowledge it. Patrick Schreiner is a great example of one modern scholar who uses both hermeneutical systems.
Although I thoroughly enjoyed this read, I do have a few slight critiques:
(1) I wish that Smith would have written more about the anagogical sense; I left this book with only an elementary understanding of the anagogical. He spent more space explaining the allegorical, since that is usually what people get hung up over; the tropological is straightforward.
(2) Part two of this book contains four examples of practicing the hermeneutics that he presented in part one. In this section, he says, "For each text, I will provide a brief introduction on the sensibilities’ function in the passage, followed by an application of these sensibilities in what amounts to an exegetical essay or sermon manuscript" (p. 122). Yet this was not clear. He could have more clearly showed the readers how he applied his hermeneutics, for it was at times difficult to discern.
(3) In chapter 5, he seems to speak against the use of historical methods for interpretation. I think this is a mistake; Scripture has both a human author and a divine Author, and these two must not be separated. Yes, historical methods may be overemphasized, particularly by critical scholars. But that does not mean that we should avoid historical methods. Contrary to what Smith says, I believe that the rejection of some historical methods may result in misunderstanding the human author's purpose/occasion/intention. In fact, there was one time in this book that Smith used what I would consider to be historical elements for his interpretation (pp. 155–157), but he did not acknowledge it as such.
However, this is a nitpick. I do not think that what he is proposing here with retrievalism of ancient hermeneutics is contradictory to my modern 3-fold hermeneutic of history, literature, and theology (cf. Köstenberger). In fact, I think they complement each other, but he does not acknowledge it. Patrick Schreiner is a great example of one modern scholar who uses both hermeneutical systems.
March 5, 2025
This book has been part of my reading to help me be a better reader, interpreter, and teacher of God's Word. Smith did not disappoint in this book. There is one small critique about formatting/time but other than that I loved it. Let's get to some pros and cons.
Things I Loved!
#1 This book is truly accessible to all kinds of readers! I love that Smith wrote this with an eye toward edification of the Church. He made it approachable and accessible. Far from technical, yet not lacking in depth.
#2 Cleanly organized which makes it an easy read and a great teaching tool.
#3 A great introduction to important Church Fathers and Theologians. I loved that in some ways it acts as a nice introduction to some of the biggest names in Church history. Almost like a who's who of Church history. His mastery and understanding of each one is clear.
#4 He achieves his aim in a concise work. His work was aimed at demonstrating the enduring nature of "Ancient Hermeneutics" (Reformation and Before). This was clearly accomplished and a strong critique against those that think they are beyond the Church Fathers in interpretive ability or fruitfulness.
#5 A great primer on a basic theology of the Word of God. Although indirect, this could be a nice primer on essential ways to understand a theology of God's Word.
One Critique!
#1 I felt that rather than four different examples to end the book, Smith could have spent a but more time developing more complex areas in his book. I felt that I wanted a few more pages dedicated to each chapter rather than a full four examples. Not a harsh critique but by preference I wished for more depth in the middle parts rather than the end. That is why I gave it a four rather than a five.
Things I Loved!
#1 This book is truly accessible to all kinds of readers! I love that Smith wrote this with an eye toward edification of the Church. He made it approachable and accessible. Far from technical, yet not lacking in depth.
#2 Cleanly organized which makes it an easy read and a great teaching tool.
#3 A great introduction to important Church Fathers and Theologians. I loved that in some ways it acts as a nice introduction to some of the biggest names in Church history. Almost like a who's who of Church history. His mastery and understanding of each one is clear.
#4 He achieves his aim in a concise work. His work was aimed at demonstrating the enduring nature of "Ancient Hermeneutics" (Reformation and Before). This was clearly accomplished and a strong critique against those that think they are beyond the Church Fathers in interpretive ability or fruitfulness.
#5 A great primer on a basic theology of the Word of God. Although indirect, this could be a nice primer on essential ways to understand a theology of God's Word.
One Critique!
#1 I felt that rather than four different examples to end the book, Smith could have spent a but more time developing more complex areas in his book. I felt that I wanted a few more pages dedicated to each chapter rather than a full four examples. Not a harsh critique but by preference I wished for more depth in the middle parts rather than the end. That is why I gave it a four rather than a five.
December 2, 2025
“Christian history is a story of biblical interpretation.”
“Simply put, retrieval is the act of reading and understanding those who have come before us as a way to apply encouragement and/or correction for renewal in today's church.”
If I ever have the opportunity to teach a class on biblical hermeneutics, this will for sure be required reading! Smith carefully yet so accessibly walks the reader through the sensibilities that marked premodern biblical interpretation. Surveying theologians from the Patristic, Medieval, and Reformed periods (shout out to his discussion on John of Damascus!), Smith points out that interpretive practices were far from monolithic. But also, divisions in “Alexandrian” and “Antiochene” schools are not helpful or accurate. Smith shows us how ancient interpreters differed from modern, historical-critical approaches that seek to atomize the biblical text.
Smith argues for 3 key sensibilities among premodern biblical interpreters that bring unity to all of their interpretive diversity:
1. A concern for the letter and history of the text — even allegorists often based their allegories on the literal or historical meaning of a biblical text.
2. Theological and Christological unity in the text — the Scriptures are ultimately about Christ, and as God’s Word and revelation to us, the Scriptures present a unified message.
3. The Scriptures orient the reader to personal and ecclesial communion with God.
No real critiques for this work. It was wonderful, and I found myself flying through it!
Calvin on Christ and the Law in the Scriptures: "When Christ gives life to the law, David's praises apply to it; when Christ is taken away, the law is altogether as Paul describes it. Therefore, Christ is the life of the law."
“Simply put, retrieval is the act of reading and understanding those who have come before us as a way to apply encouragement and/or correction for renewal in today's church.”
If I ever have the opportunity to teach a class on biblical hermeneutics, this will for sure be required reading! Smith carefully yet so accessibly walks the reader through the sensibilities that marked premodern biblical interpretation. Surveying theologians from the Patristic, Medieval, and Reformed periods (shout out to his discussion on John of Damascus!), Smith points out that interpretive practices were far from monolithic. But also, divisions in “Alexandrian” and “Antiochene” schools are not helpful or accurate. Smith shows us how ancient interpreters differed from modern, historical-critical approaches that seek to atomize the biblical text.
Smith argues for 3 key sensibilities among premodern biblical interpreters that bring unity to all of their interpretive diversity:
1. A concern for the letter and history of the text — even allegorists often based their allegories on the literal or historical meaning of a biblical text.
2. Theological and Christological unity in the text — the Scriptures are ultimately about Christ, and as God’s Word and revelation to us, the Scriptures present a unified message.
3. The Scriptures orient the reader to personal and ecclesial communion with God.
No real critiques for this work. It was wonderful, and I found myself flying through it!
Calvin on Christ and the Law in the Scriptures: "When Christ gives life to the law, David's praises apply to it; when Christ is taken away, the law is altogether as Paul describes it. Therefore, Christ is the life of the law."
December 16, 2024
This book gives a clear and interesting look at how pre-modern Christians understood and interpreted scripture. It really helps readers get a better grasp of the biblical story and promotes a more spiritual approach to engaging with the text. Plus, it sparks interest in reading the early church fathers. The second half of the book shares some practical examples of using ancient hermeneutics. The explanations of the biblical texts are engaging and eye-opening, showcasing the big themes within these passages. I definitely recommend this read for anyone who’s involved in preaching or teaching the biblical text.
June 3, 2025
This is an accessible little book for anyone who desires to read the Bible in a way that is consistent with the way Christians have read the Bible since the birth of the church. This is not a detailed study of patristic or medieval biblical interpretation. Rather, Brandon Smith presents three sensibilities which have motivated the way Christians have approached the Bible while demonstrating his claims through brief historical and exegetical examples. These sensibilities expose the shortcomings of an approach that is limited to a modern historical-critical approach.
March 30, 2024
Great little book. Smith identifies three hermeneutical sensibilities from the Christian tradition and demonstrates where they show up in historical figures and shows how they are to be applied when interpreting the Bible. Though the history of hermeneutics is multifaceted and difficult to sort, Smith does a great job simplifying the discussion around three commitments that Christians from all times and all places should have no trouble getting behind. Recommended.
November 2, 2024
I enjoyed this book.
It was easy to read, and the three sensibilities set out were presented well.
This is a book that isn't just good for looking how premoderns did hermeneutics but how Christians should.
It was easy to read, and the three sensibilities set out were presented well.
This is a book that isn't just good for looking how premoderns did hermeneutics but how Christians should.
April 5, 2024
Wonderful resource!
November 25, 2024
Pretty good. Not sure about some of the historical claims, and understandings of the early fathers’ interpretive practices. Some good stuff though!
February 27, 2025
Brandon Smith had a large task before him, and he did a great job! One of the benefits of this short book is its approachability without sacrificing on scholarship. Smith is working with many of the critical texts for these authors that he cites, which gives credence to his conclusions. He doesn’t try to solve every question (like should we use allegory, use a different term for the same thing, etc.), nor does he pretend that all these people agree on exactly how to read scripture. What he does do is show that there are at least three baseline “sensibilities” toward reading scripture that have been consistent for just about all of Christian history.
Smith uses some unique figures in making his arguments. One of my favorites was his use of Origen showing the care for “the way the words go” (or the literal/body of the text for those who are familiar). This proves that the caricature of early church hermeneutics is demonstrably false, at least on the level that it is portrayed. While not all of his examples are best for each sensibility, it makes sense with what he was trying to show. He did well, and I am excited to see his future work on TIS!
Smith uses some unique figures in making his arguments. One of my favorites was his use of Origen showing the care for “the way the words go” (or the literal/body of the text for those who are familiar). This proves that the caricature of early church hermeneutics is demonstrably false, at least on the level that it is portrayed. While not all of his examples are best for each sensibility, it makes sense with what he was trying to show. He did well, and I am excited to see his future work on TIS!
December 8, 2025
Incredibly helpful for engaging ancient ways of reading Scripture without feeling lost. Highly recommend if you want to know how the Church has read the Bible through the ages! Only 4 stars because some of it is just kinda boring hahah
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews