Josh

“Hans W. Frei argues that the Enlightenment period was liable for a significant portion of the eclipse of the biblical narratives. In place of the biblical narrative as the hermeneutical source and target came “the single meaning of a grammatically and logically sound propositional statement.”125 Grondin insightfully writes, regarding this emphasis on proposition, “For hermeneutics, by contrast, the proposition is something secondary and derivative.”126 The road from university to diversity traded story for proposition, mystery for the exactness of rules, and a deductive slant for one that was largely inductive. Thus, Western biblical hermeneutics followed the Enlightenment-influenced trail that saw hermeneutics as the study of right principles or as the laying out of rules governing the discipline of interpretation.”
― Michael Matthews, A Novel Approach: The Significance of Story in Interpreting and Communicating Reality

“The transplanted bias they now had organically strapped to their backs set them up to be little copycats of the archetypical eisegete they had so carelessly heeded in the garden. (A textbook example of “What you win them with is what you win them to.”)68 They spent the rest of their lives (and remember, they lived a long, long time) eisegeting the world. And they passed this interpretation virus on to each of their children. And to their children’s children. We all eisegete before we exegete.69 Always. It is in our blood.”
― Michael Matthews, A Novel Approach: The Significance of Story in Interpreting and Communicating Reality

“Sin is looking for the right thing in the wrong place.”
― St. Augustine of Hippo

“Reality is not only who God is and what he creates; reality is also how God and creation relate. Reality is chock-full of relationships: God with God; God with angels; God with Satan; God with demons; God with nature; God with mankind; angels with God; angels with angels; angels with Satan; angels with demons; angels with mankind; mankind with God; mankind with angels; mankind with Satan; mankind with demons; mankind with nature; mankind with mankind. And on and on. The intrigue of all these relationships writes the storyline of reality. Reality can be pictured simply as dots and lines. The dots are the entities of reality; the lines are the interactions and relationships between the entities.”
― Michael Matthews, A Novel Approach: The Significance of Story in Interpreting and Communicating Reality