Sharing common questions and differences

The second in a series of LWF hermeneutics consultations is underway 21-27 March 2013 in Eisenach, Germany. Participant Rev. Dr Robin Steinke talks about the challenges and opportunities of biblical interpretation in the Lutheran communion today.

What are your expectations of this meeting?

I hope for three things in this week together:

• To continue to listen to God’s Word through the Holy Spirit for ways that the Psalms, as part of the source and norm of our faith and life, inform life together as an LWF communion
• To hear how God is at work throughout the LWF communion as we share stories informed by the Psalms and learn from many parts of the communion
• That we may hear renewed ways to be faithful witnesses to what God may be doing in the world

What is your hermeneutical key for understanding the Bible?

Prayerful reading of Scripture together with others does not assure a prescribed outcome but trusts the Holy Spirit to animate our interpretive framework for the sake of witness in the world.

I think that we pray andread the Psalms not only for ourselves but to continue to learn ways to connect the Psalms with the community of faith around the global communion.

What challenges does biblical interpretation face in the Lutheran communion today?

I wonder if one challenge is that we presuppose how God continues to reveal God’s own self in contexts to which we have no direct access.

A further challenge is how to share the richness of this work on reading and interpreting biblical texts together beyond the participants and the final publication that will follow.

What are the opportunities?

Hearing how the Psalms are interpreted in another part of the communion stretches my own horizons and gives me wisdom concerning God’s Word for us today that I can share in my own context.

It helps connect different parts of the communion around the Word of God in concrete ways.

It may also open some ways for us to share common questions which the Psalms raise for member churches which transcend one’s local context.

 

How does this meeting build on the first hermeneutics consultation?

These consultations provide a concrete way that the communion embodies the common confession that the Bible is the source and norm of faith and life.

We come together to listen, learn, question, collaborate and share the fruit of these conversations.

When one comes together to share common questions as well as differences raised by one’s own context, one bears witness that our unity as a communion is a gift of God, expanded by the richness of sharing questions on things that matter, not of like-mindedness.

The building of the consultation on the work in Nairobi seems to open up ways for us to wonder together about what God is doing and to be slightly less declarative on knowing exactly what that might be.

Rev. Dr Robin Steinke is dean of Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, USA, and professor of ethics and public life. She is an ordained minister of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, an LWF member church, and a member of the LWF Council and the LWF Council Committee for Theology and Ecumenical Relations.

Interview conducted March 2013

Source: lutheranworld.org