I am having an interesting conversation with a fairly new Christian, talking to him about the role of the Holy Spirit’s role in the interpretation of Scripture.
I have asked him what he believes the role of the Holy Spirit is in the interpretation of Scripture in the believer’s life.
I have not as yet talked to him about hermeneutics and depending on his answer, I may.
I suspect that he might have had some influence from people in the Emergent Church.
He has given me quite a bit of information already concerning what he believes concerning the role of the Holy Spirit in the interpretation and basically without giving a lot of detail. He says when he hears something whether it is Scripture or something else like a testimony the Holy Spirit acting in him gives him an absolute confidence as though He was nodding in agreement showing him it is true.
I thought rather than answer him directly; I would ask him to flesh this out by saying the follow to him.
Ok, let us flesh this out a little more for the sake of clarity.
If your pastor was preaching about the story of Peter walking on the water (Matthew 14:26-36) and he said the reason why Peter sank is not because he lost faith in Christ and looked at the conditions around him. It was because he didn’t have faith in himself. God has faith in you!
If you felt a peace about what your pastor said and you (to use your terminology) felt the Holy Spirit was nodding in agreement. Would you trust that interpretation of the passage?
Why or why not?
By the way this is what Rob Bells says in his NUMA videos, so hopefully his answer will show something.
What I am asking the board here is for prayer first and any information that I might find helpful in showing the truth.
I need to admit at this point, I have been told that I can at times makes it sound like I am trying to win an argument, rather than speak the truth in love and just proclaim truth and let the Holy Spirit do his bidding. I am trying to be conscious of this in this particular discussion.
Tom
