Relationship-Centered Hermeneutics

Hermeneutics is simply the fancy word for the interpretation of ancient text. It is the principles that we use to interpret the Bible.

About Relationship

As I thought often about the interpretation of the Bible, one of the things becomes clear. The Bible is primarily about the relationship between God and humankind.

Now if that is true, then when we go to interpret the passages in the Bible, we need to interpret those passages in a relationship-centered mode.

Relationship-Centered Mode

Now what does that mean? It means that we look at the passage and try to understand the relationship between that person and God. And then we take the principles that we discover in that dynamic relationship, and we see if they apply to us.

So the point is to move from interpretation to application. And we do this by extracting the principles concerning the God and human relationship, as they’re recorded in the scriptures.

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Jay N. Forrest

Dr. Jay N Forrest is a Spiritual Teacher of the Anglican Middle Way, writing on Prayer, Meditation, and Mysticism. Jay became a Christian in 1983, attended Bible school, and eventually earned his Doctorate in Ministry. Jay served as a Protestant minister for 27 years, took catechism classes with the Orthodox Church of America, and spent about a decade practicing Buddhism. In 2005, Jay was baptized and confirmed into the Catholic Church, but has since joined the Episcopal Church.

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