How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth by Gordon D. Fee & Douglas Stuart
Week 4: Chapter 4 — The Epistles: The Hermeneutical Question
Read Chapter 4 of How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth. Key texts: 1 Corinthians 11:2–16; 1 Timothy 2:8–15.
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Once we understand what an epistle meant, we face the harder question: what parts of it are binding on us today, and how do we decide?
Discussion Questions
8 questions1.Fee and Stuart acknowledge that this chapter addresses the most difficult question in epistle interpretation: how do we distinguish between what was culturally relative in Paul's day and what is transcultural and binding for all time? Why is this question unavoidable for every serious reader?
2.The authors use the examples of head coverings (1 Corinthians 11) and women's roles (1 Timothy 2) as test cases. What makes these passages so difficult to apply, and what interpretive principles do Fee and Stuart bring to bear on them?
3.Fee and Stuart argue that everything in the New Testament is culturally conditioned to some degree — including commands that we do apply universally. How do they suggest we identify which cultural elements are the 'clothing' of a principle and which elements are the principle itself?
a.What role does the consistency of a teaching across multiple letters and contexts play in this determination?
b.What role does the broader canon — the whole witness of Scripture — play?
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