Towards Understanding of the Practice of Proclamation: The Core Element of Russian Baptist Worship, Timofey Cheprasov, 2015

es — metaphorical and prototypical (Old Testament events are understood to be prototypes of the events in the New Testament). (Karev, Mitskevich, V. Popov, Ekzegetika, pp 8-9). The main principle was that the Bible was its own best interpreter. | have addressed this in more detail in Chapter 4, section on Biblical Exegesis in post-war communities. ’ This subject is developed in some detail in Chapter 3. 8 Such view on the Bible could be traced throughout the history of the baptistic and protestant communities. See lan Randall, who is addressing this issue quoting Archibald Alexander, the first leader of Princeton Seminary, who ‘argued that in looking at biblical teaching it was necessary to be governed by ‘the plain principles of common sense.” (lan Randall, What a Friend We Have in Jesus: The Evangelical Tradition (London, Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd, 2005), p 44). 191 obedience to their living and present Lord. Yet we should marvel at the quality (and quantity) of their work, even though they naively read the text as an immediate expression of God’s will and failed to account adequately for historical distance between themselves and the text.” This quotation may be a good starting point, setting a stage for this exploration of baptistic hermeneutics — Baptists have done marvellous and extensive work in living according to God’s Word, despite their naive reading of the Text and failure to distant themselves and the biblical narrative. Stephen E. Fowl and L. Gregory Jones in Reading in Communion: Scripture and Ethics in Christian Life, ask a question of which interpretive method should be used by a faithful community. The need for answering this question has not ceased, regardless of all the efforts of numerous biblical scholars and interpreters. First they point to the fact that the ‘problem with the quest for a method for determining the meaning of a text is that we cannot agree on what the meaning of a text would be... [We] are now heirs to dozens of theories about what the meaning of a text is and how it should be found.’*° Therefore, following the argument of Jeffery Stout, they suggest thinking in terms of ‘interpretive interests,’”* arguing that people have ability to rationally access the results of their interpretive attempts, which does not need to be called the meaning of the text, thus leaving the door open for interpretive options.’* Hence, Christians need to acknowledge ‘the plurality of interpretive interests’ and do not treat ‘alternative interpretations as failed attempts to discover the meaning of a text.’ The way the Scripture was read in the past, including readings of Origen, Aquinas, Teresa of Avila, Luther and others, although it may disagree with our position, can help us see additional facets of meaning, which would bring extra clarity and depth into our understanding of the text.” ° “The Hermeneutics of Conversion”, p 37. 1° Stephen E. Fowl and L. Gregory