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

ent that Scripture reading is ‘Christ-centred, narrationally and typologically unified whole in conformity to a Trinitarian rule of faith.’ (George Lindbeck, “Scripture, Consensus, and Community,” in This World 23 (1988), p 7). Also Hans W. Frei speaks about typological or figural reading as a main hermeneutical traditional approach employed by the church, in order to build connections between stories found in the Bible and realities of life. (The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative: A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermeneutics (New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1974), pp 2-3). 203 "47 Finally, such reading happens according to a theories ‘that discard this plain sense. number of rules. First is ‘Christological: What Scripture ascribes to Jesus must not be denied by the reading of [other] Scripture.’ The second is based upon the unity of the Bible, insisting that ‘“No Christian reading may deny either the unity of Old and New Testaments or the congruence... of that unity with the ascriptive literalism” asserted in’ the first rule. The third rule allows readings which are not in contradiction with either rule one or two.”® Bringing all these rules together and looking at them through the lens of the baptist vision, McClendon argues, The baptist vision is the way the Bible is read by those who (1) accept the plain sense of Scripture as its dominant sense and recognize their continuity with the story it tells, and who (2) acknowledge that finding the point of that story leads them to its application, and who also (3) see past and present and future linked by a “this is that” and “then is now” vision, a trope of mystical identity binding the story now to the story then, and the story then and now to God’s future yet to come.” The notion of discernment of the spiritual sense and the posture of the interpreters towards the text they use as containing a normative story for their lives °° This means that the end product of the raises the need of ‘validation of meaning. process of interpretation, which is the meaning that answers/addresses relevant situations in which the interpretive community finds itself, the meaning that has power to reinforce such situations, or challenge them,’ must be approved and accepted by the community. Thus, the whole process of interpretation shifts from being the task of the educated few, as assumed by Vanhoozer, and brought into the community of believers. The process of interpretation inevitably loses ground for “7 McClendon, Doctrine, p 37. “8 Ibid., pp 37-38. Also Frei, “The ‘Literal Reading’ of Biblical Narrative in the Christian Tradition...,” p 68. “° McClendon, Doctrine, 45. °° Puzynin, “The Tradition of the Gospel Christians...,” pp 49-50. °* Vandevelde, the Task of the Interpreter, p 104. 204 claims of scientific precision, being prone to diverse voices and opinions.°* Puzynin notes, The process of validation is d