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

ialogical, openended, and provisional. The community will need to adjust its interpretations of scripture and of the external world in light of their contingent experiences, as well as of internal and cultural crises that require ongoing hermeneutical activity.” Moreover, the ever changing cultural environment of the interpreters presupposes an indeterminate interpretation of Scripture, which has to continue changing in order to remain faithful.** There are two important consequences of such an approach to the interpretation of Scripture. First is that it allows space for members of the community with various levels of knowledge and expertise to be involved in an ongoing process of interpreting their sacred Book. Thus, interpretation becomes inclusive rather than exclusive practice, where ‘interpretation on the literal level may be more suitable for lay ministry, while the author’s discourse analysis and the study of representational content would better fit the nascent academic culture in the tradition.’ Second, such an approach does not only allow communal participation, but rather requires a community to be present,°° since its members serve as co-interpreters as well as practitioners, and therefore validators of the product of the interpretation. Fowl and Jones argue the case for the indispensable role of the community of disciples, °2 Fowl and Jones argue that ‘interpretation of Scripture is open-ended and controversial activity.’ (“Scripture, Exegesis, and Discernment in Christian Ethics,” p 113. °3 Puzynin, “The Tradition of the Gospel Christians...,” p 50. 4 See Kathryn E. Tanner who argued that the church has to be engaged in the process of continuing biblical interpretation, which, therefore, inevitably leads to the plurality of interpretations. (Kathryn E. Tanner, “Theology and the Plain Sense,” in Garrett Green, eds., Scriptural Authority and Narrative Interpretation (Philadelphia, Fortress Press, 1987), pp 59-78. °° Puzynin, “The Tradition of the Gospel Christians...,” p 51. °° McClendon argues that ‘without the community of its readers there can be no Bible reading at all. To read the Bible as Bible, God’s holy book, requires membership in the biblical reading community — the people of God.’ (McClendon, “A New Way to Read the Bible,” pp 266-267). 205 the interpretation of Scripture is indeterminate and requires the moral formation and transformation of people's lives because of the manifold ways in which people do not judge wisely. More precisely, our complicity in sin leaves us captive to destructive patterns of life. Such captivity undermines our ability to read Scripture well. Liberation from our captivity requires an ongoing process of being formed and transformed by God's grace in and through the friendships and practices of Christian communities.”” Thus the Bible, to remain the transforming and redemptive Word of God for the people of God, must be read with