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

to ‘enrich themselves with the divine truth and the knowledge of the eternal Word.’ (5) The use of the concordance is recommended. Finally (6) sharing the insights with sisters and brothers is considered a good practice, since this is the way to deepen the knowledge of the Bible and to receive necessary ° Later Motorin argues that, when studying the Bible, it is helpful to consider the rich heritage left to us by ‘men of faith and workers of God’s field’, since it contains ‘a lot of valuable and precious material.’ These ‘men of faith’ are ‘Tertullian, Origen, Vasilii, Grigorii, John Chrysostom, Jerome, Augustine and others.’ Such people of our time are Spurgeon, Moody, Torrey, Kargel and Prokhanov (“Kak Izuchat Bibliyu” [“How to study the Bible”], in Bratskii Vestnik, Vol. 5 (1947), p 58). Thus, he does not reject the use of tradition as an interpretive tool. Most likely, the negative reference to the ‘tradition of the elders’ is a lunge against the Orthodox Church, which was always critical of Baptists primarily for their rejection of the Church Tradition. ° Motorin, “Kak Izuchat Bibliyu,” p 58. 92 corrections, as the fullness of biblical knowledge and of discernment of God’s will resides with the ‘universal Church, which is the gathering of the saints.’’ Yet, as A. Popov notices, ‘there is little awareness of the universal church beyond the AUCECB, in the concrete historical setting about which he is writing.’® Exegetika [Exegetics], a handbook of the BCC on Exegesis written by Alexander V. Karev,? Artur |. Mitskevich’’ and V. Popov,’ was the next significant work on the subject of biblical hermeneutics and exegesis produced by the AUCECB. According to the authors of Exegetika, the person of Jesus Christ is the key to reading and interpreting the Scripture. It says, ‘The Holy Scriptures with all its immensity is composed following one plan — to testify about Jesus Christ. Therefore, an exegete must everywhere and always seek and see Jesus Christ, and hold His direction (John 16,14).’* Most of the Bible is considered to be simple and clear for understanding, How should the Scripture be understood? What meaning do the words of the Scripture hold? In response to this it can be said that above all, the Scripture should be understood just as it is written, which means all the words should be understood in their common sense, without over-intellectualizing. No doubt, God said in His Word exactly what He wanted to say.** The authors recognise, however, that not all passages can be interpreted literally. Hence, the reader of the Bible must be able to recognise different types of meaning of biblical text — literal and spiritual (spiritual meaning can be either metaphorical or prototypical). ’ Ibid., p 60. 8 A. Popov, “The Evangelical Christians-Baptists...”, p 102. ° Alexander V. Karev served as a General Secretary of AUCECB from 1944 until his death in 1971. Also he was a General Edit