Jaron's Journal
| June 17, 2008, 3:08 PM 3 Degrees of Separation and the Hermeneutic of Obedience |
| The above subject consists of two wholly separate topics combined in only one sense--they were both interesting musings made on Father's Day at the Heston home.
The first one is actually quite cool. I discovered that I am most certainly 4 and quite possibly 3 steps removed from Abraham Lincoln (the closest you can be at my age)! I discovered that my wife's uncle, Mike, had a great Aunt (who we speculate he knew directly, as they were pictured together; but who at the very least is two steps away, hence the uncertain 3 or 4 steps away) who waved at Abraham Lincoln, and I believe he waved back. Kinda cool, eh? This then got us thinking about how far we were removed from people such as George Washington and John Adams--5 degrees possibly? 6? The second idea I'll have to credit to my Father-In-Law, John Heston, who is an assistant pastor, an all-around cool guy, and a Beatles fan on top of that. We were sitting around talking about interpreting the Bible (we got on the subject because we were discussing the speculations/predictions-gone-awry of Hal Lindsey in "The Late Great Planet Earth"), and John brought up an interesting point on how best to interpret most passages of Scripture. He called it the "Hermeneutic of Obedience". The concept is basically this: the more you try to obey the teachings found in Scripture, the more you can better understand the concepts found therein. Or in other words, the best form of Bible study is in the experiential application of the concepts learned in the Bible. This is based on both John 8:31, 32 and John's own experience. Cool, eh? Well I thought it was, as I've been thinking about this sort of thing recently (a.k.a how best to interpret scripture, whether it should be through tradition, through historical context, through current cultural context, through literal interpretation, through figurative interpretation, through any combination of the above, etc.,). Anywayz, this post would have been more aptly named "Musings at the Heston House". Oh, well. This is also my second post that bears a reference to Abraham Lincoln. That's now 33% of my posts. It's coincidence, people, I assure you! |