Check Yo Self!!! (With the Bible)

The idea of the hermeneutical circle is simply this: one cannot read the Bible obediently unless one has the mind of Christ, but one cannot get the mind of Christ unless one reads the Bible. So the very function of Scripture is to give us the mind of Christ. We do not come to the Bible only after we have the perfect view of things. If we wanted to hold such a view, we would actually deny Scripture's function as a pair of spectacles. We know Christ only as He addresses us in Scripture. We come to know the mind of Christ, how to think redemptively about things, only through Scripture as well. The hermeneutical circle says we begin with Scripture where we are. When we first come to the Bible we come with all the baggage of our culture and our own sinfulness. I do not know about you, but I live in a secularist, humanistic, progressively scientistic, egalitarian, individualistic, capitalistic, and materialistic world. Furthermore, I am convinced that the world revolves around me, and whatever I think is right is right, and whatever I do is good. We all start there, and we all come to Scripture with that attitude, and this means that Scripture will offend us, right form the very beginning. And we will feel the sting of that very offense as it breaks down our presuppositions, breaks down our allegiances, and starts redirecting them. But our coming to see the world as God would have us see it through Scripture, like the rest of our sanctification, is a life-long process. It happens a little bit at a time, each time I come back. That is why it is called the hermeneutical circle. There is breaking down and a redirecting, and with each bit of new insight there is a bit more clarity. I get my materialism critiqued; I get my sexism critiqued; I get my racism critiqued along with all my other -isms. I would suggest that, should we ever get completely comfortable with the Word of God, we stop listening because we all have some things that are going to need breaking down and redirecting in the rest of our lives.

- Dr. Michael Williams with God and His Word found at Covenant Worldwide.