THE MEANING OF MEANING
Humpty Dumpty: “When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” (Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass)
The problem of meaning changed dramatically in 1946—New Criticism.
W. K. Wimsatt & Monroe Beardsley-- The popular version of their theory is that whatever an author meant or intended to say is irrelevant to our obtaining the meaning of the text—the “intentional fallacy.”
Hans-Georg Gadamer—every interpreter has a new and different knowledge of the text in the reader’s own historical moment.
Paul Ricoeur—a text is semantically independent of the intention of its author.
By contrast E. D. Hirsch affirmed that the meaning of a literary work is determined by the author’s intention; the author’s truth-intention provides the only genuine discriminating norm for ascertaining valid or true interpretations from invalid and false ones.
The problem of meaning changed dramatically in 1946—New Criticism.
W. K. Wimsatt & Monroe Beardsley-- The popular version of their theory is that whatever an author meant or intended to say is irrelevant to our obtaining the meaning of the text—the “intentional fallacy.”
Hans-Georg Gadamer—every interpreter has a new and different knowledge of the text in the reader’s own historical moment.
Paul Ricoeur—a text is semantically independent of the intention of its author.
By contrast E. D. Hirsch affirmed that the meaning of a literary work is determined by the author’s intention; the author’s truth-intention provides the only genuine discriminating norm for ascertaining valid or true interpretations from invalid and false ones.
4 Models for Understanding the Meaning of The Bible
1. The Proof-text Model
Typically, biblical meaning is needed for a real-life purpose and the interpreter goes searching for some Bible texts that support the topical theme or doctrinal position desire. The texts are valued more for their short, epigrammatic use of several key words that coincide with the topic or contemporary subject chosen than for the evidence that they actually bring from their own context. Insofar as it ignores context, it is inadequate; at its worst, it tends to treat The Bible as if it were no more than an anthology of sayings for every occasion. It may disregard the purpose for which the text was written, the historical conditioning in which it is set, and the genre conventions that shaped it. Consequently, the method is vulnerable to all kinds of quick-and-easy adjustments of the scriptural words to say what one wishes them to say in the contemporary setting, ignoring their intended purpose and usage as determined by context, grammar, and historical background.
2. The Historical-Critical Method
This method is more concerned with identifying the literary sources and social settings that gave birth to the smallest pieces of text rather than concentrating on any discussions about how normative these texts are for contemporary readers and for the church. This method has most frequently avoided any discussion of the relation of the text to divine revelation or its use in the devotional or doctrinal life of Christians. The theory of meaning and interpretation concludes with what the text meant in a distant time, place and culture. This is allegedly a matter of disinterested research into the objective facts of grammar, history, and modern critical methodologies. The task of finding out what the text means today for the church and the individual is relegated to theologians and pastors. In addition, the interpretive task is declared complete after the text has been dissected and left disjointed in an ancient context. The pastoral and personal problem of application has been left unaddressed; the interpretation process was stopped when it was only partially completed. This model emphasized its allegiance more to contemporary theories on the formation of the texts and the alleged Oriental and classical sources that lay behind them than to a consideration of what the text had to say.
3. The Reader-Response Method
This method has grown up around the contributions of Gadamer and Ricoeur. While the historical-critical is seen as one necessary step, the method emphasizes the necessity of allowing the reader and interpreter to determine what the text now means—mostly in new, different and partially conflicting meanings. This method, in reaction, has gone too far in the other direction. What has been lost is the primacy of authorial intention and most possibilities for
testing the validity of the various suggested interpretations.
4. The Syntactical-Theological Method
This model does the traditional grammatico-historical study of the text, followed by a study of its meaning that shows its theological relevance—both with respect to the rest of Scripture and with respect to its contemporary application. All too often modern interpreters have failed to observe the syntactic and
theological relationships that the words and concepts have in Scripture. This model stresses the need for taking whole periscopes or complete units of discussion as the basis for interpreting a text. The key interpretive decisions revolve around how the syntax of phrases, clauses, and sentences contributes to the formation of the several paragraphs that form the total block of text on that subject or unit of thought. Because The Bible purports to be word from God, the task of locating meaning is not finished until one apprehends the purpose, scope or reason for which the text was written.
Typically, biblical meaning is needed for a real-life purpose and the interpreter goes searching for some Bible texts that support the topical theme or doctrinal position desire. The texts are valued more for their short, epigrammatic use of several key words that coincide with the topic or contemporary subject chosen than for the evidence that they actually bring from their own context. Insofar as it ignores context, it is inadequate; at its worst, it tends to treat The Bible as if it were no more than an anthology of sayings for every occasion. It may disregard the purpose for which the text was written, the historical conditioning in which it is set, and the genre conventions that shaped it. Consequently, the method is vulnerable to all kinds of quick-and-easy adjustments of the scriptural words to say what one wishes them to say in the contemporary setting, ignoring their intended purpose and usage as determined by context, grammar, and historical background.
2. The Historical-Critical Method
This method is more concerned with identifying the literary sources and social settings that gave birth to the smallest pieces of text rather than concentrating on any discussions about how normative these texts are for contemporary readers and for the church. This method has most frequently avoided any discussion of the relation of the text to divine revelation or its use in the devotional or doctrinal life of Christians. The theory of meaning and interpretation concludes with what the text meant in a distant time, place and culture. This is allegedly a matter of disinterested research into the objective facts of grammar, history, and modern critical methodologies. The task of finding out what the text means today for the church and the individual is relegated to theologians and pastors. In addition, the interpretive task is declared complete after the text has been dissected and left disjointed in an ancient context. The pastoral and personal problem of application has been left unaddressed; the interpretation process was stopped when it was only partially completed. This model emphasized its allegiance more to contemporary theories on the formation of the texts and the alleged Oriental and classical sources that lay behind them than to a consideration of what the text had to say.
3. The Reader-Response Method
This method has grown up around the contributions of Gadamer and Ricoeur. While the historical-critical is seen as one necessary step, the method emphasizes the necessity of allowing the reader and interpreter to determine what the text now means—mostly in new, different and partially conflicting meanings. This method, in reaction, has gone too far in the other direction. What has been lost is the primacy of authorial intention and most possibilities for
testing the validity of the various suggested interpretations.
4. The Syntactical-Theological Method
This model does the traditional grammatico-historical study of the text, followed by a study of its meaning that shows its theological relevance—both with respect to the rest of Scripture and with respect to its contemporary application. All too often modern interpreters have failed to observe the syntactic and
theological relationships that the words and concepts have in Scripture. This model stresses the need for taking whole periscopes or complete units of discussion as the basis for interpreting a text. The key interpretive decisions revolve around how the syntax of phrases, clauses, and sentences contributes to the formation of the several paragraphs that form the total block of text on that subject or unit of thought. Because The Bible purports to be word from God, the task of locating meaning is not finished until one apprehends the purpose, scope or reason for which the text was written.
Aspects of Meaning
1. Meaning As The Referent
Recall the Shakespeare examples; it is possible to know the meaning of every word in a text and still be without a clue as to what is being said. What is generally missing is a sense of what is being spoken about—the referent. The referent is the object, event, or process in the world to which a word or a whole expression is directed. The interpreter who wants to understand will ask the same referential question that the Ethiopian reader of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 53 asked Philip: “The eunuch answered Philip and said, "Please {tell me,} of whom does the prophet say this? Of himself or of someone else?” (Act 8:34...NASB) In other words, to whom do the words refer? The Ethiopian could understand the words, but he had no idea what the exact referent was. What was Jesus talking about in John 6:53, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you?” The “false apostles” of 2nd Corinthians 11:13 need to be identified in order to understand what Paul was working against in 2nd Corinthians 10 – 13.
Were they Gnostics? Were they Hellenistic Jew?
Our understanding of 2nd Thessalonians is greatly enriched when we can identify the referents for the “man of lawlessness” and “the one who holds (lawlessness) back” in 2nd Thessalonians 2:3 and 7. The identifications cannot be made lightly; the interpretation of this passage is radically affected by the choice of referent that is made. When we ask, “What do you mean?” we are often trying to find out what the whole discussion is all about or who/what is being talked.
2. Meaning As Sense about.
Meaning as the referent tells what is being spoken about, but meaning as sense tells what is being said about the referent. When we ask for the sense of a word or a passage, we are either searching for a definition or for some type of appositional clause that will show us how the word, or the entire paragraph, is functioning in its context. Meaning as sense is whatever some user has willed to convey by a particular word or series of words in a sentence, paragraph or a discourse. Beyond the sentence, the relationship of propositions within the paragraphs and discourses carry the sense the writer wished to convey.
Illustration: Romans 9:30 – 10:12..."What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, attained righteousness, even the righteousness which is by faith; but Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not arrive at {that} law. Why? Because {they did} not {pursue it} by faith, but as though {it were} by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone, just as it is written, "BEHOLD, I LAY IN ZION A STONE OF STUMBLING AND A ROCK OF OFFENSE, AND HE WHO BELIEVES IN HIM WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED." Brethren, my heart's desire and my prayer to God for them is for {their} salvation. For I testify about them that they have a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge. For not knowing about God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. For Moses writes that the man who practices the righteousness which is based on law shall live by that righteousness. But the righteousness based on faith speaks as follows: "DO NOT SAY IN YOUR HEART, 'WHO WILL ASCEND INTO HEAVEN?' (that is, to bring Christ down), or 'WHO WILL DESCEND INTO THE ABYSS?' (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead)." But what does it say? "THE WORD IS NEAR YOU, IN YOUR MOUTH AND IN YOUR HEART"--that is, the word of faith which we are preaching, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus {as} Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. For the Scripture says, WHOEVER BELIEVES IN HIM WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED." For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same {Lord} is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call on Him..." (NASB)
Contains four key phrases...The referent of the phrases was the Jews...But what meanings and what sense did Paul attach to each?...Israel had gone about the whole process of pursuing righteousness backwards.
The sense of the use of the words as they make up the sense of the whole passage, is the second most important meaning to gain once the referent has been identified.
3. Meaning As Intention
We are interested only in the truth-intention of the author as expressed in the way he put together the individual words, phrases, and sentences in a literary piece to form a meaning. It is not always possible to dissociate meaning as sense from meaning as intention; the two are often identical. But some points need to be made under the heading of “meaning as intention.” Intention affects meaning in two ways: the author’s intention determines whether the words are to be understood literally or figuratively and the author’s intention determines the referent a word is to have.
Objections: Mark 10:25 “needle’s eye”
Some would say the utterance goes beyond the author’s immediate referent—that it would apply to all “rich”in any day. However, since the principle has not changed either in the biblical context or the modern one, the truth-intention remains the same; rather than breaking the rule, it supports it.
Objections: Mark 7:6, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites. . . .”
Isaiah did not directly address an audience existing 700 years after he died, but the truth he affirmed was readily transferred across the centuries because what he said could just as well have been said of Jesus’ contemporaries. There is no change in authorial intentionality.
Objections:
Nevertheless, it is the author’s intended meaning that must be the starting point from which all understanding beings. In this passage, even though there are multiple fulfillments throughout history, none of these fulfillments constitute double or multiple senses or meanings. They all participate in the one single sense, even though it had a multiple number of fulfillments over the course of time.
Divine Intervention:
In the case of Scripture, another major intention must be considered. Is the divine intention in the revealed word the same as the human authorial intention, or it is different? Are cases in Scripture where God’s intentions clearly differed from those of the humans he was using to assist his purposes.
Example: Genesis 50:20: “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good.”
But none of those examples is about the writing of Scripture; what is being confused is purpose-intention from truth-intention. The significant passage is 1st Corinthians 2:6 – 16: v. 13 stresses that the writers of Scripture did receive words taught by human wisdom but “words taught by the Spirit.” That is, the Holy Spirit did not mechanically whisper the text into the writer’s ears, nor did the authors experience automatic writing.
Instead, they experienced a living assimilation of the truth, so that what they had experienced in the past by way of culture, vocabulary, experiences, etc., was all taken up and assimilated into the unique product that simultaneously came from the unique personality of the writers. Just as truly, however, it came also from the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit stayed with the writers not just in the conception or idea stage, but all the way up through the writing and verbalizing stage of the writing of the text; that is what Paul claimed for himself and for prophets and apostles. Thus it is difficult to see how the product of the text can be severed into divine and human components reflecting independent intention—one human and one divine. This is not to say that the divinely intended referents were limited to those that the author saw or meant. It was only necessary that the writer have an adequate understanding of what was intended both in the near and the distant future, even if he lacked a grasp of all the details that were to be embodied in the progress of revelation and of history.
4. Meaning As Significance
In many contexts the terms meaning and significance overlap; in their use in textual studies, however, the two must be distinguished. Meaning is that which is represented by a text; it is what the author meant by his use of a particular sign sequence; it is what the signs represent. Significance, on the other hand, names a relationship between that meaning and a person, or a conception, or a situation, or indeed anything imaginable. The important feature of meaning as distinct from significance is that meaning is the determinate representation of a text for an interpreter. . . . Significance is meaning-as-related-to-something-else. In these terms, meaning is fixed and unchanging; significance is never fixed and always changing. To reject the original author as the determiner of meaning is to reject the valid principle that can lend validity to an interpretation. But it would also be tragic to stop the interpretational responsibilities with the task of what a text meant to the author and the original audience without going on to deal with the contemporary significance of the text. The hermeneutical task must continue on to say what the text means to the contemporary reader or listener. This meaning as significance could also be called the consequent or implicit sense. Along with one, single meaning-as-sense, there are many meanings-as-significance.
Inferences Leviticus 10?
A text may also carry a hint of its own significances and inferences within itself, such as in Act 5:30: “The God of our fathers raised Jesus from the dead—whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree.” Why didn’t Peter simply use the verb crucify in place of the cumbersome phrase “hanging him on a tree”? No doubt Peter wanted to call to mind the connotations of Deuteronomy 21:22 – 23 ("If a man has committed a sin worthy of death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his corpse shall not hang all night on the tree, but you shall surely bury him on the same day (for he who is hanged is accursed of God), so that you do not defile your land which the LORD your God gives you as an inheritance." (NASB)) with it references to the accursed status of all who died in this manner.
Could not the inference b e that the Messiah died under God’s curse on the sin of Israel and the world as he took our place? Rather than classifying this kind of inference as a direct expression of authorial intention, it seems best to consider it as example of “consequent” or“implicit” significances that the text of Scripture encourages us to find as a legitimate part of its total meaning. It is important, however, to make certain that the consequent or implicit meaning that we attribute to a text is one that accurately reflects the fundamental truth or principle in the text, not a separate and different one. Accordingly, Paul applied (not allegorized) the principle of not muzzling an ox in Deuteronomy 25:4 ("You shall not muzzle the ox while he is threshing." (NASB)) to the practical application of paying the preacher.
Both Deuteronomy And Paul worked from the same principle, namely, that developing attitudes of graciousness and cheerful giving of one’s substance is (in this case) more important than merely being concerned for the livelihood of animals (Deuteronomy 25) or even paying workers what should be paid for their labor.
(1st Corinthians 9:7 – 12..."Who at any time serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat the fruit of it? Or who tends a flock and does not use the milk of the flock? I am not speaking these things according to human judgment, am I? Or does not the Law also say these things? For it is written in the Law of Moses, "YOU SHALL NOT MUZZLE THE OX WHILE HE IS THRESHING." God is not concerned about oxen, is He? Or is He speaking altogether for our sake? Yes, for our sake it was written, because the plowman ought to plow in hope, and the thresher {to thresh} in hope of sharing {the crops.} If we sowed spiritual things in you, is it too much if we reap material things from you? If others share the right over you, do we not more? Nevertheless, we did not use this right, but we endure all things so that we will cause no hindrance to the gospel of Christ." (NASB)).
Not only did Paul say that what was written in Deut. was not written for oxen, but entirely for us; it is also clear that the collection of laws in the section of Deuteronomy from which this one was taken all have as their object the inculcation of a spirit of gentility and generosity about them.
Similarly, Jesus used Hosea 6:6 (“I desire mercy, not sacrifice”) to justify his disciples’ eating with publicans and sinners...
(Matthew 9:10 – 13..."Then it happened that as Jesus was reclining {at the table} in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were dining with Jesus and His disciples. When the Pharisees saw {this,} they said to His disciples, "Why is your Teacher eating with the tax collectors and sinners?" But when Jesus heard {this,} He said, "{It is} not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick. "But go and learn what this means: 'I DESIRE COMPASSION, AND NOT SACRIFICE,' for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners." (NASB))
...and to justify his disciples’ action of plucking and eating grain on the Sabbath.
Matthew 12:1 – 7..."At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath, and His disciples became hungry and began to pick the heads {of grain} and eat. But when the Pharisees saw {this,} they said to Him, "Look, Your disciples do what is not lawful to do on a Sabbath." But He said to them, "Have you not read what David did when he became hungry, he and his companions, how he entered the house of God, and they ate the consecrated bread, which was not lawful for him to eat nor for those with him, but for the priests alone? "Or have you not read in the Law, that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple break the Sabbath and are innocent? "But I say to you that something greater than the temple is here. "But if you had known what this means, 'I DESIRE COMPASSION, AND NOT A SACRIFICE,' you would not have condemned the innocent." (NASB))
Surely, the applications differed from one another, but the principle behind both the Old Testament and the New Testament texts remains the same—the attitude of the heart is more important and always takes precedence over a mere external duty. If the above texts illustrate legitimate inferences that carry the meaning over into new areas, but where the significances are of the same order as those contained in the sense that the author meant, what illustration can we give of an inference that is separate and different from the author’s sense and therefore to be avoided as being hermeneutically incorrect?
Major premise: God is absolutely unchanging (Malachi 3:6)
Minor premise: What is absolutely unchanging is eternal (known from reason, but not taught there).
Therefore: God is eternal.
There is no authority in this text for claiming that God is eternal; the implication and the application are separate and different from what is taught in the text, and therefore it is not an inference that comes from the principle taught in the text.
5. Other Meanings of “Meaning”
Meaning as value: “The book of Isaiah means more to me than all the other prophetic books.” This is an expression of preference and priority. But no claim is made as to the sense, truth claims, or significance of the book of Isaiah. Meaning as entailment: “This means war”. "Jesus learned obedience from what he suffered” (Hebrews 5:8). The meaning of “learning” for the writer of Hebrews carried with it entailment. But care must be exercised lest one fall into the trap of condoning a separate and different inference from what the text actually gives evidence for.
Recall the Shakespeare examples; it is possible to know the meaning of every word in a text and still be without a clue as to what is being said. What is generally missing is a sense of what is being spoken about—the referent. The referent is the object, event, or process in the world to which a word or a whole expression is directed. The interpreter who wants to understand will ask the same referential question that the Ethiopian reader of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 53 asked Philip: “The eunuch answered Philip and said, "Please {tell me,} of whom does the prophet say this? Of himself or of someone else?” (Act 8:34...NASB) In other words, to whom do the words refer? The Ethiopian could understand the words, but he had no idea what the exact referent was. What was Jesus talking about in John 6:53, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you?” The “false apostles” of 2nd Corinthians 11:13 need to be identified in order to understand what Paul was working against in 2nd Corinthians 10 – 13.
Were they Gnostics? Were they Hellenistic Jew?
Our understanding of 2nd Thessalonians is greatly enriched when we can identify the referents for the “man of lawlessness” and “the one who holds (lawlessness) back” in 2nd Thessalonians 2:3 and 7. The identifications cannot be made lightly; the interpretation of this passage is radically affected by the choice of referent that is made. When we ask, “What do you mean?” we are often trying to find out what the whole discussion is all about or who/what is being talked.
2. Meaning As Sense about.
Meaning as the referent tells what is being spoken about, but meaning as sense tells what is being said about the referent. When we ask for the sense of a word or a passage, we are either searching for a definition or for some type of appositional clause that will show us how the word, or the entire paragraph, is functioning in its context. Meaning as sense is whatever some user has willed to convey by a particular word or series of words in a sentence, paragraph or a discourse. Beyond the sentence, the relationship of propositions within the paragraphs and discourses carry the sense the writer wished to convey.
Illustration: Romans 9:30 – 10:12..."What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, attained righteousness, even the righteousness which is by faith; but Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not arrive at {that} law. Why? Because {they did} not {pursue it} by faith, but as though {it were} by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone, just as it is written, "BEHOLD, I LAY IN ZION A STONE OF STUMBLING AND A ROCK OF OFFENSE, AND HE WHO BELIEVES IN HIM WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED." Brethren, my heart's desire and my prayer to God for them is for {their} salvation. For I testify about them that they have a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge. For not knowing about God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. For Moses writes that the man who practices the righteousness which is based on law shall live by that righteousness. But the righteousness based on faith speaks as follows: "DO NOT SAY IN YOUR HEART, 'WHO WILL ASCEND INTO HEAVEN?' (that is, to bring Christ down), or 'WHO WILL DESCEND INTO THE ABYSS?' (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead)." But what does it say? "THE WORD IS NEAR YOU, IN YOUR MOUTH AND IN YOUR HEART"--that is, the word of faith which we are preaching, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus {as} Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. For the Scripture says, WHOEVER BELIEVES IN HIM WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED." For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same {Lord} is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call on Him..." (NASB)
Contains four key phrases...The referent of the phrases was the Jews...But what meanings and what sense did Paul attach to each?...Israel had gone about the whole process of pursuing righteousness backwards.
The sense of the use of the words as they make up the sense of the whole passage, is the second most important meaning to gain once the referent has been identified.
3. Meaning As Intention
We are interested only in the truth-intention of the author as expressed in the way he put together the individual words, phrases, and sentences in a literary piece to form a meaning. It is not always possible to dissociate meaning as sense from meaning as intention; the two are often identical. But some points need to be made under the heading of “meaning as intention.” Intention affects meaning in two ways: the author’s intention determines whether the words are to be understood literally or figuratively and the author’s intention determines the referent a word is to have.
Objections: Mark 10:25 “needle’s eye”
Some would say the utterance goes beyond the author’s immediate referent—that it would apply to all “rich”in any day. However, since the principle has not changed either in the biblical context or the modern one, the truth-intention remains the same; rather than breaking the rule, it supports it.
Objections: Mark 7:6, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites. . . .”
Isaiah did not directly address an audience existing 700 years after he died, but the truth he affirmed was readily transferred across the centuries because what he said could just as well have been said of Jesus’ contemporaries. There is no change in authorial intentionality.
Objections:
Nevertheless, it is the author’s intended meaning that must be the starting point from which all understanding beings. In this passage, even though there are multiple fulfillments throughout history, none of these fulfillments constitute double or multiple senses or meanings. They all participate in the one single sense, even though it had a multiple number of fulfillments over the course of time.
Divine Intervention:
In the case of Scripture, another major intention must be considered. Is the divine intention in the revealed word the same as the human authorial intention, or it is different? Are cases in Scripture where God’s intentions clearly differed from those of the humans he was using to assist his purposes.
Example: Genesis 50:20: “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good.”
But none of those examples is about the writing of Scripture; what is being confused is purpose-intention from truth-intention. The significant passage is 1st Corinthians 2:6 – 16: v. 13 stresses that the writers of Scripture did receive words taught by human wisdom but “words taught by the Spirit.” That is, the Holy Spirit did not mechanically whisper the text into the writer’s ears, nor did the authors experience automatic writing.
Instead, they experienced a living assimilation of the truth, so that what they had experienced in the past by way of culture, vocabulary, experiences, etc., was all taken up and assimilated into the unique product that simultaneously came from the unique personality of the writers. Just as truly, however, it came also from the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit stayed with the writers not just in the conception or idea stage, but all the way up through the writing and verbalizing stage of the writing of the text; that is what Paul claimed for himself and for prophets and apostles. Thus it is difficult to see how the product of the text can be severed into divine and human components reflecting independent intention—one human and one divine. This is not to say that the divinely intended referents were limited to those that the author saw or meant. It was only necessary that the writer have an adequate understanding of what was intended both in the near and the distant future, even if he lacked a grasp of all the details that were to be embodied in the progress of revelation and of history.
4. Meaning As Significance
In many contexts the terms meaning and significance overlap; in their use in textual studies, however, the two must be distinguished. Meaning is that which is represented by a text; it is what the author meant by his use of a particular sign sequence; it is what the signs represent. Significance, on the other hand, names a relationship between that meaning and a person, or a conception, or a situation, or indeed anything imaginable. The important feature of meaning as distinct from significance is that meaning is the determinate representation of a text for an interpreter. . . . Significance is meaning-as-related-to-something-else. In these terms, meaning is fixed and unchanging; significance is never fixed and always changing. To reject the original author as the determiner of meaning is to reject the valid principle that can lend validity to an interpretation. But it would also be tragic to stop the interpretational responsibilities with the task of what a text meant to the author and the original audience without going on to deal with the contemporary significance of the text. The hermeneutical task must continue on to say what the text means to the contemporary reader or listener. This meaning as significance could also be called the consequent or implicit sense. Along with one, single meaning-as-sense, there are many meanings-as-significance.
Inferences Leviticus 10?
A text may also carry a hint of its own significances and inferences within itself, such as in Act 5:30: “The God of our fathers raised Jesus from the dead—whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree.” Why didn’t Peter simply use the verb crucify in place of the cumbersome phrase “hanging him on a tree”? No doubt Peter wanted to call to mind the connotations of Deuteronomy 21:22 – 23 ("If a man has committed a sin worthy of death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his corpse shall not hang all night on the tree, but you shall surely bury him on the same day (for he who is hanged is accursed of God), so that you do not defile your land which the LORD your God gives you as an inheritance." (NASB)) with it references to the accursed status of all who died in this manner.
Could not the inference b e that the Messiah died under God’s curse on the sin of Israel and the world as he took our place? Rather than classifying this kind of inference as a direct expression of authorial intention, it seems best to consider it as example of “consequent” or“implicit” significances that the text of Scripture encourages us to find as a legitimate part of its total meaning. It is important, however, to make certain that the consequent or implicit meaning that we attribute to a text is one that accurately reflects the fundamental truth or principle in the text, not a separate and different one. Accordingly, Paul applied (not allegorized) the principle of not muzzling an ox in Deuteronomy 25:4 ("You shall not muzzle the ox while he is threshing." (NASB)) to the practical application of paying the preacher.
Both Deuteronomy And Paul worked from the same principle, namely, that developing attitudes of graciousness and cheerful giving of one’s substance is (in this case) more important than merely being concerned for the livelihood of animals (Deuteronomy 25) or even paying workers what should be paid for their labor.
(1st Corinthians 9:7 – 12..."Who at any time serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat the fruit of it? Or who tends a flock and does not use the milk of the flock? I am not speaking these things according to human judgment, am I? Or does not the Law also say these things? For it is written in the Law of Moses, "YOU SHALL NOT MUZZLE THE OX WHILE HE IS THRESHING." God is not concerned about oxen, is He? Or is He speaking altogether for our sake? Yes, for our sake it was written, because the plowman ought to plow in hope, and the thresher {to thresh} in hope of sharing {the crops.} If we sowed spiritual things in you, is it too much if we reap material things from you? If others share the right over you, do we not more? Nevertheless, we did not use this right, but we endure all things so that we will cause no hindrance to the gospel of Christ." (NASB)).
Not only did Paul say that what was written in Deut. was not written for oxen, but entirely for us; it is also clear that the collection of laws in the section of Deuteronomy from which this one was taken all have as their object the inculcation of a spirit of gentility and generosity about them.
Similarly, Jesus used Hosea 6:6 (“I desire mercy, not sacrifice”) to justify his disciples’ eating with publicans and sinners...
(Matthew 9:10 – 13..."Then it happened that as Jesus was reclining {at the table} in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were dining with Jesus and His disciples. When the Pharisees saw {this,} they said to His disciples, "Why is your Teacher eating with the tax collectors and sinners?" But when Jesus heard {this,} He said, "{It is} not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick. "But go and learn what this means: 'I DESIRE COMPASSION, AND NOT SACRIFICE,' for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners." (NASB))
...and to justify his disciples’ action of plucking and eating grain on the Sabbath.
Matthew 12:1 – 7..."At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath, and His disciples became hungry and began to pick the heads {of grain} and eat. But when the Pharisees saw {this,} they said to Him, "Look, Your disciples do what is not lawful to do on a Sabbath." But He said to them, "Have you not read what David did when he became hungry, he and his companions, how he entered the house of God, and they ate the consecrated bread, which was not lawful for him to eat nor for those with him, but for the priests alone? "Or have you not read in the Law, that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple break the Sabbath and are innocent? "But I say to you that something greater than the temple is here. "But if you had known what this means, 'I DESIRE COMPASSION, AND NOT A SACRIFICE,' you would not have condemned the innocent." (NASB))
Surely, the applications differed from one another, but the principle behind both the Old Testament and the New Testament texts remains the same—the attitude of the heart is more important and always takes precedence over a mere external duty. If the above texts illustrate legitimate inferences that carry the meaning over into new areas, but where the significances are of the same order as those contained in the sense that the author meant, what illustration can we give of an inference that is separate and different from the author’s sense and therefore to be avoided as being hermeneutically incorrect?
Major premise: God is absolutely unchanging (Malachi 3:6)
Minor premise: What is absolutely unchanging is eternal (known from reason, but not taught there).
Therefore: God is eternal.
There is no authority in this text for claiming that God is eternal; the implication and the application are separate and different from what is taught in the text, and therefore it is not an inference that comes from the principle taught in the text.
5. Other Meanings of “Meaning”
Meaning as value: “The book of Isaiah means more to me than all the other prophetic books.” This is an expression of preference and priority. But no claim is made as to the sense, truth claims, or significance of the book of Isaiah. Meaning as entailment: “This means war”. "Jesus learned obedience from what he suffered” (Hebrews 5:8). The meaning of “learning” for the writer of Hebrews carried with it entailment. But care must be exercised lest one fall into the trap of condoning a separate and different inference from what the text actually gives evidence for.