Regardless of upbringing, education, economic situation, or geographical location, most people in the so-called western world have seen or heard perhaps the most famous verse in the Bible: John 3:16. Yet, do they know the occasion or setting when it was written? Are they aware of the surrounding context of the verse—from the most immediate to the broader aspects? And are they really able to say what “God so loved the world” means? Or what it is to “believe in him”? While considering these (and related) questions throughout this paper, I will seek to support and illustrate my thesis: What we already bring to texts deeply shapes our interpretive approach to the texts, and thereby our understanding of them as well. Rather than viewing such pre-understandings as problems to be avoided or overcome, I virtually claim the opposite. Beginning with our precommitments is an unavoidable state of affairs and actually may be good news rather than bad, hermeneutically speaking.
To support my argument, I present a multi-part illustration employing the hermeneutical spiral for interpreting God’s word. The illustration imagines five individuals in distinct scenarios reading and engaging with John 3:16: Jorge in the heart of Mexico City, Chelsey in plush high-rise apartment in Beverly Hills, Masud in an Egyptian Coptic-Christian monastery, Yasmin in a Kuala-Lumpur hotel, and Kwasi in an evangelical college in Nairobi, Kenya. I consider whether and how these “John 3:16 reader” stories may demonstrate that numerous context-specific factors almost certainly shape one’s interpretation and understanding of the Word. I consider if it matters whether someone is wealthy or not, orphaned or not, live in a monastery or not, live in the West or not, have a taskmaster father and warm-hearted mother or not, or learning hermeneutics or not.
It is hopes that this paper will encourage all readers to improve their hermeneutical understanding, methods, and skills so as to be more informed and transformed interpreters of God’s word. Still, regardless of one’s interpretive model, all are called to embody civility and humility amidst advocacy and disagreement.
Three interrelated convictions inform this approach: (1) the Christian Scriptures present/reveal God’s truth and will for humankind, and thus are ultimately authoritative and trustworthy on all matters to which they speak; (2) objective norms and values exist as revealed in God’s written word and created world; and (3) the greatest moral ought for our lives is to love the Lord our God with all our being, made possible solely through trusting God’s saving grace through Jesus Christ.
This paper hopes to contribute to the field by thoughtfully addressing major contextual concerns of the reader while faithfully advancing an evangelical and inerrant view of the biblical text, interacting with substantial literature within hermeneutical and interpretation fields. Prominent interlocutors include Grant Osborne, Henning Wrogemann, Craig Bartholomew, Anthony Thiselton, Kevin Vanhoozer, Miroslav Volf, Merold Westphal, Robert Wall, Craig Keener, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Craig Blomberg, and others.