Journal: Reformed Baptist Theological Review
Volume: RBTR 02:2 (Jul 2005)
Article: Theology On Target: The Scope of the Whole (which is to give all glory to God)
Author: James M. Renihan

RBTR 2:2 (July 2005) p. 36

Theology On Target:
The Scope of the Whole (which is to give all glory to God)

James M. Renihan

James M. Renihan, Ph.D., is Dean of the Institute of Reformed Baptist Studies, Westminster Theological Seminary in California, Escondido, CA.

On October 16, 1845, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote these familiar lines in a poem titled “The Arrow and the Song”:

I shot an arrow into the air, It fell to earth, I knew not where; For, so swiftly it flew, the sight Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air, It fell to earth, I knew not where; For who has sight so keen and strong, That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward, in an oak I found the arrow, still unbroke; And the song, from beginning to end, I found again in the heart of a friend.

Longfellow recorded, “Before church, [I] wrote The Arrow and the Song, which came into my mind as I stood with my back to the fire, and glanced on to the paper with arrow’s speed. Literally an improvisation.”1 These well-known poetic lines, some of which have crept into popular idiom, were nothing more than momentary thoughts, penned as a result of the action of Longfellow’s eye. The illustration they provide is, nonetheless, thought-provoking. An archer may nock an arrow to his bowstring, raise it to the sky, draw the cord, and release the arrow without any express aim at a target. It rapidly flies away, perhaps to be lost, perhaps to be found at another time.

This picture may serve as a metaphor to introduce the topic at hand: theology and hermeneutics. In a religious world replete with an increasing number of diverse expositions, books, articles, and sermons,

RBTR 2:2 (July 2005) p. 37

one is bewildered. Why are there so many discordant voices? How can it be that one text — Christian Scripture — when examined by competent (or sometimes incompetent) students, yields such a miscellany of interpretations? While this question is far too large even to begin to answer in any comprehensive sense, perhaps we may suggest a line of thought as a contribution to the discussion.

Sometimes there seems to be a hermeneutical principle upon which books, sermons, and even expositions of Scripture texts are based — arrows shot into the air at a chance, without reference to a particular target. The Holy Book is treated, consciously or unconsciously, as a loose collection of historical events, propositional truths, and wise sayings, with little or no reference to the interrelationship of the whole and/or its parts. It may be that these arrows will one day be recovered from ...