widely divergent traditions; they represent crisscrossing religious com-
mitments, including deeply held commitments and no particular com-
mitments at all; and they bring to biblical texts their fully embodied
social-political-religious selves. Even if they experience the same texts,
then, they experience those texts differently. Readers have homes, loca-
tions from which they read, traditions that shape them—homes capable
of explication in numerous ways, including different ecclesial traditions
and theological formations. Thus has the door been opened for ecclesi-
ally located, theological interpretation of Scripture.
Like theological interpretation more generally, Pentecostal interpre-
tation moves beyond modern biblical studies. This “moving beyond”
should not be represented as adding yet another layer to the work of
modern biblical criticism, like adding a layer of theological paint on the
wall of scientifi c exegesis. “Moving beyond” in this case means relocating
(indeed, recognizing again) the true home of scriptural engagement—in
the church rather than in the university department of religious studies.
The Bible is the church’s book, so the primary venue for biblical inter-
pretation is the church’s life: its worship, instruction, and mission. And
those involved in this interpretation are people of faith, people whose faith
determines the aims they bring to the interpretive enterprise. Listening to
what the Spirit is saying to the church in and through Scripture, this is the
church’s work.
Without simply rolling the clock backward, as if the rise of biblical
studies as a discrete discipline either never happened or served no pur-
pose, theological interpretation nevertheless represents a ressourcement
that takes seriously how locating Scripture in relation to the church might
remold the craft of critical biblical studies. A theological hermeneutics
of Christian Scripture concerns the role of Scripture in the faith and for-
mation of persons and ecclesial communities. Theological interpretation
emphasizes the potentially mutual infl uence of Scripture and the church’s
theology in theological discourse and, then, the role of Scripture in the
self-understanding of the church, and in critical refl ection on the church’s
practices. Theological interpretation takes the Bible not only as a histori-
cal or literary document, but also as a source of divine revelation and an
essential partner in the task of theological refl ection. Theological inter-
pretation is concerned with encountering the God who stands behind
and is mediated in Scripture. Theological interpretation opens the way for
Scripture to reveal to us who we are and what we might become, so that
we come to share its assessment of our situation, encounter its promise
PENTECOSTAL HERMENEUTICS: A WESLEYAN PERSPECTIVE 163