to heaven.” And those who follow Wesley read the Bible with this aim in
mind—“to fi nd the way to heaven.”
We know the Bible is “true” if it shows us the way to heaven. We
know whether we have read the Bible well if our reading of Scripture
has furthered our progress on the way to heaven. Of course, “the way to
heaven” is for Wesley not simply a statement about eternal bliss but refers
broadly to the journey of salvation—from original sin to justifi cation and
new birth, and on to holiness. A Wesleyan engagement with the Bible thus
takes seriously both this aim of Scripture (to show the way to heaven) and
these consequences of our reading Scripture (to fi nd the way to heaven).
Wesley is hardly alone with this emphasis on the telos of Scripture,
but is one with many premodern exegetes. Darren Sarisky has recently
identifi ed a concern with Scripture’s telos as a basic characteristic of Basil
of Caesarea’s hermeneutic. Thus, Basil “assumes that Scripture’s message
normally meets with a level of resistance. The biblical text is not fully
compatible with human nature as it is, even for those who have already
received baptism: Scripture requires that human beings purify themselves
of sin and stretch toward their telos.” 15 Such theological aims have no role
to play in scientifi c exegesis, of course, bereft as it is of the theological
claims that might foster interests and explorations of this kind. This is all
the more reason to hope that, as Pentecostal hermeneutics of Christian
Scripture matures, it will identify and develop more fully its understanding
of Scripture’s telos.
CONCLUSION
Like contemporary theological approaches to Scripture more generally,
Pentecostal hermeneutics of Scripture has a short history. Like other theo-
logical approaches, Pentecostal hermeneutics arises in signifi cant ways as a
counter-narrative to those approaches of biblical interpretation accredited
by modernity. Not surprisingly, then, like other theological approaches,
Pentecostal hermeneutics has important steps to take as it seeks more
fully to be theological. My questions aside, it seems clear that Pentecostal
hermeneutics actually has a head start in this respect. This is because, on
the one hand, the Pentecostal tradition has a relatively abbreviated his-
tory, spanning just over a century, and so never had its mainstays refor-
mulated by (and thus has less need of reform from) modernity. Indeed,
though I have not discussed early Pentecostal hermeneutics, it would not
be an exaggeration to classify those early hermeneutical commitments and
170 J.B. GREEN