In Scott M. Gibson’s and Matthew D. Kim’s Homiletics and Hermeneutics (Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition, 2018) Paul Scott Wilson presents his view of interpreting and preaching called the Law-Gospel view. Wilson’s one text, one theme, one doctrine, one need, one image, and one mission is just another way of saying what many homileticians describe as one preaching unit or the text (one text), one Main Point of the Sermon (one theme), Argumentation (one doctrine), Interest Step in the Introduction (one need), Illustration (one image), and Application (one mission).
I agree with Wilson when he states that “Preachers can put terrible words into God’s mouth, which is a caution for any form of preaching.”[1] When Wilson advises us to put on “special glasses”[2] so we can interpret and preach Scripture we end up putting words in God’s mouth that are not found in His Word. This time the glasses are called the gospel-law glasses [Chapell advocates “gospel glasses”] or the “law-gospel hermeneutic.”[3] “Every text already implies both law and gospel”[4] Wilson contends.
This adds another layer of hermeneutics to the historical/grammatical method of hermeneutics which requires no additional steps or glasses. Just interpreting the text with authorial intent i.e., the plain meaning the author intended for this original audience.
Wilson has us “consider this question: Do we preach the text or the gospel? Hopefully both, not one or the other.”[5] Abraham Kuruvilla responds, “In every sermon? As a hermeneutical constraint of every text? Apparently so, for Wilson uses Mark 16:15 to assert that Christ commissioned the church to proclaim the “good news,” not “preach a text, or a unit of Scripture, or a biblical concept.”[6]
Wilson rephrases the same gospel-law method: “Preachers can use trouble and grace to make an initial diagnosis of sermon material.”[7] Kenneth Langley critiqued this hermeneutic: “But why not let the theology of each pericope determine the amount of pulpit time spent on trouble and grace (if indeed trouble and grace are the best way of understanding what that particular text is saying).”[8]
Kuruvilla refutes the hermeneutic of preaching the gospel from every text: “There is more to the life of a child of God than being born; there is also growth and conformity to Christlikeness. In fact, the bulk of Scripture speaks to this latter aspect.”[9]
Scott Gibson and Matthew Kim in their summary chapter made this observation concerning Wilson’s Law/Gospel Hermeneutic: Wilson sees preaching as the proclaiming of the gospel. He shows us a helpful distinction by asking us to see the Word in terms of law/trouble and gospel/grace. These are helpful distinctions. However, they may not capture the breadth of what a passage may be conveying. Although Wilson clarifies for us that “‘law’ and ‘gospel’ are not binary terms (10), to put each passage into an either/or theological tension seems to limit the work of the text.[11]
Scott Gibson and Matthew Kim in their final chapter provide their observations of the Four Views and point out the strengths and weaknesses of all four views. In reference to The Law-Gospel View and the Redemptive-Historcial View, they also point out the weaknesses of all four hermeneutics: One might judge that the binary of law-trouble and gospel-grace is too rigid to allow Scripture to speak for itself, similar to the limitations of the other hermeneutical approaches in this book.[12] In Christ-centered preaching [the Redemptive-Historic view] there is the risk that all sermons may sound the same and do not account for the biblical author’s intentions.[13] As I stated in my post What is the Historical, Grammatical Method of Interpretation? (click to open), all four views go beyond what Roy Zuck calls the Basic Bible Interpretation. The four views add another layer of hermeneutics to authorial intent. In the words of Gibson and Kim, these additional grids become “too rigid to allow Scripture to speak for itself …. and do not account for the biblical author’s intentions.”
[1] Scott M. Gibson, Matthew D. Kim. Homiletics and Hermeneutics (Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition, 2018) 144.
[2] Ibid., 131.
[3] Ibid., 128.
[4] Ibid., 129.
[5] Ibid., 129
[6] Ibid., 150.
[7] Ibid., 122.
[8] Ibid., 155.
[9] Ibid., 151.
[10] Ibid., 159.
[11] Ibid., 161.
[12] Ibid., 161.
[13] Ibid., 162.