Training Lay People to “Practice” Scripture Rhetorically: A Pedagogical Model with Biblical Precedent and Warrant from the Gospel of Matthew

Abstract

Teaching Bible to empower believers for Christian ministry is best done from a “situated” perspective that is contextual, rhetorical, artistic, and reasoned. A situated pedagogy integrates “transformative learning” into broader practices of Christian faith and formation. This kind of training is rhetorical: it pays attention to the ways that words function in Scripture, in life, in church, and in the world. It is artistic: it treats Scripture, scholarship, and social analysis as raw materials or as “points of departure” for creative reworkings of the Christian tradition. It primes students to turn scriptural knowledge into specific, Scripture-based interventions that are fit for purpose. It also encourages and equips them to discern whether these reworkings align with the will of God's Spirit. An emic rationale for this pedagogy is constructed by analyzing the Gospel of Matthew. Jesus calls his disciples to rework and re-purpose scriptural texts, and the Gospel writer, Matthew has put these instructions into practice in the text. This rationale is ecumenical in that it rests equally well on critical-grammatical and critical-historical readings of its supporting biblical texts. Suggestions are offered for parish-based adult educators who want to approach the Bible in this contextual, rhetorical way.

keywords:

• contextual
• rhetoric
• Bible
• Gospel of Matthew
• parish
• situated learning

Notes

1 All translations are NRSV unless noted.

2 NETS (New English Translation of the Septuagint). For simplicity, I retain the NRSV verse numbering when citing LXX passages.

3 The point also holds if Jesus is imagined to cite or translate the MT at this point, since Mic. 7.6 LXX follows the MT very closely.

4 This is how Micah's lament was interpreted in Jewish literature around Jesus' time (Davies and Allison, 1988–1997: 2.219–20).

5 For another example of Matthew's Jesus reworking Scripture, see Mt 13:13–15 and par.; cf. Davies and Allison, 1988–1997: 2.387–94.

6 NRSV adapted.

7 “This was to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet, …” and similar introductory lines: Mt.1.22–23; 2.15, 17–18, 23; 4.14–16; 8.17; 12.17–21; 13.35; 21.5; 27.9–10. “One of his”: I assume that “Matthew,” like most Greco-Roman composers that we know of, was male.

8 NRSV adapted.

9 NETS.

10 The “disciples” are all male in Mt.

11 NRSV adapted. NRSV renders the same word oikodespotēs as “master of the house” (Mt. 10.25), “householder” (13:27), and “master of a household” (13:52).

12 For simplicity, I assume that Matthew himself has composed these editorial sections, translating when necessary from the Hebrew (Davies and Allison, 1988–1997: 1.33, 73). Some claim that he has used translations of the Old Testament composed by other Christian scribes (Luz, 1989–2005: 1.60). In either case, Christian scribal activity is clearly in evidence.

13 For this paragraph and the next see Menken, 2004.

14 Cf. Ps 19.2 LXX, where ereuxomai likewise translates the Hebrew ʾbyʿh “utter, cause to gush.”

15 Other examples include Jubilees, the Genesis Apocryphon, and the Book of Jewish Antiquities.

16 For outsiders as educational “foils” to the disciples, see Anderson, 1983.

17 Thomas a Kempis, Imitation of Christ 1.5; Vatican Council II, Dei Verbum 12.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

John P. Falcone

John P. Falcone received his doctorate in Theology and Education at the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry, USA. Contact: www.JohnPFalcone.com.