May local churches become places where readers are formed not to be partisans of earthly kingdoms but martyrs of the kingdom of heaven, able to say with Luther, “Here I stand,” with a boldness tempered by an openness to being corrected. Learning how to embody these interpretive virtues is sanctification too—and perhaps the best way to proclaim biblical truth in a culture rife with partisan pride and systemic suspicion.

ABSTRACT: In today’s intellectual milieu, pride and sloth are the two chief interpretive vices. Partisan pride protects its beliefs behind the shield of identity politics, while systemic sloth shrugs indifferently at the pursuit of truth itself. In response, today’s Bible interpreters need more than the right kind of method; they need to be the right kind of people: readers marked by interpretive virtue rather than interpretive vice. With boldness, they oppose systemic sloth and proclaim what God has said. At the same time, with humility, they resist partisan pride and remain humbly open to correction. Meanwhile, local churches have the opportunity to become cultures of virtuous reading, places that form Bible readers to be people of interpretive virtue.
For our ongoing series of feature articles for pastors and Christian leaders, we asked Kevin Vanhoozer, research professor of systematic theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, to describe a hermeneutics of boldness and humility.
Of the writing of books about reading the Bible there appears to be no end. Twenty-five years ago, I published one such book: Is There a Meaning in this Text? The Bible, the Reader, and the Morality of Literary Knowledge.1 It was the high noon of postmodern theory, and I wanted to provide a Christian alternative to two deadly sins of interpretation: modern pride (a too confident belief in reason, truth, and method) and postmodern sloth (a too dubious disbelief).
I believed then—as I still do—that biblical Christianity, by definition, depends on being “biblical,” that being biblical requires a high view of Scripture and the wisdom to read it rightly, that reading rightly is challenging in every age, and that reading rightly requires you to be more of a saint than a scholar.2 I also believe that fulfilling Jesus’s Great Commission to make disciples of all nations involves helping Jesus’s followers to follow God’s word where it leads with minds and hearts, thus becoming readers and doers.
There is a place for exegetical methods in learning to read the Bible rightly, but even heretics may know how to parse verbs, diagram sentences, and so forth. Methods alone are no guarantee of truth, which is why I ended my hermeneutics text with a section on the importance of humility and conviction—qualities of the reader, not steps in an impersonal process.
From Intellectual to Interpretive Virtue
Hermeneutics may be “the science of textual interpretation,” but good reading, like good science, requires readers to have certain personal qualities. So does good knowing, as I discovered in Linda Zagzebski’s Virtues of the Mind.3 I knew about moral virtues—characteristic traits and habits of a “good” person—but even though I studied philosophy in college, I had never heard of intellectual virtues. Opinion became knowledge (so I was taught) thanks to the process of justification. By way of contrast, Zagzebski defined knowledge as what a person attains by acting with intellectual virtue (“a state of cognitive contact with reality arising out of acts of intellectual virtue”).4 Intellectual virtues are habits of thinking that lead to truth rather than away from it, habits that accord with the mind’s “design plan,” the way it should work in order to achieve its proper good: knowledge.5 Put simply, an intellectual virtue is what leads to an intellectual good.6
My proposal (which I believe was the first to make explicit mention of interpretive virtues7) was similar: an “interpretive virtue” is a personal characteristic or habit that leads readers to the interpretive good of understanding. It all starts with a heartfelt desire for the interpretive good of understanding: “making cognitive contact with the meaning of the text.”8 Good readers respect both the author’s intention and what is objectively there in the text rather than trying to come up with self-serving interpretations.
Reading relates to virtue in two distinct ways. Some people read the Bible (the proverbial “good book”) for the sake of virtue formation. William Bennett’s The Book of Virtues is a compilation of hundreds of character-building stories whose tales help children and others learn the importance of moral traits like self-discipline, loyalty, and compassion.9 Karen Swallow Prior does something similar in her book On Reading Well, pairing classic novels with virtues (e.g., Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities and justice, or Shusaku Endo’s Silence and faith).10 Prior knows there is a difference between reading for moral virtue and reading virtuously, and she deals with the latter in her introduction: “Reading virtuously means, first, reading closely, being faithful to both text and context, interpreting accurately and insightfully.”11 We can read about virtue, and we can also practice virtue while reading.
The latter possibility is our concern here. The key premise should be obvious: how you read is related to the kind of person you are. When it comes to hermeneutics, the who (the kind of person you are) is as important or even more important than the what (the particular method you use).
To avoid modern interpretive pride, our certainty must be tempered by hermeneutic humility; to avoid interpretive sloth, our skepticism must be tempered by hermeneutic conviction. Both boldness and humility are appropriate in biblical interpretation because, as James Eglinton observes, the form of theology must be suited to the subject matter.12 A theologian’s voice must be bold when reporting what God has said, and modest when claiming to say what it means: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord” (Isaiah 55:8).
The Situation Today: An Old and New Challenge
Getting the delicate balance right of a hermeneutics of humility and conviction is more important than ever. Pride and sloth remain the chief interpretive vices, infecting yet another generation, even if 25 years on they have mutated somewhat to adapt to a new cultural situation. Pride now expresses itself as uncritical partisanship that breeds distrust; sloth has developed into systemic skepticism, cynicism, and apathy.
Bonnie Kristian’s Untrustworthy calls out the knowledge crisis that, in the words of her subtitle, is “polluting our politics and corrupting Christian community.”13 Americans no longer trust experts or institutions—unless they agree with their identity politics. Instead of giving reasons for what one believes, one has simply to wrap oneself in the mantle of one’s identity (e.g., “Speaking as an X”). This is what I mean by partisan pride—the idea that me and my tribe are in a special position to know. Unfortunately, if you disagree, you become my antagonist: “Speaking as an X, I am offended that you claim B.”14 To a proud partisan, every disagreement is a hostile act. You are either for or against me; there is no neutral third space for impartial dialogue—or rationality.15
Partisan pride does not need to listen to others; it already knows. Partisan pride is not only tribal but destructive of true democracy. In a culture of identity politics and partisan pride, people on the other side of the aisle—whether in Congress or in church—are not interlocutors, but potential enemies. It’s not even safe to talk about the weather anymore, at least not if you connect the dots between record flooding and climate change. A Chicago Tribune headline declares, “Meteorologists Feeling the Heat from Viewers.”16 Forecasters are without honor in their hometowns. Apparently, whether or not you trust your local weatherman is a function of your party politics.
Twenty-five years ago, I suggested that sloth was the signature temptation of postmodern theorists. Since then, however, the suspicion that truth claims are in fact power plays has become something of a fixture in public consciousness, resulting in systemic skepticism and cynicism—an inability to trust or believe in anything or anyone: “Whereas pride claims knowledge prematurely, sloth prematurely claims the impossibility of literary knowledge.”17 Postmodern suspicion has spread, like a virus, from the labs of French literary theory to Main Street.
To think that no one is in a position to know what texts, including the Bible, really mean is disheartening. Why begin to climb a mountain if you know you’ll never make it to the top? Why start a game of chess if you know the best-case scenario is a stalemate? What began as a hermeneutics of suspicion has developed into systemic skepticism, and it breeds what theologian Uche Anizor calls a “culture of apathy,” which does not merely tolerate but nurtures “an attitude of indifference” toward what used to be important.18 What distresses Anizor is the extent to which this attitude of indifference, even toward spiritual things and biblical truth, has become normal.
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In Psalm 89, God invites us to be bold in our prayerful laments. If our heart’s desire is God; if we long, for ourselves and our people, to experience the joy of God’s steadfast love and faithfulness; if our words are not the grumbling of unbelief but the expression of grieved faith, then it’s good to be direct with God. He hears, and receives as worship, real faith expressed in a cry of pain.

In ancient rabbinic literature, the Psalms were referred to as tehillîm, which is Hebrew for “praises.” One of the most remarkable features of this sacred collection of praise songs is that at least one-third of them are laments. These are songs that passionately express some kind of emotional distress, such as grief, sorrow, confusion, anguish, penitence, fear, depression, loneliness, or doubt.
This is remarkable because the presence of so many praise laments implies that God knew his people would frequently be called to worship him in agonizing circumstances. The Holy Spirit inspired poets to craft “praises” that would provide us worshipful expressions of our diverse experiences of pain.
If lament psalms are Spirit-inspired praise songs for our painful seasons, we should look at them carefully, because they teach us important lessons about the kinds of worship God receives. Some of the ways these inspired poets worshiped God in their agony might make us uncomfortable. Psalm 89 is a good example.
Leader in Lament
Psalm 89 is attributed to Ethan the Ezrahite. According to 1 Chronicles 6:31–48, Ethan was one of three clan chiefs of the tribe of Levi — the other two being Heman (Psalm 88) and Asaph (Psalms 50; 73–82) — “whom David put in charge of the service of song in the house of the Lord.” He was a high-profile leader to whom thousands looked for social and spiritual instruction and counsel. His words had gravitas.
And in this psalm, Ethan led the people in lament. Over what? Over God’s apparent unfaithfulness to his covenant with David — apparent being the operative word here.
In 2 Samuel 7, the prophet Nathan delivered a stunning promise from the Lord to David about how long his descendants would sit on Israel’s throne: “Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever” (2 Samuel 7:16). This became a crucial part of Israel’s self-understanding: God had planted them in the Promised Land and had given them a promised governance that would last forever.
However, something terrible happened (perhaps Absalom’s rebellion of 2 Samuel 15–18), which made it appear as if God had “renounced” his covenant and “defiled [David’s] crown in the dust” (Psalm 89:39). And in this moment of crisis, Ethan composed a psalm that gave worshipful voice to the confusion and grief that all who trusted in God’s faithfulness were experiencing.
Famous Faithfulness
In the first eighteen verses, Ethan exults in how bound up God’s steadfast love and faithfulness are with his very character.

God’s steadfast love and faithfulness are part of the glory and might for which he is loved and praised and feared in the divine council and the great angelic host (Psalm 89:5–8).
It is through God’s steadfast love and faithfulness that he exercises his sovereign rule over all creation: the heavens and the earth and all that fills them, the “raging sea” and its most fearsome creature, Rahab, and the great mountains, like Tabor and Hermon (Psalm 89:9–12).
God’s steadfast love and faithfulness are part of the “foundation of [his] throne,” most clearly manifest (at that time) in the Davidic kingdom he had established in Israel. They are why his people shout for joy and “exult in [his] name all the day” (Psalm 89:13–16).

Ethan reminds God,
You are the glory of [Israel’s] strength;by your favor our horn is exalted.For our shield belongs to the Lord,our king to the Holy One of Israel. (Psalm 89:17–18)
The stakes were high. If God’s people could not hope in his steadfast love and faithfulness, how could they continue to exult in him like this?
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God blesses those individuals and nations who honor the Sabbath, setting it apart as holy unto Him. We cannot expect revival to come to our hearts, both individually and corporately, if we stubbornly refuse obedience to this clear instruction from our Lord.

Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God; in it, you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.Exodus 20:8-11
The Importance of the Sabbath with “Many Words”
When a person wants to communicate something, they use words. When they are communicating something simple and uncontroversial, and there is broad agreement among communication partners, fewer words are usually chosen by the one communicating. But, when there is controversy, or when the speaker knows that the listeners are inclined to disagree with Him, the speaker will often use more words, especially if that speaker cares about you coming to His point of view and seeing things the way He sees them. The presence of more words indicates that the audience either has a knowledge gap (where they do not understand the command), a belief gap (where they do not believe the command), or a volitional gap (where they are unsure how they are to apply it). Thus, the more words a communicator uses on a particular idea, the more it allows us to see how difficult that idea is to receive from the listener.
With that, God appears to be relatively terse when giving His ten commandments. The most important statements ever uttered, the foundation of all law, occupy few words on a page. So few, in fact, they could be chiseled onto stone tablets and given to God’s people to remember them forever. In this sense, God did not speak complicated concepts that you and I have trouble understanding. Like Mark Twain, it is not the commandments we fail to understand that haunt us, it is the ones we do understand that have become our accusers.
When God uttered words like: “Do not murder,” or when He said: “Do not commit adultery,” or when He said “Do not steal,” He was communicating straightforward and common-sense commands that any thoroughgoing pagan could rightly say yes and amen to. In the Hebrew, each of those commands is only 2 words! Which lets us know that there should be broad agreement about them. In fact, every society on earth that has ever existed has believed that murder is wrong, that you should not sleep with another man’s wife or husband, that honoring father and mother is the basis for a healthy society, and we could go on and on.
In this way, most of the ten commands are pretty short. Just a few words or phrases. For instance, 5 commands could be sent as a single tweet without upgrading to the blue check mark… 6 out of the 10 commandments only use 85 words combined! That is, commands 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 use only 85 total words to describe the entire foundation of the second table of the law, how man is supposed to relate to man, which should let us know something about them. The way we honor one another comprises simple, common-sense concepts that all societies on earth have generally agreed with. That does not mean we obey these commands, but at least we understand them, believe they are good and right, and struggle along trying to enact government, officers, and laws to uphold them. Only the most morally depraved and insane societies in history, like the one we are living in, have championed death, adultery, and the breakdown of the home. May God have mercy on this godless culture to which we are exiled.
However, regarding how we must relate with God, two commands are relatively short (1 and 3), and two are pretty long (2 and 4), demonstrating simple agreement concerning two of them and a hearty struggle for the other two. Take, for instance, the first command, which is only 5 words in the original Hebrew, and the third command comes in at a whopping 6 words, making them direct, to the point, and obvious statements for all who believe in God. In this way, it should not surprise us that these 2 short commands are much less controversial to the average believer than the two longer ones. This is simply the way language works. When God said, “You shall have no other gods before me.” there is not a single Christian who is genuinely bought and paid for by Christ, who will object! When the Scriptures say do not take the name of the Lord your God in vain – some Christians may disagree on the degree to which this applies (e.g., can we lawfully say “gosh, golly, goodness gracious, etc.), but concerning whether we should honor the Lord’s name as holy – all believers generally agree and will say yes and amen. But when it comes to the second and the fourth commandment, you arrive at the epicenter of Christian rebellion.
What do I mean? I mean that the most controversial of the Ten Commandments, the ones that most Christians are not only willing to disobey but willing to offer a thousand justifications for their disobedience, are the two that are the longest, which should not be a surprise to us at all. The second commandment alone has more words than the entire second table of the law. The fourth command has more words than 9 out of the 10 commandments combined! Why are there so many words in these two commands?
I think the answer is simple. Out of all of the things God told us to do, the easiest for us to rebel against are the laws dictating how we are to worship him. “Do not murder?” oh yes and amen. “Do not kill babies in the womb?” you betcha. But do not make an image of anything in heaven above or earth below… “well… That is not what that means.” We ignore that God gave us these additional words because He loves us and knows our hearts are wicked. He knew that we would have a propensity for misunderstanding, and instead of noticing where God is doubling down and adding increased clarity to assuage our sinful conscience, we double down and make all kinds of excuses, saying these things no longer apply to us. We do it on the command to make no graven images and on the command to make the Sabbath day holy above all other days.
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