Guest Post by Stephen Lorance

In a recent paper presentation of Irenaeus’ textual worldview I sought to articulate his Christ centered hermeneutic, which includes, as Patristic scholar John Behr notes, an understanding that Christ “by being explained ‘according to the Scriptures’, becomes the sole subject of Scripture throughout.”[1] At the conclusion, a student from a mainline seminary asked a piercing question. Specific to his context, this student wanted an apologetic for classmates and faculty that have conflated meaning with the historical-grammatical at the expense of the theological. In essence, living in a historical-grammatical world, how could he argue that a Christ-centered interpretation doesn’t run roughshod over the “literal interpretation?”