Reading the Gospels Wisely: A Narrative and Theological Introduction

Written by Jonathan T. Pennington Reviewed By Phillip J. Long

Jonathan T. Pennington, associate professor of New Testament interpretation at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, has contributed an excellent introduction to the study of the Gospels from the perspective of the Theological Interpretation of Scripture. This method has been developing for a number of years and has become a popular balance to the historical methods commonly found in introductions to the study of the Gospels. The main hermeneutical contribution of this book should not be limited to reading the Gospels wisely; Pennington's presentation is equally applicable to any portion of Scripture. In order to illustrate his method, he chooses to focus on the Gospels.

Pennington begins by carefully defining the genre of Gospel. The first two chapters survey a range of definitions, but primarily focus on Richard Burridge's suggestion that the Gospels are most like Greek Bioi. Pennington finds this definition convincing, but expands it because the Gospels do not claim that Jesus was merely a significant person, but rather that all human history is consummated in Jesus. As such, the Gospels go well beyond the Greek idea of a Bioi because they are revelatory statements about who Jesus is and what his death means. The Gospels are in fact historical, but they are also theological and aretological (virtue-forming). This is an important methodological statement since Pennington will not treat the Gospels as historical documents which have some theological components, but rather as theological documents based on historical events.

Pennington takes these three elements of his definition of Gospel and describes three approaches to the Gospels as traveling along “avenues.” All three have value and contribute toward a “wise reading” of the Gospels. In Pennington's view, however, the historical approach has been too emphasized in scholarship in the last century, and it is time for the theological reading to assert itself as the best way to get to the meaning of the Gospels in a modern context.

Pennington describes the first avenue for reading the Gospels as historical and includes such methods as form, source and redaction criticism. The typical elements of historical criticism of the Gospels are “behind the text,” but Pennington does not want to imply that these methods are necessarily bad. They simply do not result in anything that contributes to theology or practice. Pennington is committed to the final form of the Gospels in their canonical form, so it matters very little to his hermeneutical method if Matthew used a variety of sources. It is only the text of Matthew that matters for reading the Gospels wisely. In fact, Pennington argues for a “reasoned harmonization” for treating parallel texts (ch. 4).

He also eschews the so-called “quest for the historical Jesus” because he sees it as a dead-end. He develops this in an overview and critique of the historical methodologies in the twentieth century (ch. 5). Beginning with the interaction between N. T. Wright and Richard Hays at the Wheaton Theology Conference in 2010, Pennington argues that the sort of historical studies found in Wright and others in the historical-Jesus field ultimately miss the point. The “history” that concerns these sorts of studies has little to do with the “theology” presented in the NT. While Wright claims to balance his historical study and theological reflection, Pennington follows the critique by Hays and others that concludes that Wright favors history to the exclusion of theology.

A second avenue for reading the Gospels is literary studies, which Pennington describes as “in the text.” Here he lists literary and narrative criticism, as well as genre and composition analysis. Like theological interpretation of the Gospels, literary methods were developed in response to the perceived dead-end of historical criticism. These methods necessarily focus on the author of a text and attempt to study how the author crafted a plot or created an effect. This involves careful analysis of the plot of the whole Gospel in order to place the pericope in the proper context as well as attention to intratextual allusions to other stories within the Gospel itself. While this second collection of approaches to the Gospels does not come under the same critique as historical studies, Pennington does not find literary studies to be anything more than a means into the theological heart of the Gospels.

The third avenue for interpretation of the Gospels is the Canonical or Theological approach, what Pennington describes as “in front of the text.” This category seems roughly equivalent with “biblical theology” and includes history of interpretation, reception history, and intertextual allusions to other canonical texts. It is somewhat surprising that he includes patristic interpretation in this category since this is not usually included in a book on methods of biblical theology. Since Pennington is interested in reading the Gospels in a larger community of readers, this means hearing what other interpreters have said about the Gospels throughout church history. On a more narrow level, this theological reading of the Gospels is often done within a confessional community, so Pennington includes the principle of Regula fidei in his method of reading the Gospels wisely.

The driving motivation for this third way of reading the Gospels is that readers of Scripture seek to apply the text to the situation in which they find themselves. The “original historical meaning” is not the “application” of the text. The first avenue of reading the Gospels does not give access to application since it is concerned only with the original text and the author's intent. How that original intent ought to impact the reader is the work of the third way of reading. The “scientific method” driving the methods of the first avenue of reading the Gospels “tend to objectify the text,” turning the text into something to be examined by the right tools and creating a situation in which the application of the text to real-world issues is completely subsumed by the drive for “original meaning.”

After laying out this method, Pennington offers two chapters demonstrating these hermeneutical principles at work in reading the Gospels wisely. Using the healing of the Centurion's servant in Luke 7:1-10 as an example, he describes how to read the story within the narrative framework of the Gospel of Luke and how the parts of the plot function (rising tension climax, resolution, application). The historical way of reading this text might ask questions about a centurion or the reason Luke places the story where he does (in contrast to Matthew). The literary avenue describes the development of the plot and allusions to other texts in the Gospel of Luke. But only the theological avenue can make a contribution to a theology of Jesus and an application to the present reader.

For Pennington, there is no “single right application,” but applications that “grow organically” from the text are “best and wisest” (p. 218). In order to develop a wise application, Pennington shows that an active reading of the text that fully articulates the revelation present will result in an application that says something about the fallen condition of humans, the redemptive solution provided by God as well as a virtue-forming teaching that addresses people today (p. 223). When one attempts to read the Gospels without this honest, soul-searching work, the sermon becomes mere information, falling short of “the faith-eliciting and virtue-forming goal of the Gospels” (p. 223).

Pennington's critique of historical studies of the Gospels is appropriate, although it is possible that he errs in the opposite direction in his theological interpretation of the Gospels. While he never fully dismisses historical studies as invalid, he does describe them as mechanical, interested in only the human author's intent rather than the divine author's intent. He says that the historical and literary methods are “skills that can be developed by most readers,” while the third avenue of theological interpretation “requires a more expanded set of insights and abilities” (p. 119). This third way of reading is the only one that will allow a reader to move from the “literal” sense to the more “spiritual” sense of Scripture. The literal is described as “mechanical” as opposed to “art, or the “letter” as opposed to the “spirit” (pp. 117-21). By reading the Gospels in this way, the interpreter is able to go beyond authorial intent in order to apply the text to new situations. While he includes all three avenues as a part of his method, it is clear that the third way is “more equal” than the others.

Pennington's presentation of a theological and narrative approach to the Gospels is lucid and entertaining, and his analogies are excellent. While this book would be of value as a textbook for a class that surveys the Gospels, it will also serve the general reader as an introduction to the application of Theological Interpretation to the study of the Gospels.


Phillip J. Long

Phillip J. Long
Grace Bible College
Grand Rapids, MI, USA

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