The task of exegesis is to unpack from the text what is already there. The task is not eisegesis, to import what it would be pleasant for me to find were I to have my druthers. If I go on a trip without my wife, when I get to the motel room, one of my assigned tasks is to exegete the suitcase, and I only get to take out of it what was previously put into it. This seems simple enough.
But Scripture is an enormous suitcase, with more zippers, cubbies, hidden compartments, and whatnot, than the mind of mortal man can conceive. No one man is up to the task of unpacking the whole thing. Many are involved in taking things out of the text what God in His kindness gave. Now here is the problem. What are we to do with men who are gifted, for whatever reason, at taking out things that were really packed in there, and yet the men who do this have deficient views of suitcase manufacturing, and they have ideas about the practical authority of what is unpacked that are alarming in the extreme? What then?
I say all this as a lead-in to this observation. I am a conservative sola et tota Scriptura guy. And yet, a large part of what I have come to see as the true teaching of Scripture has been pointed out to me by men who do not have an adequate view of Scripture itself. Now what? Should I refuse to take out of the Bible something that God put in there, my grounds for doing this being the worrisome qualifications of the person who pointed it out to me? If someone has deficient views of the inspiration, infallibility and practical authority of the Scriptures, do we all ignore God if His truth gets pointed out by one such?
All this is a build-up to an expression of gratitude — gratitude for four men that I would vote against in a presbyterial ordination exam were they, by some mishap, to find themselves sitting for one. I would vote against them because their views of Scripture range from troubling to outrageous. And yet, I still owe an immeasurable debt to them. These things are hard to quantify, but it is at least clear to me that the shape of a great deal of what I see in Scripture has been radically affected by what these men have pointed out to me. And once they have pointed it out, there it is, right there. Right on the top of the suitcase, with a sunbeam shining on it. These men are, in order, C.S. Lewis, N.T. Wright, Robert Farrar Capon, and Rene Girard. I owe them all a great deal, as I said, even though all of them say appalling things, especially Capon. But there it is anyway.
Guilt by association is sometimes right, but frequently (in the hands of maladroit accusers) wrong. Guilt by quotation is even more difficult to get right. And this is especially the case when it is attempted by inquisitors who have memorized the Guide to Historico-Grammatical Suitcase Unpacking, but who substitute that for seeing what is actually in there. Ironically, they unpack the wrong suitcase. A troublesome business all around since I heartily agree with the GHGSU, and use it in presbytery exams. Oh well.