A follow-up to my last tweet. A simple example of why who you are is a crucial piece of interpretation.

In Luke 1:46–55, Mary prays the well-known Magnficat. She opens, “My soul magnifies the Lord ... for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.” 1/8

In vv. 51–53: “[H]e has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.” 2/8

Apart from the obvious ways in which what Mary says here contrasts so harshly with what much of white American evangelicalism prioritizes, I want to look at something else. I want to ask the question that has often occupied interpreters: What does this MEAN? 3/8

According to certain interpreters, who we are, where we come from, etc., has no bearing on how we interpret the Bible. The Bible has one authoritative meaning. So, I ask: what does this text mean? 4/8

Well, to me, the obvious response has to be: “It depends on who you are!” Are you the lowly and hungry? If so, this text MEANS one thing. Or are you the powerful who sit on thrones? If so, then this text MEANS something else. 5/8

This is not to dismiss the centrality of the text. It is to say, though, that the text speaks to us differently, depending on who we are. 6/8

One of the biggest problems with arguing that the text contains certain meanings that speak to all people at all times the same is this: it makes readers the subjects, the text the object on which we work. 7/8

For Christians, that is exactly the opposite of how we should read Scripture. Rather, WE are the objects on which God works through Scripture. By ignoring who we are in the process, we set ourselves up for being unable to hear the word of challenge that the Lord might speak. 8/8