Bring Back Four-Dimensional Bible Reading

The Bible teachers of the Western Middle Ages used an interpretive method known as the “quadriga,” or the “fourfold sense” of Scripture. The Bible, they believed, literally refers to real people, places, and events, but those “facts” are replete with spiritual significance. Thus, each Scripture passage also points “allegorically” or “typologically” to Christ and his church. Because believers are members of Christ’s body, the Scriptures that point to Christ also apply “tropologically” to individual Christians and church life. Because the Jesus who has come will come again, passages about Jesus “anagogically” anticipate the end of all things. Scripture teaches us what to believe, what to do, and what to hope for. Every Scripture is a pedagogy in faith, hope, and love. Today, most Christians retain only shards and fragments of this integrated scheme. Modern biblical scholarship has focused on the literal sense, intensively studying grammar and the cultural-political contexts of biblical records.