- Episode 193: The Four Senses of Scripture: Patrick Schreiner on Recovering the Church's Ancient Way of Reading the Bible

The Four Senses of Scripture: Patrick Schreiner on Recovering the Church's Ancient Way of Reading the BibleFor nearly 1,700 years, Christians read the Bible through four interwoven lenses — the literal, the allegorical, the moral, and the eschatological — a framework known as the quadriga. Then modern hermeneutics largely set it aside in favor of the grammatical-historical method alone. In this episode, Chad sits down with Dr. Patrick Schreiner of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary to ask what the church lost in that trade, and whether it can be recovered.Patrick and Chad work through his new book, The Four Senses of Scripture: Learning from Ancient Ways of Reading the Bible. Schreiner is careful to say the modern method isn't wrong — it's incomplete. They walk through each of the four senses: the literal (grammatical-historical), the allegorical (Christological), the tropological (moral), and the anagogical (eschatological), and discuss how the early church read the Old Testament through Christ, why the fourfold approach preserved the radical unity of Scripture, and how holding the senses in conversation with one another might enrich preaching and Bible reading today. The conversation takes up the standard objections to allegory as well — and how a "medieval mind" can serve modern readers without abandoning the gains of critical scholarship.Dr. Patrick Schreiner (PhD, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is associate professor of New Testament and biblical theology at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City. He is the author of numerous books, including Matthew, Disciple and Scribe, The Transfiguration of Christ, and The Ascension of Christ. The Four Senses of Scripture (Baker Academic) includes a foreword by Jonathan T. Pennington.Links:🎙️ Support the show on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/AHOCT🌐 A History of Christian Theology: https://www.ahistoryofchristiantheology.com📖 The Four Senses of Scripture (Baker Academic): https://bakeracademic.com/products/9781540968791_the-four-senses-of-scripture👤 Dr. Patrick Schreiner on X: https://x.com/pj_schreiner𝕏 Follow the podcast: @theologyxian | 📘 facebook.com/ahistoryofchristiantheology