The goal is God

Theological hermeneutics is not an intermediate, descriptive step between biblical studies and systematic or dogmatic theology that must somehow find a way to be relevant. I will not be offering here an approach where first the theology of a particular New Testament book is described, then its relevance for Wesleyan systematic theology is established. Instead, the approach here will consider the interpretation of Scripture as vital to the formation of Christian identity, specifically within the Wesleyan tradition. It will pursue, through interaction with John Wesley’s hermeneutics, how Wesleyan beliefs and practices inform the reading of Scripture, and in turn how Scripture informs Wesleyan beliefs and practices. It will assume that reading Scripture is not a set of steps—say, from grammatico-historical exegesis, to theological description, to constructive theology—but rather an ongoing, living interaction that has no clear starting point, and whose end is not the execution of a methodology but God.—Reading the Way to Heaven, page 5