Matthew 18:15–18 proposed a disciplined strategy for dealing with disputes within the Matthean emerging Christian community. The present study was designed to test the theory, proposed by the SIFT approach to biblical hermeneutics, that reader interpretation of this strategy is influenced by the individual readers’ psychological type preferences. Participants attending two conferences in 2017 reflected on this strategy, working in groups that distinguished between feeling types and thinking types: 15 biblical scholars at the Summer School of the Urban Theology Unit, (...) and 22 curates and training incumbents at a 3-day residential programme. Consistent with psychological type theory and with the SIFT approach to biblical hermeneutics, the feeling types found the whole tone of the passage uncomfortable and unsettling. The thinking types identified more readily with the Matthean strategy. These findings add weight to the reader perspective approach to the interpretation of scripture that takes the psychological type profile of the reader into account. (shrink)

Psalm 73 is a challenging Psalm in which the Psalmist draws on rich imagery to juxtapose doctrine and experience and to juxtapose the goodness of God with divine retribution. Drawing on data provided by 15 theological educators within the Anglican Diocese of Cyprus and the Gulf, this study tests the thesis that the imagery of Psalm 73 will be perceived differently by sensing types and by intuitive types and that the issue ‘Is God really good to the upright?’ will be (...) judged differently by feeling types and by thinking types. The findings from this study are consistent with the broader hermeneutical theory that the psychological type profile of the reader, in terms of perceiving preference and judging preference, plays a formative part in shaping the interpretation of biblical material.Contribution: Situated within the reader-perspective approach to biblical hermeneutics, the SIFT method is concerned with identifying the influence of the psychological type of the reader in shaping the interpretation of text. The present study demonstrates that this theory holds true for the way in which theological educators read Psalm 73. (shrink)

This study invited curates and training incumbents attending a 3-day residential programme to function as a hermeneutical community engaging conversation between the Lucan post-resurrection narrative concerning the Road to Emmaus and the learning relationship in which they were engaged. Building on the SIFT approach to biblical hermeneutics the participants were invited to work in type-alike groups, structured first on the basis of the perceiving process and second on the basis of the judging process. This approach facilitated rich and varied insights (...) into the Emmaus Road narrative and into the theme of learning relationships. (shrink)