In his fascinating new book on hermeneutics, Deep Exegesis, Peter Leithart pushes back on those who would limit the interpretation of words to their immediate context.

Or, we may ask, what if a word begins to keep new company? We all know that bad company corrupts good morals, and words that keep company with new companions are likely to be changed in the process. Many uses of language–the most interesting ones–are strictly inappropriate.  … They are surprising because they they do not conform to normal expectations. Why say anything if we just say what everyone expects? Who says that we cannot use worlds metaphorically?

Few besides Austen would have conceived “apparatus of happiness,” and we should all be grateful that she was perfectly willing to violate every modern notion of meaning.

The biblical writers unfold a story that builds on what has gone on in the past, and because they are truly building, we see new things in the upper stories. New words take on new meanings, and old words take on more meaning as antitypes reveal the fullness of types.

This whole way of reading the Bible stands against the curator approach to texts whether they be biblical or confessional. If Jesus is maturing his church, shouldn’t we expect to gain a richer understanding of justification by faith with every century if not half millennium that goes by? To some, any development is  not maturation but retardation. It’s as if you can’t build on the foundation but have to veer off. Coming off the liberalism of the last two centuries, this is understandable. But certainly a frozen conservatism creates boredom and encourages if not spawns liberalism. Liberalism really does build and interpret the Bible without regard for the foundation, which is not what the writers of the New Testament did (infallibly) or the church doctors have done (fallibly) throughout the centuries as the Spirit has led them.