Alan has posted an article on his site that discusses the conservative Chuch of Christ hermenutic. In short, it is called CENi and it stands for Command, Example, and Necessary Inference. Most people agree on obeying direct commands of the Bible, but the other two present some contention. I had a perfect example yesterday, but cannot find the link. So, here is a different paraphrase:

In Matthew 26:26, we see Jesus breaking the bread for the Passover.

• We are commanded to eat of his body.
• We follow the example in that he reinstituted Passover (which we call communion) for NT Christians.
• By necessary inference, communion most have one loaf of bread that is broken by each participant.

Using this logic, it is therefore a command of God in the Scriptures to perform Communion with only one loaf of bread.

Our hermenutic was quite a bit more pragmatic, mainly because we believed silence in the Bible was inclusive, not exclusive. A working definition I have in mind at this point would be EPSAY:

Example, Pragmatism, Structure, Authority, and Youth.

Using this hermenutic we would take David and Johnathan relationship and make it an example of discipling relationships, make sure that the person in this relationship was in a bible talk with you because you see them most often, confirmed the need for a discipling relationship, demonstrated the authority of the discipler, and much was made of their apparent youth. I knew of several men that pledged this kind of friendship to their discipler every time they switched. (A couple of them even did the grabbing of the other man’s thigh in imitation of Johnathan.)

Before going further, I want to look at our history of understanding the Bible. More in the next article.