Dietrich Bonhoeffer was above all a biblical interpreter. Bonhoeffer's ecclesial hermeneutic consists of a self-reflective form of interpretation in which the ecclesial context is taken for granted, creating and shaping a closely related hermeneutical framework and interpretive practice.

This book shows this coordinated relationship by oscillating between Bonhoeffer's explicit hermeneutical reflections and his actual interpretation of biblical texts. After the introduction situates the argument in relation to Bonhoeffer scholarship and outlines the project, Ross shows that Bonhoeffer's biblical interpretation in the 1930s is indebted to the ecclesial hermeneutic he developed already in 1925 in a student essay. Ecclesial acts of theology and preaching proceed through "pneumatische Auslegung," interpretation on the basis of the Spirit. Ross uses the interpretive activity in order to show what the newly inflected ecclesial hermeneutic of the Finkenwalde period looks like in practice by analyzing two sections of Nachfolge. Ross suggests that Bonhoeffer's relation to Scripture is best understood by utilizing the doctrinal resources of Pneumatology, carefully relating divine and human action in interpretation, and that his ecclesial hermeneutic contributes to conversations about how to interpret Scripture today.