Knowing Scripture V: Bridging the Cultural Divide

Biblical Principles for Approaching Scripture

Welcome to the Whole Council Podcast. I'm Jon Snyder, and with me this week is Zach Anderson. Good to have you, Zach. Yes, sir. Zach is a member of the church here in New Albany, Mississippi, and Zach has agreed to join us to talk about biblical principles for approaching the text of Scripture.

You know, it's one thing to say that we need to be more careful, and we want to be more careful, but what are our principles? Or, you know, to use our big word, what's our hermeneutic? And we want a hermeneutic.

We want a way of approaching an ancient text that matches the scriptural way of approaching, and we see how the writers of Scripture approached the Bible, and our help throughout this short series has been R .C. Sproul and his little book, Knowing Scripture.

So we're looking this week at chapter 5 with the relationship between culture and timeless principles, and how do we move from an ancient culture where perhaps there are, you know, instructions given to these people in a situation that seems so far from our lives, and then how do we build a bridge from that to today so that we are applying that in a way that pleases the Lord, that matches Scripture?

But before we look at that, Zach, why don't you tell us a little bit of how you got here in New Albany and to the church? Yes, sir.

So I grew up on the coast of Mississippi. I grew up in a godly home. I had a godly mother and father who raised me and my sisters, you know, the fear and admonition of the Lord, and it was just a wonderful childhood.

And went in the Marine Corps after a little stint in college, and got out of the Marine Corps and moved to Tupelo and became a police officer. And unfortunately at that time I wasn't walking real close to the Lord.

Some things happened where my wife was in a car accident, things like this. God kind of redirected my life, and I wanted to go to seminary. I chose a fundamental Baptist college seminary, and we went there.

And so for the next 10 to 15 years, you know, I was really well versed in fundamental Baptist doctrine, and you know, I don't have anything bad to say or negative to say. You know, I think it was very well-meaning.

There was a lot of good things that happened to me there. But funny thing, we end up in a church in North Mississippi at a fundamental Baptist church, and...but it was...the pastor was preaching some...he was speaking of salvation, just a hair different than I've heard it, and I was really trying to key in on what he was saying.

And he was preaching through the doctrines of grace is what I realize now, which was very unusual coming from an independent Baptist preacher. And this is a lot of sit-down conversations with him, and led us to, you know, studying R .C. Sproul, John MacArthur, Steve Lawson, Bodie Bauckham, you name it.

We just started really digging, and God showed us a lot of grace in the fact that my wife was coming along with me, and we were kind of growing at the same time. I would see something, she would see something, and we would talk through it.

And then ultimately, a church up in Abbeville asked me to interim pastor for a while, and so I did, but I had this new insight. I don't know how to even explain it, but I was thinking differently, and that was coming out in my preaching, and the resources that I was using led me ultimately to New Albany, because I was finding stuff through Media Gratia while I would study for sermons.

And my time there at that church wrapped up, and I told Tiffany, I said, there are 30 minutes up the road, let's go listen. And I don't think we ever looked back. I think we've been here for a while now.

It was Easter Sunday, I think,.

Is when we came first, so up two years ago. And I've preached on the coast at the church that your father pastored, the last church he pastored, right? Yes, sir. Bel-Air Baptist Church. That's correct.

Brian Cameron is there now, so I didn't get to meet your dad, but I have met your mom. My mom's wonderful. Well, we want to look at the principles for approaching Scripture, particularly related to culture.

So let me just kind of give some of the main points that the chapter hits, and then we'll just talk through what we feel are some of the more helpful things, you know, as we've read the chapter, and, you know, as we think of, you know, the struggles that we have coming to an ancient text.

There will be, by necessity, there will be times where we have to bridge between, you know, a group of people 2 ,000 years ago in a foreign country, and, you know, my living room today. But the Scripture gives us all that we need for that, and it's wonderful that Scripture is perfect.

It's perfectly designed for every person in every place of the world, in every generation. So there's no problem there, and God is the teacher of His children, so there's no problem there. We have a perfect teacher, even if we're kind of dunces, you know, sometimes, and, you know, poor students, if we will walk humbly with the King, He'll teach us.

So the main points of the chapter, he talks about the question of the Bible being conditioned by culture, and Sproul's coming from, you know, a Presbyterian denominational background, and he kind of brings up some context of the 60s and 70s and some of the struggles that the PCUSA, I think, was going through at the time, and, you know, as people were saying, well, look, that passage, it's just a cultural statement, and we're free to kind of totally rethink things now, and, you know, of course, conservatives really bothered by that, progressives or maybe theologically liberal people really happy with that kind of a statement, and so Sproul lived through those days, and the things he says are very helpful.

Is the Bible conditioned by culture? If it is at all, how much? And how does that affect the way that we approach it? That certainly will affect the way we interpret it and apply it. He talks about the culture that we find in Scripture when we read it realizing that there is a certain situation that the author is in, at times there's a certain situation that the original audience is in, and understanding that, does that affect how we interpret it?

So that's part of the cultural lens, but then there's also, he says, there's also the cultural lens that we possess. We come to the Scripture, we're not blank slates, and so we labor to approach the Word of God without kind of importing eisegesis instead of exegesis, to put into instead of to draw out of.

We labor not to import our traditions, our culture into Scripture, and that is very difficult, and we all have blind spots, so we need to be generous with each other, but the Scripture, as the Lord helps us, is sufficient to expose those blind spots, and so we need to be prepared to rethink things.

He talks about the big question of timeless principles versus, you know, timely or limited customs, and that I think is at the heart of a lot of our application, and he gives us some helpful advice. He gives us four things we can do, because sometimes genuine Christians disagree about a text.

It's not because one person is not wanting to agree with the Scripture, and the other person is. One person's a liberal, one person's a conservative, but you have people who come to the Scripture, and they genuinely have some disagreement on how to apply that to the present situation, and he mentions four of them.

You know, look for things that are restated throughout the Bible, so there's a timelessness to it. It's not just Old Covenant, it's not just New Covenant. He also talks about looking for the timeless principle that might be applied in a specific context, but the principle we realize is a timeless moral principle that goes far beyond that one situation.

You know, so he talks about, at the end of the book, humility, and we'll talk about that, because it really is such an important thing. Approaching the Scripture is not just an intellectual exercise, and so the heart, being in the right frame of mind, is important.

Culture and the Book of Ruth

Well, Zach, when he talks about the Bible and culture, if someone were to say to you, is the Bible affected by the ancient.

Cultures, or is it not affected? How would you answer that? So, I was talking with my mom on the phone about this very subject, and you know, she's going through the book of Ruth right now, and you know, you look at the book of Ruth, you see Kinsman and Redeemer, you see them when they're in the fields leaving things behind, and so culture is being...we're unfamiliar with that.

And so when I approach Scripture, for me, my dad was always the best at it. He'd always say, you gotta get back into that place. You know what I mean? As best as we can, and you said it yourself, that we are separated by 2 ,000 years, or even more so in the Old Testament, and we're trying to understand what these people are going through, but I don't think it's completely impossible to get a good idea of what they were dealing with.

So culture, you know, when you look at Scripture, I think it's very helpful, one, to try to understand the setting and the time of the writing, what is going on with those people, and you know, in the New Testament, you know, 1 John, they're dealing with Gnosticism, and I think that helps you to understand, okay, what's John dealing with, and why is he writing the book this way?

And so I think culture matters, and what the people of that time would be dealing.

With. Yeah, so we would say that the cultural context, not only does it affect Scripture, but it's really a very beneficial effect, if we think of it correctly. You know, Sproul argues and says, well, you would have to say, if you say culture has nothing to do with these Scriptural commands and principles and, you know, precepts, then you have to say, well then, did the Bible just drop from heaven, pre-written in this divine language, which somehow we could read, and it's just like, you know, it's a how-to book for life that somehow fits every culture?

You know, it's a culture-less, you know, culture-free description of life? I mean, that's not how we think. Obviously, and one way I've approached this is, you know, when we think of inspiration of Scripture, God does not dictate to the writers of Scripture.

You know, they don't go into a trance, and suddenly their hand reaches out and grabs the pen, and they write, and then maybe two hours later, they come out of the trance, and they look down, and they've written a New Testament epistle.

We can see in the original languages, we can see it in our English translations, that the experiences of the human author are part of it, that the brain that they had, the way they think, is part of it.

So, we read James, and he writes in a different way than Paul, who writes in a different way than John. You know, Paul's letters are so logical. He's laying out his arguments, and you can follow those so clearly, but if you try to read 1 John or James in exactly the same way, you get in a bind.

You think, well, wait, wait, wait, how are you laying it out, you know? And you go to commentaries, and you see that they're a bit confusing. Well, here's the outline of the book, and another guy says, no, this is the outline of the book.

But when you go to Paul, it's pretty easy to come to an agreement. This is the outline, because Paul writes in a way that makes that easy. So, God used humans as the instrument to communicate his timeless Word to us, and those humans are not just a plastic pipe, but their experiences are part of what God used.

So, when Paul writes about certain things, God has, you know, all along been working in the life of Saul, and after conversion, you know, Paul, and the experiences, and the intellect, and the gifts are all going to be a part of how God delivers the truth, but because it's God and not us, he is capable of delivering truth through a human instrument, which will bring a certain color to that truth, you know, a certain quality to it, and he is capable of seeing to it that that human does not in any way warp or interfere with the truth.

It is exactly what God wants to be said in exactly the way.

I actually like, while you're saying that, I'm thinking of the Apostle John writing 1 John, and he literally—so, it's his experience. He goes, I touched him, I heard him, I handled the Word of life, and he says, he was eternal, he was from the beginning.

And then you go to John's other writings in the Gospel of John, and you see him calling him light. Well, he calls him light in 1 John, and so, why is he saying those things? Because that's what he experienced.

That's what he was living, and he's writing what he saw. And so, culture and his environment did affect him greatly.

Timeless Principles and Limited Customs

Yeah, and the cultural context. If we can, you know, not every passage is simple to understand the cultural context, but if we can see the context. So, what was happening at the time that this was written?

Why did this need to be written? You know, where does this, if you're reading just a chapter, where does the chapter fall in the larger book that I'm reading? If I'm reading a chapter of Isaiah, you know, and I'm reading about the coming of the Messiah, well, where does that fall in the whole arrangement of Isaiah's prophecy?

You know, and so, all of those things we've talked about in the past weeks, the context of the passage, and now we're talking about the cultural context as well, where does this fall, you know, in human history, and what was life like?

And that can be very helpful, because it's one thing for someone to give you a list of principles. It's another thing for you to be given those list of principles in the context of someone explaining it to someone else, and they're saying, look, where you're at right now, this is how this applies.

And when we see truth applied in a very concrete way in someone else's life, when you see someone live out the scripture, there's this great clarifying element. You're like, well, okay, so that's how that doctrine looks when you live it out, even though it's thousands of years separated from us.

People that spoke a different language and lived in a different area, the unchanging struggles of humanity, you know, the stuff that's most important doesn't change. So, husband and wife, parents and kids, Christian and culture, those don't really change.

You know, my soul and my God. Okay, how does Paul direct these baby Christians to live on Christ? And so we see those principles in a very concrete way applied, and that's a great help for us to know, oh, so that's what it looks when you live out the Christian life.

Okay, so when he talks about principle and custom, you know, he mentions a number of options in the book, and, you know, because there are people that would disagree, and so he says, well, there are some basic...basically, there are some different options.

You could say that the Bible is entirely about custom. So if we say that, you know, Zach, then what's the, you know, where does that lead us theologically? If we say, well, when I'm reading Paul, he's just talking about the custom of that day.

Right. So he gives a.

Great example here, he says, Jesus said, carry no money belt, no bag, no shoes, and greet no one on the way. And he said, if you take that as pure custom, then we're doing evangelism wrong. We should not be wearing shoes.

And so I think it's a warning to the reader that you might have to study out and try to get, what is Christ trying to say here? Because it's certainly not, he's not against my pumas I have on my feet.

You know, I mean, there's a greater meaning to what he's saying,.

And so you have to dig a little bit. Yeah, so you either kind of slide into this kind of harsh legalistic approach where you say, you're not allowed to take an extra pair of shoes anywhere, you're not allowed to take a wallet with you, you know, you're not allowed to take your purse, because that's what God, this is the word of God, you know, and if you say, well, wait, now this is the word of God.

And so it seems, are we being, you know, are we adjusting the word of God to fit us? No. We understand that there are some deeper principles, and there was a reason for that very specific command, but it doesn't continue throughout the Bible, like the dietary commands of the Old Testament.

So the moral law continues. God still hates adultery. God still hates idolatry. The cross does not change the fundamental things that God hates and loves when we speak of right and wrong. But the scripture itself tells us the dietary laws are for a limited period of time, and now they have passed.

Here's why they have passed, and we see that they pass. You know, you think of the book of Acts and Peter and Cornelius, and so, okay, I understand why, and I understand they've passed. So that was a limited application of a principle.

You know, the other option is, if we say it's all cultural, then none of it applies to us. We say, well, that was just them back then, you know, and this, of course, comes up, especially today with the relationship and the roles that men and women have in the economy that God has set up.

So how has God designed life? How has God designed a family? How has God designed a church? And so, we find different roles for men and women, unless we say, well, that is just the cultural context. And Paul is, you know, he's giving into that context, or he's part of that context.

So he doesn't think beyond that context, and we understand that for that day that was appropriate, but we live in a different culture, and that no longer applies. So that's one approach, and we feel that that's not the right approach.

Another approach, he says, is it's entirely principle. And then, you know, if you say it's entirely principle, then you say, well, everything the Scripture gives applies to us today in a kind of a mechanical way, and none of it was cultural.

And I think that even applies more to what you said before, like, you know, with the wallet and the shoes and things. Okay, well, that is a principle that doesn't change. When we say, well, I don't carry a money bag, you know, so what am I supposed to do now, you know?

So then he gives a couple of more options. He says, he calls them, you know, it's just Sproul's summary. He says, it's partly principle, partly custom, and he says, and it's partly principle. So in those last two, we can kind of combine them.

He's basically saying, you know, the Scripture is nuanced. It's not an excuse for us to bend it the way we want it to look, to make room for our preferences, our culture. We're coming to it with a submissive, trusting heart.

This is the word of my King, and I trust Him. But we're coming to it not in a childish way, and we want to say, okay, in these statements of Scripture, what is limited to that culture? What is a timeless principle?

And in many of them, the culture has to be laid aside when we apply it to today, because we're facing such a very different situation. But the principle has a place for application. So we're not saying, well, because the culture is so different, we don't apply anything.

Well, no, we apply the principle. So our job is to ask the Lord, what is the timeless principle? And then it becomes obvious, oh, well, I see how it would apply today. And sometimes the basic situation that the author is writing to, it hasn't really changed, even though it's 2 ,000 or 3 ,000 or 4 ,000 years ago.

It's the same thing we're dealing with today. And so that sticks as well. And he mentioned those ways of understanding, well, what's a timeless principle? What's not a timeless principle? Toward the end of the chapter, Sproul gives, we might say, some practical guides that would help us when we reach passages where we're disagreeing with other people, and this whole question of cultures coming up, and how do we approach this text, and are we doing it in the right way, and we want to do it in the right way, for love of our God, because it's His truth, so it matters to us, but also because it guides how we help other people, and other people matter to us.

Creation Principles and Universal Truths

So of the practical guides that he gives at the end of the chapter, which ones,.

Zach, would you say you found most helpful? So the first one I would think about is, he mentions a creation principle, meaning this would be true just because it's true. He says, I created the male and female.

That's an absolute truth. And culture might shift, but Christ would say, these things don't shift. And so there are certain things that you could go to Scripture that I don't need a lot of guidance with.

It's true because it's true, and it's always been true, and it's not just wildly accepted, it's just truth.

We could call those a universal truth. So because it's linked with the Creator and creation, it's not limited to a Jew, it's not limited to Gentiles, it's not limited to the old covenant era, it's not limited to a new covenant era, a universal creation-wide truth.

And so we do see Paul at times, and other writers in the New Testament in particular, but of course you see it all through the Old Testament, where there might be a specific command given to a specific group of people, and the reason for that is their specific context.

Look, this is happening right now where you're at, and this is what God wants you to do. And that's limited, and we may not be in that context. But then, like you said, there are the universal truths that are related to just the way God has created, and our Creator has said certain things are true, guys, and we don't get to adjust those.

So it doesn't matter if it's 4 ,000 years ago or 2 ,000 years ago that God wrote it, Paul or someone else says, hey, you're struggling with this situation. This is how God would have you respond. And the reason is not just the situation you're in, but it goes all the way back to what God did at the beginning.

So that's a timeless thing that we want to apply, and we don't want to say, well, that was just then.

Humility in Difficult Texts

Right. There was another truth, and it's probably the one, if you were to ask me what did I love about that chapter the most, it's probably because of my own personal experience, it affects me the most, is we talked about just having humility with the Scripture.

And so there will be times as you read the Bible, especially as you're young and Christ, or just growing, where you come to a portion of Scripture that's difficult, and it would be better just to be humble about that thing and say, you know what?

I don't know right now, and to give other people grace. And where I felt in the past, personally, is I would always err on the side of safety. So I thought that was a good thing. I'd say, hey, look, if I'm driving on a cliff, I want to see how far away I can get.

I'm just going to err to the right, which in some cases would make you legalist. And I don't want to go the other way and just be completely careless with it. So I've had to learn that I've just got to be humble.

And in those gray areas in Scripture, if someone, I think you talked about it in the London Confession talks about it, is that where God is not clear, we can't bind a man's conscience. I don't know if I'm saying that correctly, but...

Yeah, in areas where the.

Scripture has not clearly laid out, this is the right choice. And so we have principles that we go on, our basic precepts, but with an honest effort, we would say, I don't have an exact answer for this.

To then go ahead and develop our own and say, well, in my opinion, this is the only.

Way to read this. And so I've done that in the past, and you become dogmatic. And I'm not talking about like the virgin birth or the deity of Christ, we should be bull dogmatic, as Steve Law, there's time to be bull dogmatic.

But you'd be dogmatic over dress. You have to have it down to your ankles, you have to have it here or whatever, where I think it's easier to be humble now. And I think I love how he says that, hey man, take a breath and give grace and be humble and study harder, and let's look at this thing and be careful with people.

Because everybody is learning and growing, especially in some of these harder areas. But I just feel that sometimes I have in the past been dogmatic where I shouldn't have been. And humility is a wonderful thing when you come to the Scripture and say, God, I don't know, and I don't want more truth or less truth, I just want the truth.

And I think there's danger in going one way or the other. So I don't know, get the book ready for yourself. It helped me. He explains it better than I did.

Applying Timeless Principles to Christian Living

Yeah. So timeless principles that we bridge from, why did God say that there? And as we read the passage, it can become apparent, well, this was a situation that was happening. And how did the writer apply the great realities of God, of their relationship to God, of the unchanging right and wrong, of the law of love?

I think of so many statements in the New Testament where Paul or other writers will talk about how to respond to the world, like Titus 3, or Romans 13 and 14 and 15, and where you see how we respond to others in the church who are younger than us, maybe weaker believers, how we respond to the world that is still in the captivity of self-deceit.

And Paul basically says, you once were right there. So can you not stand for truth in a way that represents Christ, but is not arrogant? Can you not pity a man who is as blind right now as you were last year?

Have you anything that God didn't give you? Then why would we be proud? And dealing with a young believer, can you not give them time? And I think that's very helpful, because as we go back to the timeless principles, so if you take an issue like clothing, since God didn't say how low the neckline, how many inches, how high off the floor, how high above the ankle, what color of car you're allowed to have, all those things.

Well, God doesn't spell that out, so we have timeless principles. But I think that is so wonderful, because you can go to a baby Christian with timeless principles, and you can say, look, you are saved by God through the most pure form of undeserved love.

It's grace. But now that you love Him back, have you considered how loving the King would change the way you dressed? And I'm not going to give you a list of rules, but what does the Scripture say? So it talks about loving other people in certain ways, it talks about, you know, loving God, it talks about holiness, purity of thoughts.

So you look at those timeless principles and say, okay, in light of all of that, I think I want to buy clothes differently next time, not just so that I can be, you know, the best looking, but I want to love God and to love people, even in the way I dress, or the way I eat, or how I drive, you know, or how I use my electronic device.

Timeless principles. And those are ones that I think the baby Christian, because they're alive in Christ, they understand that when you approach it that way. And they say, okay, I understand why, and I understand the principles that God will help me to apply, and you don't have to, you know, make a rigid rule for everything.

Wonderful truths that Sproul reminds us of. Simple things, but areas where it's not easy at times, and so humility is so important as we approach those texts and ask the Lord to teach us, and we're humble toward others who are struggling, perhaps in areas where we don't struggle, but they're genuinely wanting to do the will of the Lord.

Each week we try to remind ourselves that, you know, as Protestants, we say, sola scriptura, you know, the scripture is not just, it's not prima scriptura that we are holding to, that the Bible is one of the many authorities for my life.

Sola, it is the authoritative source for Christian belief and living. But if we don't know how to study it, then that is just, you know, a slogan that we put on our t-shirts, and we are no better off than a person that says, well, whatever my religious authority says, or whatever the newest book that comes out, the newest fad in, you know, evangelicalism, whatever that person says, well, that's my authority, or whatever I feel when I read a passage, I just feel it.

It kind of guides this direction. And so, for sola scriptura to be something more than a slogan, we do need to take seriously, how do I study, not just read, but study this book that God has given us?

And there are some really helpful, clear principles. Well, before we close it down, we do want to remind you that we're doing giveaways throughout this short series, and this time, it's one of my favorite sets.

So, let me grab it. It's, let me get back to the bike. It's a set by J .C. Ryle. And so, if I can get it all straight and put it out in front of you, it's, if you'll grab that, thanks. So, it's a set by J .C. Ryle, and Ryle was an Anglican bishop.

It was rare for a man with Ryle's views to rise to the place of bishop in the Anglican church at that time. A contemporary of Charles Spurgeon, and Ryle gives his commentary on the Gospels, and particularly the Gospel of John.

That's where he spent most of his time, and he gives added information at the end of each section. He doesn't just give you his comments, and they're very devotional. He's not trying to explain all the Greek words and things.

This would definitely be a devotional commentary, but it's a good devotional commentary. And in John, unlike the others, after all of his comments, then he gives specific comments from the best of the old writers.

So, he'll say, like, Martin Bucer, you know, the reformer, said this about this, or Augustine, the church father, said this. And so, when I was first brought to the Lord, in college, the next year, I was traveling and preaching, and so now, as a true believer, you know, I was hungry for the Word of God, and one of the things I read was George Whitefield's two-volume biography by Arnold Dalimore.

That was like, you know, that was like icing on the cake. But what I read for meat was this set, and, you know, Ryle became such a helpful daily companion for the Christian life, and we try to give one of these sets to every family in the church.

Do you guys have one? We do. Then you don't get this? We've done Mark together as family, so. Teddy, do you have one? Do not lie to me, Teddy. I have some of them. Oh, you have some of them? Your kids have probably used them to build a fort in the backyard.

We have A .W. Pink on John. Oh, yeah, that's humongous. A .W. Pink on John. It's like that thick. It's like a dictionary. We have all like old versions. We thought that we had the complete Ryle set. Okay, so we're gonna get the James, the complete Ryle set, but they don't get this one because then that would be dishonest to pretend that we're gonna give it away.

So, you can see in the notes, there's a link and how you can sign up for the giveaway. All right, well, thanks, Zach. Thanks for giving us your time. You're very busy protecting Oxford from bad guys. You liaison with schools, right?

I am. Yes, sir. I work with the school district. Yeah, you're perfect for that. You're a friendly guy. You're not scary. It's positive. I like it. Yeah, so next week, we will finish up the series by looking at some of the concluding comments and some of the hints that Sproul gives for what are the most helpful resources that as you're approaching scripture, there are some helpful resources that can come alongside and give you aid, and so we'll talk about that next week.