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All right, well good evening Tonight is our first night in our new room.
Are we all excited? We're happy.
I'm very happy again I want to thank everybody who was Participating and getting this room set up especially JP for being our floor man We have wonderful.
Everybody has talked about how great the floor looks and we may have some more stuff we want to do We're so excited and Everybody loves this new room and this is our hopefully our permanent home for a while We've got it figured out where we can take up to 50 people in here Comfortably, that's everybody having a place at the table as it were.
So So, you know right now we have 30 students, but we don't have 30 people in here tonight because we have several missing but we started out with 32 in this class and You know up to 50 would be quite a bit for our church size and everything So I think this would be our permanent home for a while.
So praise praise the Lord for that We have been in this study of fundamentals of Bible study our art and science of hermeneutics looking at the subject of Observation, you'll remember that we said that there are three parts to good Bible study.
The first part is Observation.
What does the text say? The second part is Interpretation.
What does the text mean and then application? What does it matter or however you want to say? How does it apply? You know, what what is it there for? And so we have in our last time together, which was a week ago We had a fun opportunity to do some observation skills We pulled out the table with the big purple cloth on it and and had you guys observe some things Well tonight we're going to be just building on that I tell you one thing that I have really come away from this course, you know because again I have to do it myself before teaching it go through the book and all the material one of the things that has really blessed me and this is enhancing my Observational skills just enhancing the the desire to look deep More deeply into the text before I begin to ask the question of what it means first really spending time with what does it say and I read that I was reading through the book again today because I'm getting on to Preparing my next few lectures and on the subject of interpretation and dr.
Hendricks talks about Somebody taking several months to build a foundation You know digging meters into the ground and putting footings down and putting rebar and Concrete and then you put a chicken coop on top of it wouldn't make sense All right, you know you if you're going to build that kind of foundation you're putting something strong on top of it you excavate to erect right and and that's what the he said that the observation is the excavation and Then the interpretation is the erection or the or the building on to what you have observed now We understand and so it just helps you You know the further you dig down with your observation the the more powerful and better will be your interpretation So so let us not for a second think that this part is the easy part and the harder part comes later This is the part that's really the hard part And if you do this right the interpretation is easier now We will look at some passages that are hard to interpret may I'm even going to pull some passages out that are I don't know What they mean, but we're going to talk about them Give you a couple of options, but as having said that though we can know what they say Even if we don't know exactly what they mean Who are those sons of God who intermarry with the daughters of men in Genesis chapter 6, you know? That's a that's a big question, right? And and and who are the Nephilim and all those questions, you know? Those are big questions, right? And and so even if we don't know what it means We can know what it says and we can know that there are people who go well beyond what it says When they're trying to figure out what it means And that's the most important part.
What does it say? That's the first most important part.
So your workbook assignment was Complete one of the following you were supposed to we're not doing yet.
I'm just reminding you what it was You were supposed to take either exercise 28 30 32 34 36 38 hike They should take one of those and do just one you you're only supposed to do one You could have done more than that, but later on in the class after our break we're going to see which which one you chose and we'll see if anybody is Willing and able to share with us what they learned from their particular study So that'll be the last part like I said more interactive in the latter half, but in our beginning I want to just Give our lecture time and again have some interaction with you for our first session in our last study we looked at the value of observation and We talked about the value of increasing our reading skills We looked at ten strategies for becoming better Bible readers We're going to continue our study of observation and dig deeper into this process tonight.
And as we begin I want to make a comment Regarding biblical literacy It is a sad reality that much of the world Including much of the church is biblically illiterate Biblically illiterate simply means that they don't even know how to read the Bible They don't have a foundation to start from Dr.
Albert Moeller is the president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kentucky and he said this Quoting from a Gallup poll he says researchers George Gallup and Jim Castelli put the problem squarely Americans revere the Bible but by and large they don't read it and because they don't read it They have become a nation of biblical illiterates.
How bad is it? Researchers tell us that it's worse than most could imagine fewer than half of all US adults can name the four Gospels Many Christians cannot identify more than two or three of the disciples According to the data from Barna research group 60% of Americans can't name even five of the Ten Commandments No wonder people break the commandments all the time.
They don't know what they are Ha ha said George Barna president of the firm the bottom line Increasingly America is biblically illiterate Now I know this from experience not just Years of ministry and meeting people and talking to people but also we have a we have a fair booth that we put out We're doing it again this year We and and we have a booth that we set out and we ask people questions and we give tracks and we have gospel Conversations we do ten days in October coming up again this year.
We're gonna be out there again this year Every year I have a little survey that I do with people just to ask questions just to get conversations Sorry, I have a big board.
It says take my Bible survey win big money and the money is just a big $100 bill It's like this huge big money.
It's a joke, but they love it and they laugh and they think it's funny But I asked the question, okay How many books of the Bible are there? Crickets almost always I'm not saying that for you guys.
I'm saying for them almost always they don't know How many Testaments are there? No Mormons could argue maybe there are three but how many Testaments are there actually in the Bible there would be two How many books in the Old Testament? You guys know 39 that's right and how many in the New Testament 27 and here's a neat little thing.
I don't know if you know this or not If you remember there's 39 books in the Old Testament 3 times 9 is 27.
That's your New Testament That's just a neat little memory palette there for you If you're trying to help people remember it, you know 39 the old 3 times 9 is 27.
That's I mean having the new Other questions I would ask and like dr.
Muller said I'd ask people How many Ten Commandments can you name usually they get three? Don't murder.
Don't lie.
Don't steal Sometimes they'll say honor your father mother sometimes They will say something about lying Very rarely do they get the first three And know the gods before me do not take the Lord's name in vain and do not make any idols They usually do not get those at all.
I Don't know what idolatry is anymore and I Always follow it up and say how many how many Ten Commandments? Can you name thing three or four? How many beers? Can you name? Bush Budweiser bubble bubble bubble name 1520 beers without thoughts.
I say how does that make you feel? He's a good little conversation starter, you know, so The point is we really are as a as a nation We are illiterate we everybody owns a Bible.
Nobody reads about Everybody has Sometimes two or three in their house and they have so much Dust on them as Charles Spurgeon said you could write damnation with your finger and the dust on the Bible So that being said I want to challenge you with something this was sort of the introduction to tonight's lesson I want to challenge you with something.
I believe will go a long way toward Increasing you as a student of the Bible.
I want you to commit to memory your Bible basics Commit to memory your Bible basics.
You may already have these committed to memory and this is just for you Nothing of anything new but if you don't have these things, I would encourage you to number one Most of you said it already know how many books are actually in the Bible and how many are in each Testament Again, these are Sunday school things.
We used to teach our kids in Sunday school these things What are the names of the pipe or what are the names of the books of the Bible rather? Can you name all 66 Who wrote them Who wrote each book of the Bible? Now there are some we don't know we don't know who wrote Hebrews We don't know who wrote we don't know who the Chronicler was in the Old Testament You know, we have the Chronicles of the Kings.
We don't know who wrote those so I'm not saying you have to know every author but understanding who Isaiah was goes a long way to understanding what Isaiah said and So I brought a few things with me tonight And if you think that this is these are two elementary Forgive me because I'm not attempting in any way to to decrease.
I respect all of you very much for even being here So if you think like I'm giving you kids stuff, I promise you I don't look at this as kids stuff I look at this as helpful tools.
These are though Tools that were recently used in a vacation Bible school and I thought it was really cool So I went and printed it for you guys.
This is the periodic table.
You know that but these are Bible books So like it's got it in categories So you got the first five books of Moses here and it tells you not only the name of the book But it tells you how many chapters are in it and what number it is Now I'm giving you a black and white version But if you email me, I'll send you the color version for you to print I just didn't I wasn't able to print in color for everybody, but I'll give you all the black and white version I'll pass them around now.
This is just a handy little tool To know where you are in the Bible and it's a periodic table of the Bible and If you would put those in your in your notebook and you can keep it Like I said, I like the way it categorizes everything and when you get the color version when you email me and get your own color version you'll see that each of the colors are separated out by the major prophets the minor prophets the Gospels and All of the different sections of the Bible So again, I just found this a helpful tool It was used at a VBS and I said I want that for me.
So I thought you might want it for you and and again That is a That is a good Way of realizing where you are in the Bible I'll let everybody get it because I want to just make a few mentions of a few things once everybody's got it in their hand Everybody got theirs Okay Because a good observation question is this where am I in the Bible? That's a good observation question to start with.
Where am I? This will kind of help you know where you are If you're in Leviticus, you're right smack in the middle of the writings of Moses Now some people don't believe Moses wrote Leviticus.
Some people don't believe Moses wrote anything But conservative evangelical Bible scholars have Believed and I agree with them that Moses is the author of the books of Moses.
That's pretty pretty reasonable and so even though there is something called the documentary hypothesis that is the belief that there are four different authors of the first five books of The Bible and they put together as a documentary of history not a writing of one man But that's a conversation for another time so you look at those first books Genesis Exodus Leviticus numbers Deuteronomy we believe those are written by Moses those are written during the Exodus during those wilderness years so 40 year period having written the beginnings That is what Genesis means the Exodus.
That is the the leaving of Egypt Leviticus that is the orders to the Levites or to the priestly class for how to Manage God's holy things Leviticus is all about God's holiness and how he wants his holy things managed numbers dealing with the The actual people always think numbers is just a census There's only two censuses in numbers and one at the beginning and one at the end the rest of the book is what happens in Between the two censuses they start out with six hundred and three thousand five hundred and fifty fighting men And at the end they have about that same number But it's a different generation It's a whole different group of people because all of the men except for Joshua and Caleb who went in to the wilderness died in the wilderness and See we see that number matters because it's a different generation and then Deuteronomy means what? The second giving of the law and so Deuteronomy is the second time God pronounces his law I gave it in Exodus and Leviticus and he gives it again and Deuteronomy just understanding those things help you to understand the first five books of the Bible When Jesus was being questioned by the devil in the wilderness when he was being tempted He said thus or he said it is written and he responded three times all three times Responded was from the book of Deuteronomy all three of his responses were quotes from Deuteronomy and So yes, it is certainly important for us to know those and you go on you have the history you have the poetry You have the prophetic literature throughout the Old Testament in the New Testament you have your Historical narratives your Gospels and Acts you have your epistles, which of course those are the wives of the Apostles Okay, it's a bad joke epistles are letters from Apostles or letters from letters to the churches and then we have those are the Pauline Apostles and then you have the general Pauline epistles in the general epistles and then in the New Testament you have one book which we would call Apocalyptic literature and that is the book of Revelation All right, so that's this is showing you oh by the way it also shows you something else the Bible is not put together chronologically The Bible is put together categorically Which means there may be times when you're reading something that happened after something else you already read and So understanding that especially when you're reading the prophets, you know The prophets come way after Ezra Nehemiah, but most of them wrote before the events of Ezra Nehemiah and Esther Job probably happened before Moses in the history of time and So it's not a chronological.
There is a Bible called the chronological study Bible The chronological study Bible it starts with Job Actually starts the Genesis 1 and then jumps immediately to Job and then you go back to Abraham I always thought it's a little weird because in their attempt to Make it chronological.
They end up sort of creating sort of a big huge question mark.
Why is Job here? Well, he likely lived during the time of Abraham based on what we read about his life in his own book and So we we have to understand the Bible is not chronological.
It is categorical Even the New Testament books Romans was written well after Galatians First and second Corinthians are written a long time apart not a long time in several years apart So you read one read right to the next and you don't realize time has passed Then you might not understand what you're reading Again, these are all observations historical observations Okay, another observation that you can ask and this is another sheet that I have for you Not only where am I in the Bible? That was this one? But when am I in the Bible? He said we just talked about this.
We have a little differently.
This sheet is an actual timeline of when the books were written Based on the history of Israel and the church.
I must tell you though.
It's a little bit hard to read I Did the very best I could at getting a really good copy of this But it's it's it is not the clearest copy in the world.
So if you have bad eyes, I apologize I hope hopefully you'll be able to read it and at least see where the books land It's certainly not as clear as the one I just handed you.
I did my best Again, I hope I hope for a little grace on this handout But the reason for this and the importance of this is understanding like what books were written between the time of creation in the time of Moses What things were written between the time of Saul and the time of Solomon? These are the questions of when? When are you not only where are you but when are you in the Bible? We Have the minor prophets Hosea Joel Amos Obadiah Jonah Micah Nahum Habakkuk Zephaniah Haggai Zechariah Malachi twelve minor prophets some of those prophets are what we call pre exilic prophets meaning they they proclaimed to Israel prior to the exile There are exilic prophets That means they proclaimed their prophecies during the exile and then we have what is called post Exilic meaning they prophesied after if you look here You'll see on that second line where it says exile the ones before the 70 years Hosea Amos Habakkuk Isaiah Jeremiah Joel Micah Zephaniah Lamentations Jonah Nahum Obadiah.
See that that's the pre exile Prophets and then the ones who prophesied during the exile Ezekiel and Daniel and then after Would have been Haggai and Zechariah and of course also Ezra Nehemiah and Esther all happened after the exile and Malachi, of course being the last one.
Yes, sir No, yeah, yeah, actually if you email me and let me know you want it I'll send you both of these in color and maybe if you print it out in color It might stand out a little better for you.
This this particular sheet also shows our history of our English Bible how it goes from the original manuscripts to the codices to the Masoretic text the Vulgate into the King James and all those different things So this one has a little bit more information on it, and I'm certainly happy to send you the colorized version But again, the question is where are we? That's the first sheet now When are we and this tells us when we are there's also another thing when you're dealing with the prophets Understanding to whom the Prophet was speaking Remember that after Solomon dies There is not one kingdom, but two There is the northern kingdom Which is made up of the ten tribes and there is the southern kingdom known as Judah But it was actually both Judah and Benjamin that were in the lower southern region and the northern tribes fell to Assyria in 722 BC The southern tribes fell to Babylon or Babylonia depending how you pronounce or how you would say it in 586 BC and so understand the southern tribes lived an additional hundred and some odd years past the northern tribes and When the restoration happened the northern tribes never really restored to their former glory It was only really the southern tribes that came back which again the Judah tribe why we call them Jews Understand we call them Jews we you know rather than Hebrews or Israelites because it was a primarily Coming back to Judea the land of Jews But also the idea of the the the nation had had the ten tribes had basically been dispersed and Assimilated in other areas and so there's a there's a there's a there's a history there that needs to be understood There was some good in the southern tribes there was no good in the northern tribes and And There's God's judgment fell upon them as a result Alright, so that's just something to give you some early observation help early observation Help before you even go you can know a little bit about the book that you're going to get into it So I'll tell you for starting out if you just tried to read Isaiah You can read it and you can do great observation or about you get you do it you get great observations But if you don't know who he's talking to your observations may sort of be a little lacking So at least if you have the idea of who he's speaking to Where he is in the history of time That can give you a jumpstart to making better observations All right.
Now What are we going to look at today? That was our introduction now Let's get on to the lesson six things to look for an observation six things to look for an observation When we first came into this class I asked for ten observations on Romans 12 1 & 2 Some of you were not quite sure what I was asking for and in our textbook.
Dr Hendricks gives the example of a doctor looking into our throat when we say our throat is sore If you tell me your throat sore good evening, sir Come on in if you tell me your throat is sore and you say take a look and I look I won't know anything Because I don't know what to look for But a doctor would look into your throat and he would say ah And he would know exactly what was wrong because he's been trained how to observe and what to look for You know your wife is a is a medical professional and she would know so much more We were talking the other day at the birthday party about Intubating I don't know if I could spell it but sounds pretty neat and that's her That's something that she can do now and that's different than a lot of us.
We don't have that skill We have no idea.
We wouldn't know where to start and the same thing is with observation We have to know where to start.
What are we looking for? Well, there are six things that dr Hendricks has encouraged us to look for and So we're going to look at each of these in a little detail The first of the six and he does a little thing with his hand.
I'm not so much Into that but he basically says each of your fingers and your palm would be good reminders So he said your index finger is things that are emphasized things that are emphasized Things that are emphasized that might be for instance When you are reading Genesis How many chapters are in Genesis? 50 how many chapters are devoted to the creation of the world? To How many are devoted to the life of Abraham? Many yeah several.
How about this? How many are devoted to the family of Abraham? Huh? Well, it begins at chapter 12 where at the end of chapter 11, so 50 minus 11 is I Don't know 39 is a 39.
Yeah 50 minus 11 is 39 39 chapters of Genesis Focus on the life of Abraham Isaac and Jacob So what's the emphasis of the book? the life of those men How much how much time do people do but I'm about to preach the Genesis.
I'm starting in September How much time do people spend on the first 11 chapters? How much time do people spend on the first two and and I'm not saying we shouldn't I'm gonna spend several months just getting Through chapters one and two, I'm sure But we rush through the life of the man the books about The books about Abraham and the people of Abraham because he was God's chosen Man to become the chosen nation from which would come the chosen seed who is the Lord Jesus Christ the whole book is about beginnings It starts at the beginning of the universe the beginning of man and then the beginning of this one family of Which the book is mainly about So there is the emphasis of the book and there are other ways that we can find emphasis Sometimes books have a stated purpose.
That's basically right there.
I love Galatians I'm teaching through Galatians at set free on Thursday mornings.
I didn't get to preach this morning I was sad because I didn't get to go But Paul gives his stated purpose in verse 6 of the book he says I am astonished That so many of you are turning away from him Who called you in his gospel to another gospel? Not that there is another gospel and he goes on to talk about that But he's his whole the thesis of the book is this astonishment of the people who have turned from the gospel There is only one and yet they're going after a different one and that sets the theme of the whole book and So there is what we would call a key stated purpose Why is Paul writing? Why is Luke writing? Why is Luke different than Mark? He is books quite different they have a different audience and so that purpose Luke's intention is to demonstrate Christ as the Son of God Mark's intention is to demonstrate Christ as the suffering servant of Isaiah and So they have in that a different purpose Understanding their purpose helps us to understand why they choose to tell Certain things the way that they do you ever notice in John's gospel.
Jesus is always in control But in Mark's gospel Jesus seems like he's almost always responding as if things are happening to him Versus in John.
He's making things happen.
It's not because it's two different men.
It's because they're both emphasizing different aspects of that man John wants us to know this is the this is God in the flesh and And so when the men come to him in the garden and he says it is I they say is you know Where's Jesus? I am here.
I forget exactly I said it they fall down That's not in any of the other Gospels You realize a whole Legion came out to get Jesus out of the girl I don't know how many minute was but that whole group of men fell down when Jesus said I am here None of the other Gospels mentioned that at all So, why does John emphasize it because he's because he's saying he wants you to believe this is the Son of God And so his purpose is stated In fact, the very purpose of John is stated at the end of the book, right? These things that I've written that you might believe that he is the Son of God Right at this day.
It's stated but it's at the end.
I'm not saying stated purpose isn't always at the beginning Sometimes it's at the end But it's there so look for those emphasized things Sometimes they'll be From the lesser to the greater.
Sometimes they'll be in the way they're ordered but look for emphasis and we're going to do this later I'm going to pull up a passage.
We're all going to look at it and we're going to see what's emphasized moving on though to the second thing things that are repeated things that are repeated You may have heard me say this because I teach on this quite a bit anytime you see repetition in The words of Scripture in any short amount of space You will note that that is something to do with the author's intent of getting your attention There's an observation that needs to be made right now I'm in First Corinthians 16 on Sunday morning preaching through the last few verses of the book verse 14 Paul says That we should love do all things that we do in love Then a few verses later He says that if anyone does not love the Lord let him be accursed and then the very last verse He said I want you to know how much I love you All right So what word keeps being repeated in just a few verses love? All right that we should love one another that we should love the Lord and that Paul loves them All right, and so we see this word love coming up over and over thus we need to identify that it's an observation I'm interpreting it just observing the fact that this word is coming up.
I read through the other day just reading on devotional reading I read through first Thessalonians And I kept seeing this phrase come up over and over in the translation I was reading the ESV and it just kept saying these things that you know these things that you know these things that you know And I kept thinking wow, that's the that's an important Paul is making a pointed statement that they know these things That they know these things and so what do they know? I want to go back now and spend some time going back and say what is it that they know? Because they know these things, you know, he kept saying I just every time I read through it It was like six or seven times per per per chapter.
I was like wow, that's it.
That's something I hadn't observed Before and just reading and again, I'm not interpreting what it means.
I'm just noting that it's there repetition So and again, you may have heard me talk about this before anytime you hear Jesus say Verily verily if you read the King James or truly truly or whatever That's a emphasis on what I'm about to say is very important So You'll hear if he says Simon Simon sesame's name twice that that's should get your attention Absolutely, yeah Yes, and I can imagine when Jesus said the second time it was kind of like Simon Yeah The second one was more guttural.
Yeah.
Yes Um Anytime you see a repeated character and by character, I always hate that word It's I I really don't have a better word but a person when I say character you think like it's a play It's not a play.
It's a person, you know, it's not it's not it's not it's not fiction But when we see a person's name come up over and over Barnabas what is Barnabas me? Son of encouragement Everywhere you see Barnabas you see him acting in some way encouragement.
In fact, did you know Ananias and Sapphira? Their death and the situation resulted because of something that Barnabas did as an encouragement Barnabas sold some land gave it to the church and the church encouraged and hey, that was great.
He did it He didn't do it for show They liked that they liked that he got some attention So they went and sold some land kept some money back to himself gave it to the church and you know what happened next But we see Barnabas is not the he's not the bad guy in the story But again, it was something he did to be an encouragement somebody else tried to do it, but they were doing it with nefarious reason So again look for these people and how they come out their their names come up over and over What was John Mark? Do you remember him? John Mark went with Paul and Barnabas and he couldn't quite hack it on the mission field.
So he went home Next time they all decide to go out Barnabas says I want to take John Mark Paul says no He gave up last time.
I don't want to take the chance he's going to give up this time and it says there arose no small dispute between the two of them and Paul went his own way and took another and Barnabas took John Mark with him Why is he's an encourager? He's gonna and and later in Paul's life.
He writes send to me John Mark Because he can do me good now that's later after having been encouraged by Barnabas, right so we see this man him coming up several times in acts see why he's coming up What is surrounding his life? And There are other things that are repeated we see incidents circumstances patterns Anytime you see Old Testament scriptures Used in the New Testament, especially when they are repeated.
What is the most common Old Testament? Passage that is used in the New Testament's a man Yep Yep, Leviticus 19.
Well, actually it's Leviticus 1918.
Love your neighbors yourself Yeah, but it's part of that.
Yeah, but there's another one That's almost as common a lot of people are not familiar with and Psalm 110 one Speaks of God making his enemies his footstool that comes up many times in the New Testament and why? Because that's what Christ is now doing he's reigning until all his enemies are put under his feet and then he will return and take the kingdom and deliver it to the father as it were a gift and So we see that in 1st Corinthians 15 once he makes his enemies its footstool and the last enemy to be defeated is death All right So those are things that are repeated we see this passage repeated let's go back and look why in the Old Testament scripture All right, number three things that are related Things that are related my favorite way to see things that are related in Scripture are when I see These two words and these are in Paul a lot and Paul just happens to be my favorite Writer to interpret I tend to really connect with him the words if and then Which are the words of consequence if this then that And we see that over and over and over in the writings of Paul This shows the relationship between one thing and another these two things are related if this is so then that must be Also the the case and so we see that phrase come up if you see the if look for the then Or if you see a then go back and find what was the predicate or what predicated that that then That brought it up.
So if and then shows relationships There's also the relationships of questions and answers If you see a question Read on and find the answer shall we continue in sin so that grace should abound Most of us know the answer is certainly not or heaven forbid or God forbid or may it never be There are rhetorical questions Interestingly though oftentimes in Greek there is a way of phrasing it where the answer is built in But there are rhetorical questions.
That's true Paul says who are you old man to answer back to God? Can he who is formed say to him who formed him? Why have you made me this way Romans chapter 9? That's a rhetorical question.
And actually that particular statement Begins in the original language with the word man So the emphasis if you're looking because in Greek oftentimes word order demonstrates emphasis Because it's not the same as English where word order indicates subjects and predicates they do that with stems and endings but they can Emphasize a word by putting it a certain place in the sentence and that statement actually in Romans 9 says old man Who are you who answers back to God as if to point out that you are not God, but you are man But the question still that's a rhetorical question Johnny is it because it doesn't really give an answer It just says can the thing who was formed say to him who formed it? How have you made me this way and the answer of course is no the answer is we can't do that and so like I said, those are Those are good questions and answers in Romans 6 Romans 9 If you see a question and it doesn't have a built-in answer It's not rhetorical look for what the answer is and then follow the logic again going back to Romans 6 Shall we continue in sin so that grace should abound certainly not how can we who died to sin? Still live in it.
That's the statement that is there the the logic of Living in sin once we have died to sin is Paul's whole point We can't live in sin if we've died to sin and that makes verse 1 makes sense Okay, so questions and answers.
Those are things that are related Movement from the general to the specific are also things that are related the book talks a little bit more about these Just things that are going from the from the broad to the narrow Can't and don't have one listed here, so I can't really give you a good example at the moment But there are some in your book, but encourage you to look at those number four I've said things that are related things that are alike Things that are alike look for things that are alike You guys are familiar probably with What we call the similes and the metaphors What is the difference between a simile and a metaphor? You guys remember this from grammar school.
It's okay similes use like or as So if I say if I say brother mark is like a brother to me That's a simile he's like a brother but if I say brother mark is my brother and I'm either meaning that literally as in Christ or Metaphorically and that's the difference in the metaphor.
You don't use like or as Jesus didn't say I am like a gate.
He said I am the gate He didn't say I'm like the way he said I am the way That's a metaphor and the Bible does use metaphors Some people don't like that they say all the Bible is always literal.
The Bible is not always literal.
The Bible is always right That's a good quote But the Bible uses metaphoric language Jesus used it when he talked about himself when he talked about his blood and Flesh being true bread and true drink in John chapter 6 The Roman Catholic Church has taken that metaphoric language and has I Believe has so distorted it to create the doctrine of transubstantiation Which says this that the bread Maintains The accidents of bread meaning it looks feels touches and tastes like bread, but that the substance or the real bread has been Changed to the body of Jesus Christ We can't see the change because the accidents have maintained their reality But the miracle is the change from bread to flesh and the same is said of the the wine in the communion cup and That belief is called transubstantiation or the change of substance and it's based on a What I believe is a misinterpretation Misunderstanding of Jesus's words when he said if any man does not eat my bread eat my blood eat my flesh and drink my blood He has no place with me Because Jesus is using a metaphor for belief and trust and faith when he talks about Feasting upon him and he does give a visual of that in the communion bread and cup But I do not believe that he is intending in any way for us to take a crass literalism He is not he doesn't have hinges So when we say he's the gate we don't have to wonder if he has a lock or hinges, you know, it's that's a what we call crass literalism and It's ridiculous The Roman Catholic argument is Longer and more nuanced than we could deal with it later But the point is we have to look for places where there is the use of metaphor and simile These are things that are alike Um Parables are Taking something the kingdom of heaven is like That's a simile.
I mean it says what's the word parable mean? Means to lay something beside something else Parabola is the Greek and it is it can be it can be distinguished from the word hyperbole Hyperbole means to make an exaggerated example.
I could eat a horse right, that's a Exaggeration that's called hyperbole when Jesus said if your right hand causes you to sin cut it off I think that's hyperbole.
I don't really think we're supposed to mutilate our body Even though Paul does tell the men of Galatian the Galatian region to mutilate themselves if they if they keep preaching circumcision But that's a different context.
I don't think that's metaphoric.
I think he kind of meant it But the point is the idea is is when Jesus said cut your hand off, you know, we Jesus was not I don't believe Jesus was advocating what we would call self mutilation or even self flagellation self flagellation is practice among some monks and some in the Aesthetic movements where they would beat themselves with rods to try to keep themselves from sinning And that is called self flagellation and they use Jesus's words and Paul's words.
Paul said I buffet my body And bring it under subjection so that having preached to others I myself will not be cast away And they use that passage to say well if Paul beat his body, then I'm gonna beat my body Well was Paul speaking physically did he take a rod and beat himself every time he had a sinful thought? Or was he using a metaphor? In his language, I would argue that he's being metaphoric I don't think Paul carried a rod to beat himself with but again, that's moving into the area of Interpretation so we can talk about that another day the point being Right now we're looking for things that are similar So if we see a parable or a simile or a Metaphor these are things that are similar and we're looking for that All right.
So the next thing number five things that are not alike things that are unlike My favorite word in the Bible but Why do I like but? Yeah, well if it's followed by God, it's the greatest of butts, but God, right? Though we were dead in trespasses and sins, but God by his grace saved us in Ephesians 2.
What are we saying Johnny? It's contrast but changes things Always that's what the word but does I always say this.
You never want to hear but after somebody gives you a compliment That's a really nice dress but You're a really good preacher but You don't want to hear the but you want them to stop right before the but Because you know, it changes things.
Well, that's what we say things are unlike So when we're dead in our trespasses and sins, but God being rich in mercy by his grace saved us That's the but and it's a beautiful Word in script.
What's that? It's a beautiful word Um There's also times where metaphors will show us things that are unlike One of the good ones that dr.
Hendricks mentions in the books or in the book is the the unrighteous judge remember the unrighteous judge Who Jesus uses as an example? He said if a woman came to him every day asking for justice in her situation And he just got tired of her and eventually gave in and gave her what she wanted gave her justice And he said if an unrighteous judge will give justice to one who calls upon him How much more will God the righteous judge? Give to those who seek after him that the point there is it's a contrast But it's a metaphoric contrast if you got a bad judge who's willing to do what's right How much more will the good judge do what's right? So you have there the the metaphor Another thing that we see sometimes in the unlike category is the is Irony now irony is hard to define Just ask Alanis Morissette You know, what's great about that there's not one piece of irony in the whole song That's what makes the song ironic I don't know if you even know what I'm talking about There was a song came out in the 90s called ironic everything in the song is not ironic Rain on your wedding day is unfortunate not ironic It's it's just not it's not ironic this the irony is millions of dollars of for a song called ironic that it contained No irony, that's the true irony, but there are some other places in scripture that we see I think one of the again, dr.
Hendricks points us out So if you've read this, I'm reminding you of things that you've read when when Jesus was Touched by the woman who wanted to touch the garment And he said who touched me and the disciples said what you mean who touched Everybody's touching And so dr.
Hendricks points out the fact that that that points us to something Jesus is somewhat being ironic there who touched me.
Everybody touched you.
Yeah, but somebody really touched me There's there's something special has happened Last one number six things that are true to life things that are true to life What does this passage tell us about reality For instance Noah in the flood What what does that tell us about reality? Well just from the just from the Outset It tells us something about God's World Being completely under his control.
I know that's a simple observation But God can make all the water in the world immediately fill the earth with no problem He can make rain from above water from beneath He can make the whole earth change in an instant and what does that tell us it tells us something about the God that we're reading about what aspects of the texts resonate with your Life a member we talked last time about Abraham taking his son his only son whom he loved To the mountain to sacrifice him What life principles is this passage relying upon? I think about the incident with David and Bathsheba He looked He took And he killed to cover it up.
He ain't the first and he won't be the last But that's what happened Dr.
Hendricks uses something he used this phrase.
I don't know how I don't love it, but I don't it's just not my favorite But it's his for it's his phrase Sanctified imagination Sanctified imagination meaning and I talked about this some last week Try to experience what the writer or the person in the narrative is experiencing at that moment Go back and read the story of the woman with the issue of blood as if you were that woman Go back and read the story of Genesis 22 and Abraham taking his son to Slay him and read it as if you were his son We always think of what we're we're Abraham think about Isaac asking the question father.
Where is the land? Try to look from a different perspective and see the things that are true to life Now I want to add a few things and then we'll take a break I want to add my my thoughts of observation because those were six from dr.
Hendricks Those are straight out of the book You can go back and increase your understanding of those if you haven't read them yet But here are some things that I think you should look for number one Grammatical construction, of course, I would say that because I'm a grammar nerd Grammatical construction Identifying nouns verbs Etc.
I've brought you a handout tonight.
I mentioned I was going to give this to you This is your parts of speech handout.
I don't know how many of you remember Grammar school and having to learn all these things, but these are very helpful and very important How many of you? By show of hands Ever had to diagram a sentence in school Well, yeah All right, so you give you ladies What Where I saw one other one or two others, okay now you diagrammed sentences for preaching have did you do it in school though? Okay, okay and Kara did you do it in school I saw your hand go up did you say you did it in school or Oh, oh, I'm sorry Jasmine.
I'm Now were you were you homeschooled Now I'm asking because you don't see it a lot anymore They don't even teach phonics anymore They don't teach cursive writing.
That's true, but they don't teach people.
They don't teach how to how to phonetically Determine sound they they they teach sight reading and again, there's there's arguments either way as to the reasoning but The point I'm trying to make is a lot of people don't know how to grammatically take a sentence apart and find its Constituent parts and figure out what it's saying based on that and that's what sentence diagramming helps you do I'm not a master of it I'm not going to pull up a sentence and try to show you how to do it But I do I have my own I have the Keith Foskey version of sentence diagramming Which is not at all the way the book says to do it, but it helps me But the things that I always look for first of all is I look for the verbs in the sentence as the verbs show action they show what's happening and So I start out with the verbs and make those notes and then I go back and I say who is it happening to that's the nouns the people involved and That's again all part of the grammatical construction And again, it's why a solid Bible translation is important because if you're doing sentence diagramming in the message I Mean you you may be diagramming a sentence that's unnecessarily Elaborate or is just a little off so grammatical construction Yeah, hey and again, you know the bed is as good as you can get to a a solid literal translation Is this helpful? All right The Second thing I want to give you might again.
These are all my thoughts.
This is added to the book These are pastor Keith's helpful hints first is got grammatical construction number two Translation differences and choices translation differences and choices so if I am looking at a passage I Look at the passage in another translation after I have broken it down in the Translation that I'm using I use ESV because what I preach out of but after I have broken it down rewritten it use I rewrite it.
I take the passage.
I write it out word for word on a blank sheet of paper Emphasizing certain things outlining it as I go and then I say, okay now What does it say in the New American Standard Bible or in the King James Bible or in the new English? Translation, which is one of my favorites I pull another translation out immediately because there are going to be differences that the translators make and that will tell me if there is any Underlying original language issue that I might want to research Because if they are using two words that are really different I want to go back and find out why if they're using words that are a sentence structure that is entirely different I want to go back and find out why and so Translational differences help me in observation.
I observed the first text that I'm using but then okay How is it? How is this different? I usually like I said when I'm preaching Sunday morning I usually use about six to eight different translations for my study After I've started with ESV, I just pull out the passages and other translations read them tear them apart How is this different and why? That's a big and again, I'm not interpreting anything just observing what are the differences and why If you can observe the original languages, that's if you can't there's tools but that that that's helpful there, too a third thing to consider an observation parallel passages Parallel passages are passages where the same Narrative or the same truth has been stated Elsewhere Has this story been told elsewhere does this subject come up in other passages? Is there a need to harmonize the account? I remember it was in this it was in it was in this room when it when it used to be a different room probably eight years ago on Resurrection Sunday morning we had guests come and they came into my Sunday school class I was teaching Sunday school and Resurrection Sunday morning Easter Sunday morning I was teaching the narrative account of the resurrection and I showed how in the four Gospels There are differences between Matthew Mark Luke and John's account one mentions a single angel one mentions multiple angels One mentions the angel outside the tomb one mentions the angel inside the tomb one mentions Mary Some other ladies going and coming back another mentions Peter and John coming and Mary coming later and seeing Jesus, you know, there's all there's there's four different resurrection narratives and I was explaining in that class that This is where the role of harmonization comes in harmonizing these four different narratives finding where the where the points of Agreement are all of them agree that women saw the empty tomb first all of them agree There were angels there all of them agree Peter and John were there later All of them agree Mary Magdalene was among them.
Those are the points of agreement.
Where do they disagree? How many angels were there were they on the outside were they on the inside? These are the points of disagreement where how can we harmonize the disagreements and I went through all that, you know The 45-minute class I didn't have a long time But at the end of it, one of the guys had been church in years.
He comes up to me.
He goes I didn't know this.
I Never heard this in my life And I said you got a Bible.
I didn't say it in my heart.
I was like, can you read? I mean, you can't yeah, I'm trying to be ugly.
It's not interpreting anything.
You're just observing.
There's four different narratives Harmonization is putting those four together.
That's part of the interpretive process, but you recognizing it is part of observation And if you've never recognized there's four different narratives that that means you probably haven't read very closely I'm not insulting him to say That's part of observation Did you know that Jesus fed 4,000 people as well as 5,000 Happened two different times a lot of people never know about the second time because they read it as if it's all one of it happened twice So These are Observations again not interpreting anything just making note This is different than that or this is the same as that or this is saying something along the same lines as that All right.
I've taken a little extra time.
I'm sorry.
I wanted to do a practical observation skill of Matthew 16 I'm gonna have you look at it and then I'll give you a break.
I promise I'll give you a break I open up your Bibles in Matthew 16 We're gonna ask these questions very quickly So I haven't got to preach in a few days, so I'm a little I'm excited here I love to love to do this.
So forgive me.
I know you guys want a break though, and I need a break, too All right, Matthew 16 verses 13 to 20 I'm just gonna read it Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi He asked his disciples who do people say that the Son of Man is And they said some say John the Baptist others say Elijah and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets He said to them, but who do you say that I am? Simon Peter replied you were Christ.
You are the Christ the Son of the Living God Jesus answered him blessed are you Simon Barjona for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you But my father who is in heaven and I tell you you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
I Will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven Then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ.
All right, stop right there Very quickly.
Let's ask the sixth question.
What's emphasized? Huh? Yeah, the identity of Christ Peter's confession I would say is the is really the emphasis All right, what's repeated? I'll get out just for time's sake out.
Who do you say? Who do they say? So Jesus is asking the question.
He's trying to get them to answer What's related there's a relationship of questions going back and forth Who do you say who do I who do they say who do you say and then he He's asking questions back and forth to them.
What is alike in this narrative? This is a huge one actually leads to a big difficulty in interpretation.
What's the major thing that's alike in this passage? Peter's the rock.
That's the question that that's that and you're you're on the you're on it the question of the rock and the word Peter because Peter is The word for rock and he says on this rock.
I'll build my church therefore the Roman Catholic Church comes along later and says the whole church is built not on Christ, but upon Peter who's the first and most important Apostle and the Popes sit on the Cathedral the seat of Peter as they continue the work of Peter as the universal head of the church and They use this passage as their foundation Peter is the rock All right.
Now again, we're not interpreting.
We're just the the rock and the foundation on the rock is Alike, so we have to figure out how that what that means What is unlike? Well, we see the word but but who do you say I am that's the unlike What is true to life? I would say this the uncertainty about Who Jesus is and that's still the same You go out in the world today and you say who is Jesus you get you ask five people you get five different answers So this same question who do people say I am is still a good question today Then again, you could deal with grammar.
You could identify pronouns conjunctions how the verbs are being used You could look at different translations And see the differences and you could look at the parallel passages, which is marked 8 27 to 30 and Luke 9 18 to 20 All right So again, just that we don't have time to get into it But just that one passage is an example of using all those questions not really interpreting anything Just pulling out all that you can about what is written.
All right, let's take a break and Try to maybe keep it at 10 minutes.
We'll come back for the last 10 minutes.
Maybe I'll ask for an extra five from you Are you enjoying this class We could do Greek I can teach I could teach entry to intro to biblical Greek and If you're interested Well, tell you what, maybe next time I'll bring a sheet of paper you write down your your what you think and Then cast lots.
Yes.
I like it.
All right.
Well, let's open our workbooks and And Let's see what everybody did for their homework with a just a few minutes that we have left We'll let a few of you share what observations you have made All right, how many of you? Have at least one that you did Okay.
All right Did anyone do lesson 28? All right Do you want to share what you what you The passage A high standard.
Yes, the the Proverbs 31 woman.
Yeah, certainly does.
Yeah, absolutely Absolutely.
Anybody else do number 28? Yes, ma'am.
Did you have any thoughts? Yeah praise is a difficult thing to receive in it what's that right? Yes Absolutely and and it's I you know A lot of people were very kind to me and say nice things and I don't often know how to receive it Because you don't want to say yeah, I agree.
I'm great But you don't want to have false humility either, you know a lot of times it's oh I'm just trash I'm garbage I don't you know, you don't if God is helping somebody through me I want to recognize what God is doing and thank him for it and let them know that it's God doing it You know and and so yeah, it's it can be hard though to take that praise I've often thought of the Proverbs 31 woman because again, you know, it's often brought up on Mother's Day But it seems as if there's just so much more to it than just hey, let's praise moms once a year it really does speak to the value of That that position in life the position of a woman and in the life of a man and that's again the Position he is he is to her more precious than fine jewels And I I can speak from experience That is true Yeah, hey All right.
Did anyone do less than 30? Yes, ma'am I'm having to find it here.
Give me just a second.
This was Yeah Be strong and courageous and he's telling himself.
That's good.
That's a good point.
Anyone else do number 30? Okay, all right, how about 32 anybody Okay, nobody's interested in the book of Numbers that's fine Numbers was I tell Numbers was my first Class in seminary.
It was the first class that was available and I wanted to start seminary immediately and they said well We're doing a survey of the book of Numbers sign me up And so I have a special place in my heart for numbers.
I was the first book I really invested that level of study in and really just diving into and and My first sermon I ever preached in homiletics class was the story of Balaam and the donkey that spoke which comes from the book of Numbers and And I just remember thinking what an amazing book.
This is it's got a talking donkey It was just so just out of just amazing a reality I know it's a flying talking And that's and I've often wondered is that where You know because I don't know any other stories of antiquity with a talking donkey But you know that movie had all the other Mythical characters are they saying that's a mythical thing You know not again.
I'm not attacking Shrek or anything But I'm just saying are they are they are they placing the book of Numbers alongside of other myths? You know, of course the the modern man would say that is a myth didn't happen Uh 34 who did there they may yes, sir, which what you got for a snack anything? Yeah Awesome Yeah, yeah Awesome very good 36 That is also the book of Numbers My next class is going to be a survey of the book of Numbers Yeah, once you pass the numbers.
Yeah, I did think and one other option for a class though was a survey of Romans But you just finished preaching Romans And only in my reasoning again thought not to change subject back to what we're just talking about but Trying to look at diversifying subject matter so far.
We have had one class.
That's ministry practical skills That was a history.
This class is considered to be a class in doctrinal studies because how to study Scripture New Testament Old Testament are also courses that there's fourfold courses in the seminary.
There's NPS There's DS.
There's OT and NT and OT and interior New Testament Old Testament.
So at least once a year We should probably do a survey of a book an eight-week survey.
It's not the same as a verse-by-verse Exposition it's more of an overview and Understanding the constituent parts of the book So it would certainly be it would certainly go along with everything you did and you're what two or three years that you did Preaching through it.
So so that was just another idea I had was teaching teaching eight weeks on Paul's letter to the Romans.
So if you like that idea, let me know All right, because nobody likes numbers apparently All right, 38, all right brother you did 38 what did And That amazing and to just just thinking of things that are true to life The atheist claims God doesn't exist and If you ask most atheists if you knew God did exist for certain Would you worship him? They still say no And I've got that I've got video evidence of that speaking to atheists directly that would say I don't believe God exists If you knew that he existed for sure, would you worship him? No You say see the problem is not whether or not he exists The problem is in the heart and again even with Solomon who was visited by him twice who knew without Doubt of his existence and his commandment yet still disobeyed Adam Eve walked with God and yet Has he truly said he has not you will not surely die All right.
The the role of the devil in our life is to bring in those Doubts.
Well, we are over time.
Does anybody have anything that they want to ask or share before we? close Thank you for giving me a few extra minutes tonight as you know, I was really tired from today So I kind of went a little long But next week we move from observations to interpretations.
Not just what does it say? But what does it mean and we're going to look at some of the hardest? Passages of scripture and I'm going to show you ones that still make me go.
I don't know Because we we I don't think we're necessarily have to know it all but we can know what it says Even if we're not 100% sure exactly what it means.
Can we pray as we close? Father thank you for this time to study I thank you for all of those who have come tonight ready and wanting to To dig deep and learn more about you and about your word Lord.