What is Hermeneutics?

Good evening We are back with a new semester and sovereign grace Academy this semester this term rather we are going to be looking at an introduction to hermeneutics and Hopefully all of you know what that means, but if you don't you will in due time We're going to discuss what hermeneutics is and how we are going to be learning about it in just a few moments But before we do that, let's begin with a word of prayer Our father and our God we so thank you for this opportunity to come together and to study together I pray Lord that you would bless those who are here Lord that you would bless them with Diligence in their study diligence in their work Father most of all that we would draw closer to you through a better understanding of your word Pray Lord that we would also Just be honest about our own failings when it comes to scripture and study For oftentimes this is an area where so many of us Give it a backseat to other areas of life that we find to Prioritize in front of and Lord.

I pray that this this time of study might help us to reprioritize Where the scripture is in our life and give it its first place as it is due Pray all this Lord in Jesus name and for his sake Amen All right.

Well again, I want to welcome you all this is a little smaller first night normally on the first night we have more folks, but And here's what normally happens.

We start out with a bigger group and then it whittles down And by the time we ended the last class we ended with only I think Like eight or ten in the last the last class that just happens It's just natural as the work as the weeks go on the work gets harder and folks tend to drop out But I'm hoping you guys will stick with this whole course of all the the eight core Subjects that we deal with in Sovereign Grace Academy.

I would say this is the most foundational That's why we put it in the first place.

This is the starting of a new year And by that I mean, it's not a starting of a new year From a calendar perspective, but we are a two-year program and we just finished last term The end of the two-year program So this starts the new year the new program over the new two years And so this eight weeks, this is the reason why we put this first is because this is this is Foundational its primary and so this is an important class and I'm glad that you're here Let me give you an idea what we're going to do tonight up on the board here.

You'll see on my screen I've got the outline and this is the outline of what we're going to do We're going to the title of tonight's class is what is hermeneutics? We're going to first discuss the syllabus if you don't have a copy.

I have copies over here Please grab one that way you'll be able to walk through it with me After that, we're going to ask the question why people are we're going to look at the subject of why people do not study Then we're going to ask the question.

Why should we study the Bible and Then we're going to take our break.

We always take a break at the hour mark for you guys to Get a sip of water use restroom, whatever and then at the hour mark after we take the break We'll come back and we're going to overview the process So the last 20 minutes of tonight will be very important because that last 20 minutes Will be where we overview what we're going to do for the next seven weeks after tonight So with the syllabus in hand everybody got it All right, let's look at the syllabus together Our overview and objections are simple this course will aid the student in building a solid foundation for proper Bible study it will cover methods for observing and investigating a text of scripture applying Appropriate hermeneutical and exegetical principles you will you will learn the definitions of those words tonight if you don't already know them You will be applying the appropriate hermeneutical and exegetical principles and arriving at a correct understanding and application of the text what you are required to have as a Student you are required to have a copy of the Bible with you a digital copy is allowed So if you have a digital Bible, that is okay You're required to have a copy of living by the book the art and science of reading the Bible by dr.

Howard Hendricks and Again, if you have a digital copy as long as you can read it, I don't care But make sure you have your book now the workbook living by the book workbook is Would be harder to have a digital copy you can do it, but you have to write your notes on a notepad So this is what I did I took my workbook and I cut it out cut the binding off and I put it in a three hole binder that way I can lay it flat and Write in it because a book that has a binding sometimes it's hard to write in so if you Want to do something like this you're welcome to do that depending on how you want to handle it But everybody needs to have written work for your workbook Don't just come in and and tell me what you thought of the workbook I want to see it I want to see what you wrote so however you do it whether you have the digital copy and you write on a notepad Whatever you need to keep a copy of what you do from the workbook and each week is different Some weeks is heavy on the workbook some weeks heavy on the textbook, so it's it's going to be different every week It's in the syllabus what you're going to do The other book that is not on the syllabus, but I just want to mention it is This book by Robert Plummer, it's called 40 questions about interpreting the Bible This is just an additional resource if you are interested He digs into things like how to interpret Psalms how to interpret Proverbs things like that a little more Specific than then what we're doing kind of getting into the nitty-gritty And this is a little a little step beyond the textbook But it certainly would be a good book and and brother Mike Collier also has a book that he recommended I don't remember the name right off, and I don't have the copy, but I'll have that for you Remind me after the break I'll look it up during the break, and there's one other book that you can you could look up if you're interested Now I don't sell I don't sell it you have to order it on Amazon, but I'll put it right here So during the break you're welcome to take a picture of it or whatever yeah, I got I bought it off Amazon I think it was like 15 bucks Yeah, that one actually I think is used at Southern Seminary that they have a series of books called 40 question books like 40 questions on God's law 40 questions on this 40 questions on that so that's part of a series of 40 questions books that are available and are all very good Okay I'm not going to read everything on the syllabus.

I just want to mention your academic character.

Please do not cheat especially on your paper It is It is something that is I'm encouraging you now to Not plagiarize Write your own work do your own work Your reading assignments are 25% of your grade.

How do I know you did them well? We're going to have discussions in class.

That's typically how I know Notebook assignment is 25% what that means is and that this time will include your workbook Whatever writing you do at the end of the semester if you want credit I just walk around and I do a notebook check.

I just look and see what you make sure you did it The most important thing is your research project That's 50% of your grade The research project will be assigned during the last class and you will have one month to complete it some of you are still working On the one from last semester because you had We still got three more weeks before that one's due This is the assignment for this class each student is going to be provided a section of scripture Which you will receive at the last class you're going to be required to give a hermeneutical analysis of it You'll understand what that means further in the class So you'll be given a passage to do a study on and and that'll be your your research project look at the back page for me very quickly you'll notice in the course schedule For today's date the assigned reading there was an assigned reading for tonight's class But I did post on the Sovereign Grace page I said it's excused because many of you don't already have your books So if you did not do the reading for tonight, please add it to the reading for next week it's not a lot, but just just include it for the reading for next week and Last time we did this course which is almost two years ago I asked everybody to bring in ten observations from Romans 12 1 & 2 and That would What did you do it? If you've are if you did it great, we're going to talk about it after the break.

We're going to talk about it Yeah Yeah, well here's the thing I wanted ten tonight because by the end of the course I want 20 more Yeah, so so so if you got 24 only give me 10 because you're gonna want to hold those others for later Yeah, so that you're going to find that in this course almost the entire course focuses on the art of observation how to observe and draw out of a text what is there and We'll talk more about that later, but that's that is we'll talk about the ten observations after the break But as you see the outline the outline that's in the syllabus will be the outline.

That's on the board every week like tonight Why why people don't study? Why study the Bible and then overview of the process every week? That's going to be the same so if you if you want to know what we're doing in class just look at the syllabus It's right there.

I stick to this that I write it so I stick to it very very Very specifically all right that good any questions on the syllabus All right, let's move on let's go to our introduction What is hermeneutics? Hermeneutics is the art and science of interpretation The name hermeneutics comes from the name Hermes Hermes was the messenger of the gods in Greek mythology Now sometimes when I tell people that they get if they get upset because they say wait a minute Are you are you bringing Greek mythology into our faith? No not at all It's just where the term comes from the Greek term Hermes Was it was the name of the God who brought the message from the gods to the people therefore the term hermeneutics? simply means the Bringing of the message and hermeneutics is about this is the key number two or the second dot on the board Hermeneutics is about relaying the message of the author to the audience That's what we want to do We want to know what God Says in his word, and we want to have that message go from him to us and understand it properly some people and I Hate to even say this some people don't really care If they get God's message across they want to put their message Across and they want to find a Bible verse that agrees with them You get you know I'm saying right People want to they want to have an opinion and find a Bible verse to go with it That is the opposite of hermeneutics hermeneutics is about getting the message from the author to the audience getting the message from God to us not Getting our opinions affirmed by the Bible, which is what a lot of people want to do biblical hermeneutics biblical hermeneutics is an application of 2nd Timothy 215 You don't have to open your Bible.

I'll put it on the screen for you.

I like the King James Translation of this because it begins with the word study But in a lot of other translations such as the English Standard Version or the New American Standard Version it begins with the phrase do Your best which is what the idea of study is but the King James Version begins with the idea study to show thyself approved unto God a Workman that needeth not to be ashamed rightly dividing the word of truth This is the heart of this whole series.

This is the heart of the whole Hermeneutical class our goal is to do that last line right there our goal is to rightly divide the word of truth and Here's the thing about this passage Because this was actually printed above the door of our seminary when I when I was in seminary It was it was it was embossed in like a brass plate and screwed above the door So when you were walking you saw it Study to show thyself approved unto God a workman that need that needeth not to be ashamed Rightly dividing the word of truth and what? Dr.

Stanford Cruz one of my professors would say to us often He said if it can be rightly divided it can be wrongly divided If it can be if it can be understood correctly it could be understood incorrectly and many men and women are dreadfully responsible for wrongly dividing the word our job as Christians and Bible students is to rightly divide the word you understand the great Responsibility that you have most people like to talk about their rights But they don't like to talk about the responsibilities that go with those rights like it's my right to drive a car down the road But it's my responsibility to make sure I drive that car safely, and I don't hurt anyone else It's my right to own a firearm But it's also my responsibility that I keep that firearm safe And I don't it doesn't fall into the hands of a child or to a person that might hurt someone right so I have a right and a responsibility Well when it comes to the Word of God I have a right the right to own a Bible that's something that not every Christian in history has had just yesterday We celebrated the death of William Tyndale William Tyndale was called God's outlaw.

Do you know what his crime was? Publishing the Bible in English translating it in English so that the English-speaking world could read the Bible So we are a blessed generation.

We have the right to own a Bible We have a right to study the Bible, but we have a responsibility to do it correctly If I don't be careful, I'll start preaching so you guys get that's the heart of this class this verse Is the heart of what we're doing to seek to rightly divide the Word of God all right so part one Why don't people study? Why don't people study the Bible well if you have? Read this week's reading and I know as I said you're excused if you didn't but if you had the opportunity to get the book And read this week's reading you will recognize that I'm pulling this right out of the book because this is how dr.

Hendricks starts the book he asked the question why don't people study and he gives five Reasons why people don't study now he does this a lot longer than I'm going to and if you haven't read it I encourage you go back He'll flush out some some of this that I'm not going to get to talk about but here are the things that he says That are very common reasons people don't study the Bible number one He says a failure to recognize the relevance of the Bible is that true That people don't don't understand why it matters.

I mean if you were going to be a welder You would understand the relevance of reading your manuals and going to class and studying if you were going to be a Doctor you would understand the importance of going to medical school and getting your degree and doing all that People understand the relevance of what they're doing if it matters to them But oftentimes you say why aren't you studying your Bible, and they say well It just they won't say it this way, but at the end of the day.

It's real It just doesn't seem like it matters It doesn't seem relevant now.

They won't again.

I don't might be say it that that abruptly it doesn't matter But they don't see why it matters.

They don't see that and this is what people say I need something that works They don't understand how powerful the Bible is and how important it is remember one time in my family We had a family member who was Struggling with a problem, and it was a pretty serious problem want to go too far into it but I remember saying this person needs the gospel this person needs to be saved and And one of my family members said no we need to take care of their problem first they can do religion later That was their answer.

They said no we need to deal with the problem Then they can get they can get right with God later.

They can get religion later See they didn't understand the relevance to the condition of the person They didn't understand the relevance of the word to that person No, they can do that later How dangerous thinking that is that's often what we do that.

I'll get to that later.

I'll be a Bible student when I retire Because right now.

I'm just tired So I'll be a good Bible student when I When the kids move out or I'll be a good Bible student you know all these different things right we come up with reasons And we you know these are our reasoning whatever So the relevance of the Bible, that's that's that's important number two feeling inadequate How many people I mean how many of how many of us have said you know what I'm just I don't know Greek in Hebrew I I mean who am I to get out there and do this.

I just listened to the preacher He seems to know all that stuff.

I'll let him tell me what to think Now you guys might think that's crazy talk, but I'm telling us what people think People say I don't need why do I need to study the Bible? He's gonna.

Tell me what it says every week Or they'll say I just don't know how to do it Again that's a reason why people say I I just I'm inadequate for the task Number three they fear too much time is going to need to be invested This Past week was g3 G3 is a big Christian conference that goes on in Atlanta Paul Washer John MacArthur James White you know the the heavy hitters the votey bockham all those guys were there and and Paul Washer said something that nailed everybody to the wall During his sermon I mean he does that a lot Paul's got a way about him, and he said compare your screen time to your prayer time So compare your screen and I and everybody went dope yeah, everybody kind of sat back because that's the truth Most of us have much more time than we realize if we eliminated the things that don't matter And if we prioritize the things that do All right, and and that's everybody that's not just you know me or you it's everybody if we if we took the Importance of what this is that we're dealing with Seriously, we would we would certainly find the time number four Some people find the difficulties of the Bible to be too problematic and by that What dr.

Hendricks is saying some people have some real struggles with what the Bible says so it's hard for them to dig in because they don't know how to they don't they just don't know how to deal with things like burning bushes and Parting seas and and Raising men from the dead.

They just they have some difficulty with their faith And one of the things that the Bible does it confronts our unbelief doesn't it I? Mean my one of my favorite passages is in the Gospel of Mark where that man brought his son to Jesus and Jesus said, you know He said can you heal my son and he said, you know, if you believe and he says I believe what help might help my unbelief Right, and when we go to the Bible oftentimes, we're confronted face to face with things that are hard too hard to deal with You know, the truth of the matter is this is in this is in dr.

Howard Hendricks book But it's also I've heard this for years and I believe it's true It says sin will keep us from the Bible or the Bible will keep us from sin I think I said that backwards the Bible will keep us from sin or sin will keep us from the Bible and That's the truth when I'm when I'm When I'm struggling to want to be in the Bible, it's usually because there's stuff there.

I don't want to see Stuff I don't really want to be confronted with I mean it is So finding the difficulties of the Bible problematic and number five Forgetting that the experience should be joyful And he tells a story in the book about his wife when they were dating I Think it's in the same chapter as this portion.

He says that when they were dating she would send him love letters and He never once Said oh man another love letter.

I can't I and you know what I'm gonna do I'm gonna read I'm gonna read a sentence and I'm gonna put it down and I'll read another sentence Tomorrow and then and I'll wait and he said no I devoured the whole letter Right then because they lived apart.

They were far apart and that was all he had You know, they didn't have Facebook and Instagram So they had these letters and he would read because he loved her and he devoured it and he said and it was a joy He said sometimes he would fold it up put it under his pillow at night So that if he woke up in the middle of night, he could pull the letter out and read it, you know Reading the Bible should be a joy And it can be a joy but oftentimes we We make it out to be a chore Putting it on the list of things that just has to get done like brushing our teeth and feeding the dog Yeah What are some other reasons that y'all can think of that that people don't study the Bible? Anything off top of your head Some people don't like to read III, you know what I think that's a pretty fair observation Daisy some people just don't like to read Okay, I Don't have a good answer for that one other than One of the things we're going to talk about in this class is how to be a better reader Because that's actually part of observation is learning to read better We'll learn about that starting more next week.

But that's a good that's a good one.

Anybody else People start off with like the little hardback King James Bible.

It's in the pew small print no notes or nothing and they're trying to dive into something difficult and they have You know the language of the Bible the bees and mouths and they come to a difficult passage and there's nothing to explain the historical context You know, what's funny is he actually talks in the book about choosing a Bible He says it's it's an important to choose a Bible with letters big enough that you can read that you don't feel like you're having to fight to read it and you know margins big enough to make notes in it and and a translation that is useful or not useful, but a translation that is It works for you, you know and we and we're going to talk later in this class about the fact that there are better translations than others You know, there are translations that are more literal There are some translations that are very paraphrastic and little almost kind of way out there But at the same time you're right if somebody if somebody only picked up The King James Bible and it was a little one with little tiny writing and they were like, oh I got it I got to spend my life devoted to this.

It'd be really tough Some of it's more difficult.

Yeah Numbers and Deuteronomy or some of the prophetic stuff with all the imagery and stuff.

It's like really like Yeah, where do most people? Where do most people in their Bible reading for the year? At the begats I always joke I said to begats get a lot of people out of the Bible because they get to like Genesis 5 Genesis 11 this one begat that one and they can't even say the name so they're sitting there, you know Reading it and it does it can throw them off.

So for sure Now now that I am I am a big fan of audible I'm our Audio audio Bibles and I do think that they can be useful for sure Any other I have two more but I'm gonna add two to his anybody else have any before I do Like Yeah, I think that kind of almost kind of goes with number four like I was saying something's keeping us from it So, you know something becomes problematic maybe something that reached into our life and made it harder.

Yeah, I can see that Yeah, I think yeah, that's what we go going back to number two.

Yeah, they feel inadequate.

They don't get it What do you think Ross? And just it puts me to sleep or it just Yeah It makes my day go better it really does Do read I meditated on the next day or whatever it need be it's just one of those things my brain doesn't shut down And I and I do want to make a point and this is not in any in any well say and not in any way to Diminish what you guys are talking about But notice we're talking to kind of about two different things because you guys are done about reading the Bible I'm done about studying the Bible and there is a difference Because a lot of people read devotionally like I do I read devotionally every day of it every day I read a certain amount of chapters and I do those same chapters every day for a month right now I'm doing Revelation 1 to 7 every day.

I wake up Revelation 1 to 7 and I do that for 30 days the next month I'll do Revelation 8 to 14 and I'll do that through the book and It's just a way to to it because repetition is the key to learning So so I just do the same chapters every day for seven days I've been for 30 days Then I turn around and do that it takes about five years to go through the whole Bible that way But if you do that, you'll have been through the Bible 30 times in five years So you just do it over and over kind of pick seven eight chapters a day and do that So it's a but but even that's not really what I would say is studying Yeah, because a lot of people they have like something like our daily bread which I call our daily crumb because because it's just it's just One verse and then a little story to go with it and it's really not studying the passage It's just using the passage almost like a springboard to some other To something else, you know, so so so just to keep in mind There are many reasons why people say I can't study don't want to study or don't have time to study But here's the two that I think that a lot of people don't think about Number one is we have seen a rise in the last 30 years and what's called easy believism Easy believism is the idea that the only thing it takes to be a Christian is to raise your hand walk the aisle get baptized Whatever your church does to get you in you get your ticket punched Your your non Hill ticket is punched and that's all and that's all it means to be a Christian Maybe show up around Christmas and Easter, you know You got your CEOs Christmas Easter only people folks.

They only come to church a couple times a year because it doesn't matter so there's a This rise in easy believism because everybody saved just in case you don't know it just go to a funeral Everybody saved I posted this on Facebook yesterday.

It was a picture of a person standing next to a grave Oh, they're in a better place and then underneath it they were in hell Like not not always they're not always in a better place.

We're always convinced they are But they're not Yeah, it does.

It makes us feel a lot better But this rise in easy believism has given rise to the second one to an anti intellectualism We have in the church and anti intellectualism.

We're more concerned with how we feel than what we think we're more concerned with how we feel than what the Bible says and The feelings have overrun the facts and It really has changed the way people look at the Bible because as I just said talking about our daily bread What do people do people look to the Bible as if it's a fortune cookie? I? Want to find a line or I want to find a sentence that gives me Some kind of motivation.

I want I want Jesus to be my Tony Robbins If you don't know who Tony Robbins is he's a big Motivational speaker and I want the Apostle Paul to be Tony Robbins.

I want him to be a motivational speaker So I'm gonna pull out, you know Philippians 4 I can do all things through Christ and I don't know anything about the context But I'm gonna that's gonna be my verse, right? And I'm gonna put that on my whatever and I'm gonna or ask for me in my house We will serve the Lord nothing wrong with that verse and my mom has it in her house.

So don't think I'm necessarily Giving it a hard time that you would do something like that.

But the point is those things become more like slogans than scripture and We treat the scripture as like I said like a fortune cookie rather than a Book that is worthy to be studied and and I'll say this about anti intellectual ism anti intellectual ism is Relatively recent in church history The church was once the source for art for literature and even scientific inquiry But now we engage in the massive Dumbing down of our material and if you don't believe it just go look at Sunday school material, especially stuff produced for women And I and I say that ladies the stuff that's produced for women in Sunday school.

It's it's Very trite.

I know that's good talking my wife the stuff that's usually produced and is out There is not very good at all because it's it's all emotionalism.

There's no theology in it It's it's typically hot garbage and yet we devour it We give our kids Here's I wrote this I said the same teenagers who we expect to learn calculus in high school We expect them to color pictures of Noah's Ark in Sunday school That's part of the problem is we have removed Intellectualism from the faith and what we've done is created a massive dumbing down of the faith Therefore why study doesn't matter.

I don't need to study.

I got Jesus in my heart But he's in your brain See a lot of you ever heard the whole 18-inch difference people say he's in your mind, but not in your heart I think we've gone the other way Everybody's got Jesus in their heart, but nobody knows nothing and it's impossible to worship a God.

You don't know Romans chapter 12 This will be the passage we look at later and we will come back later and look at it But for now Romans chapter 12 before we do the ten observations.

I want you to just look at one thing I've got it underlined I Appeal to you therefore brethren by the mercies of God present your bodies a living sacrifice Holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship Terrible translation.

I hate the word spiritual worship should be reasonable service, but we'll talk about that later Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your what? mind That by testing you may discern what is the will of God what is good and acceptable and perfect What is the title of RC Sproul's radio show? Renewing your mind It comes right from this verse what was RC Sproul might mainly known for in Christian teaching a High bar of intellectualism.

He didn't dumb it down now.

He made it understandable, but he didn't dumb it down Sometimes understandable That's that has always been my goal as a teacher To never ever dumb anything down but to make things that are hard to understand as as easy to understand as possible But not dumb it down Not to feed God's children baby food That's our that's the goal that should be the goal Praise God.

I think you I think Thank you for saying that but it's it's just that's the goal, right? And I and I learned it from men like MacArthur Sproul guys like that because they never did they never dumbed it down They they preach the truth the hard truth and the whole truth So that's you know when people don't study I think there's a lot of reasons why but most of why they just at the end of the day It's not necessary.

I got Jesus in my heart, you know It's not it's not a priority So we've asked why people don't study now, let's look at the next part why study why study the Bible Well, there's a lot of reasons but I'm gonna we're going to look at the three from the book then we'll ask Maybe have you guys do some input as well that the first two from the book sort of go together But so you'll see they sort of some overlap on these but there's three Bible verses if you want to If you want to I don't have them on the board for you.

So you'll have to look these up.

In fact James look up first Peter 2 to Charlie look up Hebrews Is it Charles Chuck I'm sorry Chuck Chuck Hebrews 5 11 to 14 if you would and Ross do 2nd Timothy 3 16 17 that one many people would probably quote Sorry Chuck my bad Yeah, and that's what made me think I know your name I just it threw me off All right, so the three reasons why we need to study number one it is essential to our spiritual growth James read first Peter 2 to Yep, thank you.

That's it like newborn infants long for the pure spiritual milk It's interesting because Peter uses a different analogy than Paul Paul talks about milk being for children and meat being for adults And so with Paul milk is somewhat of a negative thing But in Peter's analogy, he's using milk as that pure spiritual milk that we should long for to grow How does a child grow he grows by imbibing the milk? You know what if you take a child and you don't give them the milk the mother's milk The child's not going to grow eventually he's going to die so he's got to get that milk to grow and and so if you've got a if you if you're a Christian and You've been in the church for any length of time and you don't feel yourself growing If they may not people come to me sometimes, you know, I just don't feel like I'm growing in the Lord My first question to them is how is your Bible study? How is your prayer life if you don't feel like you're growing in the Lord? Let's talk about why that is Where are you in the word? Where are you in your your closet with the Lord and So one of the first the first reason why we should study is because there's no other way to grow You're not going to grow by osmosis You can't put the Bible on your head and hope it sinks in I know you ever seen that Garfield comic where Garfield said I'm learning by osmosis and he put the book on his head thinking, you know Maybe it'll just seep in it doesn't work that way You got to open it to get something out of it Number two, it's essential to spiritual maturity.

You might say well that sounds like the same thing Yes, but not it's it's not only essential to grow.

It's a it's essential to be mature So Hebrews 5 The basic principles of the oracle of God you need milk not solid food For everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness Since he is a child, but solid food is for the mature for those who have their powers of discernment trained by the constant practice to distinguish Notice there's the analogy I said earlier it was Paul.

It's a writer of Hebrews But the writer of Hebrews makes the analogy between what between milk and solid food you grow on the milk but eventually the goal is to Graduate the eventually the go, you know, I I don't still drink milk for dinner.

I get home tonight I'm gonna have a steak according to my wife That's testify she says she had one for me I'm excited I get to go home to a steak That's but but but if I was a six-month-old I wouldn't have that steak I wouldn't have no teeth to chew it up with and I wouldn't have no digestive system that would allow it Yeah, so you got it you got to be careful what you give to the babies but we our goal is not to stay in the in the Immaturity see some people misunderstand this you remember the verse where we were told to have the faith of a child Some people misunderstand that to mean that we should have a childish faith there's a difference between a child like faith and a childish faith a Child like faith is like my my three-year-old She's four now She will get up on top of the couch and jump at me with no fear because she knows I'll catch her That's a child like faith But a childish faith is a person who's been in the church 20 30 years and Still don't know the rudimentary teachings of the Bible That's a childish faith and that's different and it's and it's and and it's common.

It's so Common and again tonight isn't about stepping on toes or kicking up and kicking shins, but it's to hopefully inspire Eight weeks of this eight weeks of diving in because we need to all right last one number Three Ross.

I know we know this passage, but read it to us anyway second Timothy talks about spiritual effectiveness equipped for every good work I remember years ago I Had a young man he said I Want to I want to be a pastor I feel like God's calling me to be a pastor and I said Okay, and we talked for a few minutes about Why he why he believed that and I said well, here's here's my best advice I can give you is you need to you need to devote yourself to the study of the word and and learn theology And he goes oh, I hate theology.

I Had to contain myself Because when he said I want to be a pastor, but I hate theology That's like saying I want to be a welder, but I hate hot stuff You know I think that's like saying I won't be a scuba diver, but I can't swim.

It just don't fly you say you want to be a pastor, but you hate theology that don't that don't work and This passage tells us how to be a theologian All Scripture is given by inspiration of God is given It's God breathed And it is profitable for reproof for correction for training and righteousness that the man of God may be what equipped You cannot be equipped for the ministry.

You can't be equipped for anything in this life that matters apart from the Word of God fact as As that poem goes I know you've probably heard it.

It's often read at funerals I Can't even say it now It's at once when this life has passed only what's done for Christ will last I forget exactly how it's worded But basically it says only what's done for Christ will really be what matters So when it says equipped for every good work.

That's what it's talking about It's talking about equipping us for this life and doing what and when it says man of God.

It's not eliminating ladies It's just specifically saying this is this is how you are equipped for life and If you want to be effective in your spiritual life, it comes from knowing and studying the Word of God we should Study the Bible Wait, I want to go back one any other any other reasons any other reason before I get to my next point Any other reasons why we should study we say it's essential for spiritual growth.

It's essential for spiritual maturity It's essential for spiritual effectiveness anything else It's essential to be able to share the gospel, okay, that's I can get down with that.

Yes, sir Yeah, and that goes back to the to the Hebrews passage it says you have your powers of discernment trained by constant practice Practice what practice go into the word and and having yourself challenged by it and constantly being Renewed by that.

Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely Anybody else anything else? Oftentimes, that's true I don't laugh at you.

I laugh with you because I I mean the truth of the matter is, you know, I think Yeah, well it's like Isaiah right Isaiah is the most righteous man in Israel Yet when he sees the Lord when he's right at the Lord's face and he's face to face with the Lord and Isaiah 6 What does he do? Woe is me He sees himself as he truly is.

I do think that the closer we get to God the more our It's not like there's a great story that goes with that.

There was a guy who was on his way to a party and As he was going to the party was dressed nice, you know and on the way there Car went by and hit a puddle Splashed him with water and he it was real dark So he said, you know, I I'm so dirty, but I don't have time to go home.

I'm sure it's fine But the closer he got to the house where the light was The more he saw how dirty he was and when he finally got under the bright light of the front door He saw he was totally disheveled.

He didn't know when he was in the dark how dirty he was It was only as closer to the door He got that he recognized and that's what you're talking about the closer we get that we tend to realize how much More we still need to be cleaned Absolutely Yeah, oh, yeah, I'm not just Ross he's not the only dirty one in here Unless I have a contest So I put this I said additionally We should study the Bible because of what it claims to be now, I know I give you the answer But what does the Bible claim to be? Claims to be the Word of God if it is the Word of God and it is It's it's infinitely worthy of our study.

Here's the thing about it and and please for a moment Don't think what I'm about to say It's crazy because it's a little crazy But it's not bad Yeah, even if the Bible wasn't the Word of God it would still be infinitely worth studying Because it's the most well attested historical document that we now possess to that time in history and It is an amazing work of literature that you could devote your entire life to and never exhaust But the fact that it is God's Word makes it even that much more worthy of study Think about things that people study.

I know people that devote their lives to studying like like a certain type of moth and like they have this their whole life is they get into the the study of moths and and and they And their whole life is and there's again There's nothing wrong with with having a particular field of expertise But if we can devote ourselves to studying a moth or anything How much more should we desire to study the God who created the whole who created the moth who created the universe The Bible claims to be of divine origin This leads to the conclusion That the Bible must be inerrant and infallible if it is in fact from God it is inerrant inerrant means It does not have error Infallible is different infallible means it cannot have error There is and when we say when we talk about scripture.

We say it is the inerrant and infallible Word of God And if you want to really understand the difference in that Inerrancy can be applied to many things that are not necessarily Divine I mean if I if I'm if I make a statement, that's true.

I can say that statement is inerrant It's that is an inerrant statement what I what I just said like if I said, this is wood Right those three words.

This is wood.

That's an inerrant statement because it is wood But that statement that is inerrant doesn't make me infallible And what we're saying is every word in the Bible is inerrant because it comes from God Who cannot err? Who cannot fail Christians believe that the Bible was written by men But super intended and by the way, that's a key word superintended by the Holy Spirit of God that the that God has Maintained the integrity of the Bible down through the ages to ensure that we can have confidence that what we are reading is God's Word Any questions about that? Well What this is talking about in doctrinal terms We're talking about the doctrine of inspiration the doctrine of canonization and the doctrine of preservation Inspiration is how God got the word into the world.

He inspired men to write it Canonization is the church recognizing what God had written 66 books and transmission or Preservation is how that came to us and it came to us through 2,000 years the vast majority of that was Handwritten you realize every Bible up until Gutenberg every Bible was handwritten Gutenberg didn't invent the printing press until the 1300s That means every Bible that existed prior to that was handwritten and most of them that existed for the next hundred and fifty years were Handwritten because Gutenberg's printing press didn't take off Automatically, it wasn't like as soon as it was invented there were printing presses everywhere.

It had the that technology had to go and spread What's the first English Bible who translated the first English Bible, you know? William Tyndale did translate the English Bible, but he wasn't the first John Wycliffe translated the first English Bible in the 1300s around the same time as Gutenberg was Inventing and creating the technology of the printing press and and and his Bible was hand-copied and Sent out the first English Bible was hand-copied.

Oh Yeah, I mean the imagine just holding that's When we when you guys do the history class, which is next year when you do the history class We actually go over part and parcel of how the Bible came down the ages there's just a very important study to know how we how how how it went from The pin of the Apostle Paul to the highlighted backing of my iPad.

Yeah, I mean because that's a that's a transmission And God preserved it through that transmission Dr.

Votie Bachum said this he said I choose to believe the Bible Because it is a reliable collection of historical documents written down by eyewitnesses during the lifetime of other eyewitnesses They report of supernatural events that took place in fulfillment of specific prophecies and claimed that their writings are Divine rather than human in origin if you ever just want a Nice little pithy statement if somebody says why do you believe the Bible? This was his answer when he wrote Yeah, it's yeah Yeah, where he describes how he became a Christian and why he believes the Bible Yeah All right While the Bible is God's Word.

This is just an important addition and I want you to hear this part because this we only have five minutes left.

We'll take our break Hear this part while the Bible is God's Word and it bears the authority of God himself It is still a book and as a result it has the same interpretive rules as any other book Yes, the Holy Spirit is the author Yes, it says that those who do not have the Spirit cannot rightly understand it says that in 1st Corinthians 3 But this does not mean that it violates the rules of grammar so When we are going through this class you're not going to be a better Bible student by putting the Bible on your head and hoping that the Holy Spirit soaks it through or Laying down and opening up the Bible and putting your face in it and hoping that somehow it Makes it in or praying God.

I want to know you better.

He's gonna say open the Bible God I want to hear your voice read the Bible.

I want to hear it out loud read out loud.

That's the answer And I want you to write this down this is the next line there is no such thing as Holy Ghost Greek There are people who think the Bible was written in some mystical language that can only be interpreted and understood by some mystical approach Yeah, and That's why I say there's no such there is no Holy Ghost Greek and the Bible a noun is a noun a Verb is a verb a Adjective is an adjective.

So one of the things we're going to do in this class is we're going to go back to elementary school And remind ourselves.

What are nouns? What are verbs? What are adjectives? Because if you want to read the Bible better, the first thing you have to do is learn to read better So when we come to the issue of interpretation There are guidelines Which can be used to determine whether or not an interpretation is within the bounds of what the text is saying In fact, this is a big conversation.

I often have with our elders When we come to a point where we're maybe disagreeing some on a interpretation The question is always does that interpret is that is that interpretation allowed? By the text what do we mean by that? Does the text do the parameters of the text allow that? Understanding for instance Think I talked about this last semester There was a man named John Dominic Crossan.

John Dominic Crossan is part of the Jesus seminar.

They're a group of men who do not believe That the Bible represents the historic Jesus And so they try to compile things about Jesus that they believe are true and not true from the Bible and one of the things I remember him saying was Jesus did not feed 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish what Jesus did was Jesus convinced the people who had food to share it with the people who didn't and That is the miracle the great miracle of sharing Jesus convinced the people to share About the 12 baskets of fragments Ed we don't even have to go there, but you're right, but but but but before we even go there is That interpretation allowed by the text Not at all and that's what I mean when I say If a noun's a noun's verb a verb adjective that there are certain things that when you read only certain interpretations are allowed And that's how you can know right away if you got a hold of another butter Somebody who's teaching you something crazy because they're telling you something that the text won't allow Get it It's not Holy Ghost Greek.

It's just Greek it's just Greek in Hebrew It's in for us most of us.

It's English and we read it and there are certain things that allows and certain things it doesn't Some people say well Jesus didn't die on the cross it was It was The one who carried the no who carried the cross Simon Cyrene, let's say it wasn't Jesus who died on the cross.

It was Simon of Cyrene Does the text allow for that not at all? So are we bound to the text? Yes That's what it means to be students of Scripture Means that we will we will be bound to what the text says in the param the text sets the borders Right away that's one of the best things you'll know from this class the text will set the standard it'll be the border Can't go beyond the text All right.