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Okay, so we are our last 20 or so minutes is part 3. Which is going to be an overview of the process that we're going to be learning. Tonight was all about motivation getting in gear, and I'm glad some of you had some conversations during the break.
Because I'm glad to know that we're motivated all to go the same direction. So we're going to look at the outline. This is the outline from the textbook, but I want to tell you something. This outline is so simple yet.
It is so powerful. It's one of those things that when you first see it. You're going to go well. Yeah, I knew that but. But you don't underestimate the power of simplicity. Because when I show you the outline you're going to go that's simple.
It is simple and that's the point. There are much more there are books that are much more technical on how to arrive at Exegetical conclusions, but there will be nothing more foundational than these three things you are going to learn in this class three things.
One is Observation. We're going to spend two weeks on observation. What does the text say? Not what I want it to say. Not what I want it to mean. None of that, and I'm going to show you next week that this is the most overlooked aspect of Bible study.
Because people want to go right to what does it mean rather than what does it say? Observation is key. We will spend at least two weeks learning how to observe number two. Interpretation what does it mean.
Once we know what it says then we can know what it means and here's the thing if you spend an hour in observation. Your interpretation will be better. But if you spend five minutes in observation and go right to interpretation it will be worse.
You need to spend most of your time on number one and your number your your second one will be better. Thirdly Application how does it work. Not does it work because it does, but how does it work? This goes to the question of relevancy.
Remember we talked about earlier some people don't feel like the Bible is relevant. It is but learning how it is Is part of the task of Bible study and often we stop before this point. Because we don't want to apply it.
We don't want the Bible to speak into our lives, so we we observe and then we interpret and then we stop as if we don't want it to Make it we don't want it to shake up our lives now. This method if we follow this method we will be ensuring that we are engaging in exegesis not Exegesis and I know that those words are probably common for some of you, but some of you they may not be so let me Give you the definition exegesis with the prefix e I s Exegesis is Reading into the text something that is not there.
I gave you an example earlier. That was the miracle of sharing that's Exegesis it's not in the text, but he wanted it to be so he put it there. That's what people do they put things in the text that are not there Exegesis I mean you ever been in a conversation where somebody did that where they just they just throwing stuff at you.
And they're saying well the Bible says the Bible says you're like no it doesn't. That's what you want it to say. But that's not what it says. Exegesis is reading into the text something that's not there.
Exegesis coming from the prefix X in Greek which means out of like an exit. Exegesis is to draw out of the text. What is contained within? Yes Narcissus narcissus is a made-up term, but it basically Narcissus is a is a.
I remember who coined it. But it basically means reading myself and every verse. That's right.
You shouldn't sue people. I'm like wait wait wait. You know like that very active me trying to get you know compensation for him. Maliciously destroying my car was wrong. I'm only laughing. Believers over trivial matters that you can work out, but and I'm like no.
Come on. I did when you said the word compensation. I saw your face on like a billboard. Do you need compensation? See see Ed I. I'm sorry. Yeah, they just I did when you said I but there is. There is a lot of exegesis in fact.
It's it really is the it's the it's the thing that causes most disputes. I Had a two weeks ago on my podcast. I had a friend of mine. Who's a reformed Baptist he came on the program with me, and we discussed the subject of baptism the difference between Believers baptism which is practiced by Baptists and infant baptism which is practiced by Presbyterians.
Episcopalians even Roman Catholics practice infant baptism and we discussed what the differences are and why we hold to believers baptism and not to pedo baptism or the baptism of infants and I would argue and I have argued in public debate that The reason why people would hold the infant baptism is because of eisegesis they're reading into the text.
Something that isn't there like oftentimes you'll hear people that believe in pedo baptism. They will say well look at these households that were baptized the household of the Philippian jailer the household of Stephanus.
The house the household of this guy or the household that guy it just stands to reason that those households would have infants in them. And I said no it doesn't. Because I'm going to ask you all right now how many of your households have an infant.
None. If I what I'm saying you did at one time, but it doesn't stand to reason that your households have an infant. No, I know that brother. I know the reason, but my point is that argument about families.
It stands to reason there would be an infant that is eisegesis. That's reading into the text something. That's not there in fact. R .c. Sproul who believed in infant baptism he said well, it's silent the text is silent.
But it's a pregnant silence because he believed in infant baptism so he had to have a reason to have that faith. But I believe again. It's reading into the text something. That's not there now certainly.
Presbyterians would disagree. They would argue with me. They'd be angry with me for saying it's eisegesis, but that's what I believe that it is but you see how Important it can be because it can create an entire division in the body.
What one thing divides the body more than anything else? The sacraments. Baptism in the Lord's Supper. Baptism in the Lord's Supper. The two Ordinances that are supposed to unite the church have the most dividing effect so it's just eisegesis is Divisive because people see something they want in the text and they go to find it.
They have an idea. They want to find in the text rather than drawing out what the text actually says eisegesis is. To draw from the text what is there and only what is there? Eisegesis is the basis for hermeneutics.
Let me give you this is not on my screen, but I do have a whiteboard for moments. Just like this when I have an idea. By the way, we're getting new whiteboards brother Andy, and I we're going to have.
We're actually going to cover the windows on this end is going to be all whiteboard because we're so we're excited TV is going to be mounted. We're going to do this whole new like learning center things gonna look great.
But here's a term. I want to introduce you to it's a latin phrase. Tabula Rasa is. It means a blank slate a blank slate. Now this has a lot of Philosophical baggage, so I don't want to spend too much time if you google tabula Rasa a lot of weird stuff will come up because.
A lot of times it talks about like human beings are born as a tabula Rasa or a blank slate. That's not true. We're born in sin. We're sinners from birth. That's not the case so just understand. That's not the way I'm using it.
But what I am saying is when we come to the scripture We need to do our best not to read our preconceived ideas into the text. But rather come to the text as a blank slate now that doesn't mean that you can't you know I know who Paul is so when I read Paul's letters.
I can think okay. This is Paul. That doesn't mean I have to erase that. But what I mean is when I come to the text and Keith Foskey has a personal bias about something. That I read my personal bias into the text, but rather I should try to erase my biases.
Which is almost impossible. But I should try to erase my biases so that I go to the text as as close to a blank slate as I can. So allowing the text to speak to me rather than allowing the text to speak for me.
I Don't want the text to have my words in it. I want the text to have God's Word. You know the difference so that's just a phrase you know that I've used in the past. I wanted to give that to you. All right, so we got a few minutes left.
By the way, that's the basis of hermeneutics exegesis of the base of hermeneutics what this class is if it's a hermeneutics class. It's really an exegesis class. How do we do that? How do we do that? So we're going to start tonight with what would have been our homework, but because some of you didn't get it.
It's just going to be a class acts exercise for the next 10 minutes. We're going to come up with 10 10 observations From Romans chapter 12 now if you have a sheet of paper you may want to take it out.
Now first thing we have to decide is a translation. Because the first because if we don't all have if we don't all agree at least somewhat on a translation the first thing we're going To be observing is how different the different translations are and that's fine.
But let's all agree that for tonight. We're going to use the ESV only because there are ESV sitting around so if you don't have an ESV. They're blue ones and There's one back there. There's there's about four or five of them back there and It's fine.
Don't don't don't let them don't let them give the NIV a hard time. No, you don't. Listen it's the NIV. The NIV has issues, but so does every other translation. They just may have a few more.
I'd like you to use half of the page. It's big and half of the page does do a lot, yes, it's simply the same thing. All right.
Now I'm not going to write the whole verse. In fact, let's do this since since it is only one or since we're only doing 10 I think we could do 10 in the first verse alone. So you got 10? We're going to do this together.
We're going to we're going to observe here, and this is before I've even trained you. This is before you've even been given the skill set you're going to be getting the skill set starting next week. And as you for if you read the book you'll get the skill set out of the book because it's all coming out of the book.
All right, so what's the first sentence I? Appealed to who? To you. Therefore Brothers. Brothers. Wait a minute wait a minute you have an NIV and it says brothers and sisters that might be one of the problems we had.
All right, so I am we're going to talk about that, but but but okay, I appeal to you therefore brothers by the mercies of God. To present Your bodies As a living Sacrifice. All right now. You know what that's far enough that ain't the whole verse is it not that's far enough.
Okay, because because you can get 10 out of this. Because I'm going to show you what I mean by observation last class this we did this a couple years ago. And the first class I said bring 10 observations and people were losing their minds because they didn't understand what I meant.
Here's a quick thing. I'm going to switch to a different color and hopefully this will make sense to you. I appeal to you brothers. What's the first observation I can make? Even before that. Even before that I look at this and I say okay I have here a set of nouns and pronouns That are identifying people.
So I start with this one. That is a singular personal pronoun. It's referring to somebody who's referring to Paul so my first observation is who's writing right and he's writing to someone. So I'm going to go over here to the you because that's who he's writing to and he tells us who the you is.
It's the brothers. All right. So who are the brothers? Believers right and it's actually the audience in Rome, right? So it's the Roman Christians. So right there. So Roman Christians are my audience so right there's two observations who's it who's who's it writing from who's it writing to and by the way a lot of Times in the Bible that will help you Interpret if you know who's writing and who they're writing to.
Right. Yeah, huh? Yes. Are you saying doesn't apply to you? He's not talking to me, yeah, okay at this point at this point even though I have a Slam-dunk answer for that at this point. That's not the point because at this point we're not looking for an interpretation.
At this point, we're only making observation. And again, what do we want to do? We want to jump right into the meaning want to jump right into who it applies to how it applies and what it applies. And what it's going to do that's three deep.
We're only one deep. We're only observing Right. We're only observing. I've observed two pronouns in the first clause right the two pronouns which of which are connected to this noun, which is Identified by the book itself.
It's the Roman Christians. Okay. Now, what else can I what else so that's two. All right, we're gonna have a tally. There's two what what's another observation we can make. Any word can be an observation so you could say, okay.
Well, there's one two, three four. There's 17 words, you know, that's not that and that's fine. But I'm looking for something else something maybe a little more specific. Okay, let's let's go right here.
Yes nails. Okay, I appeal. What is an appeal a plea a plea is another word for that so I could write plea. I'm playing with you. What what's another word for appeal? Exhort. And you said joy you said beg I beg you right.
Well, just just that's enough right so we're now what we're doing is we're observing the meaning of a word. How's this word fitting in the in with the rest? So we're just looking at that word. I Appeal but what else does an appeal recognize in the whole?
It appeals that Paul cares. So there's a care. I don't make it appeal to anybody that I don't care about. So there's also there's pathos in this. There's emotion in this I appeal to you. So there's emotion in this.
Yeah, yeah, it's it's in his heart. I'm calling you out to do this. Alright, and so right there just in the first line. We've already come up with three three observations. Okay. Now big word. Therefore what do we know about the word therefore?
Therefore is a transition word it connects what came before to what comes after if you see the word therefore you need to know what? It's therefore that's the old joke, right? Cuz therefore is a word that connects one thing to the other like if I said to my daughter.
If I said I looked in your room and your room is dirty. Therefore you must clean it. That is a Connecting point between two statements. I looked at your room and it was dirty. That's point one. You must clean it, too and one is the The therefore of the other one leads to the other so therefore is an important word and what is it connecting?
It's actually connecting what what verse is this go let's go back to some general observation. This is 12. First what? One we can even say one a because we don't have the whole verse. So this is chapter 12 verse 1.
So what is the therefore connecting to? What's connecting to the previous chapter, right? So we so we know that we have the previous chapter. But what we'll learn and this wouldn't come by observation automatically.
But what we'll learn is actually Romans 12 is a transition moment in the book. Where Paul moves from Doctrine to application the therefore in this passage is actually a Marking post in Romans to show Paul moving from the doctrinal to the applicable Because of this do this Right.
He's moving from the indicative is to the imperative must Right and so this word therefore actually is huge not only in this verse but in the book as a whole All right, so we're down. We got five All right, so we're down we're up to five now.
That's that's just one line. Well two on here, but in your Bibles one line I appeal to you therefore Brothers right now. Here's something else. If you have this blue Bible, which I know not everyone does if you have this blue Bible You can actually see that next to the word brothers.
There's a superscript a little a little number three and it brings you down to the bottom which does say or brothers and sisters so the the the the the the the NIV Chooses to put that in the text but isn't that an interesting observation that the ESV does choose in the margin to include the masculine and the feminine even though in general, it's unnecessary because there's what's called the the the the masculine Universal which is the universal where when I say Brothers if I say to the church brothers, I'm not just talking to the men I'm talking to the brethren right brothers and sisters, but in this sense This does refer to brothers and sisters.
This doesn't leave out the ladies, so that's another observation. All right. All right. What else? We're trying to get to ten. We're over time. It's got a hurry. Okay, so what is mercy? No, that's grace.
What's mercy. No, that's good guess but what is the difference between mercy and grace anybody. That's right. Mercy is not getting what you deserve grace is getting something. You don't deserve grace is a gift mercy is the withholding of justice.
Right and who is the one being merciful? God because we have this little word of right the word of connects this making it possessive. It's God's mercy. You can even translate it that by God's mercy. But rather we translate it by the mercy of God.
So this becomes possessive. There's another we have mercy is from God. Right there and it's all again. We're not interpreting anything. We're just that's what the text says. It's the mercy of God. All right.
Now we move to the word to and what is to do? What is to do that sounds like? Bird. From here on it's what you're going to do. This changes all of this is the appeal basis. I base this on the mercies of God.
That you do this so the to changes. From I appeal to you. Therefore brothers by the mercy of God to do something. So after the word to is what you got to do. You might say this is all so childish and so simple it's not.
Yeah, this is how I prepare sermons. I Print the text on a big white sheet of paper and I take out a pen and I begin first thing I do normally I go through and I underline all the nouns people. Then I go through and I look for all the verbs.
Verbs show action. So in this sentence when I start looking around what's it present is a verb that's what we got to do. It's the command. It's what we're doing. So there's my verb. Boom. That's something else.
I've observed. I'm excited I like to do this. It's fun. See when I present what? Your body. Your body as what? Living sacrifice, what do we know about this? It's. It's an oxymoron. You know what an oxymoron is it's two words that go together mean opposite jumbo shrimp.
Dodge Ram. Dodge Ram if you dodge it you didn't ram it. It's a Dodge Ram. It's oxymoron living sacrifice. It's oxymoronic. It's two words. If it's live, it's not sacrificed. And if it's sacrifice, it's dead.
That's biblical principle dead things get sack people things when they're sacrificed are dead, but we're called to be living sacrifices. So right there. This is a unique term. This is a unique term. And next week we're going to talk about terms and what terms are and why they matter terms not just a word.
But a term is something that helps you understand concepts. You all have jobs that you do jobs in your jobs. There are terms that only affect your job. You know what? I mean? Because it's what you do my son.
I was gonna tell the story next week. I thought now my son worked for a window company before he went in the military. He worked with my friend Kyle and he would always come home and he would talk about wet flash wet flash.
Daddy, I got wet flash on my pants or something. I think that's what it was called wet flash and I know what the world is. I know what wet is and I think I know what flashes but I had no idea what wet flash was.
He had to explain it to me because that's a term he used all day long. But it didn't make any sense to me. It was a stuff they put around the window to keep the water from seeping in that's what it is.
But I didn't know that because that's not a term that I use in my daily life. Living sacrifice is a term Paul creates for this to help us understand what he's calling us to do. All right, he's calling us.
God is calling us by his mercy be a living sacrifice. All right, we're we're out of time. But this is what this is what this class is observe. Interpret. Apply. All right, let's pray Father I thank you for your word I thank you that we get to spend eight weeks Lord studying in and I pray that it will be fruitful as only it Can be in Jesus name Amen.