5 Steps to Bible Interpretation

Introduction to Hermeneutics and the Goal of Bible Interpretation

Well, we are here in week five in our introduction to hermeneutics. Hermeneutics, of course, is the art and science of Bible interpretation. And if you know the answer, raise your hand. What are the three steps to our method of Bible interpretation?

Okay, but not instruction following, because I said raise your hand. So what is it? Rebecca, what are the three steps? That's right, observation, interpretation, application. And based upon what we've read and learned so far, what is the one that is most important?

Observation, spending time with the text, looking at what is actually in the text. And we spent two weeks looking at the subject of observation, and tonight is our second week looking at the subject of interpretation.

So this is our outline for tonight's lesson. Lord willing, we will get through the whole thing. The first thing we're going to do is look at the five keys to interpretation. The second thing we are going to look at is we're going to look at some examples of exegesis versus eisegesis.

And we'll talk about the meaning of that when we get there, if you don't quite remember, because we did talk about that in class one. But we'll define those terms when we get there. Then after we take our break, we're going to go over our workbook assignment.

And I do have something to add to your homework this week. It's very small. I just need you all to come back with something next week. We'll talk about that during our workbook assignment. But before we begin, let's pray.

Father, I am so thankful to be here tonight. I'm thankful to have an opportunity to discuss your word. Lord, your word is precious. Jesus Christ prayed, sanctify them with your truth. Your word is truth.

Lord, let us be in love with you, and let us love your word. Help us tonight to understand the importance of rightly deciphering and interpreting the word of God. In Jesus' name, amen. All right. Hermeneutics, as we have said before, begins with observation.

What does the scripture say? Then moves to interpretation. What does the scripture mean? And it is in the interpretation that we have a serious danger, the danger of misinterpretation. Just recently, I was sitting with a relative.

We were talking about the Bible. He was objecting to some of the things in the Bible, arguing that there were contradictions in the Bible and things like that. And I tried to challenge him on some things.

I was really mostly focused on him hearing the gospel, but I was trying to challenge some of what he was saying. But the thing that he said was, well, you have your interpretation, and this guy over here has his interpretation, and that person over there has his interpretation, and nobody knows for sure who's right.

And you may or may not have heard that before. You may have even said that at some time before, and certainly that is an objection that is raised all the time. But what we need to understand is that the Bible does set for us certain parameters of meaning within the text, and there are only a certain finite amount of things that the text can mean.

So right away, we can begin to say, if a person is saying something that the text simply cannot mean, then that's a misinterpretation. And so there are times where we'll say there's a passage that maybe myself and another pastor may disagree on, but that particular passage is one that we can say, as brothers, we can remain in disagreement.

We may not have the same understanding, the same conclusion. But if one of us is saying something that the text just doesn't say, if one of us is misinterpreting the text, that's usually very clear, and we can point out how that misinterpretation is happening, and that's what we're going to talk about tonight with the five steps.

Looking at the five steps narrows down what the meaning could be versus what the meaning might be, you know, versus how people treat it. One of the things I like to remind people is this. If you believe your happiness is God's primary concern, then you're always going to be willing to interpret the Bible in the way that makes you happy.

And honestly, that is the way most people try to interpret the Bible. What way can I twist this text to make it reach my optimum level of happiness? How it can be all about me and what I want. I want blessing, so I find every passage about blessing, and I apply it to myself.

I want success, happiness, or whatever, so I find every passage about success or happiness, and I apply it to myself. I don't want God to tell me not to have premarital sex, so I'm going to go find every text about premarital sex and assume that applies to someone else.

And I just use that as an example, but you understand what I'm saying. I find what makes me happy, and I interpret it in the way that makes me happy. And we call that, Bobby asked me about this last week, exegesis, eisegesis, and there's a third one, narcegesis, where it's always about me.

It comes from the word narcissistic, where it's about me, and that's the way a lot of people want to interpret the Bible, whatever way makes me happy. Because, again, they see the Bible as a fortune cookie, and if I open up a fortune cookie and it says something bad, I'm just going to throw it away and get another fortune cookie.

You know? The goal of interpretation is to come to the correct, to the correct understanding of the meaning of Scripture, and this assumes that we believe that there is a correct meaning. You say, well, wait a minute, doesn't everybody assume that?

No, not everybody does. There are some people who believe that the Bible is really up to you, and it can mean something to Ron, and it can mean something different to Wilma, and it can mean something different to Chuck or Sharon or whoever, because it doesn't have an objective meaning.

It only has a subjective meaning. I did a podcast about this a couple weeks ago. A fellow pastor came on the show with me, and we were talking, and he said he has a friend who tries to interpret the Bible in that way, saying that it's not the Word of God until you apply it to yourself, and that's when it becomes the Word of God.

It's not the Word of God objectively. It's the Word of God subjectively. That's the argument that his friend tries to make, and therefore, you understand how dangerous that can be, right? Because, again, it's all about you.

But we assume the Bible has a correct meaning. Our goal is to find it. I don't believe for a second that I know every meaning of every Scripture passage in the Bible. As a student of the Bible, I'm still learning, and I make mistakes, and sometimes very obvious mistakes, and I try to repent of those and correct myself when I do that.

But I do believe the Bible has a correct meaning. In fact, I agree with Dr. MacArthur, who said this. He said the meaning of Scripture is the Scripture. What he meant by that, if that isn't clear, what he's saying is, if somebody says, well, I'm reading the Bible, but I don't know what it means, then you're really not getting the Scripture.

You've got to have the meaning to understand the Scripture. The meaning of Scripture is the Scripture. And if we have no idea what a Scripture means, then we can have no confidence to say to another person, thus saith the Lord.

Isn't that the role of the preacher, to be able to stand and say, thus saith the Lord? Isn't that the role of the man or woman of God, to be able to say to the world, thus saith the Lord? This is what God hath said.

What Jesus said to the Pharisees, have you not read what God hath said to you? Isn't that an interesting way of saying it? Have you not read what God said? Indicating that the words are what God said.

And so, we have to know what they mean. And if we're going to have any confidence, we have to do the work of rightly interpreting the word. Now, I just heard a ding twice. I want to see if it's mine making the ding.

I think it is. I'm going to turn it down a little bit, just so that it doesn't continue to bother us. Okay, so part one of tonight, five keys to interpretation. I'm going to put them all up on the board for you.

If you'd like to write them down, I would encourage it. Five C's are content, context, comparison, culture, and consultation. We're going to spend a lot of our time tonight looking at each of these five C's.

I'll give you a second to write them down. All right, so looking at the first one, content. This one comes from your first step, which is the step of observation. How do you know what is in the text? Well, you have to observe the text to know what it contains.

If you have done the preliminary work of excavation, then you should know what is there. You have already searched for terms, structure, literary form. You've already asked the questions of who, when, where, why, and wherefore.

You've looked for things that are emphasized, repeated, related, alike, unlike, things that are true to life. And as I have said from the beginning of this class, and we'll continue to say it, and if you're tired of hearing it, that means it's getting through, as repetition is the key to learning, is that the more time you spend in observation, the less time you will have to spend in interpretation, and the more accurate will be your results.

Just today I was writing my lesson for next Wednesday night, and sometimes because I study every week and my life is spent in the text, the majority of the week is spent studying, and I was looking at 2 John, because that's what I'm going to be teaching next Wednesday night, and I pull out the text and I put it on that white piece of paper, which I told you guys I do, and then what I did was I did it in the ESV, and then I opened up another column, and I did it in the King James, and then I opened up another column, and I put the Greek in there just so that I could look at it, and compare it back and forth, and as I was doing that, I was thinking the same things I do every week are the things I'm teaching you guys to do, because the first thing I did, I started circling nouns.

Who is who? Who is the elder? It's John. Who is the elect lady? That's a good question, because there's debate when it says the elder to the elect lady, is that talking about a woman, or is it talking about the church?

Because the church is the bride of Christ, the elect are Christ's people, and then later it talks about her children, so if it is talking about the church, who's the children? And then later it says her elect sister greets her.

Well, then who's the sister? You see what I'm saying? So there's a lot of questions. It's 13 verses. The whole book. It's the shortest book in the Bible. The shortest book in the New Testament, rather, and it's only 13 verses, but I'm writing question after question.

Who is this person? Who is this person? Because remember how I told you I study? I study with questions. Questions lead me to interpretation. That's the process, right? I write down. I circle. I go through.

And that all is content, because I know what's in it, but how do I know what's in it? I read it, and then I read it again, then I read it again. What's the motto of our class? Go back and look again, right?

Go back and do it again. Yeah, every time. Read it. Go back and look again every time. And so by the time I teach that book next week, I probably will have read the whole book, and it's only 13 verses, probably about 50 to 75 times, because just reading it and going back and reading it and going back.

Now, I've already got my notes put together, but I'm still going to read it, because I may realize I missed something. And until I teach it, I want it to be fresh in my mind, because the content is what is most important.

What is it? What does it say? And it can't mean what it don't say, right? So content is number one. Number two, context. Now, this one, I've heard, and I've even said it myself, sort of tongue-in-cheek, that the secret to Bible interpretation is three Cs, context, context, and context, or the three secrets to interpretation is context, context, context.

And that's true, but in this particular methodology, context is one of five Cs, but I would say it's probably among the most important. It's among the most important, because this refers to what comes before and what comes after.

What connections is the writer making? And I think I mentioned this last time, but just in case I didn't, it's important to understand that if a text is here, you know, let's say you're looking at verse 27 of a text.

Well, that means in that chapter alone, you've got 26 verses above it. And if it's a chapter that has 40 verses and you've got the verses after that go all the way down to verse 40. And so all of this and all of this is going to have something to say about that.

And what really grinds my gears is when someone will come and read verse 27 and not mention what came before or what came after. Because at best, they are on a surface level of understanding that text.

Because the text by itself is dependent on what comes before and what comes after. And then, of course, you've got, let's say this is chapter 5 of a book. You've got all the chapters. You've got the four chapters that come before.

And if it's a 15-chapter book or like Romans, a 16-chapter book, you've got the stuff that comes after it. Now, the further you get away from the verse, the less immediate context there is. But you still have to consider the context.

Like, for instance, the book of Romans. When you look at the book of Romans, the book of Romans can be broken down into five parts. You have chapters 1 through 3, which deal with the sinfulness of man.

The end of chapter 3, 4 and 5, which deal with man's justification. You have chapters 6, 7 and 8, which deal with man's sanctification. You have chapters 9, 10, 11, which deal with God's election and sovereign work with the nation of Israel and the church.

We see that between chapters 9 through 11. And then we have the application of all of that doctrinal knowledge between chapters 12 through 15. And then chapter 16, we have the final salutation of the book and the last words of Paul and Romans.

So understanding just that framework helps you to understand where you are in the book. Right? Ephesians is sort of that way, but it's two parts. Ephesians has the doctrinal chapters 1 through 3 and the practical chapters 4 through 6.

And so understanding where you are in the book sets a context. Is this making sense? And why context is important, right? And then, of course, if you're reading Ephesians, you're in the New Testament.

Therefore, you're in a context. You're in a new covenant context. If you read Amos, you're in an old covenant context. A lot of people confuse that because they don't understand the difference between the old covenant and the new covenant, except for maybe enough to say, well, God was mean in the Old Testament.

You hear people say that sometimes, which is not true. God was the same yesterday, today and forever. But understanding the difference between pre-Christ and post-Christ, before the cross and after the cross.

So when we talk about context, we talk about immediate context and then the surrounding context, the context of the book and the context of the book within the context of the Bible and Bible history. I'm going to give you a few things.

You can write these down if you want. There are several other types of context to consider. One would be literary context. That's what type of literature is it? Historical context. When is it taking place?

Cultural context. And we're going to talk about culture in a minute, but cultural context is how did this group operate in the ancient world? Like, for instance, understanding the cultural context of Corinth helps you understand Corinthians.

Because to be a Corinthian was to be a person of moral looseness. A Corinthian was a person who was basically a sinner. They were known for being, sort of like if I said today, we're going to Vegas. You know, Vegas is called Sin City.

Well, Corinth was sort of that in its day. It was the place of sin. And therefore, when you're reading the book of 1 Corinthians and you see Paul addressing all these sinful things in Corinth, you wonder why.

Well, that helps provide some of the context. I mean, remember it was Corinth where the man was sleeping with his father's wife, which we assume was his stepmother, we hope. Because we hope it's not his mom.

But I'm just saying it's an odd situation. And even the pagans would have recognized that as being beyond what was right. Paul says, you know, I can't believe you guys haven't done anything about this.

You're just letting it go. You got geographical context. You know, where is Galatia versus Jerusalem versus Corinth? You know, that's different areas. Theological context. What did the author know about God?

That's a very important question contextually. You say, well, he's writing on behalf of God. Yes, but is it not true to say that when Moses is writing, Moses is writing within a theological context that didn't include at that point David?

Because David hadn't come yet. David would be about a thousand years after Abraham. And so Moses is right in the middle. And so Moses' context theologically would have been much different. So all that you said is a historical, but it's also a theological context.

There was no monarchy during the time of Moses. There was no Davidic dynasty during the time of Moses. You understand, even though he there were certain things that prophesied those things hadn't happened yet.

Right. I'll give you a good example why this matters. When I worked for the high school, when I was in seminary, I worked at First Coast High School and I was a paraprofessional. A paraprofessional is like a teacher's assistant.

And I worked with students who had learning disabilities. And the teacher in the class was named Mr. Moses. He's a great guy. Tim Moses, nice, nice guy. And if I remember correctly, he was a former Roman Catholic.

So he'd been brought up Roman Catholic. So we had several Bible conversations. Sweet man, very, very good man to work for. And I worked in his classroom. One day he saw me working on my master's thesis because that's what I was doing while I was at school.

I would I would do my job, but I would also take my school books with me and I would work on my seminary work whenever I had time. And Mr. Moses came and he was looking at my work and he was asking me Bible questions.

And he said, hey, Mr. Foskey, do you think Moses ever met Jesus? And I and I, you know, he didn't know because he had never really studied the Bible. But some of you are like, well, that's such a simple question.

Yes, but some people don't know the answer to that question because they don't understand historical context. They don't understand the where people are in these times. Now you might and I see some of you might be saying, well, yeah, on the Mount of Transfiguration.

But that's not what he meant. Yes, Jesus met or Moses was on the Mount of Transfiguration. What he meant, though, was did they live at the same time? And no, they didn't. But that's something that, you know, not everybody knows instinctively.

And so these are all part of understanding context. OK. The next one is comparison. And I want to introduce you to a phrase. It's not on my notes on the notes on the board, so I'll write it here. By the way, in a couple of weeks, we're going to have all new boards.

This whole wall is going to be boards. I'm excited. The phrase is the analogy. Of Scripture, the analogy of Scripture, Latin, I believe it's analogous script Torah, and it means. That Scripture interprets Scripture.

The Bible is its own interpreter. So when I am looking at a passage and I'm trying to discern meaning, one of the ways that I discern meaning is by comparing that text with other texts that talk about the same thing.

The Westminster Confession of Faith, which is high watermark and reformed teaching, of course. Says this. Quote, the infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself, and therefore when there is a question about the true and full sense of any Scripture which is not manifold but one, it must be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly.

So what it's saying is if you're in a passage and you're having trouble understanding its meaning, then you can go to other passages that are clearer and allow the clearer passages to interpret the less clear passages.

Charles Hodge said this. If the Scriptures be what they claim to be, the Word of God, they are the work of one mind, and that mind divine. From this it follows that Scripture cannot contradict Scripture.

God cannot teach in one place anything which is inconsistent with what He teaches in another. Hence, Scripture must explain Scripture. If a passage admits of different interpretations, that only can be the true one which agrees with what the Bible teaches elsewhere on the same subject.

It's very important what he just said. Because we might come to a passage and you say, well, we could interpret this three different ways. Yes, but if the other passages only allow one way, then that's got to be the right way.

See the point? Even if this passage would allow three different interpretations, if the other passages give only one option, then that's the option. That's the one we take. Because the Scripture is its own interpreter.

Does this make sense? This is based on the concept of the laws of logic that we all agree to. All of us live our lives based on the laws of logic. And one of the laws of logic is the law of non-contradiction.

Something cannot be and not be at the same time and in the same relationship. Therefore, if this passage says something and another passage says that that's not the case, then one or the other is being interpreted incorrectly.

I think the best example of this is Paul and James. And I don't have the time tonight to go into it, but if you are interested, two weeks ago on Sunday morning, I spent my entire sermon explaining the paradox between Paul and James.

The title of the sermon was The James-Paul Paradox. I think was the subtitle. I think the sermon was... I forget. The subtitle was The James-Paul Paradox. But basically what I did was I looked at James 2, verses 21 -24 and I compared it to Romans 4, verses 1 -3, which are the two passages which people will say contradict one another.

And I showed how they absolutely do not contradict. There is a paradox when upon first reading you may not understand why and how they go together, but I showed how they do go together upon a better understanding and a better reading.

So I would encourage you to spend the time to do that because I think sometimes the best way to learn this stuff is to see it done in action. See it done... You know, see somebody walk through the text and that's what I did.

I walked through James and Paul. So, before we move on, because again, I said context is important, but this is also, if not equally important, almost as equally important because I want to ask a question.

How do we compare passages? Dr. Hendricks in his book suggests some ways and I want to suggest some ways to you. The first is by using a concordance. Do you guys know what a concordance is? A concordance allows you to look up words in the Bible.

So, for instance, if you are looking at a passage about justification, which is what I was looking at in James chapter 2, because it says, Was not Abraham justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar?

That's what James 2 .21 says. And that was the passage I was dealing with. And I was asking, does the word justification here mean the same and being used the same as the word justification in Romans 4, which says, If Abraham had been justified by works, he would have something to boast about, but not before God.

So, it seems to contradict because they're both talking about the subject of justification. So, if I was using a concordance, I would look that word justification up and I would look for passages that deal with that word.

And that's not the only way to do it, but that's the easiest way to get started, to start looking at key words in the passage, finding those key words. And let me tell you something, justification is almost always a key word.

Right? And so, you look at that word and you look at how it's used in other places. Huh? Yeah. But you know what's funny though, when I was looking up, less than you think, when I looked up the word justification and now I have tools, as I said last week, Carpenter's only as good as his tools, right?

I have tools on my computer that allow me to do a little bit of a deeper dive in because I don't have to use a page concordance, I have my computer. But I also have a tool that allows me to look up the original word and look only that word up.

So, rather than looking up the word justification, the English word, I look up the underlying Greek word and I say, okay, where's this word used? And that way I'm, in case that word's translated differently other places, I want to know when that word's being used and how that word's being used.

So, that's a, and you can do that too. Anybody here, because I have a thing called accordance, it's just, it's what I purchased from my computer, but you can do that with Blue Letter. You can do that with Study Light.

These are all free sources online. Blue Letter Bible is a free source. Study Light. My favorite is Bible Hub. If you've never used Bible Hub, BibleHub .com or IowaMemphis .com .org, but it has, Bible Hub's got a ton of good commentaries.

And so, those are, those are sources you can use to do comparison studies. You had your hand up, Frank, I'm sorry.

Yeah, I think it's just, it's interesting because it seems like you can't like, you can't just, you can't just stop at the word justification because then you gotta, you gotta delve into the word works as well.

Oh, sure. Yeah, I mean, it's not just one word. Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, that's, what it seems like is just a lot of work. Well, you know, I mean, interpretation.

It is, it is work. I'm glad you, I'm glad you said that. You know, one of the things that Spurgeon said, and I'm going to misquote him directly because I don't remember the exact quote, but he said, most people don't understand the difficulty of the preaching ministry.

And again, I'm not putting myself on a pedestal or on, I'm not making myself a martyr, but he said, he said, you spend most of your life in the position of shoulders forward, head down, studying. And of course for him, it would have been worse because he didn't have a nice computer screen and he didn't have a comfortable, you know, wing back chair like I do.

He probably had a much different setup and he probably had a quill pen with a dipped ink setup. But the, but the point is you spend your life doing this kind of stuff, you know, 30, 30 hours a week. You're, you're reading and you're thinking.

And, you know, I, I, I remember doing other jobs. I, I, I worked, I've, I've done everything from lay asphalt to, to load trucks at UPS. And, uh, very few things have ever been as taxing as writing a sermon because you have to do this first.

This comes before that. The work of interpretation is necessary. So I appreciate you mentioning that it is work, but that's what you guys are here to do. Learning how to do the work. All right. And it also shows why so many don't do the work right now.

There's a huge thing going on in the SBC about plagiarism. What it is is the president of the Southern Baptist convention was caught having plagiarized an entire series of sermons. He preached another man's sermons, even down to the point of the personal stories in the sermons that, you know, like if I'm telling my story, like when I just told my story a minute ago about things that happened to me, he was telling it like it happened to him and he got caught.

Uh, well, it wasn't like he got caught. It was just, they, they played his, they played this guy's, they played his, they played that went back and forth. And what it was was he was plagiarizing the former president of the SBC.

So you got last president and this president preaching the same sermons. And the question was why? Well, because it was easier to read another man's sermon than it was to do the work himself. I mean, at the end of the day, however you want to interpret it, the motivation, it's much easier.

I've had more than once. And this is, this is truth. Bobby, I think knows about this. I've had more than once a church call me and ask me if I wrote the sermon that they named the sermon. And I said, yes, I wrote that sermon.

And they said, well, our pastor preached it and he's, he's, he's using your sermons as his own. I happened twice. I know that I was, I remember the first one because it was my sermon. What can you do while waiting on God?

I used to contribute to a sermon database where pastors would contribute notes. And the reason for that database was so that we share ideas, not copy each other's messages. But that's what he did. He took the message, he copied, he just read it verbatim, like it was his.

And I remember the call. I say, this is Deacon so and so from whatever Baptist church. Okay. And he said, did you write the sermon? What can you do while waiting on God? Yes, sir, I did. He said, well, our pastor preached it like it was his own.

What do you think we should do? I said, well, tell him he's got good taste. That's not what I said, but I said, I said, um, I was only 28, so probably a little both. Uh, but I was, I did say, I said, I would definitely have a talk with him about his study and his, his responsibility.

Because if he's not spending the time in the word, and I'm not saying I have never ever, I mean, I'll tell you, there have been times where I have used other men's outlines, but I always give credit because again, if it's a good outline, if it's something I can use right now, I'm preaching.

I mean, I'm basically teaching you what Dr Hendricks wrote. I didn't write this material, but we know what we're doing. I gave you the book and we're all reading it together. You know, it's not, I'm not saying you can't use good stuff, but if you're not doing the work, and again, I'm, I know I'm way off the subject.

I'm sorry, but it is work and some people don't want to do it. All right. Uh, number four, we own four or five culture. Which one is that? Four. Number four culture. All of us live in a culture often without even knowing it.

Most of us, if you've never been out of our culture, you kind of think everybody lives like you do. And then we start looking at the Bible and thinking everybody in the Bible lived and thinks like we do.

And certainly they don't. It becomes very obvious when we're removed from our culture and put into another, that the world is not always like our own. And, um, what we do is we tend to impose upon the text, our culture.

We tend to impose upon the meaning of the text. And at that point, we're no longer, we're no longer interpreting the Bible. We're imposing upon it. Our ideas. I'll give you, I'll give you, give you one for us to look at.

Uh, this is actually mentioned in your textbook on page two 46, but let's turn there in our Bibles. First Corinthians chapter eight. And we're just going to read the text. We won't have time to do a lot of observation and interpretation, but I do want you to read the text with me.

And I just want to point out something that I think is important. First Corinthians chapter eight, verse one. Now concerning food offered to idols. We know that all of us possess knowledge. This knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.

If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, he is known by God. Therefore, as to the eating of food offered idols, we know that an idol has no real existence and that there is no God, but one for, for although there may be so-called gods in heaven and on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many Lords.

Yet for us, there's one God and father from whom all things exist and for whom we exist. And one Lord Jesus Christ through whom all things are and through whom we exist. However, not all possess this knowledge, but some through former association with idols, eat food as really offered to an idol and their conscience being weak is defiled.

Food will not commend us to God. We're no worse off if we do not eat and no better off if we do. But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol's temple, will he not be encouraged if his conscience is weak to eat food offered to idols.

And so by your knowledge, this weak person is destroyed. The brother for whom Christ died, thus sinning against your brothers and wounding their conscience. When it is weak, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat lest I make my brother stumble.

Now, we're not going to try to interpret or apply this text. I only want us to simply recognize that apart from the cultural context, it would be impossible to even understand what's going on. Because we no longer have temples on every corner where people are sacrificing daily to those gods and then selling the meat in the market.

We don't deal with that. So it's hard. I mean, you know, if you and I go down and buy a rump roast from the local butcher, nobody put that rump roast on a spit and prayed to it an hour before we got there.

Right. It doesn't fit culturally for us to even think about meat offered to idols. And a lot of people run immediately with this to the application. Well, we could apply this to alcohol or we could apply this.

You know what I'm saying? People do that. Right. They want to they want to immediately make an application of this passage to something contemporary. And I say, before you do that, before you try to make some kind of extraneous application, let us first figure out what the context, the cultural context was so that we understand what Paul meant with his audience.