5 Steps to Bible Interpretation

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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November 5, 2021

A History of Edom (Genesis 36:1-9; 40-43)

00:02: Well, we are here in week 5, in our introduction to hermeneutics.
00:09: Hermeneutics, of course, is the art and science of Bible interpretation.
00:15: And if you know the answer, raise your hand.
00:18: What are the three steps to our method of Bible interpretation? Okay, but not instruction following, because I said raise your hand.
00:36: So what is it? Rebecca, what are the three steps? That's right, observation, interpretation, and application.
00:47: 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.
00:59: And we spent two weeks looking at the subject of observation, and tonight is our second week looking at the subject of interpretation.
01:09: So this is our outline for tonight's lesson.
01:12: Lord willing, we will get through the whole thing.
01:14: The first thing we're going to do is look at the five keys to interpretation.
01:21: The second thing we are going to look at is we're going to look at some examples of exegesis versus eisegesis.
01:30: 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.
01:36: But we'll define those terms when we get there.
01:40: Then after we take our break, we're going to go over our workbook assignment.
01:44: And I do have something to add to your homework this week.
01:46: It's very small.
01:48: I just need you all to come back with something next week.
01:51: We'll talk about that during our workbook assignment.
01:55: But before we begin, let's pray.
01:57: Father, I am so thankful to be here tonight.
02:01: I'm thankful to have an opportunity to discuss your word.
02:06: Lord, your word is precious.
02:10: Jesus Christ prayed, sanctify them with your truth.
02:14: Your word is truth.
02:17: Lord, let us be in love with you.
02:22: And let us love your word.
02:26: Help us tonight to understand the importance of rightly deciphering and interpreting the word of God.
02:36: In Jesus' name, amen.
02:39: All right.
02:41: Hermeneutics, as we have said before, begins with observation.
02:45: What does the scripture say? Then moves to interpretation.
02:49: What does the scripture mean? And it is in the interpretation that we have a serious danger.
02:59: The danger of misinterpretation.
03:03: Just recently, I was sitting with a relative.
03:08: We were talking about the Bible.
03:10: He was objecting to some of the things in the Bible, arguing that there were contradictions in the Bible and things like that.
03:19: And I tried to challenge him on some things.
03:25: I was really mostly focused on him hearing the gospel.
03:29: But I was trying to challenge some of what he was saying.
03:31: But the thing that he said was, well, you have your interpretation.
03:38: And this guy over here has his interpretation.
03:41: And that person over there has his interpretation.
03:44: And nobody knows for sure who's right.
03:50: And you may or may not have heard that before.
03:53: You may have even said that at some time before.
03:56: And certainly that is an objection that is raised all the time.
04:02: But what we need to understand is that the Bible does set for us certain parameters of meaning within the text.
04:13: And there are only a certain finite amount of things that the text can mean.
04:19: 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.
04:30: And so there are times where we'll say there's a passage that maybe myself and another pastor may disagree on.
04:39: But that particular passage is one that we can say as brothers, we can remain in disagreement.
04:45: We may not have the same understanding, the same conclusion.
04:49: 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.
04:59: And we can point out how that misinterpretation is happening.
05:03: And that's what we're going to talk about tonight with the five steps.
05:06: 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.
05:18: One of the things I like to remind people is this.
05:21: 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.
05:32: And honestly, that is the way most people try to interpret the Bible.
05:35: 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.
05:48: I want blessing, so I find every passage about blessing and I apply it to myself.
05:53: I want success, happiness, or whatever, so I find every passage about success or happiness and I apply it to myself.
06:01: 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.
06:10: And I've just used that as an example, but you understand what I'm saying.
06:13: I find what makes me happy and I interpret it in the way that makes me happy.
06:20: 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, where 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.
06:37: Whatever way makes me happy.
06:39: Because, again, they see the Bible as a fortune cookie.
06:43: 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.
06:51: 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.
07:06: You say, well, wait a minute, doesn't everybody assume that? No, not everybody does.
07:11: There are some people who believe that the Bible is really up to you.
07:19: 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.
07:30: I did a podcast about this a couple weeks ago.
07:33: 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.
07:49: It's not the word of God objectively, it's the word of God subjectively.
07:54: 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.
08:05: But we assume the Bible has a correct meaning.
08:09: Our goal is to find it.
08:11: I don't believe for a second that I know every meaning of every Scripture passage in the Bible.
08:16: 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.
08:31: But I do believe the Bible has a correct meaning.
08:34: In fact, I agree with Dr.
08:36: MacArthur who said this.
08:37: He said the meaning of Scripture is the Scripture.
08:41: 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.
08:51: You've got to have the meaning to understand the Scripture.
08:54: The meaning of Scripture is the Scripture.
08:58: 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.
09:07: 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.
09:25: 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.
09:45: And so we have to know what they mean.
09:49: And if we're going to have any confidence, we have to do the work of rightly interpreting the word.
09:56: Now, I just heard a ding twice.
09:59: I want to see if it's mine making the ding.
10:02: I think it is, just so that it doesn't continue to bother us.
10:09: Okay, so part one of tonight, five keys to interpretation.
10:17: I'm going to put them all up on the board for you.
10:19: If you'd like to write them down, I would encourage it.
10:22: Five C's are content, context, comparison, culture, and consultation.
10:41: We're going to spend a lot of our time tonight looking at each of these five C's.
10:50: I'll give you a second to write them down.
11:08: All right, so looking at the first one, content.
11:12: This one comes from your first step, which is the step of observation.
11:19: How do you know what is in the text? Well, you have to observe the text to know what it contains.
11:25: If you have done the preliminary work of excavation, then you should know what is there.
11:32: You have already searched for terms, structure, literary form.
11:38: You've already asked the questions of who, when, where, why, and wherefore.
11:43: You've looked for things that are emphasized, repeated, related, alike, unlike, things that are true to life.
11:51: 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.
12:10: 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, you know, 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 back and forth, and as I was doing that, I was thinking, you know, 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, if this is the church, 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, 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, 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, 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 C's, 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 C's, 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 there is, 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 and 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 is the same yesterday, today and forever, but understanding the difference between pre-Christ and post-Christ, before the cross and after the cross.
18:45: 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.
18:57: 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, 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, 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, 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 I can't believe you guys haven't done anything about this, you're just letting it go, you got geographical context, where is Galatia versus Jerusalem versus Corinth, it'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 you say it's 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 there were certain things that prophesied those things, it hadn't happened yet, I'll give you a good example of 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, 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.
21:59: Moses, he was a great guy, Tim Moses, 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, he was a 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 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.
22:30: Moses came and he was looking at my work, and he was asking me Bible questions, and he said, hey Mr.
22:34: Foskey, do you think Moses ever met Jesus? And he didn't know, because he had never really studied the Bible, but some of you were 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 where people are in these times, 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 with Jesus, what he meant though was, did they live at the same time? And no, they didn't, but that's something that not everybody knows instinctively, and so these are all part of understanding context.
23:25: Okay, the next one is comparison, and I want to introduce you to a phrase, it's not on my notes, or on the boards, 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 analogia scriptura, and it means that Scripture interprets Scripture, the Bible is its own interpreter, so when I'm 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.
24:29: The Westminster Confession of Faith, which is high watermark in 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.
25:01: 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.
25:18: 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.
25:28: From this it follows that Scripture cannot contradict Scripture.
25:33: God cannot teach in one place anything which is inconsistent with what He teaches in another.
25:38: Hence, Scripture must explain Scripture.
25:41: 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.
25:51: It's very important what he just said.
25:54: Because we might come to a passage and you say, well, we could interpret this three different ways.
25:59: Yes, but if the other passages only allow one way, then that's got to be the right way.
26:04: You 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.
26:13: That's the one we take.
26:15: Because the Scripture is its own interpreter.
26:19: Does this make sense? This is based on the concept of the laws of logic that we all agree to.
26:27: All of us live our lives based on the laws of logic.
26:32: And one of the laws of logic is the law of non-contradiction.
26:35: Something cannot be and not be at the same time and in the same relationship.
26:38: 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.
26:47: I think the best example of this is Paul and James.
26:52: 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.
27:09: The title of the sermon was The James-Paul Paradox.
27:14: I think it was the subtitle.
27:16: I think the sermon was...
27:18: I forget.
27:20: The subtitle was The James-Paul Paradox.
27:22: 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.
27:33: And I showed how they absolutely do not contradict.
27:36: 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.
27:50: 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.
28:00: See it done...
28:01: You know, see somebody walk through the text, and that's what I did.
28:04: I walked through James and Paul.
28:09: 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 the question, how do we compare passages? Dr.
28:20: Hendricks in his book suggests some ways, and I want to suggest some ways to you.
28:26: The first is by using a concordance.
28:29: Do you guys know what a concordance is? A concordance allows you to look up words in the Bible.
28:37: 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.
28:56: 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.
29:10: So, it seems to contradict, because they're both talking about the subject of justification.
29:15: 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.
29:23: 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.
29:32: 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.
29:42: Huh? Yeah, but you know what's funny, though? When I was looking up, less than you think.
29:49: 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.
30:05: I have my computer.
30:07: But I also have a tool that allows me to look up the original word, and look only that word up.
30:14: 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, 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.
30:30: And you can do that, too.
30:31: Anybody here, because I have a thing called Accordance.
30:34: It's just what I purchased from my computer.
30:36: But you can do that with Blue Letter.
30:38: You can do that with StudyLite.
30:41: These are all free sources online.
30:43: Blue Letter Bible is a free source.
30:46: StudyLite.
30:47: My favorite is BibleHub.
30:49: If you've never used BibleHub, BibleHub.com or iomemphis.com.org.
30:55: BibleHub's got a ton of good commentaries.
30:59: And so, those are sources you can use to do comparison studies.
31:05: You had your hand up, Frank.
31:06: I'm sorry.
31:08: It's interesting.
31:11: It seems like you can't just stop it, the word justification, because then you've got to delve into the word works as well.
31:26: Oh, sure.
31:27: Yeah.
31:27: I mean, it's not just one word.
31:28: Absolutely.
31:29: I mean, what it seems like is just a lot of work.
31:36: Well, you know.
31:39: It is.
31:41: It is work.
31:42: I'm glad you said that.
31:46: 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.
32:00: And again, I'm not putting myself on a pedestal or I'm not making myself a martyr, but he said, you spend most of your life in the position of shoulders forward, head down, studying.
32:13: 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.
32:20: He probably had a much different setup and he probably had a quill pen with a dipped ink setup.
32:27: But the point is, you spend your life doing this kind of stuff, you know, 30 hours a week.
32:34: You're reading and you're thinking.
32:38: And, you know, I remember doing other jobs.
32:43: I worked, I've done everything from lay asphalt to load trucks at UPS.
32:48: And very few things have ever been as taxing as writing a sermon because you have to do this first.
32:57: This comes before that.
33:00: The work of interpretation is necessary.
33:02: 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.
33:09: All right.
33:10: And it also shows why so many don't do the work.
33:13: Right now, there's a huge thing going on in the SBC about plagiarism.
33:18: What it is, is the president of the Southern Baptist Convention was caught having plagiarized an entire series of sermons.
33:26: 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.
33:41: And he got caught.
33:46: And, well, it wasn't like he got caught.
33:48: It was just they played his, they played this guy's, they played his, and they went back and forth.
33:53: And what it was, was he was plagiarizing the former president of the SBC.
33:57: So you got last president, and this president, preaching the same sermons.
34:02: And the question was, why? Well, because it was easier to read another man's sermon than it was to do the work himself.
34:10: I mean, at the end of the day, however you want to interpret it, the motivation, it's much easier.
34:16: I've had more than once, and this is, this is truth.
34:19: Bobby, I think, knows about this.
34:21: I've had more than once a church call me and ask me if I wrote the sermon that they named the sermon.
34:30: And I said, yes, I wrote that sermon.
34:32: And they said, well, our pastor preached it.
34:35: And he's, he's, he's using your sermons as his own.
34:39: I've happened twice.
34:40: I know that I was, I remember the first one because it was my sermon.
34:44: What can you do while waiting on God? I used to contribute to a sermon database where pastors would contribute notes.
34:51: And the reason for that database was so that we share ideas, not copy each other's messages.
34:57: But that's what he did.
34:59: He took the message, he copied, he just read it verbatim like it was his.
35:03: And I remember the call.
35:04: I say, this is Deacon so and so from whatever Baptist church.
35:06: Okay.
35:07: And he said, did you write the sermon? What can you do while waiting on God? Yes, sir, I did.
35:11: He said, well, our pastor preached it like it was his own.
35:13: What do you think we should do? I said, well, tell him he's got good taste.
35:16: That's not what I said.
35:17: But I said, I was only 28, so probably a little both.
35:30: But I was, I did say, I said, I would definitely have a talk with him about his study and his his responsibility.
35:39: 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.
35:54: I mean, I'm basically teaching you what Dr.
35:56: Hendricks wrote.
35:56: I didn't write this material, but we know what we're doing.
35:59: I gave you the book and we're all reading it together.
36:01: You know, it's not I'm not saying you can't use good stuff, but if you're not doing the work.
36:08: And again, I know I'm way off the subject, I'm sorry, but it is work and some people don't want to do it.
36:15: All right.
36:16: Number four, we own four or five culture.
36:20: Which one is that? Four.
36:21: Number four culture.
36:22: All of us live in a culture, often without even knowing it.
36:26: Most of us, if you've never been out of our culture, you kind of think everybody lives like you do.
36:30: And then we start looking at the Bible and thinking everybody in the Bible lived and thinks like we do.
36:35: And certainly they don't.
36:38: It becomes very obvious when we're removed from our culture and put into another that the world is not always like our own.
36:45: And what we do is we tend to impose upon the text our culture.
36:52: We tend to impose upon the meaning of the text.
36:56: And at that point, we're no longer interpreting the Bible.
37:01: We're imposing upon it our ideas.
37:04: I'll give you one for us to look at.
37:06: This is actually mentioned in your textbook on page 246, but let's turn there in our Bibles.
37:10: 1 Corinthians chapter 8.
37:15: And we're just going to read the text.
37:17: 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.
37:31: 1 Corinthians chapter 8, verse 1.
37:35: Now concerning food offered to idols, we know that all of us possess knowledge.
37:40: This knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.
37:43: If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know.
37:47: But if anyone loves God, he is known by God.
37:50: Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that an idol has no real existence and that there is no God but one.
38:01: 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 is 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.
38:15: 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.
38:25: Food will not commend us to God.
38:27: We're no worse off if we do not eat and no better off if we do.
38:31: But take care that this rite of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak.
38:36: 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.
38:55: When it is weak, you sin against Christ.
38:58: Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat lest I make my brother stumble.
39:03: Now we're not going to try to interpret or apply this text.
39:08: 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.
39:32: We don't deal with that.
39:35: So it's hard.
39:36: 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.
39:49: Right? It doesn't fit culturally for us to even think about meat offered to idols.
39:56: And a lot of people run immediately with this to the application.
40:00: Well, we could apply this to alcohol or we could apply this to...
40:02: You know what I'm saying? People do that, right? They want to immediately make an application of this passage to something contemporary.
40:10: 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.
40:29: What did you say, friend? Yeah, that's right.
40:32: This had a meaning to them that needs to be understood first.
40:38: The first thing I want to do when I'm studying a passage, especially a New Testament passage, is try to discern what it meant to Paul's hearers.
40:49: The immediate audience.
40:52: How did they understand this? The reason why I said New Testament.
40:56: In the Old Testament, there are some prophetic passages.
41:00: It's hard to understand what it meant to the original audience, but we know we can see it fulfilled in Christ.
41:05: We have the benefit of hindsight somewhat in the Old Testament when we're looking at passages.
41:11: But in the New Testament, this had an audience.
41:13: I want to read to you.
41:15: Now, this is actually jumping to number five because this is actually jumping to consultation, but we're going to get there in a second.
41:21: I want to read to you a commentary on this passage just to show you how, if I didn't understand the cultural context of Corinth, I have tools that can help me.
41:32: So let's pretend we don't know anything about meat offered to idols.
41:35: And we just read that passage for the first time.
41:37: We got fresh eyes.
41:38: We've never heard it before.
41:39: We don't know anything about it.
41:41: What do we do? Well, we can.
41:43: We can look for all the content and we can get all the information we can, but then we still might be a little behind the eight ball because we don't know.
41:51: We've never been there.
41:53: So we open up our commentary and this is what it says.
41:56: This is from the Bible knowledge commentary, which is just a one.
41:59: This is a one volume commentary, whole Bible commentary.
42:03: It's not super deep.
42:04: It's not super exegetical, but it's good for this type of information.
42:08: This is what it says.
42:10: Ordinarily, the Greeks and Romans burned the less desirable portions of an animal in the course of their sacrifices and retained the choice or parts for personal consumption at banquets, celebrating the sacrifices.
42:20: If a sacrifice were made in connection with a state function, the meat which remained was frequently sold in the marketplace.
42:27: The Corinthians question apparently concerned the acceptability of buying and eating meat from one of these sacrificial animals and the acceptability of eating this meat as an invited guest of a person's home and the acceptability of attending one of these pagan sacrifices and enjoying the meal of celebration, which followed in the temple precincts.
42:47: Paul spoke to each of those issues.
42:49: See right there, it gives us in that little paragraph just a little more context about what's going on.
42:54: And now we can see sort of the more with better eyes.
42:58: Now, if I wanted to dig deeper into this, I might could go to a Bible handbook or maybe a Bible encyclopedia or a Bible dictionary and look up things like pagan ritual feasts and things like that, a customs book.
43:10: I've got books on customs and things and actually see what it was that was going on.
43:16: Because really and truly, this is an interesting case study.
43:21: Paul is being asked the question, should we eat meat offered to idols? And his answer, in a sense, was there's no such thing as an idol.
43:29: There's only one God.
43:31: There's no such thing as these false gods.
43:33: If if somebody sacrifices a T-bone steak to Allah, still tastes like a T-bone steak.
43:39: You know, it still tastes good.
43:41: But if you used to worship Allah.
43:45: And you see me eating that meat.
43:49: That may that may cause you to stumble in your conscience.
43:53: And so I have to consider you before I consider me and I have to put my brother first.
43:58: Right.
43:58: So those are this is a lot.
44:00: And again, I said I wasn't going to get an application.
44:02: There's a lot of ways we could apply this.
44:04: But first and foremost, we need to make sure we're looking at the cultural context, understanding what's happening.
44:11: Makes sense.
44:13: All right.
44:13: Last one, as I said, was consultation.
44:17: Consultation is the use of secondary sources.
44:21: You can only go so far with what you know.
44:23: And your knowledge and my knowledge is limited.
44:27: I make mistakes.
44:29: I forget things.
44:33: You forget things.
44:34: We all forget things.
44:36: So we have to have some sources.
44:41: When I'm when I'm studying for a sermon.
44:46: I will tell you, I use commentaries because I am not the end all be all fountain of knowledge.
44:51: Now, I don't go to commentaries first because I want to do the work of observation first.
44:58: And then I want to do the work of interpretation as best I can with what knowledge I have before I am.
45:06: When I say influenced, I don't mean negatively influenced, but before I'm influenced by somebody else, I want to make sure that I'm doing my best at trying because, again, it's there's a there's a certain sweet connection that you have with the Holy Spirit when you're in the word and it's just you in the word.
45:26: And so there is a certain benefit of just relying on what the text says.
45:34: And it's it's funny.
45:35: I've said this before and I hope you understand what I mean.
45:37: Commentaries can shed light on the scripture, but sometimes the scripture can shed light on commentaries because sometimes commentaries will confuse you more than the scripture did because sometimes the comment, depending on the commentary you're using, sometimes it's not very helpful.
45:51: So it's it's often important that you get a good commentary.
45:54: And I I have different ones for different purposes.
45:58: One volume commentaries, I think, are great.
46:02: And one volume commentaries are like they're usually big because it's the whole Bible, but like a believer's Bible commentary.
46:08: If you take my Old Testament class, I make you buy that.
46:11: That's your book for the class because you use that for Old Testament and New Testament believers, Bible commentaries and one volume text.
46:18: The one that I just quoted from here, which is what was it? What was the name of it? Let me go back.
46:26: The Bible knowledge commentary, that was put out by Dallas Seminary, I think, so that one's that that was going to be a little more dispensational.
46:33: So it's which is fine.
46:34: It's just understand where it's coming from.
46:36: Yeah, he's good.
46:39: We're we're speaking.
46:41: Yeah, yeah.
46:44: A lot of times what you have with commentaries is you have a pastor sermons like Warren Wiersbe, of course, is Pastor John MacArthur.
46:52: His commentaries are basically his sermons.
46:54: So what you're getting is the benefit of their research.
46:57: And what you find is you find they're quoting from other commentaries.
47:00: And I and I, which is fine.
47:02: It's interesting, though, you'll begin to read a commentary.
47:04: There are two commentaries online that are free.
47:08: And and and I've actually begun using one of them.
47:11: I found it to be somewhat helpful.
47:15: It's it's called the Enduring Word Commentary.
47:18: It's David Guzik is the pastor.
47:20: And it's a one volume whole Bible commentary.
47:24: And I found what because, again, I was looking for stuff on Second John, putting together my my.
47:29: And what's funny about Second John is a lot of commentaries include Second John as part of First John.
47:34: And I didn't want that.
47:35: I wanted it to be separate.
47:36: And I found Guzik's commentary to be separate.
47:39: It was it separated out Second John.
47:41: I was like, well, that's what I want.
47:42: And so, you know, that's online.
47:46: It's free.
47:47: Doesn't cost you anything.
47:49: Bible ref dot com or dot net.
47:52: I forget.
47:52: That's actually got questions dot org, which is a great Web site.
47:56: It's their commentary.
47:58: Bible ref is a net.
48:00: So that's two free free things, you know, and most of us have our digital, you know, windows with us all the time, our phones or iPads or whatever.
48:10: So you have an access.
48:11: But again, use those as.
48:14: As a tool, not as the first thing, you know, you make sure you've done the excavation before you start doing the next part.
48:25: You see the Holman Bible Dictionary.
48:28: I've got one of them.
48:29: That's pretty.
48:30: It's pretty good about explaining geographical stuff and cultural context.
48:36: It speaks a lot to that in the Bible.
48:38: Yeah.
48:40: And I don't remember if I mentioned this last week or not, but Bible commentaries, Bible handbooks, Bible dictionaries, Bible atlases, all of these have their place and purpose.
48:51: Right.
48:52: You know, a study Bible attempts to try to put all that into one thing.
48:59: And that's fine if you want one thing to carry with you.
49:02: Like if I had to be shipped to a desert island and they say you can only take one book, I'd probably ask for my ESV study Bible because it's so big.
49:09: It's got so much good information in it that it would be helpful, you know, but but.
49:16: What I like about the dictionary, it's just all.
49:21: Yeah.
49:22: Yeah.
49:22: Yeah.
49:23: Well, that's a good dictionary.
49:26: I tell you what's funny, you know, Steve Lawson.
49:30: Great pastor, great preacher, he said, he said, you know, the one book that's always on my desk.
49:35: He was doing a lesson for preachers.
49:38: He said, is it the source? And you say, why a thesaurus? Because when you're preaching, you have to find different ways to say things to keep people learning.
49:48: If you say this, use the same words all the time.
49:51: People get bored.
49:51: People get confused.
49:53: He said, so I have a thesaurus that helps.
49:55: But that's that's really neither here nor there.
49:57: That doesn't really go with study.
49:58: That goes more for presentation.
49:59: If you're a teacher, if you're a person who teaches the Bible, having a thesaurus can help you expand your vocabulary.
50:07: So anyway.
50:08: All right.
50:09: So good rule.
50:11: I'm gonna leave you this and then we're gonna move to the next part.
50:14: Good rule.
50:15: If you're the only person who's ever come up with your interpretation, it's probably wrong.
50:21: And there is no novelty in theology.
50:24: I mentioned this in Set Free this morning.
50:27: Because a guy asked a question at Set Free.
50:29: He says, what if in 2022 there was a new Reformation where somebody came up and they found something in the Bible that nobody ever found before and there was a new Reformation? I said it would be wrong.
50:39: I said, because nobody in 1500, when they had the first Reformation, found things that weren't already found in the Bible.
50:46: Everything the reformers taught were the same things that Augustine was teaching in a thousand years before.
50:51: And Augustine was simply teaching what Paul taught.
50:54: It wasn't nouveau.
50:55: It wasn't novelty.
50:57: It was rediscovering what had already been taught.
51:03: In fact, what was Luther? He was an Augustinian monk.
51:09: And his theology is nothing more than Augustinian theology.
51:13: He would say he wrote that.
51:15: Luther and Calvin both attributed their theology and their teaching to Scripture, but to the influence of Augustine.
51:22: If somebody comes along next year and says I have a whole new way to interpret the Bible, you run.
51:28: Because that's not what we're looking for.
51:31: No novelty in theology.
51:35: Okay.
51:37: Exegesis versus eisegesis.
51:39: We're going to spend a few minutes talking about this and we're going to look at a few examples just to remind you what exegesis and eisegesis are.
51:48: Exegesis comes from the prefix ex, which means to draw out of the text what is contained within.
51:56: Eisegesis, the prefix ei, which actually in Greek would be a, so it would be eisegesis, which means to read into and to impose into the text something that is not there.
52:08: And I found an example.
52:09: I want you guys to give me your thoughts on this.
52:11: You can think of it however you want to think of it.
52:13: I'm going to put it on the screen and I'm going to get me a sip of my drink.
52:15: This is a cannabis truck with Jeremiah 2911.
52:28: Jeremiah 2911.
52:29: Let's look at it.
52:29: Open your Bibles.
52:30: Go to Jeremiah 2911.
52:32: Now, this was a truck.
52:34: I took this photograph at the Callahan Fair.
52:37: This was a guy who was selling cannabis, selling CBD oil and all that stuff, which is fine.
52:43: I'm not here to argue that, but he was selling all of this cannabis paraphernalia.
52:49: And then I saw on the side of his truck, Jeremiah 2911, and I got to thinking, I wonder what he means.
52:57: Because I'm pretty sure he doesn't mean what Jeremiah meant.
53:00: But somebody read it.
53:10: A future and a hope.
53:13: Thank you.
53:13: I know the plans I have for you, plans for welfare, to give you a future and a hope.
53:20: Now, I posted this online, on Facebook.
53:24: Why didn't you use more of the Genesis where I've given you every herb and wine? I'm saying that.
53:30: Well, I don't know this man, and I certainly don't mean to impugn his character.
53:34: And I said that on my post.
53:36: I said, I'm not in any way seeking to try to discern the heart of this man.
53:40: I don't know if he's a believer or not a believer.
53:42: That's not my point.
53:44: My point is, people use Jeremiah 2911 all the time to apply to themselves when the immediate context isn't really about that.
53:55: And it really, we're looking at a people who are going into captivity and God is promising them that he's not going to forget them.
54:06: You understand this has a context that it's in.
54:09: Now, somebody did ask me the question, they said, but pastor, can't this promise be applied to all God's people? And I said, well, let's take a step back and just see.
54:20: Does Jeremiah 2911 have a universal application for all believers? Well, in one sense, I would have to concede that God does know the plans that he has for every one of us.
54:36: That God does promise to love his people and not forsake them.
54:42: So the promises that God has do include, in a sense, welfare says he causes all things to work together for the good of those who love him and call it according to his purpose.
54:52: And does God give us a future and a hope? Well, if you're believing the Lord Jesus Christ, then yes, he does.
55:01: But I'm looking at those through the lens of Christ.
55:05: I have a feeling that this person might be looking at these promises through the lens of cannabis.
55:12: I don't know that.
55:14: But what I'm saying is, oftentimes we look at things like this.
55:18: We say, I wonder what the hope is talking about here, because a lot of people use that passage to try to prove a prosperity here and now theology.
55:28: And that's the danger, because when we start trying to use the Bible to prove that God wants you to be healthy, wealthy and have everything you want now or he wants you to be, you know, the future and the hope is always here.
55:44: If you ever hear a prosperity gospel preacher preach Jeremiah 29, 11, it's always about a future and hope here.
55:50: But let me ask you a question.
55:53: Is our future and hope here promised by God? Answers, no, the Bible says we will suffer with Christ, our Savior, if he suffered, we will suffer.
56:02: In fact, that's the one guarantee.
56:03: If you're a believer, the Bible says we will suffer for our faith.
56:07: If we don't, we're not his.
56:10: Somebody says, wait a minute.
56:11: I'm a child of the king.
56:12: Don't I deserve the best? Nope, not necessarily.
56:18: We have no guarantee that we will not suffer.
56:25: In fact, we have the opposite.
56:27: The hope that we have in the future that we have is not of this world.
56:31: We are pilgrims passing through.
56:35: And I have a feeling this guy would see it differently.
56:39: Again, I don't know him.
56:40: But I just have to wonder about why that passage.
56:47: All right.
56:48: I've discussed eisegesis and exegesis at length.
56:52: But I want us to look at three passages real quick and then we'll take our break.
57:02: These are three passages that I see often eisegetic, meaning often misinterpreted.
57:08: The first one is 1 Corinthians 8, 5, 1 Corinthians 8, 5 says this.
57:13: For although there we already read it, we read a few minutes ago.
57:15: For although there are many, there may be so-called gods in heaven on Earth.
57:19: Indeed, there are many gods and many lords.
57:22: Now, Paul is making a point.
57:26: In context, regarding the existence of idols, but Mormons use this passage to prove that there are many gods.
57:37: Even though the Old Testament clearly says and the New Testament, there is only one God.
57:42: And even Paul in this context says we know there aren't any other gods.
57:46: If you read within the context, their interpretation cannot be the right one.
57:51: Because they say that 1 Corinthians 8, 5 proves there are many gods because Paul says there are many gods.
57:57: He is talking about the fact that there are many idols in the world, but those idols don't actually exist.
58:03: There are no gods but one.
58:06: You see, though, how somebody can misuse that passage.
58:11: That's eisegesis.
58:15: Luke chapter 5, verse 12.
58:23: Speaking of Jesus, it says while he was in one of the cities, there came a man full of leprosy.
58:29: And when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and begged him, Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.
58:33: And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, I will be clean.
58:38: And immediately the leprosy healed him.
58:40: I have heard that passage used more than once to try to prove that it is always Jesus's will to heal.
58:48: All you have to do is believe enough.
58:51: And if you don't get healed, it's because you don't believe enough.
58:54: In fact, there was a time several years ago we had a situation where we were praying for a child that was very sick.
59:05: We were having a little fundraiser to try to help raise some money for the family because they needed some money for some treatment.
59:15: We were out in the parking lot out here and I prayed for the child.
59:22: I asked that God would heal the child and be merciful to the family.
59:27: Afterwards, this man walked up to me.
59:30: And he said, don't you dare pray that she be healed.
59:35: God already told me she's healed.
59:38: And I've already claimed and declared her healing.
59:51: These are the kind of verses that people like that will use.
59:54: And they're absolutely wrong.
01:00:01: Jesus told this man, I will heal you.
01:00:03: By extension, he did not promise every single person in the world healing.
01:00:08: Now, if we are healed, we can believe that God did it.
01:00:10: We can trust that the Lord is the only one who can heal the body.
01:00:14: Two people can have the same illness.
01:00:16: Two people can get the same treatment.
01:00:17: One person died, the other person doesn't.
01:00:18: It's God who gives life and it's God who ends life in a sense.
01:00:23: So we can trust that God is the one who heals.
01:00:27: But we cannot demand on God's will anything.
01:00:34: Last one is Ecclesiastes 9.5.
01:00:36: Ecclesiastes 9.5.
01:00:37: You don't have to turn there because I know we want to take our break.
01:00:40: But listen.
01:00:40: For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing.
01:00:44: They have no more reward for the memory of them is forgotten.
01:00:47: Some people try to use this to disprove the afterlife because it says that the dead know nothing.
01:00:57: And they try to use that passage to prove that there's no afterlife.
01:01:01: Let me first of all say this.
01:01:04: This is one of those times where it doesn't take very much analogy of Scripture to look at other passages and say there's absolutely an afterlife.
01:01:14: There's absolutely something going to happen when you die.
01:01:16: The idea that this is telling us the dead know nothing.
01:01:19: Therefore, the dead simply dissolve into nothingness.
01:01:22: That is not what the text means.
01:01:24: It's reading into the text something that is not there.
01:01:28: And it's not comparing the Scripture with the rest of Scripture.
01:01:35: It's one verse and it's in a book that was written about one thing.
01:01:40: What is the book of Ecclesiastes about? It's about what happens under the sun.
01:01:46: It's about what happens in this world.
01:01:48: Everything he says is under the sun, under the sun, under the sun.
01:01:51: It's about what happens here.
01:01:53: And from our perspective, the dead know nothing because from our perspective, they go on the ground.
01:01:58: We don't hear him talk anymore.
01:01:59: We don't hear him speak anymore.
01:02:00: That's what this text means.
01:02:02: It doesn't mean they are dissolved into nothingness.
01:02:05: It means that from our perspective, they're gone.
01:02:09: Doesn't that make more sense when you look at the context of the book, the whole book, rather than trying to take this verse and make it say something that it doesn't? That's true.
01:02:21: All right, guys.
01:02:22: Well, let's take our break.
01:02:23: Hopefully that was helpful.
01:02:24: We'll come back and continue after a few minutes.
01:02:36: I do want to show you one last thing because we didn't get to it before the break.
01:02:44: There is something, there is something that can influence your interpretation and you need to be aware of it.
01:02:52: I'm not saying it's wrong or right.
01:02:56: I'm saying it is.
01:02:58: And that is prior commitments to theological systems.
01:03:04: Prior commitments to theological systems can and will affect your interpretation.
01:03:11: We see this in things like Dispensationalism, Covenant Theology, or New Covenant slash Progressive Covenantalism.
01:03:20: Those are all, those are all hermeneutical frameworks through which we read.
01:03:24: Those are lenses that help interpret.
01:03:29: And those are, they can be good, but they are still systems.
01:03:35: Calvinism and Arminianism is a system.
01:03:38: And those systems are not, like I said, I'm not saying they're bad.
01:03:43: I'm a Calvinist.
01:03:44: I freely admit it.
01:03:47: But I believe that I arrived at Calvinism through my interpretation of Scripture.
01:03:51: I believe I got there the right way.
01:03:52: If you've never heard, I did five shows when I first started in the podcast.
01:03:59: I did five shows on how I became a Calvinist.
01:04:01: And I talked about that it really was the Scriptures that led me there.
01:04:06: But I would never in my life deny that the system now is part of what sort of helps in my understanding.
01:04:19: Once you're in a system, you're in a system.
01:04:21: You can't deny it.
01:04:24: And you have to be careful not to let the system skew the text, though.
01:04:28: That's the point I'm making.
01:04:30: If you don't know, everybody has a system.
01:04:33: Everybody has a theological framework that they're working from, especially people who don't know it scare me because I'll be talking to somebody and they won't know that they're committed dispensationalists because they've never heard that word.
01:04:45: But that's the only thing they've been taught.
01:04:46: It's like the lady at the high school.
01:04:48: I was talking to that time about the rapture.
01:04:51: And she said, well, you know, well, we know we're going to get taken out before the tribulation.
01:04:56: The rapture is going to happen and we're going to get taken out.
01:04:59: I said, well, that's one interpretation.
01:05:02: And she said.
01:05:04: She really she looked like a deer in headlights and she said, you mean there's other ways to interpret the rapture? And I said, yep.
01:05:14: And it was just one of those times where it was like, you know, her.
01:05:19: She'd never been exposed to anything else.
01:05:21: So she was looking at the text through only one lens because she'd never been exposed to anything else.
01:05:27: Yes.
01:05:29: Yeah.
01:05:30: Yeah, that's one interpretation of it.
01:05:39: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:05:44: I'll give you a good.
01:05:45: It's on the list here.
01:05:47: Oh, sass.
01:05:49: Oh, sass is once saved, always saved.
01:05:51: Now, of course.
01:05:52: Now, of course, I believe in eternal security.
01:05:55: I believe in the perseverance of the saints, which is a form of once saved, always saved.
01:06:03: But I understand that would affect how you interpret certain passages.
01:06:07: If that's your if that's your overriding theological principle, then when you go to Hebrews six, it's going to affect how you understand Hebrews six and affect how you understand Hebrews 10.
01:06:17: Going to going to affect how you understand some of the parables, because there's a lot of things that are going to you're going to have to look at them through that lens.
01:06:29: And again, if you know what lenses you got.
01:06:33: Then at least you know how to address your own biases.
01:06:38: I heard a guy one time, I think it was Dave Hunt, who said, I have no biases.
01:06:46: And he was debating James White, who said the man who says he has no biases is the one who is usually most trapped by them because he doesn't know what they are.
01:07:00: So if you don't know what you're if you don't know what your presumptions are, if you don't know what those things are, huh? Yeah, your presupposition.
01:07:08: If you don't know those going in, then you won't know that you're you won't even know that it's happening.
01:07:16: And this will be what happened last thing here.
01:07:18: Often we say, well, it can't mean X.
01:07:20: So it must have to be interpreted another way.
01:07:21: Why can't it mean X? Because X goes against your system.
01:07:24: That's why it can't mean that.
01:07:26: So you got to be careful allowing your system to be the grid.
01:07:29: The only grid that you use.
01:07:32: All right.
01:07:33: So let's go now to our workbook.
01:07:36: Your assignment was exercise 49 to 57.
01:07:41: To do any one of those.
01:07:44: And I'd like to simply ask how many of you did the work? Awesome.
01:07:51: Awesome.
01:07:51: OK.
01:07:52: How many of you did number 49? Now I was.
01:08:02: What was the page 49 is.
01:08:05: OK.
01:08:25: So examining the content.
01:08:27: Number 49.
01:08:27: Everybody turn there in your books.
01:08:28: 115.
01:08:32: You're fine.
01:08:34: And the passage was Habakkuk chapter three versus 17 to 19.
01:08:42: And this is what it says.
01:08:44: It says there is a direct cause effect relationship between content and meaning.
01:08:50: The content of a passage is the raw material, the database with which you will interpret the text.
01:08:55: And because of your work in observation, you already know quite a bit about how to determine the content of a passage.
01:09:05: So it goes on to say, as we move from observation to interpretation, we'll start with a short passage to get some practice for the next five days.
01:09:12: We'll look at Habakkuk 3, 17 and 19.
01:09:14: Now all of this deals with that.
01:09:16: So no matter what number you did, we were all all five days work on the same passage.
01:09:22: Right.
01:09:23: So we're all looking at the same passage.
01:09:24: Let's open our Bibles and actually look at the passage.
01:09:41: Habakkuk 3, 17.
01:09:46: Your princes are like grasshoppers.
01:09:49: Your scribes like clouds of locusts settling on the fences in a day of cold.
01:09:54: When the sun rises, they fly away.
01:09:56: No one knows where they are.
01:09:58: Your shepherds are asleep, O king of Assyria, your noble slumber.
01:10:02: Your people are scattered on the mountains with none to gather them.
01:10:06: There is no easing your hurt.
01:10:07: Your wound is grievous.
01:10:08: All who hear the news about you, clap their hands over you for upon whom has not come your unceasing evil.
01:10:18: I am.
01:10:23: You know what? Y'all let me get a long ways.
01:10:27: Before I realized I was reading Nahum.
01:10:34: Y'all let me get a long way.
01:10:38: You gotta stop me earlier.
01:10:40: I thought something was wrong, but I was like, well, nobody's saying anything.
01:10:47: So this is.
01:10:52: I've had an incredibly long few weeks.
01:10:56: Oh, that's a part of the video I can cut out.
01:11:01: That's the one beautiful thing about videos.
01:11:04: There's always an edit button.
01:11:05: All right.
01:11:07: So what's interesting is the book ended on the same words.
01:11:12: Chapter three.
01:11:13: Wow, man.
01:11:15: Okay.
01:11:16: Verse 17 of Habakkuk three.
01:11:20: Though the fig tree should not blossom.
01:11:24: Am I right? Okay.
01:11:27: Nor fruit on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food.
01:11:34: The flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls.
01:11:38: Yet I will rejoice in the Lord.
01:11:41: I'll take joy in the God of my salvation.
01:11:43: God, the Lord is my strength.
01:11:45: He makes my feet like the deers.
01:11:47: He makes me tread on my high places to the choir master with stringed instruments.
01:11:54: All right.
01:11:57: What's that? Yeah.
01:12:02: So it says as we move from observation to interpretation, we'll start with this passage.
01:12:08: Remember to look for term structure, literary form and atmosphere.
01:12:12: Try to find things that are emphasized, repeated, related alike and true to life.
01:12:17: Then answer the following questions.
01:12:19: Who wrote this passage? To whom was he writing? If you notice that the author did not address his people, you will have found something that makes this book unlike most of most other books of prophecy.
01:12:31: What is happening? What point was the author trying to make? Now, I know a few of you did this page.
01:12:37: Does anybody have an answer to that question? What was the point the author was trying to make? It is well with my soul.
01:12:48: Huh? It is well with my soul.
01:12:50: No matter what I'm going to, even if there's no food, I'm still going to praise God.
01:12:55: Okay.
01:12:56: Not my circumstances.
01:12:58: In the midst of terrible things happening in your life, you need to trust God.
01:13:06: Okay.
01:13:06: I forgot this.
01:13:11: Frank, I'll come to you in a minute.
01:13:14: What would you say, bro? All you need is the presence of the Lord.
01:13:21: Okay.
01:13:26: Well, I mean, I think that times are getting hard today.
01:13:32: There's no fruit in the vines.
01:13:34: It's going to run.
01:13:35: So, there's sins already taken on and there's going to be suffering in this, you know, in this part because the days are long.
01:13:45: So, take courage and your strength is in the Lord.
01:13:50: That's what he's saying.
01:13:52: I'm sorry if I looked dumbfounded.
01:13:54: It wasn't you.
01:13:55: I'm looking for my eraser.
01:13:56: I wanted to write something.
01:13:58: Probably an acorn.
01:14:03: I'm not going to let this down for a while.
01:14:07: Oh, boy.
01:14:08: There's something I want to point out in this passage.
01:14:11: Anybody else have anything before we? I think so.
01:14:16: The word, though, is repeated so many times and somewhere, somehow, I heard it and I didn't have a chance to check the Greek and whether or not though and when, whether they are the difference between though and when.
01:14:36: OK, well, it was a word I was going to point out.
01:14:40: But the word, though, is in verse 17.
01:14:43: The word that catches my attention, though, and though is an important word.
01:14:47: The word that catches my attention is the word yet, because oftentimes the word yet function similar to the word.
01:14:57: But it's a it's a word that means something different.
01:15:02: You know, if I say, you know, I'm coming to see you yet.
01:15:10: I can't or I want to see you, but yet I can't, you know, yet changes the direction of the of the of the idea.
01:15:17: And so, as many of you noted, the idea here is suffering.
01:15:21: But what does he say? Yet I will rejoice.
01:15:26: And so the word yet, I think, if I again, as I'm looking at this with fresh eyes and just saying, what words would I what words would I be circling? What words would I be looking for? That word yet certainly puts a puts an emphasis on the change going from one thing to the other.
01:15:46: OK, but I think that was good.
01:15:47: Everything you guys said was was good thinking.
01:15:49: Now, did anybody do other pages you'd like to mention? Well, it's all the same text.
01:15:56: It's just different.
01:15:57: What other or you have something from this particular one, Chuck? I mean, most I mean, I was thinking about most of the time.
01:16:08: There is the professor trying to get people to repent.
01:16:13: And you don't see that in this past.
01:16:15: I think that the future is awesome.
01:16:21: And there is no further.
01:16:21: I think there's there's lack of propensity.
01:16:24: And I thought that's what the vote was for.
01:16:26: OK, but I mean, I thought that's just one of the things I've noticed that there, you know, it's different from most that I've looked at.
01:16:36: There's not no repentance yet.
01:16:38: And I thought that that might have been why he said, yeah, I was on board, even though.
01:16:44: Yeah.
01:16:44: Yeah.
01:16:45: It means even though.
01:16:46: Yeah.
01:16:46: Even though.
01:16:47: Yeah, I will.
01:16:49: OK.
01:16:51: Who did they may do 50? Who did 51? Would OK.
01:17:00: So 51 was making comparisons.
01:17:03: Can you find other examples when the fig tree does not bud? What are the circumstances? What are the lessons to be learned? Did you happen to find anything? OK.
01:17:25: Mm hmm.
01:17:29: Yeah.
01:17:30: Yeah.
01:17:31: Absolutely.
01:17:38: Yeah.
01:17:43: And the the the barrenness of the fig tree does remind us of the concept of the lack of repentance, you know, bearing fruit kind of goes back to what Chuck was saying a little bit about the idea of the fig tree not blossoming, maybe maybe more is what you were saying.
01:18:00: All right.
01:18:03: Yes.
01:18:19: Yes.
01:18:26: Yeah, I don't I don't want to try to answer that with, like I said, with fresh eyes.
01:18:34: I I will say this, though, in regard to when we read.
01:18:39: Remember, we talk about context when we read apocalyptic literature and that's apocalyptic.
01:18:45: The word is the type of literature is prophetic literature.
01:18:49: And so often it is very it's filled with symbols and things that point to a deeper meaning.
01:18:57: So, you know, I would I would I would want to spend a little more time with it before I give you a direct answer on that.
01:19:05: Anyone else? Yeah.
01:19:47: You did.
01:19:48: Yeah.
01:19:51: I found myself doing with both and just interpreting it as when.
01:19:59: Now, you know, is that massaging the text or is it not? Or is it is it OK to do that? I mean, in this context, because I'm you know, he's talking about both this and when I think though and when have the same context, it doesn't change the context of of the of what is what is being expressed.
01:20:27: And it plays out, you know, but then that maybe you're doing that for me, because on initially reading this, I mean, and I don't mean just for this class.
01:20:40: I mean, initially reading that gave a meaning to me.
01:20:45: That was meaningful to me.
01:20:47: And maybe that's, you know, I mean, that kind of scares me when I read a text like that.
01:20:52: Sometimes it scares me.
01:20:54: Sometimes it inspires me.
01:20:55: I just don't know.
01:20:56: OK.
01:21:00: It doesn't explain it for.
01:21:03: In chapter 16.
01:21:08: It says, yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon the people who conveyed us.
01:21:18: And then he goes on.
01:21:19: So do we not have to go back to the beginning of the passage? The whole chapter? Well, that's context.
01:21:30: That is what we would definitely do.
01:21:32: So, yeah, that's not now.
01:21:35: That's when.
01:21:38: I don't think that's what I'm saying.
01:21:41: That's just what it meant to me.
01:21:44: Or I think or even if.
01:21:48: Yes.
01:21:49: No.
01:21:50: Well.
01:21:54: I did a little research on the when part of it.
01:21:59: I think that because it would happen.
01:22:03: Six hundred.
01:22:05: Some BC before before Christ.
01:22:08: So I was thinking that he was referring to what was lying ahead.
01:22:13: The four hundred years of being without.
01:22:17: Working in Babylon.
01:22:22: So would those things even grow there? I don't know.
01:22:27: I just know that there was a.
01:22:29: Yeah.
01:22:31: Yes, James.
01:22:32: I'm sorry.
01:22:46: Mm hmm.
01:22:49: Mm hmm.
01:22:55: No, but that is that is an important observation is that it's written as a song, which again goes back to the idea of how we are to interpret it.
01:23:05: We interpret it in the.
01:23:08: What's that? Yeah.
01:23:10: And a poetic sense and a poetic sense.
01:23:13: Now, if you look at I don't know how many did anybody do number 50.
01:23:19: Hold on.
01:23:21: Let me find it on the wrong page.
01:23:28: Anybody do 53 the consultation? OK.
01:23:33: OK.
01:23:34: All right.
01:23:35: Well, the consultation one is where you might you might find yourself where we are.
01:23:42: And say, OK, well, some people are saying this is literal.
01:23:46: Some people are saying this is poetic.
01:23:50: You know what? What tools can we use to at least look at it from the perspective of maybe a scholarly perspective? What's a tool that we could look at? OK.
01:24:07: All right.
01:24:15: Well, for the sake of time, I'll just do it quickly.
01:24:20: We will look at what's the book.
01:24:36: It is.
01:24:41: Back at chapter three, back at 317.
01:24:51: All right.
01:25:04: Beginning in verse one, because, again, context.
01:25:11: It says in a splendid vision of God's sovereignty.
01:25:15: That Scrooge, he calls a fear.
01:25:18: The who can't even say it.
01:25:20: Theophonic ode song about God's manifestation, Habakkuk pictures God marching forth against his foes, crushing them by his power and triumphing gloriously.
01:25:29: He makes frequent allusions to the Lord's past punishment of Israel's enemies, the judgment of Egypt at the time of the exodus, the countries that opposed Israel on the way to the promised land and the nations that had to be driven out of Canaan by Joshua.
01:25:44: In the first section of the prayer, God's glory and brightness are seen in both the heavens and the earth.
01:25:49: The geological, the geographical details of Timan, Mount Paran, Kushan and Midian all speak of enemies of Israel.
01:25:57: For example, Timan, a large city in Edom, stands for all of Idumea and Kushan is probably the same as Kush or Ethiopia.
01:26:05: God's power is stressed in these words, especially as manifested over the rivers and the seas and the mountains.
01:26:10: And verse 11 refers to the famous event at Gibeon during which the Lord worked a mighty miracle in the sky to help Joshua win the battle.
01:26:17: Here, God is seen marching through the land for Israel and trampling their enemies in anger.
01:26:22: The reference in 15 is to the crossing of the Red Sea when there was a heap of great waters on either side of the people of God as they marched through as if on dry land.
01:26:31: Habakkuk envisions God is moving to the sea with his horses.
01:26:34: And when the prophet heard of the judgment of the Babylonian invaders, he trembled and determined to wait quietly for the event to come to pass.
01:26:42: And in the meantime, whatever trials the prophet Habakkuk and his people might be called upon to endure as a result of the Babylonian invasion, though the fig tree may not blossom and the yields, the fields yield no food there and there be no herds in the stalls.
01:26:58: He would rejoice in the Lord and joy in the God of his salvation.
01:27:02: Baxter claims exclaims this quote.
01:27:04: The literal is I will jump for joy in the land.
01:27:07: I will spin around for delight in God.
01:27:09: Here is the hilarity of faith.
01:27:11: Joy is at its best with circumstances at their worst.
01:27:15: What a victory may it be ours.
01:27:17: So that's the that's one commentary on the passage.
01:27:21: And it's sort of giving us a picture of what the passage is.
01:27:24: So if we're having trouble with the meaning, it's not a sin to go and look up and try to get some more information, try to glean from what others have gleaned.
01:27:37: And all I did was look up the Believer's Bible commentary on that on that chapter.
01:27:42: So that can help.
01:27:43: Is that the end all be all of interpretation? No, but it can help us.
01:27:55: If these were God's children.
01:27:58: Yeah, I would probably I would have to look at the whole of the book.
01:28:02: I would have to begin looking back at the beginning to see who the to see who the author is addressing.
01:28:08: I do.
01:28:09: I look.
01:28:10: Yeah.
01:28:12: Yeah.
01:28:12: Yeah.
01:28:13: The Northern Kingdom.
01:28:14: Yeah.
01:28:32: So we have the.
01:28:38: The book itself.
01:28:40: And then we have extra resources that we can go to atlases dictionaries and even a commentary to help us to try to understand the meaning of these things.
01:28:51: So hopefully that was helpful.
01:28:53: I do have one last thing.
01:28:54: I know we're way over time and I know you guys want to go home next week is going to be rough because next week it's going to be darker an hour early.
01:29:01: So by the time you get here, it's going to be really dark.
01:29:04: So keep that in mind.
01:29:05: I know that's we only got three weeks to go and then it's Christmas time, baby.
01:29:09: We get a month off a month and a half off for Christmas.
01:29:12: It's going to be great.
01:29:13: So here's your, here's your homework to add to your homework because I know you got your reading.
01:29:18: Please choose and hand in next week.
01:29:21: A scripture passage that you would like us to deal with.
01:29:25: And if you, if you turn in Habakkuk three 17 to 19, I'll I'll laugh, but that would be funny if everybody handed in Habakkuk three.
01:29:37: No, choose a passage because the very last class is we're just going to be going through the passages.
01:29:43: You guys choose walking through the passages, making our observations, seeking to find an interpretation of that passage based upon what we know.
01:29:51: Now, some of it may be like tonight.
01:29:53: There may be some of it that we don't know right away.
01:29:57: We have to do a little looking up a little research, but that is the night we actually practice doing all that we have learned week eight.
01:30:06: Don't want to miss week eight, but I need to have the passages ahead of time.
01:30:10: So you pick the passage tonight.
01:30:13: What's that? And here's the thing.
01:30:19: Try to pick a short passage.
01:30:21: If you give me a paragraph, it's going to take too long.
01:30:24: I need to be able to look at the passage and deal with it and try to make it something that you might have a question about that way.
01:30:30: We can answer, seek to answer the question.
01:30:34: Okay.
01:30:35: I'm going to do it.
01:30:36: We're going to do a bunch, but you only get to pick one and everybody else gets to pick one.
01:30:40: I may not be able to do them all, but we'll do the ones we can.
01:30:42: Let's pray.
01:30:44: Father, I thank you for your word.
01:30:45: Thank you for your truth.
01:30:46: Thank you for your, your gift of Jesus Christ.
01:30:49: And we thank you for the salvation that comes in knowing him alone.
01:30:52: May we go from this place with him in our hearts and minds in Christ's name.
01:30:55: Amen.
01:31:01: Sorry to keep you all.