Hermeneutics 101

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All our Jesus we thank you for your substitutionary obedience and your substitutionary death
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That we're declared righteous because of your meritorious work and Lord, we thank you that we can gather together today the
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Lord's Day Because you're risen and we want to celebrate that and we want to encourage one another to love and good works
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Father would you bless this Sunday school session? Would your name be honored and would you help us to grow in Christ likeness?
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would you bless the other Sunday school ministries as well and in the children's group and in Other groups in the church and would your name be honored there as well in Christ's name.
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I pray. Amen Okay. So today
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I would like to talk about hermeneutics, right? Which is the science and art of Bible interpretation.
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This is a very big topic, right? It's a advanced topic and I can't finish everything in 45 minutes
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So I'm going to do some basics just at least get our feet wet and our minds
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Introduced to the topic is for some people as I was telling elder Scott. It's a scary topic
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People think it's only for pastors people think it's only for You know old men right that I hear that a lot so it's not it that's that's not the truth whether you're 10 years old or 25 or 105 you need to know the basics of interpretation so There's a prerequisite to understanding the
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Bible. It's a very basic one. Can somebody tell me what that is? There's a pre salvation.
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Thank you. Exactly, right? It's it's it's that's very simple one You have to be born again there is the role of the
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Holy Spirit who illumines the mind of a Regenerate man and enables him to not just understand the text but more importantly apply it, right?
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The whole idea of hermeneutics is not just interpretation It's also being able to apply the text and grow in Christ likeness
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You can't do that if you don't have the Holy Spirit, so that's a prerequisite Prayer is very important as well.
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You know, you need to pray in order For God not not in order for God, but so that we would be able to understand what we're studying but The problem is that most people only focus on that.
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They say that I have the Holy Spirit. I'm depending on him I don't need to do anything more and The focus becomes just the fact that you know, yes, you're saved.
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You don't need you don't there's no additional work need to be done in other words There's a focus that the book is that the
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Bible is just a divine book and Not the other aspect of it as well, right or as Roy Zook puts there are two axioms one is it's a divine book, but and it's a
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What else is it? It's a divine book and it's a human book, right written by 44 authors in order for Human beings to understand it, right?
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This is God Writing something inspiring the word written in human language to on to communicate to human beings
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So most Christians surprisingly even reformed Christians tend to move away from the fact that it's also a human book that you need to apply
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Syntax grammar and normal methods of interpretation and understanding it, right?
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Another thing that you see is with why I'm still why I'm teaching. This is a lot of people
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Go from observation to application, right? They read something in the text and then they jump ahead to go and apply it
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What's missing in between? right Let's put aside the Bible for a moment with a normal book, right something that you're reading
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I don't know maybe on gardening maybe on designing a website, right? You're you're reading something from your book
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Right, you don't just simply jump and go directly into trying to do it There's some something in between that you need to do.
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What is that simple yet important something? Interpretation, right if you don't interpret what's in bit what's in that what's in the book
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You can't really apply it correctly at least not the way the author wanted you to apply it, right? so Similar to that is you have an author you have a message and you have some audience, right?
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If the author is not conveying the message clearly the audience is never going to understand it
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If the audience is not interpreting the message correctly once again You the communication is lost, right?
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there's no way the message can be conveyed if neither the author nor the audience is
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Is participating in the rules of the system carefully? We're in a we're in an interesting time in America right now why
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I'm saying that is because of the elections, right and it's fun to watch, you know, if you're if If you take it lightly too if you're not taking it too seriously
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You see one thing that's really frustrating for me is The Bible is quoted by politicians has nothing but a set of like it's similar to a set of Chinese proverbs, right?
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There's no context. There's no nothing It's just pulled out and just stuck in and and then you have all
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Evangelicals riling and running after them because of what they're saying, right? It's it's it's good, right?
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yes, the politicians are misusing it a lot of other people are misusing the Bible, but my argument is
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Even in the reform circles even in people who do believe in the inerrancy of Scripture There is a lot of Misuse of the word and we'll go get into a few examples of that and we'll go through some of the basic methods that will help you interpret elder
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Pradeep spoke about the importance of the Word of God how it is not just Paul's word or it's not just Moses's words.
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These are actually the Word of God. So the question I have for you is is it not important to?
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Know what God is saying because these are his words and to interpret it carefully
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Right, wouldn't we do that with any other author of any normal book written by man?
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You would you pay attention to what it's saying and just like elder pretty wanders It's important to remember this.
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These are God's words and we need to stress on understanding it Charlie crane about a few weeks ago.
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He was teaching Sunday school on how Jesus Christ is equal with God It was a it was it was a wonderful session because I learned a lot
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Of verses that didn't know that was speaking about Jesus Christ as God It was just it was just great and he reminded us how if you toss out tenses verbs context
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You can be a heretic. You can come away from a text that's calling
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Jesus as God and say no he is not God and that's a big problem and As always
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I like to appealing to husbands and fathers and men here's a question for you How do you protect your family from false teachers and heresy if you have no?
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System within which you can interpret the Bible right? Is that even possible? How do you help your wives?
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How do you help your children? How do you help? Other men in society and especially in the church from how do you protect them?
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If you have no rules of interpretation so my challenge to you too is it's important to have that interpret have a
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Steady and proven system for interpreting the scripture. I sometimes hear this even in home group, right even at home group
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I I sometimes hear this being said This is what the text means to me, right?
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That's like nails On a board for me when I hear that and We don't do that with any other book.
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Do we? We wouldn't dare do that with the newspaper for instance Not that many of us read newspapers anymore, but we don't do that with anything else why would we ever do that with the scriptures and say this is what the text means to me and Another reason why
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I'm talking about this today I was talking to a couple of reformed people dear to us.
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We love we believe they're saved and They had it and they're reading Sarah Young and think she's she's okay
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Okay, if if you've not read Sarah Young's book I would say be way be careful.
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It's I've read it too because I need to protect my wife from things like this and there's no way you can reconcile that book
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Jesus calling that's the name of the book with the Bible and say that they're on the same page. There's no way
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I'm sorry It's just impossible. But more and more reformed Christians tend to be Not separating the two they seem to be saying it's fine
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Which I think is dangerous Polygamy right.
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I hope I'm pronouncing it correctly, but It's where you can have multiple spouses a lot of people a lot of proponents of this say that they're polygamists because of Abraham Right.
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It's a misinterpretation of Scripture very fundamental But it's it's so clear that that's not what the
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Bible is talking about yet It's everywhere because and people people are saying it's because Abraham the father did it so we can do it
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One that I've heard even used by used by people even on radio now is
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Even adultery is fine because of what David did and he was still considered to be the friend of God, right?
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So yes, I see some faces that are cringing and looking disgusted But the truth is this is what people are saying because you're pulling things out of context and you're not interpreting it correctly
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And then we have a lot of Christians not able to defend the truth. So it's a big it's a big issue
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So we must deal with it I'm going to do a 60 -second review of the history of interpretation
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I can't do a very big one because we'll be in that for for ages What do you think is the biggest
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Mistake that people make an interpretation They'd make this mistake. They make this mistake to almost 1 ,800 years ago and they make this mistake even today
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What is the biggest mistake people make they make a lot of mistakes are made But I'm just gonna touch on one small topic so I can finish in 60 seconds
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But what what do you guys think is one mistake? That's that's commonly made
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Good yeah taken out of context That's one Yes injecting your own worldview
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Right, so that's isogesis Right. It's it's putting what you think into the text instead of exegesis, which is taking out of the text what it means
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But what I'm looking for another Term though, it's very commonly done even now, but it was a major problem before the
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Reformation to Does the term origin another term sorry the the name origin ring anybody ring anything in anybody's mind
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What what was he very famous for he's he is a Man who lived what 200
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I would say 200 80 200 380 very popular man very some regard him as very godly
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I don't know about his salvation, but he one of he had a major problem and and anybody know what that was
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Allegories right allegory he he allegorized not just sections of scripture. He allegorized the entire text away.
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Okay, and What does it mean to allegorize does anybody know what that means in in a normal context, what is it?
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What does that mean? Yes Excessive symbolism.
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I mean allegories are not bad, right? They're not they're not wrong They just if they're applied and where they don't belong then you can get away with the meaning, right?
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so essentially allegory is there's a deeper hidden truth to a text or a Paragraph and you're trying to draw out what that deeper meaning is what the truth is instead of the normal literal translation
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So why did they do this? Why did people allegorize and they did it a lot?
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primarily because enemies of the gospel Had problems with many sections of scripture, right?
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Like they had problems with Noah's Ark with Tamar seduction of Judah, right?
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Admittedly, these are difficult sections of scripture to read So what people did is to defend the truth and the and the word from the enemies of the gospel
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They just said oh, no. No, it's what was not really Tamar wasn't really Judah This is there's a symbolism behind it and that's not what really happened as a result
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Entire texts of scripture which were supposed to be interpreted normally literally grammatically and historically were pushed away and It just became stories and it became a hunt for finding.
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What does it text actually? So that's why people came up with our allegory allegories
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And finally if you look at the Reformation, which as many of you know, we celebrate 500 years
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Next year of the Reformation. It was primarily a hermeneutical
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Reformation that is people were challenged to look at the correct approach to understanding the scripture, so The Reformation for all of the things it did was primarily hermeneutical.
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It's in how do you sit down study? What does it text actually say and it really encourages from that point?
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So that is the history it but I was much more than 60 seconds, but I like putting people into groups
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No, I'm not stereotyping. But I like because it helps you to identify a problem. So I Have four groups of people.
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Okay in terms of how do you approach and read the Bible? Okay? Why I would like you guys to tell me which group you belong to.
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No, no, not tell me just Think about it. Don't tell me because then we'll have more problems, right?
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So first first I what I claim is all of these groups are Christians. They're born -again believers
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They believe that Jesus Christ is the Lord of heaven and earth that he alone is Lord and Savior, right?
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So I'm making an assumption that you are saved that you are a Christian group one You never read the
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Bible But you do read Spurgeon's devotion and you do read daily devotionals
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You believe strongly that intense study is for the old for men for pastors and for seminary students only
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That's group one Group two you do read the
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Bible regularly But you prefer to allow the spirit to talk to you
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You are afraid and I've heard this a lot that historical grammatical literal interpretation
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Will nullify the work of the spirit like group one you will not pick up anything but a daily devotional and Because you're waiting for the
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Holy Spirit to speak to you you sometimes sit in a quiet room and Often fall asleep group three.
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You're a more serious student of the Bible you read regularly You read of a study
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Bible something like what John McArthur has something like what the ESV study Bible us So because you're reading the study
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Bible and you're reading it carefully Implicitly you get the context and the grammar and the history correct not explicitly right because you're you're kind of Getting this person's view whether it's it's a study
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Bible reading one study Bible and you're getting all the views correctly based on that Right, so you're getting it implicitly correct
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You occasionally occasionally look at the introduction and the historical background But the the issue with this group is why it's really good and much better than groups one and two
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While you have regular study the the views are not your own and in other words
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You tend to have strong convictions because The study
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Bible has strong convictions, right? There's nothing wrong with reading only the study
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Bible. I'm not saying that it's wrong to read my got the study Bible That's not what I'm saying here. What I am saying is your views are only
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Your doctrinal views are only based on what that Bible what that Bible or what that ESV study
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Bible says, right? You're not thinking through the text. Okay, this is what this Introduction this history means that this is what the
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John McCarthy saying about this. So therefore there's no way anything else is wrong What's wrong with that What what's wrong with that I've already given hints as to there is one aspect of things that are that's wrong with that but Looking for more input.
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Why am I saying that there's a problem if you're only reading one person? Excellent, right men are prone to error and even if it is somebody as beloved as dr
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John McCarthy, right who we really love and who we listen to and who we are careful about but Men are prone to error and you tend to have the person's views rather than What the
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Bible is saying, right So so what's an approach that you can take to? to kind of to kind of mitigate that problem
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What can you do to avoid that problem? Excellent. Excellent, right? you so you read more you read more people try to try to get it try to get more of a view right and Would you agree with me that right now where we're standing in 21st century?
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We have more resources than we've ever had ever To do that more free resources more online resources than we've ever had.
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So that shouldn't be a problem and the final group is Here's a group of people you are if you're in this group
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Which I hope we all work towards you study or know the context of the of the Bible This is it.
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Can we say that there's a whole the Bible is a whole but pieces fix fit in very very well So they're not contradictory and and and and completely hard to understand
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No, if you you're somebody who actually knows the theme of the Bible Then you do know the context of the book because you're studying it
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Group four also has at least two or three commentaries and you're not afraid to admit it You may have concordances and dictionaries again.
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You're not afraid to tell people that you study the Bible in that manner You study about the author, you know something about you know a lot about the historical context in the background
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You understand the cultural setting, you know, there's a language gap, you know, there's a
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Historical grab gap. So what do you do? You start tend to fill those gaps in the gaps are not in the
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Bible per se the gaps are in us Right as we're trying because we live in the 21st century Bible 2000 years old, right?
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there's there's a gap there as a language cultural historical gap that needs to be filled and Finally you do understand that the context of the verse is very very important Now hermeneutics, it's it is a it is a
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Greek word Which essentially means the science and art of biblical? Interpretation, by the way,
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Harry this morning made sure I remember that hermeneutics was from the word came from a
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Greek already made sure he reminded me of the one thing that I should I should teach today, but So so it's it's a science.
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The science is nothing but people get scared when we talk about science No, it's nothing but a set of principles that help us
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Define or help us interpret something right? It's it's a set of legitimate rules, right?
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every system needs to be governed by rules otherwise this chaos in the system and And hermeneutics is essentially a science that is you have a system in which you have clear principles and rules by which
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You can interpret language But it's also an art, right? There's skill involved you you as an interpreter has to actually go and apply those rules and principles it's not a it's not a just a
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Mechanical mechanic process, right? Okay. I've learned hermeneutics. I can sit in front of the Bible. It's automatic.
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It just comes no You actually apply that skill, right? It's just like you learn something
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It's engineering right you you go through the classes how many of the years you you learn the principles and methods involved in In engineering, but you actually have to go and apply it
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And if you can't apply it, you can't be an engineer. You can't be certified right? You can't do your you can't do your job for every student of the
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Bible You need to know the principles and you need to apply the principles Right, it's it takes time
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It takes skill and effort, but every one of us who professors to be a slave of Christ has to be able to correctly understand interpret and apply what we learn especially apply these methods of interpretation into into the into the into the interpretation a
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Word on commentaries, by the way, I I did say it's very important to study commentaries Are they inspired?
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Are they inspired our commentaries inspired? Can can they have errors in them? so It's it's important to real it's important to remember that as you may have a bunch of commentaries open, right?
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So that's why it's even more important as Frank said right to not just have one set to have more
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To have more sets to sit and study it by and when you pick a commentary
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It's important to know what is the author's Christology, right? What's his view of Christ? That's crucial because if he has a low view of Christ, he doesn't believe he's a son of God You have serious problems with this entire premise and you can you can your interpretation can be modeled by what he's saying in his commentary
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What is the author's view on the Bible? Right? Does he have a high view of Scripture? Does he understand how it does he understand inspiration?
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Those things are important as well And then if you are struggling with finding a good set of commentaries talk to your pastor
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You know talk to other men in the church, but it's good to have a nice set of commentaries to help you
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With to help you study the Bible Frank. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. That is that is very important, especially if you belong to one of those camps and and you like to and you like to sit in that right you can be very
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Discouraged and this this, you know disheartened when you see that they're dispensationalist or that they're a covenant theologian
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So it's yes, that's a very good point because that that view kind of permeates through a lot of what they're writing, so It's very important to know what those beliefs are.
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Thank you Frank Okay, let's dive straight into some basic hermeneutic methods. Okay.
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Now this is this one's going to be a shocker The first one the the theme of the book what is a theme of the book, okay
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I have a chart With which I which I made a few years ago
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Which has the entire themes of the books and I use some other sources From the from the web and from other some other pastors and I and I build this chart out
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If you're interested in it, let me know I'll send it to you But the theme of the book kind of gives you a a sing a single pithy way of saying, okay, what is this book about Okay, what is this book focused on it allows you to not swerve too far away when you're reading the bible
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It's a good place to start. What is the theme of the book, right? Most most, um, you know, even non -christian even christian books have this they have these book sleeves, right?
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Where the sleeve of the book kind of summarizes what it is that gives you the theme of the book, right? It also tells you whether you should buy the book or not.
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So it's important to understand what that is How do you Summarize the book whatever you're studying in a short sentence
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If you can do it in a short sentence, you've understood the theme of the book pretty well Uh, where are the sources an introduction section of a study bible is very good introductory sections of commentaries are very good to get a quick overview of the bible
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And you can yourself just paraphrase it so that you can remember it as you're studying the bible um
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That's that's the first thing understanding the theme of the book the setting of the book, right? Who wrote the book how it's important to know who wrote the book?
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uh If if for anything to remind ourselves that it's a human book If anything paul was a real human so was moses.
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So were the other authors who wrote the book What do we know about this person? Uh, what is their cultural setting how important it is for the cultural setting to understand the cultural setting, right?
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Even though I was born in the middle east I understand a lot of the culture in that we see in the bible um
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I still need to sit down and study exactly what it was 2 000 years ago in that in in that part of the world
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Right, it's important. It's very important But if we don't understand the setting of the book
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Then we do what a lot of christians and a lot of politicians do and just pull the text out
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And out of its context out of the cultural historical setting that it is and just apply it in any way that you want
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Right, so it's very important to get the setting of the book And those sources just like before a good study bible a good set of commentaries can tell you exactly what's the setting of the book
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Now here's the most important part I consider this the most rewarding part and that is the context in the language, right?
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It's it's important to uh, it's important to know exactly what is being said here, right?
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Number one what words were used in the original language? The esv is a pretty good translation, you know
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It's pretty faithful to the original text and that still gives you a great idea of what was in the original language
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But if you want to know more there are greek and hebrew interlinear books, right? Which of interlinears?
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Sorry, which are great that give you a great idea of what the original word was and how it's being translated to english
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And and how can you study again? This is not just for pastors.
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This is not just for men This is for anybody who Wants to grow in christlikeness which for every christian that is a very important verse, right?
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So it is important to sit down and to do these things B How would the original readers interpret the language?
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How would the original readers read and understand what they what the author was saying, right?
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If you heard uh again pastor harry preaching a few weeks ago He spoke about the three a's right the audience the aim and I always forget the last one the
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Sorry author yes Right author aim and audience. It's very important to get who the audience is
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What is their cultural settings and therefore which affects the way they're listening to what the author is saying? if we have no idea what that was we can pull it into our context and then you have things like polygamy and adultery and and it's it which be which is being backed up by Wrongly backed up by the word.
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That's That's nonsense. We have to be careful about that Well, what is the context of the chapter, right?
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Would you agree with me that you know chapters have paragraphs Paragraphs have sentences sentences have words
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So if you get words completely wrong you get sentences wrong you get sentences wrong you get the
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Paragraph wrong you get paragraph wrong. You get the entire chapter wrong So it's important to understand what
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The context is right salvation Is not always the word salvation if you look at several parts of scripture does mean justification
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But it means sanctification in other parts of the text and how how many times have people said that you need to work?
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You need the only way you can be saved is by doing works because they misuse the word that was used
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And that's why the original language is important. And again, not something that we should shy away from and the last part
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I would last thing I would say about context and language is Would you say that there are poems in the bible?
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Are there poems in the bible? What's a very famous section or book of poems?
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Psalms, right? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Would you say there are parables in the bible? How about figures of speech
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So what are these these are all different kinds of Literary forms, right if you don't get your literary form, correct you get your
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Interpretation completely completely wrong, right? So it's important to understand that Again, we get we get afraid of terms like synonyms and and antonyms and metaphors and metonymies and syndicates and things like that But you know these figures of speech actually help you understand what literary form
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This section of scripture belongs to and that affects your interpretation, right and that's and that's very important Uh, finally
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Contradictious Contradictious interpretation So you've done these steps and there's a set of steps, right?
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You've you've you've done the context you've studied the book, you know, the theme of the bible the theme of the book
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You've looked at the historical setting You've looked at context carefully. You've tried to understand what the greek and the hebrew said
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And then you've come up with an interpretation. That's completely Contradictory to the entire to all of scripture
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So is that a good thing or a bad thing? Let's say you're reading let's say you're reading Matthew chapter no, john chapter three and you come out and say
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You know, jesus christ is not really god And that's your interpretation right
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Then you've not done your study well And it's completely contradictory to several other parts of scripture right, so It's also important to Know what other parts of scripture, you know say and whether what you're in what you're interpreting
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What you've come out what you've concluded with is not completely contrary to all of that right
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Has anybody run into a situation where maybe you interpreted something and realize and the only thing that caught you was the fact that wait
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You know This is what it says in luke. This is what it says in corinthians. Anybody ever done that? That's a big confession to make maybe not that that's fine and again, the sources of contradictory contradictory
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Interpretation is you can look at outlines of the old testament the new testament again. Look at commentaries if you're dealing with the gospels the harmony of the gospels is very very good to see good have a good overview of what
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The gospels say and how different events some some related in luke how they relate to what is said in matthew
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And the final step in in some basics of interpretation Is to summarize and paraphrase
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What is the goal of hermeneutics? Yes, it is interpreting scripture correctly, but That's just a means to the main goal.
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What is the main goal? Of hermeneutics kind of alluded to it at the beginning of what what's the main?
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Kind of singular goal. Maybe i'm not asking it clearly Sanctification, right? I know
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I know i'm it's very simple in one sense. It's sanctification It's christ -likeness The idea is not that we can argue with everybody not that we can get into debates with everybody
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It's not wrong to defend the truth But you know, we don't want to just read the bible or have hermeneutics because we want to argue with people
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The goal is personally for us for selfishly We want to be christ -like and the only way you can do that is through the word of god and through interpreting it correctly so After you've done these four steps
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You should be able to summarize and paraphrase what you've what you've read Because if you can summarize and paraphrase it what's next you can meditate on it, right?
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Can you meditate on something you can't interpret? Can you meditate on something you can't understand? So after you've gone through these steps the last step
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I would suggest is to summarize to paraphrase what you've studied And therefore to meditate on that text right, otherwise
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It's a good it. Otherwise, you won't be able to really You won't it'll get in your head, but it won't go to your heart.
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In other words, you're not thinking about it enough Right, you just you leave it there um
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Finally just a word on application, right? Proper observation and accurate interpretation leads to correct application right proper observation
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And accurate interpretation leads to the leads to correct application. Now. We can't always apply it perfectly, right?
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we can't but um, terry hall Uh, you may have heard of him.
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He has a great set of methods to um To to apply the bible it's called spex anybody's heard of that spex
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Yeah, a few of you have had right so I I like and we and we use it a lot in our home, uh, it's
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Uh, essentially after you read a section of scripture, uh, and and you've done it correctly taking the historical grammatical literal approach to studying the bible
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How do you apply it Spex s -p -e -c -s You look at the text and from it you draw sins to be forsaken.
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Are there sins that are spoken about here clearly that I can forsake? Promises to be claimed are there promises in this text that encourage me and that I can
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I I can remember and I can be encouraged by examples to be followed are there examples here whether it's through paul whether it's through Thessalonians who were suffering yet.
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They were abounding in love. Is there an example there for me right now? Are there commands are there specific clear commands to be obeyed?
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And the last one that is c that is s Spex stumbling blocks to be avoided, right other examples
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There are different things there that we should not replicate, right? So that's the spex method again
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If you're interested in a kind of a summary of the things i'm talking about today, I'll email it to you I didn't print it because it's it's a lot um
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And also if you want a summary of the books of the bible, right? That helps you to interpret it quickly and to study it.
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Let me know I will send it to you Okay, so, uh as elder scott reminded me today, um, you can't talk about hermeneutics without giving a good example of a very bad interpretation
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So so let's do there's lots of them. Okay, there's lots of them, but i'm going to talk about one that I had to go through Just a few weeks ago
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Ephesians 6 12. I'll just read the Because of time i'll just read the verse and we'll dive right in For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood ephesians 6 12
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For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against the rulers against the authorities against the cosmic powers over this present darkness against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places
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Used a lot. Okay, if you watch tnt not tnt, sorry tbn. It's another one.
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Yeah tbn Sorry tnt is good to watch anyway Yes, if you do if you do watch tbn you see this used a lot now, um
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Does anybody know what the wrong interpretation of this is? Or or how it's often used
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Ephesians 6 12 I had a specific view of this worse till I came to bbc.
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So If anybody was at fault definitely I was What's the common view of this?
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Yes Yes Yes. Oh, yes Right people often take this, uh worse completely out and and they they talk about things like, you know, the devil causes you to sin um
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The devil causes you to feel really bad about yourself You know So you need to stand up and fight against him, you know, so you don't feel bad about yourself anymore
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Right, uh people do use this, uh, sarah young uses it a lot td jakes creflo dollar
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But the thing that really bothers me and why i'm mentioning this is today reform christians believe this interpretation too right, these are the people who
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Believe in the word of god and I believe are saved just to look at this and Completely pull it out of context
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And I think this is a problem and and uh a friend visiting us
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At home a few weeks ago Was mentioning, you know, we were putting them our daughter down to sleep
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Our daughter sarah down to sleep and she started screaming. I mean kids don't like to go to sleep by themselves
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I mean, you know, nobody told me that before I became a father But the thing was they don't like going to they don't like going to sleep.
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So she started screaming and This person's answer which kind of stunned my wife was hmm sarah's
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You know, she needs to wage war spiritual war i'm like She can't even change her diaper
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You want me to teach her how to wage war so It does sound funny, but the person really did believe what
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They were saying was correct and it's all over the place I see this often right and that's not the interpretation.
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I'm sorry. That's not what's happening in ephesians six right So let's let's quickly go through the steps
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I said and how we can apply that here Okay, first we look at the theme of ephesians What actually happened in chapters one to five?
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It's chapter six. So something must have happened before those chapters Right what happens in chapter six?
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And then finally, what does this verse actually mean? uh Quickly, does anybody know the theme of ephesians?
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What's one line you can say about it one word? Two words, right? What is repeated about 26 times in that book?
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in christ jesus, so Maybe a theme around jesus christ somewhere there. What did you say?
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Right, just just saying not about two -year -old screaming in your bed, right? Just something like that there, right?
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So yes the book Focuses on the lord. Jesus christ how he's exalted above everything
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How the believer has his identity in christ. Jesus And this is the first time we also see kind of the definition of the church
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Right. He's talking spoken about here not talking spoken about here as the mystery now revealed in ephesians
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Is the church who is the church? The church is the bride of christ and who is the church in christ jesus
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So that's kind of the theme of the book so that itself kind of Helps you get on the
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Get get on the path of understanding what paul is talking about in this book Right, the author is paul.
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That's the next thing now. We're going to look at the cultural setting of this book The author is paul Uh, where did he write ephesians when he where was he when he was writing ephesians?
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Some say some say he was Enjoying life in the mediterranean, but where was he?
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He was in prison, right? This is one of his four imprisonment letters Including and the others are colossians philemon philippian philippians is including the original language was greek
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Um ephesus was a very prominent city Uh, it did you know that it was from ephesus that the gospel was preached to asia, right?
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So huge city very prominent city So it's important that paul is trying to establish what the church is who the believer is in christ
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Very important because this is about to go to the rest of asia. This is very very important, right? But what is the cultural setting?
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Right ephesus extremely superstitious. There was a seven one of the seven wonders of the ancient world was there
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Anybody know what that was? Temple of diana, right? Thank you. It was an amazingly superstitious place a lot of pagan practices there and It it and paul was trying to protect and and and um if and and warn
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The ephesians who by the way, he loved he it wasn't like he was rebuking them like in galatians.
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He really loved them He was encouraging them much of it is you guys are doing great and look this is who you are in christ
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This is your provisions in christ. This is your possession in christ. He's very happy with them, right? um
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Now what happens in chapters one to three, right? We hear more about and and these two are terms.
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I only learned here indicatives and imperatives, right? The first three chapters is indicatives what happened, right?
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Our position in christ our possession in christ how the church is a mystery, but now it's revealed
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That's all covered in chapters three rich in doctrine, right? If you've studied ephesians you come loving christ more you come away loving christ more
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Like most of the bible, but i'm trying to be specific here What happens in chapters four to six now come the kind of the commands the imperatives what's happening?
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How do you behave in christ? unity purity and victory in christ right and Victory against what this is where chapter six comes.
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He defines your enemy, right? Your enemy is satan Okay, and because we're almost out of time i'm going to jump to straight exact.
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What does this verse actually mean? Right in the context the verse means The church needs to primarily fight against what unbelief?
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And uh and a lack of truth that is what is satan attacking? What is satan's attacking the mission of the church, which is what to glorify christ to exalt christ to preach the gospel
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Right, which is all truth and satan's trying to attack that and how do you attack that you attack it by lies?
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You distort the truth you spread unbelief, right? This isn't talking about fighting against your feelings or trying to make you feel better, right?
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This isn't that's not what this is talking about. This is talking about as the church as a believer How do you exalt christ?
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How do you fight against unbelief and a lack of truth and the deception that that satan brings in? Right, so that's primarily what this is attacking
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But it doesn't stop there. If you look at 13 to 18, it then goes on to tell you about the armor of god
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Right. How do you actually go and fight? It doesn't just say you have to fight to feel better about yourself.
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No You have to fight and here's how Boom, here's the armor of god
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Okay So, um, let's let's wrap up i'm I know I said a lot of things hopefully you guys have got some of it
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Otherwise just email me. I'll send you the whole thing Um, if you're an unbeliever, no good hermeneutics can save you
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Only the lord jesus christ can save you you can Interpret the bible correctly and accurately and still go to hell, right?
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But you may not understand that unless god has saved you and given you a regenerate heart You cannot be saved so if you're not saved
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You need to bow down repent and believe in the son of god That's the only means of salvation
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If you are a believer Absolutely, please rely on the holy spirit. Don't take that away.
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You know, i'm not saying you shouldn't based on okay linton said Well, we're all going to buy commentaries and forget about the holy spirit.
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No, no, no, no No, i'm i'm not saying that i'm saying you need to rely on the holy spirit. You need to rely on prayer
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But your goal is christlikeness. You need to stress on the importance of Of studying the word
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I hope if anything i've challenged you as like I said as an advanced topic is a lot to discuss here
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If anything, I hope you can identify with one of the groups I wasn't trying to shame you by defining groups but if you put yourself into one of them you can
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Move you can learn you can grow right and I challenge you today If you're in groups one and two where you're only reading the bible or you are
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Sorry, you're only reading devotionals or you're waiting for the spirit to talk to you i'm encouraging you to At least pick up a study bible as a first step
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And then as a next step as all of us not just men i've heard this my wife reminded me this morning how? Women think it's wrong to pick up commentaries
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Okay, women think it's wrong. It's only for pastors and for men. Absolutely not This is all this information is for you too, right?
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It's it's a wonderful thing to have and to use um You need to exert yourself into proper interpretation
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It's it takes time There's effort involved If you're sitting in a quiet room where you easily fall asleep because you're waiting for the spirit to talk to you
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This is this is a lot more work than that Okay, you it it actually means you have to learn what it's talking about and finally since we're out of time i'll
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Take any questions or comments that you may have I know there's a lot of information there, but anything that was maybe not clear enough or Or that you didn't you wish
46:44
I spoke about as an introduction to hermeneutics Eric Yeah, so i've used thank you eric so eric's question was about what are some of those resources that you can use uh, there's a lot of Concordances out there pastor mike uses this one a lot, but I tend to use log us a lot
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All right log us it's it's it's a paid for resource. It allows you to get any Commentary set that you want.
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Um, i'm not saying the free commentaries are not good But I find the ones that are that you actually that that are expensive and paid for They actually have a lot more.
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They're more. Um exegetical That's you can draw a lot more out of it If you want devotional commentaries, which are also good
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They're most of them are free like veersby has a devotional commentary set and I think it's very very good so, uh, either you can use log us you can search for um,
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Online text I think cory might you you might know the free one. I think you told me about this which one
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There you go There you go now repeat that again, please Okay, precept austin, right?
47:49
I I knew it Yes, austin city and talk. Okay. So those are some Great resources and most of most of it is free.
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So you have something and matthew henry's commentary is free online Just type it in and you'll get the 10 000 page pdf
48:04
Sorry, all right, man. That that's that's fantastic, right? So you're um I mean sometimes at home we read the the bible we read the chapter through Like if it's if it's hebrews
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I mean we read the whole entire book through before we start to read the study bible or the commentaries So that we can make observations ourselves before Because we we tend to be like sheep whatever
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Somebody says we'll just run right through and believe it, right? So it's good to sit down and pray and and I like pastor harry's point
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It's very important sit and deduce to the holy spirit and through careful reading.
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What are some of the things you observe? Very very important point. Thank you One more before we close cory right right
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Exactly. That's so again cory. Thank you. That's a that's a very important point that you do take a step back
48:55
And you look at the theme of the book and we would do that with any other book, right? I mean more how important it is to do with the scriptures, right?
49:03
So that's very good. Thank you. Uh, let's close in prayer Lord we thank you for salvation and that is how it's resting only and completed only in the lord
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Jesus christ And how father true illumination true appreciation true application of your word comes only through your spirit
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And we are grateful for that lord. I pray that you would help us to be students of the bible
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That we would exert ourselves sweat so that we know what you are saying So we can honor you so we can follow you so we can please you
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And lord, I pray that if there's any here does not know your name that you would save them From your righteous and just wrath and lord.
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I pray that you'd bless the rest of this. Uh this day even uh The baptism as well as the preaching of your word in christ's name.