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Apologetics & Debate: Hermeneutics
Welcome to Passing the Torch, I'm your host Randy Adkins, and tonight your teacher is.
Andrew Rappaport for Striving for Eternity, and he will be teaching us as he has been on apologetics and debate. How are you, brother?
Better than I deserve. I like all the graphics. I gotta get you to make me some graphics for Apologetics Live, dude. Those videos and all, it's nice.
You just let me know. Claude made the first one, I made the second one.
Well I just let you know. Actually, I talked to Claude about doing some for a conference I got.
Awesome.
So, yeah.
Anyway, that's not part of class, right? So let's get right to class because we only have an hour, and I try to keep us on time as best we can. So let us start with, Randy, if you don't mind putting up the link there for folks to write down the short link for the quiz.
So we did put out a quiz, and so far one brave student has taken the quiz. And someone wanted a cookie if they took the quiz because they got all of the reading done, and I said no, but if you get 100 on the quiz, maybe I'll give you a cookie.
No one's done that yet because only one person took it so far.
All right.
So granted, I did put it out last night, and it was a holiday. So first off, we could start the show by just, or the class, today happens to be Memorial Day, and so I will just want to say a thank you to all of those who served our country.
It is because of what they did, fighting for our freedom to be able to do things like this. But to the class quiz, it's there for you, https://forms .gle, and then, yeah, the rest.
Of that.
Right?
But if you want, okay, so I'll just say it, so if people are listening on like an audio thing, but R2B293MX5RQRYYBQ7. And if you missed it, just rewind and listen again.
So I want you guys to take the quiz, even if you're, you know, just to test what you remember, okay, from the class. So let's do a quick review. We looked at, in the last class, last two classes, really, we looked at, well, we looked the last class into the character of debate, right?
What do we want to see as the character? The week before that, we talked about, really, we started to talk about the purpose of apologetics. And so I would love to go over that, but there's this quiz there.
So if I give you everything in a review, then you're just going to listen to this and go fill out the quiz. So we're not going to do that. So I might review that stuff, some of that next week. So we looked at, though, just what is apologetics?
I did have someone that asked the question in our chat. If I could, I don't know if I could pull that up now. Let me see if I could pull it up. I should have given that to you, Randy. But let's see if I could pull it up.
Someone asked a question about the debates. And part of this class, we will be saying that we want you to do debates. You don't have to be an expert on it. And so we've kind of trying to get some folks together.
I might have to put something like a form to, you know, like a Google form for folks to put up what topics. And then maybe I might have to assign, I'm not sure how to do it. So one of the things that Daniel had asked in our group, because in the debates, one of the things I talked about is, you know, maybe someone wants to debate infant baptism.
And I had made a comment about infant baptism, whether it is, you know, whether people want to debate it as, you know, a sign of the covenant, things like that. So he says, Daniel asked, when you are talking about infant baptism, you said it is consistent with a Presbyterian covenantal hermeneutics, which we're going to talk hermeneutics tonight.
Your hermeneutic is obviously different. Well, yeah, because I'm Baptist. He said, if you were in a debate on infant baptism, would each side also bear the burden of proof on their hermeneutical system as actually valid?
A well-studied Presbyterian and a well-studied Baptist could each easily establish their.
View.
But since they're operating off a different starting point, then it seems foundational would foundation would need to be established first. And so I want to address that because that question is a very or that statement really question is a very good one.
I think what it does is establish that when you're in a debate, there's a couple of things,.
So it depends on the debate. You want to establish that before you enter into a debate. If it's a formal debate, sometimes we have informal debates. We're not planning to debate. I have that regularly on Apologetics Live where I'm not prepared.
I'm not planning to have someone come in and challenge me. They are. So it becomes an informal. And it's not like there's a time clock and things like that. And so we have to first define what we're talking about.
He's speaking more of a formal debate. Now, if it's informal, then we have the time to say, OK, let's get our foundation set. This is how I'm going to interpret, right? If it's a formal debate, you want to have that ahead of time.
For example, I plan to be doing a debate with Dr. Michael Brown on this continuation of.
Gifts.
We've agreed that we're going to put out our definitions ahead of time. So at least now everyone knows what our definitions are, OK? That's a good thing to do if you're going to do a formal debate. It's good to have those things laid out.
So just know that, I guess, if I'm debating it, I would want to talk to the Presbyterian ahead of time and work through what we're going to do. Now, we may approach it from two different perspectives.
And in the debate, I would address it that way. I would address that I'm looking at it from, you know, more of a hermeneutic that is going to be different. I'm not looking at the covenants. But I don't need to, because I could, depends on how the debate's laid out.
If I was debating someone on is infant baptism biblical, there's not the pressure on me to defend infant baptism or defend believers baptism. By the way, pop quiz question for you. And I like this because no one watching can really answer without, like, right away.
So, you know, here, Randy has to answer for all of you. Pop quiz. Do Presbyterians believe in a believer's baptism?
Randy, you speak for all of us.
I was also going to say yes.
Yeah.
Daniel.
Daniel jumped in. So that is a, when I have discussed, not debated infant baptism, that's actually, son, I ask. I throw it out there.
Why?
Because what many Baptists will say is no. And they're wrong.
Yeah, I can see that.
Right.
Because they think believers baptism is for adults after you believe, well, I, when a, they think Presbyterians only practice infant baptism. And so I will, when a Baptist will say, no, I say, well, what do they do to a believer to an adult person who converts to Christ and is now a believer?
And they go, well, they baptize them. What baptism is that? Is that infant right now? What am I doing there? I'm clarifying terms.
So it's not infant baptism versus believers baptism. And so if it's a formal debate, the question I'm going to say is what's the premise. If the premise is, is infant baptism biblical, then I, my job in that debate is not to prove my side, but to prove that, you know, infant baptism is not biblical.
In that case, I don't have the burden of proof to prove my hermeneutical system, but what I shouldn't do within that is stay within theirs.
Okay.
Now, do I have to know? Because I could say, well, this is why I'm not staying within this. Like, this is how I'm approaching that passage.
So, so for example, could I argue, and I know I'm giving arguments for people that may end up debating this, since this is one of the topics some might debate, but I'm not going to give everything, but you know, things everyone comes up is what verse has infants baptized.
And so that's, so find that verse.
Well, the whole household, well, we could discuss whether infants were in there.
So we could, we could discuss that, right. We could sit there and approach that way. Another way you could approach it is, okay, well, but see, you assume the covenant. And I did this informally with Matt Slick when we debated it in, you know, he assumes this covenant relationship.
And my way of then approaching that is to say, okay, you're assuming that, but where do you see that the family is included in the covenant in every covenant, right? Because now it goes that way. A point that Matt actually agreed was a good point was I went to Jeremiah and Ezekiel, where it talks about the new covenant, the promise of the new covenant was the sealing by the Holy Spirit, okay, the baptism of the Spirit.
And I said, so why has it got to be external? And he went, good point. Now circumcision is, and we see baptism as another sign, but we also see an internal.
Sign.
So right there, I would argue they're not all external. So I could do that from their worldview because they're going to agree with Jeremiah and Ezekiel being assigned a new covenant because, well, it says so.
So I hope that I answered that. And I don't know if that's the same Daniel that is here backstage. So if it, or not backstage, but here. So Daniel, if you, if it is the same Daniel, and if that didn't clarify enough, let me know.
No, that was pretty well answered my question. I just, when I'm in a debate or when I'm talking to somebody, I like to not just approach the argument, but just address the foundations of that argument.
So my, my thinking was if they're coming at it from a faulty hermeneutical system, just like coming at it through faulty logic, if those foundations are not sound, then the argument itself, even if the conclusion was right, how they can support that conclusion falls apart.
That was, that was my thinking.
And see, there's going to be a, like, I will treat Daniel, a Baptist and a Presbyterian discussing it or debating it different than a Mormon and a Christian, if that makes sense. So if I'm, I mean, a Presbyterian and a Baptist are brothers in Christ as well.
Not always, but we're assuming that for this scenario. And so I've, I can sit there and say, are you being consistent within your hermeneutic? So I can step into that hermeneutic and, and address the debate that way, or to say, like, when you're saying faulty hermeneutic, well, we both like, are you Presbyterian?
I am. Yes.
So you and I would obviously have a different way of interpreting the scriptures, right?
So, and this is really what we're going to cover tonight. This works in very well. So we would have two different hermeneutics. And because of that, we have to recognize that, you know, when we're debating, we both have to recognize that we have a different approach to it.
And if we're doing that, we can either step into each other's or point out, well, this is why, how I would interpret it.
Right. Right.
That way.
And sometimes what you have, just be aware that you're going to have someone that's consistent in their hermeneutical system, and you're consistent in your hermeneutical system, and you have to disagree to disagree.
Now, being inconsistent within their own system, then I think you can point that out.
That's kind of what I was getting at, just sort of doing that, sort of an internal critique just showing, you know, like I said, like I said, I think it said in the chat, it doesn't necessarily inherently disprove the conclusion.
But if there's a problem with the way that they're getting to that conclusion, it shows that problem with consistency, like you're saying, it's like, you can't get there from here. But yeah, you answered the question.
Yep.
And that's a good segue into our topic tonight is hermeneutics. So we're going to cover this in three weeks. So I'm not going to obviously cover everything that could be covered. I'm going to look to cover five points through this.
And it's really good that we had this discussion, because I do want to start off by saying, there are different ways of interpreting Scripture. So am I going to get into the differences of covenantal, you know, covenant theology and their style of interpretation or reformed covenantal theology, which was used to be called new covenant theology or dispensational theology, you know, whether it's progressive dispensational classical, which are, I'm not going to cover any of those, okay?
Because I recognize that there's differences. So what I want to do is start us with things that are universal in all of the systems. Because that way we would be able to have things that we can all approach this and not get into discussing the differences so much, right?
So let me give you the five we're going to talk about. We're going to start tonight with the topic of context. I'm actually going to talk a little bit first about Bible translations, but we're going to talk about context.
That's the number one and most important, right? Actually, each of these are in order of importance. Second is going to be to differentiate between descriptive and prescriptive, and we're going to get into what those are.
Number three is going to be to interpret the difficult text by the easy texts. Number four is to be willing to question your own presuppositions. We all come to the text with presuppositions. And then number five is interpret Scripture with Scripture.
So we're going to cover all of those. Now chances are we're going to cover context tonight, and then the next two, and then the last two. That's about what we're expecting. So let's start by, I want to talk about Bible translations.
If you could put that up on the screen quickly. When we're talking about hermeneutics, the first thing I want you to recognize is there's differences between different types of Bibles. And so that's going to affect things.
So as we look at this, we have formal or literal or formal equivalence. And so what that means is where you're doing a word for word translation. This is where the translators are going to take one word, translate it, the next word, translate it, the next word, translate it.
And when they translate that whole thing, then they're going to try to look around to make it fit better for the language. So this is going to be your King James, your new King James, your ESV, your new American standard, your legacy standard Bible, your new English translation.
These are word for word translations. So these are called literal or formal equivalence. If you're going to study the Bible, if you're going to debate in the Bible, you want to use that if you don't have Greek and Hebrew, obviously.
That would be better if both of you know that. But here what you have is when you're arguing from the English, you want to be as closest to the original languages. The next is a free or dynamic equivalent, and this is where you're translating sentence by sentence.
So what they're doing, the translators are doing here, is they're taking one sentence, taking the next sentence, and they're trying to translate the whole sentence. So you're getting a little bit less of the word for word, and you're getting more of the translator's interpretation.
And so you have to be a little bit more careful. So this is going to be like your NIVs. If someone is debating me and they're using the NIV, I'm going to be concerned with their.
Study.
Next is a paraphrase, and this is a thought by thought translation. So what is happening here is you're not translating the sentence, you're trying to translate the.
Meaning.
This is like your message Bible, which is... So I think of this, the paraphrase, as someone's commentary. If you take it as a commentary, that is fine. That would be a fair thing to do with a commentary, because what you're having there is you're getting somebody's...
What they think it means. And because you're getting what they think it means, that is giving you basically their interpretation of it. And that's why I'm not... So is something like the message a bad to do?
Not necessarily. But I want you to realize that it's someone's interpretation, especially if it's only one.
Person.
Your Amplified Bible is a paraphrase, and what they're trying to do is give you all the different possible meanings of the Greek, but it's giving a meaning. They're trying to give the meaning of it. That's why Kenneth Copeland loves the Amplified, because it's furthest from the actual Greek and Hebrew.
So I want to first start with some wrong ways to interpret, so that you can identify them. By the way, as we go through these, you go and you watch the Word of Faith guys or any of the popular false teachers, and you're going to see a lot of this going on.
You actually also might see it with guys that you think are pretty good, but most of the people on the radio, you listen to radio preachers and you're going to find some of this. So let's put that slide up.
Some incorrect models of interpretation. So as we look at this, the first one is isolationism. So what is that? Isolationism is when you are interpreting a passage without any regard for its context. So we're going to look at context tonight.
When I look at a passage of Scripture and I ignore its context, what comes before it, what comes after it, then I am isolating that text from the meaning. So that's a bad thing to do.
Okay?
It's bad because what you're doing is you're not giving the context, you're not giving the meaning that the Bible has or could not be. But when you're isolating it, you're in trouble. And you'll see this all you need to do a lot of times when people ask me questions, typically all I do is back up a few verses and the answer's right there.
It's no big surprise.
People isolate without knowing it because we have these chapter breaks and verses and people look at, they read only a verse and boy, that verse seems to say this, but that's not what it means.
So you don't want to be isolating and we're going to talk about the importance of context. Proof texting. What's proof texting? Well, proof texting is when you string a series of passages together and they're often apart from their context, right?
So you're really isolating this verse and isolating that verse and throwing it together and boom, now we have this. You can do proof texting properly as long as every verse that you're using is in the same context as the others.
And that's why the danger of this is sometimes people, they'll string things together and make it sound, I mean, you'll hear guys do this and it's like, man, that is so brilliant. I don't know where you found that from.
Like I would never have seen that in the Bible because it wasn't in the Bible.
I remember somebody sitting there and we talk about isolating and proof texting. Well, this guy was just looking at, it was a resurrection Sunday. He's sitting there, he's preaching about that, that it was dark.
And he starts talking about how before the light there's darkness and that darkness is dark times in your life. And it's just like, you know, I I'm walking out of there, shaking my head and the, everyone's saying goodbye to the pastor.
And here's this guy and he turns to the pastor and he's like, oh, pastor, that was a great message. Oh, I would never have seen that in the Bible. And I was just so glad that God gave me grace to recognize things.
Cause I was like, like really close to just saying, you know, Jesus wouldn't have seen that in the past because it wasn't in the passage. The reason it was dark is in the very next part of the verse because the sun didn't rise.
Yet.
That's why it was dark. So, so things like this answer, but so many people preach these messages that they just take something, they isolate this and then they isolate that and they throw it together and oh, and it sounds so good.
Another danger that people do is called spiritualizing. And what this is, is they read a truth, whether spiritually or historically into a text of.
The Bible.
And so somebody in, in the chat, Laura there has pointed out that picking eisegesis. This is a thing of, you have exegesis and eisegesis, two Greek words. What do they mean? Well, what they mean is to, one exegesis is to get the meaning out of the text.
Eisegesis is to, is to, you walk from the text and, or sorry, exegesis, you walk from the text and you pull the meaning out. Eisegesis is I come to the text with an idea and I want to, I want to be able to say, well, this is what the Bible says.
And therefore I come to the Bible and I go, well, let me find a verse that matches what I want it to say. Oh, here's one.
Great.
I'm going to use this. So let's look at some examples of these first. And this is also going to tell us, give us some examples of context, by the way. When we look at context, like I said, there's, we're going to look at it lots of different ways, things that come up when it comes to context.
But let's look at this first one before you put it up there, Randy, this has replaced John 3, 16 as people's most favorite Bible verse. And it's on people's backpacks and refrigerators and pillowcases, and they have it on their walls and everyone loves this verse.
And I wonder if it means what people think it means when we put that up there, isolationism. So this example is Jeremiah 29, 11, which says, I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans of welfare and not for evil to give you a future and a hope that sounds.
So good.
Doesn't it, Randy?
It does.
I want that for myself. Is that what this passage means? Well, if we're going to look at the context, let's drop down a few verses to verses 17 and 18. I mean, it's, it's only seven and eight verses further.
Thus says the Lord of hosts, behold, I am sending to them sword and famine and pestilence, and I will make them like vile figs that are so rotten they cannot be eaten. I will pursue them with a sword, famine, pestilence, and make them like a horror to the kingdoms of the earth to be a curse, a terror, a hissing, and a reproach among all the nations where I've driven them.
Why is that not on anyone's refrigerator? I actually did a, this is part of our Bible interpretation made easy seminar. We come into churches and do this for a weekend seminar. And I said this, why is this on no one's, you know, uh, walls and, you know, things like that.
And it was really funny because someone decided to take that. And what he did was he went and put that, this on Facebook, just this with this nice colorful background and people were liking it. And he realized nobody actually reads, they see scripture and just go like, yeah, maybe they saw Jeremiah 29 and just assumed it was 11.
So, I mean, Randy, wouldn't it be nice if God told us who Jeremiah 29, 11 was for you think that would be nice if God did that?
Did he not?
He did.
In verse Jeremiah 29 verse 10, this is what that says. For thus says the Lord, when 70 years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you and I will fulfill to you my promise to bring you back to this place.
Isn't that nice that God gave us a very clear example for us to know that we can, we can look at this and say, ah, that's who it's for. So what we then see is that in this example, is this for you to say that God has plans for you to prosper.
No, that, that actually wasn't directly to you, right? That was directly to those who lived through the 70 year Babylonian captivity.
Because after 70 years, do you think they might've wondered, is God really going to fulfill his promise? He's giving this, he's saying in Jeremiah, there's going to be 70 year judgment, but after 70 years, God knows the plans he has for his, well, they're going to be able to return to the land.
That was a direct promise to the nation of Israel that lived through the 70 year Babylonian.
Captivity.
So now some are saying, but Andrew, so you're saying this passage has no meaning for me? Absolutely not. That's not what I'm saying. It has a definite meaning for us in the fact of what do we see? God is saying to Jeremiah, he's giving this judgment and he's showing that God will be faithful, not only in the judgment of Israel because of their idolatry, but to bring them back to the land.
We as Christians can look back at that and say, look, it was 70 years they were in captivity and God did bring them back to the land. What does that tell you about God's faithfulness? That he's faithful.
He's going to keep his word, right? Let me look at another example of, actually I want to look at two together. So if you put this up, this is Matthew 18, 19, and it says, again, I say to you, if two or three agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my father in heaven.
Now, let me tell you how one person interpreted this. He asked me, this is a friend of mine in college, and he asked me whether I would co-sign a loan for him to get a car. And I said, well, why don't you get your parents to do it?
His parents wouldn't co-sign the loan. He wanted me to co-sign the loan. And I basically explained, you do know that I'm Jewish, right? First off, we don't loan money without interest here. But the reality is, if your parents are not trusting that you're going to pay them back, why do you think I'm going to trust you to pay me back?
So what I said, I said, no, I'm not going to co-sign a loan. Next day he came to me and said, I am getting a brand new car. Like, did your parents give you money? He said, no. He opened to this verse.
He said, I got another brother to pray with me. And this verse says that, again, I say to you, if two or three agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my father in heaven. I will admit back then in college, I was in the word of faith movement.
So they agreed with this theology. And so he read this to say, God will give me a new car because two of us agreed on earth. I got someone else to agree with me. And I just kind of looked at him and said, I don't think that verse means what you think that means.
Let me go on to the, before I tell you what this does mean. Let's look at the very next verse because many do this with this one. This is Matthew 18, 20 for where there are two or three gathered in my name.
There I am in the midst of them. This passage is used so often when it comes to prayer meetings for that small church prayer.
Meeting.
Oh, there's only a few of us here, but that's okay. Where two or three are gathered in his name, there am I in the midst of them. This is used all the time. What does it actually mean? Randy, I know you were asking that question.
I saw it.
I saw it just, it was, you're ready to ask. So let me answer. When we look at this passage and we back up in it, first off, the whole context of the chapter 18 is dealing with pride and humility. That's the context.
And there's parables that he gives about pride and humility. And in the middle of this passage where he's talking about pride and humility and with these parables, he sticks this thing in here of instructions of how to deal with a prideful person in the church who is unwilling to repent.
So right off the bat, people make the mistake to think that this is just, you get this all the time, especially on social media, people on social media. They disagree with you.
Well, who's your pastor? I'm going to call your pastor.
Yeah, I've had that many times actually. And I'm like, my pastor, I've told him like, I'm going to, you know, can I give you out.
Your number?
Because people on social media, they just, it's like, you disagree, you're in sin. I got to call your pastor. Is this dealing with that? No, actually it's not. It's dealing with someone who is in sin and unrepentant.
It's dealing with a prideful person. Actually what's assumed in it, by the way, is that the person agrees that it's sin. They know that it's sin.
But this is in the context. So what are the two or three? Is it just I get Randy and I, and we agree, God is going to give each of us a million.
Dollars.
No, no, it's actually in the context that if you have to go through the steps of what we call church discipline, you approach, you know, Randy calls me out on sin. I do something wrong. He, he comes and confronts me and I, I recognize it and I'm not repenting, right?
And so he goes and gets two or three witnesses. The witnesses are to what? Not to witness that, Hey, Randy got them to agree with him and we're going to go call this brother out. No, actually the witnesses are to witness the unrepentance, which means that you do not prejudge the witnesses.
So when I practice church discipline, I usually will say this to someone who's going to be the witness. Hey, can you meet with me and this person? What's it about? You'll find out when you get there because they are to witness whether or not someone's in sin.
And so, but they're there to witness if someone's unrepentant, I mean, so they're not judge.
Over.
Are you in sin, but are you unrepentant?
Because if they're, if they repent, you win them over. So you go in the third step. You have to go and tell the whole congregation, go and call this person out to get to that.
Step.
Look, I have counseled dozens and dozens, dozens of pastors, if not a hundred, uh, on dealing with church disciplines in their church. And I can tell you this, not a single one of them wants to do it.
Not a single one of them wants to go through the steps of church discipline. They'll do, they'll almost do anything but that.
They don't sleep well for months before, weeks before, however long they know they have to.
Do it.
This is what ends up happening. And so when we, when we see this, you know, we have to recognize that this is in the context of encouraging people to say, look, assuredly what you bound on earth is bound in heaven.
It's not saying that because of what you did on earth, it's the fact that the two or three witnesses, the fact that they witnessed the unrepentance, that you went to the whole church, you had to put them out of the church.
That is the way you go about this. So the whole idea of it is to try to protect the person, to try to bring the person to repentance in the, in the matter. But the issue, the context is not me getting a brand new car.
It's not me going to a prayer meeting and going, Hey, there's just a few of us. Because you know, Randy, maybe take a look, Matthew 28, 19 and 20, verse 20. If you could read that. And the question I'm going to have for you is from that text of scripture, how many people are necessary for the Lord to be present?
Can you read that and then answer that question from that text?
Matthew 18, verses 19 and 20, well, just verse 20 is enough for where two or three have gathered together in my name, I am there in their midst.
So according to that, how many Christians are necessary?
I'm a player all along, but I know the context, so from that verse, only one, right?
Only one, right? You just need one believer from that passage.
If we look just at that passage, but the actual answer is zero.
Because we know Christ's nature is he's everywhere present. There you go. So, so the, to use this passage to say, well, two or three are gathered there, Christ is in the midst. Well, if I'm alone in my prayer, in my prayer closet, Christ is there too.
In fact, if I'm not in my prayer closet, Christ is there too. If there's no believers, like in hell, Christ is there too. Did that just break someone's thinking? Because there's a lot of people who think like that there's this idea that Christ or God can't be in hell because there's sinners present.
He's everywhere present, right? So he is in hell, but he's not there in a relational way as he would be with us in heaven.
He's, he's there as the judge. So when we look at context, you see how some very common passages, people can get wrong because they ignore context. Well, let's talk about correct model of interpretation.
Let's talk about context in a good way. So let's put that slide up there, and this is what you're going to do. If you do, it's called inductive Bible study or exegesis. This is where you're going to go verse by verse, line by line, looking at the words and getting a meaning of the text.
This is what we would use in a normal or literal interpretation. Now, this is the only place where I say there's a, you know, somewhat of a difference, more dispensationalist would refer to a literal or literary normal interpretation.
But I know, I know covenantalists would also refer to a literary, and I kind of like that more, a literary interpretation, meaning you're going to interpret them by their literature.
But we, and we all recognize that there's different genres and the genres have rules. We did, we just come about them differently.
But we, I want to point out the importance of context if it hasn't been clear enough.
Already.
So let me do that with a quote for, well, actually not a quote because it's translated. So a paraphrase from John Calvin. Now, if you're not a Calvinist, please do not get triggered because I'm, you know, referring to John Calvin.
We're not, I'm not worshiping John Calvin by giving a quote of John Calvin.
Layton Flowers.
So, oh, I'm sorry. So Layton's a friend of mine, but we know we disagree. And yeah. So when, when we look at the importance of context, John Calvin said, if you take God's word out of context, you no longer have God's word, but man's word.
So my question to you is, as a Christian, do you want to have your word or God's word? I know we all say God's word. I get it. But you know what? I run into many, many Christians that they say they want God's word.
When you get into a debate with them, they will throw out the context because a passage just works for their argument. And when you do that, you have taken God out of context. You no longer have God's word.
You have your own. That's why this is so important.
So when we talk about context though, and I am reading some of the chat, I'll just say this. I know that Fatima is from the Philippines is asking a question about Matthew 16 about context. Bring that up on Apologetics Live on Thursday night.
That's a better place for that discussion. Just because I don't want to get into debating individual passages here. We want to learn the principles to apply.
So if that's OK. And I know that she's a regular follower of Apologetics Live, and if you're not, you could just go to ApologeticsLive .com on Thursday nights, and that's a place you can ask any question you want.
I can answer any question you have about God in the Bible. Just remember, I don't know is a perfectly good answer. But that is where we do Apologetics, train Apologetics. So context is important. But when we say context, what do we mean?
Well, first, the biblical context. What I mean by the biblical context is, well, what I did in Matthew 18, I looked at the verses before, I looked at the verses after. In fact, I looked at the entire chapter, right?
And people don't do that when they look at church discipline to say, what is the full context? Well, the whole context is about church, sorry, about pride. OK, so if you look at, you know, Matthew 18, he starts off there.
The whole discussion becomes what they're arguing over the great who's the greatest in the kingdom. That's the start. They're arguing over who's the greatest. And he has to say, well, you got to be able to forgive.
You know, he talks about stumbling blocks and forgiveness. And then he ends up talking all about, well, how many times do I got to forgive somebody? After talking about the church discipline. So the whole context is about pride, humility, how to handle it, and then the whole idea of forgiveness.
So as you look at that, that's the biblical context. When I'm going to address that, I have to address those passages that we looked at in that context. That is the biblical context. Some might refer to it as the literary context, you know, as far as the literature.
But I want to broaden it in this sense, because we'll look at some different ones here. Let's look at some more. So the historical context, where is this in history? Where's Jeremiah? We looked at Jeremiah.
Where is that in history? Well, that is before the Babylonian captivity. That's important because what's he saying? He's talking about the Babylonian captivity. He's talking about what is going to happen in the Babylonian captivity.
And so in that, we end up seeing that there we have a case that he is going to address an issue that he's going to say it's future to him. And guess what? That's important. So when he makes that Jeremiah 2911, did that happen yet?
No, it's not going to happen for 70 years. So we got to understand that when he's saying that, that is a promise, a prophecy to the people that are going to go through that now, Randy, if you if you're going to have to go through a persecution and it's going to be like your whole lifetime, many years is pretty much your lifetime, OK?
Would it encourage you to know that God himself, who told you that this judgment would come, that he's going to return at least your people, if it's not you, to the land? Oh, yeah, yeah. That's exactly the context, right?
You might not make it, but your children might. Your children will be there. And so at least it's like, well, you know, I know so many people that look at things in America and go, oh, how would I raise children nowadays?
You know, people, my generation that have raised our children. And I just I was I had a couple over here for brunch this morning. And we said that, like, I wouldn't know how, like raising kids that, like, how are my kids going to raise kids?
But if you know that, yeah, it's hard, we're in Babylon, but God promised maybe not us, but our kids, they're going to be returned. They're going to come back to the land.
So the historical context can play into that. Just understanding. Now, I say that because here's an interesting thing with with the cults and the false teachers. Much of the thing that they spend their time in is the Old Testament, historical narrative of the Old Testament.
And they take these things that were meant for the nation of Israel and true for a specific period of time, and they apply that to themselves. And say, see, look at this. And it's like that wasn't for the 21st century.
It doesn't apply. OK, the fact that we see people in the Old Testament having multiple wives means we should have multiple wives. Except for the passages that say one man and one woman. You see, the fact that they had multiple wives doesn't mean it was the right thing to do.
It's a historical narrative. So when we interpret in historical narratives, we're not going to get into this in this class, but I'm just going to say we'll touch on it a bit maybe next week when we talk about descriptive and prescriptive.
But historical narratives are not teaching you what you should do, but what did happen if there's nothing that says that it was good or bad. Then it's just telling you what actually happened.
Yeah, descriptive.
Well, that's the thing when it comes to descriptive, is descriptive is not always telling you. Historical narratives are typically descriptive. So it's not telling you what you should or shouldn't do.
It's telling you what actually happened. So in Acts, and we're not going to answer this here, but I like to trigger some people. Maybe someone wants to debate this. This would be a great debate.
And I'm waiting.
Two of my friends, Jim Osmond and Justin Peters, keep saying they're going to debate this. And I want them to, because I think it would be really good. In Acts, you have the 11 apostles trying to decide who will be the 12th apostle.
They come up with a standard of what an apostle is, and they choose Matthias as the 12th apostle. So what is Paul? Is Paul the 13th apostle? Many people say he is, but here's a question for you. Do you know a passage in scripture where what they did in Acts, where it's commended or condemned?
I don't know of any.
So was this just an act that the 11 apostles did?
Yes.
Did God give these instructions? We don't know. Now all of a sudden we're doing what's called an argument from silence, something where scripture doesn't speak to it. And so this could be a really fun debate.
If anyone in class wants to debate this, it could be good. Whether you want to debate whether Paul is the 12th or 13th apostle, whether Matthias was the 12th or whether he wasn't an apostle at all from God.
But historically you have to realize that that was what was happening in that time. So historical context becomes important. Another is the cultural context. Things that the culture did because cultures change.
And so sometimes the culture may make a difference. There's things they would do in the culture that maybe we don't do anymore and it wouldn't apply to us. So what is the cultural context? Another is the grammatical context.
And this is where I said the biblical context, I'm speaking broad. So it's, you know, what book, what chapter, the verses before versus after. The grammatical is going to be a little different because sometimes people use certain words that others don't or might use words a certain way.
So now you're looking at specific words in the Greek and Hebrew. Sometimes people, the word order could become important. Sometimes some people are going to use things like a present tense. Ooh, that could be important.
John, at the end of his books, one of the things he does when he's writing is he gives us a reason for why he wrote. And it's very interesting because when you look at the context of it, he will use a present tense.
Let me just turn quickly, I don't have the graphic here. But in 1 John 5, he's going to say, And we know that we are, sorry, and we know that the Son of God came and has given us an understanding so that we may know him, present tense, who is true, and we who are in him, who is true, is the Son.
This is the true God, the light. So we're in him, present tense. So when he talks about some of these things, it's not, you know, he'll say in John, he'll speak about, let's see, if I look at the end of John, try to find it off the cuff, because I have it further in the slides, but where he says, we know that those who believe in him and that becomes the thing is he's arguing for the belief.
So I don't have it right off the top of my head. I think it's John 21.
So maybe it's the end of John 20.
So it's John 20, 30. He says, therefore, many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which were not written in the book, but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the God, and that by believing, you may have life in his name, not will have life in his name, but have life in his name.
You see how the grammar can make the difference there, right? So you look at the grammatical context, because sometimes that makes the difference. Lastly, is the spiritual context. Where is this in the book?
Is this the Old Testament? Is it New Testament? Where are we? Yeah, because that can make the difference as well.
So as we look at those things, we see that the historical context, you got to know where.
You are.
Some things that can just help you understanding the history. Daniel, Daniel goes into captivity. He's in the lion's den. And I see these pictures of this young man in the lion's den. Mistake.
Because that's under the Medes and the Persians, which we know was 70 years later.
Because the Babylonian captivity was for 70 years and the Medes and the Persians took over. And what'd they do? Send Israel back.
You see?
And so we have to be able to recognize that when we talk about, and I like to give this example, we talk about the cultural context. Let me give you one example. Just I want to go a little bit long, but well, actually I'm sticking within the one hour that I have for class because we have that five minute thing ahead of me.
So maybe we could start that five minutes before, uh, so we can end on time, right? So Matthew 24, 36, this is a passage. If you turn in your Bibles to Matthew 24, 36, so many people use this passage to say that they, well, they have very interesting conclusions with this, but many use this to say, uh, that Jesus doesn't know some things.
Some will use it to use this to prove he's not God. Some will bring in, accidentally bring in a heresy, not realizing it's saying that Jesus can know something in his divine nature that he doesn't know in his human nature, all because they don't understand the culture.
So Matthew 24, 36 says, but concerning that day and hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the son, but only the, but only the father. This is when, when is Jesus coming back? When's the second coming?
When is that? And his answer is nobody knows, but the father. Now this seems like he's saying he's the son and as the son, he is, he's not aware of something. He doesn't know, right? The, the, the, he's the, the question starts, I want to just back up to the question, um, they're up on the Mount of Olives and they asked, tell us when these things will happen.
All the things he talked about, right? Of the second coming, when will these things happen? They want to know. And so he gives an answer that they would know right off the bat, right? But the day or the hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the son, but only the father.
This is a Jewish idiom referring to a wedding. The way the Jewish weddings would be at that time is that you would have a father who would be the one that decides when the son is going to go and get married.
And so what ends up happening is that the son goes and he, he doesn't know when he's getting married. The only thing he knows is whenever the father tells him that's when he's getting married. He doesn't know the day or the hour.
And so there's a Jewish idiom that when asked a question, okay, it has nothing to do with a wedding anymore, but it is a Jewish idiom saying no man knows the day or the hour, no, no, uh, actually the way the idiom would be is, uh, no one knows the day or the hour, not the, uh, not the son, only the father so that we don't include the angels anymore.
Now I, there is some interesting thing because when you read the Talmud, it looks like throughout the Talmud, some Jewish field do not believe in angels. And so if that's the case, some people might've dropped this.
So this could have been an idiom that when Jesus time was there, but over time they dropped of angels part.
But this is an idiom that says that the son should live in an expectant life as if any moment once he's done building the house onto his father's house for, for him, he's could get his bride at any moment.
And so because of that, he has to live as if any moments, the moment expectantly that it could be any time. Okay. And if he's living that way, that's so what's, what Jesus saying in this, that anytime could be the time be ready any moment.
Well, if you read on in the context of what he says right after that, he says for the son of man, for them, the, for the coming of the son of man will be just like the days of Noah for, as in those days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until the day Noah entered the ark.
And then, and they did not understand until the flood came. What did that mean? They were, they were living expectantly. They're just living their life. And then boom, it came as a surprise, right? They talks about, there's two men in a field and one will be taken.
One will be left. Two women are grinding. One will be taken. One will be left. Verse 42, right? He then goes on, therefore be alert for you do not know the day your Lord is coming. Then he talks about a thief coming into a home, right?
What is the context to live expectantly? It fits with the, with the idiom, the Jewish idiom that we have. And I know that I've, I brought this up to people and they go, well, where's that in the Talmud?
Do you think every Jewish idiom is in the Talmud? I mean, most people don't even know where idioms found it. I do not know the history. I tried to research the history of that idiom and I cannot find it.
I'd love to find some ancient document in Judaism before the time of Christ that has that idiom, but I can't find it. So the history of the idiom, I don't know. I just know it's a Jewish idiom to refer to it, that it's history is to refer to a Jewish wedding for the son, not knowing the day or the hour.
No, the way we would say it today is no one knows the day or the hour, not the son, but only the father.
That's how we would use it today. And so is that mean that it has to be that Jesus doesn't know something? No, it fits. It's more fitting to see this as a Jewish idiom. And thank you. Laura is saying that totally cleared up so much.
Wow.
See, this is what reading in context does. That's the whole purpose of when we read in context. And if we're reading in context, these things clear up. That's the importance of context.
So just a reminder, the quiz. If you guys who are taking this class for credit, you have to take the quiz. Those who are just taking it because you want a free education, well, actually, I think that passing the torch is free anyway.
So you might as well go find it on Facebook, join the group, talk to HAPS, and then you can take it for free. Or you, or Randy. So find Randy, but let us know. And if you're really not sure and you need their contact information, you could contact me at info at striving for eternity .com.
Info at striving for eternity .com. So with that, that's where we're going to wrap up today. Knew we'd just cover context, but I still wanted to start on bad ways to interpret. Next week, we're going to get into some really fun discussions on descriptive versus prescriptive and looking at difficult texts versus, well, easy texts.
And we're going to look at some examples. And so I'm just trying to look at what Laura just said there. I'm kind of afraid of pairing up and the debating thing. Well, actually, don't be.
There was some discussion in our chat group of someone wanted to debate his wife because she's taking the class too. And all the guys basically were like, you realize you lose either way. Like if you win, you lose.
And he's like, maybe I shouldn't debate my wife. No, if you want to, you and your wife debate, you know, as a debate team, you could do that. But the issue is not about winning the debate. The issue of the debate is.
That's her. What's her?
Laura.
I'm missing something.
Sorry.
The wife.
Oh, she's the wife.
That's her.
Ah, okay.
I didn't get the last names. So I didn't know.
So, so your, your husband, so Laura, you should definitely debate your husband because he's, he's already afraid to debate you now. So he now realizes he loses either way. No, but, but the purpose of us having the debate and, and if the debate is nothing more than me and the two people debating, it's for you to learn how to debate better.
That's the purpose of it. And so we're either going to do it. Well, we'll do it on apologetics live or we'll do it on this channel or both channels, or we'll do it where it's private, you know, just in a zoom meeting or something where it's not recorded.
So we could do either one. So but the, the purpose of it's not to get emotional, you're not to win. The purpose of it is to just sharpen our skills. That's really what debate is about.
That's the mistake. The mistake many people have with debate is they think that debates are to be won. Debates are not to be won. They're to sharpen our skills. This is, you know, why like James White picks his debates.
Because he wants debates that are going to be helpful for after he's gone. He's open about that.
He knows his short life on earth. He wants, he wants the content and debates bring out content to sharpen us when we're all in agreement. And it doesn't sharpen us unless we have someone that can argue from a different perspective, but debating helps us to, to sharpen our skills.
And, and so I want to debate somebody on the fact that Bigfoot is a demon.
That's fine. I think that's, that's, I mean, look, I'll encourage you to, uh, and I don't know how to look it up, but if you search on YouTube, Keith Foskey, uh, he's got a debate. On a movie diehard now, right.
What makes that debate so funny is how serious they were in the debate. They did an actual debate on whether diehard is a Christmas movie or not. And you watch that and you realize it really doesn't matter, but they took the debate so serious that that's what makes it funny.
But you can take something that, you know, to learn to, you know, sometimes debating something you don't believe actually sharpens your debating skills and sharpens your own belief. So, because you understand the position better.
And so with the debate, what I'm encouraging is you want to be able to just have the debate to, to see what it's like, because it is harder to debate. You got to think quicker if it's a formal debate, right.
But you also have to be able to notify or spot when people make a mistake. And that's what I would do is say, why didn't you point this out? This becomes important.
Here's why.
So the goal is to get you to be better students. That's the goal. And so with that, uh, go take the quiz on, if you want to put the quiz thing up one more time, uh, so that people can find that. Um, and you know, maybe, uh, if you need to know what that quiz is, you could contact.
Us.
Um, someone's saying, I didn't realize this was a class newbie here.
Ha ha.
Um, thank you so much. I'm learning so much. So Fatima is from the Philippines. This is a class of passing the torch. This is a, a school where it was kind of where we were having older, the older generation of apologists training the younger generation.
So Randy is training me cause I'm younger. I guess not. I guess it didn't work that way, but that is the goal of this.
How much older am I than you again?
Well, yeah, it depends. Uh, I, I count in hexadecimal, so that keeps me already over my head.
So, um, let me, you know, if I look in, in hexadecimal, um, I think I'm, uh, Oh my, I'm going to check, hold on. I I'm, I'm what? 30. I think it puts me at like 38 in hexadecimal. It might be 37. How old are you?
I'm 36.
See, so depending on, so we're pretty close in age.
There we go.
As long as you're in decimal system, we're almost twins. All right. Well, that's class for tonight. Uh, and so I, uh, folks, I know there were some questions that came in that are more, uh, Hey, can I have a question and it's not about this class.
And so for those courage, you go to apologize, live .com Thursday night, or for those in the Philippines, it'll be Friday morning, eight o 'clock Friday morning, or Thursday night, Eastern time. Uh, but just go to projects live .com and we'll we're that's where you can get those questions answered.
So thank you for class this week and we'll see you next week.
God bless y 'all.