Why Does Hermeneutics Matter?

This is Apologetics Live, with the baby screaming in the background,

and your host, Andrew.

No, wait, it's not Andrew.

Instead, it's me, Drew, once again, hosting Apologetics Live.

And for some reason, the intro music does not play

on my computer.

It's not even on here when I log in.

Don't know why.

Not entirely sure.

But I'm just having fun with the music that's already loaded on here

from StreamYard.

Let's turn that off.

Seems like we're having some kind of—or I'm having some kind of technical difficulty.

I don't really know what's going on.

I don't really know what's going on right now.

So, anyways, tell me if you hear me repeating myself.

Here, let's do this.

Let me—we may have to log out and then log

in, because I'm not entirely sure what's going on right now.

So, you come on.

You tell me if you hear me repeating myself, and then we'll see if we can fix that.

Because I'm not entirely sure what's going on with the audio, what I'm hearing,

because I'm hearing myself talk, and then I'm hearing myself talk again.

So, I don't know what's going on with that.

So, I might have to log out, log back in, and see what's going on.

So, if you will give me just one moment.

You've got to love technology.

It's fun when it's working, terrible when it's not.

Okay, let's see if that's any better.

So, I'm not entirely sure what's going on, but either way, welcome to Apologetics Live.

Apologetics—see, it's on again.

It's weird.

I'm just going to have my headphones off for this.

So—oh, and it looks like we have a guest.

Let me bring him in, because he may be able to talk.

Yo!

What's up, dude?

What's up, man?

I don't know what's going on.

Do you hear this?

What am I—oh, I don't hear anything.

You don't hear anything?

I hear you.

Really?

It's like it's—I'm talking to the microphone, but then there's a delay, and it's coming

back at me.

Oh, okay, now I hear it.

I hear the delay.

I don't hear anything coming back at you.

Yeah, so I don't know what's going on with that.

Oh, I don't know, man.

Are you in a new spot?

I mean, I'm in my living room, which is where I was last week.

Oh, okay.

I don't know, bro.

So that's—see, do you hear that?

Yeah, I heard it that time.

And so apparently the sound is—Melissa's saying the sound is going in and out.

So let's try this.

Let me turn off this microphone and see if we can't—see if I can't just do it through the

computer.

Send it.

You're muted.

I'm muted.

Can you hear me now?

I can hear you now.

Yeah, yeah, but can you hear me?

Yeah, yeah, I can hear you loud and clear.

And it's doing it again.

Are you going through—.

I don't know what's going on.

Are you going through your soundboard or anything?

I turned the soundboard off.

Unplug it.

Unplug what?

Your soundboard from your computer.

I wonder if it's just StreamYard.

It could be.

Yeah, I did that.

I unplugged it.

That's crazy.

That's weird, bro.

It's better.

Maybe if I refresh.

Maybe.

Let's try refreshing.

Melissa, thank you for the prayers.

I'll give everybody an update as far as what's—yeah.

Well, see, I don't want—.

They're like, why are you in the hospital?

Okay, okay, I'm going to hop out.

You give everyone an update about what's going on.

I'll hop back in.

Okay, cool.

Sounds good.

So what's up, guys?

What's up?

Yeah, welcome to—I was going to say Matter of Theology, but it's not Matter of Theology.

Apologetics Live.

So yes, I am obviously not in my home and

wearing a hospital gown and very much in a hospital bed.

So quick little update as far as what's going on with me.

On Sunday night—let me plug this in.

We don't lose any battery power here.

I got my iPad Pro.

I happened to bring my Bible with me.

So Sunday night, I had some food with my family at dinner.

And every now and then, you guys, I'll eat something.

And I think everybody experiences this.

You're like, man, I just don't feel like that went down all the way.

And so I just take a drink or something, right, and washes it.

Everything goes down.

And so it didn't do that.

And so I was not feeling okay.

Sunday night into Monday, started feeling better Monday, but limited diet on Monday.

Tuesday, went about my normal routine, felt fine until I tried to drink a post -workout

shake.

And it wouldn't—same thing, wouldn't go down.

This time, it was much, much worse.

The pressure in my chest was real bad.

It hurt to take a deep breath in.

Like there was pain and uncomfort and pressure.

So I didn't know what was going on.

So I told my wife, I'm like, I need to go to the hospital.

And I'm not one of those guys who's like, no, doctors.

I can't do doctors.

I'm one of those guys that's like, eh, something's wrong.

Something's not right.

So I came in.

And as it turns out, I—they did a CT scan and made sure it wasn't my chest.

My heart is fine.

My cardiovascular system is fine.

Vitals are great.

In fact, the nurse just came in right before jumping on, you know, the periodic check of vitals.

My resting heart rate's in the mid -50s, upper 60s.

All the blood work and panels and stuff came back.

Everything's fine there.

So what they're thinking is it's called akalasia, which I didn't know what that was

until a couple days ago.

And it's where the esophagus—I didn't know this either, but all of us, let me just

go here.

All of us have these things.

Yeah, at the—when our esophagus goes down and connects to our stomach, it's called an esophageal

sphincter.

Didn't know I had one of those right there.

But you do too.

And it wouldn't open and let everything down.

And so Wednesday morning—so I came to the hospital on Tuesday, Wednesday morning.

The GI doctor, who's been phenomenal—and everybody here, by the way, the hospital staff and nurses.

What hospital are you in?

Wellstar, Pauley.

So it's literally right around the corner from my house.

So I—they went in, put me under—this is the first—I'm 41 years old.

I'll be 42 on Sunday.

So happy birthday to me.

And I've never had to have any kind of surgery or anything like that, never been put under general anesthesia or anything.

And so put me under.

They went in, and the GI doctor said he removed a bunch of fluid and food and stuff like that.

So they're like, but we want to keep you here.

No solid food, nothing by mouth, IV.

So keep you on fluids once you rest.

You can move around.

I've been doing—if you guys follow me on Instagram, you saw I do my 20 -minute walks to keep moving.

So yeah, tomorrow morning they're going back in with a light and a scope, and they're just going to make sure everything's okay.

And before they send me home on a restricted diet, but then I'll have to see a thoracic surgeon.

Because how you fix that is you make a small incision

underneath the esophageal sphincter.

It's outpatient, so it's going home same day.

And that's supposed to—and then they do something else with that as well.

I can't remember the name of it now.

But that's supposed to make it to where it opens and closes and doesn't stay open, because if it stays open, that's real bad heartburn and

acid reflux and stuff like that.

But you want it to open and close like it should.

As far as what causes it, there's a whole list of possible causes, and so they've ruled out a bunch

of that.

But sometimes it just happens.

I've got a very good friend of mine who is an anesthetist, and then the name for that is anesthesiologist, and he works at St.

Joseph's Hospital here in Atlanta.

And he was texting me, and he said that there was something to do with the endocrine system that's affected

by the food that we eat in the American food system and the chemicals and the stuff that's put in processed foods, which

my diet's pretty clean.

But that can affect the esophagus and the lining of the esophagus.

So they did a bunch of biopsies and stuff as well.

I'll get the results of that.

So yeah, I've just had to sit here.

Thankfully, when I knew I had to come to the hospital, I didn't know how long I was going to be here.

Drew, I cut my Bible.

Forgot that.

I'm reading the Gospel according to the apostles, Valley of Vision.

Drew, you know I keep that with me.

And happened to grab my iPad Pro.

Here we are.

Here's a question.

But first I get to this question.

I figured out what the problem was.

Okay, what was that?

When I logged out of the – and it was good that you were here because you helped me solve the problem.

Because you kept talking.

So when I got out of the studio, I kept hearing the show, and I realized

that I had the show pulled up on YouTube also, and it was coming through my headphones.

And so I'm just stupid.

So that makes for an interesting intro since we don't have the typical Andrew

banter with music and stuff.

It's a different kind of banter.

Yeah.

I'm basically bantering with myself about why I'm hearing an echo,

and no one else can hear it but me because I've got the headphones on, and it's my own computer coming back.

When you unplugged it, I could hear the echo, and that makes sense because it was coming through your speakers.

Right, right, right, right.

So here's a question from Jesse Heller.

He says, were you swallowing and swallowing until you vomited?

I've had issues with that in the past.

I was wondering what that was.

Yeah.

So I don't want to be too graphic because it was violent

because I would swallow.

Because at times in the past when I felt something like that, which addressed one of the things I said was I think everybody has at some point like

you eat something and maybe you don't chew it up enough, or you're just congested or something like that, and you feel like you get stuck like

right here.

You take a drink and you tighten up your core a little bit, and then you feel like it'll go down.

You'll feel it move, and that's what would happen.

So this time, Jesse, to answer your question, yeah.

So I was swallowing.

I was trying that.

I would try to sip on water.

And if you guys have ever watched Apologetics Live, I always have my big water bottle with me.

I'm drinking a ton of water.

Anyway, so I would try to do that, but it wouldn't go

down.

And so what was happening, though, is I wouldn't vomit it up.

It wasn't food and stuff that was coming up.

It was just like phlegm, for lack of a better.

Again, I don't want to be TMI.

But my body was trying to get it out.

And it just wasn't.

And so, I mean, it literally kept me up all night Tuesday into Wednesday, and it wasn't until the procedure Wednesday morning that I was

like, thank you, Lord.

You know, relief from the pressure and stuff like that.

Well, it's a good thing you're feeling better.

They found the cause of it.

Because, you know, when I put this subject out, first, of course, I text you and

Hanholtz, and Hanholtz may join us a little later.

But I put this subject out because I know this is one you and I talk about or have talked about

a lot.

And it's one I talk about a lot with a lot of other people.

And when I got that, I saw that message or that post, I was like,

my first thought wasn't, man, I hope Chris is okay.

It's like, man, I'm not going to have a co -host for the show.

It was a close second.

It was a close second, right?

It was like the first and greatest one was I'm not going to have a co -host.

And then, but right next to that was like, man, I really hope Chris is okay.

And, you know, it's not something serious, which it could have been serious if he didn't get checked out.

Oh, man.

I mean, and that's what, that's what, I mean, you guys like, I mean, for you guys watching, the GI doctor said

that a normal person's esophagus looks like this, right?

It's about like that.

He's like, dude, yours was like that.

And, and it was just full.

And so the concern was aspiration, right?

You're, you breathe that stuff in.

That can cause infection into the lungs.

That can, that can be a whole host of other issues, tears in the esophagus and that stuff leaks into your abdomen.

And so I sincerely am, and I said this to somebody on Twitter when they

reached out to me and just, and man, just, I'm sincerely grateful for the Lord's provision

and patience and long suffering and the grace of, and I, and I told my buddy Alex

this, I think I told Honholz this too, you know, Tuesday when all

this was happening, it was Tuesday afternoon.

It started around noon.

I was like, you know, I just really felt like I needed to come to the doctor and, you know, bro, I'm a cessationist through and through,

through and through.

But I really wholeheartedly believe it was the Holy Spirit

as well going, yeah, you need to go.

Not like, not like telling me, I didn't hear an audible voice, but it was that it was an overwhelming desire.

Like I've got to get to the hospital and I hate hospitals.

And I'm, I'm the type of person that unless I'm dying and I know I'm dying, I don't go to a

hospital, right?

My wife has to make me go to a hospital.

Yeah.

And that was what surprised my wife because Kimberly is the same way.

She's like, you know, for me to go, Hey, I got to the hospital.

She's like, what, what?

And I was like, yeah.

And then she offered to drive me, but I didn't want our son to have to see.

I mean, it was bad enough.

They could hear that I wasn't okay, but I didn't want them to have to see what was happening.

Cause like I said, it was a violent thing and I'm not a loud person when I get sick, but sometimes

you just, it just happens.

And so, so I was like, yeah, I'll just, I'll just call 911.

And they were paramedics were pros, absolute pros through and through.

And so, um, so yeah.

And by the way, so if anybody, uh, if, cause obviously nurses and, and, uh, care partners and

stuff may come in.

And so if they do, I'll just mute everything and then come back on there just in here for a minute and say, Hey, are you okay?

You need anything?

Fine.

I'm live.

Leave me alone.

I'm live.

We're talking about hermeneutics.

Either, either, either go away or pull up a chair.

That's right.

But, uh, uh, I'm glad you're okay.

Everyone in the comments says that they're glad that you're okay as well.

Um, and that you're going to be okay.

So, you know, get that esophagus straightened out and make sure it closes, you know?

Yep.

And, uh, but heading into today's topic, uh, by the way, the, the

topic I'm thinking of for next week, you might really like, I'm going to try to get a guest or two

on to talk about it, but I'll talk about it with you after the show.

Okay.

Um, but just to, just as a cliffhanger for our listeners.

All right.

And for me and for you.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, only till after the show because then I'll tell you, but

why does hermeneutics matter?

And this is a question that I don't think a lot of people

consider people in the church pastors, right?

We're talking church leaders.

They don't consider hermeneutics and part of, partly they don't consider it because

most of them, I would say, don't know what it is.

And so if you don't know what it is and you view the Bible and this, and of course this

starts with a low view of God's word.

If you don't know what it is and you have a low view of God's word, then you're not going to hold, present,

teach from scripture as it should.

And when you do that, you're going to mislead people.

You're going to lead them in a wrong direction.

Now, every once in a while, you may point them to something that's accurate, but like we

discussed last week, you know, a broken clock is right twice a day, but you're still going to lead them

astray.

And this is one of the things that I deal with with a lot of people where I am and some of the people that I go to church with,

they don't have a hermeneutic.

They don't know what it is.

They approach the Bible first with a self -centeredness.

Okay, what is this saying about me?

Rather than what is this saying about God?

How is this revealing God?

And then how is this leading me to worship him?

And then what does it say about myself in light of who God is?

And then how am I to apply that in my daily life?

So whenever we come to scripture, we first have to have

in our minds that hermeneutics matters.

And so what is hermeneutics?

Well, to put it simply, hermeneutics is, some would say the science of interpretation,

specifically interpreting the Bible.

And in order to interpret the Bible, in order to gain a proper hermeneutic or

understanding, we have to begin with context.

That's right.

Now there are three rules to Bible interpretation, and that

is context, context, context.

We have to seek to find the context.

What a lot of people do nowadays is they come to a passage.

They'll take one passage, one verse, they'll divorce it from its context

and then they will try to talk about that passage in a way that the author never

intended.

They will try to apply that passage in a way that the author never intended.

So they're using the Bible more as a reference book and they don't understand its

composition.

And so if that's how I'm approaching scripture, that is an indicator I

have a low view of scripture.

Yeah, man.

And let me jump in just for a second.

I think what we have to remember is it's, I believe it's Psalm 138, where

the Lord talks about his word as being equal to his name.

And so if we have a low view of scripture, we ultimately, we have to be honest with ourselves.

We have a low view of God.

Now there may be reasons why that we have low views of God.

It may be that the Lord has just saved us.

We are infants in the faith.

And so we understand the formula of the gospel.

The Lord has granted us repentance and faith, replaced our heart of stone with a heart of flesh.

He has gifted us, because faith is a gift, the ability to understand scripture,

appreciate scripture, love scripture, love God, love Christ in return, obey scripture.

All of that is a gift given by the spirit of God applied through the efficacious and completed ongoing work of the

Lord Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins.

So we have to understand that, but we have to hold God's word above ourselves and above

our own interpretation, even that.

I think back to Thomas Watson and a body of divinity.

And he said, till we be above sin, we will never be above scripture.

And so we have to approach scripture in that way.

If we have a hermeneutic of, you know, where am I in here?

Where am I in the text?

Where am I in the story?

Am I David?

Am I Goliath?

Am I the apostle?

Am I one of the apostles?

Am I the apostle, Paul?

What apostle do I most closely relate to?

I most identify with Peter because I have a big mouth usually.

It gets me in trouble.

But that's how we have to approach scripture and how we approach scripture matters.

And I think, especially in our country, in the Western church, because of the

influences of the charismatic movement, because of the seeker -oriented movement, because of the Stephen Furtick's,

because of the Bethel.

And, you know, again, the list goes on and on and on.

We have, and pastors have, just a surface -level immature

hermeneutic that ultimately gives license to do exactly what

Satan and the demons do, which is twist the scriptures to fit their own desires instead of obeying

and honoring the scriptures to fit the desires and the glory of God.

Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right.

So when I look out at the landscape of

the church, especially in America, right, it's very

noticeable that God has given a famine in the land and a famine for

his word, as we can look at in Amos chapter 8, right?

Now, in order to, before we really get into talking about hermeneutics and gaining

context, we have to understand the nature of scripture.

Because if that's the source that we are to be interpreting, and as

preachers, if that's the source we are to be expositing and explaining and proclaiming, we

have to understand first the nature.

Because people will go to church because they want to hear what

the Lord gave the pastor to say, right?

They don't want to go to hear, thus says the Lord from the word.

They yawn when you say, turn in your Bibles, right?

They're disinterested.

Immediately, they check out.

Now, I have been seeing some of this kind of creep up where there's more, some people are starting

to take interest more.

Because I think in some, the blinders are starting to be taken off where they're paying

attention and they're going, what he said, I don't think that's right.

I can't pinpoint it, but I don't think it's right.

But this guy, when he opens the word, there's something about it that I can latch on to.

And so, but I still say for the vast majority, because we look at the popularity of the Furtick's, of the Bethel's,

of the Mike Todd's, right?

The, I won't even say hyper, I'll just say the charismatic movement as a whole.

When you get these pastors that say something like, I had a message prepared, but the Lord gave me this

word.

Okay, no, he did not.

Because what's going to happen?

You're going to give that word and all the verses you use are going to be taken out of context.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, I mean, I'm glad you didn't say hyper because I would even, and I know our sister Melissa

Owens will agree with me here.

Like I put Michael Brown and Sam Storms in that category.

It's like, what is your standard?

And if scripture is not the standard, rightly divided, accurately handled.

And you can see this, if you watch the round table discussion, Sam Storms, Michael Brown, Jim

Osmond, Justin Peer.

You can see it clearly.

Very clearly, very clearly.

So when we look at the church and the people who want a

supposed word from the Lord that the pastor gave, and they sit on edge for that.

And then they go, oh, wow, the Lord speaks through him.

But then they turn off, they shut down when you say, open your Bibles.

Well, let's talk about that because a supposed word from the Lord

is subjective.

And the reason it's subjective is because it's not actually rooted in any kind of biblical

foundation.

You haven't had time to do any study within this word that you got

to even validate whether or not it's true.

Right?

A verse came to your mind.

Okay?

A verse came to your mind.

But how are you going to apply that verse?

What's the first thing?

Now I know, what's the first thing you and I are going to do?

The first thing you and I are going to do is we're going to go to the scripture and we're going to go, what's this verse talking about?

Yep.

What is the original context, the authorial intent and context of that specific passage?

But what's very popular is a word, a passage came to my mind.

The Lord brought something to my mind.

I think he's showing me.

So it's subjective.

It's not objective.

Right.

Well, the problem with this, man, is ultimately this is what this leads to.

And this kind of is calling back to last week when we were talking about Driscoll, John Liddell, that whole thing that happened.

It's like, you know, and the post that I put on Twitter, I go back to that interview that

MacArthur did with Justin Peters at Chef Con a couple years ago.

You know, the greatest threat to the Christian church today is an abysmal lack of biblical discernment.

And where that starts, where having that abysmal lack of biblical discernment starts, is with an improper

hermeneutic.

That you have to have a proper hermeneutic when it comes to studying the scriptures.

And it's not difficult.

It's not, it takes work, yes, but it's not difficult to do.

It's you just go back to what the scriptures teach.

It's not just about what does the Bible say?

What does it mean by what it says?

Right, yeah.

And so getting back, right, a supposed word then is usually pretty

vague and it's open to all kinds of interpretations, right?

And what happens when you have a vague word and it's open up to all kinds of interpretations?

It then becomes confusing.

Why?

Because it's not rooted in objective truth, whereas the word of the Lord scripture

is clear, is direct, it's distinct, right?

It's explicit in its meaning.

So we would look at the perspicuity of scripture, what you're talking about, the clarity of scripture, because then

there is no confusion.

And now that's not saying there's not difficult passages, but where there are difficult

passages, there's usually someplace else that will explain it further.

Correct.

Correct.

I remember,.

And speaking of that, I remember Martin Lloyd -Jones saying that if you, and I want to be careful saying this

because there is some nuance to it,.

Is, you know,.

If you come to a theological conclusion, but that theological conclusion is only

found and supported in one place in scripture, start over.

Yeah.

Start over.

And now that doesn't mean that just because, for example, example, head coverings, right?

Right.

Head coverings is talked about in 1 Corinthians 11.

That doesn't mean that there aren't other passages in scripture that support that.

Paul gets into the specifics there.

So that's not what I'm talking about.

But remember also, too, let me say this on the flip side of that, is just because it's written

in one place in scripture, that's enough.

Yep. Yeah. Yeah. That's right.

And now,.

So another thing with the supposed word from the Lord

is that it tends to feed on emotion.

Because if I can say something that I know is going to stir the emotions,

and we have, look at this interruption we have in a point that I was getting ready to make.

Well, finish your point.

So the supposed word feeds on the emotions, and if I can get a hold of your emotions,

I can make you go wherever I want.

Yeah.

Whereas the word of the Lord preached from the scriptures, it cuts right to the heart,

and it does that regardless of how you feel about it.

Amen.

Okay, go ahead, Andrew.

Welcome to the show from the Philippines.

Andrew, welcome.

Well, we're just getting ready for church camp.

Justin Peter's going to be speaking first.

But I just brought a glimpse of this and saw Mr. Huff in a hospital bed.

Clearly did not know.

I'm like, what in the world is happening?

What are you doing?

You're in a hospital.

What in the world are you doing on the show?

You're confusing me.

What happened, brother?

Man, check out Twitter.

I explained it.

It's an issue with my esophagus and food not going down, fluid not going down.

So they had to go in and get most of that out.

They're going in tomorrow morning to go all the way down to where my stomach is and just make sure everything's

working properly, and then I'll probably have to have an outpatient surgery later to correct the issue.

But I'm doing good, man.

They just wanted to keep me here because they didn't want me to go home and eat a bunch of food and aspirate and all that fun stuff.

So you're having a problem with your esophagus.

So what do you do?

You come on the show so you can talk a lot.

Yeah.

That makes sense.

You can't keep them down.

Yeah.

Well, hey, sorry.

I can't see it on Twitter because I made a mistake, and maybe you guys want to deal with this next week.

I know I hate to wait this long, but John MacArthur posted something about PSD not existing

and ADD not existing, and then he goes on to explain the experiences and gives them biblical terms.

I made the mistake of telling people to like, hey, let's listen in context.

Let's hear what he actually said.

Yeah, I woke up this morning to like 1 ,000 messages, all nasty.

Oh, yeah, of course.

Yeah.

So, yeah, that may be a good topic for next week.

But, yeah, no, I just popped in because I saw Mr. Huff there.

Yeah, man.

I'm doing good, brother.

I'll shoot you a text until you end this morning.

Yeah, well, yeah, and I may not be able to get it because someone here, one of the three of us is a

knucklehead and went into a sauna with his phone, so I have no phone until I get back to the States.

I like how you said one of us here.

I like how you said one of us.

Yeah, but then I identified which one was the knucklehead.

So, yeah.

But, yeah, it's been good.

We're in a church camp.

I'm actually really surprised because we're in a church camp with the church that

owns this church camp.

It's one of the churches that the last time Justin and I were here, we spoke against.

Oh, wow.

And so now we're renting their facility.

Because it's a really nice facility.

So I'm wondering if any of their folks are going to listen and be like, hey, wait a minute.

Wow.

Especially if they're in confidence.

Against charismatic movement.

Isn't that the same guy in the wheelchair that we kicked out of here last time?

Yep.

Yeah, so Justin's getting ready to speak.

I think his topic, I can't remember what his topic is right now.

I know Jim's tomorrow is going to be on passing a torch to the next generation, but I

think Justin's is something like on glorifying God, but I don't remember the rest of it.

But I'm looking forward to it because, well, it is Justin.

You know, Andrew, when I had this idea for this topic tonight, my very first thought was

it'd be great to have Justin because people don't recognize Justin as an expositor, and it would be great,

but he's in the Philippines.

Yeah.

Well, maybe we could do this because, hey, you know, this is the topic that's kind of where I focus on is how to

interpret.

Right.

So this is the most important issue, I think, for Christians today

because, you know, as I said at the Strange Fire conference here in the Philippines,

the real danger of the charismatic movement is the fact that it takes Christianity from

thinking to feeling.

Yes.

From the sufficiency in Scripture to my experience, and that

is what has led in all the other things that we now see.

And it's, you know, like, it really shocked me this morning to see how much people

are reacting emotionally to what John MacArthur said.

Right.

And they're like, oh, PSD exists because I have it.

No one said the experience doesn't exist.

I mean, he goes on to explain that.

Right.

But simple logic and hermeneutics, reading something or hearing something in context

and not having a knee -jerk reaction.

But we now are a culture that has such a knee -jerk reaction to everything that it

becomes Scripture with a preconceived idea and say, I got to make the Bible say this.

I got to make the Bible teach this.

And that's not how we're going to interpret the Bible.

We have exegesis,.

Which is to take meaning out of the text in the right way to do it, look at the text of Scripture, understand what it is actually saying in its

culture of context, in its grammatical context, get the meaning from the text.

We have eisegesis, where people come to the Bible with an idea in mind of what it's already

teaching.

But as I said at the conference, and I think we got it here from Apologetics Live is where I stole it from, though I couldn't remember who

it was that said it, but Drew probably remembers.

And then there's wistegesis, where people just wish the Bible said something, so they just try to make it say what they wish it said.

So there's wistegesis.

Yep.

That's exactly right.

And you bring up a good point, because it's not just about reading in context.

These are about listening in context too.

Absolutely.

Because how many times, Andrew, have we been on this show, and someone has come in, and they've

missed what you're saying, they've missed what I'm saying, that they don't get it because they're not listening

to what's being said.

Yeah.

And even when we correct them, it's funny because there's times where we correct them, and then they still go on saying that

we said something we didn't say.

And it's like, you do realize we've corrected you a couple times, right?

Well, what I find funny too is, John has dealt with this before.

This isn't the first time John has said this.

And if you listen in context, Andrew, you're absolutely right.

And Drew, you said it too.

You listen in context.

He's very clear.

He's not saying it doesn't exist.

That's not what he's saying at all.

Yeah.

No, he's saying to use biblical terms.

Yep.

To use….

Look, and all these people are….

I had someone on Twitter that was like….

Or….

Sorry.

That was like, Oh, well, what would you call plantar fasciitis?

Should I go to the Bible for that?

No, because that's not dealing with your spirit.

I mean, there is….

The Bible deals with our spirit.

Yes, it deals with physical things.

I mean, I'm going to be teaching a course for the Passing the Torch

group, the class that they have on apologetics and debate.

And a lot of what came up with this Twitter I'm going to end up using.

Because they're like….

When they're talking plantar fasciitis, well, you've got a category there.

Yeah.

I mean, the fact when they go, Oh, well, is plantar fasciitis just leprosy?

Because the Bible talks about leprosy.

Well, okay, now you have a hasty generalization, right?

You're just trying to….

Instead of actually looking at what's being said, you're looking to how to poke holes at it and then call people

names when you can't answer.

Right.

And that's not how we should be interpreting the Bible.

Look, I don't know if you guys have experienced this.

Actually, I kind of know you guys, so I know you have.

But many of the listeners probably have experienced this as well.

I have as well.

Where you have a position you hold when you're early in your Christian walk, you think it's what the Bible teaches,

but then someone comes along and educates you.

And you suddenly look at Scripture and go, Oh, I was interpreting it wrong.

I mean, I've shared this story before, but I came out of the charismatic movement.

I was from a Jewish background.

I just trusted the charismatics I knew in college.

They told me what the Bible says, and I thought, I don't know anything, so I trusted them.

But then sitting in a Bible study, I wasn't even in the conversation.

Two men at the other end of the table, and one guy just says, You know, not everyone believes the gifts continue to today.

I went, Wait, what?

And I just went through the Bible and read 1 Corinthians 12, 13, and 14 in one sitting in

context and went, Wait a minute.

This is teaching everything that the charismatic church teaches today.

It's actually condemning the behavior.

But I was taught that this is actually what was teaching us the charismatic movement.

And I realized how backwards it is.

And that's what got me into studying hermeneutics, because I never wanted to be wrong again.

I never wanted to...

I want to be...

I mean, the more that we follow the rules of interpretation, the less likely we are to

get things wrong.

And then we get into the question, you know, there are different hermeneutics that people apply to the

Bible.

You have a dispensational view.

You have a covenantal view.

And there's different, but those are the two broad ones.

And those are different ways of interpreting.

But I can respect someone that, even though I'm more dispensational.

And others are more covenantal,.

I can respect someone who's covenantal and interprets it with a consistent hermeneutic that they

believe is the right one, rather than someone that just says, well, I'm just...

This must mean this because my systematic theology teaches it.

Right.

When I do our Bible Interpretation Made Easy seminars in churches, I always teach that there's two ways to

interpret.

You can either interpret by the rules or you can interpret by yourself.

It's going to be your systematic theology, your personal experience, whatever it is.

But that's what people end up doing.

They end up interpreting by what they... they come with a preconceived idea, and we all do that, by the way.

I do that as well as you guys.

We come with preconceived ideas.

Frameworks.

Correct.

I mean, it's presuppositions that we have to be willing to question our presuppositions when we come to

a text, because we could be wrong.

Yeah.

Yeah, some of the...

Now, Andrew, you and I have had conversations.

Hermeneutically, right, where we're going through a text.

We'll say Daniel 9, because we did this on Theology Throwdown a while ago, maybe even been

about a year ago.

But we're going through a text.

We're going through Daniel 9, but I'm laying out my hermeneutic, and I'm

showing you what I'm connecting to, where it's leading to, and I'm giving you a path through

Scripture to follow, right?

And you would do the same.

And so that way you can see what I'm seeing, how I'm seeing it.

I'm not just coming in with a blanket statement and saying something like, Andrew, this is what I feel

the Lord is saying because this is what it is.

And the Lord told me, and I believe that's what it is, and so I'm just going to go with that.

And then whatever you say after that, I'm just going to dismiss it.

Well, am I dealing honestly?

What I say after that is, the Lord told me you're wrong, and then I open Scripture.

That's right.

But in conversation and looking at these things, there's a way to approach it.

And so I was in a Bible study recently where we were looking at

2 Peter 1.

And so if you look at 2 Peter 1, you've got verses 3 all the way through verses

8, maybe 9.

It might even be 10.

But that's basically one section.

And in there, Peter is speaking of specific character traits

that are to be amplified and pursued by our faith.

If we have a true faith, we are to pursue these character traits.

They should be within us.

They should indwell us.

And so it should be evident by those character traits.

And so I'm sitting in this Bible study, and I say, and this is how we know, because if we look at verses

9 that follows, it says, if you lack these qualities, and then in

verse 10, it basically says the same thing.

I said, so what qualities is it talking about?

Verses 5, 6, and 7, where the qualities are found.

And so I brought everyone to the text to show them, this is what the text is talking about.

And afterwards, you know where everyone went?

They went completely outside of the text to talk about some kind of personal experience with

something physical that they see something going on rather than dealing with

the character traits that are to be portrayed within a believer.

This is why so many of the Bible studies that people attend, I had a pastor who used to refer to them as a show your ignorance

study, because people come and say, well, this is what it means to me.

It doesn't matter what it means to you.

It matters what it means.

You know, that's why Josiah Nichols has the little booklet that we have called, What Does It Mean

to Me?

And that, you know, to me is crossed out, right?

Because it doesn't matter what it means to me.

It matters what it means.

And so many people come to the Bible with the idea of, I want the

Bible to tell me what I already believe.

And instead of saying, am I wrong?

The Bible's right.

We're not.

We're only right in as far as much as we agree with God.

And so if we're not in agreement with God, if we're coming to his word, and let's put it this way, this is what

a paraphrase from John Cowell, because, I mean, I don't speak the same language as him.

He didn't write in English.

But he basically said, if you take God's word out of context, you no longer have God's word, but man's word, right?

Because you've just taken it from the context that God has given it and given a new meaning.

And all of a sudden, you're no longer dealing with God's word anymore.

And this is the thing that we have to realize.

So I got to get going because Justin's going to start in 15 minutes.

And no offense to you guys.

I don't want to miss Justin.

Well, I'm sure when you get back, I'm sure when you get back, we'll have another episode on hermeneutics.

But thank you for stopping by your show.

Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I appreciate you letting me come in and bombard my own show.

I appreciate it.

Yeah, no problem.

Happy to do it.

Anytime.

I'll give you guys just a quick look, if I can.

Cedric, can I turn my camera around?

If I can turn my camera around, or I'll just turn this.

I'll show you the church that's been hosting us and taking care of us.

So these are the folks who are helping with the church here.

So here's.

I'll come back out so I can hear.

This is Pastor Armand right here.

He's the pastor of Rocking Refuge.

And he's the one that puts a lot of this together.

Hey there.

So be praying for him.

He's got to put up with us.

Yeah, and that's no easy task.

Pray for Andrew's tummy.

He has trouble.

Yeah, I haven't been feeling good for a week since the Strange Fire Conference.

So you can pray for me.

But thank you.

Keep up the good work.

Chris, we'll be praying for you.

Thank you, brother.

Pastor Armand, he needs sanity after we leave.

He needs some rest after we leave.

We know that one.

See you guys.

Thank you. We'll see you.

So we want to thank Andrew for stopping by his own show.

So let's get back into talking about the nature of Scripture.

Because really, hermeneutics doesn't make any sense if we don't understand the nature

of Scripture.

And that's where it all starts.

It starts with our view of what Scripture is.

And so, real quickly, I'm just going to begin in 2 Timothy 3.

It's a passage we all know.

Paul is speaking, and he says,.

I like how the LSV renders that, because after equipped, it says thoroughly equipped.

Thoroughly, yep.

Right afterwards, so equipped, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Which is really funny, because when we went to Cruciform 2020, and I was preaching, and I was

basically doing an exposition of this passage, and I think a passage in chapter 4.

And I was speaking to pastors, and I said, And I think I said,

Or adequately equipped, something like that.

That's really funny, because I don't use the LSV, I use the NASV.

But, you know, it's neither here nor there.

But either way, the Scriptures are inspired.

So we believe, first and foremost, in the inspiration of Scripture, that they are

God -breathed, right?

They come from the very mouth of God Himself.

And since they come from His mouth, that means they are His words and His thoughts.

And since they are His words and His thoughts, that makes Scripture the source

of truth.

And in ministry, right, when we do ministry, when we preach, we

deal, or just for Christians in general, we deal in

truth.

And so people have always been seeking to find what is truth.

Correct.

I mean, that's one of the age -old questions.

What is truth?

At least until we get to the 20th century, when we have postmodernism, and took over

societies, and postmodernism, what that is, is it denies absolute truth.

And what it does is rely on relativism.

So relativism is what's true for one might not be true for another.

And we see this in the church.

We see this in Bible studies.

We see this when we talk about passages, and a person may go, well, that's your interpretation.

Right?

Well, hold on, hold on, hold on.

If you say that, you're dealing in relativism.

Correct.

Because if relativism is true, when we come to Scripture, then we can't know

what Scripture says.

It has to have an objective meaning.

Which means, and because God's not the author of confusion, because His word is clear, we know

that it is true.

Therefore, we must seek to find the truth in the Scripture, not what it means to

me, as Andrew was saying, but what does it mean to God?

What does the author mean?

And this is where we get into authorial intent.

What does the author mean by what the author says?

And you can quickly disprove relativism.

Okay?

Oh, 100%.

One person says, they say, I don't believe in gravity.

You believe in gravity, I don't believe in gravity.

That works very well until you jump out of a plane without a parachute.

I happen to be on the fifth floor of the hospital, so we could test that theory if someone doesn't believe in gravity.

Well, I don't think hospital windows open anymore because of that reason.

No, they probably don't.

But you find out very quickly that there is a such thing as absolute truth, that

gravity does exist.

If you jump, you will fall.

Correct. Correct.

Well, and it's incredibly important when it comes to understanding, and I already

mentioned this once, but who God is, but then kind of going back to this

can kind of play into what Andrew was talking about with what Dr. MacArthur said.

When we submit to the absolute truth of the God -breathed scriptures, the Theanistos,

right?

When we go back to the source, ad fontes, back to the source of the two scriptures, when

that's where we live, that's where we breathe, that's where we search for all meaning, not only do

we understand first and foremost who God is, His nature, His attributes, but we understand who we

are in light of that thrice holy God and what we need in all matters as it

pertains to life and godliness.

Peter said, speaking of 2 Peter, we have that in the scriptures.

And so understanding that we can't gather that if we go to

the scriptures and go, I have a thought, I want to go prove it.

That's not how we get that.

How we get that is by going to the scriptures.

What does this mean to God?

What was the original authorial intent?

And what is the application?

Now I want to talk for a second about frameworks because frameworks are important.

Frameworks are important for us even in reform circles and the circles that we're in.

We constantly have to be –.

I mean, you need to think about the way we approach scripture in our mind's eye and with our heart.

When I say heart, I mean the inner man.

With windshield wipers, constantly.

Wiping away the blocking of the framework that we think we have.

Even if we think it's correct to constantly challenge and test ourselves to

whether or not we are reading our frameworks into the scriptures or that we are

truly gathering our frameworks from the scriptures.

And that is a constant process.

That process never ends.

You will never arrive when it comes to examining your own heart and mind

to make sure that you have a proper hermeneutic and a proper way of interpreting scripture.

So I want to piggyback on what you read out of 2 Timothy with Psalm 19.

And it was at that same Cruciform Conference that I preached out of Psalm 19.

And starting in verse 7, the law of Yahweh is perfect, restoring the soul.

The testimony of Yahweh is sure, making wise the simple.

The precepts of Yahweh are right, rejoicing the heart.

The commandment of Yahweh is pure, enlightening the eyes.

The fear of Yahweh is clean, enduring forever.

The judgments of Yahweh are true.

They are righteous altogether.

They are more desirable than gold, even more than much fine gold, sweeter also than the honey and the

drippings of the honeycomb.

Moreover, by them your slave is warned.

In keeping them there is great reward.

Who can discern his errors?

Equip me of hidden faults.

Also keep back your slave from presumptuous sins.

Let them not rule over me that I will be blameless and I shall be acquitted of great transgression.

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Yahweh, my rock and my

redeemer.

When we approach the scriptures with that attitude of they're more

desirable than gold, I mean think of the most desirable physical thing you have.

Do you value and desire your time here more than anything else?

This is not a toot of my own horn at all.

When I knew I was coming to the hospital, this is the first thing I grabbed.

This right here.

If I have this, I'm going to be good.

Not a problem.

I'm going to keep up my reading.

I'm going to keep up my studying.

Why?

Not so I can check something off a list.

I want to know who God is.

I want to know who I am in response to who he is.

I want to know mentally and emotionally how the scriptures need to influence those things and not

my emotions, my frameworks.

Try to make them influence the scriptures.

We can't.

But it's super important that we view the law, the testimony, the precepts, the commandments, and the fear, the

judgments of the Lord in that way, understanding that it's everything we need pertaining to life and godliness.

That's right.

Yeah.

What you're getting at is that we have to have a standard of truth.

Correct.

We have to have a source for which we can always refer back to.

If relativism is true, we have no reason to come back to this source time and time again.

Correct.

So we have to view scripture as objectively true, meaning it's

grounded.

It's firm.

It's not going anywhere.

It's actually what we start with.

And so our position on this show in terms of apologetics is

presuppositional apologetics.

Now, that doesn't mean we don't use evidences or we don't rejoice in evidences or understand evidences.

I mean, we've had Dr. Jason Lyle on the show.

Anthony Silvestro points to and uses evidences.

But evidences….

Well, the scriptures do.

The beginning of Psalm 19, the heavens are telling the glory of God.

Right.

But we have to have a place to start in order for those evidences to even make

sense in the reality we live in.

Right.

So we have to start with the Bible first.

And so just listen to what Jesus himself says.

Okay.

John 17, 17.

All right.

Jesus is praying. He's praying to the Lord.

And he says, Sanctify them in truth.

Your word.

Your word is truth.

Amen.

Right.

Now, even take Jesus in John 18 where he's responding to Pilate.

Pilate is….

He's asked Jesus if he's the king of the Jews.

And Jesus says….

What does he say?

He says, Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice.

And Pilate responds, What is truth?

And then walked away.

Right.

And not even realizing that he was in the presence of the embodiment of truth.

Right.

Okay.

John 14, 6.

I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me.

Right.

All truth is found in God's word.

All truth is found in Christ.

And if anything is true at all, it is true because God, through Christ, has

made it to be true.

Correct.

Okay.

So God's word is our source of truth.

Right.

Now, because it is our source of truth, it has things that

make us profitable.

Or it has profitabilities.

Right.

It is profitable for….

Meaning it has a benefit.

It has a value for teaching.

The relaying of information of what God wants us to know about himself and about

ourselves, and then how we live in communion with him.

It gives us information about how to be saved and how we are to love him and love our neighbor.

Okay.

So the scriptures are profitable for teaching.

It's instruction about godly things.

Correct.

Now it's also profitable for reproof.

Right.

The exposing or calling out of sin.

So the scriptures hold up, because they are the source of truth, they hold up the

mirror to us so we can see ourselves in light of this source of truth, in light of

his standard and his holiness.

And it does that so that it can bring about correction.

So it is profitable for correction.

Right.

It's almost like Paul is a master teacher here and he's doing just a little flow chart.

Right.

So he brings about correction, which is the need to fix it, the instruction on how to fix it

in order to bring us back in line.

And then it is profitable for training in righteousness.

Right.

Growing in holiness.

How do we know what it means to be holy?

The scriptures, they teach us.

Where do we get our examples of holiness and righteousness?

We get them from the scriptures.

So the scriptures are profitable for our teaching about godly things, but

it's also for our training in godly things.

And so we have to understand the nature of scripture before we get into

actually interpreting what it means.

Correct.

Because, and again I go back to churches across the

land, there's a lot of unhealthy churches.

And how can you spot the difference between a healthy church and an unhealthy church?

A healthy church is Bible -centered, it's Bible -focused, it's Bible -driven, it's

Bible -regulated.

And when it is centered, focused, driven, and regulated by the Bible, that means it is

also going to be Christ -centered, Christ -exalting, Christ -worshiping.

I mean, that's how you can tell a healthy church from an unhealthy church.

It's not self -focused.

It's not self -driven.

It's not seeking to go the where is me in the Bible and doing

narcissus, reading myself in, if I don't find myself there.

I forgot about that one.

Right?

So we have to come to Scripture understanding its nature.

Anything you want to add to that?

No, man.

I mean, you hit the nail on the head.

I mean, we have to remember that with the Scriptures, we have the very mind of God.

Paul said that in Corinthians, that we have the mind of Christ in the Scriptures.

And that's a fantastic point.

You can walk in, again, using a biblically discerning eye with

gentleness, reverence, and respect, but you can walk into churches and

you should be able to tell pretty quickly.

I'm not going to put a time limit on it, but you should be able to tell pretty quickly whether or not this church is

a Bible -believing, Bible -focused, Bible -centered church.

And I like the way you draw that correlation.

It's His Word.

It's Christ's Word.

It's the mind of Christ.

And so when you have a church that is Bible -focused through and through, it's regulated.

That's one of the reasons we talk about the regulative principle so much, or have throughout the years, is

because when you are regulated by the mind of Christ, the church is not going to look like the world,

number one.

It's going to be a glimpse of heaven, number two.

It's going to be a, oh, cool, look at that.

My iPad even does the reactions.

That's kind of fun.

And then number three, it's going to be, like every better way of saying it, a hospital for sinners, a

place to come and to be unified and to grow in holiness.

They're going to pursue that.

They're going to hold themselves to that standard, and they're going to admonish you to do the same thing.

You're going to walk away.

You're going to walk away on the Lord's Day or walk away from time in the Word with your brothers and sisters at that church,

not applauding the pastor, but falling more and more in love with the Lord Jesus Christ because of what has

been proclaimed through His Word.

That's right.

That's right.

Now, moving into hermeneutics, okay?

When we look at reading the Bible,

okay, we're answering the question, what does it say?

When we get into interpretation, interpretation answers the question,

what does it mean by what it says?

Right?

And we've said that several times on this show tonight.

And so I was taught if the teacher repeats themselves more than once, that's

something you should write down.

That's a good point to write down.

What does it mean by what it says?

And so in order to understand what it means by what it says, in order to interpret

rightly, we have to gain context.

And so I open the show by saying it, but the three rules of Bible interpretation

are context, context, context.

You will hear it time and time again.

You hear it on this show all the time because context is that important.

Every verse of Scripture, every passage that you will read is connected

to a larger context, okay?

You have an author, you have an audience.

The author writes a specific letter or message or

we'll say instruction to a specific audience for a specific purpose at a

specific time.

Maybe they're dealing with something.

And the author is writing to go, this is how you deal with this, okay?

Now, Chris, if I were to write you a letter and in this letter,

I say a lot of things, right?

That letter, at some, now I may talk about several different things in this letter, right?

So within the letter, there may be a couple of different contexts.

Contexts.

Contexts.

Contices.

I like it.

Okay, let's go with it.

There may be a couple of contexts because I may change the subject, right?

Because maybe I don't see you for a while.

We don't talk for a while.

And so I'm writing you a letter about what's going on.

Maybe I'm giving you some kind of instruction.

So somewhere along the way, there may be a subject change.

Therefore, the context may change, okay?

Right.

But I can't take a sentence out of that

letter and apply it to something that it was never meant to, right?

So let's say I write you a letter.

You're in the hospital.

You get this letter.

A nurse comes in, reads this letter, reads one sentence, takes this one sentence, and

this one sentence says, burn the house down, right?

Now, you read the letter, so you may know what I mean.

I may be even quoting someone, right?

Or it may be an inside joke.

Right.

But there's a context to it.

And this person takes that and goes off and starts burning houses down and says, well, I read it.

It says burn the house down.

Okay, you've completely divorced it from its context and what it meant by what the

author said to the recipient.

Right.

Right.

That happens all the time in churches.

Yep.

Yeah, it happens a lot.

Going back to the things that you guys have talked about on this show, hang on a second.

I'll be right back.

Okay.

So yeah, we've talked about a lot of things on this show.

And so I'll let Chris make his point when he comes back.

But finding the context of a passage is drastically important

because that's what we have to teach.

If I take a passage and I remove it from its context and I begin teaching that passage void of

its context, I'm misleading people.

I'm going to arrive at a false application.

I'm going to arrive at an application that's not really beneficial, and that person's always going to come back to that passage and

that teaching that I did, and they're going to look at that, and they're going to seek to apply that in that way, and then they're going

to tell someone else, and they're going to tell someone else.

I'm leading people astray when I take a verse, remove it from its context, and try

to apply it in a manner that's not appropriate.

So now how do we find context?

That's really a key question.

How do we find the context of a passage?

Well, there are several gaps that we have to bridge

because the Bible was written in the 1st century.

We live in the 21st century.

There's a whole different culture there, and so we have to bridge a gap from that

culture to this one in order to understand how to rightly apply

what was being said in our time.

And so first there is a language gap that we have to bridge.

There's a language gap.

So the Old Testament, we know this, was written in Hebrew, majority in Hebrew, some in Aramaic,

and then the New Testament was written in Greek.

So an example of bridging this gap would be the word world.

Now in English, when we say the word world, we think of just the

earth, the planet, every person on the planet.

But in the Greek language, there's several different words that mean world, that

they're translated as world.

Take, for instance, John 3 .16.

For God so loved the world.

The term used there is kosmos.

So the world would refer to the whole world across the planet.

Now even that gets into an interpretation depending on does it mean every person

on the whole planet or does it mean all the believers on all the planet or all the elect who would come

on all the planet.

Either way, the word world, kosmos, is used to mean the whole world.

Luke 2 .1.

Caesar, he sends out a census, taken of the world.

Well, Caesar can't send out a census to the whole world.

He doesn't rule the whole world.

The term used for world there is oikumene.

Now this term refers to a specific governed political

area.

Because again, Caesar cannot tax the whole world.

He cannot tax areas that he does not have control over.

So in that case, world would mean a specific area.

But people will come to the scriptures and they will see world and then they will go, well,

that just means the whole world.

Every time it says world, that means the world.

And then you have people who would say maybe KJV -onlius.

And there's a clip of this going around, by the way.

Oh, and welcome back to the show.

But we'll say there are some KJV -onlius who have the audacity to say things like

the KJV corrects the Greek.

I'm sorry.

I don't think so.

Right?

So there's a language gap that we have to bridge.

Is there anything you want to add to the language gap?

Hang on.

My connection is a little spotty.

Hang on one second.

Your connection is a little spotty.

Yeah.

There it goes.

It's getting a little better.

I'm going to turn my camera off for just a second.

What was the last thing you said?

You were talking about the KJV tries to correct the Greek, and then you said something else.

Yeah.

So we're right now in this portion talking about how do we gain context, that

there's a language gap that we have to bridge.

Because the scriptures were written in one language, we speak another, and

how English translates words is not always helpful.

The deficiency is in the English language.

It's not in the Greek language.

Greek is actually a very clear language.

It's the English that has a deficiency.

But we have to be able to bridge that gap to understand what the author means.

That's right.

That's right.

Yeah, and I like where you're going with world and the difference between the two.

I think that's important.

And, yeah, the point that I was going to make kind of leads into what you were saying, where you were going as far as determining that

context.

But we see an example of things taken out of context.

I think when it comes to the spiritual gifts, when we look at 1 Corinthians chapters 12 through 14,

and we see people try to take things out of context and draw lines that aren't there.

And one of the places that you see that, of course, or one of the ways that you see that is the language gap that you're talking about

as well.

But context, context, context.

So, no, I like where you were going with that, man, a whole lot.

And, yeah, anybody who thinks that any English word is sufficient for

correcting a Greek, I don't care whether it's the LSV or the KJV, they're wrong.

Run away.

Yeah, exactly.

And Jesse makes a good point here.

He says like all, right?

When people say all means all and that's all all means.

Well, not necessarily, right?

Because, and I've done this example before, probably not on this show, but

there's an audience relevance to the term, right?

So let's say, Chris, let's say you and I, we're in a building, okay?

We're in a building.

We'll just say a church, okay?

It's you, me, maybe my family's there.

And I say, hey, we should all go get lunch.

Now, when I say we should all go get lunch, do I mean everyone in the building?

Do I mean everyone in the city?

Do I mean everyone in the county, everyone in the world?

No, there's an audience relevance.

I'm talking about the all in whom I'm speaking to.

So when I say we should all go get lunch, I'm talking about Chris and my family.

We should go get lunch because I ain't paying for everyone.

I ain't got that kind of money.

You ain't got that kind of cashier as Josh would say.

That's right.

I ain't got Aston Martin money yet.

But let's get into the next gap that we have to bridge.

And that's a cultural gap.

Now, there is a huge difference between that culture and ours.

And just in terms of technological advances alone, there's a huge, huge difference.

Even in the Middle East today, there's a huge cultural gap between that time

and this time.

Now, here's an example.

The Bible does not mention the teen years of Jesus, right?

Now we assume or people assume that Jesus was a carpenter.

Now they assume that he was a carpenter because Joseph was a carpenter.

Now why would they assume that?

Well, because there is actually a culture that existed

where once a boy turned 10 or 12, he would then become an

apprentice to what his father did or maybe he went into some other type of trade.

And that's what his teen years would be doing until he got his own business and

established and did his own work.

He would be training.

So that's actually a cultural thing.

Now I'm not saying that's definitive because Scripture doesn't speak on that.

So I want to be clear.

I'm not saying Scripture teaches that.

But there is a culture that would have taken place.

And so we don't see Jesus again until he begins his ministry.

And so what was he doing during that time?

Well, it makes sense during, if you're considering culture, that he was

probably doing some carpentry.

He was probably learning that trade because that's what Joseph did.

And being a good Jewish boy following in that culture, he probably would have done that.

Yeah. Yeah. That's good, man.

Keep going.

Great.

Okay.

Let's move on to the next gap.

Okay?

The next gap is a geographical gap that we have to

bridge.

Here's one that I use all the time because I hear it used all the time.

I hear it used all the time wrongly.

Revelation 3 .16.

Okay?

The city of Laodicea.

Now, often when we hear this taught, it's taught as

though being on fire is a good thing and being

cold is a bad thing.

And then being lukewarm is you're on the fence.

You're kind of half in, half out.

Right?

Well, and in that teaching, hot usually is equated

to belief while cold is related to non -belief.

Okay?

Right.

Now, if we understand geography, the layout of the land here,

geographically, Laodicea lies in the middle of two cities.

Okay?

Heropolis and Colossae.

Heropolis was known for its hot, soothing springs.

Colossae was known for its cold, refreshing springs.

And what Laodicea wanted to do was they wanted to have the best of both worlds.

So they developed aqueducts to receive hot water from one city, cold water from

another city.

The problem is by the time that water got to Laodicea, it was lukewarm,

which meant it was useless.

Right.

So if we understand the geography and what was going on, it's not that

hot is good and cold is bad.

In this case, hot is good and it serves a purpose.

Cold is good and it serves a purpose.

But lukewarm is utterly useless.

Yeah.

And I wonder how many people listening and or watching knew that, knew the

geographical historical context of that section of scripture.

And this goes back to what I was talking about with frameworks.

Or did we hear someone talk about that and say, well, if you're hot, you're good.

If you're cold, you're bad.

If you're lukewarm, it's really bad.

Just be one or the other.

Be hot or cold.

Right.

Instead of the proper context of each, the hot being useful, the cold being useful, but

being lukewarm is absolutely useless.

And then applying that from there.

I would just love to know how many people listening had never heard that before.

Yeah.

And you said it earlier.

This is something that takes work, right?

Oh, yeah.

It's not that it's hard.

It just takes time.

You have to devote your.

And this is the thing.

Do you want to know God's word?

Or do you not want to know God's word?

Yep.

And so I have to take the time to study it because

everything we've been talking about tonight is not something for the Navy Seals of Christians.

Like, like Bodhi Bakkam would say, this is for everybody.

Right now.

Now, let me, let me tell the people the difference.

Okay.

Because I've gone to school.

I've gone to seminary.

Right.

I have, I have degrees behind my name.

Chris, do you have any of that?

No.

Absolutely not.

Right.

Chris has not gone to school.

He's not gone to seminary, but he has devoted himself to the scriptures.

What does that tell you?

You can get the same knowledge without having to pay a lot of money for it.

That's it, man.

That's it.

I mean, neither did Charles Spurgeon.

Yeah, that's right.

And then he started a school.

So, yeah.

I mean, look at, but Lloyd Jones, Lloyd Jones never went to seminary.

Right.

You know, I mean, obviously he was very, he was a literal doctor, so he did go to school.

But, but that, I mean, that, that kind of brings up something I was going to ask you.

It's like, okay.

So if you, you hear all this stuff true, it's like, you know, one may ask, it's like, man, that's a lot of work.

Or, I mean, you know, can we, can we really know that what the scriptures say and then what they

mean by what they say?

I mean, without those degrees, can we really know, you know, what it means to be hot versus cold versus

lukewarm?

I mean, you know, what if I didn't know that?

And, and the answer to that question is we have to remember the same Spirit

of God, the same Holy Spirit that was present when the world began.

When He breathed stars into existence, the same Holy Spirit lives in you

that wrote these scriptures.

That this was Spirit -empowered writing.

God breathed out His Word through human authors.

And so that's why it's important.

It's not just, you know, a mystical thing that we do when we sit down before we read the

scriptures and study the scriptures to pray.

And ask the Lord by the power of the Holy Spirit to, to open your eyes to what the

scriptures teach and say and what they mean by what they say.

To give you a heart and a mind to study His Word.

But that also means that you don't let go and let God, which is awful.

You put in the work, you know, it's one of those things that, you know, I mean, people who follow me on social media see I say,

be a pro, right?

Like this, this is the highest level of what it means to be a pro.

When it comes to studying the scriptures, you put in the work.

You know, you don't just sit back, okay, I prayed.

The Lord's going to reveal this to me and I don't have to do anything.

No.

Open up the scriptures.

Start there.

Read in context.

Read big chunks of scripture all together.

My brother Alex Rodriguez and I last, every year we've been doing this thing called the reset, which in December, what we do is in

December, we read all the gospels and all of Paul's writings before the beginning of the next year.

And reading, just sitting down and just reading is huge.

But then there's nothing wrong with consulting commentaries.

There's nothing wrong with consulting books and stuff like that.

But just be careful.

Test it all against the backdrop of scripture.

That's right. That's right. Yeah.

It's, you know, it's funny because Mr. Tracy here says, my pastor with a degree

gets it wrong.

Yeah.

I can tell you, there's a lot of pastors with a lot of degrees.

Let me give you an example.

Stephen Furtick.

Yeah.

He went to a Southern Baptist seminary and guess what he's doing now.

He's a heretic.

Right.

So just having degrees behind your name doesn't mean a whole lot.

No.

I mean, look at, you want to talk about an extreme example.

Look at Francis Chan right now.

Oh yeah.

Francis Chan went to the master's seminary.

Yep. Yep.

Right.

Now I love TMS.

I love Dr. MacArthur.

They didn't teach him all that.

No, no.

I mean, you know, it drove my wife nuts, bro.

Do you remember that series some years back, the Bible that Roma Downey did?

Do you, do you remember that?

There was a, there was a series that Roma Downey, I can't remember her husband's name now.

But they did this series where they, they told stories of the Bible.

They, by, by making them, it was a TV show.

It's like an A &E or something like that.

And what I did is my wife really wanted to watch it.

So I was like, all right, I'll watch it.

I think I know what you're talking about now.

Yeah.

So, but guess what I did?

I watched it with this in my, well not this Bible, but my Bible in my hand.

So when they were telling the story of Samson, I was flipping through and I'm going, that's.

Not in there.

That's not in there.

That didn't happen.

That definitely didn't happen.

And she's like, at first she was like, really Chris?

Really?

Can't we just sit back and enjoy it?

But at the same time, like afterwards she goes, okay, I see why you did that.

And you're right.

I see why you did that.

And so it's like when the chosen comes up, right?

People, I know people right now, right now, friends of mine, personal friends of mine that I call right now

that have reached out to me this week while I'm going through this crazy nonsense and, and you know, praying for

you, stuff like that.

They love the chosen.

They love Steven Furtick.

They don't see anything wrong with Elevation.

They don't see anything wrong with Mike Todd.

They don't see anything wrong, you know?

And it's like, how can you sit there with the scriptures in your hand and not see it?

All goes back to hermeneutics and frameworks.

Yup. That's right.

So let's move on into how we further gain context in order to rightly

interpret the Bible.

Okay?

We have to understand the difference between indicatives and imperatives,

right?

Indicatives are statements of fact, right?

An example would be when Jesus says, all authority in heaven on earth is given to me.

That is a statement of fact.

Imperatives are commands, right?

Right.

Go therefore and make disciples.

So you have indicatives, statements of fact, imperatives, commands.

And you have, and from that you have descriptive text and you have prescriptive

text.

So descriptive text, just describe, it's in the name, describe what's

going on in the text.

Prescriptive text, similar to an imperative, is the application, what you are to do.

Okay?

So a lot of times, we see people, and we've talked about this on Matter of Theology,

that take a descriptive text and they try to make it a prescriptive text.

We see this, we talked about, or I would say more, probably referenced it more

last week when we were talking about pastors or Christians who use foul

language.

And then they justify it because they read a descriptive text in the Old Testament

and they see someone in the Old Testament who did it, and they ignore the prescriptive text

in the New Testament that forbids that kind of language.

Yep, yep.

Well, I mean, I saw the, you know, I read that the apostles healed and had the gift of healing.

I read that the apostles could speak in tongues and had the gift of tongues.

I read that the, you know, like you're reading these narratives and thinking, well, going back to what I said earlier and

twisting it a little bit, well, the same Spirit of God lives in me, so I should be able to do that, right?

Mm -hmm.

Wrong.

Wrong.

Like, look at what the prescriptive versus the descriptive says.

That's a good point, man.

Mm -hmm, yeah.

So we have to pay attention to those things.

Another thing that is helpful to pay attention to is word order.

And I say this because typically, now it's not

always a rule, but typically—we'll just use Greek—the

first position in a word order is what's called the emphatic position.

Now that's different from, say, English, right?

We typically place the emphasis on the last thing in the list because we're building to

the last point.

Right.

Whereas in the Greek, they would put the emphatic at the beginning and then work down.

So when we see something like, you are to sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs,

there's a reason for the word order, right?

Correct.

Why?

Because what are psalms?

They're scripture.

We are to sing God's Word.

Now, Chris, how many churches today sing the psalms?

Oof, very little.

Very little.

Very little.

Very, very little, yeah.

If I had to put a percentage on it, I'd say less than 5%.

Out of the organizations that gather that call themselves churches, we'll put it that way.

Okay.

Okay, yeah.

I still think that's too high, but—.

And it very well may be.

But we'll be gracious.

We'll say 5%.

Also the hope in all things in Corinthians 13.

So we have psalms, singing God's Word.

What's next in the word order?

Hymns.

Hymns.

Why?

Because when we look at the hymns, and we can look at the great hymns that have been penned

throughout history, even ones that are in the Bible, right?

Mm -hmm.

Because we see hymns that are in the Bible.

Mm -hmm.

They are packed with theological truth about God.

And they always point to God.

They're always Christ -exalting.

Mm -hmm.

And then we have spiritual songs.

Now, spiritual songs don't trump psalms, right?

Correct.

So we can see kind of this downward tier in the word order.

Now, what is the emphasis put on today?

It's put on spiritual songs.

Correct.

And people will say—they'll even bring up that verse— we are to sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.

We're singing spiritual songs.

What about the first two?

What about the first two?

Yeah.

Because the spiritual songs you're singing aren't even spiritual songs about God.

They're ones that elevate yourself.

And they talk about self.

I'll be back.

All right.

So, let me just remove him off of there.

So word order is important, but it's not a rule.

Because there are places in Scripture where it kind of breaks that rule, right?

Faith, hope, and love.

The greatest of these is love, right?

So the emphatic is at the end.

But typically, the word order is going to play a big role.

So we have to take into consideration all of those things that we mentioned tonight, right?

The language gap, right?

They spoke a different language than us.

Now, I'm not saying you have to go out and you have to learn the Hebrew and you have to learn the Greek.

But there is a tool that can help.

And that tool happens to be one of our sponsors.

And that is Logos Bible Software.

Now, I use Logos mostly for word study.

Now, I do have Greek New Testaments.

So I can sort of handle the Greek.

I can recognize words.

But usually, I have to use Logos and look up

the case ending of the word in order to be able to rightly apply or connect what's the object,

what's the subject, and what that word is talking about.

But Logos Bible Software is a great tool if you want to put together Bible studies.

If you want it to assist in your word study, it's a great tool.

If you go to Logos .com and use SFE as a promo code, you'll get a discount.

I don't know what the discount is.

You'll just have to find out.

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Either way, it's still a pretty good deal.

I think even if you get the basic because the basic is only $50.

That's what I got.

And so you can get the basic promo code SFE, get some type of percentage off there, and

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And like I said before, learning these things takes time.

And one of the great things about Logos when you're looking at a word is it will tell you if it's an

imperative.

It will give you the parts of speech that it falls under.

That way you know how this word is being used in this passage.

So, I mean, really, we have no excuses.

We really have no excuses.

Jesse here says basic for $50 for how long?

As far as I know, the basic's always been $50.

I got it a couple years ago.

And so last time I checked, last time I was on it, the basic was still $50.

So go check it out.

And if it's not, if it's a little bit more, then use that promo code SFE.

Get a discount on it.

And if anything we've said tonight bores you, well, then you can go to our

other sponsor, which is MyPillow, and get you on MyPillow.

Again, type in the promo code SFE at checkout, and you will get a nice

pillow that is really great.

I love my MyPillow.

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I would take it to my office if I could, but then I'd sleep all the time.

Is that per month?

No, it's not per month.

It's just you buy it once.

Now, there are plans that you can get.

And usually once you upgrade in plans, you're really upgrading your library.

And there's some functions that you can get when you upgrade.

Some of those are more beneficial for, say, pastors, because it teaches you how to outline a sermon and

things like that.

But if you're going to do it just for word study and just kind of be able to have different,

you can have libraries where you can get commentaries.

I've got some commentaries through there.

But you can also have different translations.

Sometimes it's helpful to use a different translation.

But you can have multiple windows open, and it's very helpful.

Sometimes I do it when we prep for a Matter of Theology, and

the last episode of Matter of Theology we did was last year, a while ago.

But it is very helpful.

So you just pay for it once, and then you can upgrade from there, but you're really just upgrading your library at that

point for the most part.

And it just depends on how big you want your library.

But it can get very expensive the more you upgrade.

But again, if anything we've said tonight bores you, feel free to go get you a MyPillow, SFE, get you a

discount.

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But if you're not bored, but you're having a hard time staying awake, you want to learn

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I don't know if there's a discount promo code.

Andrew didn't tell me about that.

But Squirrely Joe's is a sponsor of the show, and I'm going to have to get some just so I can try

out what it's like because I don't have any.

Andrew has some, and hopefully he's growing in integrity.

But I don't have any, so I'm going to have to try it.

But let's get to some comments.

Let's see that were made.

I know, let's see.

And Chris is back.

What's up?

Nurse say everything was good?

Yeah, well, it was the charge nurse, so she's in charge of the whole floor, and she was actually here when I got

here.

So she's like, oh, my gosh, you look so much better.

You're breathing better.

So she's like, well, hopefully after tomorrow you get to go home.

And all that stuff.

Nice, great.

Yeah, we'll see.

So she was really sweet.

Now, before I get into some of the comments, was there anything you wanted to add about indicatives, imperatives, descriptive, prescriptive?

No, man.

You killed it, brother.

No, nothing more I'm going to add.

Just keep it simple.

Keep it simple.

Keep it simple.

Study the scriptures, period.

And if you have questions, ask questions.

There's nothing wrong with asking questions.

There's nothing wrong with going.

It's huge.

Yeah, it is.

I mean, bro, I've done that with you.

I'm like, bro, explain this to me.

The times that we have talked about eschatology, explain this to me.

Explain what you do, because I'm not seeing that.

Something I'm very, very careful to say, and I think I've said this on Apologetics Live.

I know I've said it on Matter of Theology, is even if there's someone like John

Piper, for example.

I love John Piper.

I've benefited from John Piper's ministry for a number of years.

There are things that John Piper says that I don't see in the scriptures.

However, John Piper has been studying the scriptures for longer than I've been alive.

Yep.

So I'm going to be respectful and be like, I'm not going to say I disagree.

He's wrong.

It's like everybody with John MacArthur.

It's like, dude, he's been pastoring the same church for 55 years.

Most of the people that are out there harping on John MacArthur, same thing.

He's been studying God's word longer than they've been alive.

Now, that doesn't mean that he's right in everything because he'll be the first one to tell you.

Interpretations can be flawed, but it's just so important that

we know God, and how we do that is by knowing his word through and through in context.

So if you don't understand something, go to your pastors.

I would hope that you can go to your pastors.

If you can't go to your pastors, then that may be an indication that it may be time for you to find a new church.

There's nothing wrong with that.

Don't church hop.

Don't go looking for the perfect church.

Because you're not going to find one.

As R .C. Sproul used to say, if you think you found one, as soon as you arrive, it's no longer perfect.

You nailed it, and it was spot on as usual.

Well, Humble Clay says discernment.

Yeah, we have to have discernment.

And here's the thing, right?

How do you have discernment?

By knowing the word.

Well, I don't know if you said this because I took my headphones out for a second while Judith was in here talking, but it's like when you look at

people who are involved in law enforcement when it comes to counterfeiting,.

But we've talked about this before.

You and I have.

I know we have.

They don't study all of the fake counterfeit bills.

They study the real thing so that they can spot the counterfeit when they see it.

And that's what discernment is.

It's knowing the difference between right, as Charles Spurgeon would say, right and almost right.

Not right and wrong, right and almost right.

And the only way you're going to be able to do that, the only way you're going to be able to look at a situation like what happened with Driscoll and Lindell,

that whole thing, is by studying the scriptures.

Because when you do that, it's like ding, ding, ding.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

There are so many things wrong with this.

Yep.

Yeah, and it's interesting about counterfeits because there's a reason

why you don't study the counterfeit, right?

Because every counterfeit is different.

And so if you're trying to spot the differences in all the counterfeits, you're not going to be able to.

And usually a counterfeiter is only good at really one aspect of the counterfeit, whether

that be getting the paper or the color or the art, the etchings and things.

They're only good at so many things, right?

We can see that in the church.

Yep.

How many pastors, when you show up, their sermons are always about miracles.

They're always about healing.

They're always about the gifts of the spirit.

How many pastors, when you show up, are always putting an extra

burden on people, right?

Constantly trying to bring works -based salvation into it.

Yep.

With things that don't even matter.

You must use the KJV.

Women can't wear pants.

They must wear skirts and they must grow their hair long and they can't cut it and all this, right?

And this is, right?

You can spot the counterfeit because you know the real thing.

And then you can spot that one thing that that one counterfeiter is only good at, talking about that

one thing.

Yep.

So, yeah, that's good.

So let's get into some of these.

Melissa put up one.

She said, I like that.

Drew said, it takes time.

How many times are we guilty of rushing through our Bible, our Bible reading, just to check it

off a list?

Slow down, yeah.

Now, there's different ways to read the Bible.

My buddy, Dave Jenkins, he's written a really great book.

Now that I mention it, I wish I had it so I could tell you what it is.

But he's written a really great book on just reading the Bible.

And in that, he talks about there's different ways to read, right?

We read for study.

We read for devotion.

There's different aspects in how we read.

But when we read to understand, we're reading to study.

We're wanting to know what God is saying by what God says in His Word.

It's going to take time.

It's going to take work.

And like you said, if you don't know something, a question, write

it down.

Ask, yeah.

Ask.

Go to someone.

It's that same...

When you're reading God's Word to study God's Word, and I like how you just said that, to know what

God is saying by what He has said.

We have to understand.

It's like weight training in this way.

If you lay down under a bench press bar, you lay down under a barbell and bench press.

You grab the bar.

You might be able to throw it up real fast, real dynamic.

But the more weight you put on there, it's like, man, this is heavy.

Well, guess what?

It's supposed to be heavy.

Studying Scripture to understand the intricacies of Scripture and who God is,

is the God of the universe.

Think about that.

It's supposed to be heavy.

It's supposed to take time.

It's supposed to need consistency.

That's where the real change happens.

When you reach those moments,.

You're like,.

I don't get that first, second, third read.

Read it again.

Stop and pray.

Read it again.

Write down your questions.

Go ask those questions.

It's supposed to be heavy.

Yeah.

Humble Clay says, you cannot spend too much time reading, studying God's Word.

Absolutely right.

Absolutely right.

And one of the things, so I tell people all the time that you

must study theology, and they're usually kind of taken back because they're like, study theology?

That's like college, and that's hard stuff.

So if we understand what theology is, it's just the study of God.

It's just getting into your Word.

Dr. Steve Lawson, in his teaching on the attributes of God, said it

is the greatest study that you will ever do, knowing who God

is.

How many people can tell you all of the years that their

favorite team won a championship, or didn't win a championship, or almost won a championship, or all the stats of the players that have ever

played on that team, but they can't tell you one attribute of God?

But yet,.

They call themselves Christians, right?

They may lead a small group or something.

They may sing on a worship team.

Those are people who don't know God.

Now, they may know enough to be able to be a statistician

of their favorite team, but that just shows where

their heart is.

Yeah, we have to remember that we are, all of us, who the Lord has granted saving faith to, we are

all theologians.

It's just what kind of theologian.

You're going to be.

Yeah.

One who studies to know God and who He is and who you are in light of Him, or

one that doesn't.

I mean, it's that simple.

Right, yeah.

You're either going to be useful or you're going to be useless.

You're going to be fruitful.

Or you're going to be fruitless.

You're going to be hot or cold or lukewarm.

Hot or cold or lukewarm.

That's right.

You're either going to bring the hot fire, you're going to bring the cold truth, or you're just going to be useless, useless,

lukewarm nonsense.

I like that.

Good one.

Now, these two comments that I'm going to get into,

Andrew mentioned talking about them next week, kind of this topic, you know, what John MacArthur talked about.

I had a different topic planned for next week, but we can still touch on some of this next week.

But it has to do with Pastor MacArthur's topics on PTSD and things like that.

And so, Brother John, he says, Question, do you agree with Pastor John MacArthur says there's no

such thing as mental illness calls PTSD grief?

I didn't listen to the clip yet.

I have it saved and bookmarked.

It was from a Q &A that he did at Church of the Valley there in Southern California.

Kosti Hinn was there.

I'm familiar with some of the brothers there.

I have heard him talk about this before.

And let me read the question one more time.

It says, no such thing as mental illness.

I think that our society, I'll say this, and again, I haven't listened to exactly what he said and how

he worded it.

I think our society, and I've been sitting here,.

And I've had the TV on,.

And Jurassic Park has been playing all day,.

All three of them.

So I've had it on mute, run off.

But some of the commercials that I've seen are all about OCD, PTSD, mental illness.

Mental health's a big deal.

It is.

I won't get into all this now, but I think had I been going through what

I'm going through right now five years ago, how I've approached this season

that I've been in this week is much different from a mental health standpoint.

That has nothing to do with pills I've taken.

That has nothing to do with, there's the reaction singing it.

That has nothing to do with the focus on that.

That has everything to do with the study of scripture, honestly.

It has everything to do with prayer life.

It has everything to do with understanding that we live in a fallen world, that

there's sickness, diseases, and death, and that we're all bound to experience and stuff like this.

Again, I don't know the context of how he worded it this time, but I have heard him talk about that before, that the whole

focus, the pharmaceutical focus, the government's focus on mental health, OCD,

PTSD, mental illness, the money -making scheme that that is, and ultimately how

those diagnoses, diagnoses, that's not a word, but how

those have replaced, for a lot of people, dealing with the issue, and the

issue is sin.

The issue is thought life.

The issue is prayer life.

The issue is diet, not what you eat, what you consume, what you put before your eyes, what you put

before your ears, what you study, what you dwell on, what you meditate on, all of that stuff.

The physical aspect of how you care for your body, all of that plays into it.

I'd have to listen to it in context.

I've heard him talk about it before, and the way I've heard him talk about it before, I do agree.

How he's talked about it before is he never said there isn't such thing as mental illness.

He never said there isn't such thing that I heard.

That might have changed.

There's no such thing as PTSD.

I have friends of mine, very good friends of mine, that saw some horrific things in war and in battle that were

military veterans and experienced and saw things, and they very much have PTSD.

My wife was in a car accident and had a brain injury, a physical,

physiological injury, and deals with post -traumatic stress from that.

But it's how she approaches that that matters.

It's how you approach that physiological, something physical that happens is how that

plays out.