Bible Study: Understanding and Applying Scripture Correctly

Understanding Scripture by Exegesis, Not Eisegesis

Going live all right. Good evening from Faith Bible Church in Sacramento. We are gonna start our Bible study On Titus, but before we actually get into Titus We will be going over how to understand and apply scripture correctly.

The reason being First God has brought us.

New.

Sisters as in. Their sisters in Christ and they haven't been part of this church a long time. And they haven't seen this presentation on understanding and applying scripture correctly. And I think it's just great to be on the same page especially there are various Bible study skills or the different Bible studies that try to study the Bible as I think they fall into some common errors.

One of the more famous ones being what does it mean to you? Right? It may sound it may sound innocent, but. Interpretation the correct meaning comes from what the author said and meant not What I think it means right.

Exactly right Cassandra said exegesis versus eisegesis. We probably won't go over too much in detail of exegesis and eisegesis. But exegesis is letting the meaning come out of the text. The meaning comes from the text.

Eisegesis is reading meaning into the text, right? We do not want to read into the text and That is one of the most common mistakes errors When reading the Bible. Well, I think this means right? I think this parable means right this tree represents to me, right?

Yeah, exactly. That's an important thing. So we're going to go over that and then after this we will start on entitus. If if you want The PowerPoint slides, please. Just let us know if you attend this church.

Just let me know on a given Sunday or whenever you see me. If you don't Just email me or put a comment below with how I can send it to you. I Will pray for us and then we'll get started. Father, we're grateful that you are gracious.

Thank you that you saved us from our sin through Jesus Christ. Help us to love him more and more and help us to understand how much he loves us. Help us to become more mature in Christ in his name. We pray.

Amen. All right. So some of you who have been here for a while. This series we we started like in 2022 and this was the first one. And then we eventually.

Like.

Started going from Genesis to I think we ended after 2nd Samuel and then we got we started on the Apologetics one. So if you want any of those PowerPoints, oh Please let me know I can send them to you too.

Those PowerPoints do have errors are not in Aaron. So Please understand I've made errors that I forget I forget to like correct them afterward, right? I'm like, oh, no, that's not what it's supposed to be.

Genre, Authorial Intent, and the Clarity of Scripture

There are plenty so the question we want to ask is how do you interpret scripture, right? Oh People say right. Well, let's let's ask people here. How do you normally interpret scripture? Would you say literally?

Metaphorically. Makes a bowl, right? And you want what? What would you say when you read scripture? How do you interpret it? Okay, if I know what God says.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right, right. Yeah, I think as a.

Like.

Conservative or serious Christians, let's say right we are. We do lean more towards literally. Oh, right. We do. Oh. And I think what Diane said is right. Sometimes it needs to be metaphorical if the author intended it to be metaphorical.

Right, so I think a mix of both Way dependent on whatever God wanted us to do and Just briefly, I think we'll. We'll probably not cover it later on. When when to Interpret it literally it depends on the Genre.

Genre means the type of writing, right? If it's a historical narrative Usually literal unless the speaker is using metaphor or figurative language like a parable, right? If it's a. If it's poetry, right oftentimes it allows for Metaphorical because of because it becomes obvious when metaphors and similes are used.

How we know their metaphors and similes similes often has as or like and when you see that You know, it's not one-to-one like that. It's not just like that, right? It's comparative. While metaphor it's harder because it doesn't have as or like but how you know, it's a metaphor is in real life those Sub the subject that's doing the action Don't do it that way.

So for example when it says the mountains clap their hands. Mountains in real life have hands and they don't clap right, but it's it's metaphorically, right? Yeah, it's metaphorically to show how God's creation responds, right, uh, so.

That's a brief summary of how do we do? How do we know literal or metaphorical depends on the genre? So like the type of writing if it's poetry there will be more Metaphorical things but we don't get to just choose this needs to be metaphorical because I want it to be.

But rather there are rules there too, right? So for that reason We do it both but it is again dependent on how God meant it. Okay, so the argument Arguments you might hear would be it's impossible to have the correct interpretation of the Bible.

You might have heard this a lot right? You can't claim you have the right answer to the Bible, right? Or or you might have heard there are multiple meanings to the text you might have heard that too, right?

Have you heard that somewhere? Right, usually non-christians, but you know what sadly some Christians do say that too, right? Especially when the Bible says something clearly that They don't want the Bible to say right, right.

So, uh We're gonna go over. How do we argue against them? This stems from something called postmodernism. Postmodernism, it's this idea that everything is subjective. There's no absolute meaning which means Right.

Carolyn doesn't get to say I got the right answer. She can say I have an answer. But your answer might be different. Right, but postmodernism says you there cannot be an absolute answer or absolute meaning.

The problem here is That is an absolute statement in itself. To say that no one has the right answer is an absolute statement so Postmodernism falls on its own, right? So the arguments here, it's impossible to have the correct interpretation of the Bible or there are multiple meanings to the text.

It unwinds itself. It falls on its own face, right? And we're gonna go over different. What what what the scriptures say right because when we read scripture We want to know what scripture has to say what God has to say so first of all scripture all scripture is God breathed which And is profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction and righteousness.

That the man of God or of course woman of God May be perfected thoroughly furnished to every good work. I'm gonna unpack this but what's important is there is no part of scripture that we have. That is off limits to us.

We are meant to be equipped by every part of scripture from the Old Testament to the new.

Right.

This is why this church does its best. We try to do our best to try old new old new, right? If you guys were here for. Right, like Galatians. We did Galatians Bible study and then we did like Jonah and Ruth, right?

So we do mix it up and we did Hebrews. I forget the order but we tried to do back forth back and forth and the preaching also all Has been old new old new right when I first started three years ago. It was Colossians and we went to Exodus and then we went to Luke and we're still in right.

So let's go over what that means God breathe. It means the ultimate source of scripture is God some translations have inspired by God. The reason is it's a Latin phrase of breathe is inspirare which means to inspire right to breathe, but I like that just the wooden translation God breathe as.

Kind of like how God breathed into Adam's nostrils, right? It's the same word in the Septuagint so the ultimate source comes from God. What that means is God Intended what goes into scripture? It's God who decided what that means is when we approach scripture our Main question needs to be what has God Intended what does God mean?

Right? What does God mean by this right now? What does the pastor think it means now what does the pastor says it means what does God mean by that, right? Yeah, like deeper layers. I have my like there's the red flag up when people say deeper layers like how do you first of all.

Deeper than what? Right. Ah. And we'll go over how God Intends and also how God has revealed scripture and it's not out of secrecy, right?

Yeah.

Right now let's go over this concept called perspicuity. Sounds fun to say but no one says it anymore. Perspicuity just means clarity and we know what clarity means. It's clear. It's not murky. It's understandable, right?

It's not confusing. Perspicuity of scripture comes from scripture itself. I think when you can actually name the verses and in the right context it fits and it explains the doctrine. Well. It's a powerful doctrine, right.

Perspicuity of scripture says. Scripture generally is understandable in its plain meaning. God makes it clear himself in his words.

Okay.

So this comes from Psalm 19 verse 8 the precepts of the Lord are right rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure. Enlightening the eyes. Think enlightening as giving light to the eyes. Well, if you have light into your eyes you are able to what?

You're able to see right your vision. I don't know if you know it or not depends on the existence of the outside light, right? You cannot see in the pure pitch darkness like no matter how good your eyesights are.

I've just noticed that only Diane doesn't wear glasses here, but We all know right when we take our glasses off. It's just like It's not clear it's not clear. It got fixed.

Oh.

All right.

Another verse. How do we know we can clearly understand scripture? Your word is a lot lamp to my feet and a light to my path. When you see the metaphor for light this this would be. Metaphor, right? Obviously, you're not using your Bible as a flashlight and the dark.

It means it clearly guides your path, which means your walk with God. Path also is a metaphor, too.

Right.

So some someone 19 105 your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. I am able to see my walk with God. Because of God's Word he makes it clear. So again, what perspicuity means the plain things of the main things of Scripture are?

Plain and the plain things are Scripture are main.

So.

Yes, okay. I get it. There are some parts of Scripture that are confusing but 99 of the time it is pretty clear. Right, there are some parts that are hard. I get it, but most of it over 99 It's pretty clear what God is saying, right and for that 1 you just have to pray and then spend time in the word.

Consult other Christians and just keep going at it and you know what God will reveal it to you, right? But the main things of Scripture are plain things of Scripture. Let's go over the importance of authorial intent.

Authorial intent means the Intention the will the meaning of Scripture comes from the author itself and we have two authors. One is God the divine author and we also have the human authors, right? In every any writing in Scripture We have two authors and of course their their intention is what's important here, right?

What that means if God didn't mean it that way when he wrote Genesis then you have no business incorporating Darwinian evolution into Genesis 1 2 right. As God didn't there wasn't Darwinian evolution when Genesis was written.

Same with when Moses wrote it, right. Moses had no idea of Darwinian evolution. They never heard of it, right? So we have no business Isagening that right now. Let's do an example. You see you receive a one-word text from me saying spring, right?

What's your first response? What would you say? Yeah, where's the rest of the sentence that might be that's a great response any anyone else. What would you say? I just texted spring. Right spring season jump water.

Yeah, and the metal coil right, oh so the normal response would be what do you mean, right? What do you mean by that? And we practice authorial intent even with non biblical writings. Right, we do it with text text messages.

We do it with we do with emails. We do it with Books, right if we have a problem with what the author said, we would write to the author. Hey, what do you mean by that? Do you really believe that or am I misunderstanding?

We don't dare when when we get a text and say like, oh it means to me, right? That's that's bizarre yet. They have no problem doing that to Bible the Bible right. God's very word. That really tells you how they think of God right what they really think of God.

So.

Who determines the meaning of the text in the end? It's the author. The author determines the meaning of the text and What does not contribute to the meaning of the text the readers. The readers do not contribute to the meaning of the text?

That's called the reader response Interpretation. And Now it's like scholars are having a field day with this like there's this like there. I guarantee you'll find books on. How does a woman understand the Bible?

How does a gay man understand the Bible? How does an Asian man understand the Bible? That's it all reader response, right? The answer to all of them needs to be how God intended it. Right, you don't need a separate book for each one.

Example two you get an email from your friend and it says my favorite season is spring. Now the correct understanding of that email would be oh He likes that warm ish season that comes right after winter and right before summer.

And that's like couple of days in Sacramento.

Right. Yeah.

The wrong.

Understanding of spring would be anything else a thin coil metal coil. Or a source of water. Or jump into action now that you have the context. You have the meaning of the word spring. The meaning of the word is dependent on the context that it's found in if you get a one word.

One word out of context. You just have no idea what that person could have meant, right? That's important. So I'll be careful when people say like when you hear preaching and they say the Greek word. For this word could mean bump bump bump bump bump bump bump, right?

Like give you like five different definitions. Well, the author obviously meant one thing. It can't be all five at once. Right, so like don't try to confuse people. It can't be all five. It's maximum maybe two if it's like a word play like a pun.

Yeah, but but it can't be like all five at once. So no need to read us the dictionary. We don't do that for English. Why do it for Greek too, right? That's not how languages work, right?

Right, right.

Yeah, right. It depends on the context in which the love is found, right? So like for example all like I got paid for it. We hear a copy a lot. They say it's like God's love, right? Well, it can be God's love, right?

That's that's that's God. So love the world the word for I got paid in a verbal form is you so that can be God's love. But if you read the Septuagint rape of Tamar David's son Loved Tamar and it's a copy and it's like that's not God's love, right?

It's dependent on the context. The word itself cannot just carry a meaning everywhere. It goes. It's dependent on the context. Yes, there is a range right? Obviously the word for jar cannot mean dog, right?

Like if there's a limit to it, but The context drives the meaning of that word how it's used, right? Good. So context helps us determine the author's intended meaning. My favorite season that is a keyword is Spring now, we know it's not a metal coil.

It's not jump into action the question Now is why is that important, right? Why also what? Well, first of all, we need to know what God has said. The fact that God spoke it means it is important for us to understand it.

Their parts of the Bible, oh, it's hard to understand and the parts of the Bible that we may not hundred percent and understand. But when it's there for us God knew and God meant it to be understandable.

Right. So we need to believe correctly because you know what the Bible. Just because you have the Bible doesn't mean you have the correct meaning. The reason being the Mormons used the Bible the Jehovah's Witnesses they use the Bible but they have the wrong Understanding they don't get the meaning right?

They have the wrong understanding of who Jesus is and What he has accomplished on the cross and how you get saved. Among many things but that's really the gospel issue here, right? They don't believe in grace alone right salvation.

Like grace alone. They they all they believe that Jesus is less than the pure Everlasting uncreated God, right? So they have it wrong. Although they have the Bible having the Bible alone is not enough.

We have to have the right method of understanding God's Word. And the next reason why we why this is important is to apply it correctly. You know what Satan understands the Bible and Why would argue that Satan understands the Bible even better than some Christians, right?

Yet he distorts it whenever he quotes God he twists it.

Right.

Yeah, tempting Jesus in Matthew 4 or Luke 4, right yeah, what what does it say or like hey jump from this tall building and God will save you right? So it says in Psalm the angels will say make sure you don't even hurt your toe.

But that was that's the wrong understanding of the psalm because in that psalm it doesn't guarantee Deliverance when you're testing God. No, we're not supposed to test God and also Deliverance is not guaranteed for those who are testing God, right?

And that's what Jesus says. So yeah, Satan understands He just is uses wrong because he's he's a deceiver. He's a narcissist, right? It's all sorts of things. Yeah test the scripture not test God. Test the scripture means Make a see for yourself that it is true.

Yet to see for yourself that it's working right like obey it and see. But not test God, right?

Yeah.

Sure, sure, but again testing scripture is different from testing God. Testing scripture means examine it for yourself right not. Testing God is let's see if God can perform for me. It's a different thing.

Yeah, Gideon did that because he was unfaithful. Gideon is not someone you don't want to like. The thing about the Old Testament heroes. You don't want to copy everything. But that's God's grace. God accommodated Gideon's cowardice.

But this by no means is I mean like look how Gideon ends up like He says I'm not gonna be your king, but then like give me all the gold and then let's do some idolatry here. And then he's like, I'm not your king though.

It looks like a king to me taking their money making their own God and then what he names his kid I'll be Malik right. Translation my father is king. Right, I'll be my father Malik King. It's just yeah, you don't want to do what Gideon did.

There are some parts that he did is great, but just because he did some great things doesn't mean every part was great. Right, you don't want to it's it's it's actually a testament to his unfaithfulness that God had to show up.

Multiple times Gideon gets more interaction with God than any of the previous judges, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, and the reason this is not a good interaction right God accommodated Gideon's Lack of faith, right? And what Gideon suddenly believes that God will deliver him only after hearing the enemy soldier shared his dream.

Doesn't matter how many times God said I'll be with you. Oh brave man. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. God has said it multiple times shown through miracles yet. It's the words of the enemy soldiers mouth.

Let's go charge again. You gotta understand scripture, right? I'm not saying Gideon's like a completely evil man. It just you got it. Yeah Yeah. Yeah, that's the cycle for the judges. It always happens.

They worship someone else. Then God God has to deliver. Now there are gaps in Understanding this ancient text the Bible. There's the language gap. There's the time gap. There's the culture gap and there's geographical gap.

We're gonna go over each one. Language gap because the Bible was written by in ancient languages Hebrew Aramaic and Greek. Hebrew and Aramaic for the Old Testament and Greek for the new. Aramaic is a very little part of the Old Testament only parts of Daniel and Ezra and Like a verse in I think Jeremiah No, Matthew Matthew through revelation in the New Testament is written in Greek.

There are Aramaic words, but it's written in Greek so like Elohim. Elohim Lamas a bakhtani, right? That's Aramaic, but it's written in Greek you like there's no air.

I.

Took Aramaic as an elective. Yeah, but I didn't need it for graduation. I just took it for fun. Yes, I can read every part of the Bible right. I think that's important. Although I think it's important that you just read that whatever copy you have right because that's really sufficient.

No one has to learn an ancient language to understand the Bible the English. I mean I preach from English text, right? I read the English text. Alright, so rules for understanding. The first thing we need to do is we need to grasp The text in the original context we need to go back to the original context.

What did the text mean to the original audience that usually means ancient Jews usually ancient Jews? I mean there are Gentiles in the New Testament, but vast majority ancient Jews. But yeah of many epistles right even revelation Gentiles are included.

Right the Gospels Gentiles are included, right? So the first thing we need to do is look at the grammar. This is why grammar is important the grammar rules Help us to understand because if there are no rules to grammar and you don't know who the subject is who's doing the action?

Who's receiving the action? This is why school was important, right? Inherently learning was important because it helped you to understand God's Word better. I think that has to be the core of any education so you can understand God's Word and we've lost that in modern public education and Universities, right?

I mean no wonder like Harvard, right? Harvard was Established to train up pastors, right? And that's why their model is very tossed which means truth. They're far from truth. Yeah Harvard and then Harvard became liberal and you know like secular and then they all the professors went to Yale and founded Yale and then Yale became like liberal and secular started doubting the Bible and then Princeton and then Princeton became like that in the 20th century early 20th century and then they founded Westminster.

Westminster is now in Pennsylvania. It's a it's a Presbyterian seminary. No, that's Westminster Abbey that is uh, that's a that's a church building I don't know if they preach scripture there anymore.

There used to be like godly pastors, but England's really far gone England. I I like to say England and Canada. They're always 10 to 20 years ahead of us and then we just follow their footsteps.

Yeah, so we don't want to go down. No, we got to be praying.

So next genre we got to look at the genre. Genre means the type of writing or any English. We look at genre all the time and our minds Naturally adjust right? You don't read the same way. You don't read the Sunday comic if you still read that right.

If you don't read the Sunday comic the same way as you would read a newspaper.

Headline or.

And you don't read the novel the same way as the weather report, right? We we adjust accordingly. We don't read satire the same way as You know news report or op-ed right. And we don't read the op-ed the same way as a news report.

Although they seem to be really overlapping now where the journalists are giving us their opinions instead of facts. Right telling us what to think instead of giving us the chance to think so but The same way we got to do it here.

We kind of briefly talked about this. We don't read the same way as poetry as like historical narrative. We have to expect more metaphors now. You will see metaphors and historical narratives too because there's songs in it right like songs of Moses Exodus 15.

But.

Generally There are more literal things in the historical narrative than figurative things and More figurative things, but although you can have literal things in the poetry, right? Because many of the prophets are written in a poetic form, too.

No, they don't like.

Right.

We are we are very far and then the historical context. Knowing more about ancient Jews and you can easily get that from Reading books about ancient Israel. You can get that from a good commentary. Usually a good commentary will explain things that we might not understand historically, for example when I was preaching from Exodus, they were telling me how ancient women gave birth using birth stool and because I have no idea right and back then I Didn't even see a real birth because Micah wasn't even born.

So I have no idea but they so it's like they give you historical context. It looks different for just lying down in a hospital, right? No, they stood up. Yeah, yeah, they didn't lie down.

Right, right.

Literary context. Literary context is what what what did the last chapter talk about or what did the whole book talk about, right? What is the theme in the whole book? What is the theme even in Jesus Christ in the same prophecy, right?

Like Micah and Isaiah, they're they're contemporaries. So like do they overlap like what what do they talk about what theme go on together? That's the literary context and then what I would do is write it out.

Like right now what I think it means from looking at those right not like what does it mean to you? But what what what do I think the text is say using literary gram grammatical genre historical?

Right.

Now the next thing we need to do is historical setting. The historical setting looks at the original audience ask. What what's the original audience? Is this first temple like after Solomon built the temple?

Is it the X X? Exiled Jews, right? Is it like Daniel right or is it all during the wilderness journey, right? Is it the Torah you got to ask that because they have different context. Oftentimes like when you're reading.

Like Exodus Leviticus numbers right Deuteronomy hard books, but think about this. These were slaves. They were just freed. They weren't educated they didn't know they many of them were worshiping wrong gods had God graciously freed them.

Right. So look into think about that. But then think about like when monarchy started with us all right. It's that's a different type of audience similar because they're ethnic Jews and you know. They worship the Lord Yahweh, but still there are differences and after the exile there think about that.

What were they like, right? They just got back and the temple doesn't look as great, you know things like that. They were just oppressed to they just got delivered. Is there hope is there no hope. I don't know, right?

Yeah, like Matthew wrote to Jews that's why there's so many Old Testament scriptural references mark wrote to Gentiles. Yeah, I think Luke also. Mark wrote to the Romans. I think Luke wrote to the Greeks another really group of Gentiles.

And then John. I think you could argue Jews too. But I think there's something more global about it too for John. But you do need the Old Testament Scriptural reference for John to John is kind of hard.

All right, so author who's the author? I mean the human author we all know God wrote it but also the human author, right? Like what was Moses going through at this time or Daniel, right?

Sometimes Paul says said I did it not God. Yeah.

Right, so like yeah like Paul like what was Paul going through sometimes you can know from a brief history of Paul. Like was he in prison? Was he not because sometimes he says it like in Philippians. He's in chains.

So like and that adds a different meaning to when he says I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, right? It's not I'm gonna be a basketball star. It's like Although my circumstance sucks and I'm in chains Christ gives me the power to do what I need to do in life and ministry.

Right, right not a short Asian pastor can play in the NBA, right? That's I've never even wanted that. Date date is important. When was it written some some books? You don't you won't know the date. It's hard to narrow down mainly like the minor prophets.

Some of them don't even have which King they were serving. Habakkuk, for example Nahum. We don't know they're guessing just from what's going on like Injustice that's going on. So they're like must be a bad King, but it's before the exile right things like that.

Original circumstance usually you can know from the book. It just read the book as a whole over and over again a couple of times. You will know the circumstance and that's what I would Recommend we do the next two weeks.

Read Titus over and over and just three chapters. You'll see the circumstance. Over and over again, you'll see like there's some disorder going on there. There's some chaos going on there that Paul had to write, right?

Anytime there's a writing there's a purpose or why it's being written if there's no purpose. There's really no writing. Well, there's no purpose for writing. Original cultural consideration. Yeah, like different cultures.

What do they celebrate right? What what do they grieve? What were they going through right cultural consideration? How did they view God? How did they view idols? How did they view? Anything right adultery.

How did they view those things? Rules next literary genre. These are just some of the genre like historical narrative poetry. Wisdom wisdom is like Ecclesiastes at Proverbs. And it has poetic form too.

So it's not like either or Prophecy prophecy can have poetic forms to Gospel Matthew Mark Luke John Epistles like letters anything Paul wrote John wrote three right Peter wrote two, right? Apocalyptic like think revelation and some parts of Daniel all the horns coming out and like pieces, you know.

There's there you can't sometimes you can't take those literally because they tell you not to take it literally the horn itself. It's not just a horn that's randomly coming out, right? The beasts are.

Sometimes empires right right in Daniel their empires so things. Yeah, Babylon, right? Yeah power, yeah, right. Linguistics consideration idioms. Every every language has idiom. Sometimes they Overlap, but sometimes you might have to research more.

There's a good. There's a good book called like something dictionary of biblical imagery. I use that sometimes because I like horn for example. We know we're not around bulls that much right we're not around cattle, right?

Unless you live in like, Texas and you have a ranch but like a horn represents power. Why well because remember bulls they're like some of the biggest more power most powerful. Domesticated animals around ancient Israel, right and imagine a bull Lifting its horn as it charges at you.

That's power. So a lot of the times when you see a horn in the Old Testament, that's an that's an idiom for power, right? Customs they're different custom sacrificial customs. We're not used to that but when you read about sacrifices in the Bible you get used to it.

You're like, oh, yeah, so God wants blood. Not liver, huh? Okay, right all things like that and I say that because The pagan religions they like liver they use liver to do fortune-telling it's called.

Exposé.

Exposé. Yes, it's a hard word. But they would take the liver and depending on the shape of the liver lobe and all that they could tell like okay Famines coming or you know could tell right there. It's what they're doing.

They thought God was communicating through liver. God says no. No, no, no, no the most important part blood. Yeah, and and burn the red like burn burn other stuff right like burnt offering like burn the whole thing really but.

Yeah.

And and burn that too, right? It's like you cannot use that for pagan idolatry.

Ah.

Mindset, I mean they're agricultural most of us haven't worked in the in a farm. But having if you have. It might make make more sense. Like Ruth might make more sense, right? Like oh you wouldn't be harvesting.