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Well, so far, we have looked at quite a few questions. We've been going through this series on apologetics, defending the faith, answering the difficult questions about the faith. And today, as I was looking through the questions that you guys originally gave on that first Wednesday night, I came upon one that I thought was very interesting and I thought worthy of a lesson, an entire lesson on just this question.
And the question was, how do we apply the Bible to today? How do we apply the Bible to today? And this question had Bible verses with it, which I thought was very helpful. Because if you just ask that question broadly, well, how do you apply the Bible today, I might not know exactly what you mean, but when she was here, she looked like girls handwriting.
I don't remember. I don't know if it's boy or girl, but it was a little cleaner. And was it, you know, it might might be might be yours. I don't know if it's a guy's handwriting. It don't matter. But most of the time you can tell girls and guys handwriting typically.
At least I think I can. Anyhow, so we're going to be looking at the specific verses that this person asked about. Because I understand more about the question when I look at the verses. The two that they mentioned particularly was the verse, an eye for an eye.
Well, how do we apply that to today? And the other verse was, if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. OK, and I figured now I get to the more of the meat of the question. Huh? Well, well, it might be a boy question, but the point is that gives us a little more insight into the questioner.
The person who's asking the question is asking, how do we apply those verses which are really difficult to understand and put into practice? So what we're going to do is we're actually going to talk today about how to interpret the Bible.
We're going to talk about how to apply what we've interpreted. The first thing that we need to understand before we even go to the verses is that there is a principle for interpretation. It is a term that I think some of you will probably be able to figure out.
But this is the Latin phrase. It's also it's very close to the English phrase. It's the grammatical historical method, the grammatical historical method. That is the method that we use to interpret the Bible.
What do you think the root of this word is? Well, grammar, right? OK, the grammatical is grammar. And then, of course, historical, the root of that is history. So when we are interpreting any document, it doesn't just have to be the Bible.
When we are interpreting any document, it can be the U .S. Constitution. It can be the letters of the founding fathers of the United States. It could be the writings of Martin Luther or Euripte Zwingli or John Hus.
It could be the Bible. Anytime we are reading a document, particularly a document that was written in the past, we have to first look at the use of grammar. And then we have to look at how that grammar fits into the historical context in which it was written.
The vast majority of bad Bible teaching. And don't get don't for a second think that there ain't some bad Bible. There is some real bad Bible teaching out there. I proved it to a class one night. We are having class at my house.
And I used to have satellite that had six stations that were Christian stations. It was like 351, 352, 353. And it was the Catholic channel. And it was the TBN. And it was TBN2. And it was the faith channels.
All these Christian channels, one right after the other. And I told them. I said, we could turn on my television right now. And within one minute, we can find someone who is teaching something that is the exact opposite of what the Bible teaches.
There is somebody who is teaching heresy right now. And didn't we do it? Pulled it up. And man, it was like God gave me a gift. Frederick Price was on my television. I don't know who Frederick Price is, but he is off the reservation crazy.
I mean, really. He is one of those guys that, you know, he is very, very, very much a false teacher. He's what we call health and wealth teacher. He, prosperity, gospel, prosperity, theology, it's all ridiculous.
It's unbiblical. All of their arguments for it are just beyond the pale ridiculous. But we know they're ridiculous. How do we know a teaching is bad? How do we know what's good teaching from the Bible and what's bad teaching?
Well, we go back to the. It contradicts the word of God. Right. But how do we know what the word of God says? Grammar and historical context. What do the words mean and how are they structured together?
And what does that word have implicit within it in this particular historical context? OK, that's something we have to understand. If we are going to understand what the Bible says, we have to understand the grammar and the history of the text.
So with that being said, we're going to look at a couple of texts that were asked about. The first one is going to be about an eye for an eye. Turn to Exodus 21, Exodus 21. Go to verse 24. You will see at the beginning of verse 24, it says eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.
Now, if that's all we had was that one verse and it was sitting in a island on an island all by itself in the middle of nothing, then we would have no sense because if all we had is a sentence that said eye for eye, hand for hand, tooth for tooth, foot for foot, we'd all say okie dokie because we don't know what that means.
So we have to read it within the context to understand what it means. And the context of this section of the book of Exodus is about law and order. How is law and order to be needed out in the nation of Israel?
How are the rules and those who enforce the rules supposed to meet out justice? In fact, go one verse before the verse that we looked at, verse 23. It says, but if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life.
And then it goes eye for eye, hand for hand, foot for foot, or I lost my place. Yeah, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. So right away we go one verse ahead and it tells us something. It tells us this is someone has done someone else harm.
Right away, this has got to do with how do we meet out justice? If somebody has done harm to another human being, how is justice done? Now, what is the harm in this context? It's interesting that the harm in this context is to a pregnant woman.
Go back up to verse 22. It says, when men strive together and hit a pregnant woman. Alright, get the picture in your mind. Two guys are fighting with one another. That's the term strive here. It means that they're fighting or they're tussling with one another.
And they hit a pregnant woman so that her children come out. Okay, what that means is that is idiomatic. It's a way of saying that she has premature labor. They hit her and it causes the child to come out.
That is not a good thing. It's very unhealthy thing. It can cause the baby to be stillborn. It could cause death. It caused a lot of things. So it goes on to say, but there is no harm. All right, so this is the situation.
Two men have wrestled. They hit the woman. Her baby came out, but everything's OK. The baby was fine. If there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined as the woman's husband shall impose on him.
And he shall pay as the judges determine. Okay, so here's the deal. Even if nobody got hurt, that was still a dangerous thing that would happen. It still could have cost somebody their life. There's still going to be a fine because you did wrong.
Two guys wrestling, ran into a lady, caused her child to almost come out or to come out. And when the baby came out, it was fine. But hey, that was still dangerous. Sort of like in today's world when somebody gets a fine for speeding.
If you speed but don't hit anything, nobody got hurt. If you speed and don't wreck your car, nobody got injured. But you still can get a fine for speeding, right? Because the very act of speeding itself deserves the fine.
Same, same here. Even though nobody got hurt, even though the woman had the child and no one was injured, it still doesn't mean that he gets off the hook. He still has a fine. The husband gets to impose it and the judges get to enforce it.
But there is a fine that has to be paid. This is all about justice in the time of the people of Israel. But verse 23, if there is harm, if there is harm, what kind of harm? Well, it could be the life of the child.
If somebody runs into a woman who's pregnant and she gives birth too early, the child could die. What happens if she gets run into and she has an internal hemorrhage? She could die. So it doesn't define what type of harm.
It says some type of harm happened. As a result, you shall pay life for life, hand for hand, tooth for tooth, foot for foot. It's very specific that the law will see that justice is done. If a life is taken, then a life will be forfeited as a result.
That actually goes all the way back to the time of Noah. God imposed what we call capital punishment. What's capital punishment then? Capital means death. Corporal means hitting or to be struck. Capital, where the term comes from, is to take off the cap, the head.
Because back in France, they would cut your head off in certain places. They still do that. The beheading. So the taking off of the cap, the capital punishment. Wait, remember. OK, so here we have this law.
And what is the law? That when someone does something wrong, that he shall be punished and his punishment shall fit the crime. And it shall be just in accordance with the crime done. So the question becomes now, what was the original question?
How do we apply the Bible today? Well, looking at this verse, how is this verse applied today? Well, we live in a nation that's built on laws, right? Now, a lot of us might argue, especially the parents, that the laws are not just in our land.
Some of them are not just. But the reality is, how do we know if law is just? Law is just when it is fair. When it is fair. For instance, if I run into your vehicle. You don't have a vehicle, but let's say I ran into it.
Huh? If I run into your bicycle and I cause $200 damage to your bicycle. That's a pretty expensive bicycle. I have totaled your bicycle. And the judge said I only had to pay 50 cents. Would that be just?
No, because you're on a bicycle and all you got is enough for a stick of gum, right? It's not enough. What's that? Yeah, not even a stick of gum. So, this is how this verse can be applied to today. When we look at law, law should always be just.
Law should always be fair. When a person commits murder, what is the result? A first degree murder. He planned it. He acted it out. He did it without remorse. He did it in cold blood. What is the response?
Life for life. Right? And that's how we understand law. It's not revenge. Revenge is if somebody kills my friend and I go out and unjustly kill him. That's not justice. Some people might think it is, but it's not.
We call that vengeance or revenge or sometimes it's also referred to as vigilantism. Somebody who wants to take the law into their own hands. Got Batman. Now Superman. And we try to, at times, make the vigilante heroic because why?
The vigilante serves the justice that we see the government won't. You know, this person deserved punishment. The government didn't do it. So we look at the vigilante as the hero simply because he enacts justice.
Because we understand there's a fairness that's involved. What's also interesting about this law. So many people hear that. They see a hand for hand, foot for foot. That's bad. One guy said an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
Well, no, no, no. That's ridiculous. That's ridiculous. Because even though it sounds, I think it was one of those great people who loved Pete. Who was it? I know. Well, he was, I'm sure, hippie-ish.
May have been Gandhi. Somebody important once said an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. But it's ridiculous because an eye for an eye is simply the standard for justice. If you poke out my eye, I want to kill you.
But I can't. Because that's not just. You see, it also puts a limitation on what is deserved punishment. Because seriously, if somebody poked out your eye, you'd be angry to the point of murderous rage.
But you could not act on it. Because this puts a limit on how the law is to function. So it's a very simple thing, but it's still today. If somebody breaks in my house in the middle of the night. And they, well, they may forfeit their life.
That's Exodus 22 too. Exodus 22. So if somebody breaks in your house at night and they're struck so that they die, you're not guilty of murder. Great verse. Yes. No, absolutely. Absolutely. He has what's called a use of force matrix.
Which means he has a step. If somebody comes at him with an impact weapon, he can use a taser. But he can't shoot that person necessarily unless he feels threatened for his life. The same way. Police are often bound in a very similar way for life-threatening situations as civilians are.
In the sense that unless he feels physically like his life is in danger, he can't just take out and fire. That's true. That's very true. And that's again, there's that balance. And that's all this verse is teaching.
Is that in law and order, there is balance. There is fairness. That's why. How many of you have ever seen the picture of the woman who, I don't remember. It's a statue. I don't remember where it is. But she's holding up.
She's blindfolded and she's holding the scales. The justice. Right. And what is the what's the what is the symbolism behind that? It's equal and blind. It doesn't matter what color you are. It doesn't matter what gender you are.
It doesn't matter how old you are, how young you are. Justice should be equal and blind. That's that's the concept behind that statue. There's no bias in justice. That is what this verse teaches. So how do we apply that today?
Well, there's a lot of unjust stuff that goes on. But how should government function with justice? How should we function? Well, we function with grace. But we're also fair. For instance, if I were a employer.
I would have a certain amount of authority over my employees. If I favored one over the other inappropriately, that is wrong. So there is some application that can be made even outside of the legal realm, which could be made into my life.
This is why in later passages of Scripture, it talks about not weighing with unequal scales, particularly for employers who would be inappropriately unjust to their employees. Justice is what this verse is about.
And we can make application for that all day long. So when the question is, how do we apply the Bible to today? Well, first, we have to understand what it meant at the time it was written. We have to understand what it meant at the time it was written.
Then, based on what it meant then, we begin to apply it to today. That's how we can apply the Bible. Yes. Yes, there is a sense in which the old covenant laws dealt specifically with Israel who lived under a theocracy.
For instance, their dietary laws were specific only to them because they lived in an economy that was a theocracy prior to the cross. After the cross, we're given a new commandment that you love one another as I love you.
You're given the Acts 15 counsel, which tells them that they don't no longer have to worry about circumcision, which was a huge part of the Old Testament. But now, what does the Apostle Paul say? If you believe in circumcision for your salvation, then you believe in something other than Christ.
So you're actually anathema or cut off from the church. So it's interesting. You're right. There is changes that are made. And all that comes into the historical context. That's why when I look at this verse, I say, here is what it meant at that particular time and how it was used by the judges of Israel to enact justice.
But how can I extrapolate from that application for today? Well, the way I do that is I take the principle of justice and I apply it to today. I should be just in my dealings. I should expect that my government behave justly towards me because that's the model.
We truth, liberty, justice. That's what our nation is supposed to be founded on. And all of those things. Where do I find justice in its purest form? Right here in this verse. In the simplest of forms.
Here it is. OK, now the next verse that they mention, they mention eye for an eye. They also mentioned Matthew 5 and 30. So turn to Matthew 5 and 30. I'm really glad that they mentioned this one because this one involves a little bit different type of language.
All right. It says in verse 30, and if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. All right.
Well, let's just right away. We read the verse again. It doesn't exist in an island. It doesn't exist all by itself. It's in a context. What is the context leading up to that passage? Yes. No, I think I think you're thinking about if a hand is not more important than a foot.
Foot's not more important than that. That's first Corinthians 12, where the hand and the foot is referred to the church body. This is actually referring to the sin of lust. If you go back up to verse 27, you heard it said you shall not commit adultery.
But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. That right there, that's the context. A little difficult to talk about in this group.
So we'll just kind of keep it keep it very simple. When people have improper thoughts about others, that's the idea that's that's here. And it's saying that those thoughts are wrong. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away.
For it's better for you to lose one of your members and your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off, throw it away. For it's better that you lose one of your members and your whole body go into hell.
Granted, that's difficult because I think all of us would probably agree that self-mutilation is not, not that it doesn't sound like any fun, but also it's not the intent of the passage that Christians should go around one handed and one eyed.
All right. This is a different. Remember I talked about grammar and history. Right. There's a certain grammar that is being used here, a certain type of language is being used here. It is called hyperbole.
Hyperbole. All right. Most of you are probably familiar with this term. What is that? A parable. What is a parable? A parable is a story which makes a point. It has it takes an example to make a point about something else.
Like when Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed into his field. And in night, the evil one came and sowed weeds among the seed so that when they began to sprout up, there was weeds among the wheat.
And he said to his servant said, should we go pull the weeds out? And he says, no, don't disturb the weeds now because you might inadvertently pull up some of the wheat. Wait until they're full grown.
Then we'll make the harvest. Then we'll separate the wheat from the chaff. We'll burn the chaff and we'll take the wheat into the barn. All right. Well, what's the picture there? What's the parable? That's right.
The wheat represents the good believer. The weed represents the unbeliever. The field is the world. And in the world, there's unbelievers and there's believers. It's going to be like that until the end.
It's going to be like that until judgment. God's not going to come before judgment, take out all the unbelievers. He's going to leave it to grow up until judgment. And at judgment, there will be a separation of the wheat and the chaff and the chaff will be burned.
The picture, of course, of hell and the wheat will be stored in the barn. That's a picture of going to God's heaven. All right. So that's what we call a parable. It is a when you see the term para, the prefix that means to be equal.
OK, like parallel two lines that are equal. That's where para is, where you see that. And this is actually a parable comes from the term parable. All right. Parably means an equal story or an equal example.
I parably is an exaggerated example. It is an exaggerated example. OK, that is where the term hyper means to exaggerate something or to be larger or bigger or more expensive than that which is actually being talked about.
So you have a parable is an equal example. Hyperbole is a like here's a here's hyperbole. OK, well, I might could. But I mean, if you said I could eat a horse, that's hyperbole because you can't really eat a horse.
But what you're trying to say is what you're trying to talk about the level of your hunger, that it is expensive and that you are seriously hungry. So much so that if it were possible, you could eat a horse.
Right now, you're hungry. OK, but that's what we call that is what that's hyperbole. We use it all the time. It's raining cats and dogs. Never has it ever rain. Well, maybe it has a sweater out of a thread.
OK, is that like sort of like making a mountain out of mobile? OK, same thing. That's that's and that's all examples. When we see this text and Jesus talks about ripping out our eye and cutting off our hand, I do not believe that he is that he is advocating self mutilation.
Because I don't think that we find that anywhere else in the Bible. I don't think there's support for self mutilation in Scripture. But what we do find in this text is a hyperbole of how we are to treat sin.
Cut it off. If there's something in our life that causes us to fail, the call that God has given us, cut it off. If we can't handle having table because we can't keep from seeing stuff that we shouldn't look at, cut it off.
If we can't handle being with a certain friend because they make us leave lives that are inappropriate, cut them off. If we you know, there's a simple application is that if there's anything in our life that is causing our hand or our eyes to sin, cut it off.
See? But that's how you make application. First, you have to understand it, how it was in its context, how it fits in with the whole of Scripture. And then you make your application for today. And it works that way with any verse in the Bible.
Application comes after interpretation. You have to properly interpret the text before you can properly apply the text. If you go the other way around, you'll end up on your head. If you try to make application before you've made interpretation or understanding, you'll get all these crazy misunderstandings that a lot of people have.
Everybody understand? So what comes before application? Interpretation. Interpretation comes first. How do we interpret the Bible? Grammar and history. How do the words fit into the context in which they were written?
And that's how you apply the Bible to today. Everybody understand? Make sense? Was that helpful? Good. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this time that we've had to study together. I pray that your word will be used to encourage these young people and build them up in the faith.
And I thank you that they continue to come and want to learn. We just pray all these things, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen.