Rightly Dividing the Word of God – Keys to Biblical Interpretation P1

Hello and welcome to The Dividing Line for today. My name is John Sampson, pastor of King's Church in Phoenix, and it's a delight to guest host here on The Dividing Line once again while James is away, this time in Europe, in the Ukraine, or you simply say Ukraine.

But delighted to be here, looking forward to getting to God's Word. If you're viewing or listening, may God help all of us as we study the Word of God about the subject of how to do exactly that, how to study God's Word.

And I hope it'll be a blessing to you as you walk through this with me. There's about 17, 17 points I want to get through and I'm going to probably take two shows to do it. We'll just take our time and walk through points regarding how to interpret Scripture.

A lot of people are told to do that. A lot of us are called by God to do that, and we need some help. I know I do. And I wish someone with a kind disposition would have come to me early on in my Christian life and say, now, here's how you do it.

But after being in ministry since June of 1987, there's some things I've learned along the way and I would hope would be a blessing to everyone who listens. Whether you're an academic and you already know these things, perhaps there's a few things that will be of benefit to you.

Or if you've never really studied the Bible before because you're intimidated by it, first of all, it's good to be intimidated by it, and I'll explain why. But hopefully there'll be some things that will be of help to you.

My own testimony in this regard was that I was a pastor for many years, both in England and here in the U .S. And in the year 2000, Dr. R .C. Sproul came to Scottsdale, which is close to my home in Phoenix.

And he did a Friday night and Saturday morning seminar, Ligonier Ministries put it on, and I was intrigued because I'd heard him on the sovereignty of God, yet not really studied much of what he'd said.

I'd seen his videos on the holiness of God. I'd seemed just a little to know that I didn't believe what he believed, but I was interested in him because his teaching on the holiness of God was just magisterial.

It was phenomenal. But I had this issue with him on sovereignty, but that's the subject he was going to talk about at this conference. And I was in two minds as to whether I'd even go because I wanted to hear him, but just not on that subject.

And so I went sitting on the back row so that when he got into just some archaic philosophy and just quoting Jonathan Edwards and Calvin and all these guys, I thought, you know, I'm just going to make a quiet exit without creating any disturbance.

That's why I sat where I did. But I was intrigued because he went straight to scripture and he stayed with scripture. And then he promised to have a question and answer session. And I thought, I want to stay for that.

I've got some questions. And a lot of people did. And he handled these questions with not a flippancy, but just a confidence that there's not going to be a question that he can't handle because he was sure of what he was saying.

And he was asked about John 3 .16 and other scriptures, 2 Peter 3 .9 and others that were asked by the audience. And he handled them with a depth in a couple of minutes that showed me that everything I believed about John 3 .16 was shallow in comparison.

And that's the point. I hadn't studied the text in its context. You know why? I didn't think I needed to. I thought, well, that's obvious. It's obvious what John 3 .16 teaches. And he provided in just a couple of minutes, an exegesis, a drawing out of the scripture, what is actually in the scripture and showed me that I was in trouble.

He didn't point at me, thankfully. But if a camera was on me at the time, it would have seen me with a very white face because I didn't enjoy that experience. I realized I was in trouble. I realized that what I had believed and what I had taught was actually wrong.

And that's hard to admit, especially when you're a preacher and you've said certain things publicly. And I was not convinced of his argument straight away. In fact, I went into a study cocoon, as I call it, for about nine months where I just studied these things and researched these things.

And I came out of that study cocoon reformed in my understanding regarding salvation. Reformed theology covers much more than simply the study of salvation. But in that area, I came to see what C .H. Spurgeon had said long before me, that Calvinism or reformed theology is just a nickname for biblical theology.

And if that's true, the more you and I study and allow our traditions to be exposed to the Word of God, the more we'll come to see that God is sovereign in all things, even in the matter of salvation.

And if the Bible is teaching reformed theology, the more we study, that's what's going to happen. I'm convinced that someone who looks objectively at the Scripture and allows, and here's the big thing, allows their tradition to be held up to the light of Scripture to see if it's true.

If it's true, it will stand up to scrutiny. You've got nothing to lose except falsehood in that process. So I would encourage you to come with me on a journey. Dr. Sproul was instrumental in getting me started, but it was actually Dr. James White who got me over the line.

His book came out about that time called The Potter's Freedom. I have it here and just recommend it to anyone who's interested in that subject of soteriology, the study of salvation. The Potter's Freedom was instrumental because I believe he accurately portrayed someone on the other side in this debate, Norman Geisler, and then showed from Scripture why reformed theology can pass the test of scrutiny, and it was very convincing to me.

The Danger of Casual Bible Study and Eisegesis

Bible study. Do you know we can actually offend God in the way that we study the Bible? Some people have the idea that a Bible study is when five, ten people get in a room, and someone reads a passage of Scripture, perhaps even a verse of Scripture, and then goes around the room saying, what do you think about that?

That's their idea of Bible study. George gets up and says, well, it's interesting. I was in Oregon earlier in the week, and I think that verse applies to me because I met this guy and that guy, and he interprets the Bible by means of applying it to the passage to what he was going through that particular week.

Another one says, well, it's interesting because I had an argument with my wife over something similar to this. What happens is one guy goes forward and says what he thinks, and someone else does, and then someone else does, and what happens is we pull the ignorance in the room.

No one's studied the passage. No one has looked at it before. No one's looked at it in its context. No one's looked at the words and the syntax and the order of words, and by the time we get around the circle, it's back to the guy who started and says, well, I thought about this verse too, and I believe it's an important thing, and here's what I think about it.

As I've come to understand it, what you and I think about it is not really of any relevance. What we need to find out is, what does it actually say, and what does it actually mean? What we do with our Bibles can actually offend God, and that's why in James 3, it tells us, let not many of you become teachers knowing that they will incur stricter judgment.

It's a high calling to be a teacher in the body of Christ, and somebody might be saying, well, what are you saying? You're making it scary to think of standing up and talking about the Bible. Yep, and it should be.

It should scare us to death almost, because we're speaking in the name of God, for God, and it's God's truth, and woe betide us if we say it means something that it doesn't actually say. Now, the problem is, all of us have sinned in this area.

All of us have sinned, come short of the glory of God, Romans 3, 23, and all preachers have missed it, because here's the truth. We're all blind in some areas. We all have our blind spots. As we're driving a car, you learn quickly about a blind spot and being able to cover for that, but if we don't realize that we have blind spots, we can go all our lives, just as I'd gone well over a decade in ministry and not scrutinize my tradition regarding soteriology, the study of salvation.

Why? Because nothing was more apparent to me that I'd got it right. Why? Don't need to study that. I may need to study this area or that area, but not this. This is something I knew. I could quote the verse, but quoting the verse doesn't mean you've rightly interpreted the verse.

Jesus had a high view of Scripture. He affirmed the authority of Scripture over and over again. In the preamble of a question and answer session with those who were opposing him, he said this, Have you not read what was spoken to you by God?

Matthew 22 verse 31. He went on to quote a verse from the book of Genesis, but notice what he said. Have you not read, that's reading, what was spoken to you by God? Jesus' view of what we call the Old Testament was the view that when you're reading the you're reading what was spoken by God.

Think about that for a moment. Jesus believed that people were accountable for reading the Bible, understanding it clearly, and that they were reading something spoken by God. That's quite a statement.

The testimony of Jesus and the Bible itself is that all Scripture is God-breathed. 2 Timothy 3 .16. Theo Neustos, God-breathed, breathed out by God. When we're opening up the pages of the Bible, we're actually on very holy ground.

Although a book, it's unlike any other book. It's not merely giving us facts about God. It's a book written by God, inspired by God. Human authors were involved, of course, but the text of Scripture is breathed out by God.

The Holy Spirit superintended the writers so that what they wrote, even though they wrote from their own personality, what they wrote was breathed out by God. Having that concept in place greatly helps us in our Bible studies.

Why is that? Well, it avoids, hopefully, it disallows the idea that we can be flippant about our Bible study and say, well, my view is just as good as yours. No, my view means nothing. It's what the Scripture actually says, and there are rules that we can follow that helps us gain the true and the right interpretation.

2 Timothy 2 .15. Let me quote it from the King James Version. Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. Study. Notice that.

Study comes before coming at the rightly dividing part. Study so that you might rightly divide the word of God. Study to show yourself approved, a workman. It takes work. There's effort involved. And when we're lazy, we tend to wrongly divide the word of truth.

So Paul wrote to Timothy, study to show yourself approved to God, a workman that doesn't need to be ashamed. And I have to say that I was ashamed of some of the things I've taught over the years. Thankfully, God is a God of grace, and he has revealed the truth in this particular area to me so that I might marvel and glory in his grace and in his glorious grace in salvation.

It knocks all the pride right from under our feet because it's God who opens up the treasure of his word to us. The Jews would wash their hands before even touching the sacred scrolls. These scrolls were divinely inspired.

They knew it. And I don't believe we need to do the same thing. We don't need to become superstitious about the physical book called the Bible, washing our hands before we ever pick it up or open it. But the text we need to revere as God speaking to us.

That leads us to talk about how to interpret it. When we recognize that we're handling the very truth of God, we should not be quick to come to conclusions about what it means. That's because if the Bible is the word of God, and it is, we should seek to gain the correct meaning before we attempt to speak for God.

And it takes work. Sometimes it takes a lot of work. It's important that we recognize the assignment to preach or to teach God's word is even more austere. I'm using that word to talk of reverence than to be an ambassador to the president of the United States or to be the ambassador of the United States to another nation.

You are now speaking for God. Second Timothy 4 says, I charge you in the presence of God who will judge the living and the dead. Preach, herald, preach the word. Why? You're his ambassador. It's a scary business to interpret the scripture.

And that's where we start. But knowing that we proceed, because we are going to interpret the scripture if we're reading it. And there are certain things that I believe will be of help to us if we will take the time to allow our minds to mull over his truth, to see his word.

And I just would like to just ask you to pray as we get started in these rules, tips, rules of interpretation. And I believe you'll see that most of them are self-attesting. Once you hear it, you say, oh, oh, that makes sense.

But the failure to apply these things means that we end up wrongly dividing the word of truth. So let's go ahead and pray, shall we? Father, just thank you for this time with the viewing and listening audience.

I pray, Father, that each one of us would have hearts open to your truth. We pray that you'll lead and guide each one of us. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. When we come to the scripture, our posture should be one of reverence, humility.

We come to listen and receive God's word. We want to ask the question, what does God want to say to us? What does he want to say to me? And when we do that, we have what theologians call exegesis. We have the word ex, which means out of.

In a theater, perhaps you might see the sign exit, which tells us that's the way out of the building. And so exegesis is taking out from God's word what is in God's word. That's what we wish to do. The opposite of that is what we're all prone to do, which is eisegesis, which is to read into.

And that is rather than saying, what does God want to say to me? It says, what do we want to tell him? And we sit as judges oftentimes over the word of God to say, well, it says that, but God is wrong about this.

And let me inform, misinform God of what he needs to change. And I remember being a young Christian just with my spiritual diapers on as a teenager. I was converted at age 14 and at age 15, 16, around there, I was in a setting where I was sitting next to a teenage girl who was about four or five months older than me in the Lord.

And I thought, well, I can learn a little from her, but I noticed a Bible as the preacher was preaching. And there were passages in her Bible where they were just missing. And she had a scissors in hand and a pen in hand.

And if she liked what she heard, she underlined it. And if she didn't like what she heard and what she read in the scripture, she actually got her scissors. I couldn't believe my eyes. She got her scissors out and cut passages out.

And I said to her, what are you doing? She says, oh, I take out the passage I don't agree with. And I've never seen that before or since, but really you don't have to do that physically to do that mentally and just say, well, Paul's wrong about this.

The problem with saying Paul's wrong about this is that he was writing under the influence of the Holy Spirit. People say, I don't like Paul. I like Jesus. Well, Jesus commissioned Paul and the same Holy Spirit who inspired the words of Jesus in our text is the same Holy Spirit who inspired Paul when he wrote what he wrote to come against Paul or to disagree with Paul is to disagree with Jesus who commissioned him as a sent one, an apostle.

Jesus said to his disciples, as the father sent me, I send you. He who receives you receives me. And that's certainly the case with the writings of other people rather than Jesus himself. I have a problem with Bibles that have the words of Jesus in red for the simple fact is it's just as much Jesus speaking through Paul, through John, through Jude as it is Jesus himself in the gospels because it's the same Holy Spirit at work.

It's just as inspired text in second Timothy as it is in the gospel of Matthew. So that's just a pet peeve of mine. It's nice to see the words of Jesus separated, but it gives the false impression that these are more authoritative statements than anything else you read in scripture.

And that's not true. Jesus said not one little jot or tittle of the law shall pass away till all is fulfilled. He had a very high view of scripture, not only of the words of the Bible, but the very small little dots and dashes that give a slight variance of meaning to words.

He was that confident of the inspired scripture that it was, in fact, God-breathed information. In our Old Testaments, as we call them, we have the Hebrew. There's a little Aramaic in the book of Daniel, but basically it's a Hebrew book.

In the New Testament, it's Greek of a particular kind. It's called Koine Greek, which just means common Greek. It was not an inspired language. It was the providence of God that Alexander the Great had conquered most of the world at that time and had insisted that each nation where he had conquered learn Greek.

And that was all in God's providence so that when the gospels were written, they were written in a that could spread rapidly. And again, common Greek. And to learn that language means a lot of effort at times.

I'm certainly not a Greek scholar, but I'd like to get around those that know more than me and then check their sources and then consult with others. But it behoves us to learn something. Now, what we have today in our time is of such magnificent splendor compared to what people had back three, four hundred years ago.

There are programs, Logos and BibleWorks and others that just tell us very, very quickly. You just get a mouse and hover over a particular word and it tells you not only the word, but how many times it occurs in both the Hebrew and the Greek.

And we've just got so many resources available at our fingertips that were not available back years ago. And I'm very, very grateful to that. But it behoves us to take advantage of that to whom much is given, much is required.

But what about those of us who are kind of new to the faith? How do we progress? Well, again, let me walk through certain things that I believe will be of help to us. We need to understand two things.

The difference between exegesis, that's a big theological word, and eisegesis. So is that one. Exegesis is to ask the question, what does God say? Let me draw it out, draw out of the scripture. What is there?

Exegesis rather than eisegesis, which is reading into the text, which is very, very common. Eisegesis is reading into a text, text of the Bible, a meaning that is not supported by the grammar, the syntax, the lexical meanings, that means the dictionary meanings, and the overall context of the original.

If you're in a conversation, don't you want to be understood? Don't you want to be understood in context? I heard today about Detroit having a significant power loss on the electrical grid, many without power.

If that continues tonight, perhaps you might even be in Detroit visiting. You might write an email to someone and say, everyone in Detroit is cold tonight. Now, in the context of a power grid failure, we understand that it's winter and that you're speaking of people being cold in a physical sense.

But if I just read your words two days from now, not knowing of the situation, I might just think you've got a problem with Detroit people, that you think every one of them are cold, cold people. You don't want to go to Detroit, they're just cold.

You see, we're so prone to read things out of context because we think, well, I know what cold means. He says, don't go to Detroit. They're just cold people there. But that would be to misunderstand and misinterpret the words because your words are given in a context.

And because you and I live in the 21st century, we're used to conversing with one another and we're used to understanding one another. And if we're living in England or Argentina or the United States, we're used to conversing with people in the same language.

And we learn certain things over time by living in a certain place. But let's just take a scenario. Let's say, perhaps this next Sunday, you meet a family, you enjoy meeting them at church and you say, why don't we go for lunch after church?

And they say, yes, let's do that. And they have kids and they want to go to McDonald's. And so all of you go to McDonald's and the next day you write and say, I had a great time at church and I went with a family.

In fact, we visited McDonald's and we had a happy meal. Now, let's say that that little letter of yours written, a fragment of it is found 500 years from now. And people look at this and they say, wow, what does that mean?

And let's go in our imagination to have this idea, perhaps, I know perish the thought, maybe not, McDonald's doesn't exist anymore. Oh no, McDonald's will always be here. They're into real estate and they sell hamburgers to pay for that.

But imagine McDonald's doesn't exist. And so you're trying to work out this family after church. Well, McDonald's, that sounds like a Scottish plan. McDonald's. Yeah, the McDonald's and happy meal. What does that mean?

They had a rich, warm time of fellowship. You know what? You've understood nothing of what was said, even though, you know, the words McDonald's and happy meal have a context in the 21st century that unless we study, say we're in the year 2514 or 2515, let's say we're 500 years from now, you don't know what McDonald's are.

You don't know what a happy meal is. You've misinterpreted what was said. So it is incumbent upon us to know something of the background of the Old Testament and the New Testament, because that will help us understand the words, because what was meant by the original author to the original audience is the meaning of the text.

I hope that's making sense, that little illustration. Exegesis is where you read out of the text its original meaning by careful attention to the grammar, the syntax, the lexical meaning of the words used by the author as they were used in his day and in his area and the overall context of the document.

It's there's so many places we could go at this point. But again, we assume so much. I assume so much because I think, well, I don't need to study that word because I know what it means. But that's where we tend to make mistakes.

For instance, the word all. Some people have the idea that the word all always means all. No. Sometimes it does, but it's actually rare that it does. Sometimes it means all, everybody on the planet, but usually not.

And that's true in English as well as Greek and as well as Hebrew. If a mother is getting into the SUV and they've got seven kids, she gets into the front seat and says, are we all here? Now she's asking perhaps the two oldest kids, is everybody who should be here in the car?

Is all the fact that we miss one? And she's not asking the question, are all seven billion people on planet earth in this car? Why? There's a context for the word all. When a teacher stands up at the beginning of a class and says, are we all here?

He or she is talking about the students in the class rather than all the Norwegian fishermen or the carpet layers from Calcutta in India. No, there's a context for the word all. Are we all here? Is everyone here?

We could use the word everyone in the same way and say, everyone doesn't always mean everyone. And so when we see the word all, we need to say, what are the all that is being spoken of here? When we do eisegesis, what we do is we muffle the voice of God.

And for a preacher, it's actually a criminal activity. And it's a criminal activity for everyone else. Now, the wonderful thing is God often is, well, God is so gracious that he forgives us. But we should not be willful about this and we should tread very delicately and lightly and make sure that we're doing all we can to be a workman approved to God, rightly dividing his word.

When we do eisegesis, we silence God's voice and we actually replace it with our own thoughts and opinions. And that's when it becomes scary. We, all of us, are guilty of this. It's actually James White who once said, those most blinded to their traditions are those who don't believe they have any.

Let me quote him. He said this, remember when you were in school and you had to take a test on a book you were assigned to read, you studied and invested time in learning the background of the author, the context in which he lived and wrote, his purposes in writing, his audience, and the specifics of the text.

You did not simply come to class, pop open the book, read a few sentences and say, well, I feel the author here means this. Yet for some odd reason, this attitude is prevalent in Christian circles. Whether that feeling results in an interpretation that has anything at all to do with what the original author intended to convey, it's really not considered an important aspect.

Everyone seemingly has the right to express their feelings about what they think the Bible is saying, as if those thoughts actually reflect what God inspired in his word. While we would never let anyone get away with treating our personal writings in this manner, we seem to think God is not bothered.

And what is worse, that our conclusions are somehow authoritative in their representation of his word. So exegesis actually allows God to speak with clarity, and that's what we want. To some people, it would seem to be unspiritual to invest time in studying the historical backgrounds, the context of a text or passage in scripture.

Let's just pray and ask God. Well, I believe in praying, and I believe in asking God, and I believe that God uses means, and God uses us in... God's way of revealing truth to us is by our studying. Think over what I say, Paul wrote.

Think over what I've written, and the Lord will reveal it to you. That's the verse that says that. But it seems unspiritual. It is not. It's the most spiritual exercise of all to take God at his word and say, God, let me make sure I've understood your word in its context.

And really, this is a skill honed over time. You and I can get better at this. And there's actually no greater service a minister, a preacher, a teacher can do than to study God's word, to rightly divide it, rightly interpret it.

We come as students, study to show yourself approved, and we come as workers, workers in the vineyard. Some people say, no, no, I just need to ask the Holy Spirit. He'll whisper the right interpretation in my ear.

Usually, that leads to falsehood, heresy, cults. It takes discipline to love God with our mind, as well as our strength and energy. Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, Jesus said. Loving God with our mind means filling our minds with the truth of God and adoring him, adoring his truth.

See, all that can become very highly subjective. The hard labor of study is thrown out of the window. Every impression, vision, prophecy, anything that we come up with, it needs to be subject to scripture.

We're not permitted to subject the word of God to our impressions, our feelings, one little dream we had. In fact, Isaiah chapter 8, verses 19 and 20 says, woe to those who dream and mutter, who come up with all kinds of ideas that are not supported by God.

They have no light in them, even though they claim to be bringers of light. Unless they agree with the word of God, they have no light whatsoever. It's actually the entrance of his word that gives light.

Let me read that to you. Isaiah chapter 8, verse 19. And when they, that's the false prophets, say to you, inquire of the mediums and the necromancers, those are people who contact the dead, who chirp and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God?

Question. Of course, that's the right answer. Yes, they should. Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living? Question. Obviously not. Verse 20, to the teaching. King James says, to the law and to the testimony.

If they will not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn, no light. If they don't speak according to what has been revealed, they have no light, though they be saying they are bringers of light personified.

So everything you and I believe needs to be subject to the scrutiny of the word of God. I embrace the historic creeds of the church. And yet, even though we would do that, as such as the Apostles Creed, the Chalcedonian Creed, on the person, nature of Christ, the London Baptist Confession of Faith, which I hold to, I believe it's a true documentation statement of what scripture says.

See, all the cults will say we believe the Bible. But when we ask the question, what do you believe the Bible teaches? That's when we find out we don't even believe in the same God. They don't acknowledge the Trinity, don't accept Jesus as fully divine, fully human, don't believe in the physical nature of Christ, don't believe in the resurrection of Christ.

And so you might say you believe the Bible, but what does the Bible teach? And I believe the London Baptist Confession of Faith, as I've studied and studied and studied, come to see that I believe that's a true reflection of what scripture says.

And yet, I've never, I don't believe I know of anyone who says that is as equal in authority as scripture itself. One of the cries of the Reformation was semper reformanda, always reforming. We're a reformed church and we're always reforming.

We're always wanting to hold up our doctrine to the light of scripture that we might be informed by. But there are certain things that we're sure of. We're sure that God is a Trinity. Why? Because scripture teaches that.

Not because the church teaches that, but because scripture itself has revealed that. There is one God, three in personality, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There is the truth that scripture itself is the very verbum deum, the Word of God.

That's something we hold dear. If we don't do this, if we don't exercise discipline in this area, we're actually, to quote a song by Steve Camp, playing marbles with diamonds. These are precious things that God has given to us.

We have no right to just treat this like a game. Handling the Word of God is a precious duty and delight, not a trivial passion or a trivial pursuit. I believe the most important question to ask regarding finding a local church is to ask not how big's the youth group, what kind of music do they have, what kind of programs do they have.

Question number one is, how do they handle the Word of God? At King's Church, we haven't got many bells and whistles. We tried to set up a program to afford a bell and get a whistle, but the price went up, so we never got one.

The only thing that might set us apart from other churches, and thankfully God is raising up many churches who have the same desire and the same approach. What we've got going for us is, I believe, we understand the value of Scripture.

We want to teach and preach what the Scripture says and apply it to people's lives. We want the message of the text to be the message of the sermon, and that's why we do what we call expository preaching.

We want to expose God's people to what the Word of God says and let the chips fall where they may. Christ's sheep will never be offended by Christ's voice. If God is going to bring growth to a church, then let him do it by the supernatural operation of giving to people new hearts who love his truth.

Here's what I know. Christ's sheep love Christ's voice. They want to hear him. They're not interested in your opinions or mine. They want to hear what Jesus says, what the Word of God says. Opinions, one man said, are like noses.

Everyone's got one, and there's usually a couple of holes in it. I want to hear what the Word of God says. I want to know what it says with clarity, and so it is for those who have a heart for truth. It was because God put in me that desire for truth that I persisted in my studies when I realized I was being rubbed the wrong way.

I didn't like analyzing my tradition. It wasn't a nice process. It was actually a painful process, but I'm so glad that God delivered me from deception. I've spoken here on The Divining Line before about being a pastor in the Word of Faith movement.

Now I just am aghast, and I've spoken to fellow friends and pastors who are still in it, and they just can't see it. They can't see what I'm seeing now, and they actually feel sorry for me, and I'm just so grateful to God that God delivered me from deception.

But here's how he did it, through the means of studying, through the means of getting the text and looking at the text and analyzing the text, and people say, but that's not spiritual to be delivered from deception.

You've got to go on a mountain somewhere, and God has got to appear to you. There is nothing more spiritual than finding God in the text of Scripture. That's where you'll find him. That's where you'll find him.

All Scripture is God-breathed. Now I'm in a teaching session here, but if I was preaching, I'd stand and wave my arms around and get excited over this. There was a little guy, maybe 10 years old, really impressed by a visiting speaker, and while the sermon was over, the speaker was shaking hands at the exit door.

This little guy went up to the pulpit because the notes were still there, and he looked, and he's just so excited to see what the preacher's notes were, and under point four it says, argument weak here, shout loudly and wave your hands.

I don't know how true that is, but sometimes we think the guy's so anointed because look at the passion he has, but we can be very passionately and sincerely wrong. We can. So here are some rules. I'm not saying they are all the rules, but they are certain rules that will help us in our study of Scripture.