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 these 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 really not really studied much of what he'd said.

I'd seen his videos on the holiness of God. I'd seen 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.

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.

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 chapter 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

Bible, 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, verse 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 in 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, 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 her 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 a scissors. I couldn't believe my eyes.

She got a 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 riding 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 2nd

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 language 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 who 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? That means they had a 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.

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 she 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, did we miss one?

And she's not asking the question, are all 7 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 is 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. Why 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.

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 said, 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.

Let me just go to one other scripture. I mentioned Isaiah 8, but Nehemiah has a verse.

There's a verse in Nehemiah chapter 8. Genesis, Exodus, Nehemiah, Ezekiel, Daniel.

That's too far. Ezra, Nehemiah, Exodus, chapter 8.

Look what they did as the word of God was read. What was the purpose in it all?

Nehemiah chapter 8 and verse 9 says,

And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites, who taught the people, said to all the people,

This day is holy to the your God. Do not mourn or weep, for all the people wept as they heard the words of the law.

Then he said to them, Go your way, eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to anyone. So it goes on.

Then verse 12, And all the people went their way to eat and drink and to send portions to make great rejoicing, because they'd understood the words that were declared to them.

Why? Back to verse 8. They read from the book, from the law of God clearly, and they gave the sense or the meaning so that the people understood the reading.

That's where we start. Oftentimes we want to see reaction. We want to see application.

We want to see people grow in their faith, and we certainly want that. But it starts with getting the true meaning, getting the sense, so the people understand the reading.

And that's the job of the preacher. That's the job of the teacher. But it's also the job of every one of us when we come to the scripture to find out what it actually says and means.

All right. Rule number one. That's the introduction. Number one, consider the author.

Who wrote the book? What was his background? What was the language he was using?

What was the culture? What was his vocation? What was his job? What were his concerns?

What was his education? His circumstance? What stage in life?

For instance, you and I could read the book of Ecclesiastes, and not knowing anything of the background, take certain verses in there and have a very pessimistic view of life.

We would say, well, everything's vanity. Nothing means anything. And if you believe that, you might come to the conclusion, well,

I'll just sit on my chair and do nothing because nothing means anything anyway. Anything I do is just useless and vain.

But understanding that Solomon was writing this as an advanced person in age and had lived in rebellion towards God for decades and was reminiscing on the fact that everything that is of an earthly nature, something that you'll find over and over in the book is the phrase under the sun, everything has just a temporal sense to it.

He was speaking out of frustration of wasted years and then realizing at the end of the book that the job of our lives is to give honor and glory to God, and he recognized that.

But if you don't know that going in, if you don't know who is writing, you might pick up a verse in Ecclesiastes that might either put you in or confirm you in some kind of depression.

Whereas the whole message and thrust of the book is to speak, even though it's inspired by God, it's intended to speak from the frustration of a man who's not lived fully before God for his life.

And it should frustrate us when we're not living for God. And Ecclesiastes is a book that one of the purposes for it to be written is to express exactly that.

Song of Solomon is a book about romantic love and it has much to say to us.

It's a wonderful, wonderful book, but you can make mistakes if you don't understand the context.

We could talk a lot about that, but I want to move on. Number two, consider the audience. Why was the book written?

Who was the audience? What would these words that we're reading have meant to the original recipients?

And all of that is speaking about historical context. To get the meaning, here's what we need to do.

We need to ask this question. What did the text mean to the people to whom it was spoken?

Not what does it mean to me now in the 21st century? We might get to that, but before we ever get to that and make application to us in the 21st century, if the text was written in the 1st century, our job is to find out what it meant in the 1st century.

Just as if 500 years from now, people want to know what I was saying or you were saying when you wrote about going to McDonald's for a happy meal.

What that means to people in the 25th, 26th century has no relevance, really.

It's what it meant at the time it was written to the people that were being written to.

Do you see the point? Our job is to do a lot of research and thankfully we've got notes and helps and I recommend you get a good study

Bible. There's some bad ones out there, but there's some good ones out there. There are some ones that have their own agenda to articulate certain extreme views, but there are some good ones.

Have some helps to get something of the background. I love the fact that today we can put in people's hands a

Bible that will tell you, this is the thrust of the book. This is why it was written. This was the author. This is about the time that it was written and we can say those with some level of certainty.

Consider the audience. Why would we do that? We do that so that we would understand the message in its context historically.

Third, we're going quickly, the meaning of words. Oh yeah, we need to get to that. That has become a lot easier in our day with all the information and the technology at our disposal.

I'm sure some of the greats in church history would marvel at what is available to us. I have a large physical library, perhaps for 5 ,000 books.

One of my children, actually, a day off school decided to count them and was amazed there were 5 ,000 books.

You can get 5 ,000 books on a computer without the physical books being in your hands in terms of the

Logos and the Bible Works programs and others that are out there that are just so, so useful helping us in our study.

Meaning of words. Don't you think that's important? Rather than assume the meaning, actually seeking out the meaning.

Here's what I want to say. I get frustrated and perturbed when

I see certain people say that the Greek means something that's outlandish and removed from what our

English translations say. I'm always suspicious of that. When you've got translation committees and you find out that the purpose of these guys getting together was to put something on paper that was a translation from the original

Hebrew and the Greek, whereby we, as a committee, uphold the truth of God.

We believe the Bible is God's Word and that was their heart. They have studied Greek for decades.

They're experts in that. Then some guy somewhere from Podunk, Oklahoma says the

Greek means this. I'm always suspicious when it's so removed from what our

English translations teaches. I would say that there's no one inspired

English translation. It's actually very difficult to come up with some of the words in the

Bible that would accurately resemble the text. That's why it's good to read multiple translations.

I predominantly use the English Standard Version. I love the New American Standard Version. I sometimes use the

NIV in my studies, even though it's more of a thought -for -thought translation rather than a word -for -word translation.

But here's the thing with that. Sometimes it's actually helpful. For instance, in German. I studied German at high school, forgot most of it, but I remember that what we would say in terms of our

English, the word glove, the German word is handschuhe.

The idea is just as you would have shoes for your feet, what you put on your hand is shoes for your hands, so handschuhe.

Now, if you're writing about, let's say the word glove was in the Bible and you're translating from German rather than Hebrew or Greek, let's just say you're just making a

German translation. It doesn't have to be the Greek. But let's say you've got the

German word handschuhe. How do you translate that? Well, word -for -word, you'd actually say shoes for the hand.

You'd say, Mom says, Johnny, go get your shoes for the hand.

If that's the sentence you've got in German. Or you could say,

Johnny, go get your gloves. One would be thought -for -thought, the word gloves, because that's the normal word we use.

You see, using a thought -for -thought translation isn't always evil.

It can actually be helpful. But I still would love to know what the original word says, and that's why it's good for us to read multiple translations.

So beware of outlandish interpretations that make the English translation in our Bible seem foolish.

There's a basic reliability factor involved when teams of scholars, especially

Bible -believing scholars with no axe to grind, have worked in a translation and have put it out into the public arena.

I would say this too. Avoid one verse or one glance theology.

I picked up that phrase from a gentleman called Don Kistler. One verse. Oh, yeah, I base my thinking on that verse.

Well, make sure you've understood the verse in its context, and make sure you've not just taken a little slight one -time glance at the passage.

No, build your theology on what you can prove Scripture says over and over and over again.

The three rules of real estate, as we learned that in business, is location, location, location.

When it comes to the science of biblical interpretation, a technical name for that is hermeneutics.

Sounds like a German soccer player, doesn't it? Hermeneutics. Hermeneutics is simply the science of allowing the rules, these kind of rules that I'm talking about, to help us in our interpretation so that we do exegesis rather than eisegesis.

We draw out of the text what's there. One of the things that has been really helpful to me this year is something that came out called the

English Standard Version Reader's Bible. And why I like it is that it looks and feels and reads like a book.

You see, the Bible is God's book. And why I like this is they've taken all the verse numbers out.

They felt they had to put chapter divisions in there, and I kind of feel kind of okay about that.

I kind of wonder what it would look like without that. But let me just say this, that chapter and verse divisions are the greatest blessing possible for the church, but it's also the greatest curse.

It's a blessing because when you're standing up to read a scripture, you can say, let's turn in our

Bibles to Isaiah 53. And you can do so, and just in a few seconds, people can find that place very quickly because of chapters and verse divisions.

But remember, those are not inspired. They were actually added many, many centuries later after the original writings.

The original documents would have no knowledge of chapter and verse divisions.

But just think how it would be otherwise if we said to turn to the passage that says he was wounded for our transgressions.

Try and find that in the book of Isaiah without chapter and verse divisions. You'd have to know the book very, very, very well.

So I appreciate the fact that chapter and verse divisions are there, but it's a hindrance.

And when I started reading this reader's Bible, why I love it so much is you're just reading, and then you continue reading, and then you come across verses, and you think, oh,

I didn't know that it was in that context that that verse actually appears. Because subconsciously,

I realized without me knowing it, I was affected by those verse divisions.

I read verse 5, then I read verse 6, then I read verse 7, then I read verse 8. But when I just read it like a book, those things are out of the way.

So in context, that verse has to mean this because the context screams that.

So I'd encourage you, if you don't have one of these, pick up one of these. I believe wtsbooks .com

have these available at a very good price. But the ESV reader's Bible, it's a very, very good thing to have just to read.

And I'm teaching now through the book of Acts on Sundays at King's Church. And again, just love getting into reading through the passage and then reading on and then seeing what the context was.

And over and over, the refreshing appeal of just the broad view of it is very, very helpful.

Context helps us in our interpretation. Number five, grammar.

How things are expressed. In English, an imperative is a command.

Stop. That's an imperative. A subjunctive would be, would you like to do this?

And that's quite a different meaning. You might have seen a little cartoon.

I saw it on the Internet once, where the phrase is, let's eat, grandma.

And you can notice if you're writing that out, it would be let's eat, comma, grandma.

And that's an invitation to lunch or dinner or supper. But if we just say, let's eat, grandma.

That's actually cannibalism. And there's a big difference. So grammar is very important.

We could talk much about grammar, but I think you see the point, getting the words in the right order and the right sense.

We'll talk more about that when we come to syntax. So, important. Number six, textual issues.

I'm here on the dividing line and Dr. James White is an expert,

I would say, on the issue of textual variants. There are others, but certainly Dr.

White has led the way in this area for many, many years. There's certain questions about the earliest or the most authoritative manuscripts in comparison with those of a later date or a less authoritative manuscript.

And when you come to certain texts, you'll see perhaps in your margin that the

Bible itself has made reference to those things. How does that influence our understanding of what was originally written?

There's a verse in the King James Version, in Romans 8, verse one, where there's something that has been added.

And that continues on in New King James Version of the Bible, because they are basing their translation on the same

Greek text, the Textus Receptus. And yet, the most authoritative

Greek manuscripts don't have that little phrase. In fact, we could look at that in Romans 8, verse one, where it says, there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.

And many of our modern day translations, NIV, ESV, NASB, many others, would just stop right there because the most authoritative

Greek text stopped there. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

But a certain phrase is added, who walk not after the flesh, but after the

Spirit, at the end of verse one in the King James. That can be a problem, and a big problem, if you then think that the teaching were justified by faith, and we're under no condemnation, as long as we keep our performance up to a certain level.

That would negate everything that Paul had been expressing. Where that phrase should be is where it is in verse four, where it, again, that phrase is.

And what has happened in history is that some scribe who was overly zealous saw it in verse four, and probably also put it in verse one, thinking it needed to go there, or something like that happened.

It was a mistake, but it has affected the translation of the King James version. We'll stop right there.

It's important we understand that textual issues, although it was simply a matter for scholars to deal with, because we've got such good

Bibles available to us in our day, oftentimes those threats to false interpretation are eliminated because of the notes that we now have in our

Bible, in actually the text, or in the study notes underneath the text. So I just encourage you, next time we're going to look at more of these rules, and it gets really exciting because the true interpretation of Scripture emerges as we do so.

We're going to build one thing upon another. My name is Pastor John Sampson. It's a delight to come to you on the

Dividing Line. Keep praying for Dr. White out in Europe, and keep abreast of the blog and all that's happening over there.