Application of Scripture

Interpretation Shaped by Theological Systems

Welcome back and good evening. We are in session six of our Fundamentals of Bible study class and I want to thank you guys For continuing to stick with us through this course. I hope it's been as enjoyable for you as it has been for me.

It's interesting because every time I teach this class and this is the first time I've ever taught this textbook. But it's not the first time I've ever taught this class. And and so Every time I get a chance to teach how to study it amplifies my own study Even more so I thank you for giving me the opportunity to make me a better student because that's what this does now your Homework for the Last week and what you were supposed to have done prior to tonight's lecture was you were supposed to read pages 289 To 298 in living by the book and you were supposed to read over exercise 58 in the workbook.

There really wasn't any work that you had to do. It was simply reading the information. So We don't have a follow-up as we've had in weeks past where you're going to respond tonight. However, what you read in the workbook is going to apply a lot to next week.

When we finally get into those nine things that that that's what exercise 58 was right? It was the nine nine questions for application and that's really what we're going to do next week tonight. We're going to be Asking we're going to be talking about why application is so critical and we're going to be talking about what people substitute for Application because a lot of times people don't apply the Bible they do other things other than applying the Bible and That's what we're going to talk about and if you read pages 289 to 298 then you're already ahead.

You've read ahead and you know what we're going to be talking about however before we get into that my introduction tonight, I want to give a final thought on the subject of Interpretation. What are the three?

Things that we have been doing our three steps Observation Interpretation and then tonight is we begin two weeks on the subject of application. But before we get there, I want to make a note about interpretation.

Because as I was thinking about it That's the thing that most people focus on most people don't think much about observation. Most people don't think much about application. It's all it's all interpretation interpretation interpretation.

What does it mean? What does it mean? What does it mean? And that got me thinking about a few things that I wanted to mention and The first thing is this. One of the things that can affect our Interpretation without us even realizing it is a prior commitment to a theological system.

We see this for instance in schools of thought like dispensationalism. How many of you know what dispensationalism is? Two of you that's great three, okay. Dispensationalism is a what we would call a hermeneutic it is a way of reading the scripture and it relies on certain understandings of the relationship between Israel and the church and if you have a Dispensational background such as John MacArthur is a dispensationalist.

Then you will notice that oftentimes his interpretation is Influenced by his dispensationalism. I Never realized how much until I started really listening to his sermons, especially his sermons from the 70s and 80s.

I don't know if you know this but all of his sermons are available for free on Gty .org. He's a tremendous exegete. I'm not saying this in any way to be negative. He's a tremendous intellect tremendous exegete.

He is a man of God and I and I commend the listening to his sermons to you. Listen to him. He's wonderful however, having said all that you will note he has a affinity for seeing Israel and Israel's purposes and in every passage and he has a he makes a strong distinction between Israel and the church and that is the dispensational view is that God has a separate plan for Israel and The church and so you will hear that very clearly in his teachings.

The opposite view of that is what is known as covenant theology. That again is a hermeneutic. It is a way to look at the whole of Scripture. Covenant theology says that Israel and the church Make up one people of God.

Israel was the church of the Old Testament and the church is the Israel of God now and so There is not a distinction to be made between Israel and the church and this is why in classic covenant theology you will see babies be baptized.

Because they will argue that the sign of the covenant which was given to male children in the old covenant Which was circumcision that sign is now been transferred to the new covenant and the new covenant sign is baptism and Because children of the covenant received the sign in the old covenant children of the covenant should receive the sign in the new covenant therefore children should be baptized and that's a Understanding of covenant theology and if you want someone who was a classic covenant theologian to listen to that would be dr RC Sproul he was a Presbyterian and so there you have two men of God who shared the same chancel who both shared the same pulpit on many occasion.

Both having preached at one another's churches wonderful men, but they both had entirely different hermeneutics when it came to the Overall view of God's relationship to his people. Does God have two people.

Does God have one people? You see There is a third. This would be where I would fall more into and that is called New Covenant theology. That would be more where I am and New Covenant theology sort of breaks the the the Balance between the two.

I do believe that the New Testament Church is the fulfillment of the purpose of Old Testament Israel. And and so that that sort of tells you there however I would see certain things about covenant theology.

I see the New Covenant as a legitimately new covenant whereas a covenant theologian simply sees the New Covenant as a new administration of the Old Covenant and That's why I would say you don't baptize babies.

Because I believe the covenant that is the New Covenant is a distinct covenant with its own. With its own set of laws and rules. We are not under the law of Moses we are under the law of Christ and so that is an entirely different way of understanding the Overall view of Scripture.

Now, I'm not trying to confuse you. And I'm certainly not trying to start arguments but where you are on this is probably dependent on what churches you came from if You grew up in a southern Baptist context.

You have probably been taught dispensational Theology and you didn't know it if you were brought up in a Presbyterian context. You have probably been brought up in a covenant theology System and you didn't know it unless of course it was taught to you as that language and some people do but that will provide a Lens Through which you will make some interpretations and some applications.

So you say well Keith, why are you bringing this up tonight? Well Overall the reason why I'm telling you this is because we should try to not allow our systems To make us read into the text things that aren't there.

That's what I'm afraid of if you are so committed to a system. That the system causes you to misread the text. Because you're more and you're more concerned about being faithful to the system than you are being faithful to the text.

For instance, I am what you would refer to as a Calvinist. I'm not afraid to use that language. Some people don't like that language and that's fine. I think it you know I don't call it a big animal with a long face and big black eyes and ears.

I say it's a horse because it's got a name and so I have a name and It's easy enough, right? I'm not saying it to be ugly. It's just a name. Likewise, there are those who would identify themselves as Arminian and they this is based on the history of Two schools of theological thought.

Calvin was the teacher and if you took our history class, you know who John Calvin is. Arminius was the student of Theodore Beza who was the was a student of John Calvin and Took over essentially when Calvin died and one of his students Arminius Jacobus Arminius became the one who who led a Remonstrant or what was known as a protest couldn't call him Protestant because that was already taken so he led the remonstrant which essentially means a protest against the teachings of Calvin and There became a divide between the those who saw free will that would be the Arminians and those who saw The determined will or the the sovereign will of God as the determiner of all things.

That would be the Calvinists now the Calvinists won the day because They were more in power. There was a Synod that was called the Synod of Dorchak sometimes called the Synod of Dort and that Synod was the place where Arminianism was condemned as heresy and Calvinism ruled the day and so.

Does that make it right? No because there's a lot of councils that messed up. So I can't say because we won the day that we were right. But based on my understanding of the scripture, I would come at the Bible from a Calvinistic perspective.

I'm not afraid to say it. But here's what I am going to say this there are times where the text Challenges me and it'll knock me right out of my tulip bulb. If you're a Calvinist, you know what that means as the tulip is the five-point acronym for Calvinism.

And so I don't mind getting knocked out of my tulip bulb if the Bible is challenging me. I do not want to interpret the Bible according to my system. I want my system to be subservient to the scripture.

That makes sense. So whether you are dispensation lists or covenant theology or new covenant theology, whether you're Calvinist or whether you're Arminian. Whether you're a Baptist or a Methodist, by the way, it's all just names for systems.

Methodism is based on a method of holiness. That's where the word Methodism comes from. Baptist is because of their view of baptizing believers only all right, all of these have names that have meanings and they have histories and they're all systematic and Systematic theology is good.

But you got to start with the text. What does the text say for instance? I I could spend all night on this and I don't want to but let me just ask you if I'm not gonna ask for. A show of hands. I don't want a theological debate to break out in this very small room.

But in your heart of hearts answer this question, can a person lose salvation. Now again, I'm not asking you to answer. What I'm asking you is will your answer to that question. Influence how you interpret certain texts.

Absolutely and by itself that's a system isn't it? Even if that's all you have. What I call OSAS. Once saved always saved. Right if that's all you had was OSAS. Then when you get to Hebrews 6 You're gonna have to Hebrews 6 and you're going to interpret Hebrews 6 in light of your system.

Right when you get to Hebrews 10. You're gonna have to deal with that when you deal with some of what Jesus talked about and the Gospels you have to deal with that. So we. Try to approach the scripture and the Latin phrase was tabula rasa means a blank slate.

Try not to bring in your pre Conceived beliefs. Let the scripture speak. Now if you know the scripture says something else elsewhere, what do we do what we talked about last week? We compare scripture with scripture and yes, we have to do that.

But don't compare scripture with system. Compare scripture with scripture. Right. Let your system be subservient to the Word of God and you'll be better off for it. Sound good. I just wanted I thought that was important to say.

Especially in regard to interpretation. Well, let's move on now to tonight and our application. Why is application so critical? Why is application so critical? Well I'll say a few things for my notes.

Even if you know exactly what the Bible says and You are confident that you understand what it means. It is of no value if it does not produce change in your life. Dr. Hendricks said this in his book.

Application is the most neglected yet the most needed stage in the process. Too much Bible study begins and ends in the wrong place. It begins with interpretation and ends with interpretation. We just want to know what it means.

We don't want to apply what it means to ourselves. He goes on to say this the Bible wasn't written to satisfy your curiosity. It was written to transform your life. Just think we could stop right there.

Just meditate on that for an hour. The Bible was not written to satisfy your curiosity. It was written to change your life. That's a powerful thought. How many people just I just want to know what it means.

There's a great video. I wish I would have had it cued up tonight. I would have showed it to you and it's um, I Think it was. Maybe it was Francis Chan. I don't know but it was it was it was a little girl.

It was it was based on an illustration that Francis Chan gave is a little girl sitting on her couch and the father comes in. And he says so honey. Did you did you clean your room today? You know, I told you you're supposed to clean your room today.

And she said well dad, you know, we I Studied what it means to be clean. And I looked up the Hebrew root of the word for cleaning and did you know in Spanish? And she said it in Spanish and he's looking really confused and he said yeah, but did you clean your room?

And she said you know what else I did. I had a study group come over and me and three other girls sat around the table and we looked up the meaning in the History of cleaning and we went through all and he said yeah, but did you clean and let me get what else we did?

We went and surveyed the room and talked about what would be the best way to but did you clean up? It's A great video you can find it on YouTube just you know, look up the I Don't know how you'd find a daughter not cleaning a room or whatever, but I've seen it several times and it really is true to life.

You can tell me all the Greek in Hebrew. You can tell me the history of the text survey of the geography. But if it doesn't change us. If there's no application no real application and not not just application for other people.

I Always love that when I get done with a sermon and somebody walks up to me and gives me a hug and whispers in my ear. I really wish my husband would have been here to hear that. Oh, I really wish my brother Would have been here to hear that, you know, that's the that's applying it to someone else and we're pretty good at that but Have we applied it to ourselves?

Without application the Bible may penetrate the mind. But it will not make its way to the heart. When I preach I become Pretty repetitive in some of my prayers. I try to beat the repetition sometimes but I always pray a certain number of things when I'm praying to preach one I pray that God would keep me from error and What I've started to lend to praying is that God would take the word past the year.

Into the brain and down to the heart. Because so much of it does stop in the brain and we don't apply it to our hearts. Now a Thought that I want to add and if you want to make a note of this, this is helpful.

Application is a work of the Holy Spirit of God. Application is a work of the Holy Spirit of God. Several times in our study. We have talked about 1st Corinthians 2 14. I mentioned this at the first night we did this class.

1st Corinthians 2 14 says this the natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God. For they are foolishness to him and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

And remember what I said in the first class. I said this text doesn't mean that an unbeliever can't Understand anything about the Bible. The unbeliever can understand a lot about the by he can understand language.

There are scholars of Greek and Hebrew that are unbelievers and they know more about the language than I ever will. There are Archaeologists and scientists who know much more about the history of Rome and Jerusalem than I'll ever know so they can have some understanding that I don't have but what this text primarily means is That you cannot Provide true application to your life Without the Holy Spirit Living in you.

It's part of the reason why we ask for people before they come to this class to give a confession of faith. You know, we have a Application process we say please write here how you came to know Christ.

We want to you know, we can't. I can't confirm you're a believer, but I can at least ask. You know and and and and I can't you know. It's not it's like it's not like I can go by and lift up your shirt.

There's an e tattooed on your back for elect. I don't know but yeah, but I I can take your word and your confession if somebody said I'm not a believer. I would say well this class probably isn't for you.

I'm not saying you couldn't come in and sit in but this class is is for believers. This is what this is for and and and and primarily because this is about discerning the Word of God and Those things are spiritually discerned.

They're spiritually understood. They're spiritually applied. For a person to truly apply the scripture he must have the Holy Spirit now. I want to add another thought to that. I Mentioned dr. John MacArthur.

Dr. John MacArthur is a tremendous preacher. And he has said something that I am not certain I agree with. But I want to tell you and you can have fun agreeing or disagreeing with dr. MacArthur if you would like in Referring to teaching how to preach and he teaches wonderful classes on how to preach.

He says that it is not his job to apply the text. He said it is his job to explain the text and to exhort with the text. But ultimately the Holy Spirit will apply the text and his point is simply this he's saying that If I make an application, let's say on something that affects you it may not affect you.

But if I simply exhort the text the spirit will apply how he wills. I think it's an interesting thought. I've never fallen and quite in lockstep with dr. MacArthur. I still try to make certain applications when I preach but his point though is the reason why I'm bringing this up is because his point.

Is this the Holy Spirit will apply the text? To your need and he can't see your need. He can't see the situation you're in so he doesn't try to play Detective and try to figure out where everyone is and so he just simply doesn't seek to be an applier when he preaches and.

So where I would say preaching is read the text explain the text apply the text you for me. Say that's what preaching is read explain apply. He would say preaching is read explain and exhort and let the spirit apply so it's an interesting thought as To how preaching should be done doesn't really affect this.

Yes, ma 'am Exhort would be if there's command. I'll express the command here you know if there's a if there's some if I think it honestly it might just be his. Being semantical a little because there is a certain sense in which exhortation is a practical application but exhorting would I think pretty much allowing the the way he's explaining is allowing the the the Commands to be commands and make the command, you know.

If the if the if the text is calling us to repentance that he would call them to repentance. If the text is you know is calling you to live a certain way he would say live this way. But he would not seek.

I think the point is this a lot of times they'll say well now if you're having money problems. Here's how you'd apply it. I think that's the way he's saying he wouldn't do that. He wouldn't try to Impose an application Simply to make it work because he would say the spirits going to do that.

I'm just going to say what it commands and what it says let the spirit if it's a money thing or if it's a if it's A whatever let the spirit be the one who does that. Yes, ma 'am. Thank you. It's a good question.

Thank you so I just thought that was interesting to share with you because when you apply the text You're liable to apply it differently than I will in fact, that's what makes application and interpretation different.

Because there is only one right interpretation remember we talked about there's only one right understanding. By the way, take a step back for a second. I want to say something about that. When I say there's only one right understanding I Might be wrong.

I'm not not about that. But what I mean is I may have an understanding of the text that's wrong and If you and I have different understandings one of us is wrong. We might both be wrong. But here's here's what's important about that we talked about there only being one right understanding of the text there can be 50 Applications of that one understanding it could be it could hit each one of us differently where we are in our walk.

You know, all of us are walking up the mountain. We're all following Christ. Some of us are a little further along some of us have been Christians longer. Some of us have studied a little more some of us lived it a little harder and we're all at different places.

And so, you know how we apply the text like say there's 30 of us in here is gonna be 30. Potentially 30 ways to apply the text. Last week and this is not a this is not a negative. But I want to throw this just to mention it last week when I asked how you understood the interpretation.

And we went around a lot of it was application. You had a kind of jumped ahead not that it's necessarily bad. But but it was because it was and this is how I see it and this is how it affects me. That's that's stepping into the realm of application and like I said, it wasn't bad.

It was just where we were, you know, you you understood it. Now, how does how does this affect me? And So that's what application is. I'll give you an example from my sermon last Sunday. Last Sunday, I preached Daniel chapter 12 and verse 2 and Daniel 12 and verse 2 says this and many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt.

That's the passage that I preached on Sunday. I'm preaching a series on heaven and hell called our final destination. I just realized that's a movie. Probably shouldn't entitled it. I Didn't mean for it to be it just like I didn't I wasn't it's not summer at the movies here at Sovereign Grace I promise but but but it but it was just entitled the our final destination and and I and I was looking at that text because it's in the book of Daniel and that means it's in the Old Testament and I was trying to show that the idea of life after death.

Eternal rewards and punishments are not just New Testament concepts. But that they are Old Testament concepts as well. Now there is there is some argument over how to interpret Daniel 12. And I talked about that in my sermon because there's a question as to whether or not this is referring to the final Resurrection or if this is referring to something that happened in the first century, you know.

When Jesus died on the cross that a resurrection occurred. It says that the the tombs were open and many were came out of the tombs and so some people interpret Daniel 12 to be referring to that particular resurrection not the final resurrection and I made the point that there's two ways to understand it.

Only one of them is right. All right, there's all and I said, I'm I believe it's the last I said, but if you happen to believe the other. Here's the point I can still make the application. Because here's the application I drew from the text and it's very simple.

Death is not the end and there's only two destinations. Death is not the end and there's only two destinations. There is the destination of life and the destination of shame and everlasting content. That's what Daniel shows us and then I took them into the New Testament and I compared what Jesus talks about in his parables.

You know the dragnet when they dragged the net in and they took the good fish and put them in the pail and they took the bad trash and they threw it away and I looked at the parable of the wheat and the weeds and how the there was all Gathered in and the wheat was placed into the barn and the weeds is placed into the into the fire.

And I said and here's the picture of the application. The application is there's only two destinations not a third. There is no purgatory. There is no Reincarnation there's only heaven and hell. Where are you going?

I mean that was really that's the application right? That's the that's the final exhortation. You are going to go somewhere 125 years from now. We're all going to be dead. Where are you going to be? See how you apply the text you bring it home.

Where does this affect me and that's just a simple application from the text there. There are others that you could draw. What does it mean to be raised to shame? Did you know shame didn't exist before sin and shame was the first thing that was experienced after sin?

Says when Adam and Eve sinned the first thing they did was cover themselves because they felt shame. You could spend an hour talking about the idea of shame and how Christ covers our nakedness. See the application there.

See you could take that text and you could apply it in several different ways, but I again for the sermon I only needed one because that was the point I was drawing to and that was the exhortation I wanted to make.

Do you know what your destination is? Right. But you see how there could be many. There could be many applications. And again, not every text is that straightforward? But I will say this in most of what you study.

You're going to come to what I call.

The therefore I should moment, I'm gonna write that down as you're studying.

You come to the place where you realize as a result of what I understand therefore I should. Or therefore we should. Therefore the church should. Yes, sir. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, and that's exactly it. So what now are you just gonna place it in your mind and say well now I know.

But it didn't affect me. You know what? In the in the grand scheme of things if we don't apply it we really don't know it we may have a a Intellectual knowledge, but we haven't really haven't really learned it if we haven't applied it.

Therefore I should therefore I should you know, just like going back to Daniel chapter 12 to death is not the end resurrection is reality. Therefore I should live with an eye to eternity. There are only two destinations mentioned.

Therefore I should Figure out where I'm going. There's a positive and a negative expectation. Therefore. I should seek to find out what makes the difference. Why would somebody go to heaven and why would somebody else go to hell.

Therefore I should. Again, it's not always that easy. Not every text lends itself to to such a straightforward application. For instance Jesus went into the temple and he overturned tables Because of the money changers that were there in the temple and he took a whip that he fashioned out of cords and he Chased them out of the temple and some people would say therefore I should Go into a church and fashion a whip and go running those fake Christians out of the church.

There are. I don't tell a funny story. I don't know if I've ever told brother mark this but this is this will be interesting. The first guys from set free to ever visit here was Duncan and a couple of guys.

Was his name. It was Duncan and there was a Ben and yeah and at the same time. At the same time there was a group that was that was going around to churches that was Interrupting worship services and Calling the churches to they were saying they were calling churches to repentance.

But what they were doing was they were interrupting worship services. And they were really just being obnoxious and they were yelling at the pastor and yelling at the people. During the worship services and again when I saw Duncan and two guys I'd never met before in the back of the shirt said, you know, Jesus Christ for hell, which is pretty Pretty serious, you know statement.

I said well, I Honest I didn't know so I said I wonder if these guys are part of that movement and Thankfully wasn't and we've got a good relationship after that and I even told him that day I said I wondered if you guys were from that that group because they go into churches and they just stop worship and start yelling.

And they've had to be removed by force. They stand outside with signs and again, they would say well Jesus went in and whip people and Such so so should I therefore? Therefore I should and That's the attitude now having said that let me let me add a wrinkle.

I do think that there may be a time to over there turn the table Within the church. But but I'm not Jesus. So I have to be careful how I would apply that particular thing. And so what do we learn from that text though.

What do we learn from that text? What's the what's the what's the thing that we should really learn from that text? I know you're all thinking something probably different. It actually tells us. Says the zeal for my father's house was upon me.

That he was zealous for the house of God. Therefore I should be zealous for the house of God. I Should be zealous for the holiness of God. You know how that looks. Might be different but therefore I should.

So so that's a my just say there's a moment in your study where when you've understood the text say now What like you said, why does it matter? Therefore I should what? It's not always easy. It's not always straightforward and Sometimes it's easy to mess it up like for instance David Goliath is a story that's often applied personally with great vigor.

David stood up to his giant. Therefore. I should stand up to my boss and tell him I want to raise, you know, whatever. You know, that's always the it's always about me rather than seeing David as a picture of Christ Who stands between us and sin and slays?

Our greatest enemy. See oftentimes. We're not the hero. Christ is the hero and. So that's another way to see it and another way to apply it, isn't it? So again looking at the text, how are we applying this?

Where is the moment when we say therefore I should. All right. Let's look now at five Substitutions for application. There are five things that people do to substitute application. And this is all in your book.

But I'm gonna add my two cents as I often do if you've read ahead. You should have read these and you don't have to write if you don't want to because they're in your book. Just make note of the make note of them.

What page is this on as they may have their book open? 291 thank you five substitutions for application. The first one we substitute interpretation for application. He tells the story of Kenny or Kitty Genevieve.

I don't know if how many of you read that in the book. This was a woman who was beaten raped and killed. With over 30 people who could hear her screams. For help no one called the police except one person.

And it was after the situation had ended and they could not come to her rescue and she died. This is what happens when knowledge does not translate into responsibility. I'll carry that illustration a little further years ago I I was certified with the National Rifle Association to teach handgun classes as I like to shoot and I wanted to become an instructor and I had to take a first aid course as well as a Range safety course to be a range safety officer.

So I did. During the range safety officer course we talked about what would happen if somebody was injured on the range. What's the first thing that you do when somebody's injured on the range? You point to someone and say call 9 -1 -1.

It's your job. Because if all you do is say call 9 -1 -1. Everybody's gonna assume everybody else is calling 9 -1 -1. You call 9 -1 -1 then you go to work. But you assign someone. Because if you don't it just becomes if somebody else is gonna do it, right somebody else will apply this not me.

All right, same idea with the Kitty Genevieve Situation somebody must be calling the police. So I'm not gonna do it. Somebody must apply somebody must have a way to apply this text. It's not gonna be me.

And I can apply this to other people, but I'm not gonna apply it to myself. I know what it means. But I don't want the responsibility for what it means. Consider the failure of Matthew 7 22. What does Matthew 7 22 say?

Did we not say Lord Lord and he said depart from me. I Never knew you you workers of lawlessness. But we did all these things. Did you? They knew the Lord. But they didn't know the Lord. They knew him by name.

But they did not know him in their hearts and more specifically. He didn't know them. Knowledge without obedience is sin. Knowledge without we want a verse for that James 4 17 Knowledge without obedience to sin somebody got their Bibles open.

Let's read that Jan James for sir. Thank you, yeah. Yeah, he who knows what is right and does not do it it is sin. All right, so we substitute interpretation for application. I know what it means. Therefore I Have applied it.

No just because you know what it means doesn't mean you've applied it. Second thing we substitute superficial obedience for substantive life change. This is a person who applies the truth in an area where he's already applying it.