Wrong Methods of Interpretation

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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June 14, 2018

00:01: 2 Timothy 3 and 16 is a passage which we have looked at previously, but tonight specifically we're going to be talking about one particular section of this passage which relates to the subject for the evening.
00:17: But we'll go ahead and read it together.
00:18: 2 Timothy 3, 16.
00:21: All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.
00:48: That particular passage has been used many times and pointed to many times to talk about the subject of the inspiration of the Bible.
01:00: You all are familiar with that word, inspiration, because this series we have talked about the way that we got the Bible and we said the Bible is revelation from God and it's revelation that comes to us through inspiration, meaning that God inspired it to be written.
01:17: Oftentimes when we think about inspiration we think about the authors themselves and people talk about Paul was inspired to write or Peter was inspired to write or so on.
01:27: But the reality is the Bible doesn't say Paul was inspired, it doesn't say Peter was inspired, it says what they wrote was inspired.
01:36: That's the inspired thing.
01:38: Not everything Paul ever wrote was Scripture.
01:40: Not everything Paul ever said was Scripture.
01:43: It is what he wrote that God superintended that we call the Scripture and when we talk about that word inspiration, I do think it's a word that's often used to confuse or can be confusing because when you think of inspiration today, we often think of things like when we see a beautiful sunrise or we hear a song and somebody says, well I was inspired by that or somebody gives a motivational speech and somebody says, well I was inspired by that but the word actually means God breathed and it's the King James Version that gives us the word inspired, all Scripture comes by inspiration of God but the ESV uses the more appropriate phrase, all Scripture is God breathed or breathed out by God.
02:34: Theonoustos is the Greek word and it means God breathed.
02:37: The part that I want to look at tonight is actually following that where it says that the Scripture is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training.
02:55: That fourfold use of the Bible to teach and to reprove, to correct and to train is the fourfold purpose of the Scripture but to get those four things, to be able to have those four things be a reality, it is required that we have a proper understanding of the Bible.
03:23: I have had people try to correct me with the Bible with a wrong interpretation.
03:31: I've had people try to teach the Bible with wrong interpretation.
03:36: Have you ever sat under someone who was teaching a text and they were teaching it wrong? Don't remember? I've sat in churches where it happened but I could say I remember one night many years ago, probably 10 years ago now where we were having an in-home Bible study at my house and we had invited some people over and I was talking about the prevalence of false teaching and false teachers and I said at that time we had satellite TV and satellite TV boasts like 5,000 channels like all the channels in the world.
04:19: The problem is most of the channels are selling you something most of the stuff you don't want and they have like 15 religious stations they've got the Catholic network they've got the CBN they've got all these other you know TBN and all these different these networks and I said to the group and I wasn't trying to be ugly or mean I said false teaching is so prevalent I said at any time that we would want to in our home because we have at that point I think it was eight different stations I said at any time we can turn on the television and find someone who's teaching something and they're using the Bible incorrectly and so to prove my point I simply turned on the television and turned it to the first of the eight stations the very first one we pulled up the very first thing we heard was a horrific and awful biblical teaching when I say biblical teaching it was a non-biblical teaching but a guy was proclaiming he was preaching the preacher was one of the health and wealth gurus he was arguing why he had a brand new black Maserati that he had just purchased and how no one in the church should say anything to him for what he purchased because he had just put $10,000 in the offering plate and unless somebody could match his offering they ought not say anything about his blessing and I said well that didn't take long to find absolute corruption coming from the mouth of someone who's supposed to be teaching the Bible so and my wife and I we remember that to this day because it was so obvious it didn't take a minute to have someone just throwing out flagrant false teaching and boastful false teaching and so when we talk about and our subject for the last few weeks has been interpreting the Bible we have to understand that to do what the Bible is supposed to do in our lives, to teach us to reprove us, to correct us and to train us to do those things requires a proper understanding a proper interpretation and so we've been dealing with interpretation and we've been dealing with the subject of how do we interpret the Bible.
06:58: We have said that the art rather the science and the spiritual practice, some could call it an art but the science and spiritual practice of studying the Bible is called what? Does anybody remember? Starts with an H hermeneutics and what is the goal of hermeneutics? That starts with an E this is the one you probably were going to say before exegesis, yeah, okay you got it, it wasn't quite on the tip of your tongue but you knew okay, so the art or the science and the spiritual practice of studying the Bible is hermeneutics hermeneutics simply means to understand the message and the goal of hermeneutics is proper exegesis meaning that we're taking out of the text something that is there not reading into it something that is not there and I'll be honest with you ministers are the worst because every Sunday we are expected to get up and preach a message and what we should be doing is studying so we have something to give when we get up to the pulpit we should be doing that but sometimes ministers don't and they get up to the pulpit and so they start to they start to just look for something to say or pull out something or push something in there that isn't there or even sometimes when they do study they have a hobby horse that they like to ride and I've seen a lot of reform guys and I are one so I can talk about them at least I'm a little r-reformed I'm a reformed Baptist which some people say that's not quite reformed but whatever I'm a little r-reformed, I'm enough reformed to be able to say this, I've seen a lot of guys that are so concerned about talking about predestination and election that every sermon they deal with is going to make its way back to predestination and election just like a lot of you know a lot of Baptists, the sermon is going to make its way back to baptism or something they got a hobby horse that they want to ride and so they push into the text something that isn't there and so the goal of Bible study, the goal of Bible interpretation is to pull out of the text in fact I was at a minister's meeting I go, I try to go once a month but I don't normally get to go, I usually only get to go once every couple months, but I meet with a group of pastors in town and we have a coffee together and we talk about our churches and pray for one another and Shane over at at Sovereign Grace Baptist Church across town puts it on and he does a really good job and I appreciate what he does and our last time I was there we were talking about this we were talking about how when we preach we should only preach what's in the text that we should not introduce ideas from outside or try to be creative or manipulative but that we should be very very limited to what we're doing in the text and if it's not in the text we ought not preach it and I believe that's true when we're preaching exegetically we're to preach what's in the text not force other ideas into it certainly there are places for what we call topical preaching or subject based preaching which is a little different but the subject what we were talking about is verse by verse exposition and being very very strict to not force into the text something that isn't there but to pull out from the text what is there that is the goal of study and I use this phrase sometimes it's an old latin phrase and I've actually been told I've been in an argument with a person one time who said this is wrong but I'll tell you what I think and if somebody wants to argue that it's wrong we can have this conversation later but I say when I come to a text I want to come tabula rasa tabula rasa means a clean slate it's an old latin phrase and it simply means when I come I don't want to come introducing my biases onto the text I want to come introducing like I said I'm reformed right so when I come to a text that is it might kind of rub me a little wrong on my we talk about knocking somebody out of their tulip bulb reform theology if I get one of those passages it makes me have to think a little bit about what I believe about those things I ought not force my ideas into the text but I ought to try to say what is the text actually saying and be fair and be honest with it and so that's the goal of biblical interpretation and last week we talked about how to get there how do we get to a proper interpretation of the bible and we said that the primary way the primary methodology for biblical interpretation is to be bound to context context will help us always in interpretation and since I was given this beautiful board I will write on it so we said the principles of interpretation are first contextual interpretation and then we had the other five which are clarity grammatical historical method singularity of meaning accommodation and divine illumination but I always point to this one first context is key if we abandon the context of the passage we can make it say or we can introduce anything we want to this week I always like to give you a heads up on what I'm preaching on Sunday by the way did that work last week did I get you interested in what I was going to say did you come ready to hear what I had to say we're going to do it again this week I'm preaching on first Corinthians chapter 7 where Paul talks about the subject of marriage particularly the subject of sexual interaction in marriage and the question that begins or rather the context of this whole section verses 1 through I think 16 of chapter 7 is Paul says now concerning what you wrote I say to you this now concerning what you wrote here's the fun part we don't have what they wrote we don't know if they asked a question or if they made a statement we don't know if it's interrogative or declarative we don't know what they wrote because we ain't got it we don't have a copy of what the Corinthians sent Paul but we know that everything he writes in chapter 7 is in response to what they wrote to him because he says that he says now concerning what you wrote so what does that tell us somebody honked a horn I locked the door Mike would you just walk down and make sure I didn't lock somebody out thank you so that lends itself to a very important contextual problem because before we can start even trying to determine what Paul is saying in chapter 7 we first have to try to come to a conclusion about what is he responding to and we don't know for certain so we have to make some conjecture based upon his answer we have to make some determinations based upon what he's saying they must have said this for him to respond in this way or they must be concerned about this one of the things that was a huge problem in the first century Corinthian church was the subject of marriage and divorce a lot of the Corinthians had been in multiple marriages and multiple relationships and situations that had brought them to a state where what do we do now we're now Christians and divorce divorce itself is not something that is good and yet many of us have been through that or whatever in this situation so there's a context that has to be understood when we're reading was there anyone out there brother ok I'm sorry to send you out there I appreciate it so all of that is going to play a part in how we understand 1st Corinthians chapter 7 because I'll be honest with you the first verse Paul says it's good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman and yet is that a universal declaration or is that what they were saying and Paul's responding to it because Paul goes on to say that God actually has called men and women to have an intimate relationship and that they shouldn't hold themselves from one another because the body of the man belongs to his wife and the body of the wife belongs to her husband and they have that relationship and it's not bad it's a good thing it's good if a person can be single and Paul says that not everybody is gifted to that and singleness is a gift not everyone can do it I know I couldn't I mean I wasn't built for that you know and I think not a lot of people are in the sense of being able to live a completely celibate life and Paul addresses that he says it would be great if you could all be like me and what he meant was he was celibate not everybody can do that Do you think the Roman church used that in part to establish a celibate priest? I yeah absolutely absolutely in fact I'm probably going to mention some of that in the message I haven't pulled together all my notes yet I'm still working everything out how I'm going to say it but I do think a perversion of a misunderstanding of the celibacy statement of Paul was used to put forward the idea that the papacy and the priest and everything else should be celibate I haven't done all the research on it yet so I don't want to make that statement absolutely but it seems to me like it would almost have to be there would have to be a connection there and we have seen the horrors that have back to interpretation absolutely and again I think a lot of people come to first Corinthians and they don't even try to consider the fact that a lot of what Paul is doing is responding to things that have been said and if I respond to something and you don't know what I'm responding to then you could twist my words every which way but loose sure you may sound like well if they were all like him and not having sex then none of us would be here now or something there's all kinds of ways that texts can be misinterpreted they can be misapplied they can be twisted and it almost always is done by ripping it from the context by abandoning the background of the passage well tonight we're going to look at we're going to look at the last part of this study and that is the improper methods of interpretation we've looked at the way that we should be doing it looking at the context using the grammatical historical method understanding clarity of meaning understanding all those things but tonight we're going to look at the improper methods of interpretation and I have four that I have listed there are certainly more than four but there are definitely not less than four and we've sort of touched on these over the last several weeks but we haven't addressed them directly so tonight we're going to address directly the four what we would call improper methods of interpretation the first one is the allegorical method of interpretation allegorical method of interpretation now let me ask this before we even begin to talk about it as an improper method are there allegories in scripture sure yeah that's I mean honestly we could say that parables are a form of allegory right a parable in fact what is a parable does anybody want to take a stab at the definition well I've heard people give the definition and it's an earthly story with a heavenly meaning right the actual definition of parable it means to lay beside something the word para is where we get like parallel and the idea of laying a story beside something that is intended to parallel that thing when Jesus tells a story it has a parallel to some spiritual truth there's a parallel there's also something called hyperbole you ever heard of hyperbole somebody says I'm so hungry I could eat a horse right or yeah I'm so thirsty I could drink all the water in the ocean right somebody is using they're laying something beside in a hyper way that's called hyperbole well to do so in a non hyper way or trying to lay a that's a parable there's hyperbole and parable parable is to simply lay aside lay beside something that is intended to to to be an analogy to be an analogy of something when Jesus tells stories in the scripture like he says there was a man who was going out to sow in his field and as he went along the path he dropped some seeds along the path and the birds came and ate those seeds and then he dropped some along the rocky soil and those sprung up but they withered away quickly because they had no root and then he dropped some into the shallow soil and it sprang up I think I jumped past one which one did I it was the rocky soil the pathway and the one with the weeds among the weeds and it was choked out and then it was the good soil and the good soil grew up and gave the harvest of you know 20, 50 and 100 fold what is the parable well this is one of the few times where Jesus gives an understanding because the disciples ask him in private what does that mean and he gives the interpretation he says the seed is the word and the the pathway where the seeds were dropped and the birds coming that's the person who hears the word and Satan comes and snatches it away immediately and then there are those who are like the shallow soil or the rocky soil that when it falls in it springs up for a time but they fall away because they have no root and then there are those who it tries to grow but it's choked out by the cares of this world that's the person who hears the word and they're encouraged to believe it but the world drags them back out because they're so consumed with the world and worldly things he said but the one who is the good soil the word of God springs forth and bears a harvest Jesus tells us the meaning right he gives us the interpretation but what is the story the story is an allegory it's intended to be an allegory and like I said is allegory bad no what's one of the greatest Christian works outside of the Bible the Pilgrim's Progress what is the Pilgrim's Progress it's an allegory it was intended to be an allegory Christians you know traveling to on the path of redemption right and through all of the vanity fair and all the different places that he went through and the slew of despond and all these different places it was intended to mimic or allegorize the Christian life so allegory is not necessarily bad allegorical interpretation though is when the Bible is interpreted in such a way that everything has a double meaning everything has a meaning that's beyond what simply is said Jesus went up to Jerusalem everybody goes up to Jerusalem right and I've heard it said well the reason for that is because Jerusalem was the considered to be the most important place for the Jews so every place in the Bible that talks about Jerusalem you're always going up to Jerusalem whether you're south, north, west or east doesn't matter you're always going up to Jerusalem yeah that's not necessarily allegory that's just recognizing a pattern however some people can over allegorize that can make it something that it's not what are some other places in the Bible that people tend to allegorize Genesis absolutely the creation story cannot be simply God creates man he then creates woman out of man's rib he then takes those two and he puts them in a garden and he says to do everything here that you want except don't eat of this tree they decide to eat and God decides he is going to punish them because of their sin and of course their posterity as a result and that's how sin entered the world and death through sin and death spread to all men because all men sinned right that's the simple message of Genesis 1, 2 and 3 what's the allegorized version well people who say well I believe that God created the world billions of years ago and over periods of time these things happened and so I don't interpret Genesis 1 as being literally seven days I interpret it as periods of time and so that becomes allegorizing and Adam and Eve weren't real people they represented the first thinking hominids who God had through the process of evolution brought to life and so everything becomes an allegory I've told you guys the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 and how the guy said well it wasn't that Jesus gave them five loaves and two fish and multiplied it but he encouraged those who had to share with those who didn't have and that's the miracle there was another one about the well there was yeah there was another one though that I think R.C.
27:26: Sproul tells the story about a pastor he heard preaching on the Jesus turning water to wine did I mention this one? about how he said that it was he said Jesus didn't really turn water into wine that's not what happened what it was was that Jesus helped them understand that wine is better than water or water is better than wine that's what he did he didn't Jesus didn't do the miracle of turning water into wine what Jesus did was he took a group of drunks who were drunk and he gave them water and helped them to realize that water is better than wine that's but that's the allegorical interpretation right we're going to take the text and we're going to make it say something it doesn't say because it satisfies our desire for it to not say what it says Jesus walked on water but a real bad freeze had come in yeah now that yeah and I and that that's almost the same as when I told about the Sea of Reeds remember the Red Sea wasn't really where they crossed they crossed the Sea of Reeds and that time a year the Sea of Reeds is is only about an inch deep and so when they walked across it wasn't that big of a deal I've also heard that the way that the water split when Moses rose his arm was a meteor hit the river and the meteor hit the river and that separated the water the only problem with that is if you read the story in Genesis or rather Exodus of this departing of the sea it says the water stood as a heap on both sides and there's one thing water doesn't do it doesn't stand if you pour water on that table it's not going to stand up as you pour it's going to pour out and even if you hit it with a rock and it splashes out it's immediately going to come back if it's if it's if there's a slope if you the water doesn't stand up as a heap yeah they walked across on dry land and it wasn't the only time that it happened remember that the water parted again when they crossed over the Jordan so there's there's so much in the text that in our desire to either rob the Bible of the miraculous satisfy our scientific pursuits or sometimes to make it apply to us when it doesn't always necessarily directly apply to us we over allegorize the text and so and that last one I think is is probably the one that I hear a lot and it often begins you know well how does this apply how does this what does this mean to you and somebody says well what it means to me is this because in some way I can allegorize it to point to my life you know Jesus was 33 when he went to the cross and this is my 33rd birthday this is going to be my cross to bear now you think I'm being silly that's the kind of allegorizing that people do to apply something to themselves that had nothing to do with their 33rd birthday nothing to do with that at all so allegorizing for an interpretation I'm going to read my notes real quick this method of interpretation was rejected by all the reformers Luther called it a scourge Calvin called it satanic those holding to the principles of the reformation generally regard this method of interpretation as undermining the power and impact of the literal word and so that is you know that's something that we need to consider again it doesn't mean that when we read the bible it says the trees clap their hands that we believe trees have hands obviously there are places where allegory is used in scripture obviously there's places where certain texts of the bible use simile metaphor things like Jesus says I am the door it doesn't mean he has hinges I know that's silly but you know you can stretch certain things to a crass literalism that takes an extreme versus the last supper this is my body yes and that's a good point Rome has made a true argument for this is my body when I say they made a true argument they've made an argument for truth Jesus meant literally that this is my body and I say he couldn't at that moment because his body was still there it wasn't consumed he was there and yet he said this is my body that is a time where Jesus is using the language of and I'm not even sure that allegory is the right word he's using the language of this is my body in the same way that we are his body there's a connection here it's not the physical connection there's a spiritual reality in the bread and the wine in fact that's a I don't want to get too far off on a tangent but there are more than two views of the Lord's table most people are only familiar with Rome's view and what has become the typical protestant view and that is that Rome believes that you have the body and blood of Jesus and it becomes his body and blood when the priest sanctifies it and at that moment of consecration Jesus is the sacrifice is made again for sins that there is a transubstantiation which occurs which causes a representation of the sacrifice of Christ on the altar for sin that's the doctrine of transubstantiation in a nutshell and then the other view is typically known as the memorial view which is that the bread and the wine simply are memorializing the body and blood of Christ between those two extremes one is saying it's absolutely Jesus' body and blood and he's being sacrificed again and the other which is saying it's simply a memorial to his body and blood that were sacrificed on the cross there are two other particularly different views Luther believed that it was the body and blood of Jesus literally but that it was not a sacrifice it was not a perpetuatory sacrifice thus his view became known as consubstantiation rather than transubstantiation Luther didn't call it that but his followers would call it that.
34:38: We one time years ago we had some people who came and joined our church who had come from a Lutheran church and you guys would know if I could remember their name I would say it but I can't for the life of me think of their names but I remember the man because he would go and serve communion when we'd have communion and he would say this is the body of Christ when he would hand it to people and he did it here this was before my time as pastor but I remember that particular because he had a Lutheran background that was his that was how he had always done it and so he would say this is the body of Christ this is the blood of Christ and that's how he would give it when he was handing out the elements so that's the Lutheran view taking a literal but not transubstantiatory view of that the Calvinistic view or typical reform view is what is known as spiritual presence that the physical elements do not change but that they do undergo a spiritual imbibing if you will or a spiritual there's a spiritual presence of Christ in the bread and in the cup so when you are participating in communion there is a spiritual union that's happening with you in Christ through the partaking of the bread and the cup that is typically known as the Calvinistic view usually believed by Presbyterians and Reformed Baptists I tend to lean more toward the memorial view than that but I don't have a problem with the spiritual presence view I see merit in both the reason why I would hold to the memorial view is the words of Jesus where he said specifically this do this in remembrance of me and so there is there is wording of memorial in his language however if somebody said well I believe there's a spiritual union happening here when I take this I wouldn't argue and say no I don't so I think the Calvinistic view and the memorial view is held by Ulrich Zwingli the other Swiss Reformer and Ulrich Zwingli and Luther absolutely divided over that they came together at the Marlboro I can never pronounce it I always say Marlboro it wasn't the Marlboro that's the cigarette no it's the Marburg colloquy and they gathered for 15 points of doctrine they agreed on 14 but the 15th one that they couldn't agree on was whether or not Christ was physically present in the bread and the cup Luther said he was Zwingli said he wasn't and they divided so harshly Luther said some really terrible things about him over that one point of doctrine Luther was not a man who minced his words when it came to people with whom he disagreed but that is an issue though one could say well are we taking an allegorical approach I don't think we are because Jesus himself said do this in remembrance of me we are taking the word remembrance and using it understanding it that way and when someone says well Jesus said unless you eat of my body and drink of my blood you have no place with me he said that to a group of people that was actually said in Caesarea Philippi he's preaching to a group of people and he says it and they respond by leaving because it was such a hard thing to understand I do not think that Jesus was talking about the physical bread and physical cup of the communion table because that had not yet been instituted it would be a long time after that that would be instituted Jesus was talking about faith in him which comes from receiving him fully and he used the expression of eating my body and drinking my blood so as to understand and there were times that Jesus did say things that divided the wheat and the chaff when he said them in fact going back to the subject of parables what did Jesus say about parables I speak in parables so that seeing they cannot see and hearing they will not understand there were times when parables were not intended to do anything but to confuse the unbeliever people would say why would Jesus do that because not everyone who was listening to him were his sheep my sheep hear my voice they know me and they will follow me absolutely so allegorical interpretation I've got to run through the last three because I've been I've spent a lot of time on that one devotional interpretation devotional interpretation well what is that devotional interpretation emphasizes the edifying aspects of scripture in their interpretation with the goal of developing one's spiritual life this method often advocates the reading of scriptures as a means to obtaining some type of mystical experience the bible is a useful tool in devotion and prayer it's not meant to be studied it's simply meant to be read and find yourself in it devotional interpretation is often done when people are not reading the bible to know what it means they're reading the bible to find some type of direction or some type of personal insight again the whole thing about going up to Jerusalem someone might be wondering well should I go to get the job in Georgia or should I go to get the job in Miami I'm going to open the bible oh Jesus went up to Jerusalem well Georgia's north that's up from here so I guess that means I should go up to Jerusalem I should go up to and again it's not the same exactly as allegorical interpretation but you can see there's some bleed over there the actual thing I do see this in a lot of devotional books I'm not a big fan of devotional books I think the bible's the best devotional book but there are some that are helpful if it encourages you to study that's good but some devotional books simply have a bible verse and then a story that goes with the verse and it doesn't seek to at all understand what the verse is saying it simply uses the verse as a springboard to tell a story that's a devotional interpretation it's not really concerned with knowing what the text means it concerns with trying to use the text to explain something in your life or to get you going in a particular direction you ever heard I think I mentioned this lucky dipping we've talked about this before lucky dipping is when somebody says I don't know what I need to do so I'm going to open the bible and point my finger at a verse and read it and do whatever it says and you've heard the old joke about that the guy opens the bible points at a verse and it says Judas went out and hung himself and he said well I don't like that one so he closes it open again and he points it here and he says go and do likewise well I don't like that so he closes it opens it up and points it again and says what you do do quickly oh man I'm in a lot of trouble now so you know that's called lucky dipping and people do it people just open the bible and start reading and they find a verse that they want and they use it to somehow point them in a direction now I'm not saying and I want to be clear about this there have been times where God has led me to a passage by his grace that I wasn't looking for or that at that moment I needed sometimes it's been through someone else maybe sending me a verse or maybe it's through my own reading I'm not saying that it cannot happen but when that's your interpretational methodology that's where the problem lies if you're not looking to interpret the bible to find out it's meaning but rather you're looking to try to spiritualize it and mysticize it and make it something about you and it's not that's an interpretive problem alright so next liberal interpretation love that one well what is liberal interpretation well liberal interpretation does not accept the bible essentially as the infallible word of God they reject the verbal inspiration of the bible and it should be noted that once someone abandons the verbal inspiration of the bible one's intellect becomes the determining factor in questions of truth the bible says that God called God commanded Israel to go in to Canaan and to destroy the Canaanites later God commanded them to go and destroy the Amalekites a lot of people take issue with that because it doesn't fit with their particular understanding of morality and they would say that's an immoral command and that God never would have made that command that was simply Israel's desire they wanted the land so they went and took it and then they put the blame on God that would be a liberal interpretation and again I'm not pointing it saying all liberals would interpret it that way but what I'm saying is that's a liberal interpretation in the sense that that's taking liberality with what the text says and saying I don't agree with what it says so I'm going to liberate it or free it from what it says and make it fit my understanding of what should be and what happens then is relativism is the result because you get to become the arbiter of truth, relativism is what's right for you may not be right for me and vice versa so that becomes the arbiter of truth liberalism is based on relativism the idea that everyone is essentially free to decide right from wrong yes the worst example is that Jesus' seminar yeah, yeah, Jesus' seminar John Dominic Crossan, Marcus Borg um couldn't have said yeah, they decide, Jesus couldn't have said that I mean he wouldn't have said that somebody put those words in his mouth yeah, they had marbles I think that they used and they would use the marbles to vote on whether or not Jesus it's kind of a it's a group that were seeking to determine what Jesus said or what he didn't say and they did voting and I think it was marbles, it was some type of pebbles or something that they used to vote for or against or possible whether or not Jesus actually said what was described to him in the scripture and when they were done it was like most of what was Jesus supposed to have said he didn't say, according to them um John Dominic Crossan believes that Jesus did die on the cross but that he was buried in a shallow grave and his bones were eaten by dogs and he is a prominent teacher in many liberal churches very, very popular so the last one fits with that one and that the last one is subjective subjective interpretation subjective interpretation is based on the idea that the Holy Spirit provides each person with his own personal revelatory interpretation and people will say this I have, the Holy Spirit told me what this means for me it might not mean it for you but it does mean it for me and that's subjectivity it's not objective it's subjective and so I know what this means to me doesn't matter what it means to you it doesn't matter if you think you're right Mike I know what it means to me I know because the Holy Spirit told me I always get real leery when people use the phrase God told me unless they follow that up with in this chapter and verse and then they're giving the proper interpretation of that chapter in verse because when someone just says well God told me it's a very dangerous road to take it's actually the easiest way to twist the scripture because people simply just say this is what it means to me and it is absolutely not up to your debate I remember years ago there was a phrase and I remember a guy saying it directly and I wasn't able to challenge him at the moment but have you ever heard someone say a person with an experience is not at the mercy of a person with an argument you ever heard that quote? it's very popular in charismatic circles because what they'll say is I've had an experience and you can't argue with my experience because it wasn't your experience and a person with an experience is not at the mercy of a person who just has an argument Peter had quite an experience on the high mountain when he saw Jesus talking and he heard God's voice but when he was older he said we have the prophetic word confirmed which is a lot more reliable than what you see and hear absolutely but I remember particularly the guy was giving a very very wrong understanding of the scripture very wrong understanding of what the subject was and then someone said something about it and he said well I have an experience and I'm not at the mercy of somebody who just has an argument and I knew because I had heard that phrase before I knew what he was applying to.