Welcome to the Podcast

Introduction to the Podcast and the Value of Asking Questions

Welcome to Have You Not Read, a podcast seeking to answer questions from the text of Scripture for the honor of Christ and the edification of the Saints. I'm Dylan Hamilton and I'll let the other two hosts introduce themselves.

I'm Michael Durham, I'm pastor of Sunnyside Baptist Church and very glad to be here.

I'm Andrew Hudson, I'm a fellow member at the body here at Sunnyside. Before we.

Dig into our topic. Today we humbly ask for you to rate, review, and share the podcast on any social media platform you choose. Today we are introducing the podcast and going over a few questions as to how we are going to operate and how we are going to attack certain things, certain questions that come up in a pastor's life or a congregation's life from day to day.

And today we can start with a question, should we ask our pastor questions? Well obviously yes.

Well you obviously want to ask your pastor questions, but if the only thing you do is go to your pastor and ask him questions about the Bible or questions about your life, then you're missing out on a few aspects of the Christian life.

We are very blessed in the fact that we've been given the Word of God in our own language and we're told in 1st John chapter 2 that we ultimately do not need to have an official teacher, somebody to interpret the Bible for us, but that if we are Christians we have the Holy Spirit, we have an anointing, and we are able to humbly, prayerfully submit ourselves to the Word of God and read and come away with real understanding of the text.

God is a great communicator, the perfect communicator. He didn't give us a obtuse, unclear, confusing, encoded word. Not only did he give us a clear word, but he also gave us the Holy Spirit to point us to the light of Scripture, the light of the world, who is Christ.

And then as we read the Word, we can truly come away with understanding of the text. It doesn't mean that we're going to understand everything. And it's good to fellowship, it's good to talk with one another and discuss what's going on in our life in the light of the Word of God.

And if we find something that seems a little curious in the Word, as Peter mentioned about some of Paul's writings, some of them are a little hard to understand, we can talk with one another about those things and be benefited.

So sure, yeah, talk to your pastor, ask him questions, but we don't have only one person to go to. And we can study for ourselves and try to answer questions for ourselves. And we'll talk about some of the dynamics about how you do that.

But Andrew, what do you think about that?

Are you saying that we do not need someone to interpret the Scriptures for.

Us?

Yes, that's correct. A Roman Catholic would look to the magisterium, would look to church tradition. But as Protestants, the protest against this is solo Scriptura, Scripture alone, that we don't need some official body of experts either by the merits of their religious credentials or by the merits of their experiences officially interpreting the Bible for us.

We have assurance in the Scripture that by the light of Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit, we're able to read the Word and understand it.

And we have great examples of the church body not only asking questions to apostles, pastors, but of apostles and pastors with the Bereans and how they were able to search out the Word themselves, test everything that Paul had said, and confirm it.

So we've got plenty of examples both of direct commandment to do so, but also examples from history that we can pull out and use as well for ourselves. Now, as we're thinking about asking questions, we want to try and be as applicable to our time and place as we possibly can.

And I think we have a great list of questions that we've been sent in from another congregant, and we can go through as many of those as we want to, but asking proper questions of our pastor is important as well.

And when I mean proper questions, you do have stupid questions out there, but questions that are beneficial in a sense of they're going somewhere, and they're substantive, and they're going to either edify you, your pastor, or the rest of the congregation as well.

Discerning Good Questions from Bad Questions

So you can be pretty flippant when you ask questions, and we want to, as best we can on this podcast, ask the right questions in the right time and be timely with it.

Right. You see people asking Jesus questions that are stupid questions. Why do we say they're stupid? Because they're actually sometimes sinister. The idea is to ask questions that you believe are unanswerable, thereby denying that person's authority when they can't answer the question, or entrapping them somehow.

And that really is the approach of a cynic. That's not actually the approach of somebody who's humbly desiring to know and to grow. So there's lots of examples in the Scriptures. Andrew, can you think of maybe one?

I would just add that there must be snares, but woe to those who set them. So those questions that you see were designed to be snares, and you also have the example of humble questions seeking the truth.

Now, we don't get any examples of that today, right? That was just the Pharisees?

There's a world of difference between, you know, what must I do to be saved, and did Adam have a navel? Right. You know, there's not just two different types of questions. There really are. But there are myriad questions and styles of questions and so on, some of them very deeply rooted in someone's personal stories, their own personal understanding of where they are in their life.

And sometimes it's a curiosity, like, I didn't understand this word in the text, or I got a question today. Someone called me up and was asking me about talents and denarii, and how did the money system work in the Bible?

And the goal was to try to understand some parables of Jesus. Right. You know, so there's all kinds of questions, but the attitude, of course, matters.

Right. And is a question like that applicable today? You know, if we're asking questions of the money system in the Bible, some people might say, well, that's not really applicable today to our money system.

But you would argue, and I think everybody here would argue, that that is very, very applicable to money systems today and how we're seeing the things either ran well or abused in.

Money systems as well. Yeah, the Bible says a lot about money and says a lot about what our approach should be before the face of God, how we think of money and how we handle economics, and then how God uses both abundance and scarcity sometimes to teach, to disciple, to chastise his own people, and then how he judges the wicked accordingly and how we're to view money.

So it does matter a great deal. And understanding what denarii and talents and those kinds of words mean when you read them gives you insight to what Jesus was trying to teach, but also helps to clarify perhaps the difference between how we handle money today versus the way they did in the past.

And why is that? And is that a good thing? And what does the Bible have to say about that?

Good. Yeah, I just wanted to nail down the fact that we can ask questions of the text and get away from, hey, this might have a modern day application that we're sometimes missing. And we always appreciate that application to our own lives there with each question.

Do you have anything to add, Andrew?

No, I do not.

Well, we'll just name them. We'll get into David Casson's questions here.

Oh, yes. He's a good question asker.

He is a good question. And he's a thorough question asker. I'm going to be doing a lot of reading. So thank you, David, if you're listening. Well, so we'll start off with question number one here. What Bible translation is best?

What translation do you use and why? And why not just use the KJV since it is immune from modern liberalism and political correctness? I think something may be loaded in there.

So now we know what David Casson thinks of the King James Version.

That's an assertion that's not proven.

Oh, there we go. There we go.

Yes. So what Bible translation is the best? Well, it's the one that accurately conveys the meaning of the original text to you faithfully in the language that you understand. So what translation do I use and why?

I use the New King James Version and I used to use the New American Standard, the 1995, which was an update from, I believe, the 1977. And the reason I used that was because I started using it in seminary when I was doing my translation work in Greek and in Hebrew, but mostly in Greek.

We were using the critical text, which means using some of the using the text that has been more and more acclaimed for the academy in recent generations because of discoveries of ancient documents called codices, Alexandrius, Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, and so on, that these manuscripts had been laid aside and preserved.

And when collated together, this New Testament read anywhere from one to two percent different in variance from the majority text, which had been in use for almost all of church history. That was what was available to some in various portions of the church in the world.

So when I began teaching on the nature of the scriptures, it was a series that I was doing on Sunday nights here at Sunnyside, I began to review the approach taken with the critical text and why they would say these readings are reliable and these readings are not and so on and so forth and the decisions that they were making between the variants.

And I found that I was in disagreement by conviction with the apparatus that they were using, the standards they were using to determine what would be a reliable reading, what would not. I found myself in complete disagreement with their standards.

So I know there's value in the critical text, but I found that I much preferred the majority text, which I'm not aware of any translation that is overtly, hey, we're a majority text. But New King James, the way that I've seen Thomas Nelson publish the New King James is that they make note of throughout the text where the readings are different and give you as the reader all the information you need, whereas some of the other translations obscure that.

They don't give the reader any insight into that at all. And many readers are left wondering why is this verse gone or this half verse gone? Why does this verse sound different than this translation over here?

And they're not given any ability to have insight in that, to study it for themselves and so on. I use the New King James rather than the King James because I have trouble understanding the King James.

And I've read the preface to the King James and the translators there said the reason why one of the reasons why they wanted to do a new translation was that it would be in the language of the common man, that they believe that it would be important to have a translation in the language that people could understand.

I'm in full agreement, which is why I use the New King James, because I can understand that better than I could the the King James. And as to why not use the King James because it's immune from modern liberalism and political correctness.

Well, I don't think it was immune from the translation concerns of its time. It is incredibly apparent, for example, that the Geneva Bible used the English word tyrants and tyranny a great deal, but the King James Bible did not.

Why might that be?

Well, maybe King James was a little bit dicey on the matter of tyranny and tyrants being called out so often, whereas the Geneva Bible was more of a populist, grassroots translation. It was not as tied to the crown.

So in every translation, you have to be aware of the time in which it was translated, the word choice and so on. God's word is perfect. It is without error. It is eternally true. And we know that God works through translations to our good and that he unfailingly brings his word to us, thankfully, in our own language that we can understand.

But I would say that one of the arguments to use the King James that I do like, I heard from Douglas Wilson, was that the King James is public domain. And no one owns it. So it is not owned by any publishing house.

It is not copyrighted. It is something that belongs to the church. And it is not something that belongs to a corporation, a publishing house. And I like that. And that's great.

Yeah, private property matters.

It does. Andrew has thought a lot about translations. And what do you think?

I really have. It's been a point of, I guess, in-depth study and pondering. The claim for the 1611 King James Version as being supreme overall for all English translations doesn't really hold merit. If you were to continue to use the same standard that they have, you were just talking about how the word of God has been perfectly preserved for us.

Would you say that that is the word of God equaling the King James Version only? Or would you say that's in the original autograph?

Yeah, that'd be the original autograph. Not one jot, nor one tittle, not the smallest letter, nor the smallest squiggle on a letter is going to pass away. God's word is eternal and perfect and preserved.

And I'd say that in the original autographs.

And that's really what I've come to. I've come to understand. English is not the original language of the Bible.

Right.

So therefore, the original languages hold meaning, which can be captured through many different ways, either formally or dynamically, depending on the metaphors that could be in used or just the strict reading of the text.

I use plenty of different versions. In fact, I use a version that allows me to just, what does the Greek word say? The Greek word holds lots of meaning. And some of that's lost to me being a 2021 existing person.

But Greek holds a lot of depth that I can research and learn from, that I come to a greater understanding of what the original was.

Sure. Sure.

Well, now that we've kind of laid the groundwork that all translations are not created equal, are there translations to avoid?

I've noticed that Dylan didn't answer what translation he uses.

Oh, I have to come out with mine?

Well, I was just curious.

Well, since I haven't bought a new Bible in a while, and the one that I do have is the Reformation Bible from Ligonier. I got it in ESV rather than the New King James. I do like the New King James version, but what I use most of the time is my phone.

And I use literal word and they have the NASB 95 rather than the newest version or the 77, I believe you said. So I use literal word and like Andrew said, with the original languages, I can flip the settings to where I can go to the original Greek or Hebrew.

And it's going to give me the word. And from there, it's going to give me possible different usages or definitions. And I actually enjoy doing that more often than I do just plain reading. So when you have a text that you're teaching through or when I come to a text that I read, and even though sometimes I understand it, I'm like, you know, what's the Greek here?

Or what's the Hebrew here? And where else can I find this? What other context can I find this in? So it'll give me a list of where I can go find it. And, you know, that's a rabbit hole in and of itself.

I'll be there for like an hour and a half and it's 1 .30 and I should be asleep. But, you know, sometimes that's the way it goes. But back to what I was going to say earlier, before you called me out.

Since we understand that not all translations are created equal, are there translations to just completely avoid?

Well, I would say there are some to avoid if you want to study diligently to show yourself to be approved, a workman in the scripture. There are some translations, and I'll use that word in scare quotes, that can move you away from the text so far that it's going to be difficult to study.

And like you were just pointing out, we live in a time and with such opportunity to be able to study the word with apps that are free, you know, and if you pay a little bit of money, then you have more than you can ever use.

I remember when my dad got his first Bible study software for Windows 3 .1.

Oh boy.

Yeah. And it was kind of hefty expensive. But all the stuff you could do with it, right? But the free apps that we have now are way better than the computer programs my dad was buying when I was a child.

We have so many opportunities to dig deep and to get directly to what the word of God is saying, and we should make good stewardship of that. Some translations, I would say, are meant to help people to read the Bible in English when they have trouble reading English.

For example, I know that the new international version has had a lot of its issues, some political leanings about gender neutrality and so on. A lot of problems there. I would say in its most basic form, the NIV has some use.

One of our missionaries that we support, Mitch Tillman, who's a missionary to Mongolia, has noted that when his Mongolian congregants begin to learn English and they want to learn English, that the NIV is especially suitable to them to read in the English.

And he commented with his wry humor, you see, it's the international version. So I can see how that has some use for folks who have some difficulty reading in the English. Perhaps some of our neighbors that have migrated up from Central America would find the new international version a version that they could read more easily than others.

So I totally get that. I would say that some translations are meant for reference only, so that the J .B. Phillips translation, some paraphrases and so on can be helpful to give some context. There is, of course, the paraphrase, Eugene Peterson's paraphrase of the Bible.

The message.

The message. I'll let Andrew comment on that in a moment. But it is useful to say in this case, okay, here is what Eugene Peterson with all of his particular doctrinal convictions, how he reads the Bible and how he deals with it in his own mind.

So that could be helpful, perhaps. I mean, we also pick up commentaries and read and these scholars as well will share their reading of the word. So I would say that some translations are not as helpful as others.

I would say that the translations that get you into the actual, as close as you can to the actual words being used, is what you need to use to study. And the more tailored it is to modern parlance, the less useful it is.

And that's one of the reasons why I moved away from the New American Standard. I understand that 95 is still available on all these apps and so on. But the New American Standard 2020 moved away from its commitment to translating the word of God with directness.

And they began to import a lot of modern parlance into the text. And it actually moves you away from it, I would say. It's difficult.

Is that a theme of 2020? Moving away from one's convictions?

Yeah, I don't know. I feel bad because in some sense, they've got that moniker now tied to their translation. I think it's going to be hard sell.

Yeah, that's a good point. When you were bringing up the message, my family, we call that the massage. Really, I would like to say on the massage, it really extends to all translations that either just use one single person in the interpretive process.

And I say interpretive because Bible translation is interpretive as well. You see that with different Jehovah's Witnesses version of the Bible. It has an interpretive process overlaid on top of its translation.

So you really have to be aware of many different things when choosing that version.

Yeah, so study. I think Dylan, was your question about what translations don't use for study?

I left it open-ended. That's up to you.

Well, I think we've already kind of covered it. Back in the day, you would buy a parallel New Testament or something with these various translations and the Greek text, maybe keyed with the Strong's Concordance numbers, and you would do your book work.

But when we have it in our apps and free programs and so on, you would want to try to use as many translations as would be effective. But some of them are going to be more of a dynamic translation process.

Dynamic equivalence is the parlance used where we're going to try to translate thought for thought, and the interpretive process is very robust by the translation committee. Whereas a formal equivalence translation, as Andrew has so rightly put, there is still some interpretation going on because you have to, how do we carry this ancient word in its context to the modern reader with accuracy?

You're still going to make some interpretive choices, but the interpretive process is a little bit more textual, more to the text than to the audience on a formal equivalence. So in that case, officially, King James, New King James, New American Standard, ESV, and RSV are always listed as formal equivalence.

The Nature of the Rapture and the Hope of the Resurrection

Okay.

Well, now that we got one of the big fights in Christendom out of the way, let's move on to another one, shall we? Okay. So the second question from David is, you have said that there is no pre-tribulation rapture.

Does that mean there is no rapture? Why is it so important to argue about this timing? Won't it all just pan out in the end? We call those panmillennialists, right?

Right, exactly.

All Bible-believing Orthodox Christians believe that Christ will actually come back and the dead in Christ will rise and those alive will be changed. What difference does it make to argue about this?

Yeah.

So I'll start with the last question first.

That's good.

What difference does it make to argue about this? And since it'll pan out in the end, there is not a lot of appetite for a doctrinal conflict. And I think part of that is we don't know how to have a kind brotherly, or sisterly, if it goes that way, a kind brotherly argument where, you know, iron sharpening iron.

I think for a lot of people in our culture, an argument is the very same thing as a quarrel. But those are different. A quarrel involves a lot of pride and involves, if not animosity, then hate, and is reduced very quickly to ad hominem attacks and, you know, questioning your motives and so on.

And for some people, this is all they can think of when it comes to disagreement. That disagreement is the same thing as a quarrel. That disagreement is the same thing as hostility. And I remember one of my professors whom I disagree with a lot back in seminary talking about how much he appreciated having what he called Irenic discussions, peaceful discussions, where we definitely disagree, but we're not trying to demonize one another.

And I think that that's one of the reasons why the pan-millennialist approach is so popular. Because there is not the appetite for disagreement. And I can understand why. I mean, nobody wants a church fight and so on and so forth.

But I think it's part of the discipleship process that we learn as Christians how to disagree, but do so in the spirit of Christ. So I think that's trying to answer that first of all, but then what difference does it make to argue about this?

Well, it makes a big difference about your expectations. For example, when my wife and I were, before we got married, of course, we're planning our wedding and so on. And some friends of the family, not part of our church or anything, but some friends of the family counseled my wife's parents and advised them and said, look, you don't want to spend a lot of money on their first wedding, on their first marriage.

Ooh.

Ooh, that's terrible.

So the expectation was, of course, that your first marriage is going to fail. You always spend more money on the second wedding.

Right.

Was their mindset. If you expect your first marriage to fail and you live that way, it has an impact. Your expectations, your hopes, your direction, and so on. It has an impact. Now, no believing Christian truly believes that Christ is going to fail.

Everyone says, yeah, Revelation, the two word summary of Revelation, Christ wins. Or they'll say we win because we're in Christ. So ultimately, we all agree about that. And in fact, every major heading of doctrine, the doctrine of God, the doctrine of man, the doctrine of sin, the doctrine of creation, all the way down, in considering its ultimate end, all Christians agree about.

So there is this argument of, well, then why does it matter? Well, it does matter in the here and now because of our expectations. How are we viewing our stewardship? How are we viewing our responsibilities?

What are we expecting? How do we, it changes the way we pray. It changes the way we work. It changes the way we raise children. It changes the way we build buildings. You know, if we think, for example, that, well, it's 1983.

Israel became a nation in 1948. So 1988 is looking real likely. We don't need to build a building that's going to last 50 years. I mean, that's not living by faith. From some perspectives, right? But so there is, it does matter.

It does matter. And it does matter for expectations and approach of how we live. There is a lot of focus on the rapture, I think, because it's such a fantastic thing to think about. And it has been greatly popularized in a previous generation by a great deal of Christian literature that sold very, very well.

And I don't think any of the movies really worked out well, but the literature sure did. And it captures the imagination. So many Christians have lived entire lives and churches have thrived under the preaching of the Word of God.

And they had no concept of a pre-tribulational rapture. Pre-tribulational rapture, according to Martin Lloyd-Jones, originated in 1830 at the Prophecy Conference at Irving Court, in which renowned New Testament scholars were present.

And a concept was introduced that they had never heard of before. And we have not in the record of church history of an idea of a pre-tribulational rapture prior to 1830. The story goes that there was a woman who spoke in tongues, and then the interpretation was given.

And it was said that before the Great Tribulation hit, the church was going to be raptured out. And present at that conference were notables such as John Darby. And Darby was a scholar in his own right.

And he taught C .I. Schofield. And a lot of us have heard of Schofield's study Bible. And Schofield went to Moody. And it was popularized under the preaching of Moody. And I mean, the rest is history.

There was just a wave of... And I understand tied to the preaching of a pre-tribulational rapture was a very good theme, which was the defense of Scripture, the inerrancy of Scripture, that there is no error in the Bible.

It is infallible. Everything in the Bible is absolutely true. Every promise of God will be brought to pass. And it was very much a swinging away of the liberalism, which was arising out of the continent and various liberal scholars and the ways that their teaching was penetrating the church and the beforehand conservative academy.

So there was a great concern for the truth of Scripture and defense of Scripture, which was absolutely right. But what happened was it got tied together that if you believe that the word of God was true, and if you believe that the promises of God were true, then that necessarily meant that you believed in a pre-tribulational rapture.

The pre-tribulational rapture is by necessity a doctrine that is essential for certain presuppositions about the way in which God works out His plan of salvation. The promises of the Old Testament dealing with Israel about an eternal land, an eternal day of atonement observed, an eternal circumcision, all of these things that are eternally to be observed, God didn't give any caveats to them at all.

Passover is going to continue. It must continue. Day of atonement must continue. Circumcision must continue. This land is forever and ever. The reading of those texts was such that God would keep all of these promises to Israel, only Israel, ethnic Israel, at some time in the far off future, which gave rise to, well, what about, what is this church thing then?

Well, it was seen sort of as a parenthesis in the plan of God. The church would come. God would do His work in the lives of the church, and then the church would be moved out of the way and vacated so that God could go ahead and finish up all of His promises to Israel.

And in Schofield and Darby's original scheme, the church and the Israel were forever separate in eternity. But they would never be joined together. They were always to be kept separate in order for the promises of God to be true.

So I think that they, in some sense, were really trying to push this as far as they could go to say, we believe what it says. We will not be dissuaded from the truth of God's word, which I greatly appreciate that approach.

But when we read the Bible, Christ Himself gives us the way to read the Bible. And He tells the scholars of His day that when they search the scriptures, they think that in them they will find eternal life, the plan, the process to gain eternal life.

He says, but it is these that testify of me. And the entirety of the New Testament demonstrates how everything in the Old Testament is about Christ. And He is the interpretive center to it all. He is the hermeneutical lens for all of it.

And the rapture itself is, of course, not a word that we find in the scripture, but we do have the idea of this rapture in Thessalonians. So if we go over to 1 Thessalonians, I think it's going to be chapter four.

And verse 13, Paul writes, but I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, which of course was Jesus's euphemism for death, which I love and it's a comfort to us.

Lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. So the hope of the resurrection is anchored in the resurrection of Christ.

So again, that's a great comfort. As He rose from the dead, so we will rise from the dead as well. And then verse 15, for this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep.

So there's not going to be some particular advantage for those who are alive when Christ returns. Those folks are not going to be somehow greatly advantaged and the dead will be greatly disadvantaged.

So this is a comfort to those who have loved ones who have died in Christ. No, they're not missing out on something. There's not going to be something that they're going to be deprived of here. Verse 16, for the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

So as he's pointed out, those who are coming with Jesus, those who have died in Christ and are asleep in Christ, they're going to rise first. And then what will happen second, verse 17, then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them.

So we're all caught up together. And that's where you have the idea of the rapture, caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore, comfort one another with these words.

Now, it might seem a little odd that there's clouds and Jesus is in the air and we're all meeting up with him. But the angels promised this to the disciples that in the same way that Christ went up into heaven, so he would return.

And of course, he's going to return to the earth. And that's what the promise is very simply in Matthew 25, that when Christ returns, he's coming down to earth and he will sit on his throne and then judge everyone, goats and sheep, right and left.

It's a very simple picture that we have. The background to this kind of passage for Thessalonica was that Thessalonica enjoyed the status of an imperial city. And in order to be an imperial city, you had to be selected as a stop, a visitation, you would get a visit from the emperor.

Now, Thessalonica had to work hard. It's kind of like, you know, getting the Olympics. You had to work hard and make a lot of preparations. And so they did. They made vast improvements to their city, vast improvements to their road that led out towards the direction that the emperor would come.

And it was customary in that time when the ruler came, that everybody in the city who were loyal citizens would go out and meet him on the road. And they would gather around him, obviously giving him honor and some of them indeed worshiping him, as would be appropriate in the imperial cult to worship the emperor.