Observation to Interpretation

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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October 29, 2021

00:00: or introduction to hermeneutics, which means that we are halfway there.
00:07: When we finish tonight, we will be finished with half of the class.
00:13: Hopefully what you've learned so far has been an encouragement to you, and we will just continue to build on that.
00:20: So in classes two and three, we looked at the value of observation and the methods of observation.
00:31: We looked at six different methods of observation last week, six different things to look for, things that are alike, things that are unlike, things that are emphasized, things that are repeated.
00:41: Those are some of the things that we looked at in our last class.
00:45: And what we have noted so far is that observation, in my opinion, is the most neglected and also the most important part of good Bible study.
00:58: So tonight in class four, we're going to begin on the subject of interpretation.
01:04: We are going to look at the value of interpretation.
01:09: We're going to look at understanding literary types.
01:13: Then we're going to break for a few minutes.
01:18: Then we're gonna go over our workbook assignment.
01:20: How many of you did the workbook assignment? Good, good.
01:24: So we'll have an opportunity to get in that and do that together.
01:30: How many of you are sticking with your reading? You're up to date on your reading? Was it a workbook assignment or reading? It was a reading.
01:38: It was all reading.
01:40: Was it this week was a reading assignment? Yes.
01:42: And we're gonna be going over the workbook in class.
01:44: Okay, that's what it was.
01:45: Okay, all right.
01:48: Just, if I seem like I'm a little out of it, I don't mean to be and I certainly won't.
01:54: I won't try not to let it affect.
01:55: I'm just really been going hard the last couple of weeks and I'm a little tired, but I'm not gonna let that bring me, hopefully bring any negative into the class.
02:10: So far we've looked at the value of the process of observation.
02:15: And I believe this is honestly what makes Dr.
02:18: Hendricks' work unique.
02:20: So many other hermeneutical courses begin with interpretation and instead this course encourages to begin with an investigation.
02:30: What's the motto of this method of Bible study? Anybody remember? Go back and look some more.
02:41: That's the motto is every time we observe, we go back and look some more.
02:47: Remember what he said? He said that the guy, the teacher was mentioning the hundredth time I read this passage, it dawned on me and the idea was, yes, it took him a hundred times to click.
03:00: I told the story last night to our youth that this week is Reformation week.
03:07: And I wrote, in fact, I'll do this for you all.
03:09: Let's see if you guys can get this.
03:10: I said, there is a Bible verse and a date.
03:28: Now, most of you probably know what the date refers to, but what is the connection between this verse and this date? Does anybody know? You know what the, I hear you saying it.
03:46: You know what the verse is.
03:47: What do you think it is, James? Well, that was the verse that Luther said was like God opened the gates of heaven and he, for the first time, understood the gospel.
04:05: When he read that the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the just shall live by faith.
04:15: And it was Luther who added the idea, the just shall live by faith alone.
04:22: And there we get the term sola fide.
04:25: And so, again, he had read that verse before, but it was that reading, it was that time where God made him understand what it meant.
04:35: And it was like a light bulb moment in the life of the great reformer.
04:39: And I only connect it to October 31st because we call it October 31st Reformation Day.
04:46: Why do we call it that? That's the day that he published the 95 Theses.
04:52: Now, when I say published, we talk about the fact that he nailed them to the door.
04:57: A lot of people see the nailing of the 95 Theses to the door as an act of rebellion.
05:02: It wasn't actually an act of rebellion.
05:04: It was the way things were published.
05:07: It was the way things were put on display for people to read.
05:11: So when he nailed it to the door, it was like putting it up for discussion.
05:15: And if you go to that church today, which is the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, the door has been replaced with an actual door that has the 95 Theses written on it.
05:28: And so they're inscribed on the door.
05:30: Yeah, it's very, very beautiful.
05:32: You can look up pictures of it.
05:33: I've never, obviously, never been there, but I've seen pictures of it where they've printed it out, just in memory of that.
05:41: No, it's the Reformation.
05:44: It was the church he preached it.
05:46: I mean, again, remember the Reformation, when it was in the different areas, they used the churches and depending on where they were.
05:58: You know? All right, so tonight we're gonna continue on with our study and I want you to write this next thing down.
06:06: This is a thought.
06:07: I actually did a podcast on this and would encourage you to go back and listen to it if you do happen to have an opportunity.
06:15: But this is an important thought regarding observation.
06:19: Because tonight we're gonna look at interpretation.
06:21: Interpretation is what does it mean? Well, here is a important standard.
06:26: The text cannot mean what it doesn't say.
06:31: That should be simple and go without saying, but it's not.
06:37: People will read a verse and they'll say, this means X, Y, and Z, and they'll say, no, wait, it can't mean that because it's not what it says.
06:46: And so the basis of interpretation is observation.
06:52: And if what you're saying the text says is not in the text, then that's not what the text says.
07:00: So if you're interested in what I mean when I say I did a podcast, I had a pastor friend of mine come on and he and I discussed eisegesis and exegesis.
07:13: You guys remember the definition of eisegesis? What is it? To read into the text something that's not there.
07:23: And if this is true, the text can't mean what it doesn't say.
07:25: How does eisegesis happen? You're putting something in it that wasn't there.
07:30: You're reading into it something that isn't there.
07:33: For instance, we think about the people who teach the prosperity gospel.
07:41: Now, are there passages that can be twisted to argue for a prosperity version of the gospel? Yes, I would say that there are.
07:53: But when we look at the gospel, the text as a whole, and we see what it says, then what we have to understand is where one might say, well, this text says X, Y, Z.
08:04: Yes, but that doesn't go along with the whole.
08:07: And even though it might, it might can mean that on its own.
08:11: It can't mean that in regard to everything else.
08:16: Eisegesis happens when we introduce something in a text that isn't there.
08:19: People often desperately want the Bible to say something.
08:24: They want it to say that they're going to receive healing, or they want it to say that their marriage is gonna be solved, or they're going to have some solution to a problem.
08:32: Maybe they need to decide about an important life choice, and they don't know whether they should go work north in North Carolina, or whether they should go work in South Florida.
08:41: And they open the Bible, and it says Jesus went up to Jerusalem, and therefore that's where they need to go.
08:47: They need to go to South Carolina, because that's north of where they are.
08:52: And if you think that that is an exaggeration, that is absolutely happening.
08:59: People treat the Bible like a fortune cookie.
09:04: They read the Bible, and they say, that's not what it's saying.
09:09: It's not what it says.
09:11: How many of you ever heard of lucky dipping? What's lucky dipping, Ross? That's right.
09:18: You just, you open a Bible, stick your finger down, and you just dip in and pull out whatever you find.
09:26: Now I want to say, I am not, what? I do that sometimes.
09:31: Okay.
09:37: I'm not going to say it's never had any value, because if you've ever read the life of Augustine, Augustine, he heard some children.
09:53: If I remember the story correctly, he heard some children singing, Toa Legei, which means take up and read.
10:02: And that just sort of resounded in his mind.
10:05: And he took that as a sort of an omen to pick up the Bible.
10:08: And when he picked up the Bible, it just happened to be at a passage that he read, and that passage changed his life.
10:14: So it does happen.
10:16: It's just not the best method for Bible study.
10:19: And it's certainly not the best method for answering our life's questions.
10:24: You know, Lord, I don't know what to do.
10:26: Open it up and point your finger.
10:28: And, you know, you end up, and Judas went and hung himself.
10:33: And you say, oh, that's not it.
10:34: So you close it, you go back and you do it again.
10:37: You go and do likewise.
10:38: Well, that can't, well, no.
10:39: You close it, you open up again, you put your finger down.
10:42: What you do, do quickly.
10:43: Oh my goodness.
10:44: And now we're in a lot of trouble.
10:45: So certainly, it can be very dangerous to try to lucky dip with the Bible.
10:57: Go ahead.
10:59: You're my butt man.
11:00: You're my butt man.
11:01: But wait.
11:02: No, I agree.
11:03: No, no, you said butt though.
11:05: What was your...
11:08: Please.
11:10: I mean, it's the same thing we're talking about, basically, right? So, and I'll...
11:20: But, I don't ever wanna put God where he can't speak to you through scripture, right? I just think he's getting the wrong thing out of it.
11:30: But what it's saying, maybe God is trying to show him something in that scripture of an answer he's been praying for.
11:41: Okay.
11:41: I don't know if there's ever, is that a really good question, but am I wrong to think that? Well, like I said a minute ago, I'm not saying that it never happens.
11:50: What I am saying is we're talking about Bible study methods and lucky dipping is not a Bible study method.
12:00: At best, it's a fortunate act of providence that that particular verse is being used in his life, just like in Augustine's case.
12:11: At best, it's an act of God's shining providence.
12:15: But if that was the way he was dealing with his life every day, and that's the thing, people do that.
12:22: You know, they have the, what's it called? What I call the Our Daily Bread mentality, where every day it's just a different verse and a story.
12:31: Rather than studying the Bible, they're using these little verses as like Kickstarters for a devotion.
12:39: And that's not exactly how we should approach the Bible.
12:42: That's what...
12:44: Yes.
12:45: Okay, well, I have a question.
12:46: My question is, what I do, is this considered lucky dipping or whatever you call it when like you pray, you ask God just to open you up to where he wants you to be in the word.
12:57: Like today when I did it, he opened me up to the story about the prodigal son, which somewhat is like on point to what I'm going through in my life.
13:05: So is that considered lucky dipping also? Sorry.
13:13: I have to be, I wanna be honest.
13:21: I think you would probably do better if your daily study were not as random.
13:30: That seems a little random.
13:33: If what God did in your life today is good or whatever it took you to a passage, it's good that you're looking at the Bible.
13:39: When you do go to that passage though, are you looking at it to study the historical context and what that passage means? Or are you just looking at how it applies to your life today? Because if you do that, then you are missing the first two steps of Bible study, which is observation and interpretation.
13:58: You're going right to application.
14:00: And what happens when you go right to application is you often apply it wrong.
14:04: So that's my, you asked, so I have to be honest.
14:07: If you jump right, if you jump to a verse and immediately say, what does this mean to me? Then you're probably going to, at some point, find yourself interpreting the Bible all about you.
14:18: It's not all about you.
14:21: That's the thing, that would be my, so if you were to, if I were to give you any advice, I would say, take a systematic study through a book of the Bible and every day, pick up where you left off the day before.
14:32: That way you stay within the context of the book and then let God be the sovereign one to take you through the book, how he would lead you, rather than the random opening up and wherever I land is where I'm at.
14:44: That would be my advice.
14:48: So if you're gonna do what you're doing, I would focus on interpretation, or excuse me, observation and interpretation first.
14:56: That's my recommendation.
14:59: Yep.
15:00: All right, so remember, here's where we are.
15:04: We're moving to interpretation.
15:07: Observation is essentially excavation.
15:12: We have mined deeply into the text.
15:16: We have sought to uncover and get a look at all that is there.
15:20: We've turned over every rock.
15:23: We've tilled the ground and we've looked at the soil underneath.
15:27: We have observed the text.
15:30: Now, interpretation, part two, we're gonna begin constructing our understanding based on what we have learned.
15:39: You see the two pictures.
15:41: You have the excavator that breaks up the ground and then you have the construction worker that comes back and forms it into an understanding whole.
15:50: We begin to build an understanding of all that we have observed.
15:53: So let's talk today about the value of interpretation.
15:57: Everybody open up your Bible to Acts chapter eight, verse 26.
16:10: We're gonna read verse 26 to 40.
16:13: So we're gonna read a few verses.
16:27: All right.
16:28: Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, rise and go toward the South to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.
16:38: This is a desert place.
16:40: And he rose and went and there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure.
16:50: He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning seated in his chariot and he was reading the prophet Isaiah.
16:58: And the spirit said to Philip, go over and join this chariot.
17:04: So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah, the prophet and asked, do you understand what you are reading? And he said, how can I? Unless someone guides me.
17:17: And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.
17:19: Now the passage of the scripture that he was reading was this, quote, like a sheep, he was led to the slaughter and like a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he opens not his mouth.
17:31: And his humiliation justice was denied him who can describe his generation for his life is taken away from the earth, end quote.
17:40: And the eunuch said to Philip, about whom I ask you, does the prophet say this? About himself or about someone else? Then Philip opened his mouth and beginning with the scripture, he told him the good news about Jesus.
17:54: And as they were going along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, see, here's water, what prevents me from being baptized? And he commanded the chariot to stop.
18:06: They both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him.
18:12: And when they came out of the water, the spirit of the Lord carried Philip away and the eunuch saw him no more.
18:19: And he went on his way rejoicing.
18:22: But Philip found himself at Azotos, and as he passed through, he preached the gospel to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.
18:33: All right, now there's a lot of a lot of text, so I know that there's a ton that we could do, but right away, did anybody pick up on any observations? Your first time reading that? What's your first observation, Frank? Wow, there's so many, but okay, I'll just throw one out there.
18:56: Please, that's what I was hoping for.
18:58: An angel, Philip was led by an angel.
19:03: Yep, so this was a divine appointment.
19:05: Okay, all right, what else? Someone that intelligence wasn't even able to understand the word of God, so the spirit of someone else is playing a part in the decision.
19:30: Interesting observation, even somebody that's intelligent didn't really understand what it was saying.
19:34: Okay, that's good.
19:39: He's reading scripture and he's in charge of the finances of a queen.
19:43: So I mean, we can say this is somebody who's trusted.
19:46: Yeah, okay.
19:47: What else, Uncle Bobby? Good point, okay.
19:57: Good observation, okay.
20:01: Verse 37 in my translation is in reference.
20:06: Yep, and then you'll notice I didn't read verse 37 because in ESV it's not there.
20:12: In the ESV it goes from verse 36 to verse 38.
20:16: There is no verse 37 in the ESV.
20:19: That particular verse is not in many of the earlier manuscripts that we have uncovered, and therefore it is a verse that is in question.
20:30: And depending on a verse's tenacity within the history of the text, some translations will include it in brackets, some will include it without any notes at all, like the King James, some will include it in the margin, which is at the bottom, and some won't include it at all.
20:49: But typically if it's not included and there's a whole verse missing, it will at least say why.
20:55: So if you have an ESV, it probably has a note at the bottom explaining what's missing.
21:00: And what is the passage that's missing? He says, if you believe you can.
21:05: I think it's, how does yours read, Frank? It says, if you believe with all your heart, you may.
21:10: Yeah.
21:11: And he replies, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
21:15: Yeah, I think that's an important verse.
21:17: I would like to think it was part of the original because it does go along with how we understand baptism to work.
21:22: Baptism is always the product of a statement of faith.
21:26: We would not baptize an unbelieving person, but I don't wanna get into the weeds on textual criticism and why or why not that text should be there.
21:36: But that is a great observation.
21:38: If you didn't notice, there's a verse that's in some translations that's not in others.
21:42: If you're not familiar with the history of textual transmission, now ain't the time.
21:50: There's a lot to deal with, but it is an important subject.
21:53: But that was actually the one I was gonna mention, how many noticed there was a missing verse.
21:58: So good job, Frank.
21:59: What else? Anything else I observed? Yes, James.
22:02: Verse 35, it just stuck out to me as soon as you read it.
22:07: It said, when Philip opened his mouth, as if he wasn't already in the middle of a narration, already speaking with the eunuch, if he wasn't already talking, it said he opened his mouth and preached unto him Jesus at that point, he was already deep into a narration there, a conversation with him, and he said that at this point he opened his mouth.
22:29: I mean, it really emphasizes what was to come.
22:32: Yeah, it changed from a dialogue to a proclamation about Christ.
22:36: Yeah, I think that's a good point.
22:39: Yes, ma'am.
22:40: I noticed first that it was in the desert.
22:43: Yeah.
22:43: So where was the water in the middle of the desert? That's a good point, yeah.
22:47: And then it was interesting that he was reading out loud.
22:52: Yep.
22:53: From Isaiah.
22:54: Yep, so Philip could hear him and know what he was reading.
22:57: That's right.
22:59: Yes, sir.
23:05: Yeah, it's interesting.
23:06: A lot of people use that verse to support the rapture because they believe Philip was raptured away.
23:13: That's an interesting observation.
23:16: Well, he was taken away.
23:17: We don't know how it happened, but he was taken away, and the idea of being taken away is what the word raptizo, and I think it's Latin, means to be taken away, and that's where the word rapture comes from.
23:31: Yes, sir.
23:32: It makes me think of the pool of Bethesda because he's- Makes you think of what now? The pool of Bethesda.
23:40: Okay.
23:41: He's just, he's, well, he's seeking after it.
23:46: Okay.
23:46: So instead of- He's looking at the scriptures.
23:49: He's wanting some answers.
23:50: Yeah.
23:53: Yeah.
24:08: Put him right where he was at.
24:16: Yep.
24:19: Okay.
24:24: That angel of the Lord spoke to Philip.
24:28: Have you seen that interpreted as the Holy Spirit? It doesn't say the Holy Spirit spoke to him.
24:39: It says an angel of the Lord said, so I haven't seen that interpreted that way.
24:44: I do know that in the Old Testament scriptures, there are times when the angel of the Lord, the angel of the Lord is used as a, as a way to describe pre-incarnate Christ.
24:57: And I could make that argument based on several passages, Genesis 16, Genesis 20, well, Genesis 16, Genesis 21, Exodus 12.
25:08: There's several passages where we see the angel of the Lord speaking as God.
25:12: And we would say that's potentially a pre-incarnate representation of Christ as Christ comes as the messenger of Yahweh in that moment.
25:20: Because word angel simply means messenger.
25:23: And so if somebody might make that argument, because this does say, but this says an angel of the Lord rather than the angel of the Lord.
25:31: And there is somewhat of a different distinction there that's often made, whether it's the definite article or the indefinite article.
25:37: But that would be the, that would require a little bit more conversation about what we're seeing and what we're drawing out of that.
25:46: But certainly angel of the Lord is an important statement, important phrase.
25:51: If I were circling things, that would be one of the ones I'd probably note.
25:57: All right, now I have a question for y'all.
25:59: Good job, by the way.
26:00: That's exactly what I'm looking for.
26:03: What does this passage tell us about interpretation? Okay, it tells they needed some help.
26:11: What else? There's something else.
26:13: There's something a little more I'm looking for.
26:20: Yes, Nails, James.
26:21: Would you rather me call you James or Nails? It doesn't matter.
26:25: James.
26:39: You are correct, sir, because what I have put here, interpretation often begins with a question.
26:49: Interpretation often begins with the question because that's what we're trying to determine.
26:56: The who's, what's, where's, why's and when's.
26:59: We're trying to come up with some answers to questions.
27:02: He had a very important question.
27:04: Who's the prophet talking about? Is he talking about himself or is he talking about someone else? And Philip says, I'm glad you asked.
27:11: He's talking about Jesus.
27:15: No, what's wonderful about this is this actually gives us an interpretive grid to understand that passage in Isaiah.
27:20: Because now when we go back to that passage in Isaiah, we have a Holy Spirit inspired commentary on that passage.
27:27: So we know Isaiah was writing about Jesus because Philip says Isaiah was writing about Jesus.
27:33: So we have a Holy Spirit inspired commentary right there in the text.
27:39: So interpretation often begins with the question.
27:43: That's why I say when I'm doing my observation, a lot of times what I'm writing is questions.
27:48: What does this mean? Even if that's all I write, I don't understand this.
27:51: What does this mean? I gotta go back and figure this out.
27:56: Or who's talking to whom? So the reason why interpretation is necessary is because the text raises questions.
28:06: Who is speaking? What is he or she saying? Why does this matter to the situation, to the narrative or to the argument? You ever asked yourself a question? I'll tell you this.
28:17: Let me ask and then I'll say what I wanna say.
28:19: How many of you ever been reading a passage of scripture, come to a verse and say, what does that have to do with it? Because it's like, it doesn't seem like it fits.
28:28: Like it seems like there's a verse that doesn't go with the rest.
28:32: That's a time where you have to begin to interpret.
28:36: What does this mean? Why is this here? So again, questions cause the need for interpretation.
28:43: So that's the key to all this is what are my questions? Like for instance, we can look at the most common verse in all the Bible, the one that everybody knows, they hold it up at sporting events.
28:58: Tim Tebow puts it under his eyeballs.
29:01: You know, people, John 3, 16.
29:05: For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him will not perish, but will have everlasting life.
29:14: I can think of five good questions right off the top of my head, right there.
29:18: Just thinking, five good questions.
29:20: Think for God so loved the world.
29:22: Who is that talking about? Does the world mean everybody? Does the world mean the elect? Does the world mean the Israelites? Because there were times in the Old Testament where it seems like God didn't show a lot of love for other nations, but he said to Israel, I love you different than I love the other nations, right? So there's one question, right? That he sent his only begotten son.
29:43: What does the word begotten mean? Does that mean Jesus was created? No, but isn't that an important question? What does the word begotten mean? That whosoever believeth in him, what does it mean to believe? What does it mean to believe in him will not perish? What does perish mean? We're all gonna die.
30:06: Does that mean people who believe in Jesus don't die? No, they die too.
30:09: I see them die all the time.
30:11: But they'll have everlasting life.
30:13: What in the world is that? See, five questions out of one verse that everybody knows.
30:20: But you think of how you could spend a week on those five questions, couldn't you? Just thinking about what they mean and how to understand them.
30:30: And that's interpretation.
30:32: It starts with your questions, but that begins with observation, right? All right.
30:41: Okay, go ahead.
30:46: It's obviously a context you take a four and a half minutes to figure out what's going on.
30:52: Is it better to do several verses in a row to study? Like for those, you see what I'm saying? So we're gonna go verse by verse.
31:06: When we get to next week, we're gonna talk about context.
31:11: We have six Cs.
31:13: Each C talks about something different that we do in interpretation.
31:16: And one of them is context.
31:18: And context does involve what comes before and what comes after.
31:21: But it also involves like you have immediate context and then you have relative context, which is what is outside of the immediate, which is what's going on in the whole book.
31:33: And then you have the context of where is this book historically in relation to other books.
31:38: So context actually has like spheres that move out.
31:42: But yeah, I would say if you don't know what comes before or after a passage, there's a pretty good chance you're not understanding it correctly.
31:49: That's another reason why I encourage the verse by verse reading, because if we're just looking at a passage or a story, probably the one book that you could do that in with some relative success, maybe Proverbs, because there's a lot of Proverbs that sort of don't necessarily, well, it's not that they don't mesh, but they're independent statements of wisdom.
32:11: Therefore, if I were to look at just one Proverb, I could probably draw something out of that without necessarily having to tie it to a context.
32:18: But still even Proverbs is set up in a, there are certain, Brother Andy's talking about it right now on Wednesday night.
32:24: I forget how he said it last night, but it was really good.
32:26: He said, Proverbs, he says, you got the, how do you say it, Ron, when we all were here, it was like he was the wise, the diligent, and the something versus the foolish, the sluggard.
32:38: And it's like, that's the three, like on both sides, right? You get the wise and the foolish, the diligent and the sluggard.
32:44: And I forget, but he said, but that's throughout the book.
32:46: And then he started showing us through the book, you see that same principle fall through the whole book.
32:51: So even that context helps you interpret individual passages because that gives sort of a rubric that the whole book sort of falls under, right? So that's helpful too.
33:02: Okay.
33:03: Was that good? Was that answer kind of what you were saying? All right.
33:07: Some people believe interpretation is unnecessary.
33:10: You say, what are you talking about? I've heard people say, I don't interpret the Bible.
33:14: I just read it.
33:16: And if I ever wanted to just take and just smack somebody on the forehead, that would be the moment.
33:23: And I'm not a violent man.
33:25: But if anybody ever says, I don't interpret the Bible, I just read it, I say, that's not true.
33:32: Because as soon as you read something, you begin interpreting it.
33:35: As soon as you read something, you start developing an idea of what it means.
33:40: So if you tell me, I just read the Bible, I don't interpret it.
33:43: I say, that's just impossible.
33:46: Reading is interpreted.
33:48: In fact, we said we observe before we interpret and that's true.
33:52: But even in your observations, you're making conclusions.
33:55: You're already starting to do the process.
33:58: I'm just saying, don't run headlong into the meaning before you get the whole picture.
34:03: That's what observation is.
34:06: But have you ever heard anybody say that? Maybe I'm the only one.
34:10: I hear a lot of crazy stuff.
34:11: I've been around for a while.
34:13: I hear people just say, people stay, people will say stuff.
34:23: Yeah, but people get so fascinated with their intelligence and they often shouldn't be.
34:31: I think that's the kind of nonsense that seems like that.
34:38: When people take that kind of approach to reading, that's like, what did you call it, dipping? Lucky dipping, yeah.
34:45: Lucky dipping, and it comes in a lot of times, in a lot of cases, I think it comes from just people know ahead of time.
34:54: A little bit of information can sometimes be like, can be dangerous because you know that the Bible is true.
35:03: So you figure, well, okay, anything I pull out of it is gonna be true.
35:06: It's gonna be true, right? That, you know what, Frank? I'm gonna give you a gold star when the break comes.
35:16: That's true.
35:17: People will say, well, it's all true, therefore it's all profitable.
35:25: Now, all of scripture is profitable, but just because the Bible is true doesn't mean your understanding is true.
35:32: And that's really serious.
35:35: I'm gonna mention this later in the course, but I agree with MacArthur on this very specific thing.
35:42: He said, the meaning of scripture is the scripture.
35:46: Now, you think about what he's saying.
35:48: The meaning of the text is the scripture.
35:51: Because when the guy says, oh, I don't interpret it, I just read it.
35:54: No, you come away with a meaning, and it's either right or wrong.
35:59: And the most dangerous people in the world are the people who come away with a wrong interpretation and say, thus saith the Lord.
36:06: Think about Jim Jones.
36:09: Jim Jones was a Disciples of Christ pastor, which is interesting because this church was once a Disciples of Christ church.
36:20: Jim Jones was a minister in the Disciples of Christ denomination, and he led over 900 people to their deaths by drinking Kool-Aid mixed with Sinai.
36:35: And remember, that's a man who convinced people to do that.
36:40: He convinced them to do that because he had so twisted the word of God.
36:47: It is a dangerous thing to stand up and say, thus saith the Lord, when you don't know what you're talking about.
36:55: And that's a lot of people do.
36:59: Yes.
37:08: No, no, that's no.
37:09: In fact, I had dinner with some pastors last Friday night.
37:14: It was nice.
37:14: I had a chance to sit down and talk to some guys.
37:17: They were different churches and they weren't all reformed.
37:20: I was the lone Calvinist.
37:22: Actually, I wasn't the only Calvinist, but I was the most outspoken Calvinist.
37:30: But there was several of us there, all super nice guys, really great guys.
37:37: And we were sort of talking about methodology.
37:41: How do we study? How do we do these different things? That's how carpenters get together.
37:45: They talk about how they build houses.
37:47: Pastors get together, talk about how they build sermons.
37:48: I mean, it's just kind of what we do.
37:50: So we had that conversation and we were talking about what we're reading versus what we're studying.
37:55: How are we doing that differently? And so, yeah, I mean, I think there's definitely a place for devotional reading.
38:01: If you're trying to read the whole Bible in a year per se, there's no way you're gonna stop and study every passage.
38:06: If you're trying to read the whole Bible in a year, you're not going to have the opportunity to do the observation, interpretation, application throughout the whole year.
38:13: So I would say there should be a distinction between your devotional reading and your...
38:17: And here's what devotional reading does do though.
38:20: Devotional reading is like an opportunity for your observation skills to get really, really honed because you're looking at a lot at one time and you're looking for the big picture.
38:32: You guys remember the story about the pastor preaching through Ephesians? Remember I told the story and he's like, I've been in Ephesians for three years, I'm only in chapter three.
38:40: It's like, well, what's Ephesians about? We don't know.
38:43: Because he hadn't looked at the big picture.
38:45: I worry about that with Genesis because I've been in Genesis so long, I don't want to miss the big picture.
38:52: And so I think there is a value in that reading and getting the big picture, for sure.
38:58: All right, so let's continue on.
39:01: There are barriers to understanding the text, which interpretation seeks to overcome.
39:07: The barriers to understand, there are four of them mentioned in our book.
39:12: One is language barriers.
39:17: Second is cultural barriers.
39:20: Third is literary barriers.
39:24: And fourth is communication barriers.
39:28: And language barriers would be just the fact that it wasn't written in English.
39:33: I talked this morning to the Set Free guys, we were talking about Bible interpretation.
39:38: I talked about my favorite German phrase.
39:42: Think I say it right, but I may be wrong.
39:45: And if anybody's watching this via online and you find me saying it wrong, feel free to correct me.
39:50: Maybe some of you may know.
39:51: But it's, Morgen stude hop golden mund.
39:56: And it means the morning hours have gold in their mouths.
40:01: Gold.
40:02: Yeah, Morgen stude hop golden mund.
40:05: I think is how it's pronounced.
40:08: The morning hours have gold in their mouths.
40:12: Now that doesn't mean a thing to most of us.
40:17: The early bird catches the worm.
40:18: That's what it means.
40:20: In English, that's how we would understand it.
40:23: And so there are language barriers in scripture because there are things that are said that we would not understand.
40:31: Go to the Song of Solomon and read what he says.
40:35: I think I talked about this last week.
40:37: Read what he says about the beauty of his wife, the giraffe neck, when you mentioned the neck of the giraffe and all that.
40:42: If I went into my wife and I started saying the things that he said about his wife to my wife, she might get a little less than excited about the things that I was saying to her because there's that language barrier.
40:56: And so when we're studying the Bible, we're looking at a document that's over 2000 years old and written in three different languages that we no longer speak.
41:10: Nobody speaks Koine Greek anymore.
41:14: People speak modern Greek, but it's not exactly the same.
41:17: People do speak Hebrew, so you could argue that there are people who understand the Hebrew a little better than the Greek, but even that has had 2000 years of some adjustments and changes and things.
41:30: And of course, there's very little, people always make a big deal about three languages.
41:34: Aramaic is a Hebrew dialect and there's very few verses written in Aramaic, but it is in there, so you have to mention it.
41:41: So you have three languages we don't use.
41:45: We're speaking in English.
41:46: We are wholly and highly dependent upon scholars and translators for that part of it.
41:53: That's why when you have a Bible, you need to have a Bible that is translated by people that are trustworthy and not looking for an agenda.
42:00: Like recently, there have been Bibles that have been attempted to make gender neutrality.
42:08: That is a Bible that is biased on its very face.
42:13: It says so.
42:14: What we're doing is we're making, they use gender neutral pronouns and things like that, or they try to remove the idea of God as a he or whatever.
42:25: It's very, very unnecessary.
42:29: Yes.
42:34: That's right.
42:35: God doesn't get to choose his own pronouns.
42:36: That's right.
42:38: So we have language barriers, cultural barriers.
42:45: Think of like when you're reading the book of 1 Corinthians.
42:51: What do you know about Corinth? Probably very little.
42:55: Maybe you've studied the book and you know a little bit, but Corinth is a metropolis.
43:01: It's like a vanity fair in the book, Kogram's Progress.
43:06: Vanity Fair is not just a magazine, by the way.
43:08: It was a place in Kogram's Progress.
43:11: And so there is a lot that we can glean based upon understanding the culture that the people of Corinth.
43:20: You notice something about Corinth, Paul, it's over and over and over challenging them about their worldly attitude and affections and the things that they're doing.
43:30: And where are they at? They're in the worldly paradise metropolis of that part of the world.
43:37: So it makes sense.
43:40: Literary barriers.
43:41: The Bible's made up of several literary forms, which we're gonna discuss in a moment.
43:45: So I'll bypass that one for now.
43:47: And communication barriers.
43:49: I wanna show you a picture.
43:51: I don't know how well you can see it from where you are.
43:53: I don't know if you can even read that, but this is a Farside comic.
43:57: I don't know if you guys remember Farside.
43:58: It was in the newspaper.
43:59: On the left side, it's a man speaking to his dog.
44:02: He says, okay, Ginger, I've had it.
44:04: You stay out of the garbage.
44:06: You understand, Ginger? You stay out of the garbage.
44:08: Or else.
44:09: And on the second frame, it's what she hears.
44:12: Blah, blah, blah, Ginger.
44:13: Blah, blah, blah, blah, Ginger.
44:14: Blah, blah, blah, Ginger.
44:16: All she understands is her name.
44:17: She doesn't understand garbage.
44:19: She doesn't understand any of that.
44:20: And that's the communication barrier we often find ourselves in.
44:24: And I know that's a little bit of a silly example, but it is sort of the way it happens.
44:31: And there are tools which can help us overcome these barriers.
44:35: One tool is an atlas.
44:37: Your Bible used to come with maps in it.
44:39: A lot of times now they don't have those maps anymore, but the maps are good.
44:43: We use, you know, we have maps here.
44:44: Brother Andy's used in the past to teach with and brother Mike, looking at the geography of the Bible, where things happen.
44:54: Dictionaries used to overcome language barriers.
44:57: Bible handbooks.
44:58: Do you guys know what a Bible handbook is? Like Haley's Bible handbook.
45:04: And these are books that are intended to help you overcome the cultural barriers.
45:09: They help you understand the time and place.
45:11: Like I said, all the things about Corinth I just said, you get a Bible handbook.
45:14: It's gonna tell you all those things.
45:15: You get a good, solid Bible handbook and that will help you with cultural barriers.
45:18: Oh, it makes a really good Bible dictionary.
45:20: I got a copy of it.
45:21: So my left one is set free and I'm doing my own copy.
45:25: Okay, good.
45:26: Yeah, see? So you got dictionary and a handbook.
45:33: Yeah, really.
45:34: It's like a little encyclopedia of the Bible.
45:37: I don't know if you were...
45:38: Were you in the Old Testament class when I did it? No, I haven't.
45:41: When we do the Old Testament class, which is the next class, I use Rose Publishing's book.
45:48: It is a full color.
45:49: Bobby's got a copy of their one of...
45:51: Isn't that Rose right there, what you're holding? Is that not Rose? Yeah, Rose Publishing.
45:56: They put out some really good full color charts that you can use.
46:02: And I recommend when you do the Old Testament class to buy their full color charts of the Bible because it has a full color picture of what the tabernacle would have looked like, full color picture of the temple.
46:13: And I mean, it's all illustrated.
46:15: And your mind, especially if you're a visual learner, you get to see that and it puts a picture in your mind of what you're actually reading.
46:24: So those are all great.
46:25: And of course, commentaries.
46:27: Commentaries often help us overcome communication barriers.
46:30: When things seem like blah, blah, blah, don't make any sense, sometimes a good commentator can come along and fill in some of those gaps and help us.
46:41: And I do get, you know, and I don't mind it, but I do get a lot of questions and I'm thankful.
46:47: I'm glad people trust me and feel like they can ask questions.
46:50: But I do have people who call me and ask me questions.
46:53: And sometimes it's like stump the pastor.
46:55: They're like, well, pastor, I was in Second Chronicles today.
46:58: And it's like, okay, slow down.
47:01: It's been a minute.
47:03: Since I've been in that chapter, let me pull the old Rolodex out.
47:09: You know, so I keep a Bible in my truck so I can, yeah, I know right where you're at.
47:15: We'll go there and look at it together.
47:18: Now, some people will say, some people will say I never use commentaries.
47:28: And here's my thought.
47:29: And this is in your book.
47:30: This is not an original thought with me.
47:31: This is actually, I agree with Dr.
47:34: Hendricks on this.
47:35: A carpenter is only as good as the tools in his toolbox.
47:38: Man can be a very skilled carpenter, but if he ain't got a square, if he ain't got a pencil, if he ain't got a saw, he's probably not gonna be doing much building.
47:50: And so if we reject the use of tools, we run the risk of severe limitation, drawing only from what we know.
47:57: And what we know is very limited.
48:01: The church has a vast history of scholarship.
48:03: Archeological, cultural, linguistic, and all those things from which to draw.
48:09: We shouldn't rely on the tools more than the scripture, but we shouldn't say that they are unimportant.
48:15: To do so is arrogant.
48:19: Somebody might say, well, I let the spirit of God speak to me.
48:23: And I say, I agree, but is the spirit of God not also able to speak to others? And are we not able to learn from one another? Just a few minutes ago, we proved the point because I said, everybody showed me, talk about the observation.
48:38: And brother back there said, I noticed something somebody else said, and that helped me in my observation right there.
48:45: That's part of what we're supposed to do as a church.
48:48: Iron sharpening iron, we come together to build one another up.
48:51: And there are people in the church that are called to be teachers, gifted to teach, and those things are helpful.
48:57: And often commentaries are written by pastors who have preached through the text.
49:04: All of MacArthur's commentaries are just his sermons.
49:08: Kent Hughes wrote a tremendous commentary series on Genesis.
49:12: I use it in my sermon preparation, and all it is is his sermons.
49:17: Jim Boyce, who was the pastor of Presbyterian Church up in Philadelphia, his commentaries on Genesis are amazing.
49:26: It's just his sermons.
49:28: It was his research put into his sermons.
49:30: I mean, it's more than his sermons.
49:32: One thing MacArthur points out is that often he doesn't get to preach everything in his notes, but the commentaries, he can put as much as he wanted in it.
49:39: So you get the benefit of the extra.
49:46: So what I find is people who say, I don't like commentaries.
49:51: I get some people, cause I'll say, I don't want other people to influence me before I understand the text for myself.
49:57: And that I agree.
49:58: We don't go right to the commentary.
50:00: That's why if you have a study Bible, I don't recommend you using that in your initial study phase, because you have a tendency to jump to those notes at the bottom first, and try to let somebody else interpret it for you before you've done the work of observation and interpretation yourself.
50:14: Try to do that work yourself as you'll grow better that way.
50:18: But I use it as like a check me up.
50:22: After I've done my own investigation, my own interpretation, I read these other men and I say, wait a minute, here's something I glaringly overlooked, or here's something I am saying that nobody else has ever said.
50:35: And that's not where I wanna be.
50:37: There is no place for novelty in theology.
50:42: If you're the only one who's ever seen it, you're the only one who's ever thought it, it's probably not right.
50:50: It's just, you gotta be careful.
50:53: People come up, nobody's ever seen this before.
50:56: It's probably a reason.
50:59: Yeah.
51:01: Yeah.
51:03: Now out of the Reformation, there came an interpretive model known as the grammatical historical method.
51:13: And I wanna talk about that for just a couple of moments.
51:16: The grammatical historical method basically is, well here, this screen will help.
51:25: This means that our understanding of the text should come from two main sources.
51:29: One, the grammar, and two, the history.
51:34: Both of those set the context.
51:36: We're talking about context earlier.
51:37: Grammar has a context and history has a context.
51:41: So the grammatical historical method is to look at the grammar and its context and the history and its context using both of those to arrive at a proper conclusion.
51:53: Simply stated, how did the original audience understand the text? That's our first question.
52:01: A principle of the grammatical historical method is singularity of meaning.
52:05: Text does not have multiple meanings.
52:08: It may have multiple applications and when we get to applications, we'll talk about that, but it doesn't have multiple meanings.
52:16: And the danger of not following the grammatical historical method is you end up with subjectivism.
52:22: Y'all know what subjectivism is? You're putting your feelings into something and understanding it because of where you're at or what you thought you were as a kid or is that what it's about? Subjective is the opposite of objective.
52:51: So subjective means that the subject is what determines meaning.
52:58: So you get to determine what it means to you.
53:01: James gets to determine what it means to him.
53:04: Chuck gets to determine what it means to him because it's subjective versus objective, which says there's an objective meaning that is independent of you or him or him or anybody else.
53:17: So subjective sometimes is referred to as relative.
53:21: Relative interpretation, what does it mean to you? And I don't know if you've ever had this happen Wilma, but I remember even when I was younger, now this has been a lot of years ago now, but I remember sitting in rooms with people who were having a Bible study and they'd read a verse of scripture and they'd go around and say, well, what does that mean to you? What does that mean to you? And what does that mean to you? And that's the most dangerous type of Bible study in the world because it doesn't matter what it means to you.
53:47: It matters what it means.
53:49: And you can't have a different meaning for every person in the room because then the Bible is nothing more than what Martin Luther said, like a wax nose on a face that can be shaped in any form it wants to be.
54:01: So that's what subjectivism is.
54:02: It's your interpretation versus Ron's interpretation versus the rest.
54:06: And so it's subject to the person.
54:12: And such thinking introduces a dangerous potential for distortion and contradiction because what if what it means to Frank is different than what it means to me? Then it's a contradiction.
54:21: The text doesn't contradict itself.
54:23: All right.
54:27: Now we are basically to the end of this part, but I do wanna say a few things about literary types before we take our break.
54:34: So we're gonna go a little long and then take our break at maybe at 35 after.
54:39: As we looked at why interpretation is important, now we're gonna look at understanding literary types.
54:45: The first step in interpretation is determining what type of literature you are reading.
54:51: When does that happen? In the observation phase.
54:57: You should know when you're reading in the observation phase what kind of literature this is.
55:05: Yeah, yeah.
55:06: It starts out with the big ones.
55:08: You start out with things like looking at, is this narrative? Is this didactic? Is this poetic? Is this apocalyptic? All right.
55:30: Okay.
55:32: Narrative means it's telling a story.
55:35: Didactic means it's teaching something.
55:38: The word didactic is to teach.
55:43: Poetic may be narrative or didactic because poetry can be both.
55:47: Poetry can tell a story, but it can also teach a lesson.
55:51: And narrative can be didactic too.
55:53: It can teach a lesson.
55:54: But what happens is oftentimes though, narrative is simply there to tell us something, not give us a command.
56:01: Like people will see some people doing something and they'll say, oh, that's telling me to do that.
56:05: Not necessarily.
56:06: It's just telling the story.
56:08: All right.
56:09: Poetic is a different form of writing.
56:13: And then you could also add proverbial.
56:16: You could say poetic, proverbial.
56:20: Proverbial is important to understand the different forms of Proverbs.
56:25: And we have with that, you can look at different types of Proverbs.
56:28: There are, Proverbs tend to use the, I forget what it's called at the moment, but it's where it will say the same thing in different ways.
56:45: And I can't for the life of me think of what it is right now.
56:50: Parallelism.
56:50: Thank you.
56:52: Synonymous parallelism, contrasting parallelism.
56:54: There's all these different types of parallelism in the Proverbs.
56:58: And then apocalyptic would be prophetic.
57:03: So it's not just revelation, but it's also a lot of Isaiah, a lot of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, certainly apocalyptic.
57:11: And it's to be interpreted differently than say Romans, which is highly didactic, right? So we have different forms of literature and you don't interpret Proverbs the same way you interpret Romans.
57:24: They have different rules.
57:27: And this is a question, I'm gonna throw this up on the board.
57:29: You can gasp and swoon if you want to, but this is a question people always ask me, but shouldn't we always interpret the Bible literally? My answer? No, no.
57:43: People get excited.
57:44: Oh, wait, wait, wait, you're telling me not to interpret the Bible literally.
57:48: I'm telling you that you should interpret the Bible literarily.
57:53: Literarily means according to the sense of the literature that's being written.
57:58: And the reformers use this phrase, the census literalis or the literal sense.
58:05: So when the Bible tells us that the trees clap their hands, are we to believe that the trees have fingers and arms? And no, we are to interpret that in the literal sense that the idea that creation itself is, you know, is praising God.
58:28: So the idea of a literal sense is a better than to say literally.
58:34: Here's the thing.
58:38: You'll hear dispensationalists often say, we have a literal hermeneutic.
58:44: That means they have a literal interpretation of the Bible.
58:49: And then you begin to listen to them interpret the Bible and you find out it's not quite as literal as they say.
58:57: They'll say things like, you see right here where it's got the locusts.
59:00: Well, those are Apache helicopters.
59:02: I say, now, wait a minute.
59:04: You just said we're taking it literal.
59:08: They'll say, see the beast coming out of the sea? That is a Gentile politician.
59:16: I say, so wait a minute.
59:17: Is it a beast or ain't it a beast? Because when you say literal, I think literal.
59:22: But now you're saying not literal.
59:26: And again, I'm not picking on the dispensationalists tonight but I do have some difficulty with how they.
59:31: I'm a Christian.
59:34: Don't do that.
59:35: Everybody titles himself.
59:37: No, I'm just saying people say, oh, don't call yourself Calvinist.
59:39: I don't call myself a Calvinist because of what I is.
59:41: No, I'm a part of it.
59:42: I'm just saying, like I told you last night, if you preach the gospel, that's what I care about.
59:48: No, I know that.
59:49: But do you know what I mean when I say dispensational? Yeah, we believe in the millennial kingdom and the rapture and all that.
59:58: Okay.
59:58: Or the Baptist teach that somewhere in the middle right now.
01:00:02: Okay, but what I'm saying is that it's more than that.
01:00:05: There's more to being a dispensationalist than a belief in the millennial kingdom because there's non-dispensationalists who believe in the millennial kingdom.
01:00:12: So there's more to it than that.
01:00:13: Just like this Sunday.
01:00:14: You know what my sermon is this Sunday? Because it's Reformation Day.
01:00:18: My sermon is what it means to be a reformed church other than election.
01:00:24: That's what it is.
01:00:25: Because everybody thinks all it takes to be reformed is that you believe in predestination and election.
01:00:30: And that ain't it.
01:00:32: Being reformed means a lot more than that.
01:00:36: And so being dispensational means a little bit more than what you're talking about too, Ed.
01:00:40: I'm not trying to throw you off.
01:00:42: I'm just saying that this is.
01:00:44: Yeah, no, no, no, that's fine.
01:00:45: When we talk about interpretation, my friends, and I have friends, I have dispensational friends, I have covenant friends, I have people on every side.
01:00:56: But it's just this, you'll hear them claim, we're the literalists.
01:01:01: And I say, slow down.
01:01:03: We're all trying to find the literal sense of the text.
01:01:07: And that's what we should be finding is the sensus literalis, the literal sense.
01:01:12: Yes.
01:01:22: Again, it comes back to, it's just consistency.
01:01:26: Consistency, we are all, we all tend to be closer than we realize.
01:01:34: But people wanna hold to certain things.
01:01:36: Well, we're literalists versus the not.
01:01:40: But when people say, people, like for instance, I believe Adam was a real man.
01:01:46: I believe the Garden of Eden was real.
01:01:49: So in that sense, I take a literal interpretation.
01:01:53: In the wooden sense of what it means to be literal.
01:02:00: And some people would balk at that.
01:02:03: And they would say, no, that's a, the first three chapters of Genesis are poetic.
01:02:07: They're not literary.
01:02:08: They're not literal, they're poetic.
01:02:11: There are different interpretations like the framework hypothesis and stuff that say the opening chapters of Genesis are not meant to be taken literally.
01:02:20: But my answer to that is that if you don't have a literal Adam, you don't have a literal fall.
01:02:25: If you don't have a literal fall, you don't have a literal need for a literal savior.
01:02:30: And the house of cards begins to fall if you don't have a fall.
01:02:35: So there is my, when we start talking about what things have to be in that sense, woodenly literally, but I don't like to use the word wooden.
01:02:45: R.C.
01:02:46: Sproul, we'll take our break in just a second.
01:02:47: But R.C.
01:02:48: Sproul has a wonderful example of this.
01:02:50: When he was in school, he wrote a paper in his seminary on why he believed, I think it was Jonah was literal, that Jonah really did fall into the water.
01:03:03: Jonah was really swallowed by a fish and Jonah was really spit up on the shores of Nineveh three days later and he went and preached.
01:03:10: His teacher said she'd never read anything like that.
01:03:16: She'd never heard anybody give a literal interpretation of that story.
01:03:21: And she was beside, she thought it was great.
01:03:23: He got a good grade because it was so, to her, it was so outside the norm.
01:03:28: Remember, he studied over in Europe and it was so outside the norm that it was like, she was excited to have somebody make such a outrageous claim.
01:03:41: That's what I'm talking about when I say there are certain people that go way crazy with the non-literal side.
01:03:48: There's ditches on both sides.
01:03:50: There's ditches on both sides.
01:03:51: So we gotta be careful.
01:03:52: All right, let's take a break and we'll come back.
01:04:03: Few more minutes of stuff to do here.
01:04:06: Our workbook, our workbook is our final thing for tonight.
01:04:13: And we're going to look at workbook pages 46, 47, and 48.
01:04:21: I'm sorry, lessons 46, 47, and 48.
01:04:28: And this goes right along with the things we've been talking about in class.
01:04:33: So it's not really breaking any new ground per se, it's just giving us a visual aid for what we have already talked about.
01:04:43: And there are some things I'm gonna read from the notebook.
01:04:48: So we'll begin, it's page 109 in your workbook, lesson 46, Aids to Interpretation.
01:04:56: Have you ever felt shut out of understanding the Bible because you don't know the languages in which they were originally written? You don't have to feel that way any longer thanks to the many extra biblical resources that have been developed in recent years.
01:05:08: Here are some resources to help you interpret the Bible or interpret scripture accurately.
01:05:13: And here's the chart.
01:05:15: It has atlases, Bible dictionaries, Bible handbooks, commentary, and interlinear text.
01:05:21: Now that's something we didn't mention earlier.
01:05:23: What is an interlinear text? Yeah, it has the original language either above or below.
01:05:35: If the original language is first and the English is second, that's an interlinear.
01:05:43: When the English is on top, that's called a reverse interlinear.
01:05:47: That means we're actually, huh? Is that what we have, what I have? Might be, is that what you have, the one I use? The ESV? Yeah, it's called ESV, reverse interlinear.
01:05:56: It means it puts the ESV at the top and then the Greek is underneath it.
01:06:00: Yes? The one I got, is it Septuagint? Septuagint? Yeah, that has like, it has the Greek.
01:06:12: Old Testament.
01:06:14: The Greek and the English.
01:06:16: The Bible has like all three of them.
01:06:19: Doesn't Septuagint just mean canon of the Bible? No.
01:06:22: Septuagint is the Greek translation.
01:06:25: Yeah.
01:06:26: In English, I've got one that has like all three instances.
01:06:29: Yeah, that sounds like, I would have to see it to know exactly.
01:06:33: Yeah, I would have to see that.
01:06:35: But the Septuagint is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament.
01:06:39: Right.
01:06:40: It says on it, but it's got Greek, Hebrew, and English.
01:06:44: I am, I have mixed feelings about interlinear texts.
01:06:52: You may have heard this phrase before, you may not, but this phrase is, a little Greek is a dangerous thing.
01:07:00: A little Greek is a dangerous thing.
01:07:03: I have had many conversations where somebody will say, but the Greek says, and I say, oh, you speak Greek? You read Greek? No.
01:07:12: Okay.
01:07:14: So what are you trying to accomplish? I'm not being a jerk.
01:07:17: What are you trying to accomplish? If you don't really understand the language, why are you appealing to it? Now, I don't, I'm not done.
01:07:28: I'm not saying that you can't look at the original language and deduce some things.
01:07:35: But what often I find is when somebody says, well, the Greek says, they are often trying to prove something that's not correct.
01:07:45: And they're, oh, that can be too.
01:07:48: I just have heard so many people, well, Strong's Concordance says, and if your level of the Greek is only Strong's Concordance, you probably don't know enough to have the conversation.
01:07:59: And I don't mean that to be ugly, but that's what people do.
01:08:01: So they'll say, well, Strong says X, Y, Z.
01:08:03: You were going to say something, Ross, please go ahead.
01:08:08: No, no, no.
01:08:09: I appreciate your input.
01:08:11: So please.
01:08:19: I fully understand.
01:08:20: We'll go back to the Greek to see what it's saying.
01:08:23: You know, we don't necessarily bring it up to people like the Greek said this.
01:08:28: And sometimes, you know, the words are different.
01:08:31: Like, y'all don't read 16th? It's just different in Greek.
01:08:34: I mean, is that a good, bad thing? Well, let me ask you, and we have to limit our time on this, but when you say John 3, 16 is different in Greek, what's different? Oh, it's definitely in different order.
01:08:55: Word order in Greek is different than English.
01:08:57: So we do find ourselves different word order.
01:09:00: Okay.
01:09:06: And I am not saying that we shouldn't use it.
01:09:09: Please understand that.
01:09:11: I'm not saying that that's wrong.
01:09:14: I'm saying that I have found that it can be a, it can be used by people who don't know as a way to fortify their belief in something that's not correct.
01:09:29: Good example is, okay.
01:09:51: So this phrase is kaitheos ein halagos.
01:10:00: Okay.
01:10:01: This is the third clause in John 1, 1.
01:10:06: Kai means and.
01:10:10: Theos is the word for God.
01:10:15: Ein is the word was.
01:10:20: Halagos is the word, the word, the word, the word.
01:10:28: Okay.
01:10:29: So in Greek, the order of the words is kaitheos ein halagos.
01:10:37: In English, if we translated it directly, it would be and God was the word.
01:10:45: But every English Bible you've ever read doesn't say that.
01:10:49: It says, and the word was God, right? The reason why it says the word was God is because this word is in the nominative case.
01:11:02: This word is the subject of the clause.
01:11:07: Therefore, in English, we put the subject first.
01:11:11: So, and the word was God.
01:11:14: Now you'll notice one thing that is missing and that is an article on the word theos.
01:11:26: The Jehovah Witnesses will come in and they will say, this is an anarthos noun.
01:11:33: Therefore, an anarthos noun, meaning it does not have the article, demands an indefinite article.
01:11:41: The indefinite article a.
01:11:44: And they argue that the way it should be translated is the word was a God.
01:11:52: And that's not correct.
01:11:54: But if you look at the New World Translation, which is used by the Jehovah's Witnesses, they make the argument that because this is an anarthos noun and nouns are either articular or anarthos, articular means it has the article, anarthos means it doesn't.
01:12:09: If it doesn't have the article, it requires an indefinite article in English.
01:12:14: Therefore, this word requires an indefinite article.
01:12:16: FF Bruce, one of the premier Greek scholars of the last century said, the only thing they proved by that is their ignorance of the Greek language, because it does not require an indefinite article to make the sentence make sense.
01:12:30: But my point in saying all of that is simply to say, the word order does matter, but it shouldn't, there's a reason why the English translators translated in the order they do.
01:12:45: And so it helps us to know, like the definition of theos, that means God, logos means word.
01:12:53: There's nothing wrong with knowing those things.
01:12:55: There's nothing wrong with knowing that this is a, that's an article.
01:12:58: There's nothing wrong with knowing that this is a preposition or that this is a conjunction.
01:13:02: Those are good things to know, but understanding how they fit together is that's the real thing, because then you get into the semantics of how words work, because words are never independent of the other words around them.
01:13:15: They're always being modified by the words around them.
01:13:18: That's why I think there's a danger sometimes in people who, well, the Greek says, and it's like, but wait a minute, what are you trying to prove? That's all I ask.
01:13:30: What are you trying to prove? Okay.
01:13:33: And I hope- No, and I hope that wasn't intended to be a shot.
01:13:38: I'm just showing you something that most people never go that far.
01:13:41: They only, they see the word and they, okay, well, this is the definition and that's fine.
01:13:47: But just know where our limitations are.
01:13:49: That's all.
01:13:50: Yes, Chuck.
01:13:51: So, okay.
01:13:52: So we was studying on sleep in Thessalonians.
01:13:59: I mean, it was beneficial when we looked in the Greek to find the meaning, because there was three different meanings on sleep.
01:14:07: Okay.
01:14:08: Two.
01:14:09: I wanna say two in Thessalonians, but, and without the Greek, we didn't even notice it.
01:14:16: We knew that there was a question there but that one was, you know what I mean? So we went to them right here.
01:14:21: And that's what I'm saying.
01:14:22: I'm not saying don't do it.
01:14:23: I hope I didn't come across as being negative.
01:14:25: I'm just, and this happens a lot at Set Free.
01:14:28: You guys have to know this, that I'll be saying something and somebody will say, no, no, no, the Greek says something different.
01:14:33: I'm like, really? And that's where I guess I've, and it's not just there, it's everywhere.
01:14:40: Yes.
01:14:40: They're saying that the definition of a word.
01:14:43: Yeah, and there's, again, if you're looking at the definition of a word or which words being used, like for instance, you mentioned John 3.16.
01:14:51: John 3.16 uses the word monogamous.
01:14:54: It's one of the most important words in the Bible.
01:14:57: But in the English we translate it as only begotten.
01:15:01: But monogamous really means more than only begotten.
01:15:05: Monogamous comes from the root word gene, which means the origin of something.
01:15:09: It's where we get the word genes.
01:15:11: It's also where the word Genesis comes from, the beginning.
01:15:14: And mono means one.
01:15:16: So really monogamous means one of a kind or unique.
01:15:21: So when the Bible says God sent his only begotten son, it's saying the one of a kind, his only one that's like him.
01:15:26: There's no other person in the world like Jesus.
01:15:29: So it really speaks to that nature.
01:15:32: So something like that would be a good idea.
01:15:34: And I'm not saying word studies are bad.
01:15:36: I'm just saying that's the kind of stuff we can draw from a word study, right? And we could say, is there other places where the word monogamous is used, right? Are there other places where we see? There's a place in John where we see the word monogamous theos, only begotten God, but is God begotten? Well, the son is begotten of the father, but he's begotten of all time, never created, but begotten.
01:16:03: In fact, the Nicene Creed says that begotten not made.
01:16:07: That's an important part of Christology that we understand the son comes from the father, but from all eternity.
01:16:14: He didn't come from the father at a point in time, but that he has always been from the father.
01:16:19: Just like as long as I have existed, my thoughts have existed in conjunction with me.
01:16:23: They come from me, but they exist with me always.
01:16:26: As long as I've been, my thoughts have been as long as the father has been, the son has been.
01:16:30: The son comes from the father, but yet he is.
01:16:34: Not created.
01:16:37: Begotten, not made.
01:16:39: These are very important.
01:16:40: What? I miss something.
01:16:42: No, I'm just it's just that's just the craziest thing.
01:16:47: I mean, you know, it's just always been.
01:16:49: It's a powerful thought.
01:16:50: He's always been, but he's still of the father.
01:16:53: And we and you guys ever heard of the philoquy, the filioquy clause.
01:17:01: The Nicene Creed says in its original writings that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the father.
01:17:08: But later, the Roman Church included that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the father and the son.
01:17:16: That was one of the reasons why the Church of the East, the Orthodox Church, divided from the church from the West because of that phrase.
01:17:26: It's called the filioquy clause or the son, the clause regarding the son.
01:17:33: And that one division divided the church.
01:17:38: But it really wasn't that division.
01:17:40: It was that the pope made that made that proclamation unilaterally without the consultation of the other bishops.
01:17:46: And they didn't they didn't believe that he should have that authority to change the Nicene Creed, yet he did.
01:17:52: So there's more to that historical idea.
01:17:54: But the point is, is something like that is is it's such a powerful thought that the spirit has always proceeded from the father and the son always.
01:18:08: And it's just it's not that he started to proceed from some point, but has always just like the son has always been begotten.
01:18:14: It's just an amazing.
01:18:15: I mean, I know I've I've wasted not wasted, but I've used our time.
01:18:22: But I hope that was helpful just to get you guys thinking in a direction.
01:18:26: Let's turn over real quick and let's look at 47.
01:18:31: Page 111, here are six pitfalls to watch as you study.
01:18:35: We could spend a whole class on these, but I'll just read them quickly.
01:18:39: Misreading the text, distorting the text, contradicting the text.
01:18:47: Subjectivism and relativism.
01:18:51: And then the last one is overconfidence.
01:18:53: Pride comes before the fall.
01:18:58: I can't help but want to talk about the Dunning-Kruger effect.
01:19:02: That's been my thing this week.
01:19:03: Have you been you? I mentioned it.
01:19:05: Did you watch the video I sent you earlier? I know we're over time and may carry on.
01:19:14: OK, this will only take a second.
01:19:16: There's a there's a somewhat debated principle, but I think it does have some merit.
01:19:27: So I've been sharing it recently and it's called the Dunning-Kruger effect.
01:19:32: And the idea is that when it comes to any subject, people have a level of knowledge which corresponds to a level of confidence.
01:19:51: And if you don't know anything about something, you're here.
01:19:54: You have no knowledge, therefore you have no confidence.
01:19:57: Like for me, I know nothing about welding.
01:20:00: I like to watch people weld, think it's cool.
01:20:02: But you hand me a welding stick and I'm not even sure that's what it's called.
01:20:06: Pretty sure it's not.
01:20:06: But if somebody's going to get hurt because I don't know how to weld, I have no confidence because I have no knowledge.
01:20:12: Right.
01:20:14: Well, what often happens when someone will put these like this, like little markers and these little markers here, what often happens is when somebody gets a little bit of knowledge about something, their confidence level shoots way up.
01:20:26: So even though they don't have much knowledge, they got plenty of confidence in what little knowledge they have.
01:20:33: And then they begin to learn more about that subject.
01:20:37: And as they begin to learn more, you think their confidence level will go up.
01:20:40: It's actually not true.
01:20:41: Your confidence level actually begins to diminish because you begin to realize how much you don't know.
01:20:46: And the more you learn, actually, the more your confidence level drops for a time until you begin to sort of hit a plateau.
01:20:54: And then your confidence level will come back up as you begin to really understand the subject and you find yourself here.
01:21:03: And what this what this really these three dots sort of indicate is this person over here, we might say this is the professor.
01:21:11: Who really understands the subject.
01:21:14: This is the person who is a student who is just learning about the subject, but they know that they don't know anything.
01:21:21: This person here is the idiot.
01:21:25: Because he's so confident and don't know anything.
01:21:29: If these three people debate, this guy will win the debate.
01:21:34: Because he's so confident that the crowd will think that he's an expert.
01:21:40: This person knows how much they don't know, and they find themselves unwilling to be confident enough to out deal the idiot.
01:21:51: And this person here knows the subject well enough that he knows that what this guy took 30 seconds to say wrong.
01:21:58: He's going to have to take 30 minutes to untie that knot.
01:22:01: And he doesn't have the time to do it.
01:22:05: So this is what we call politicians.
01:22:11: And some preachers.
01:22:13: I'll add it.
01:22:14: And you could go down a list of people who know just a little, just enough to make them sound self sound like like they're smart.
01:22:22: And this is a dangerous place to be, because most people who are here don't know they're here.
01:22:29: They don't know they're here.
01:22:31: They're very confident and they're very ignorant.
01:22:35: And they're dangerous.
01:22:36: That's why I often say to people, people say, people say, well, I said this can't prove me wrong.
01:22:40: I can't prove you wrong in 30 seconds.
01:22:44: What you said took you 30 seconds, but it's going to take me 30 minutes to dive into what you just said and then show you why you're wrong.
01:22:51: People do this on Facebook all the time.
01:22:53: People come on to my my sermons and they'll slip.
01:22:57: And I just got into the response in my responses.
01:22:59: Now, I'm not interested in debating.
01:23:01: I don't have the time to correct your misunderstanding, but it is a misunderstanding.
01:23:08: You don't understand it.
01:23:09: And I don't have time to fix it.
01:23:11: You're not my flock.
01:23:12: I don't care.
01:23:14: It's not that I don't care, but honestly, I don't have the ability or the time.
01:23:18: If you know, if they're not part of the church, if they're not part of my flock, I can't sit there and correct everybody's ignorance.
01:23:23: I can't do that.
01:23:24: I don't have time to do that.
01:23:25: It's not because I can't.
01:23:26: It's because I don't want to.
01:23:28: Or I don't have the time to.
01:23:31: And I also don't really want to in most cases.
01:23:37: So that was that was that was free.
01:23:41: Last one, page 113.
01:23:43: Just look at these.
01:23:44: I mentioned earlier didactic, poetic.
01:23:47: Well, he puts a couple other ones in here.
01:23:49: He puts apocalyptic biography.
01:23:51: There are passages that are just biographical.
01:23:53: That would be would fall under narrative and comium.
01:23:58: This is sings high praise of someone or something else rehearses in glowing terms.
01:24:02: The subject's origins, acts, attributes or superiority.
01:24:05: These are often referenced to God, but also can be in regard to people.
01:24:11: Exposition.
01:24:11: These are carefully reasoned arguments, narratives.
01:24:14: This is stories oratory.
01:24:15: This is when someone is making oral presentation.
01:24:18: We see this like an ax or Paul makes presentations on the other side.
01:24:23: We see parables, pastorals, poetry, prophecy.
01:24:27: If you really want to dive into these, let me recommend to you 40 questions about biblical interpretation.
01:24:33: That was the other book that I said I would recommend to go along with the book that you have.
01:24:37: You've got a copy of it, brother, right there.
01:24:38: Just hold it up.
01:24:39: That is the book because he talks about how to interpret poetry, how to interpret Proverbs, how he gets into the weeds.
01:24:49: And that's like the second book that I would recommend after the book you're studying.
01:24:53: If you want to get deeper, I would go there.
01:24:56: There's also one on our shelf out there that Brother Mike recommends.
01:24:59: I forget the name of it now, but it's got a bluish green cover and it's about understanding the text.
01:25:04: So all of those are helpful to understand these different genres.
01:25:09: OK, I know that was a lot and we're 10 minutes over.
01:25:11: Any questions? Well, let's end with a prayer, shall we? Father, I thank you for your word.
01:25:18: I thank you for your truth.
01:25:20: Thank you that you have given us this opportunity to study your word together.
01:25:23: And I pray, Lord, that we would all have a heart that truly desires to know more about you and to be able to understand your word better in Jesus name.
01:25:34: Amen.