Context And Interpretation

Help musicians, I mean, sports guys listen to some music in the locker room to get themselves ready. Okay, getting ready, psyched up. Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. I hope you keep that in. People need to see behind the scenes what goes on here in this studio, in this office, in this study.

Mario is behind the scenes. I'm, I don't know where I am. I'm in front of the scenes. I remember with Shakespeare, there was no murders on stage because that would be obscene on stage. So the murders were always somewhere else and the person would run out, there's been a murder.

Anyway, my name is Mike Abendroth. This is No Compromise Radio Ministry. Thanks for watching. Tell your friends, subscribe, like. I've got my daughters actually working on a few things, trucker hats, a few other things to finally try to compete with Pat Abendroth and the Pactam and other swagalicious kinds of people.

My wife is helping with ladies ministry here at Bethlehem Bible Church. And she said, you know what, sweetheart, it would be great if you could give a special Bible study for the ladies during Sunday school hour on how to study the Bible.

Of course, it would be good for men as well. How do you study the Bible? Interpreting the Bible, hermeneutics, the science and art of biblical interpretation. But why don't you meet with the ladies alone and you can help them pastorally specially crafted this teaching for the ladies?

And I said, I'd love to do that. So today I'm going to take that material that I used and teach you, dear listener, dear viewer, how to study the Bible. And this will be both for ladies, of course, and for men, nothing gender specific or anything gender neutral.

I don't even want to use the word gender anymore. But before I talk about Mario and I were laughing before the show, so we might as well keep laughing. It sounds like a man in a studio by himself laughing, but now he's got Mario.

So how are you going to critique that? Sounds like a man in a studio laughing at his own jokes and Mario having to laugh. So he continues to get paid his mere pittance every four months. Oh, I have this on my desk on this table, the life of David Brainerd.

And I just wanted to make a comment before we get into the Bible study. I opened it up just a minute ago, randomly to this page. It was random. Then I marked it after, but this was a random opening. And it said, December 30th was visited by four or five young persons under concern for their souls.

Most of whom were very lately awakened. They wept much while I discoursed with them and endeavored to press upon them the necessity of flying to Christ without delay for salvation. December 31st, spent some hours this day in visiting my people from house to house and conversing with them about their spiritual concerns, endeavoring to press upon Christless souls, the necessity of a renovation of heart and scarce left a house without leaving some or other of its inhabitants in tears, appearing solicitously engaged to obtain an interest in Christ.

Assurance Rests on Christ, Not Introspective Performance

Why do I read that? Well, obviously those things are really good, but when people struggle with assurance of salvation, I used to have them read David Brainerd through the eyes of Jonathan Edwards and even the book written by John Bunyan about sinners coming to faith.

It was about his own self as an autobiography. And both of those, I think, aren't good to do. While containing truth, while containing things about the Lord Jesus and good doctrine, Edwards took Brainerd's diaries and summarized them and condensed them and edited them.

And it ends up being, you better live this way or you better not call yourself a Christian. It seems to put the bar too high. Instead of focusing on faith in Jesus, objective assurance, faith in the object, objective, it put a lot of focus on the fruit, our subjectively looking.

And we've said many times on this show, when I looked at myself, I don't know how I could be saved. But when I looked at the Lord Jesus, I don't know how it could be lost. There's room in the Bible for both objective assurance and subjective, but this tends to be too subjective.

And so if you're struggling with your salvation assurance, if you're struggling with how can I keep sinning the way I'm sinning and still call myself a Christian, I don't feel like a Christian. There are other books to read.

And so the books to read would be things like Gentle and Lowly by Ortland, would be The Whole Christ by Ferguson, would be Bruised Reed by Richard Sibbes, books that focus on the object, the Lord Jesus.

And I've said many times on this show that when you're searching for assurance, rightly so, that's an important thing. Spurgeon said, instead of chasing assurance, chase the Lord Jesus by faith in his word and the dove of assurance will then come and sit on your shoulder.

That is to say, study assurance, study assurance, study assurance, it's elusive. But if you study Jesus and you realize how kind he was to people, how he healed the leper, what his promises are, how powerful he is, and you start focusing on him, then it's the Robert Murray McShane rule for every time you look at yourself, look at the Lord Jesus 10 times, a hundred times, a thousand times.

So I just was looking through my books and I thought, I just need to be warning people to be careful, especially when it comes to edited stuff by someone like Jonathan Edwards. So back to the topic at hand, no more laughing, sure got quiet all of a sudden, didn't it?

Sometimes I preach a sermon just for Mario. I was going to talk about how to study the Bible, but he already knows that. He needed a little assurance reminder, didn't you? We all did. So today, no compromise radio, how to study the Bible, both for men and women, but of course, it's important for ladies to study the Bible.

It's important for them so they know the Bible better themselves. So when they teach their children, when they teach other ladies, when they evangelize, it's important. We're not one of those people that are like, you know what ladies, you shouldn't study to show yourself approved.

You shouldn't just, you just only ask your husband doctrinal questions. No, we want them to know the Bible as well. And so today it's probably a three-parter eventually, but today it's reading the Bible carefully, reading the Bible carefully.

Read the Bible for Its Intended Meaning

And I'm going to try to push you to not ask this question. What does the Bible mean to me? What does this verse mean to me? What does this paragraph mean to me? We're going to be after, what does this passage mean?

What does it mean? There's an author, divine author, human author, and we're looking for the meaning of the text. And I want you to know that even reading is a lost art these days. Not many people read.

I mean, it's just TikTok and Instagram and scrolling through, and people are fairly illiterate. Some say that people only read one book a year on average. That's not very good. And so God in these last days has spoken through, as Luther said, Greek and Hebrew letters.

So we need to be good readers if we want to understand who God is, what he requires, what Jesus has done. So to start, let me read to you some of what the Bible says about itself as we set the table, and then I'll give you some exhortations on how to study the Bible better.

Scripture Testifies to Its Own Value

Psalm 19, verses 7 through 11. The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The concept there, by the way, it's a very interesting one.

If you think like a Jewish person, you'd want to have a closed mind. We say the open mind is so good. An open mind of the Jew would be, you don't care what goes in, you don't care what goes out. Just open to everything.

What goes in, what goes out, I'm open to everything. A closed mind in Hebrew thinking would be, I need to be careful what goes in to my mind, what goes in, as some would say, through my eye gate and through my ear gate, and then what leaves, what do I get rid of?

I should be very careful. Psalm 19, verse 8 goes on. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever.

The rules of the Lord are true and righteous altogether, so much so, what should it be our response? David tells us, more to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb.

Moreover, by them your servant is warned, in keeping them there's great reward. And so when it comes to the Bible, even the Bible itself is talking about how great it is, how wonderful it is, how important it is for us to study.

Psalm 119, verses 97 through 105, just setting the table here, reminding us about how important the Bible is for everyone. Oh, how I love your law. Well, I guess Abendroth's an antinomian again until he just read that.

Oh, how I love your law. I love God's law, of course I do. It is my meditation all the day. Your commandment, the writer says, makes me wiser than my enemies, for it is ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditations.

I understand more than the aged, for I keep your precepts. Your word is a lamp to my feet, verse 105, and a light to my path. So with that stage being set, with that foundation set about the importance of scripture, let's talk about how to study the Bible.

Begin Bible Study with Prayer for Illumination

Let me give you, I don't know, five or six points, exhortations. The first one I stole from a man named Richard Barcellos, and so I'll give him full credit. Number one, the Bible's not like any other book.

The Bible's not like any other book. Now, many people would say, study the Bible like any other book. And what they mean is when there's genre of poetry or narrative, or there's grammar, and there's a question mark, and there's an exclamation point, and there's a possessive apostrophe, then we need to read like that.

That's true. But what Barcellos is trying to reinforce, and now I will, because Rich is right, do you pray before you read a cookbook? Now, when I asked that to the ladies, do you pray before you read a cookbook?

And some of them said, yes. I guess they were implying that their cooking wasn't that good, or the cookbook wasn't that good. And so they were hoping that whatever they made for their family was going to be good.

Marty was not laughing, but I thought that was so funny. So the point is, you ask God for illumination so you can understand the Bible. Before you preach, you pray and say, Lord, I can say these words, but unless your spirit opens the hearts of people and illumines their minds and does its work, I'm just talking.

I'm just Charlie Brown's teacher, right? Wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. So I don't read a Sherlock Holmes book and pray, contemplate it and say, this is going to change me. It's going to work in me.

The word of God performs its work in those who believe. Lord, do that work in my heart. And so the Bible is not like any other book, because it is the only book that is breathed out by God. It's, to use the NAS language in 2 Timothy chapter three, inspired.

We have to begin with this truth that this is a different book. This is God's word. This is not, well, a bunch of people decided to write some things about morality and about religion and about sacrifice and some other things.

No, this is a book, 2 Timothy 3, breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness that the man of God, the preacher, and then anybody else as well, may be complete, equipped for every good work.

We pray to understand the Bible. We know that this is not like any other book because we also have two authors, right? I guess some books are written by two different authors, but here we have a human author and a divine author.

And we need to understand that there's a divine meaning behind what these human men are saying. I think Barcello said this, it's in my notes, I think it's a quote from him. We seek to understand God's meaning as he has communicated it to the human authors of scripture, because scripture has a divine author.

Our goal is not merely to discover what a human author might have intended independently from God. And so since we approach God's word as God's word, we realize it's not exactly like any other book. Number two, observation comes before interpretation.

So you want to come to the, so far, you come to the Bible and you pray, Lord, help me understand. And as I understand, change me. I want to be more like Jesus. Number two, we come and we observe. Instead of quickly trying to find, where am I in this book?

Like St. Clair Ferguson says, where's Waldo approach? Where am I in this passage? No, let's just start observing. Let's start asking all the questions that start with the W. Who, what, when, where, why?

And the H question too, how? Is this law? Is this gospel? Is this a demand? Is this a promise? What's the point? Are there repeated verbs? When I first got saved, I ran from everything that I used to be involved in.

And so some of my records I should have gotten rid of. They were awful. Some of the movies that I owned were bad. I should have not, not had them, but I think I went overboard and thought, you know, I need to get rid of all this stuff.

And so I thought TV's bad. Movies are bad. Everything's bad. And to use theological terms, grace, you know, obliterating nature versus grace, transforming nature. And so I didn't watch really TV. And I'm like, what could I watch?

So my seminary professor said that he loved to watch a TV show called Columbo. And that gave me permission to watch detective movies and like Columbo. And, you know, Columbo was keen on investigating the crime, walking out, but disheveled looking and then sticking his camel's nose into the proverbial tent and then saying, you know, one more thing.

And while I'm, you know, I just want to ask one more thing, observing and then solving the crime. So I want you to be good detectives coming to the passage, asking yourself, is this a promise? Is this a contrast?

Is there a connecting word? Like in the epistles, lots of times you'll see the word and at the beginning of verse or, or, or therefore we're asking a lot of questions. What I don't want you to do is rush past observation and just say, what do I need to do?

Give me application. You know, the Bible is B-I-B-L-E basic instructions before leaving earth B-I-B-L-E. And I just need to know what to do. Lots of times it's not about doing, it's about knowing and understanding.

Lots of times it's not about actions, it's about attitudes and thoughts and loving God with your mind. And so what I do is when I study the Bible, I have a little piece of paper and a little booklet notebook.

I was trying to figure out what that, what do you call a bunch of notes put together in a book, a notebook and a pencil. And I begin making observations and I begin saying, well, what about this? And what about that?

How does that tie in? I don't understand that. Why would he say this? And what I try not to do is jump to commentaries and study helps and Bible notes at the study Bible level, because I want to have the joy of discovery.

I love it when I find something out observing like Columbo would a crime scene, but here I'm observing the Bible and I find something out and I go, wow, that's so neat. And then I read it a commentary and I go, I didn't need the commentary.

I found that on my own. We both saw the same thing. So be careful not to come in with application at the top of the list, interpretation, ask a lot of questions like Columbo. So when you study the Bible, you first pray.

Interpret Each Passage in Its Immediate, Book, and Biblical Context

Then number two, you observe, make all kinds of observations. Number three, look at context, find context. This is a key thing. Now, the context that we're going to talk about today are three levels, an immediate context.

That is to say what's just before your passage and what's just after. So that's immediate. Then the context of the book. So if you're studying Luke, what's the book of Luke about? I'm in Luke 15. What happened in 14?

What happened in 16? I'm studying the immediate context. Then I say, what's the book of Luke all about? Because chapter 15 is within the Luke account of the 24 chapters. And then finally, the large context, what do you think that would be?

That would be all the Bible. God's the author of all the Bible, and it's going to have to fit within the entire Bible. So immediate context, the book context, and then the context of the entire Bible.

Let me give you an illustration. If I were to say to you, or somebody were to say to you, the Bible says, judge not lest you be judged. Is that true? Yes. It's Matthew chapter seven, verse one. Jesus said, judge not lest you be judged.

Is that a blanket statement now? We can never discern. We can never look at things. Is that right or that's wrong? I'm not to be judged. Don't judge lest you be judged. I'm not to be a judgmental person.

If it's okay with you, okay with me. So let's use our rules now. Rule number one, let's pray before we study. Rule number two, let's make a lot of observations. Who's saying this? To whom is he saying it?

Why is he saying it? And now number three, what's the immediate context? The immediate context, what's said before, what's said after? Let me tell you what said after for this rule implemented. Judge not lest you be judged, Matthew seven.

For with the judgment you pronounce, you will be judged. And with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but not notice the log that is in your own eye?

Or how can you say to your brother, let me take the speck out of your eye when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.

Do not give to dogs what is holy and do not throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you. So we see the context immediately, he says something else. One of the key phrases when it comes to studying things in context is keep reading, read before, but keep reading and you will see what's going on.

So Jesus obviously is not saying you can't judge right from wrong. He's not saying you can not even see the speck in somebody else's eye. You can judge that. He's not saying you can't try to figure out who a dog is and who a hog is.

That'd be a good sermon title of that verse. Verse six, do not give to dogs what is holy, don't give pearls before swine. I think it was Adrian Rogers who said dogs and hogs. So of course you can judge.

In the context, immediate context, before and after, that helps us. How about within the book? Isn't there judgment found in Matthew chapter seven? People that build their house on the rock, build their house on the sand.

Isn't there Matthew seven language? Yes, there is. What about the entire Bible? What does the Bible say about judgment? Well, 1 Thessalonians 5 says you are to examine everything carefully. Bereans in Acts 17, they studied, they discerned, they looked right from wrong.

And so when you come to a passage, I want you to think about context, the immediate context, the book context, and the Bible context. So that's what we've got so far. The Bible context helps us interpret what the chapter title...

You don't have to get rid of this, Mario, if you don't want, but if we want to, let's restart that. When it comes to the three contexts, we just looked at Matthew seven with immediate context. How about the book context?

And I've been preaching through Luke and Luke one verse four says that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught. Did you know often there's a purpose statement in books of the Bible?

First John has a purpose statement. Here we have a purpose statement in Luke and everything in Luke falls underneath that purpose statement so that you might have certainty with the things that you've been taught.

How does Luke 15 fit into that? How does Luke 24 fit into that? So there's an immediate context. There's a context of the book and there's a context of the Bible. The divine author, he is not going to contradict himself.

Put it a different way, the Bible will help you interpret the Bible. How does this passage relate to everything else in the Bible? What if I look at a verse and it's John chapter 14 and Jesus says, the father is greater than I am.

What do I do? Somebody shows up at your door, Jehovah's witnesses, and they'll say, see, the father's greater. What do you do? Well, hopefully you say, before I study the Bible, Lord, help me understand.

You make some observations about it. And then you look at the context and the context of the immediate book, John can help you. The context of the Bible can help you. And you can be thinking, wait a second, I believe in one God, three persons, and those three persons, there's no subordination.

They are equal. And so how can the father be greater than Jesus? Well, Bible study of the whole Bible will teach you that Jesus, when he assumes human nature, when the word became flesh, his human nature is lesser than the father's divine nature.

Scripture Interprets Scripture and Clarifies Justification

And so in that way, yes, the father's greater than I am. In terms of my human nature, the father's greater. And so studying all the Bible, the Bible can help you interpret the Bible. Number four, scripture interprets scripture.

Now I just talked about that a little bit. So this leads into it. I first come and pray, ask for the spirit's help and guidance and illumination. I then say to myself, I'm going to observe a lot of things with a piece of paper and pencil.

And I circle things and arrows and all that. And then I say, I'm going to look at context. And then I'm going to reinforce this point that scripture interprets scripture. Here's what I mean. Let's say you have a verse and it says you're justified not by faith alone.

You're in James chapter two. Matter of fact, I'm going to go there. And you think, you know, what am I going to do with this passage that seems to teach works righteousness. And it says in James chapter two, verse 14, what use is it my brethren?

If someone says he has faith, but he has no works, can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is without clothing as in a need of daily food. And one of you says to them, go in peace, be warmed and be filled.

And yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body. What use is that? Even so faith, if it has no works is dead being by itself. Then James goes on to say, verse 21 of James two was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac, his son on the altar.

What in the world? I thought it was sola fide. I thought it was justification by faith alone. And right there in the text was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac, his son.

And it even gives me a reference Genesis 22. What do I do with that? So how do you study the Bible? First thing you should do is what Lord helped me to understand it. You pray. Secondly, you start observing things.

Oh, it's a question. Oh, I see what's going on. I see this. I see this connection. I see what he says in chapter one. And you ask questions like that. Then you say, well, what's the context? What's the context here in the book of James.

And we do know in the book of James that you're saved by grace and the language of, of regeneration for 17 and 18, every good thing given. And every perfect gift is from above like salvation coming down from the father of lights in the exercise of his will.

He brought us forth by the word of truth. So it's teaching salvation by God's work and by God's work alone. So I'm looking at the book. Then I look at all the Bible and you know what all the Bible will teach that Genesis 15 before Genesis 22.

Last time I looked, I'm not a math major. I went to Omaha public school, Genesis 15 proceeds, Genesis 22 and Genesis 15 says it was reckoned to him, Abraham as righteousness, because he believed through faith, not because of faith, but through faith.

And so I say to myself, what is James doing here? He goes on to say, to use my Bible study interpretation of local context, you see that faith was working with his works. Verse 24. You see that man is justified by works and not by faith alone.

There it is not by faith alone. So if I were to ask Mario, how do you know I'm a Christian? How does Mario know that Mike Abendroth is a Christian? Well, because Mario has all seen all knowing laser-like eyes into my very soul.

What's that? There's some kind of Halloween show, you know, the soul sucker. Of course, Mario doesn't know that. So the only way we would know is by seeing. You see, you see, you see. Is not Rahab the same way justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out?

How do I know someone's a Christian? I see their actions. I see their attitudes. I hear what they talk about. And you go, you know what? This person says they're a Christian and there's some fruit there.

The fruit could be better. The fruit could be more consistent, but there's fruit there. And so I say to myself, huh, I think they're a Christian. So faith alone obviously is taught elsewhere in the Bible, in Romans, in Genesis 15.

So I have to come to this passage and say, what's the local context? Scripture interprets scripture. It's a divine author. God is not going to say, do you know what? In Romans, it's your, you're saved through faith alone.

And in James, you're saved by works and faith. So now we start to study the Bible and we realize, wait a second, the context of Romans, I think this was John Blanchard's comment. The context of Romans is Paul is standing there with a sword saying, there's no work you can do to get to heaven.

It has to be Jesus's work because God is holy. He only accepts holiness and perfection. And so you're going to have to rely on the Holy One, Romans chapter three, you're dead in trespasses and sins to use the language of Ephesians.

And here's a sword. Anybody that wants to add to Christ's work is not going to add up. Back to back, I'm running out of time. Back to back, James is holding out the sword. Hey, if you say you have faith and there's no works to validate it, to validate it, to justify it, to vindicate it, you're not safe.

Read According to Genre, Literature, and Imagery

So there we have it. Four, how did time go so fast? Number five is notice genre and literature and poetry and imagery and everything else. So in summary, you want to study the Bible? Awesome. That's why you're watching a show like this.

You pray, you observe, you look at context and you realize, God, the author is not going to contradict himself. So look at the verses that are hard to understand in light of the ones that are easy to understand.

My name is Mike Abendroth. This is No Compromise Radio Ministry. See you next time.