Hermenuetics and Homiletics

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona. This is the dividing line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us.

Yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence. Our host is dr. James white director of Alpha Omega ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. This is a live program and we invite your participation if you'd like to talk with dr. White call now at 602 973 460 to or toll-free across the United States.

It's 1 877 7 5 3 3 3 4 1. And now with today's topic here is James white and good afternoon. Welcome to the dividing line on a beautiful Saturday afternoon last the last Saturday in the year 2002 it went by at an incredible speed six debates last year.

And it looks like we're on track for at least that many next year actually. Already looking at six scheduled debates in various places of planning. At the moment for next year and that's more than we normally have the beginning of year many debates sort of develop over the time over the course of the year, so Don't know if we can if we can do many more than one every other month.

And a bunch of these are our two to debate series on two different nights. That's always a good way to lose some weight and age actually when I'm doing that kind of thing. It's good to have you with us on this Saturday afternoon.

We are live some of the folks. Some of the folks in the chat channel will come in an hour from now and go well I thought it was two o 'clock and even though the time changed well over about two months ago, they still haven't figured things out yet and It's amazing you have to list okay 2 p .m.. Mountain time is 1 p .m.. Pacific.

That's 4 p .m.. Eastern, and we'll let the people in the middle of the country figure out where between two and four they fall. Just just just unbelievable anyways before we get to our topic today, which according to the According to the topic line in the channel is a study in hermeneutics and homiletics.

That's we're gonna be looking at the very very unusual dividing line today. No two ways about it never done anything like this before. But before we get to that people have requested a little bit of updates on a couple things.

No new developments this week. Didn't expect there to be any. This particular week on the book with with Dave hunt. Exactly what's going to happen with that as far as where we are how certain things gonna be handled whether there's going to be any Editing as to keeping things on topic.

It's all up in the air at the moment. We will see what happens with that and Nothing no no new developments on that front as I said didn't expect any this week. I mean gracious what what does happen this this week at all really is one thing you might want to ask and let's see as far as traveling heading to Connecticut the look at the thing here before the 16th of January and Coming back home on the 27th.

So be gone about 11 days. Connecticut. Long Island. For those of you on Long Island. I know about the only thing I'm absolutely certain of is on the 22nd I'll be at the Massapequa Church of God. Where I get to I The poor folks there have to hear me almost every six months.

I mean, I really feel for them. Love the pastor there love the folks there. They love to have me and Folks who really enjoy listening to to what I have to say for some strange reason. I really enjoy Preaching there past Jim Capo wonderful guy drove me all the way to New Jersey once poor guy.

Anyways, I I'm almost 100 certain that I'll be there Wednesday night the 22nd and I know that Sunday night the 26th of January I will be preaching at the Hope Reform Baptist Church, though. I will not look very good and what I mean by.

Well, people's. Oh, really? There's a prediction that prophecy has just been just been made. Didn't you watch Dateline last night? Don't you know what happens to people who make prophecies like Benny him?

They make a hundred million dollars a year. No, I know that I never really looked good. But what I meant by that was. We do the youth retreat the poor youth there at Hope Reform Baptist Church have been stuck with me for this.

I think I think this will be the fourth year. Fourth year. Does that make sense? I think I think four years. They've they've been stuck with me now and so We come back during the day. We have services Sunday morning who drive back.

In the afternoon, we get back eat pizza and have the evening service on the 26th. And so Generally, you don't get all dressed up. We look like people who've just spent a weekend over in Tuscarora, Pennsylvania at the retreat center there.

And and so it's just not as formal as normal. But anyways, and then the 31st and the 1st I'm gonna be up in Omaha, Nebraska. At Pat Abendroth's Church up there in Omaha, Nebraska. It'll probably be a little on the nippy side.

But I'm gonna be doing a men's Breakfast, it's me a Friday night thing the Saturday morning thing and then boom straight back again. I won't be able to the dividing line that day. I think I'll be landing right around this time.

Well, probably actually a little bit after this. But anyways. That that weekend so that's the main stuff coming up right away anyways. And then we've got stuff back in in Midwest and you know all sorts of neat fun stuff like that and.

Then the general conference the 4th and 5th of April and I think Easter is late in April this year. So we don't know what's gonna happen with the King James only folks showing up with their signs and all the rest of stuff.

So that's a report on what is going on there. Now what I invite you to do today is. First of all, you may once in a while it may get a little quiet for a second. Second folks and I'll I'll go do something.

You've just got to understand The the geek level that is being experienced in my office today. Most of you know that I have a really nice personal digital assistant a palm tungsten tea and. Some of you if you've read my bio know that I really enjoy chess.

Well, I just recently got around the holiday season Fritz 8 and as those of you who aren't into chess. Don't know what Fritz 8 is but Fritz 8 is the computer program that tied with the world champion kramnik in Bahrain Two months ago a 4 -4 tie.

So it's an excellent computer chess program. And I also have a program called chess tiger on my PDA. And so what I'm doing over here beside me is this games been going on since last night I've sort of put on pause over the nighttime hours.

But Fritz 8 is in the middle of a of a very intensive attack at the moment that may end this game very quickly. I'm not sure and I've got the palm sitting here in its in its cradle and it's got chess tiger and then the Fritz 8 is over on on the laptop on a 1 gig Laptop and they're playing each other and each time one of moves I have to make the move so that the other one knows what's going on see.

So anyways, if it gets quiet, it's quiet and if you'd like I can let you know who wins though I'm not sure that it's necessarily gonna be done by that time right now, as I said chess tiger is thinking and it's in check at the moment, so that's it's.

It's you know, it's one of those tough situations anyways. Does dr. O have deep blue? No, I do not have deep blue Fritz 8 is a better program than deep blue but anyways, what we're doing today is I'm going to invite you to Take your Bible and if if you have a obviously most well.

So I was about to say if you have a computer. Well, if you're listening to this, that's probably a foregone conclusion actually now that we think about that if you have a. It's the dividing line on Not sure time it is here divide line on.

I'm sorry mark. I didn't mean to do that. But mark should mark especially marquee should know That the dividing line is on right now. I mean, come on, it's it's anyways Take your take your computer. Take your Bible and if you have a Bible program Fire it up because what I'm gonna do today is I have the privilege of Preaching tomorrow and I'm working on my sermon and A lot of people will come into channel and they say well, how do you you know?

How do you study this and how do you say that and and and what what tools do you use and how do you put things together and and All sorts of things like that. And so what I thought I would do it doesn't make exactly the most scintillating broadcast methodology, but for someone who's interested in in how you would Approach a passage and the thought processes that go into how to Present the material in a passage maybe just maybe This would give you some insight at the very least.

It's going to convince a number of you that that I'm That I'm weird because I don't follow a really normal methodology and how I put together a sermon and I I do it a little bit differently. In fact, maybe I say hey, it's Saturday and you're still working on this.

Well, I've worked on it for a couple days. I mean, this is obviously a strange week. It was Christmas week and said obviously Interrupts your normal schedule, but I know some folks. I know some folks are listening right now who get to work on their sermons on Monday.

Maybe even Sunday night in fact and I I simply couldn't do that unless there was unless something was gonna happen to where the only time I was gonna have to work on something was on Sunday and Monday and Then I was just not gonna be able to do anything for the next I don't know Five days.

Okay, then I could do that. But otherwise if I finished my notes up on a Monday At least the way I think and the way I function those notes would be stale I guess would be the word Come Sunday morning.

Now, you might say well you could review them. Yeah, but Again and this is why no two people can use the exact same methodology. No, two people can can absolutely positively say well, you know, okay, if you just do it this way then You know, you'll be a great preacher or you know Spurgeon did it this way?

Therefore this must be the way to excuse me. I need to make a move here. Oh Boy that thing is fast that is that is such a fast processor. It's just incredible anyways. Okay. Now it's back to the palm and the palm just doesn't move as fast as the laptop does.

Anyways, you can't you can't just copy somebody else's methodology. It just doesn't work preaching is a personal thing and Yeah, I know you can learn lots from observing someone else you can learn Good things you can also learn to avoid bad things and I think you should learn from observing others, but At the same time have you I bet you most of you have seen somebody and you could tell Exactly who they had studied under because you could tell they were basically trying to in essence copy that one particular person and Yeah, the description of this one is gonna be it's gonna be sort of interesting, isn't it?

Everybody's you know, if I don't announce who won by the end of the the end of the program. People are gonna be really upset with me. But anyways You can tell that they're sort of modeling themselves after somebody else and and it seems I don't know to me at times it can seem contrived and That's that that's something I want to try to avoid anyways, so I try to work on things a little bit closer So that I'm still fresh I mean as I'm looking at materials as I'm translating as I'm parsing and syntaxing and and Looking up other references the excitement because I get excited doing that.

I get excited studying the scriptures the excitement of that needs to be fairly recent. It's it's difficult for me to for example You know, there's a there's a vast difference between preaching regularly in a church and Traveling around and having a set number of sermons that you deliver.

I mean, there are certain sermons that honestly I could deliver you could you could wake me up and kick me out of bed and give me five minutes to to get a drink of water and Throw on some clothes and I could preach certain sermons without any preparation at all without it without a single note John 6 Romans 8 Romans 4 4 through through 9 there are certain passages.

I could just Really do a decent job on because I know those passages so well. That's one thing to be able to go from place to place and have a set number of sermons but man when you are in the same pulpit and you have to Feed the same flock with regularity boy.

That is where the rubber meets the road. That's where you really have to do the work of Exegesis and the work of study and and there's a there's a lot more to it. So for me anyways there needs to be some passion involved and that passion comes from the study that passion comes from Spending time in the word and being in the word and if I did that back on Monday Tuesday or Wednesday and a bunch of stuff's gotten in the way since then it's hard to recapture it and I I don't use some people use extremely specific notes.

I understand that I If you saw my notes once in a while, I know what was it about it was like December 11th as I recall I did a Wednesday evening devotional for for prayer meeting and Please brush your teeth, too.

Well, okay. Thank you very much. That was sort of in my mind I just didn't you know take that mention them. Anyways, I did a Wednesday evening service and afterwards I gave my notes I think I gave him to Warren and They basically were just the the Hebrew text with some Like three or four points and and the points were not paragraphs or something.

It was just just a little outline. That's all it was and that's generally what I use. Some people will you know, write everything out and have everything, you know, very very specific and again, that's a personal thing I want to be a little freer having a Outline and for me, it's generally an original language outline either in Greek Greek or Hebrew.

Having those words there those words trigger things again. If my study has been fairly recent if it's gone back too far, it doesn't trigger quite as much. You know, that's it's that 40 year old brain just doesn't kick it out quite as quite as quickly as as it's you know has in the past and So anyways Each person needs to these approaches their way and when you do your outline, you know.

If you were taught to to do a certain kind of outline if you were taught to use bulleted points. You know, however, you do it. That's fine. I don't Generally, my notes are gonna be much more of a point by point by point well, I can tell you what my notes look like right now, in fact, I can I can bring the file up here and Generally Basically what I have is I have an opening an opening example to sort of introduce the topic I'm going to be addressing then that's only two.

Let's see one two. The first is three sentence two sentences the second two sentences each so total of four sentences then right below that I have My passage which if you're interested is Jude verses 24 through 25, which for some strange reason for most For most Bible programs you have to put in Jude chapter 1 as if there was a chapter 2 someplace.

But it just gets all confused if you try to tell it Jude 24 to 25 because it's looking for chapters. But anyways, I have Jude verses 24 through 25 In Greek and then below that I have the New American Standard rendering of that sometimes I'll put that there sometimes I won't it all depends if You know just just how I'm putting my things do then below that I have some some parallel passages that I want to to point out specifically Romans 16 25 through 27 and Ephesians chapter 3 verses 20 to 21 and again, depending on the week I will either put The the Greek text for those if those are passages that I know real well.

Or I'll just put the English. I have the English there right now. Mainly because if it's not the primary passage I'm looking at I don't want The trans to the work of doing the translation if there's any terms in there.

That's a hotbox legomena. That is a place where the only that words only used one time New Testament to trip me up if it's not relevant to what? I'm doing I don't want to necessarily, you know invest the time in that so I've Typed out or inserted obviously from my Bible program Romans 16 25 to 27 and Ephesians 3 20 to 21.

Then what I've done below that and and here's where you really need to make a decision and. And and that is What did he do? What did he do oh look at that did I mean Oh, no, no, no, no. Oh, oh, yeah. You know these little touch touch thing.

Oh Bobby Wobbers. Oh Man, I have to pause it. I moved it to the wrong square. Now. It won't let me take it back. Anyways, I Know a lot of folks and I'm not gonna be able to tell you I'm not gonna tell you what happened because I well What's take back?

Anyone know what take back is? I haven't been see Insert game new game move now. No resign. You know that what's really weird is this this program will mock you if you if you tell it to It will it will allow you to actually Set it up and it will with voice not just with not just with with with anything else.

It will actually Replay and I don't want to replay a view. Oh Man, what a bummer. Oh cancel move edit. Cancel move. There we go. All right now stay there. Boom. Okay. Now we got it going again. I'm sorry, please forgive me anyways.

Now my son's trying to get hold of me and I'm in the middle of doing something someone might want to inform him that I'm a bit busy anyways. Here's the point people have been taught. I was taught this you need to have three points in a poem three points in a poem.

Three points in a poem. Well, I You know, I I came up with three points in a poem when I was in the homiletics class and I I Didn't like it. There are a couple passages in Scripture possibly that You could force into three points or something like that maybe.

But be honest with you. I Feel that sort of Strictures thing it structures you into something that's that's artificial. I mean as I look at Jude 24 and 25 I Don't see three points now. I could artificially come up with one.

I imagine and there's folks who are considerably more talented than I am that probably could divide this up into three points and That works fine. I just can't do it. I just it's just not the way I teach.

I like to teach directly from the text and as such. Basically, what I do is I want to bring the person in the pew along with me. I want to bring them along so that they can can follow the meaning of the text and they can I Want the person to walk out going, you know, I had never really heard that.

That text in that context before last summer was the last summer that was the summer before last. Yeah summer for last I went through Hebrews. What happens during the summer is normally Don Frye who does the preaching in our church goes on vacation for only two weeks.

He's only gone actually one Lord's Day, but I get to do a series of sermons. And I went through Hebrews 6 7 8 9 and 10 in an outline form as an unusual way of doing things. But basically what I wanted to do is as I wanted to let people know.

What is this book all about it seems to be the most mysterious book in the whole new testament for most folks. Let's look at it in context and let's let's understand what the message was and people really appreciated that and what I want to do with Jude 24 and 25 is is basically do the same thing, but obviously We need to I need to do so at a deeper level than doing entire chapters when we were doing Hebrews.

And so I need to get down to the level of the text now. Not everyone sitting in front of me reads Greek or Hebrew a number of them. However, do read one or the other. It is a strange at our church how many Greek texts pop open when you're in a New Testament passage.

I can think of one two three four. Five. At least five maybe more in our small little fellowship where people pop open that that Greek text when? When we're in the New Testament, and so I I do make reference to the original languages and I will explain grammatical things when they're relevant, but I won't if they'll simply get in the way and Where do you draw that line?

Well, it depends on the individual depends on the passage. I mean if I'm preaching on a passage and I part of my purpose in doing so is to prepare the people in the audience to deal with a particular apologetic issue if I want to if I'm dealing with John 1 1.

And I want them to be able to talk to the individuals who come to their door. Well, I have to go to a certain level to be able to do that in the same way if I'm talking the congregation about The nature of worship and the specific form of the word Isn't relevant to that then then you're only getting that in the way if you try to bring it out you tend to lose folks that don't want to listen that type of thing at that particular point in time, so You have to make a decision as to where you're gonna go with that.

And how much detail you're going to be you're going to be including and so I'm probably not going to be pronouncing many of These terms, but what I've done going back to my notes after I note those parallel passages is Then I have taken the text and I've broken it into phrases in the original language and so the first I guess you might call it sub point or something along those lines is the first three words of the text today doing a meno and I will probably mention something about that because of the term dunamis Dunami and I'm gonna expand a good deal upon that because to be honest with you that is what Drew me to this passage in fact what drew me this passage was I well, I'm not exactly sure what caused me to be looking at it, but I was looking at this phrase to him who is able and Obviously as I'm working on the the Dave Hunt book and and constantly dealing with folks who attempt to Insert Man into the work of salvation so as to rob God of his glory.

That's the result not necessarily their intention. But that's there and that's the result this phrase of ability ability on the part of God and inability on the part of man is a Constant part of what I'm studying and I was looking at this passage in fact.

What I ended up doing is I ended up challenging some friends of mine to memorize it in a Greek with me in the course Of only two days only one managed to do that. And I suppose given how often we mock him and how often we threaten the entire channel With him singing Elvis.

I should I should admit that With Sunday night, I challenged he and someone who remained nameless because they completely blew us off challenged these gentlemen to memorize Jude 24 and 25 not in English, but in Greek and it was only two of us did it myself and Warren yes indeed.

There's the Warren just opened the door to make sure that I I pronounced his name, right? We we memorized it in Greek and Which you know was not overly difficult to do because it's not it's not a difficult passage grammatically.

It is it's a beautiful passage as well worth doing it, but anyways That's what drew my attention to it. And then the the more I thought about it the contrast between God's ability and man's inability and how evangelicalism seems so Absolutely bent I mean remember last couple weeks well, I wasn't last week, but the week before that week before that when we were playing Dave Hunt stuff and Dave's arguing with Paul About no one does good and no one is able well They must have do the job must have been good to know I must he's arguing with Paul this this constant desire to insert into the Into the work of salvation the the work of man.

Just it's just all the time and it and it becomes maddening and it really really does and Yet the biblical teaching has to do With God's ability and man's inability and that should be glorious to us. It should be glorious for us to confess the ability of God Over against the inability of man, but we we instead choose to limit God.

That's what open theism is all about is To limit God so as to exalt man that that is man's religion. It's what man's religion is all about. And that's what that's what attracted me to it. Well, I'm going to obviously expand upon the phrase today do no meno and I'm going to spend some time on and I don't have to put a bunch of notes beneath that Greek phrase mainly because That's fresh in my mind.

I'm thinking about that all the time right now. In fact, the only thing I'm gonna need to do is watch the clock. Because just seeing those three Greek words is going to bring so much stuff to mind That the main thing I'm gonna have to do is make sure I don't take all my time in that particular context so as to So as to have no time left for the rest of what I want to say.

That's gonna be the main thing that I'm gonna be looking at. Well, anyways, let's take our first break and then we come back talk a little bit more about how I'm trying to fit this into The time frame that I have right after this Doing the bass part there for Steve camp who I finally got his new album this week some great stuff on there a real tough song To listen to head of a broken home.

That's a that's a that's. Well, maybe we'll fire that up toward the end the program today anyways. Great stuff one song. That's that I heard him sing. I don't know last year When we were together in Nashville.

That's maybe we'll close the program with or something like that. But anyhow now we're talking a little bit about hermeneutics homiletics. Just giving you a little bit of an insight don't know if it's worth it to anybody but a little bit of an insight into The thought process at least that I go through in Approaching a passage of scripture specifically Jude verses 24 to 25 the doxology at the end of Jude.

Is my text for tomorrow now, I'm preaching both services Sunday morning and Sunday evening. We have a Sunday morning and Sunday evening service. I know that that does demonstrate that we are dinosaurs because we actually ask people to come back twice on the Lord's Day but At our church the proclamation the word is the central aspect of the worship service and so we have a good 45 to 50 minutes in which I will be preaching in the morning and About 40 to 45 minutes in the evening and What I frequently do and I I know this isn't normal this is this is not what what for example pastor Frye does Generally our tradition and it is a tradition it doesn't it's not written in stone someplace, but generally our tradition is to have a Sunday morning sermon from the New Testament and The Sunday evening sermon from the Old Testament.

We do our New Testament reading in the morning our Old Testament reading at night part of our worship service is reading through the scriptures Chapter by chapter sometimes breaking that up if the chapter is excessively long, but that's generally how we do it and Normally not always right now.

It's not but normally the it is a book study we've been going through some of the pastoral's first and second Timothy in the morning and Getting ready to move back into book studies for both morning and evenings now generally what I do Is I let you know, I don't always do it this way but what I will do tomorrow is I will break this passage up and I will preach in the morning on it and I will continue that in the evening now.

Some might object to that because I don't have Totally the same audience in both services and that's true. I don't. It's Mainly the same group, but there are people who are both providentially hindered and not so providentially hindered In being at one or the other of the services but at the same time It allows me to go to a little bit more depth.

Then I might otherwise and and if a person is truly providentially hindered from either Either service they can of course, you know, we record these things. We put them on the Internet. There's there's various and sundry ways of You know hearing the other the other part that you missed but I like to to do it that way so that the people who are there Sunday morning come back on Sunday evening and the the the thought is continued it can sort of make a Whole day focused upon the same thing and maybe it'll stick a little bit more, you know.

Maybe because it's it's sort of repeated or the context is looked at a second time. That will make it to more memorable people will remember what you you preached on. You know later on that said that might be one way of looking at it.

So I Intend to present this text Within the context of two sermons Sunday morning and Sunday evening now if you'll look at the text with me for just a moment if you've got your Bible or if you've got your text on on the screen look at Jude 24 through 25 with me for just a moment and As we're reading it ask yourself.

How would you divide this up? Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of his glory blameless with great joy To the only God our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord be glory Majesty dominion and authority before all time and now and forever Amen.

Now you would think just looking at it. Well You divide it up you do them in the morning service to do verse 24 in the evening service to do 25 and that That would work. I could certainly see how that could be done.

I'm not doing it that way I will do The first phrase now to him who is able and verse 25 in the morning and the rest of verse 24 in the evening and you might say Why in the world you're going to do that?

Because Those of you who might look at it in the original language Probably see why if you look at in the original language the first phrase to him who is able The article toe that begins verse 24 goes not only with Duna Menno.

But it also goes with Mono Theo the beginning of verse 25 The only God our Savior to the only God our Savior Through Jesus Christ our Lord be glories and so on and so forth. You could take all of verse 24 out starting with day and The grammar would would remain the same the doxology is to the only God our Savior Through Jesus Christ our Lord be glory majesty dominion authority before all time now and forever.

The description of the why the description of what he's able to do that then gives the basis for the ascription of praise is what takes up verse 24 and So what I've chosen to do and I could have done it differently, but what I've chosen to do is to Go first with the doxology with the ascription of praise to The only God our Savior to him who is able To the only God our Savior now I'm going to have to introduce the fact that yes, this description is going to talk about God's ability.

Why are we praising him? He is able to keep you from stumbling he is able to make you stand and so I will introduce That and then I will reintroduce that in the evening and that will form the connection that will form the the bond in essence.

That will hold the two sermons together. But the emphasis in the morning will be upon the doxology to the only God our Savior. There's that phrase Monotheo monotheism there is there is monotheism in the direct text of the New Testament.

There is the foundation of monotheism to the only God our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord and if you just look at the text you can sort of what I try to do is I as I look at the text and Before I really start studying things.

I Want to start getting some ideas of where where the text is going. And so if I just sort of sit back and I look at you 24 to 25. Here's the things that just go through my mind as I'm initially looking at it.

Okay to God God's ability. To keep you from stumbling need to look at what stumbling means need to look at the word keep fluoxi. And I'm gonna look at what I'm gonna do that is I'm gonna look at each one of these words.

I'm going to use Bible works to look at all the other places where that specific form is used or that specific root is used. Both in the New Testament then if that shows me some interesting range of meaning I'll expand that to the septuagint.

Which I've already done with fluoxi to guard to keep. But why does why is it keep you from stumbling rather than guarding you from stumbling something along those lines? Okay. What does stumbling mean.

Stumbling in reference to what stumbling in reference to losing of one's salvation. Stumbling in reference to? Being deceived by false teachers. Stumbling in reference to personal sin. Those are all the questions that immediately come to my mind as I look at this keep you from stumbling and to make you stand.

The presence of his glory blameless with great joy make you stand. What is make. Stand in the presence of his glory. Is that an eschatological thing? Is this is this the same thing that we talked about we talked about?

Christ presenting the church in all of her glory. Is there a connection there? What does it mean to make? To make you stand in the presence of his glory. What is Involved in standing in the presence of the glory of God.

I Mean we hear people use that term all the time. But what does it mean? That immediately comes to mind his glory. Presence of his glory in the presence of glory. I'm gonna be looking at every single one of those phrases and to see how else they're used.