A quick word of prayer and then we'll look over this lesson.
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Father we thank you for the opportunity to study together.
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We thank you for a desire to study the Bible and as we look today at this lesson on how to interpret the Bible and looking at various subjects in regard to interpretation, I pray that you would first and foremost Lord keep me from error as a teacher, open the hearts of your people to the truth, make it so Lord that we always have a desire to look to your word to determine what we ought to do and how we ought to live.
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For to do life as the creator of life intended is obviously the best way to do life.
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And we thank you Father in Jesus name, Amen.
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Well we're going to look today at this page in our book.
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It's entitled Guide to Interpretation of Biblical Texts.
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How many of you ever been in a conversation with someone and you'll be talking about the Bible and the person will you'll say well the Bible says you know you shouldn't do x or the Bible says a person shouldn't live like that and the person will say well that's your interpretation.
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You ever heard that? You ever heard somebody say well that's just that that's just the way you see it.
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I don't see the Bible that way or I don't read the Bible that way.
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Honestly in most cases that really is a cop-out because for the most part the Bible is really clear on so many subjects that people want to assume the Bible's not really clear about.
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Things like whether or not a person should lie you know that's a big deal people people always try to make excuses well I had to lie I did lie da da da but we you know the Bible's pretty clear that we ought not lie and so when we talk to someone we say well you shouldn't lie well you know I don't think that that's always true or blah blah blah blah blah you know and of course there's other subjects you know probably the biggest issue of today is the issue of um well I'm gonna go ahead and say transgenderism and I say it's the biggest issue of the day because it's all over the news you know who's using which bathroom right that's a big deal people want to argue over whether or not you should go to Target because they allow people to use the bathroom who are not of the same sex that they were born with or they're arguing that they're they identify with a different sex or whatever and so this has become a big huge issue in the news and we've all seen it.
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The question becomes though well what does the Bible even address the subject of transgenderism? Well it addresses the subject of manhood and womanhood in fact that's my sermon for today today's Father's Day and later on in the service I'm going to be preaching a sermon about manhood about being men and what the Bible calls us to as men and the Bible does speak about men and women differently if you go to Matthew 19 Jesus is speaking he says have you not heard from the beginning that God made them male and female right he made them two complementary sexes that are designed to interrelate with one another they're not designed to be equal they're designed to be compatible men are different than women and women are different than men I can't do everything my wife can do and she certainly can't do everything I can do and that's why we were created for one another it's designed for complementary relationship you know there's equality in value there's equality in station regarding under Christ we're all you know there is neither male nor female when you think of our salvation there's not like I'm on a different spiritual plane than she is regarding where we are at the foot of the cross it's all equal at the foot of the cross but there is a difference between men and women that the Bible describes and yet there's an attempt in our world to blur that line and to make it as indistinct as possible and yet the Bible seems very clear on this issue yeah they're designed for one another with that specific purpose so when we look at the Bible and somebody says well that's your interpretation we have to kind of press well what do you mean do you mean that when Jesus said I am the way the truth and the life and no one comes to the father but by me that he could have meant he's not the way and he would have still made sense or he's not the truth and yet he would have still made sense or you can get to the father without him and that sentence still makes sense no you have to reinterpret it based not on what it's saying but on what you want it to say and thus you end up forcing into the text something that's not there and that's what often happens people say I don't want it to say that I don't like that it says that so I'm going to take my want and desire and I'm going to super infuse it into the text and there's a there's a there's a big fancy word and you all heard me say it before uh that we use it's called eisegesis eisegesis means to read into the text something that's not there as opposed to what's the other one exegesis exegesis means to pull out of the text what is actually there and you notice it's the same root uh preceded by a different uh beginning in the beginning here x means out of if you think of an exit leads you out of something so that's where they get the word exegesis means to pull out of the text eisegesis means into so eisegesis means you're reading something into the text and so ultimately all biblical interpretation boils down to the question are we properly exegeting the text or are we improperly eisegesis the text and I got to tell you no one and I don't care how strongly John MacArthur R.C.
