of this verse we'll look at and have a little bit of an excursus, an exploration, I suppose, of what this verse teaches, particularly on the idea of bibliology. Not bibliolatry, we're not worshiping the scripture, but we are studying the scripture because it is God's revelation to us and it has come through the prophets and the apostles. Even as Paul says, here I receive from the Lord that which I also delivered to you. That, and he goes on, we'll continue to pick up that next time. But he identifies this correction and challenge to the actions and behavior, but also the thinking, the attitude of the Corinthians in that they were somewhat sidestepping the traditions, even though at the beginning of this chapter, Paul had said, I praise you because you are you are following after me or remembering me and everything and hold firmly to the traditions just as I delivered them to you. Well, yeah, mostly, but then in some regards they were not and they were quite negligent and letting their own fleshly self-interest rise to the front and it was just not righteous at all. And we studied that in the last little bit here why their social and other factors brought them to think that, hey, when they get together as a church, that they can continue those distinctions and separations and even discrimination one to another. And Paul says, that's not anywhere near what I taught you. You know what I taught you. I gave you what I received from the Lord, and I'm not being inconsistent. If anybody is being inconsistent, it's you. And so he's going to teach, and somewhat taken for granted, his next teaching on the Lord's Supper, what does that mean to share the bread and share the cup? And it's almost again that where he, this is only the second place in Paul's writings where he enlarges or expands upon or thinks upon the Lord's Supper And he does it with a particular emphasis on the unity of the church and the humility of the church and so on. But he does it here reminding them, I gave you what I received from the Lord. In other words, I'm just a channel, a conduit of God's revelation. And if anything, you need to pay attention to him. Because notice it says, I receive from the Lord this thing. It's not his own ideas. It's not what he learned back in Jerusalem and wants to make it happen in there in Corinth. This is something that the Lord Jesus himself intends for his church in Corinth and all the other churches to participate in. He identifies and underscores the fact that this is what matters, this practice, this understanding of what you're doing when you come together. You're celebrating, remembering the Lord's sacrifice, his death for you. And you still maintain your selfish indulgence and selfishness and all this self-focused things. No. If anything, you empty yourself, you come to the Lord, and I'm just telling you what He has revealed to me, this idea of receiving and delivering is the transmission of God's special revelation. And it can refer to the idea just of transmission of traditions or understandings, knowledge from one generation to the next, or from one person to the next person, this idea of receiving and delivering, or receiving from the Lord and then bringing it to another person. He mentions it again in chapter 15, this idea of receiving and delivering, when he mentions the resurrection and how important that is, because there are some false ideas even about that. He says, verse one of chapter 15, I make known to you, brothers, the gospel which I proclaimed as good news to you, which also you received. So there's that idea. You are the ones who are receiving, in this case, from me. In which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I proclaim to you as good news, unless you believe for nothing. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received. There's, again, that emphasis on the transmission of knowledge that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. And he was buried, and he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures. And he goes on and talks about various appearances and things. What is helpful to see even in that context is the transmission from Paul to the Corinthians about this particular doctrine. But even backing up, it's according to the scriptures. In other words, the apostles and the prophets before them Old Testament prophets and New Testament prophets around their time period, they were speaking God's Word to the people according to God's Word. In other words, there's a consistency, a greater context of this revelation that should be the test. Even, you know, a famous, ought to be famous, verse in Acts chapter 17, verse 11, those Bereans that as receiving Paul's word, this apostles coming through Macedonia and here they're hearing this gospel for the first time. Well, they studied the scriptures because they wanted to make sure that what Paul was preaching, claiming to be having received it from the Lord and delivering to them, that that's according to the scriptures, that that is in line with what has already been revealed. And Paul makes it very clear. He says it twice here in this 1st Corinthians 15 passage, according to the scriptures, this is going on. So we are testifying or bringing a revelation that is fully in line with that. He talks about this idea of receiving and delivering another time. First, he mentions it a few different occasions. Verse 13 of chapter 2, he says, for this reason, we also thank God without ceasing, that when you receive the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also is at work in you who believe. Paul is underscoring the fact that he is not just speaking out of his Jewish heritage, he's not just speaking out of his intense learning or having studied the philosophers over here or the scientists over there, whatever. He is speaking the word of God and they received it in that regard, not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God. And then seeing it at work in their own lives. Wow, this word changes us. It is a transformative authoritative revelation of God, and it changes our lives. There is a song, a hymn, that somewhat has this understanding. It says, you ask me now, you ask me how I know he lives. He lives within my heart. Okay, so That might be the start of a good answer, but it's not the whole answer, right? But it does have, does the scripture teach you? Does it change your lives? Does it change the way that you interpret and interact with the reality around you? But it has to be more than that. The scripture says Jesus is alive, so we have to go that far. We can't just end with a personal testimony. We've got to give authority to God's word. And that's what the Thessalonians did, which is interesting, because I just quoted Acts 17 and 11. Those who are in Berea were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica. Well, these Thessalonians still had a clue. They understood what Paul was saying wasn't just man-made opinion and fairy tales and old wives tales and all kind of thing, but the revelation of God. So that's a joyous thing, the Thessalonian church, the Berean church, definitely the Philippian church. Paul makes the point in Galatians chapter 1 many times. I won't read the whole text of it, but he makes it very clear. I am delivering to you this message that God has revealed to me. I didn't learn it from other people. I wouldn't come up with it my own self. It's a revelation from God and you can bank your eternal salvation on it. And he makes the point even very carefully, very clearly, having preached the gospel once, if he were to come back with a different message, a different gospel that he offers as their salvation, he says, if any man, well, let me back up, verse 8, if we or an angel from heaven should proclaim to you a gospel contrary to the gospel we have proclaimed to you, let him be accursed. Wait a minute, we or an angel from heaven? Well, if it's contrary to what you've already received from me, let that person, let that messenger be accursed. As we've said before, verse 9 says, so I say again now, if any man is proclaiming to you a gospel contrary to what you received, let him be accursed. And so this is a big idea, big deal. Do you receive God's word from those who have laid it out for us? Again, with the apostles, the prophets that we'll consider as we go along here. I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you. This idea can be referred to, as he said back in 1 Corinthians 11 verse 2, you hold firmly to the traditions. That word traditions has this idea of what is passed along, what is received, and not just received like, oh that's nice, but received as it really is, an authoritative revelation from God. Not just traditions of men, that Jesus would find fault with and did find fault with. And even as Paul says, you know, I was holding fast to the traditions of my people, my, you know, the rabbinic, well, the Jewish pharisaical traditions that he held to. Well, those aren't good. Those are man-made. But the traditions that God intends, the passing down of his revelation, that's what we should celebrate. We even have this command so many different times in 1st Timothy, 2nd Timothy, and Titus, really the last letters that Paul wrote to his close associates, Timothy and Titus. He says, 1st Timothy 6 and verse 20, he says, oh Timothy, guard what has been entrusted or deposited or transferred or delivered to you, guard that, turning aside from godless and empty chatter and the opposing arguments of what is falsely called knowledge, which some, while professing, have gone astray from the faith. Grace be with you. There's even such a degree, this idea of receiving from the Lord and delivering, that it can be codified, you might say, or written down, transcribed, and even brought together, and to be referred to as the faith. As I said here, some have gone astray from the faith. There is a content or a body of knowledge, of revelation that God has intended for us to enjoy. That is what he has intended for us to know him. and salvificly to know Him as our Savior, but also to then live our lives in a way that pleases Him. So it's not just that God saves us and that's it. He saves us and He teaches us. How does He want us to be? How does He want us to live? How does He want to live to please Him? And thankfully, He is not confusing in these different ways. Well, again, this idea of receiving has this idea of, in this context anyway, of accepting information from someone It is the passing on of information, data, stories, any kind of instruction that can be passed on from one to another. And here, Paul makes it very clear, this is from the Lord that I received it. The word can be translated variously as traditions, as we saw back in verse 2, 1 Corinthians 11, verse 2. He mentions traditions again in a negative way, I suppose, in Galatians 1.14 being far more zealous for the traditions of my fathers, these traditions that kind of built upon, in fact I should back up, there is in the Mishnah, which is a Jewish a record of revelation beyond the scripture. It's kind of an expansion upon the scripture. In the chapters of the fathers, Pirkei Avot, it's the title of this. And the very first verse says, Moses, and it has these ideas of receiving and delivering. Moses received the Torah Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua. Joshua then transmitted it to the elders. You can read about elders in Joshua and other parts of scripture. And the elders to the prophets, which is an interesting thing. Why do the prophets need the revelation from the elders? And the prophets to the men of the great assembly or the, well, the great assembly. And what did they communicate? This is interesting because of this traditions that Paul mentioned, the traditions of my fathers. What did they say? They said these three things. Be patient in the administration of justice. slow down, make sure that you give a just verdict, raise many disciples, and this last one, make a fence around the Torah. And that's what they have done. The Pharisees and then the rabbis, rabbinic Judaism afterwards, have made a fence around the Torah, which is to say, enlarging the responsibility, enlarging the implications. Well, what does it mean to keep the Sabbath? Well, it means only going this far. And you can't do it on this time. But you can do this over here if you do this particular procedure. And they've made a fence around it such that they have a tradition that they don't want to violate. And even in Jesus' day, talking about whitewashed sepulchres, you think that you are doing all these things. You tie the mint and the cumin, but you neglect the weightier issues of the law. What are you doing about this? You've put up a fence trying to defend this, but the fence is faulty. It is wrong. Go back to what God has revealed. And the Mishnah would, again, enlarge the implications, I suppose, of God's revelation, of his laws, of his requirements and commandments. Paul says, I receive from the Lord. And I am recognizing he is the source. He is the one who communicated it to me. Paul Some people make a big issue. Well, Paul didn't really receive it by special revelation from the Lord. It was, you know, maybe through his other apostles or communicated through other people. Maybe even this particular word, right? As he goes on in 1 Corinthians 11, saying, I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you. That in the night in which he was betrayed, Jesus took. And wait a minute, Paul wasn't even there. So where did he get this information? Oh, he must have learned it from Luke, right? Luke was a close associate of Paul, close associate of Paul. And Luke has done so much research back in the old country, Israel, and studied and interviewed people. And he's the one that was the source of this tradition. Well, wait a minute. That's not what Paul says here. He said he received it from this specific tradition. He received from the Lord. What does that mean? We can go back into Galatians chapter 1, I won't take the time this morning, but you can look at that and realize there was a long period of time where Paul is not with anybody. He's out in the desert, he's in remote places, and he is totally reframing his theology, even though he At the beginning of his conversion, he was preaching Jesus as the Messiah, Jesus as the promised one of Israel. But his theology had to be totally reshaped according to the revelation of God that was given to him. And he mentioned several times, and again, I won't take the time to look at all of them, but where he receives a special message from the Lord Jesus Christ himself, even from that Damascus Road experience, Jesus is talking to him. Who are you, Lord, that I'm persecuting? I'm Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting. And so you see this continual example or occasion of where Jesus himself is speaking to him and giving him special revelation. We see it even in relation to when he's in Corinth. He had a word from the Lord that said, stay here in Corinth. I have many, many believers that are going to come to faith in your, in your, uh, through your ministry. And so from the Lord emphasizes, Hey, he, Jesus Christ himself is the originator of this tradition. He is the one who communicated, communicated this to Paul, even though Paul was not present at that last supper, he was not in faith at that time. He was a persecutor of the church, or at least he was going to be after the, after the resurrection. And by the time we get to Acts chapter seven and chapter eight, he is you know, very much animated against the church, this imposition upon Jewish nation and so forth. So he says, look, I received this from the Lord and I delivered it to you. I freely have given this to you and entrusted it to you such that this can be considered part of God's revelation through the apostles, through the prophets. It is something that has been entrusted to you. It's your concern. It's your burden now to carry. It is your responsibility to obey it then. It's not, again, to say the 10 suggestions, right, back in Exodus chapter 20. These are commandments. This is the authoritative word of God revealed to us through the apostles, through the prophets, and so forth. And this is something that now is yours. You can Enjoy it, you can consider it, meditate upon it, but also put it into your daily practice, and that would affect your lives. Well, this idea of what has been received from the Lord, that which has been delivered to us, we understand this as the, well, many different aspects of it, but the scripture. what has been written down for us, transcribed for us, copied through the ages, and not, well, I should say painstakingly copied and transmitted and preserved through a variety of situations and peoples and times and empires, the Word of God stands. It is built on, as Ephesians 2.20 said, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ being the cornerstone, the beautiful pinnacle, what's on display through all this thing. The foundation points to and is resting upon and glorifying this cornerstone, which is Christ Jesus himself. But it is something that has been communicated to us. And it has characteristics, the scripture, which we'll consider here. I don't know how many different characteristics we'll consider about the scripture. and why this idea of receiving from the Lord is so important and why also the entrustment or the, that's not the right word, the stewardship of God's scripture in our own lives is so important, so life-changing for us individually and as a congregation of believers and even as the church worldwide. What does God's word have to do with us? Everything has to do with us. Well, why is God's Word so important? Again, Paul alludes to it here in verse 23. This is from the Lord. We get this idea of the inspiration of scripture, that when we talk about inspiration, different people can use it differently, saying, well, that poet was really inspired to write this. When we talk about inspiration, we're talking about the text. The text itself, even as the scripture says, 2 Timothy 3.16, all scripture is God breathed. And that translation, it's very literal. The word literally means that God breathed it out. The word inspiration means to inspire. Expire, breathe out, inspire, which is interesting because God breathed out his scripture. Language is so fascinating, especially if it's such a backbone of so much. But this idea that God has revealed in a marvelous way, in fact, let me just read this. The inspiration of scripture means the Holy Spirit so guided the biblical writer that even the individual words and details are what God intended to be written. When we talk about inspiration, we're talking about the scriptures itself. But the process of inscripturation is the Holy Spirit moving men. This is also as 2 Timothy chapter 1 It teaches that no prophecy of scripture comes by one's own interpretation or method or understanding. For no prophecy was made by the will of man, but man being moved or carried along by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. We see that even in relation to David, the sweet psalmist of Israel who spoke the oracles of God. He spoke by the Holy Spirit. So the inspiration of scripture identifies the fact, hey, this is a different book than any other book you can see in this world. All the wonderful fine books we have in the bookshelf or that we share with one another, Great, but the scripture is an entirely different category. This is the inspired word of God. This is something that is authoritative in our lives. This is something that even Paul testified to, having received it from the Lord, now it's been entrusted to us. Well, how about this, another term, another I word, the inerrancy of scripture, which is to say the Bible is without error in the original manuscripts. Boy, it'd be nice to have those original manuscripts. You know, we have such reliable copies of both the Old Testament and particularly the New Testament. almost without question, we know what the text of scripture is. Now, there's some difficulties, the manuscript, what we call variants of the different manuscripts. But in when Moses wrote down the scripture, or Ezra, or Samuel, or Nathan, the prophets, David, when he was transcribing, writing down the words, or Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, all the others in the New Testament era, that original manuscript, no, without error, without any kind of fault, or problem in terms of its content, in terms of its structure, in terms of any kind of revelation, it is inerrant. A related word that somewhat overlaps with this is infallibility, the infallibility of Scripture, which here is quoted or defined as the Bible is unable to mislead or fail in accomplishing the divinely intended purpose. It is infallible. It is, again, fully effective in the intended work. Now, if you were to maybe put it in a modern day example, if you were to write something, maybe take a test, pick your least favorite subject, grammar, or Algebra 1, or whatever it might be. And you, by God's grace, you got 100% on that test. Well, that wasn't an errant score. That's without error, right? Does that mean you're infallible? Does that mean you understand that? Probably not. But it's amazing that you even scored that well on that test. Maybe it was a one-question test. I don't know what it was. But inerrancy means without error. Infallibility means you cannot err. And you are effective in accomplishing the intended purpose of this thing. By the way, when I refer to this book, Biblical Doctrine, that is the book John MacArthur and Richard Mayhew have written. And just a very good systematic theology of, well, systematic theology. And so very good. Biblical Doctrine, page 109. Another idea that I've mentioned before is the preservation of scripture. This is referring to the acts of God whereby he has preserved or kept or maintained through the centuries the written record of his special revelation for his people. This is, wow, if we were to trace the history of manuscript preservation, copying, transmission, the extension or the expansion of God's word through the ages through the different empires that have come and gone and God's word remains. Wow, what a testimony of God's preservation. Studying the manuscripts of God's Old Testament, New Testament, what a testimony of God's grace, of God's sovereign preservation of his text. And again, we have differences because of any number of things. But we have this assurance that God has preserved for us the revelation that he wants us to have here in the 21st century. We're going back to 1400 or so BC when Moses was writing the Pentateuch, the five books of Moses. And yet, we can be assured when we read Genesis chapter 1, that's what Moses said. That's what God said to him. That's the revelation that God communicated to him. So we talk about the preservation of scripture, very important doctrine, as it pertains even to translations, whether the Septuagint, the Old Testament translated into Greek, or a few hundred years after Christ is the translation of the scriptures into Latin, which we have as the Vulgate, and then other various translations into Syriac and different things. And then, of course, into English, as we have it as our heritage. But God is preserving his scripture. Well, OK, well, which scriptures? And so now we have to think about the canonicity. Why don't we have all the writings of David? Why don't we have all the writings of Solomon, for example? All of his proverbs, thousands of proverbs that he had. We only have a few, relatively, in the proverbs. What about Paul's? First letter to the Corinthians, and the third letter, because we have the second and fourth letters. Well, what about the other traditions that he communicated, either by word of mouth or by written letter from us? Why don't we have all that stuff? Well, we refer to the canon of scripture. Canon, not like a boom boom weapon kind of thing, but a ruler, a measuring stick. Yeah, so the rule that we have. The canon is a collection of books accepted as authoritative writings of God's revelation. Notice it says, they are accepted. They're not made. In other words, they're not canonized in that regard. We said, well, we're not sure about this particular book. And so you have to decide. It is an acceptance, a recognition, if you don't mind. It's more passive than active. Wow, this is a canonized. This is a part of the canon. Well, there are three tests, at least, of canonicity. How did we recognize, then, or acknowledge God's revelation, Moses and David and Samuel? Well, the author, first off. Is this written by an apostle, New Testament apostle, prophet? Again, New Testament prophet or an Old Testament prophet? Or was it written by a close associate? In the case of the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. Well, wait a minute. We have Matthew and John were apostles. What about Mark and Luke? They're not apostles. How do we have them as the second and third books of the New Testament? Well, because Mark or John Mark was a close associate of Peter, very, very tightly with him. In fact, he speaks very highly of him and worked together. And it's interesting, you can do a little exploration into, and you probably won't come to a conclusion, because nobody really has, unless they are making more of their argument than they ought to. And that is the priority of Mark. Was Mark's gospel written first, or Matthew's gospel written first? And how do Matthew and Luke relate to Mark? And then you look at those, what we call the synoptic gospels, in relation to John. I mean, it's just fascinating realizing, wow, how did this all come to be? And recognizing, well, Mark wrote his gospel because he was working with Peter, and Peter's giving his recollections. Luke wrote in relation to Paul, because Luke and Paul were like tight, first buddy kind of thing. I forget, that's common present stuff. But we have this idea of apostle, prophet, or somebody who's closely associated with one of those characters. What about the content? That content needs to agree with previous scripture. You can't claim things that are outside of the established doctrine of God, the Moses, the Pentateuch, and so forth. Even as Paul said, if anybody preaches to you a gospel contrary to what you've already preached, nah, don't listen to him. Don't give him any attention. So the content has to agree with scripture. And then thirdly, is it generally accepted by God's people? In the Old Testament time period, yes. In the New Testament time period, yes, this is received and generally accepted as God's word and by God's people. So tests of canonicity. What about some other implications of it? The authority of scripture. Well, again, why? Well, having established that it's God's own words preserved by him, it's inspired, it's infallible, inerrant, it's the canon recognized as his word. Well, the authority of scripture indicates he has communicated God's own right and power command and decide matters for his creation. He has the right and the power. And those are important distinctions to make, because some people have power to do things. In other words, they can do stuff, but they don't have any right to do it. They are imposters, imposers. They are interpolators. What's the word I'm trying to get to? They're just fake, but they're doing stuff because they have the squatter's privileges or whatever. Well, if you have the right and the power, that's what God has. He has the authority, the freedom, what is due Him as the creator of the universe to command and to decide. So He gives us the commands, the instructions, the principles, the truth to live by, and He's the one to decide, did you or did you not do what I command you to do? So he is the judge, and he is the just judge, and he's not confused or hoodwinked or... cannot be dismissed. He is the judge before whom we must give an account. He does it communicating his truth through his scriptures. His scriptures are authoritative. What about sufficiency of scripture? Again, this is all coming from Paul's ideas. What I received, I've given to you, God's word is sufficient. God has communicated all that we need to know to be reconciled to him and to please him. By the way, these are kind of working definitions, especially the ones that don't have quotation marks around them, that have been thought through more carefully perhaps, but this is just a working definition of sufficiency. God has told us everything we need to know for life and godliness through the true knowledge of his son. This is 1st or 2nd Peter. 1 and verse 3, where he teaches us, hey, we know what we need to know. And there are maybe questions that we have, I wish God would have told us about this or that. Maybe just have one more sentence describing what does he mean by that. But truly, God has revealed a sufficient revelation for us. We know enough, very, very, well, sufficiently, adequately to know him, which means that we can be reconciled to him, and that we know how to please him. Because that ought to be the desire of each one's heart, to please the Lord and Master, the Redeemer, the Savior, the Friend that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ. Okay, this next term is maybe a little bit hard, but this is, you know, as my professor mentor would say, gird up the loins of your mind and we'll get through this, all right. The perspicuity, not the perspiration, not the sweatiness of scripture, the perspicuity comes from a Latin word that means to see through this thing. It's clear, the clarity of scripture. If you don't want perspicuity, the clarity of scripture, which even Merriam-Webster in their dictionary, perspicuity means it's plain. to the understanding, especially because of the clarity and precision of presentation. God's Word is able to be understood. It is able to be read. It is able to be seen through. We can find even ourselves through it. God's Word is a mirror. We can see ourselves through it. But we can understand God. God has sufficiently revealed Himself through His Word. He has sufficiently revealed the origin of all of life, all of our hopes, our ambitions, the end of the story, as much as the beginning of the story. God's Word is clear. Now, That requires us to do some little bit of work. Because of all that we've studied about the reality of God's word, again, coming out of Paul's statement, 1 Corinthians 11, 23, we've got to do some work. We've got to do some hermeneutics. Hermeneutics means the study, the science of interpretation, the science of what does that say, what does that mean, and how does it apply? In fact, truly, when you come to the text, it's really those three questions you're asking. What does it mean? Excuse me, what does it say? What does it mean? And then how does it apply to me? And so when we look at hermeneutics, we're considering, I think I have four different aspects of how we, when we come to the scripture, because it is clear, because it is understandable, how do we, how do we come to it? Well, we follow a literal hermeneutic. Now there's some other aspects we'll look at here as we go along. But literal means that we're just reading when we're trying to find the ordinary meaning. What would that normally mean? You hand this to somebody else, and what does this mean? Not in a subjective sense of what does it mean to you, or how do you read this, even though it is important for us to recognize, hey, this is God's sufficient revelation that is able to give light. Well, even as Psalm 118 says, the entrance of your word gives light, it gives understanding to the simple. This is God's word. It changes the heart much more than a newspaper article can, as much as it's trying to communicate facts, hopefully, but God's word gets right down to the issues of our heart and we read it and we're able to understand, hey, God said he will save any who call upon his name. Wow, that's tremendous. And he does. And so reading the ordinary meaning. Now, I give the example of Recognizing a literal hermeneutic does not mean that you take things literally. In other words, when the scripture says that grandchildren are the crown of old men. I think, okay, brace yourself, because here come the grandkids, and here, just planted on the, it means the joyful glory of old men, the grandchildren, just tremendous. So you have to put in this idea of literalness, yes, ordinary meaning is what we mean, that we're getting, just as you read it, what would that normally mean? How do you understand it? We understand that a grammatical approach to interpretation, that is to say, words and how they're put together, words and structure, and phrases and sentences and paragraphs, and thoughts and you know main verbs and supporting verbs and adjectives and that all that grammar stuff which is so helpful because truly a lot of false doctrines have been based on a really poor grammatical understanding of what that even means. And so we need to pay attention to words and structure. We look at a historical aspect in hermeneutics. That is to say, what was the original context? When we read, for example, about Nehemiah rebuilding the wall around Jerusalem, and it says, know just various things we have to put that back in or put bring ourselves back into the context of nehemiah in the mid-5th century bc and recognize wow god is at work god is doing god is fulfilling his promises god is doing this and we see even his Maybe a bit of a works righteousness, remembering this against them, remembering this for me. But what does he mean by that? And so we have to get ourselves not to bring the text into our 21st century, but to get us back into that 5th century BC or the 1st century AD or helping us to think about the historical context, the original context of scripture, and then a contextual. So not just a historical context, but within the text itself, within the phrase, within the sentence, within the paragraph, within the chapter, within the book. Chapters aren't inspired, but the book itself. But then how does that relate to this other teaching over here? We have to look at the near context, literary context, but also the far context. How does this teaching of Paul relate to David's proclamation back in in 2 Samuel or something. How do we understand the big picture? And so hermeneutics says, wow, I don't want to do all that work. Can I just listen to the preacher or whatever, or listen to the sermons? Yeah, you can do that, but you need to do this study. It's not hard. I mean, it is hard, but it's not difficult in the sense of nobody can do it. No, anybody can look at the scripture and just read it. Look for the literary, grammatical, historical, contextual basis for understanding this text. Okay, so given this, okay, we have the perspicuity of scripture and the hermeneutical approach, then why are there so many differences in interpretation? And this is where we'll end. I'll give you, I don't know how many, seven or eight different reasons why there are so many Differences. We have the same book. Well, some people have a different number of chapters, or not chapters, but books in their scripture, the holy scriptures. But typically speaking, in our tradition anyway, why are there some interpretation? They understand this verse to mean this, and this other verse this way, and they come. It's just so divergent. I thought we were supposed to be united. Didn't Jesus pray, Lord, let them be one? What does that mean? Well, we come back to scripture and we say, how do we understand maybe our misunderstandings or just our differences in opinion? And now the first one, don't be offended by it, it's just a reality, depravity. You have unsaved people. Depraved doesn't mean we're not, it's not disparaging. It's just a reality. There are depraved people reading the text and they're trying to understand it, but their minds are bent in a different way. And the idea of total depravity means not that everybody is bad as they could be, but that every part of their lives, you know, not in Christ, but every part of their lives is tainted, colored, influenced, and even dominated by sin. And a correlate of that is there's nothing they can do to change it. Wow, that is a total depravity. Not again as bad as they could be, but definitely every aspect, just perspective, attitude, outlook on life, actions, words, they're coming from a rotten well. That well needs to be made sweet through the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. But depraved people try to come to the scriptures and they offer an interpretation And there's no basis in it. These people are unregenerate. We studied earlier in 1 Corinthians that the natural man, the fleshly man, does not understand, appreciate, or be able to teach the wonderful spiritual truths of God's word. Now, yeah, they can read about Noah and reading about Noah and then scoff at it, right? Mock all this. But trying to learn the Bible from an unsaved person, unregenerate, no. There are differences of interpretation. One of the issues, though, is how do you know who's unregenerate? Because we have so many Bible teachers pastors, professors that, I mean, they claim to be Christians, but they're not born again. They are unregenerate, and they're offering an explanation to scripture that is just, what are you talking about? How do you even get to that conclusion? And, of course, they have arguments and a basis for it. Anyway, why do we have so many differences in interpretation? One reason is because of depravity. Another is because of sin. Now, I mention this separately because there can be even in a believer's life. There can be sin, which we have in our lives that clouds us, and that's speaking in a positive sense, it motivates us to explain away a particular scripture in order to justify our sin. In other words, it's not an intellectual disagreement. It is a moral disagreement. We don't want to believe that because we don't want to change our lives. And that's total contrary to what Jesus commanded in John 3. Every man comes to the light so that his deeds may be exposed. And those who, 1 John talks about coming to the light and walking in the light and so forth. Well, if you want to keep your sin, you're not going to come to the light. And James, it's still in chapter one, I think, where he talks about this idea of bringing the mirror up and saying, oh, I'm horrible. Oh, good grief. What's that going? And then you walk away from the mirror and you forget what you look like. That's the attitude of sin that blinds us to the reality of God's word. There is a moral antipathy even for an obvious interpretation. That's what the text says. Yeah, I can't believe that because then I have to change my life. Why do we have so many differences? Because of sin. That would go on. And other aspects of that we could consider if you want to explore that some more. There's ignorance, and I'm not using it in a negative way. We just don't know. We don't know. There's a lack of training and education. There's a lack of grammar. Do you understand what an adverb is versus an adjective? Do you understand what a past tense is versus a future tense? Do you understand even getting back into the original languages, you know how that works? Yeah, just a lot of, we just don't know. So there's a lack of study, there's maybe a laziness even that gets into that. And that's why we go back to a phrase like 2 Timothy 2.15, study to show yourself approved. Get in there and do the work. Study, learn, grow. There's an aspect of immaturity. Why do we have so many differences in interpretation? Because we're immature. And we are factious. We're divisive over certain things. We have faulty character. We're stubborn over certain things. We have prejudice or bias. We have blind spots that need to be corrected. And we're not willing to acknowledge those things or to turn from them and to receive a better understanding of something. Imbalance, and that is to say that we have We're failing in that contextual aspect. We're failing to put scripture with scripture. We're looking at this verse, and this verse says this, and therefore, I'm gonna do that. Well, wait a minute, that verse reads in context even locally. No, that's not what you're saying that verse means. Look just at the phrase before that. That gives a better, a more balanced understanding. And by the way, the rest of scripture talks about this as well. But if you're just focusing on that one issue, then it can be to the neglect of other elements. Again, it's kind of like you want to walk this, this, well, I say it this way. We need to affirm everything the scripture affirms, even if we don't understand how does that fit together? The deity of Christ and the humanity of Christ. Yes. What about the origin of scripture from God or from men? Yes, holy men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. So you affirm everything the scripture affirms. When you emphasize one thing over another and say, well, this has more priority. Oh, wait a minute. How are you to determine that? We want to affirm everything that God affirms about these things. So imbalance. can be a problem, or sometimes an overcorrection. Say that you had an experience early on against legalism, for example, or antinomianism, where you jump to the opposite extreme, and that's not helpful either. or there is a precedence, and this is to say that, you know, this is the most important issue in life, whether it's evangelism, we need to get out there and evangelize, and it doesn't matter if somebody has poor theology, we're gonna get that gospel, okay, hang on, put it in context, yes, we want to evangelize, yes, we have a responsibility, but make sure that you are putting that in proper grounding. Or even, you know, we read the scripture through a denominational lens, and we, you know, this is what we affirm over here, so this scripture must be in line with that, because that denominational or family priority or, well, so-and-so, doctor so-and-so teaches this, so that's what the scripture, no. You come back to the scripture, you follow the hermeneutic process, you come and measure all things according to the word of God. Sometimes there's peer pressure. Well, you believe that? How foolish, how ignorant, how so old school of you. Well, or there's a false appeal to authority. Well, Professor so-and-so teaches this, and he's, you know, all these different degrees. Or the trump card. A few of them right here. God told me. How are you going to argue with that? Well, you know, one person said, do you want to hear God speak audibly to you? Read the scripture aloud. OK, do that. What about I feel the spirit? What? And so you're going to go contrary to what the scripture says? Why feel this way? Or the church fathers taught that. Do you know how many times Paul, even in the first century, is correcting the churches in his text and saying, you're wrong over here. You're wrong over here. Get back to what I've told you. And so to the church fathers, which some of them had seen John and some of the other apostles, And so what they say is true just because they're closer to, okay, we're not going to throw them out, but we've got to give authority, preference, presiding influence of all of our doctrine on the scripture. A couple more reasons why we have so many difference. Finitude, which is to say, we're just people. We have problems. We have any of these things that we've talked about before, but we have a finite, a limited understanding, a limited remembrance even. We don't remember all that we should, and we don't see the connection between this and that, and we just are, we are feeble and frail. And we often err, to err is human, to forgive divine, as a saying goes. Sometimes, and so all these issues are issues of people. There are only two issues that I would say in relation to scripture. Why are there so many differences? One is silence. We're asking questions of the scripture the scripture doesn't ever talk about. You can find out and you come to your own example of that but we're looking for an answer and there's no answer. And so well in the in the absence of God's word on this we'll enter our own opinion. Well OK that's it's not let's not do that. Fine to have an opinion but make it mandatory and other people to believe that or understand. Sometimes the scripture doesn't answer the questions that we want or Wow, that is a difficult text. How do we understand that? And so we have different differences of opinion on that. To underscore the idea that God's word is clear, it is perspicacious, I think is the right use of that, doesn't mean that everything is equally clear. God so loved the world he gave us. I mean, that's clear. But let every woman have her head cut. Oh, that was just a hard thing. Not everything is equally revealed. Again, there's silence, there's issues there. And then we have the issues of false teachers who want to distort the scriptures, 2 Peter 3.16. Talking about Paul, Peter talking about Paul's writings. Some things of those are hard to understand, difficult to understand, which the unlearned and unstable distort to their own destruction. That's not righteous at all. All this to say is we have a wonderful and excellent revelation from God that we can know Him, that we can know how to please Him in this life. And what should we do? Just as Paul did, what I received from the Lord, I gave it to you, I delivered it to you. And so now the football is in your court. mixing metaphors. I'm not very sportsy. You'll figure it out later. Or you already found fault with me. But we realize, wow, we have a responsibility. We have a stewardship. God's word is with us. We need to share it. Our Father in heaven, you're so good to us. Thank you for the revelation that we have in the scriptures. And please help us to give due attention to it and obedience to it. Please help us to honor and reflect yourself in this age. We're so grateful for your patience with us. We're so thankful for Your Spirit that illumines us. We didn't even talk about that and the role of the Holy Spirit in helping us to understand and appreciate Your Word. Please help us to be faithful, to live it out ourselves and to speak Your Word. Please save and sanctify for Your honor and glory. I pray in Christ's name. Amen.