I don't want it to blast you ladies in the ear when I'm speaking. Well again, I want to welcome everyone here tonight. We are doing a combined class. This is our normal Wednesday evening Bible study that we have wherein we would be studying systematic theology. However, because of the schedule for Sovereign Grace Academy, we had to combine this class with our normal Thursday evening class because I need to finish the semester by the end of July, actually by August 1st. And were we to take a night off for the 4th of July tomorrow, that would have put us into the time that I'm going to see Cody for his basic Airman graduation from the Air Force, and I didn't want that to happen either and put us back. I will say this though, just to give you an update, our last course, we had several of you who have finished your coursework and turned it in to me, and so there are three that are getting their certificates, but I apologize, because Alan, you're one of them, You're not going to get it tonight, only because I've been sick and I didn't get to go and have it printed. But I'm going to do a presentation for you next week to present you with your certificate. So give him a hand. He did a great job. And the others are Ms. Nancy Weller, who messaged me earlier and is sick tonight, and also Ms. Cynthia Childers. And so I may present theirs at church Sunday because they'll be here. Obviously you won't, so I'll see you next Thursday night. But I'm thankful for those who did the work and they did a great job. I want to just tell you where we are because I know some of you have not been a part of this course. Give you sort of a heads up. We have been studying the subject of how to study the Bible. And the fancy name for that is hermeneutics. But I didn't call it hermeneutics. I simply called it fundamentals of Bible study. But really it is the art and science of hermeneutics. That means taking the message that was given through the apostles, that was written down in the Word of God, and taking that message and bringing it to today with an understanding that we would be able to not only read it, but understand it, and apply it to our lives. That's the goal of hermeneutics, to take from the original author and bring it to the modern audience and give a right understanding. There are many wrong understandings of scripture that are out there. There are many churches that are founded on wrong understandings. There are many churches that continue to perpetuate dangerous misunderstandings of scripture. And so hermeneutics stands as one of the major focal points of the... Let me back that up. It stands as one of the major important subjects that every Bible student should study. In fact, Pastor Mark and I talked about this several times. He's taken hermeneutics several times. He said, I want to take it again because you can't learn enough. You just can't. You can always be a better Bible student. And I know that in my preparation for this class, having to read the textbook, having to read the the workbook and having to go through it and do the work myself, it's made me a better Bible student. And it's given me new insights on things that after 15 years of preaching, I have started to maybe have relaxed on some things. And it got me to have to take a step back and be a little more diligent in my own study. So I'm thankful for that. I'm thankful for any time I get a kick in the shins that remind me of the responsibility that God has given me in preaching the word. And so that's what this is. This is how to study the Bible. Now the first, this is lecture four. The first three lectures we have looked at the subject of observation. We are We said studying the Bible can be broken down simply into three parts. What are the three parts, class? Okay, louder. So we have observation is number one, interpretation is number two, and Application is number three. Many people jump right to interpretation. Interpretation is what does it mean? And they go right into what does it mean before they have really diligently sought to find out what does it say. That's what observation is. Observation is having the skills and the knowledge to read well. Most people don't read well. In fact, what was the average when we say 30% of Americans read at what? A fifth grade or below level. I worked in public high school for eight years as a substitute teacher. I worked in public high school for three years as a security officer. And I can tell you this, students don't read well. And I can't imagine that after school they became better readers. Because at least in school we were forcing them to have to try. Most people do not become better readers, they become worse readers because they have less responsibility and reason to read. And so our first few weeks have really been on the subject of becoming better readers. Knowing how to look at something. It's the value of observation, the process of observation. In fact, I would say this. This section of the study is what I think makes Dr. Hendricks' work unique. Because I've read several books on hermeneutics, I've been in courses myself, went to seminary, did hermeneutics in seminary, and I have to tell you this, nobody stresses observation that I've seen, like Dr. Hendricks. Just the fact of learning to read better. Just the fact of looking at the text and digging into the text and what does the text say. So if you feel like that was the part that was maybe just sort of, yeah, I've got to get through that to get to the interpretation part. Please don't. Understand that that was the part that was really the, that was the gem in all this. Because that's the part that most people don't do. And then they become worse at interpreting and even worse at application. Remember what we've said from the beginning. The better you are at observation, the more accurate will be your interpretation. The better you are at observation, the more accurate you are, you will be at interpretation. Because Bible study is a science. And we talked about this. We said it's art and science of hermeneutics. What is the foundation of science? Observation. The foundation of all science is observation. We must become biblical detectives. looking at the text with a keen eye, before we seek to find out what it means, we have to know what it says. I'm bringing some of these folks up to speak because they haven't been here. I'm telling them our motto of this class is very simple. Go back and look some more. The very first day they came to class, I said I want 10 observations from Romans chapter 12, verses one and two. 10 observations from two verses. At the end of this class, they're going to owe me 20 more. Did you know that? Did I tell you that already? I think I did, right? So you should already be observing, looking, digging, finding, mining. You are doing the work of excavation. And I want you to think about this because the reason for this is simple. The text cannot mean what the text doesn't say. That would be a good point to write that down. The text cannot mean what the text doesn't say. So that, again, gives us the reason for looking at what it says and spending the time to actually investigate the language and the words and what is it saying. Remember our first lesson, we talked about exegesis? What was its dastardly neighbor? eisegesis or eisegesis, depending on how you pronounce it. But what is exegesis? To read, to go to the text and pull out. Eisegesis is to push in. Next week, I'm gonna actually bring you some examples. We're gonna look at some texts and we're gonna show how these texts have been used to push agendas and push theological falsehoods that are just not in the text. But you can see how someone would read into the text something that they already believed. and they wanted the text to say. Eisegesis happens when we introduce something into the text that isn't there. People often desperately want the Bible to say something. Maybe they want healing, so they want the Bible to say that they're going to be healed. Maybe they want their marriage that is failing to be Fixed so they find the passage that they think is promising them that fix. Maybe they need to make an important decision Where to move or where which job to take and so they flip their Bible open and they land on a passage and it says Jesus went up to Jerusalem and so that means I I have to take the job north of here rather than south you see That is called lucky dipping That's what R.C. Sproul called that, lucky dipping. He said, we don't know what we want, we flip the Bible open, we close our eyes, we take our little finger, and we dip, and we look down, and we read, what does it say, and whatever the passage says, we contort it, contwist it, distort it, or whatever we need to do to make it say just what we want it to say. Now I want to say this, I'm not saying that the Bible can't make an impact like that, because there are times in history where people have just opened the Bible, read a passage, and it changed their life. One of those men was Saint Augustine, who heard a jingle, he heard children singing, tolelege, tolelege means take up and read, and so he went and opened his Bible, and he read a scripture verse, I believe it's from Romans 13, but I don't remember exactly, but it basically says, to to to abandon wickedness and He read that verse and he and he took it as speaking directly to him and he did and he became one of the greatest theologians of the early church So I'm not saying it can't happen But what I am saying is this we have to be careful simply Using the Bible as if it were a fortune cookie That's not leading to a right understanding It leads to misreading and misinterpreting the text. It's like the man who fell down, and he said, well, I'm gonna go to the Bible to make me feel better. He opens up the Bible, he goes to the first verse, it says, Judas went and hung himself. He said, I don't like that. So he went to another verse, and it says, go and do likewise. I don't like that. So he went to a third verse, and it says, what you do, do quickly. I don't like that. So you gotta be careful with lucky dipping. It's not the way. that we ought to seek to understand the Bible or to apply it. So today we're going to move from observation to application. I'm sorry, excuse me. We're going to move from observation to interpretation and then we'll move to application later. We're going to move into the subject of interpretation. If observation is our excavation, digging, interpretation is construction, building. Okay, we've dug out, we've looked at everything, now we're going to build our understanding on what we have. That's the analogy. If we have excavated the text, now we can begin to construct an understanding. And our outline for today's lecture is simply this. We're going to look at the value of interpretation. We're going to look at the various literary types of scripture. Then we are going to take our first break. And those of you who are only here for Sovereign Grace Family Church Bible study, that will be around 7.30. So if you guys want to be dismissed at that point, you'll be dismissed at our first break. But then we're going to come back and look at our handouts for our workbook of what we were supposed to have done for our work this week. All right. The value of interpretation. Observation says, what does the text say? Interpretation says, what does the text mean? Everyone take out your Bibles and turn with me to Acts chapter 8. In Acts chapter 8, I want you to go to verse 26. Acts 8 and 26 and we're going to read down to verse 40 Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip Rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza This is a desert place and he rose and went and there was an Ethiopian a eunuch a court official of Candace Queen of the Ethiopians who was in charge of all of her treasures He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning seated in his chariot and he was reading the prophet Isaiah. And the Spirit said to Philip, go over and join this chariot. So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, do you understand what you are reading? And he said, how can I unless someone guides me? and he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. Now the passage of scripture that he was reading was this, like a sheep he was led to the slaughter and like a lamb before it cheered in silence so he opened not his mouth. In his humiliation justice was denied him who can describe his generation for his life is taken away from the earth. And the eunuch said to Philip, about whom, I ask you, does the prophet say this? About himself? or about someone else. Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with the scripture, he told him the good news about Jesus. And as they were going along the road, they came to some water, and the eunuch said, see, here is water, what prevents me from being baptized? And he commanded the chariot to stop, and they went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. And when they came up out of the water, the spirit of the Lord carried Philip away, Munich saw him no more and went on his way rejoicing. But Philip found himself in Azotus, and as he passed through, he preached the gospel to all the towns until he came to Caesarea. All right, we'll stop there. Real quick, just for the sake of fun, what are some observations that you can make right away? Anyone? They'll have heard from the Lord, okay? Anything else? The official had a copy of the book of Isaiah, which we know wasn't common. It wasn't a common thing to have, for people to have, so that means that this man is probably very wealthy, and it says that he came worshiping, which probably means that he was a Jewish convert. or at least what we would call a God-fearer. Someone who was not circumcised, but was someone who believed in the God of Abraham. Richard, did you want to say something? You had your hand up. Yes, yes sir, absolutely. There are two, yes, in this passage he reads from both, showing that it's, yeah, absolutely. There are people who argue that Isaiah was written by two different authors, and that Isaiah wasn't written by Isaiah, the prophet. And this is one of the passages that we can use to prove that at least at the time of the apostles, they believed that Isaiah had written the whole thing. And so that's a good point there to be made as well. That's digging a little deeper, but that's good. That's an important observation. Did anybody else notice a missing verse? If you have an ESV Bible, you'll notice there's no verse 37. That's an important point. If you're studying the subject of textual variation, textual criticism, there is not a verse 37. In the King James Version it says, And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered him and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. So in the King James Version there is, prior to baptism, a requirement of a confession of faith. So you might want to go look at why that particular verse is considered to be not part of the original. And what type of archaeology, history, studies of the text would make someone come to that conclusion. So again, these are just things to observe, right? We aren't interpreting anything, we're just observing. Now, here's the reason why I had us look at this passage, because this passage is the great interpretation passage. Because it tells us something. It tells us that the Bible does have to be interpreted. And interpretation often begins with a question. Notice verse 34, and the eunuch said to Philip, about whom, I ask you, does the prophet say this? About himself or about someone else? That's a huge interpretive question. That's one of the basic interpretive questions. Who is the subject of this text? Who is the person that this text is talking about? Think about how valuable that is to interpretation. If you get that wrong, your interpretation will not be right. If you get that wrong, your application will probably not be right. And so he asks the right question. He asks an important question. But I want you to think of another question that's in this passage. It's the question Philip asked him. Verse 30. Do you understand what you're reading? That's really the question of questions, isn't it? Philip asked him, do you really understand what you're reading? Do you understand? I tell you, that's an important question because think about how many times you've read scripture and you walk away and you didn't really know what you were reading. You didn't really understand. That's where this guy was. I've heard people say, interpretation is unnecessary or even wrong. I've heard people say, I don't interpret the Bible, I just read it. Well, that's not true. You can't read something without coming to a conclusion as to what it means. Even in your observation, you're going to be doing some interpreting because that's part of observation. Again, you're going to notice an interweaving of these three things as we go. But the idea that I don't interpret, I just read, Not true. You're always interpreting. And in fact, reading is a weird thing. It's weird how the human brain works. Did you know you can't look at a word without reading it? I want you to try. On your way home, look at road signs and try not to read them. Look at the billboard signs and try not to read them. You can go this way if you want. Oh, OK. You can, your mind automatically reads. And then automatically begins the process of interpretation. Okay, that's done avenue. Well, what is that? Right, immediately your mind is kicking in gear. It's automatically doing these things. You're not telling yourself to do it. It's an automatic thing that your brain automatically does. And again, going back to this text, is this text reminds us that interpretation begins Well, I don't know how many of you ever heard me preach. Most of you here have heard me preach at least once. When I'm preaching, oftentimes I'm preaching the text, I'm asking questions and answering them. Now who is it we're speaking to? Now who is it Paul is talking about? Now why is Paul so upset? Those questions, those are the interpretive grid. That's what leads us to the answer. first having the right question. This guy asked the right question. About whom is this text speaking? Is the prophet speaking of himself or someone else? And of course, Philip, that's a gift. I can imagine me sitting there, seeing somebody reading Isaiah 53, and me come up and say, do you understand that? And them say, well, who's this about? I'm gonna sidle up and we're gonna go through the gospel right here in Isaiah 53. I'm gonna tell you all about Jesus and about how this passage points to the Lamb of God and how he took away the sin of the world, how he took it on himself, how he became sin for us and how this great action of transaction that happened on the cross is pictured 700 years before Jesus was ever born. Right here in the book of Isaiah in the 53rd chapter. I mean, what a great question to ask and what a great question to have asked. So the reason for interpretation is because texts give us questions. That's the value of interpretation. That's why it is valuable. Because we have to interpret to answer the question. Yes sir? Why is he reading out loud? I don't know, but I will say this, and I'll have to go back and verify what I'm about to say, but I have heard that reading silently is actually a more modern thing that typically in the old world that people read out loud most of the time. I'll have to go back and look that up, but I've read that, that reading out loud was more common, so that could be part of the reason. Could be that he was reading to others also. Again, we don't know, but it's a good observation though, because he wouldn't have known what he was saying if he wasn't reading out loud. See, Jack, that's a good, very good. Hadn't even been here and he came right in. Made a great observation, he was reading out loud, he had to have been, right? So yes, we have this text in Isaiah, and he's reading it, and again, he shows us the basis for the reason why interpretation matters. There are barriers to understanding the Bible, which the interpretation of the text seeks to overcome. I want to give you a few to think about. These are in your books. If you don't want to write them down, that's fine. But I just want to give you a few barriers that will stand between you and the text. The first one is language barriers. Language barriers will stand between you and the text. It is not enough to just learn the words of a language. You have to learn how those words function. In fact, one of the things that I will say, and I might get some negative feedback from this, and that's okay. I'm going to say it anyway. One of the things that I think is somewhat detrimental to studies is the overuse of what's called the word study. Because a word study is where someone takes a word, like let's say agape in the Greek, which means love, and they go and they find all the places where that word is used, and they seek to find out how that word is used. That's good. What the problem with word studies is, is word studies rarely seek to find how words are nuanced in the text, and how words can be used differently. And so somebody finds out that the word cosmos, which is world, used this way in John 6. Well, it must be that same way in John 3. It must be that same way in John 8. It must be that same way in 1st John 1 or 1st John 2. They don't recognize that the word world has up to 11 different nuances in John's writings alone. It can be used up to 11 different ways in just the writings of one person. for God to love the world. Do not love the world, neither the things in the world. You see that right there. Is it the same? God loves it, but we're not supposed to. Is it the same? You see what I did, though? I showed you right there two different ways that word is used. And so this is where, as I say, I'm not saying word studies are bad, word studies are great, but where word studies can be a negative is when someone You get what I call the Strong's Concordance definition, right? They go to the Strong's Concordance, this is the definition, and every time this word's used, this is it, and they hold on to it. All means all, and that's all that all means, until it don't. All Judea went out and was baptized by John. Does that mean every single person in Judea? Does that mean every invalid, every Roman soldier, every Pharisee went out and was baptized by John? No, but it says all Judea went out and was baptized by John. You have to understand nuance of terms and how terms create phrases that are used. We use that today. If Donald Trump came to Jacksonville and the news tomorrow said, oh, Jacksonville turned out for the president's visit, would we understand that there were quite a few that didn't make it? But yet the word all expressed a way of using language that we're all familiar with, right? So again, This is language barriers. Language barriers. How do words function? And how did they function in the first century? That's a huge question. The second thing is cultural barriers. Every passage of scripture has a cultural context. How long of a time was the Bible written? Anybody remember? Yeah, span of time from Moses to the New Testament. About 1,500 years, approximately. It could be 1615, something like that. About 1,500 year period. Did cultures change in 1,500 years? Was the culture that David lived in a little different than the culture Daniel was forced to live under? Was the culture of Moses in the wilderness different than the culture of Solomon in the palace? A little different, right? Was the culture of Abraham different than the culture of Moses in that Abraham didn't have the covenant law of God that was given from Mount Sinai? Did he live differently? Think about this, Abraham never read the Bible. He had daily devotions with God, but it wasn't, you know, our daily bread. You know what I mean? It's a much different culture. It's a much different life, living style. It's all different. And so, here's one that I'm dealing with. You know, I've been preaching through First Corinthians. I'm ending this week. Last sermon in the series, I'm excited to be done. But I'm gonna remind everybody, what is Corinth? Corinth is a metropolis. of the ancient world. It sat on a four-mile span of land that connected the northern Greece from the southern Peloponnesus, which was like southern Greece. And everybody who traveled had to go through Corinth, because essentially it was right on that, unless you were going by water, you were going straight up through Corinth. So it became a major trade route. And the south Peloponnesus is about a 250-mile span. If you wanted to take your boat, you'd have to go all the way around that. Sort of like going around South America. You know, there's what we created, the Panama Canal. Well, they didn't have the Panama Canal then, but what they did do is they took the boats up onto skids, and they would carry the boats across that four-mile span. Rather than having to take that 250-mile trek, take a lot less time to just carry the boat across, put it in the water on the other side. So Corinth was a metropolis. It was a place where sea-faring men came. And also traveling men and women came and it was a place where prostitution was rampant and all kinds of other things because this was a place where people were coming and traveling, they had money, they had means, they had opportunity to do what they wanted to do. And now we go to the book of 1 Corinthians and we see Paul is dealing with people who he says are carnal. And we wonder why. You don't have to wonder why, they're living in Las Vegas. You know what I mean? They're living in Atlantic City, as it were. And so right there, you have a better understanding when you seek to understand the cultural barrier, or seek to break the cultural barrier. Literary barriers. We're gonna talk about this one in a minute, because we're gonna actually look at the different literary types. But I would say this is a major issue for people, because they try to interpret Romans the same way they interpret Psalms, or the same way they interpret Isaiah. And if you take the same interpretive process to those books, it's not going to work, because they're different types of literature. So we're going to talk about those in a minute. And finally, the last one of these four barriers, language barriers, culture barriers, literary barriers, last one is communication barriers. Communication barriers, what is that? Well, sometimes we have difficulty hearing what the text is saying. because we don't want to hear it. Or because we're just having, we're not allowing it to communicate with us. The way that Dr. Hendricks described it, he described the Far Side comic, where the man is talking to the dog, and he says, okay, Ginger, now, don't knock over the trash anymore, I don't want you going through the trash anymore, I don't want you looking at it, don't get in the trash anymore. And then it shows it from the dog's perspective, and the dog's just hearing, blah, blah, blah, Ginger, blah, blah, blah, Ginger, blah, blah, blah, Ginger. And then, dog didn't know, Sometimes there is a communication barrier. We have difficulty hearing what the text is saying. And I think a lot of it is because we don't want to hear what the text is saying. In fact, I believe this. I didn't quote this. I don't remember who originally said it, but I've said it many times myself. The problem with the Bible is not the parts that we don't understand. It's the parts that we do understand and don't want to do. We don't want to obey. So what do we do with the passages that we don't want to obey? We seek to reinterpret them so that we can have what we want. That leads to dangerous misinterpretation. I know what it says, but I'm going to twist it and turn it to have it the way I want it. All right. There are tools that can help us overcome our barriers. Here are some tools. Tools for overcoming these barriers. The first one, Atlas. An atlas. Most of you have Bibles that have a little book in the back, have little maps in the back. Most people think the maps are just colorful little insertions, they don't really do anything with the maps. But those maps are valuable. Have you ever looked at Paul's traveling in the book of Acts? You know, his missionary journeys. Where did he leave from? Where did he go? Where was he when he was in that shipwreck? Where is the island of Malta? And what was happening? Where was he in relationship to Rome and to Asia Minor, which is Turkey, and where was he in relation to Jerusalem? Most folks today are not real good at geography. It might do you well just to sit down and look at the geography of the biblical places. Now some people have the means to go to Jerusalem and I've heard many pastors, oh pastor you gotta get the money to go to Jerusalem. It's a money issue for me, but more so it's an issue of not fitting well on an airplane and having to be on an airplane for twenty something hours. I think I'd just look at a map and figure it out. But if you have the means to go, of course go. But if you don't, get out a book and look. Look at these places. Look at the biblical geography. So atlases help with geographical barriers, right? In fact, one of the stories that Dr. Hendricks tells in the textbook, he said he was in a class like this of students, and this lady who had a doctorate, like a very intelligent woman, raised her hand, and she says, where in South America did this take place? And they're reading about the story of Jesus. Again, she's not stupid, she just didn't know. Right? And again, if we're not familiar with these things, then it can hurt us in our interpretation. The next thing is a dictionary. A dictionary. What can a dictionary do? It can help us overcome language barriers. Now I mentioned earlier the Strong's Concordance. Please know that I was not trying to poo-poo on the Strong's Concordance. I wasn't trying to make make it as if it were a bad thing, but there are better ones. There are better what we call lexicons, which tell you the history of words and where they come from. If you have a computer and you have the internet, you have access now to more than our predecessors, even 20 years ago, ever, we're even close to having, as far as Bible dictionaries. But don't do this. Don't look up in Webster's Dictionary the meaning of a word. I had that happen years ago. I was talking about God's sovereignty and I had somebody arguing with me over sovereignty and the sovereignty of God. And he went and he came back and he brought to me, well, Webster's Dictionary defines sovereignty as blah, blah, blah, blah. And I said, well, no, my point was, Number one, sovereignty means sovereignty. I'm not arguing really the definition. I'm arguing how God exercises sovereignty. That's the first thing. But the second thing is what would possess you to go to Webster's to look up a biblical word when there's Bible dictionaries? This is not the modern use of that word. This is the biblical use of that word. And so Bible dictionaries are good and you can get, you know, there's several, that you can get for free online. A Bible handbook. Now, brother, you sent me an email. I'm sorry I didn't respond. I've been a little busy with Karate Camp and everything. But you asked me about the Bible handbook about the book of Romans. I hope you don't mind me mentioning it in here. There are different ones. There are, like the United Bible Society has handbooks for every book of the Bible, right? And I have those on my computer. They almost function like commentaries, though. They're like a verse-by-verse handbook, and they're great. The United Bible Society is great. But what I was talking about, though, is more like a condensed whole Bible, Bible handbook. Something like, I think, Eerdmans has one. There's a few different ones. I can look on my shelf when we go to leave, and I can show you the few that I have. Eerdmans, it's E-A-R-D-M-A-N-N-S, I think is how it is spelled. But there's the Bible handbook. There's several and basically what it's not a commentary Its intention is to tell you about the cultural background of the book who wrote it when they wrote it Why they wrote it what the purpose is now there are some bad ones I remember one of one of the ones that I picked up one time and I was reading about the book of Daniel and it was telling me how Daniel wasn't really written by Daniel but was written later because Daniel could not have written the book because of There was too much accuracy in the prophecies. It had to have been written after the fact, written into it, because God certainly couldn't be accurate in his prophecies. But I remember I'm looking at the handbook and I'm saying, well, this tells me all I need to know about the author. At least it tells me where he's coming from. He doesn't believe in the miraculous when it comes to the ability to prophesy. Because Daniel, I mean, is a pretty powerful prophetic book. It prophesized national changes that happened well after the death of the author. Yeah, it could have used a classical interpretation, yeah. So a Bible handbook is good, and it's different than a commentary, even though some of them do have some, like I said, the United Bible Society one is sort of half and half. The last one is commentaries. Commentaries can be used to overcome communication barriers. If the text isn't communicating with you, and it isn't making sense to you, sometimes a commentary can help overcome that communication barrier. Now, some people will say this, and I want to respond to this, and hopefully this isn't anybody here, but if it is, know that I'm not stepping on toes purposefully. Some people will say, well, I never ever use commentaries. And usually that's followed by, I don't want to hear what men have to say, I want to hear what God has to say. That's normally what I hear in response. I don't want to use commentaries, I don't want to hear what men have to say, I want to hear what God has to say. Well, let me say this about that. If you reject the use of commentaries, that is your prerogative, but the church has a vast history of scholarship, archeology, cultural studies, linguistic analyses that you simply have not done on your own. And if you refuse to draw from them, you will be limited by whatever research you have done. So by not using commentaries, you are simply limiting yourself to what you have been able to research in your short span of time. Yes, sir. Exactly because that's what when I preach it's a commentary every one of John MacArthur's commentaries is just his sermon written out I mean it really is if you look at John MacArthur's commentaries, and you go back and listen to him preach It's just his sermons, which is great Because his sermons are great But that's right. It's it's it's one man's Understanding of the text, but hey, I want to know how Augustine understood this text I want to know how Calvin understood this text. I want to know how John MacArthur understands this text I wanna know, because I tell you what, and this is key, I do have the Holy Spirit within me the same as those men have within them. However, I know that there are times when I think things that aren't right. And I can use those men as a check against my own arrogance. I think something's right and all of these men are telling me I'm wrong, that might be a reason to take a step back and reevaluate what I think. If I am saying something and everybody is against me, then I might have missed the boat just a little. And again, people say, well, the Spirit of God tells me what it means. The people who say that are typically the most likely to be the dangerous teachers. The Spirit of God, I heard a guy one time tell, he said this, he says, we don't know who wrote Hebrews, but God told me Paul wrote Hebrews. And I just, my response in hearing this was, well, I guess we don't even, I mean, why even have a conversation? God told you. Yeah, yes, yeah, his, that little voice inside of him. The Bible says the heart is desperately wicked, you can know it. People say listen to your heart, beware. Now, out of the Reformation came an interpretive methodology that I want to share with you tonight. This is not in your book. So this may be something you want to write down as an additional note. Because all these things we've been talking about, tools and things, all of them are trying to get to a certain point. And here's what we're trying to get. And I'll write it up here on the board. It's Latin, but it's English. And by that I mean it's a Latin phrase, but you'll see. For the grammatico-historical method, the grammatico-historical method, and of course you know in English that simply means the grammatical and the historical method. Basically that, when we go to the text, our primary goal in interpretation is to find out how the grammar and the history work together to tell us what it means. The grammar and the history work together to tell us what it means. Simply stated, how did the original audience understand this text? How did the original audience understand this text? There is a simple principle of the grammatical historical method and it is this. A text only has one meaning. A text only has one meaning. Now earlier I said I wanted you to bring ten observations, remember? And we talked about applications. Applications can be numerous. But a text only means what it meant. The danger of not following that rule is subjectivism. Well the text means this to me and Michelle the text means something else to you and Dan the text means something else to you and Pastor Mark the text means something else to you and we can all sing Kumbaya and we can all join hands because the text doesn't have a meaning it has many meanings. That is dangerous and that is not biblical. Subjectivism says it doesn't matter what it meant to them, it matters what it means to me. But such thinking leads to distortion and contradiction. Now, next week we're going to talk more about contradiction, but for now I'm going to say this. If I say the text means A, and you say the text means not A, one of us, or both of us, is wrong. But we cannot both be right. That is called the law of non-contradiction. You cannot have and not have at the same time and in the same relationship. You cannot be and not be at the same time and in the same relationship. Therefore something cannot mean A and mean not A at the same time and in the same relationship. So we have to understand the grammatical historical method is the process whereby we search and find what did it mean when it was written, to whom it was written. That's first. Now we can ask the question, does it have a broader application? Sure. We're next week, we're going to look at first Corinthians chapter eight. The next week, we're going to look at that passage where it talks about not eating meat offered to idols. Cause that's what first Corinthians chapter eight is about. And we're going to talk about what that meant to them. And then later when we get an application, we're going to talk about how that can be applied to us. Cause most of us don't have a problem with eating meat offered to idols, but, Most of us do have issues with limiting our liberties for the sake of someone else's conscience. And that's the focus of the text. That's how you apply the text. But you see, you first have to understand the meaning before you can get to the application. All right. The first step of interpretation, and this is, we're gonna end with this, and then we're gonna take our break and we'll come back and have our second part. This is moving to understanding literary types. The first step of interpretation is determining what type of literature you're reading. What type of literature you're reading. Now you should have done this in the observation phase. Agreed? But here it is of the utmost importance because the rules of interpretation are governed by the literary type. You do not interpret poetry the same as biography. You do not interpret Proverbs the same as you do Romans. I said that earlier. But some people might argue, well pastor, hold on. We always interpret the Bible literally. I want to respond to that. And this is where we'll close this portion. If somebody asks me, do you interpret the Bible literally? I say no. Now before you get your socks in a bunch, Let me explain. If somebody says, do you interpret the Bible literally, I say no. I interpret the Bible literarily. Literarily. Meaning that I interpret the Bible according to the genre of literature that is being presented in that book. The Bible is filled with all kinds of different genres of literature. Didactic, historic, narrative, poetry, Apocalyptic and each one has hermeneutical rules for interpretation In fact if you try to interpret Revelation with wooden literalism you will come away confused Let me yeah to say the least but here's the funny thing a lot of people say well no no I interpret the Bible literally and then they'll say see here in Revelation where it's a where it's got the locusts. Well, see, that's a Black Hawk helicopter. And I say, well, slow down. You just said literal. And if it's a Black Hawk helicopter, it ain't a locust. And if the beast rising out of the sea is a man and not a beast, then you're not being literal. You see? The book actually has a great section on figurative versus literal and how to understand the two. I would encourage you to read it if you haven't yet. But my point is this, when the Bible says the trees clap their hands, you have to understand that the Bible is using natural figurative language. When the Bible says the sun made its circuit across the sky, It is using what is known as phenomenological language, language of appearance. These are things that are natural. And the Bible was not written with a wooden literalism. When Jesus said, I am the sheep gate, he didn't mean he has hinges hanging off his shoulders. I know that may sound silly. What do we mean when we take the Bible literally? What did I say last week? The Bible's not always literal, but it's always right. It's always right. So our goal is to seek the right understanding. All right, take our first break, come back. Okay, well we are back and we are going to finish up tonight in our second part, and this is the much shorter part, of looking at our workbook assignments. So if you have your workbooks, please take them out and turn to 46, page 46. Now if you're not part of Sovereign Grace Academy, I have a copy of a handout for you. So this is not Part 46, but we're only going to spend a second on that. We're going to go to part 48 pretty quickly. So Alan, would you please? Just there's a few ladies down there that might like that. Yeah, so it's not page 46, it's page 109. Part 46, page 109. We already discussed this, aids to interpretation, atlases, bible dictionaries, bible handbooks, commentaries, but the one that's here that I didn't mention and I want to add is interlinear text. Let me tell you something about interlinear text. What an interlinear does is it shows you the Greek right next to the English. So if you're going through the English and you want to know what the Greek says you can use an interlinear. Now people who study Greek and know Greek really well will tell you that a little Greek is a dangerous thing because just like I told you earlier how people use word studies and sometimes they go crazy with the word studies, well sometimes people go crazy with the original language. They don't really understand how it operates but they still try to use it and it can be somewhat dangerous. If you don't have any idea about the original language you're okay. You can still study the Bible in English, but if you're interested what the word that was used in the original language for whatever passage you're looking at, I would say get an interlinear text and you'll at least be able to see what word is being used. Here's where that would matter. We're going to talk about this more next week, but say the word love is used. Well, if it's in the Old Testament, It's going to be the Hebrew word for love. If it's the New Testament, it's going to be the Greek word for love. But there's not one Greek word for love. There's actually two that are used in the Bible. And there are, there's a third which means familial relations, which can also be translated love. And then there's one that means sexual lust, eros, where you get the word erotic. That is not used in scripture, but it's still a Greek word. And so there are different words that are used. And so if you're looking up John 3.16, you want to know what it means. For God so loved the world. What's the word love there? You can look at an interlinear and at least see which, whether it was agape or philos. Philos is the other word which is used. Yeah, and it has different nuances of meaning. So that's what an interlinear is for. Okay, moving on quickly. The hazards to avoid. This is page 40 or Number 47, page 111 in your book. The hazards to avoid are misreading the text, obviously, distorting the text, contradicting the text, subjectivism, and relativism. We looked at some of that earlier. What is relativism? Anybody know? How would you define relativism? Interpreting based upon their situation. Relative. Relativity. Yes. Relativism is scientifically a very important principle. It was what I believe was discovered by Einstein. It was an important understanding for how objects relate to one another and relative to size and things like that. But we now have relativism moved into the subject of ethics. And if we ever do, that class on Christian ethics we discussed last week, That's our next course actually if we do Christian ethics. We're going to talk a lot about relativism because relativism Not only says that it can be right for you, and what's right for you is not right for me But it ultimately says there is no such thing as truth When when Pontius Pilate said to Jesus truth What is truth? He was expressing a first a first century understanding of relativism There is no such thing as truth. What's true for you may not be true for me. And so that's relativism and that's dangerous. Yes, ma'am. Yes, discernment is seeking to determine what is and is not right or what is and what is not true. And some people would say that discernment is not necessary because what's true for you is true for you. And so I would say, yeah, I'd say a person who exercises discernment is saying by nature of doing so that they are not relativists. Because they are saying there's some things that are right and there's some things that are wrong. Is that kind of what you were asking? Yeah. I kind of have a similar question. I've heard people talk about personal convictions or personal sins. That kind of thing. obeying in a sense, but not everybody has to go to China kind of thing? Would that... Well see, here's... when we do, hopefully, do the course on ethics, I want to... we're going to spend a lot of times looking at Romans 14, which does talk about the fact that if somebody does something that is, to them, not something they can do in faith, that it is a sin. In fact, Paul tells us in Romans 14, that which is not of faith is sin. And so there are things that can be a sin for you and not be a sin for me. But those are not absolute things. So that wouldn't be considered relativistic? No, somebody might take it in a relativistic way as if Paul is being relative. Paul is simply explaining that as a Christian we should not get in the habit of denying our conscience. If our conscience binds us we shouldn't get in the habit of overcoming our conscience because in doing so we're exercising a very dangerous way of living. If our heart's telling us not to do something and we do it anyway, then that's a bad way to live. And so Paul was saying, if your heart says no, don't go. And if you do, you're not doing it in faith. And what is not in faith is sin. There's more to it than that. I asked this question years ago. I was teaching an ethics class. I said, what binds us more, our heart or the Bible? And a lot of people said, well, the Bible. I said, no, your heart. The Bible actually gives you more freedom than your heart does. Because your heart won't tell you no. Because your heart's not comfortable with something even though the Bible is telling you it's okay. Yeah, you're actually more bound by your heart. Because you're not ever allowed to go past what the scripture says. But you're not supposed to go past what your heart says either. If your heart says no. So there is a place for where the conscience resides. And of course, I did say earlier that the heart is desperately wicked. Who can know it? So we have to understand that if the heart allows us to do something that the scripture says no, that we're not free to do that. And that's where liberty comes in too. So again, that's moving, yeah. I think everybody's interested in the ethics class. It seems to be anyway. We talked last week about maybe that being our next course. Eight weeks on, say in the subjects of Christian ethics are things like abortion, things like the death penalty. These are all ethical questions that Christians struggle with. Should a Christian be allowed to defend himself? Should a Christian carry a firearm? I teach for the RA, you might know where I land on that. But maybe you don't. Maybe you wonder why. And so that's where that question comes up. All right, so let me move on past that, but that was a very good, did that answer Jasmine? Okay, good. All right, let's go to number 48 now, and this is where we'll spend the remainder of our time. I truly believe that most people find most difficulty in interpreting the Bible because they simply do not understand the genre of literature that they're reading. And so this part, I think, is most important. when you're starting your interpretation. What kind of book am I reading? Now, I like to do it this way. I'll use a board here. Oh, guess I won't. I'll use this board over here. This is the left-handers board. If you take the Bible and you categorize it, which we have done, you can categorize and what we would call history, and then we would say, or didactic, poetry, also known as wisdom, and apocalyptic, or prophetic. Now, I'm only doing this because this gives you like 18, or let's see, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 different categories. That's true. But you can start more simple than that, right? You can say, okay, there are books that are history books and there are books that are didactic. What does didactic mean? Didactic means they are straightforward teaching books or expositional books. They are written, they're letters, usually like the letters of Paul. Those are didactic, right? So we would say Paul's letters, right? In fact, we could say all the epistles are didactic. What are the history books then? Yeah, so you've got Kings and Chronicles, you've got all the books of Moses, you've got Joshua, all the way through Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1st and 2nd Samuel. Yeah, those are your history books, right? So you take Moses all the way through Esther, And these are all historical. Yeah, moving to the New Testament, you've got the Gospels. Exactly, but the primary mode of information is you're receiving it as a history book. It's telling you from this to this, from this to that, and that's your starting point. Yes, in the books of Moses, you have poetry. In the Gospels, you have didactic portions. Yes, there is a mixture, but you start with your basics, right? Okay, this is a history book. The biggest problem, I can tell you, with, well, I'm gonna be careful what I'm about to say. The modern charismatic movement has used the Book of Acts as if it were a didactic writing rather than a historical writing. Meaning they take everything that happened in Acts as being instructive for what should be done rather than informative as to what was done. Therefore, somebody says in the book of Acts, everyone who was baptized was spoke in tongues, so we should expect everyone now to speak with tongues. Even though the book of First Corinthians tells us in chapter 12 not everyone will speak in tongues. But, if you look at Acts, they make the argument from Acts, well, here, everyone who was baptized spoke with tongues, or everyone who was baptized with the Spirit, everyone who was filled with the Spirit spoke with tongues, and so, they used the historical account as a point for doctrine, rather than simply a historical account as to what it was. And so that, the book of Acts, you know, I've talked through it, spent, I think, three years in it. It was very important to look at, okay, what do we notice about every time the Spirit fills a group of people in Acts? There's a gift of tongues, but it's not always consistent. You have the gift of tongues in Acts chapter two, And then people get saved and are baptized. Doesn't mention that they spoke with tongues, it mentions the people who were preaching spoke with tongues. Then later we see the people be baptized and then the apostles come and lay hands on them, then they speak with tongues. And then we see later in Ephesus, the men who had not heard of the Holy Spirit, they'd only been baptized by the baptism of John, and they spoke with tongues. And so they say, well you see here every time somebody spoke with the Spirit they speak with tongues. That's only three instances in the whole book. But tongues becomes a huge issue, right? How many books of the Bible mention speaking in tongues? Anybody know? Three, only three. And if you do not take Mark's ending to be historically accurate, meaning the longer ending of Mark which we would consider to be a questionable text where Jesus talks about picking up serpents and drinking poison and speaking with foreign tongues. If you understand that that passage has been understood by me particularly, I understand it to be an insertion, not part of the original, then we don't even count Mark. We would only count 1 Corinthians and Acts. So there's only two books in the whole Bible. And yet we're told by certain denominations that unless you speak with tongues, you're not saved. You see? So again, this is how historic literature can be turned into didactic or doctrinal literature. And it's a dangerous road. All right, what are some other didactic works? Well, we talked about Paul's writings in the epistles. There are certain didactic portions. We can say in these other books like Moses' writings have the commandments and the law. I'd say Leviticus is very didactic. How these, the Leviticus, how this is supposed to happen. But it's written in the form of the narrative, right? What are some poetry and wisdom books? All right, so Psalms and Proverbs. Joe. What was the other one? Ecclesiastes. SOS, yeah. Song of Solomon. All right, what about, yeah, Lamentations can fall under this. And then we have the apocalyptic or the prophetic works. That, of course, is all of the prophets, both major and minor. That includes the book of Revelation and certain portions of Matthew and Mark and Luke. Also, there are certain portions which Jesus speaks in prophetic language. Now, if you look at this form, page 113, number 48, it breaks it down even further from apocalyptic to biographical to encomium, which means words of praise, encomium is language, so we see this a lot in the Psalms, but we see it other places as well, when God is exalted in language, that's a certain type of speaking. Expositional, narrative, oratory, parable, pastoral, poetry, prophecy, proverbial, satire, tragedy, wisdom literature. These are all different types of literature. He gives a breakdown of them and he gives an example of them. One thing I want to mention about the book of Proverbs, Proverbs is a tremendously useful book, but it is also, it has the potential for being misunderstood because people fail to realize the concept of proverbial promise versus absolute promise. In fact, I remember very clearly one night here at the church having a conversation with a man, and he was a very genuine, loving guy, and we were talking about truth, and I said, there's a difference between proverbial truth and absolute truth, and he had a difficulty with that. It's just truth. It's just it's true or it's not. And I said, well, I said, we have always used proverbial truths and you use them yourself. And I tried to help them understand, you know, when you tell your child, if you get up and get ready and go to school and work hard, you'll succeed. We know that's not absolutely true. They may get hit in a car wreck, you know, they may have a horrible life. If you eat healthy, you'll live a long life. Exactly. You might get hit by a bus. You don't know. But that's a great proverbial truth, right? Johnny, and you would be a fool not to tell your child that. You'd be a fool not to give your child life proverbial truths to live by. If you eat healthy, you'll live a long time. If you exercise, you'll feel better. Whatever, right? But again, we know those are not absolutes. Here's one that's tremendously important for parents. raise up a child and the way should go and when he is old he will not depart from it. Now don't we know people who have raised up their children in a godly way and yet their children have fallen into sin and abandoned the gospel and even died in that state never redeemed. It's a shame. So can they look at the Bible and say, the Bible's false? No. In fact, I don't even think people are understanding that passage right now. I'll very quickly give you a little something on that passage. That passage, when it says, raise up a child in the way he should go, does not mean what most people think it means. Most people think it means if you raise him right, he'll eventually be right. You raise him up in the way he should go when he's older, he will not depart from it. What the Hebrew idiom there means is if you raise a child according to his wants, when he is old he will not depart from it, meaning that if you raise a child according to his desires, you're never going to be able to reign him in when he is an adult. If you raise a child according to his bent, that's actually the modern way of saying it, meaning if your child is bent towards evil and you let him be that way, and you don't correct him when he's old, you'll never be able to correct him. Essentially, you have to raise him correcting him, or you'll never be able to once he's older. Now, I'd say both of them are true, but the second one is more accurate to the meaning. Either way, neither one of them are absolute, because there have been some people that were raised pretty funky, and they grow up to be pretty good folks. My dad's one of them, you know? He had a pretty bad life growing up, and his mom and dad not great parents but he was a very good dad to me so there is a there's not a there's not a absolute in the Proverbs but they are proverbial truths and when we take them as in fact if the proverb says this is his answer not a fool according to his Folly or you will be like him the very next verse says answer a fool according to his folly or he will It will continue I forget exactly I said basically it says the same thing it contradicts itself Some atheists say this is a place where the Bible contradicts. It's no contradiction The point is both are true sometimes if you answer a fool You make yourself a fool because that person ain't listen Sometimes if you don't answer a fool you're gonna let him continue, and he needs to be corrected And really it's a time where the situation dictates the necessity, right? It's sort of like this, if I say look before you leap, is that true? But if I say who hesitates is last, is that true? Do they contradict each other? Well, sort of, depends on the situation. Sometimes hesitation is not good, sometimes looking before you leap is necessary, and you know, both of those are proverbial, both of those are true. This is why there's sometimes in Proverbs it'll say one thing, you say well over here it says something a little different. It's not contradicting itself, it's speaking about the fact that life is different and situations are different. And sometimes a proverb will speak to one area and another proverb will speak to another area of your life. Being unwilling to see that will cause us some confliction and confusion when we're seeking to interpret that text. There's a lot in there about the righteous do this the righteous do that And then you got your chest in here thinking you're righteous because you're walking a certain way, and you're only righteous in Christ So you got to be careful with that stuff Yeah Absolutely we we have to be careful and in the more we know the more we can You know, as I said, let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. It's easy to put yourself on a pedestal. I'm not saying you, me, anybody. Any one of us is easy to put ourselves up on a pedestal. Well, guys, we've gone over time. I appreciate your attentiveness. Does anybody have any questions? All right, we are right now halfway through the term. We didn't do a midterm this time, so nobody had to take a test. Amen. Praise the Lord. But we will be drawing close to the end and at the end you will have an opportunity to take a text of scripture and you will be giving an observation application or observation interpretation application. That is your final paper to turn in. So if you're looking to earn a certificate in this course, it will be done then. At the end of the semester I will give you a text that you're going to be using. Well I haven't decided, would you rather choose? No, I'd rather you assign me. OK. All right. I'll pull out a sermon. Well, the other part, too, is I'm thinking about length. Because I wouldn't want somebody to just take one. For the type of work that I want done, it's probably going to be at least a paragraph of passage, rather than just one text. Even though, if you do your work, you can make a several page paper out of one text. But for most of us, it'll be a paragraph. No, no, I'm going to give it to you in the last, just like the last paper, you'll have a month to try to do it. Question? All right, good night. Gentle answer turns the way around. Not always, but that's a perfect example. I tell my kids, I'm like, if you jump off of that, you're going to rip your legs. And then they do it, and they're like, I can't see. And I'm like, no. I don't know who wrote it, but it's called Demolishing the so-called Bible Contradictions. I know it's hard to think. Yeah. But I feel like to be helpful, I'll have to, I'll have to sit in front of you and take a picture of the book.