Well, good afternoon, First Baptist Church Jenny Lynn. I hope you're well this Thursday. I'm looking outside and I am seeing a beautiful sunny day and it's just the right amount of cold, I think, so you can be outside and just enjoy the sunshine and not get too hot. What a blessing it is. Dear friends, every time we see beautiful days like this, we are reminded that it is from the Lord. Every good gift and every perfect gift comes down from above, from the Father of lights with whom there is no shadow or variation due to change. So, dear friends, I pray that as we see this beautiful day, as we're reminded of our families whom we are spending so much time with, our friends that we can still enjoy via our phone and social media and so many other ways of contact, let us give thanks to God. And as we see all of his blessings that he showers upon us, I pray that we will see his supreme blessing, who is Christ. So, dear friends, with gratitude and with love for our God, we continue this Thursday with our next installment on our weekday devotionals. And I have titled this weekday devotional How can I interpret the Bible? How do I interpret the Bible? And so before we begin, let's pray. Our Father, we thank you for this day and praise you for your mercy and ask, oh Father, that by your spirit you would come and teach us how to rightly handle and understand the word of truth. We thank you, Father, that you have given us your book, your Bible to seek you and knowing that you are not far from us, but that by your word you reveal yourself to us, that you teach us and lead us by your word, that, O Lord Jesus, your glory is on full display in the Holy Scriptures. We pray, Father, that we would not only be hearers of the word, but doers also. Oh, dear Spirit, enable and equip us both to hear and to heed your word, that we might be faithful servants of Christ. For we ask everything, Father, in his name. Amen. Amen. Well, dear friends, perhaps you are as I was. You are in a Bible study and you're sitting around a table, maybe it's a Sunday school class, maybe it's a community class at somebody's home, and you've decided to study the Bible together. And many times the Bible study goes like this. There's a portion of scripture to be read, verses read. And then the director or the teacher of the Bible study then looks up and looks at everybody in the room and says, what does this verse mean to you? On one hand, Dear friends, this is a very helpful question because we do understand that the Word of God is applicable to Christians, that is applicable to every person, that the truth of God drives us to a decision to act and to respond to the Word of God in obedience and in thankfulness. But dear friends, sometimes that method of Bible study where we simply come to the Bible and say, what does this verse mean to me, has some dangerous ramifications because it turns the whole investigation of Holy Scripture away from the objective truth and puts focus on the subjective application. And dear friends, as we'll see this afternoon, there is a place for personal application that's necessary for Bible study, for preaching and teaching, but it comes after we establish the doctrine, after we understand what does the Bible say? What is God meaning to communicate to us? And so dear friends, we live in a culture that is very much focused on self, about self-improvement, self-esteem, self-worth. And, dear friends, these have their place in the Christian life, but they come as a result of God's work and God's word and God's wonderful grace to us in Christ. And so, as we are looking at interpretation, Perhaps, friends, you have started to study the Bible, and you are saying, okay, I know that I must study the Word of God. I know that Christ commands me to study His Word. I understand the joy I have in knowing God and abiding with Him, and so I want to study the Word of God. I've got my Bible-reading plan here. I am ready to go. And you open the Bible and you come to the book of Genesis, where so many of us start, and we come to the very first verse. What do we do with the verse? How do we understand it? Well, what I want to set before you is that we will follow what is described by theologians as the historical grammatical school of interpretation. And all that means, friends, is that we interpret the Word of God as a writing, as a book that is communicating to us a message. We pay attention to the historical circumstances that surround the time of the writing and the circumstances of what's being talked about. We pay attention to the grammar. We look at the words and the syntax. We understand that words convey meaning. And so, as we come to the Bible, we understand that a noun is a noun, a verb is a verb, an adjective is an adjective, and a conjunction is a conjunction. We can apply the same rules of language, of grammar, to the Bible. And so we come to the Bible and we are seeking to understand what hath God said. What is he telling us? What message is he communicating? So we pay attention to history, we pay attention to the culture, we pay attention to the grammar. We're trying to understand essentially everything we can about this Bible. And so we come and we'll look at one verse together. It says Genesis 1 verse 1, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. All right, well let us apply these rules of interpretation. So in the beginning Moses, the author of Genesis, speaking in the Holy Spirit, gives us a time frame. He as it were, rewinds the clock and brings us back to the very first moment in history, in the beginning. This is the start. This is the beginning of all time and history. And so at this very first moment in history, we're introduced to someone, someone very important, namely God, God himself. So what do we understand? One implication here is that God existed before time began, that God was in the beginning and he was the creator of all things, of the heavens and the earth. And so we see that God is eternal, self-existent, having the power of being in and of himself because he himself is uncreated and is the creator. And Moses tells us he creates the heavens and the earth. All right, so we've applied these tools of interpretation. We know that by genre, this book of Genesis is a historical narrative. So Moses is trying to communicate to us not mythology, He's not giving us a scientific expose, but he is communicating to us real facts, the story of God's work in creation, of his activity. And so we come to the Bible, we apply these rules, we find the doctrines, some doctrines we see here are the self-existence of God, God is creator, and thus we see that he is the owner and ruler of everything. And so friends, we've taken the doctrine, we've discovered the truths that are being communicated, and then we apply them to ourselves. So again, this is where doctrine leads to devotion, this is where the truth claims of scripture find their they're grounding and find they're working out in our lives. Doctrine always directs our devotion. We see that if God is creator of the heavens and the earth, then he's my creator and he's the creator of everything. And so we dare not give his praise to deaf idols. We cannot dare praise evolution as the being from which all things come because the Bible clearly says that it is God who having all being being self-existent and eternal of his own infinite being created all things. So we give God the glory alone as our creator. We submit to him as our maker. We understand that if God creates us, he has every right to do with us as he sees fit. So we see that God as our creator lays the foundation for how we understand who God is, who we are, and the world in which we live. And then ultimately we look to Christ and we see that in Christ there is new creation, that we who were created in Adam holy, who also fell in Adam by Adam's sin, in our sin, we are redeemed in Christ and made new creatures so that we might know, love, serve, and worship our holy creator. So, friends, when we interpret the Bible, remember, we are coming to the Bible with a reverent heart, We are coming to the Bible, looking at the scriptures, asking the question, what does God mean? What is he saying? What is Moses trying to communicate to me? And once I unpack the doctrine, I apply that truth to my life. And so, dear friends, this is a very simple method of how to interpret the scripture, the historical grammatical interpretation. All right. Well, friends, I pray that you will continue your Bible study. I pray the Lord bless you and me as we study God's word together. I'll pray for us and we'll close. Father, we pray, please teach us to rightly handle your word. We thank you that you have written to us in terms that we can understand. Father, you speak baby talk to us by your word. The infinite, holy, wise God, you condescend to speak to such finite, weak creatures as we are in ways and patterns that we may receive your truth, that we might know you and love you and follow you. Father, we pray.