Evaluating Biblical Arguments - Part 10

HERMENEUTICS #10 -- What NOT to do:

#1 = NEVER make your point at the price of the proper interpretation.

Second --- NEVER rely on a superficial or shallow "examination" of a text.

Do NOT try to get by without real study. Accurate Bible study is hard work. It cannot be done by flipping through quickly and looking for messages wherever our eyes happen to settle . Nor is understanding the Bible a matter of personal opinion apart from actual EVIDENCE .

Accurate interpretation requires diligence. As I have already said, sometimes the correct meaning of a text will be discovered by studying the cultural background -- sometimes from the grammar, and sometimes from comparisons with other scriptures. We cannot expect to get by with the haphazard ad-libbing that passes for Bible teaching in much of the church today.

1 TIM. 5:17 says that "double honor" is to be given to those who labor in the word and in doctrine. God has given teachers as a gift to the church because correctly instructing people in the Scriptures requires people who are committed to persistent, conscientious labor in studying and learning. I am sure all of you know some who are actually proud of their lack of learning, and who are contemptuous of those who strive to better their knowledge and abilities in language, theology, and doctrine. They try to appear super-spiritual and superior to those who have worked long and hard in this area.

I have heard some claim that they can know the Bible just fine completely apart from any outside help. They don't need to read any of "man's wisdom"; they don't need any study aids, or any language helps. They are spiritual enough to "get it" without all that help. And if you question their "take" on a passage, based on solid linguistic, or historical, or contextual grounds, they will denigrate you as "all puffed up with knowledge," or some such insult.

To some folks this all sounds quite spiritual. But is it really the way of wisdom? Think back through the history of the church. The overwhelming majority of the mighty teachers and leaders in the church have been educated persons. And the overwhelming majority of the cults and aberrant groups have been characterized by their lack of scholarship and learning. This is not meant to denigrate those who are NOT educated; but it IS meant to rebuke the attitude that godly, learned people who have dedicated their lives to the study of the scripture are somehow less spiritual than those who just fly by the seat of their pants!

Do we really have the right to bypass all the godly learning of the church? Although the claim that one is able to bypass serious study and go right to the word sounds very spiritual to some, to me it is nothing more than egotism and stupidity. It is claiming a special ability that those of us who have dedicated our lives to learning just don't have.

I confess that I am not specially gifted to be able to figure out everything in the Bible without help -- without the untiring, godly, scholarship of great men and women of the past and of today. And I thank God for those who have become expert in history, or in linguistics, or in Greek, or in grammar -- and who have used those abilities to help us further our understanding of the Scripture.

This claim is also an indication that the one making it has confused INSPIRATION with ILLUMINATION. The Spirit's illuminating ministry is NOT designed to reveal NEW truth concerning matters unknown -- rather, it is designed to help us understand what is already revealed in the written word of God.

This second "don't" of hermeneutics is designed to guard against the free-for-all that results from accepting any and every opinion without even the burden of evidence. It protects us from our own, and others', biases, based on shallow study and shallow thinking. It is the difference between the whimsical and sometimes ridiculous interpretations of those who are merely reacting emotionally and subjectively to a passage, and the solid, grounded reasoning of those who have used the tools that godly men have learned and passed on to the rest of us to help us discover the intended meaning of the text.

We should be greatly disturbed by this shallow, superficial approach to Bible study and teaching. Too many preachers and teachers are standing before Christians and presuming to teach them the word of God with little or no preparation at all. Many of them seem to be inventing their doctrine as they go along!

Let me give you an example of this fallacy. I once heard of a man who claimed that he could preach a message from any verse in the Bible without having to study it, or even look at it. He was asked to preach from the following text: "These eight did Milcah bear."

The man proceeded to preach a three-point sermonette based on what he heard. His three points were:

1) It takes courage to milk a bear. 2) It takes cooperation to milk a bear. 3) It takes caution to milk a bear.

He then tried to apply these "points" in some sort of spiritual way. Now -- would you consider this to be a spiritual and godly way to preach? I would hope that everyone in here would reject such a notion. But, alas, there are many who do seem to believe in this kind of "preaching".

If you will look up the verse that this sentence is found in -- GENESIS 22:23 -- you will discover that Milcah was the sister-in-law ofAbraham, and that this passage is simply saying that she had eight children! So -- not only was this man making a fool out of himself in his arrogance, but more importantly, he was twisting the word of God in his attempt to look super-spiritual, and he was robbing those who were listening to him of the right to hear the truth from the word of God.

#1 = NEVER make your point at the price of the proper interpretation.

#2 = NEVER rely on superficial or shallow study.