Evaluating Biblical Arguments - Part 7

HERMENEUTICS #7

#1 = Interpret LITERALLY.

#2 = Understand the HISTORICAL-CULTURAL background.

#3 = Analyze the GRAMMATICAL structure.

#4 = Use SYNTHESIS .

#5 = APPLICATION comes last!

As valuable as these five principles are -- they are useless without the illuminating ministry of the Holy Spirit:

1 COR. 2:12-16: "We have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment: 'For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him?' . But we have the mind of Christ."

In this passage Paul describes the Holy Spirit's ministry of ILLUMINATION. This is NOT revelation; that was given only to the chosen apostles and prophets that formed the foundation of the church. But illumination is a ministry to every true believer. It is not new scripture, nor is it a mystical power to perfectly understand everything in the written word. But it is a ministry of the Spirit that helps the diligent seeker of truth as he searches the scripture.

Anyone can hear the facts, study other people's teaching, and gain something of an intellectual understanding about the meaning of Scripture. But apart from the Holy Spirit, the Bible will utterly fail to penetrate and transform the human heart. With the Spirit of God comes illumination -- true understanding of what has been written. Every believer has the Holy Spirit, the One who inspired the writers of Scripture, and without His illuminating ministry to us, the truth of Scripture could not penetrate our hearts and minds.

The Holy Spirit indwells us, and helps us understand the written word. However -- this is NOT to say that the illuminating ministry of the Holy Spirit REPLACES diligent study of the word. Rather -- they work together. As we carefully and thoroughly explore the Scripture, the Holy Spirit uses whatever tools we acquire, whatever godly wisdom we expose ourselves to, as the means to illumine our hearts. Appealing to Scripture apart from complete dependence on the Holy Spirit is presumption; but, to expect the Holy Spirit to teach us APART from diligent study of the Scripture is fanaticism -- it is dangerous -- and it is not biblical.

#1 = Interpret LITERALLY.

#2 = Understand the HISTORICAL-CULTURAL background.

#3 = Analyze the GRAMMATICAL structure.

#4 = Use SYNTHESIS .

#5 = APPLICATION come last!

#6 = At every step, rely on the ILLUMINATION of the Holy Spirit.

Evaluating Biblical Arguments - Part 8

HERMENEUTICS #8

There are more principles of interpretation that we could cover, but I can't do this forever. At the end of this series of posts, I will give a list of good books that you can study for more, and more indepth, explanations. However -- there is one more major positive point that needs to be stressed -- and that is CONTEXT.

There is a saying in the world of real estate that goes something like this: The three most important things to consider are -- first, LOCATION; second, LOCATION; and third, LOCATION. Bible study should have a similar saying: The three most important things to consider are CONTEXT, CONTEXT, and CONTEXT.

The fifth principle -- SYNTHESIS -- dealt with this issue somewhat. We should compare scripture with scripture in order not to make the mistake of interpreting one passage in contradiction to the plain meaning of another one. This is a very broad application of the principle of CONTEXT, but there is more to understand about this.

You can get all the other elements right in your study of a particular passage, but if you ignore or distort the context, you are likely to STILL misinterpret, and you are almost SURE to misapply, the passage. Understanding the context begins in the very sentence you are studying, and it works its way outward in ever-widening concentric circles.

What is the IMMEDIATE context? What is being discussed in the sentence before, and the sentence after, the one you are looking at? Are these sentences connected, or does the one you are studying stand alone apart from the others? What about the paragraph in which the sentence is found? What about the LARGER context -- the chapter, the letter, the book? What about OTHER books?

Who is speaking, to whom is he speaking, and what is he speaking about? For example, there is a very great difference among the following contexts: Moses speaking to the Israelites at Mt. Sinai, Jesus speaking to the Pharisees in Jerusalem, Peter speaking to the Jerusalem council in ACTS 15, and Paul speaking at Mars Hill in Athens. Each of these situations provides CONTEXT for what is being said.

What is the subject under discussion? What else has this writer said about this subject? Who else has had something to say about it elsewhere in the Bible ? What are the issues, the conflicts, the events that are related to the passage? Who are the people involved, and who else is referred to besides them? All of these questions help us focus on the CONTEXT of the passage under consideration, and this is perhaps the most crucial principle of all, as it ties together and makes sense of all the other principles we have discussed.

CONTEXT makes all the difference between a solid, wise application of a passage, and a twisting of the passage to make it seem to support something it really does not support. Remember my earlier example -- the claim that the Bible teaches that there is no god. There are a couple of sentences that could be pulled out of their context to support this claim -- sentences that say, "There is no god." But a look at the context will reveal an entirely different meaning -- "The FOOL has said in his heart, 'There is no god.'"

Here is a good warning to remember when reading or listening to those attempting to use the scripture to support their claims:

A TEXT apart from its CONTEXT is usually used as a PRETEXT!

Evaluating Biblical Arguments - Part 9

HERMENEUTICS #9 -- What NOT to do.

2 TIMOTHY 2:15: "Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth."

This passage reminds us that "accurately handling" the word takes diligence and care. We must treat the word correctly if we are to get from it what God intended. Now that we have covered the major principles of sound interpretation, I am going to discuss several "don't's" -- errors to avoid as we study the scripture.

First -- NEVER make your point at the price of the proper interpretation.

It is easy, and tempting, for a Bible teacher or pastor to sneak a foreign meaning into a text in order to get a desired response. Remembering that there is usually only one proper interpretation of a given passage, it should be a warning when a teacher rarely discusses that proper interpretation, but seems so eager to apply the passage in a way that does not really relate to that primary meaning.

Watch out for teachers who use scriptures out of their proper context, and change their meanings, in order to support their arguments. What they are doing is making their points at the price of the proper interpretation. I think Ezzo's "use" of the passage about Jesus crying out on the cross to support letting babies cry is one of the most egregious examples of this!

Let me try another example: Many young people today are having their bodies "pierced" in a lot of places! And some of them are suffering some pretty unhealthy side-effects of this. In fact, some people are warning about the future consequences of some of these piercings. Now -- let us say that I am against any and all body-piercing, including even pierced ears. Let us say that I am so adamantly against this that I want to preach against it from the pulpit. So I try tofind a scripture that I can use to support my position.

Remember -- I have already decided what to preach. I have already reached my conclusion. Now all I need is to find a passage that can support me. I look for it, and cannot find one that speaks directly to the issue I want to preach about. Were I to treat the scriptures as so many are doing today, that would not stop me at all! All I have to do is find a passage -- any passage -- that I can twist to make it appear tosupport me, even though, in context, it says no such thing.

And sure enough -- I find one: Phil. 3:2 "Watch out for those dogs, those men who do evil, those mutilators of the flesh." See how I can do it? I can preach that piercing of the ears is mutilation of the flesh, and then I can point to this passage for support. "See -- even Paul warns against those who would mutilateyour flesh." But -- as a discerning, diligent, and careful student of the word of God, you should look up that verse, and seek to understand it in its original context.

Were you to do so, you would find that Paul is NOT talking about ear-piercing, or ANY kind of body-piercing, but about CIRCUMCISION. He is warning these Philippian Christians to beware of the Judaizer, those who were preaching Christian circumcision as a moral and religious duty.

Now -- how should you react to ME were I to do this? Shouldn't you at least be very wary of my teaching? Shouldn't you at least be very cautious about accepting what I say without checking it out? And --as in the case of Ezzo -- what if it were HABITUAL for me to do this? What should you do then? Well -- the NT spells it out pretty clearly how we should respond to a teacher who does this. And I'll just bet that most of you know what it says to do, even though many Christians refuse to do it.

Beware of any teacher of the word of God who has a habit of using scriptures out of context, changing their intended meaning, to make them appear to support his teachings. If he can't find plain scriptures that plainly support what he is teaching, then maybe there aren't any.

#1 = Don't make your point at the price of the proper interpretation.