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"You Can Understand the Bible" with Dr. Bob Utley
2009 Bible Interpretation Seminar Lesson 10
For more information, contact: www.freebiblecommentary.org
I hope that there's a few things
that I have said that have made sense to you.
Implement those few things that make sense to you.
Don't try to eat the whole pizza by yourself.
Take a slice. Eat it.
If it's helpful, if it helps you understand the Bible,
try another slice.
This is the way we learn and develop
is stepping out on ourselves.
And I want to remind you at the end of this seminar
I'm going to say to you, "Take a New Testament book.
Try this approach."
When you try it it's going to be a lot different
than listening to me.
It's not going to make as much sense.
It's not going to flow as easily.
I know that.
That's the deal.
We're retraining your mind to focus on the original author's intent
and the evidence in the text and the original setting.
That takes some reorientation,
but I promise ya that there's nothing super inspired
about the way I've structured this,
four reading cycles and seven questions.
It's just been my way to help you think
through an ancient method of biblical interpretation.
If you try mine one or two times, you can write your own way,
your own order, and I think that would be fine,
but remember we're going through the pilot's takeoff
and landing checklist because human beings
for whatever reason tend to jump logical steps.
We tend to rush to judgment in biblical issues.
We've must take time to check the history, check the context,
check the contemporary meaning of words,
check the parallel passages, and check the type of literature,
check the outline of the whole book.
These are just logical things.
This method has been called
the common sense method of interpretation
because if you wrote a book wouldn't you want someone
to understand what you were trying to say in that book
instead of reading their own agenda into your book?
That's what God is saying to us.
We come to this with a prewritten script.
We come to this with biases, personal preferences,
denominational indoctrinations.
As a matter of fact, we cannot get this slate clean,
so if I know that I have these filters on my glasses,
I've been to Baptist schools, I have this gift,
I have this personality type, I know I have these filters,
I can't get rid of those filters.
They're part of who Bob is, but if I know I have these filters,
then when I come at the Bible
I've must try to allow the Bible to speak to me.
Lord, speak to me, not me picking and choosing
and twisting and bending and omitting
and selecting what my filters are comfortable with.
I think we've taken the Lion of the tribe of Judah
and turned him into a toothless lap dog
that never barks,
never ruffles our feathers, never challenges us for more
because we know what it's supposed to say.
And God help us.
I'm not sure it says that.
I think we can finish this tonight and two more times.
If you will try this method, you need to re-listen to this.
Your church library is going to have the audio and video.
As you work through these steps, when you re-listen to it,
some of the things I've said that did not make sense
will make more sense.
And then when you try it, adapt it.
Modify it.
All of us are looking to understand the Bible
in such a way as to please Jesus Christ
in what we think and how we live, amen?
What we think and how we live.
We're not going to agree on it, but we're called to unity.
We're called to love,
and we're called to be able to defend our positions
to another logical person.
Why do you believe that?
Hermeneutics cannot tell you what a text means,
but it can tell you what a text cannot mean,
and if I can reduce the options from five to two or three,
I've come a long way in understanding the Bible.
We don't try to re-interpret doctrines 00:04:58.700,00:05:00.400like the deity of Christ,
or justification by grace through faith.
We're not going to budge on those pillars.
These are gospel pillars.
There's no budge on these pillars,
but on other things there is some budge
because godly, sincere, prayerful, educated, articulate believers
have seen these texts differently.
So we believe that God is working to reach all human beings
through the way his children think and live.
We need to affirm that and not try to all walk in lockstep,
but we must walk in biblical truth, biblical truth.
Tonight if you'd look at number D is where I stopped.
We just finished the textbook part of this.
It should be online this week.
I think it came out to 247 pages,
and we're going to rewrite this particular notebook
to do the things I've added.
If you want the sheet on apocalyptic literature,
it's down in front.
It's what was left out of your sheet before.
Now let's talk about a word study.
First of all, words studies are not easy to do,
and you should never plan on doing more than one,
at the most two, per Sunday school lesson
or per a sermon or per chapter, really,
because word studies take a lot of time.
But what I say to young preachers is
if you'll do one word study for every sermon,
a new word study that seems to be the key word in your passage,
by the end of the year, by the end of 3 years,
by the end of 5 years,
you will have a reservoir of biblically-informed terms
out of which the Spirit can flow.
Otherwise we're limited to, "'Webster's Dictionary said."
God, have mercy on "Webster's Dictionary"
in an ancient Greek and Hebrew text,
and that's what we do.
We read the Bible like the morning newspaper
and put our definitions of words into these texts,
and it comes up with horrendous biblical errors
that have nothing to do with God and a whole lot to do with us.
So this is my view on this.
Remember that a literary unit is the key, and it is not the clause.
It is not the sentence.
It is not the verse.
It is the paragraph.
Words only have meaning in a context.
Words do not have meaning in a dictionary.
Dictionaries compile the multiplicity of meanings
that words have in a language.
That's why when you go to a dictionary and look up a word
it's going to have one, two, three, four, or A, B, C, D.
If we did not have words that functioned in different areas,
our vocabulary would have to be in the millions
instead of the hundreds of thousands,
and nobody could catch up with that kind of vocabulary.
So, yes, English words are polysemantic.
They have multiple meanings depending on what?
The context and the intent of the original author.
If we're not careful we'll let our favorite theology words,
whatever they may be, have a set definition,
and every time we find these words,
no matter where they appear in the Bible,
we're going to read the full load of our theology
into that word every time.
That word doesn't carry that load every time.
Authors don't use the same word alike.
Matter of fact, Paul, sometimes I want to slap him.
He'll take a word like "mysterion" and put twelve meanings on it.
Paul was not a systematic theologian.
That's surprises us.
Paul is not consistent in his use of words,
so what has to determine?
Context, context. What is a key word?
I would say to you
where the meaning of the paragraph seems to hang,
the word that's repeated several times,
the word that is causing the most trouble in that paragraph
for understanding,
that's the word we must look at.
And sometime it's obvious, and sometime it's not,
but if I was you,
I hope you have a Bible encyclopedia
where you could look up these words and check them.
I guess what I'm nervous about
is teachers who don't look at the Bible 'till Saturday night
and pick up a denominational quarterly
to speak for God in 6 hours.
They're not speaking for God.
They're speaking personal preferences
and denominational indoctrination.
If you're a teacher you're going to stand before God
for what you've said in his name, amen?
It is an awesome responsibility to speak for God.
All of us get it wrong.
All of us grow, so I'm not saying God's furious
because all of us have said, "God said," and he hadn't.
But there is a responsibility,
and that responsibility is what I'm speaking about,
and that responsibility is I've got to do everything I can do
to make sure I am speaking the inspired truth
of the original author and then applying that truth to my day.
I've done a couple of examples here.
And number two, be sure not to read your historical, cultural,
and theologically-conditioned definitions in the biblical words.
And I've given some examples, and I'm glad I'm into these examples
because many of you would be more excited
about the examples I use than the concepts
because the examples show the relevance of the concepts.
Some of these I've said to you before,
but I want to do it quickly again.
I used to go down to Orange, Texas, and do this Bible study every year.
A lady came to me and said,
"Where does the Old Testament teach you can't sell your dog?"
Many of you've heard that in American culture,
you can't sell your dog.
I asked her, "I don't think the Bible teaches that."
She said, "I wrote it down.
Somebody came through here and showed us in the Bible."
I said, "Where is it?" Deuteronomy 23:18.
If she or the person would have read the verse before it
and the verse after it,
it would have stopped this ridiculous King James thing,
"Do not give the hire of a dog."
And that person took that and said,
"See, you can't sell your dog.
"You have to lease it because the Bible is the Word of God,
"and the Bible says it, and that settles it.
And it said you can't give a hire of a dog."
Brother, brother, brother, the word "dog" in Deuteronomy
means a "male *** of the Canaanite fertility cult,"
not "fifi, poopoo, woof, woof."
We just took an English word and loaded that sucker
right into a 4,000-year-old text and then told in God's name
a church they shouldn't do it.
And what kills me is that church bought it!
That church bought it!
It's in the Bible. It must be truth.
You can make the Bible say anything using that technique.
The second one, this happened to me,
and I just want to be as transparent as I know.
I'm a Pauline preacher, and when I hear the word "righteousness,"
for Paul, that's justification by faith.
That's Romans 4 stuff.
But I was doing a commentary on Matthew, so I came to Matthew 6,
the Sermon on the Mount,
and Matthews starts talking about Jesus' use of the word "righteousness,"
"unless your righteousness."
Without even thinking, without even thinking,
that Pauline definition jumped out of me onto that text.
The word "righteousness" in the Sermon on the Mount
is one of the aspects of Jewish alms giving.
Has nothing to do with justification by faith.
It is the Jews thinking they're right with God
based on how often they pray, how often they go to church,
and how often they give.
But, see, without even thinking about it, I took this Greek word,
read Paul's definition into it, read it right into a context
where it had nothing to do with that context.
The word "leavened."
If I said to you, "Is leaven always evil?"
most Christians would say yes.
This goes back to a faulty, hermeneutical principle
that the first use of the word in the Bible sets the definition.
No, no, no, it does not.
Context sets the definition, not the first use.
There are texts, and they're right here in your notes,
where leaven is positive.
Jesus wants to stride the Gospel as a little leaven in the loaf.
There are places where leaven is used in the sacrificial system of Israel.
"Leaven" does not always mean "evil."
It means "penetrating power" in certain contexts.
But the word "Pharisees," one reason we misunderstand the Bible is,
for us, Pharisees are not good guys.
They're bad guys.
Yet in the first century Pharisees were the most conservative,
the most religious, the most honorable people they knew in that society,
so when we come to the parable of the Pharisee and the sinner,
we automatically know the Pharisee's the bad guy.
But see that messes up the whole parable
because here's the Pharisee praying to God,
"Thank you, God, that I'm not like other people,"
but, you see, that's exactly what they thought.
And here's this poor sinner who doesn't even want to approach God,
bows his head, beats his breast,
which is where your mother got,
"Close your eyes when you pray," by the way.
And we miss the whole point.
When we realize the Pharisee is not the bad guy,
he is the epitome of righteousness in the mind of the people
to which that parable was given.
It's the surprise.
I'm always shocked at Matthew 5 when Jesus said, 5:20,
"Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees,
you will not enter the kingdom of God."
Those people quit breathing.
That'd be like me saying, "Billy Graham is not going to make it."
That's the point. It just shook them up!
Oh, no, they're not going to make it? How can I make it?
There's the question.
And then in 5:48, "Be holy as your Father in heaven is holy."
Who wants to stand up for that?
I bet those people quit breathing in that sermon.
But, see, we defang these things, and there are meant to be fangs.
I've done a few other things here. Number four, just look with me.
Be careful of reading one Bible author's fully-developed,
theological definition into another usage.
That's the righteousness.
Then number five, there is changing meaning of words.
Even in English that happens, of course.
If you've ever tried to read the original King James
versus any modern translation,
you get all kind of confusion because of old English
just has word definitions that we don't use.
I've given you three of them here.
The 1 Thessalonians 4, this is the Rapture text,
and the King James says, "Prevent."
But the New American Standard says, "Precede."
We don't prevent those who have gone before us,
so it changes the whole meaning.
How about Ephesians 4:22?
King James says, "Let your conversation be so
and so among the Gentiles."
But he doesn't mean "conversation," your mouth,
he means your lifestyle.
"Conversation" meant "lifestyle," totally different meaning there.
And then the 1 Corinthians 11:29,
"Damnation" in King James does not mean "go to hell."
It means "judgment," and yet "damnation" has intensified for us.
So unless you understand the contemporary meaning of the word,
you're going to misunderstand these ancient texts.
For me, the one that has helped me the most to think about this
is Jesus' words on the cross, the last words.
It's a perfect tense of the form "telos," to "tetelesti."
It was his last words.
It's translated in almost every English translation,
"It is finished."
And that's the root meaning, the etymology of the word "telos,"
"full, complete, finish," that kind of thing.
But suddenly in the Koine papyri found in the garbage dumps of Egypt
we begin to find this word in the perfect tense handwritten
across business documents, and so from a book
by two men named Mult and Milton on the ancient Greek papyri,
we now know what Jesus was saying
is not, "It's over, it's complete, it's finished."
What he really was saying is, "It's paid in full."
It's the substitutionary atonement of Isaiah 53
was what that text was referring to and not just, "I'm about to die."
You only get that by comparing contemporary usage.
That's not always easy
if you don't have some way to look these words up,
and I'm going to give you some suggestions
on some books to do that.
Number six below this,
I've tried to just give you a few examples of what I'm talking about.
This is not heavy, but it's just meant to show you
how the same word is used in different ways
and only context can determine.
So I just picked a few. This is random at best.
But let's use John's use of the word "kosmos."
And if you'll notice sometimes John 3:16,
"For God so loved the world," it means the physical planet.
Really, it means all human beings,
and we're using the physical planet
as a literary way of referring to all humans.
But if in 1 John, John takes the same word that he used in the gospels,
and suddenly it becomes human society,
organized and functioning apart from God.
Very same Greek word, no textual marker, context.
And I've given those references,
John 2:15, 3:1, 3:13, 4:4, 4:5, 5:4, 5:5.
It suddenly becomes an evil word.
It's the world against everything that's Christian,
not the world for which Jesus died.
Same word, different context.
How about Paul's use of "flesh"? The word "sarx"?
Sometimes, and most of the time in Paul,
it means "fallen human nature,"
human beings doing their own thing at any cost.
It's almost the Adamic result word,
but in other places in Paul
it simply means that Jesus had a physical body,
that he was in the line of David after the flesh.
That just means physical body.
Depends on the context whether it's a neutral word
or has a negative connotation.
The word itself doesn't carry that.
How about the use of the word "save"?
For us as evangelicals the word "sozo"
has the idea of spiritual salvation,
but that is not its Old Testament meaning.
And I want to remind you these New Testament authors
are Hebrew thinkers writing street Greek,
so that what you must do is go to the Old Testament,
and the Septuagint uses the same verb,
especially because James really is Old Testament wisdom literature
with a New Testament message.
James uses the word "saved" in those controversial texts,
James 5, 15 and 20.
And I hope you'll check me on this.
He used them as sense of physical deliverance,
not spiritual salvation,
and yet it's exactly the same word that refers to spiritual salvation
in other parts of the New Testament.
How about the word "rest" in Hebrews?
It just depends on how much verse-by-verse,
detailed Bible study you've been a part of.
If you've been a part of "Precepts"
or some of the Beth Moore studies
or intricately involved in Sunday school for years,
this will make sense to you.
The word "rest" is used in three different ways
in Hebrews chapters 3 and 4.
If you miss that you're going to get Aaron not in heaven.
You're going to get Israel not spiritually right with God.
So just notice here. I've laid it out for you.
All you must do is check me when you get home if you're interested.
It can refer to the Promised Land, the "rest."
It's used in 3:11, 3:18, 4:8.
It can mean the Sabbath rest, that special idea of the 7th day of rest
going back to Genesis 1.
It's almost like a heavenly rest.
It's used that way in 4:3, 4:4, 4:9, and 4:10.
And it's used for the kingdom of God in 4:1, 9, and 10, and 11.
If you do not see the same word as used three different ways,
there's no way to understand this text in a unified way.
It becomes very controversial and very self-contradictory
if you don't see the words being used in different ways.
That's probably enough. I've made my point there.
I want to go to number 7, helpful guidelines
for determining the meaning of words in a given context.
And I would say that this is where a concordance
is very, very helpful.
This is confession time.
Most of us use concordances
to find a biblical verse we forgot where it was, right?
So we know this word's there. We look it up.
We find it, but that is not what concordances are primarily for.
Primarily concordances are to show us where words are used
and what authors use them more than others
and where the concentration of this word is
because when I'm looking for a word definition
I want to find the clearest teaching passage where this word is discussed,
which usually means
the concentration of this term in one author.
So that's what we're looking for.
We used to call this, the Reformation called this,
the analogy of faith,
which they basically said the best interpreter of an inspired text
is an inspired text.
So what we're finding is, where is this word or concept used?
If you kind of follow with me through here,
what we're trying to do is find unique usages,
so I've given a couple examples here,
and I hope you'll see what I'm doing.
Number A is the word "heavenlies" in the book of Ephesians.
This word only occurs in Ephesians,
and it occurs five times,
and the first few times I see it, it's in chapter 1
and on and on, but the real definition doesn't come until 6.
And although it looks like we're talking about heaven,
suddenly when 6 comes in, chapter 6,
"We wrestle not with flesh and blood,
"but principalities and powers and world forces of wickedness
in heavenly places in Christ."
It becomes the contemporary, spiritual conflict.
If you don't know "heavenlies" as unique to Ephesians,
and if you don't run all the references,
you can't define that word in a way to follow Paul's thought,
so it becomes a significant thing.
So I've tried to give you some suggestions here.
First of all, you can get concordances really inexpensive online
through Amazon or whatever, used ones.
You don't need a new one. Get a used one.
I, personally, like Young's,
and I like it because when you look up a word in English
it's going to show you
all the Hebrew words that are translated that way
and all the Greek words that are translated that way
and the different Bible verses
that uses those different Hebrew words
and different Greek words, and very quickly you can see the pool
or the collective place where these words are used.
I think Strong's many people use
because of their numbers are connected in some of the reference books,
but I started out with Young's, and I still like it best.
Another set of books,
I would say if you have no background in Greek or Hebrew, none,
I think this "Expository Dictionary of Old Testament
and New Testament Words" by W.E. Vine
is a really good resource,
and it will do what Young's concordance will do,
but it will talk about the words and where they're used.
So if you have no background in Greek or Hebrew,
Vine's is going to be a really helpful book.
And another one that I have,
and this is a book that I first became familiar with
because Spurgeon loved it,
and he said it was the most helpful book for him.
I think it was written early in the 1901, maybe in 1897.
I've forgotten the date, but it's "Synonyms of the Old Testament"
by Robert Girdlestone.
I don't like "Synonyms of the New Testament,"
but "Synonyms of the Old Testament"
show you how New Testament writers use Hebrew words
and how they come into Koine Greek.
And it's in English, and it's not necessarily for technical people,
so I hope you'll get that.
It's paperback.
It's just under $5 online at any of these places,
and I think it'd really help you.
For those of you who have some background in Greek and Hebrew,
I have become very much blessed by the "New International Dictionaries."
There's one for the New Testament in four volumes,
and there's one for the Old Testament in five volumes.
And it kinda does what Kittel did, but Kittel was so overwhelming
I didn't need that much information.
I can't read 200 pages on every Greek word
going back to Homer every time.
It's just too much, overwhelming.
So what the "New International Dictionary
of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis" does,
you never just read this.
This will give you a mental hernia.
Do not just start reading this thing.
The introductory articles are marvelous,
but how you do it is you go to the scriptural index,
and whatever you've been studying,
be it Sermon on the Mount, be it "tongues," be it whatever,
look up the key text.
Write down the volume and page number.
Just look on that page 'till you find your reference.
Read the paragraph.
If that really gives you insight and help into that word,
parallels, how it's used, read the whole page.
If it just opens your mind tremendously, read the article.
That's all you do.
It's selective picking of this information.
I don't have a photographic memory.
I bet most of you don't.
You just can't hold this kind of information.
You've must learn how to go and get it when you need it
and where to go and get it when you need it,
and these books will help tremendously, I think.
I sure like Moises Silva, "Biblical Words and Their Meaning."
He has really caused me to think.
I don't like William Barclay's theology.
He's a logical-positive. He's nervous about miracles.
If gifts give Baptists a rash, miracles give Barclay a rash,
but he's these pompous, little, blue-gray books.
He is a marvelous lexical professor.
He's dead now.
I guess he knows if he's right, but his studies,
"Barclay New Testament Words," is very helpful,
really give you an insight quickly.
It is not indexed well, so you have to look up
the name of the word in English before you can find it.
But these are ones that I would suggest.
Tonight I want to continue because I have a little longer,
even though I know you have a business meeting soon.
Let me go just a little further on the third and fourth questions
because it picks up on parallel passages, which I've alluded to.
Parallel passages are the Bible is way of interpreting itself,
so what I have tried to say to you
is there is concentric circles of significances
as you move out from any one context.
First of all, in the context, which is going to be the paragraph,
is this word used once or twice?
Is it used in the same literary unit?
Is it used in the same chapter?
Is it used by the same author?
Is it used in the same genre?
Is it used in the same Testament?
Where is it used in the Bible?
As we move further and further toward the whole Bible,
usually the definition is going to start getting fuzzy.
The closer we can stay
to how is this word used by Paul in Ephesians,
how is this word used by Paul?
How is this word used by New Testament authors
in their letters?
These are the kind of things we have to ask.
So when you look at a concordance, and they have 5,000 references,
if you're doing Paul, look at Paul, particularly the book you're in.
Check that first. Run those references first.
You bought that study Bible. It cost a cow its life.
Why don't you use that thing?
Most of those significant parallels are in the margin,
New American Standard, or in the middle, NIV,
or whatever study Bible you have.
If you would just use the marginal notes of your study Bible,
it would give you translation option, manuscripts problems,
significant parallels right there, but we tend to not read carefully.
I wanted to give a few examples about this,
this degrees of significance.
I'm on page 39, number C, concentric circles,
a couple of them.
Number one, this is often referred to, this use of parallel passages,
as the analogy of Scripture.
This assumes, number one, that all Scripture is inspired.
Can I get an "amen" there? This is the 2 Timothy 3 text.
Number two, there is no contradiction in Scripture.
Can you affirm that with me?
There is paradox, but there is no contradiction.
Number three, Scripture is Scripture's best interpreter.
That's logic, not the Bible itself.
And then number four,
parallel passages reveal the intent of the capital "A" author,
which is the Holy Spirit.
The author of Scripture is the Holy Spirit.
He used human authors.
How exactly he used them is a form of debate.
We do not know how he used them exactly,
but we know he used their vocabulary and their background.
That's why biblical authors use words in different ways.
That's why they use different vocabulary
to describe the same thing,
different metaphors, different illustrations.
God used the mind of the person
but directed it in such a way as to give eternal truth.
That's a presupposition, but I'm certainly committed to it.
This degrees of significance,
I guess I wanted to say a couple of examples here.
Some of these I've already dealt with.
Number C, used by the same author in another biblical book.
I think, to me, when a light just came on to me
is when I was struggling
with the filling of the Holy Spirit in Ephesians 5:18.
I have grown up where we are not used
to some of these more outward forms of the Spirit
in our worship services.
What does this mean, being filled with the Spirit?
I had this concept or that concept.
I don't remember now, it's been too long,
if I got it from reading a commentary or the Spirit gave.
I don't remember anymore, but suddenly this light dawned on me,
whatever source.
Colossians is the original outline upon which Ephesians is built.
Maybe I can find, a parallel passage
because I don't want the same word,
but maybe I can find a parallel in the structure of the book.
Maybe at the same place
that Paul talks about the filling of the Spirit
and the five participles that describe it
and the two examples, family life, three examples there.
Maybe I can find that.
Colossians 3:16 is the perfect parallel.
When you see it it's exactly at the same place,
and instead of "Ever be filled with the Spirit,"
it has, "Let the mind of Christ richly dwell in you."
Suddenly now, "Ever be filled with the Spirit" has been clarified
by an inspired author, the same author that wrote Ephesians
clarifies himself in Colossians.
What a tremendous, tremendous help
in understanding what the filling of the Spirit is.
It's just checking down this takeoff
and landing set of principles that I check the parallels.
How am I doing that?
A couple more that I've added, number D,
the same subject by another author in the same period or genre.
I don't know how familiar you are with eschatological
or apocalyptic literature,
but in Daniel it talks about the abomination of desolation,
and he seems to be using it for Antiochus Epiphanes IV
during the inter-biblical period,
a Seleucid ruler that tried to really destroy
the worship of the Jews.
Offered a pig on the altar in Jerusalem, tried to force them.
This is where the Maccabean revolt came from.
Forced them to eat pork.
But if you follow that reference out,
the same phrase is used by Jesus,
I believe it's in Matthew 24, it might be Mark 13 or Luke 21
but I think it's Matthew 24, where it says,
"When you see the abomination of desolation coming,
"do not go in your house to get your cloak.
Flee over the hills."
At that point, the same phrase is not Antiochus IV Epiphanes,
it's Titus, the Roman general, about to lay siege to Jerusalem,
and we know from history the Christians escaped to Pella,
got outta there, were not caught in that city.
And then I think it does refer to the end-time Antichrist.
So here is the same phrase used three different times.
This we call a multiple prophecy or a multiple use of a term,
and if you drop down to the next one, I think number E,
check the whole Bible,
I think this is true of the *** birth prophecy of Isaiah 7:14.
If you will look at Isaiah 7:14 again
there is a birth in Isaiah's day.
Look at 7:15.
"When this child becomes old enough to know good or evil,
the two firebrands that you fear will be destroyed."
The prophet is saying to the king, "Trust God.
"He'll deliver you from Syria and Israel
that are going to attack Judah."
There had to be a birth in Isaiah's day.
That's why the Hebrew word "***"
which does appear in Isaiah does not appear in Isaiah 7:14.
It's the word "almah," a young woman of marriageable age.
But when that is translated into the Septuagint
that becomes the Greek word for ***,
and the inspired apostles quote that
for the birth of Jesus Christ in Matthew and Luke.
I believe in one *** birth, not two, but it's the same word,
and we must do a word study on it.
I remember when I was young,
walking across East Texas Baptist University,
there was a book burning.
I thought, "What are ya'll burning?"
They said, "We're burning the Revised Standard Version of the Bible."
I said, "Why?" They said, "It's heretical."
"Well, it oughta be burned. What's it heretical about?"
"It changes '***' to 'young woman.'"
We should have burned the two preachers
burning the Revised Standard!
They're the ones that were off!
Ignorance does not give us the right to proclaim things
in God's name that Scripture doesn't proclaim, amen?
And you must arm yourself and defend yourself
from all the weird, religious sincerity
swirling around a post-modern America.
I've over it. Just a bit more.
This is going to be for you seminary-kind-of folks,
I think, but I want to say it.
I want to characterize this method I'm talking about.
It moves from exegesis, which is the Greek word
"to lead out of a context by textual evidence,"
it moves from what this author says,
I'm in parallel passages now,
into a concept called biblical theology that says,
what does Paul say on this subject?
Or, what does the gospel authors, the Synoptics, say?
We're not saying, "What does everything say?"
We're going to limit this scope to,
what does Paul and other books say on this subject?
And then, after we do the text itself and the author or the genre,
then we're going to widen it to, what does the Bible say?
I call that systematic theology.
We're moving from the microscope of, look at these words,
look at this text, to the telescope, look at Scriptural revelation,
and all interpretation must move through those steps.
If we stop at exegesis, we might interpret this text in such a way
that seem to contradict other inspired texts.
I believe all Scripture is inspired,
so I must put my little text into the big,
and that's what we're doing with these parallel passages.
Number four, examples for the need of parallel passages.
Exegesis alone can cause overstatements
and unbalanced theology.
I'm just giving a couple examples here.
Baptism in the name of Jesus in Acts, versus John's baptism,
is somehow now necessary for salvation.
Have you ever had somebody quote to you that,
"Do you believe the Bible?" "Yes."
"The Bible says--Is that true?" "Yes."
"Turn to Acts 2:38.
Have you been baptized in Jesus' name?"
"No, I was baptized in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit."
"Then you need to be re-baptized."
Holy spit!
You're going to tell me the formula in Matthew
out of the mouth of Jesus is not significant
because you haven't done parallel passages?
If I don't believe in a certain formula
that you got from one place in Acts, that I'm lost?
Can you imagine getting to heaven, and our Father saying,
"I know you love me, I know you trust my Son,
"but you were baptized in the wrong name, to hell with you"?
You talk about Roman Catholics say the right thing
in the right way is the only way it works.
Is salvation to you some tricky way of saying spiritual things the right way,
or is it a personal relationship with God through Christ?
Snarl.
I have friends that I think
have become Universalists based on proof texts.
I just love the Adam-Christ typology of Romans 5.
"One man sinned, everyone died.
One man died, everyone can be alive."
And they take that one verse, Romans 5, 18 and 19,
and say, "It says one man sinned and everybody fell.
"It says one man's act of righteousness, everybody's saved.
That means everybody'll be saved."
What they don't do is they stop their Bible study
in the middle of a paragraph,
ignore everything the paragraph's about,
and I wish to God I could be a Universalist.
I wish to God everybody would be saved in the end,
but I read the rest of chapter 5,
if you don't believe in Jesus there's no hope.
But the church takes a hit with people proof-texting half of a verse
out of one chapter in Romans or one verse in Colossians
and suddenly changes everything else the New Testament says
about the need to trust Christ for salvation.
How about the husband and one wife?
I kinda talked this morning about that.
I think people said to me, "Jesus can't be a deacon."
Holy spit, had you just think what you just said?
Jesus can't be a deacon or a pastor because he's not married?
Do you interpret that literally, that when it says,
"The husband and one wife,"
you suddenly say, "If you're single
that means you can't be a deacon or a pastor."
What kills me about the legalism of this
is that they don't read four or five verses more
where it says that you're not addicted to much wine.
No, no, no, it's must be no wine. Where'd you get that, fool?
You just kicked Jesus out of the diaconate,
and now you changed the text to fit Baptist theology.
You read those qualifications. It does not say, "No wine."
It says, "Not addicted to much wine."
And then most of us who have children,
we'd be kicked out anyway if that was taken too literally.
How many of our families
all our kids have been obedient to the Lord and followed along?
If you let people proof-text these little parts of Scripture--
We know you're speaking to us, Lord.
We know you are, but we've heard what we want to hear.
We've heard what we've heard from people we love.
We've heard only what we feel comfortable with
because of what part of the country we live in,
what denomination we've grown up in,
or what kind of gift we particularly have,
or our own emphasis.
God, forgive us.
Thank you for a family.
Thank you for brothers and sisters that don't always agree
but always love one another.
I pray you'd help us be better interpreters of the Bible.
We know we approach this holy book with unclean hands,
but, Father, help us keep trying to wash and wash and wash
until we can hear as it was heard
and then live in light of who you are.
God, forgive us for trying to find excuses from the Bible
to live evil, selfish, self-centered, egotistical lives
based on Bible text,
and forgive us for humiliating and shaming sincere seekers after truth
because they don't happen to agree with us.
Lord, I thank you in my own life for this search for truth.
I want so much to please you.
I want so much to live in a way that you are pleased,
and yet there's such ambiguity, Lord, in this book.
I pray you'd have mercy on us.
I thank you that you have not left us without truth
in a world like ours, of so many opinions.
Thank you that you have spoken.
Now we pray for those things
that we need to live for you in our day,
that you will help the Spirit make it clear to us,
and may we would not damage one another
in our fight for "I know more than you,"
or, "I'm closer to Jesus than you."
Lord, I guess I've just come to the place with my search for truth
that I don't think it's in a systematic theology
or denominational tradition.
I think that you are the way, the truth, and the life.
I do not think that salvation is a theology test
because I'm terribly afraid
I've been influenced by Baptists in Texas in the 20th century,
so I pray that the One who is truth,
who died on my behalf,
who promised to be my advocate before the Father,
will protect me from the evil of my own Bible study and that, Lord,
that what I believe will match how I live
and that people will know that I've been with you
because I love your book, I love your people, and I love you.
And I pray this for all of us in Jesus' name, amen.
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