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"You Can Understand the Bible" with Dr. Bob Utley
2009 Bible Interpretation Seminar Lesson 4
For more information, contact: www.freebiblecommentary.org
Glad to be back in the groove tonight.
Thank you for allowing me to go to other churches.
I've been teaching Amos and Hosea at two different churches.
Mercy, those are tough books, whew!
I'm glad to be back to you on Sunday night.
Just to mention that this week
we're going to put "The Prophet Ezekiel" up online.
All last year I took writing a commentary on Ezekiel.
It's come to something like 430 pages.
If you're interested in Ezekiel, it'll be online free this week,
and I hope you'll look at it.
Tonight I'm going to continue working through the seminar notes
on "You Can Understand the Bible,"
which is an attempt to empower you
to interpret the Bible for yourself.
And the goal is not that we agree,
but the goal is that you feel confident
that you can understand what God is saying to you.
Now, there are a few basic principles,
and I'm trying to cover those and trying to get your attention
about that I think we're not interpreting the Bible well.
So tonight if you'll look at Roman numeral I there,
one of the basic--
And it really is a basic presupposition,
but I think it is the common sense presupposition
that to understand any written, human communication,
I must put myself in the place of the first hearers.
The Bible interpretation
must start with the intent of the original author
and the ability of the first hearers in their culture, in their language,
to understand that message,
and that's kind of where I wanna start.
And this, of course, is the problem of authority.
Where do we come to authority?
The Bible says it. That settles it.
Well, I don't believe that's true
because we're reading the Bible in English,
and we're reading it with 21st-century definitions,
and we're reading it
like the morning newspaper of American culture.
And it's not English, and it's not 21st century,
and it's not the morning newspaper.
The first question that comes to me--
And any of you who watch television or listen to Christian radios,
you talk about a vast array of different interpretations.
My, soul, how does somebody say to themselves,
"How do I know who to trust?
How do I know who speaks for God?"
There's a cacophony of voices all claiming to speak for God.
Is there any way to know?
Well, I have tried to think through that
in this section on “biblical authority,”
and I've listed some Scripture text in your notes.
I would like to clarify these Scripture texts even more
as I kinda talk through 'em a minute.
Two of them are out of Deuteronomy.
One is out of Deuteronomy 13:1-5,
that basically says if a person claiming to be a spokesman for God
does a sign or wonder, miracle, and it is real and it comes about,
but he does it in the name of another god,
he's a false prophet and needs to be ***.
And then in Deuteronomy 18,
and I would say verses 20 through 22 are probably the most clear,
and this is about predicting the future.
And if someone accurately predicts the future
but in the name of another god,
they're a false prophet, and they're to be ***.
People all the time say to me,
"Well, I thought the miraculous was a sign of God."
The miraculous is not automatically a sign of God.
I promise you the evil one can do the miraculous.
If you just heard some of the stories coming out of Brazil
in their worship of Macumba,
which is really another kind of voodoo,
there are some shocking physical manifestations of evil
that if you're prone to believe
that miracle is automatically the sign of God.
And the verse that comes to me again and again
is Matthew 24:24,
"In the last day will come false prophets, false Christs,
"doing signs and wonders and leading even the elect away,
if that were possible."
My friends, I've thought about this some.
If any one of us in this room could go to the local hospital,
raise one person from the dead,
we would get a hearing tomorrow in the Western world,
but God has chosen not to do that.
We walk by faith and not be sight,
particularly in cultures that have adequate revelation of his gospel,
which is the Western civilizations, and, of course, United States.
I think miracles still occur.
I have no doubt there's a miraculous-working God.
I believe all the gifts are still functioning,
but usually they happen today
in cutting-edge cultures where the gospel is not well-known,
and God confirms his Word in the midst of the culture
that does not know well the gospel.
I have been personally excited
about the reports that I have been hearing
from numerous different kinds of groups,
missionary groups and other people,
that have said that during Ramadan,
the last few days
when Muslim people pray that God will reveal himself to them,
that the number of visions of Jesus
or visions of a local pastor,
somebody that can tell them about Christ,
has been multiplied so much
and I'm amazed at the miraculous way
that God is revealing himself to Islamic people around the world.
Praise God? Praise God.
The other one is Matthew 7 and particularly verses 15 through 23,
and I think we have to keep this in front of our minds,
"By their fruits ye shall know them.
A bad fruit doesn't grow on good trees,
and good fruit doesn't grow on bad trees."
You can tell a speaker or a singer by their lifestyle.
That's true of anyone.
We can't preach one thing and live another.
If our lifestyle does not match what we say,
we're false teachers,
and I think there is a confirmation that's necessary.
And then I personally go to 1 John chapter 4,
particularly verses 1 through 3,
where John in such shocking terms says,
"If you do not believe that Jesus is fully God and fully man,
then you are of the," little 'a,' "antichrist spirit."
Which says to me that who is Jesus is the central issue,
and who do we trust?
If he's not fully God and fully man, we can't trust that speaker.
I don't care what else they do to impress you.
And then, finally, the 2 Peter 3:15-16,
and this is one of the verses that we use to say that even--
Most of the times in the Bible when the word "Scripture" is used,
it refers to the Old Testament in the New Testament.
Every time it refers to the Old Testament.
There's not really but a couple of ways
that the New Testament affirms its own inspiration.
2 Timothy 3 is even about the Old Testament for the most part.
But in 2 Peter 3, 15 and 16, Peter says something like this,
"Our brother, Paul, who is hard to understand--"
Amen, Peter-- "And some twist his words
as they do the rest of Scripture."
Do you see what Peter has just done?
He's put the writings of Paul
on the same level as Old Testament Scripture.
That is a powerful affirmation, I think,
and it also says that people do twist verses in the Bible
for their own agenda.
We've got to be careful of that
because if the Bible can mean anything, it means nothing.
That's from Gordan Fee in the book,
"How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth,"
by Fee and Stuart, a wonderful book.
Now, number B, I have a proposed definition.
Now, this is not the normal definition,
but all writers have the right to redefine something
if they clearly tell you they're redefining it.
I am redefining the word "biblical authority."
For much of my life, I thought that biblical authority
was reading the Bible before you speak
or quoting often from the Bible while you speak,
but I've been so appalled at the lack of historical and literary context
and the terrible method of proof texting
and literal interpretation that I do not believe that anymore.
It's almost like Baptists have to read a verse
before they tell you what they want to say,
though what they say has nothing to do
with the verse they just read
that's supposed to give you the authority?
No, no, no, just to read a text
is not automatically biblical authority.
So what is biblical authority?
I think biblical authority is understanding what the original,
inspired author was saying to the people of his day
and then, second, applying that truth to our day.
Biblical interpretation has two focuses,
what did it mean, and what does it mean.
What did it mean then?
What does it mean now?
And the best we can do is fully understand as best we can
what the author was saying to their day,
and with the same power apply that truth to our day.
Now, that is how I'm interpreting and using "biblical authority."
Number four is kind of a play on that.
Well, let me go to three.
This definition will limit our easy answers.
Now, some people accuse me of saying,
"Well, you're just ruling out the Holy Spirit."
I am going to talk about the Holy Spirit
at some point in Bible interpretation,
but it is so difficult to talk about the Holy Spirit,
and the reason is we've got godly men, educated men,
prayerful men, sincere men and women,
who disagree over these texts.
Why is there such disagreement?
I guess that word from D. A. Carson haunts me when he said that,
"We emphasize the Bible is inerrant
"and then cannot agree on almost anything it says is,
is self-defeating."
And I agree with that, so the problem
is we need to be able, from our understanding of the Bible,
to logically, historically, grammatically, lexically
present to another normal human being,
not a seminary person, a normal human being--
That came out wrong--
What we mean and why we came to this conclusion.
Give them the evidence that they can check and pray about.
We can't say, "Well, the Holy Spirit told me."
Now, I get that a lot, and I say to people,
"Well, you're lucky that the Spirit has communicated clearly to you.
"You ought to thank him for that,
"and you must walk in the light and the truth
"that you believe the Holy Spirit has given you,
"but I do not have to walk
"in your understanding of the Holy Spirit's message to you
unless you can show me in this book."
Revelation is the key, not what the Spirit said to you,
though I would never deny that the Spirit said something to.
But your experience of the Spirit,
your personal understanding of the Bible is not authority.
It's just that, personal opinion.
So, we need to be able to give evidences,
show why we believe this,
then give other Christians the freedom to pray,
check the biblical evidence, look at our logic,
look at the steps of our interpretation,
and live in the light they have.
Do you understand where I'm coming from there?
We need a consistent and to some extent verifiable interpretation.
Now, number four, this is extremely important to me,
and I hope you'll understand where I'm coming from.
Every text has one and only one meaning.
The minute you say that people say,
"Yeah, and you think you know it."
No, no, no, no, no, no, I have made so many disclaimers
that I don't claim to fully understand the Bible, that I know I'm sinful.
I know I'm historically conditioned.
I know I'm biased.
No, no, no, but the logic of historical, grammatical interpretation
is the only inspired person is the original author.
We must go back to the history of his day,
read everything they wrote.
That's just common (sense), and there was an intent when they wrote it.
I mean, there was a purpose in the mind of the author.
That is the one meaning,
what the author intended when they wrote it.
Now, I would say that
because the Bible was given to a limited group of people
in a particular culture in a particular time,
it only makes sense
that God spoke to that culture to reveal himself.
But we've got to know
that he put his revelation on a low shelf
for that culture to understand
but that the truth that he presents
is applicable to any culture anywhere, anytime, amen?
So one meaning
but many possible significances or applications.
That's how the Bible is relevant in many cultures through time,
but we just can't say, "Well, this is what it means to me."
Who cares what it means to you?
You're not the original author.
You're not the inspired person.
I don't want your person opinion.
I am sure you don't want mine.
We are struggling to understand what the original author was saying,
and then with our creativity, our understanding of our culture,
our spiritual giftedness,
take that truth and apply it to our day and our lives
with the same power and passion.
Now, number two, the need for a verifiable interpretation.
You know, I thank God for the Reformation.
The Reformation was able for the Holy Spirit
to recapture “justification by grace through faith”
that we had lost in the intricacies
of human performance and religiosity.
Thank God for the Reformation.
What the Reformation did is take one pope
and make all of us pope,
so now instead of one authoritative voice
to interpret the Bible,
now anybody and everybody can interpret the Bible,
which I think on one level is good but on another level is difficult.
And what I mean by that
is that all of us approach the Bible with these glasses,
and I'm going to talk next week about those glasses,
these filters that all of us read the Bible through.
But simply to say here,
the problem is that the Reformation
put the Bible in the hand of the lay person,
which I think it had always meant to be put in their hand,
but it's not just then you sit down and pray
and tell me what you think.
No, no, no, I put the Bible in your hand,
but the Bible is an ancient, contextual book.
You must try to understand it
in light of those who first received it,
not in light of what you think,
your denominational traditions, your personality type,
your experiences of life.
This is not a book
that can be stretched any way you want it
and still have biblical authority.
And I think we're guilty of that.
Number B, I think we can logically defend our understanding
of the original author's intent from some areas.
Now, this is what we're trying to do,
and that is offer another human being
with normal human intelligence,
"This is what I think this Scripture is saying in this context,
and here is why."
Now, if we can't say the Holy Spirit told me,
and we can't say all Baptists believe,
which is the craziest statement I ever heard,
then what do we say?
Okay, look at this list.
Number one, the historical setting
of the original author and original hearer.
And I have fussed about that with you.
If you know nothing of “Gnosticism,”
you cannot properly interpret the Gospel of John,
1, 2, and 3 John, Colossians, Ephesians, and the Pastoral Epistles.
You cannot do it because the false teachers they're reacting against
is the Gnostics.
The same is true of the book of Galatians.
If you do not know what “Judaizers” believer,
you will not catch the full intent of the book of Galatians.
And the problem is Americans are not going to the first giving.
They're doing this serendipity Bible study.
Now, there's a place for serendipity,
and that's when we come to application,
but when we're speaking of the meaning
we've got to go back to the historical setting
of the original author.
Second is, we've got to read the whole book.
You would just die if I found some old love letter of yours
and read one or two sentences out of page three.
You would look at me and say,
"Bob, you've gotta read the whole letter.
"You've got to know when I wrote that.
"I was in junior high. You got to know why.
"It's Valentine's Day, and I had a crush on so and so.
"That's what that letter is, and, Bob, you need to know that
before you just tell people what I wrote."
God is screaming that at us, screaming that at us!
We're pulling little pieces out of here and there
and here and there and saying,
"Thus saith the Lord," and we never read one context.
I'm over it now.
The third one is “genre,” and this has been so helpful to me.
It's just been so helpful,
and this is the idea that the original writer
chose a certain format to present his truth.
For some it was poetry.
For some it was prophecy.
For some it was historical narrative.
For some it was parable.
For some it was law, but there's some general principles
that interpret all human, written communication,
“general hermeneutics,” and there are some “special principles”
that are needed to interpret special kinds of literature,
“special hermeneutics.”
And the book that I think is so good,
I've just tried so much
to encourage you to buy it and read it,
is this small, little, non-technical, available-everywhere book,
"How to Read the Bible for All It Is Worth,"
by Fee and Stuart.
It is on special hermeneutics.
It is so exciting to me how it does it,
and I just wish I had time to go into some of the illustrations
of how that book can change.
But I guess I'm still haunted
by people who wanna turn Revelation into literal history
or wanna turn the Psalms and the poetry into literal English prose
and then call me a strange person
because I don't agree with them.
I am not expecting a dragon
to chase a pregnant lady across the night sky,
and if you are, you're a weird person.
Textual design I taught the last couple times
I preached to you out of John.
Nicodemus, the woman at the well.
That's not Monday and Tuesday.
Those are polar opposites
put together to show Jesus' love for all people,
so much of the Bible, even the Gospels.
I would say the Gospels, the writers under inspiration,
had the ability and authority
to choose from all of Jesus' teachings
and actions to put them together, re-arrange them,
and to adapt them to the group they were trying to reach.
Now, if you think that's somewhat offensive,
how do you explain four Gospels
that do not agree with each other?
I certainly don't believe that three of them are bad histories.
None of them are histories.
None of them are autobiographies.
Every one of them are gospel tracts written to certain people,
and the characteristics of those people group
are reflected in the way that the author communicates the words,
teachings, and actions of Jesus.
Contemporary word meanings.
You know I could take time to go into Hebrew and Greek.
I think I won't do that, but at least
I wanna say to you one of the examples I use a lot
because I think it's so powerful, and people ask me all the time,
"How do you do contemporary meaning
for, let's just say, Koiné Greek?"
Well, the best way is to go to the Egyptian papyri.
It's a book by Moulton and Milligan,
which talk about the great finds in Egypt, in their garbage dumps.
Just to show how powerful this is, Jesus' last words on the cross,
"It is finished," it's the Greek word "telos" in the perfect tense.
We've found that very same word handwritten
across business documents in these papyri,
which means that "tetelestai" is more than "it is finished."
It means “paid in full.”
Like we would write, "paid in full," they wrote, " tetelestai."
That explodes Jesus' last words on the cross.
That's Isaiah 53, substitutionary atonement emphasis
that we miss if all we do is read the English Bible.
The balance of all Scripture.
I do believe that the author of Scripture is the Holy Spirit.
Do you agree with me in that?
I don't know how the Old Testament was put together.
None of us know when it was edited,
how many times it was edited.
None of us know which part, say, Moses wrote
versus a priest wrote for him versus an editor later on added.
None of us know that.
My assumption is that the Bible that we have in English
is fully adequate to record the message of God for us
in every area of faith and practice.
I assume the Holy Spirit was involved with this.
Can I explain every manuscript problem?
Can I explain every difficulty?
Croak, no!
This is a presuppositional faith commitment
that all Christians make in several areas.
Do I make it without any evidence at all?
No, but we must believe that God has spoken
and that the Holy Spirit has preserved what we need.
So the best interpreter of the Bible is the Bible.
Now this is where the parallel passages
in your modern study Bible
or "Nave's Topical Bible" or a Bible encyclopedia
or a systematic theology becomes so important.
You look up the word, you look up the theological concept,
and you see all the places where it's used.
Now, if you have a concordance and you look up the word,
we're not looking for every place the word appears.
No, no, no, we're looking for,
did this author use this word a lot in this literary context?
Does this author use this term in other of their writings?
Where is the clearest biblical passage on this concept?
We're looking for the clearest teaching passage on this subject
to set the definition that all the other oblique references
can be helped by.
That's the purpose of parallel passages,
and I would go a little further and say
that I don't think we have the right to let one inspired text
negate or destroy another inspired text,
and I think we do that
in our systematic understanding of the Bible.
Finally, I would say the last goal is Christlikeness.
If you think the Bible teaches you
that you can have three wives or cheat or lie
or do something crazy,
take a Tylenol PM, and read it in the morning again.
The goal is Christlikeness here.
No Scripture is going to point us in the direction of weird.
Now, the Bible records many things it does not advocate.
It records Gideon putting out the fleece.
Gideon putting out the fleece is a spiritual disaster,
nothing you were meant to do, and yet I know Christians
who claim that's how they find the will of God.
They don't understand the context
of how many miracles Gideon had in a row,
and still he did not fully believe.
So we've gotta be careful of just getting off on some weird thing.
Christlikeness is the goal.
He is the perfect example.
Part of number C has been left out in your notes,
so I'm going to read this.
You have just the last part of it.
Peggy and I believe that demons live in our computer
and steal these pages.
We do believe that, so I'll read it to ya.
It's not real heavy, but I want you to hear it.
It is a basic presupposition
that every text has one and only one proper interpretation
and that the original author's intent,
that is what it is.
This authorial meaning had an original application.
This application or significance
can be multiplied to different situations,
but they must be inseparably linked to the original intent,
which means if it's like situations,
the Bible can speak directly to both.
If they're not similar,
we've got to be real careful of principlizing the Bible.
Now, I believe we have to do that.
For me, as an Old Testament professor,
Bright's book on "The Authority of the Old Testament,"
it's just a clear example
of how we have to principlize the Old Testament,
but, friends, I'm so afraid of the abuse of spiritualizing these principles,
making every verse have a principle,
as I am of typology
that finds Jesus in every page of the Old Testament.
So, yes, if it's a clearly taught truth,
then it's a principle that applies to every Christian age
and every Christian church.
But many times these verses do not contain principles,
and so we've got to be careful not to say,
"None of you greeted me with a holy kiss,"
so you aren't biblical.
Thank God you don't.
Those pastors in Russia kiss you right on the mouth.
They have no teeth and no toothpaste.
Holy, moly, I didn't want that much fellowship in those brothers.
But the Bible says, "Greet each other with a holy kiss,"
and none of you women are wearing veils tonight.
Obviously, you don't believe 1 Corinthians,
those texts in there, relate to you.
As long as you know they're there
and you don't believe they apply, that's great,
but to say, "My mother didn't wear a veil,
so I don't wear a veil,"
there we're back into tradition again.
Number D, the plague of proof texting and spiritualizing.
I've given you a couple of quotes here.
That first one, I'm not going to read these,
but this one from "Man in Christ" by James Stuart,
I just love Paul.
I preach more out of Paul than anywhere else.
I bet I preach 80% out of Paul,
but Paul doesn't use vocabulary the same way every time.
Paul is not a systematic theologian,
and the book that has helped me so much understand
is an old classic by James Stuart called, "A Man in Christ."
If you want a wonderful read on Paul,
I hope you'll think about getting that book.
The second one is from George Eldon Ladd at Fuller Seminary.
He's now dead, so he knows that he's right, but listen to his.
This is a scorching comment from an evangelical scholar.
"The proof text method of interpreting Paul's letters
"which views them as direct revelations
"of the supernatural will of God conveying to man eternal,
"timeless truths that need only to be systematized
"to produce a complete theology,
"obviously ignores the mean
by which God has been pleased to give to man his Word."
The indentation by the King James of every verse
has caused so much problems
because people think they can take every verse
and make it a propositional truth,
unrelated to every verses around it.
That is horrendous.
The smallest, smallest interpretive unit
where words and sentences have meaning,
the smallest is a paragraph, and every sentence in the Bible,
every verse in the Bible,
does not clearly teach an eternal truth.
Now, the problem is Western people
are used to propositional statements of truth,
usually short statements,
and Eastern people communicate truths
through stories and accounts,
many times over chapters of material in historical narrative,
and we miss the point because we are detailed,
proof-texting spiritualizers in English.
It's a disaster.
I want to give you some examples.
This is what people usually enjoy from this
because I just kick around in traditions.
Depends on your personality type.
The first one is, of course, from King James, Matthew 24:17,
where a preacher--I wish I had this guy's name,
and I should've wrote it down.
It's a Baptist preacher, I think in Texas,
and it was maybe 100 years ago here.
And he didn't want women to lower their hair in church.
All the women used to wear this bun in the back.
You ever see your grandmother wear this, all tied up in a bun?
He wanted to make sure they didn't change it,
so he quotes, preaches on, Matthew 24.
Now, Matthew 24 is Jesus' eschatological teaching
about the end time.
Remember in Matthew 24:17, he said,
"If you see the abomination of desolation coming,
"do not go back into your house to get your cloak,
but flee over the walls to the hills."
He took the front of the verse, cut it off, the back of the verse,
cut it off, and said, "Let the top not come down."
Changed the word "knot," K-N-O-T, to N-O-T.
That doesn't matter if you're “really spiritual”
and talk about women's hair.
I do not believe the Bible teaches about women's hairdo.
Now, there's a text on elaborate hairdos.
Here is a preacher trying to control tradition and a population,
and what kills me is those godly women bought it.
Number two, 1 Corinthians 13:8.
I've done this before with you.
I was earlier at a theological convention.
I'm a member of the Evangelical Theological Society.
It was at John Brown's University where professors from Oral Roberts
were debating some professors from Dallas Theological Seminary
on “Cessationism,” which is the doctrine,
do the gifts continue, or have they ceased?
The Oral Roberts people said,
"We don't know where it's in the Bible.
We just know this happened to us."
And you catch that “experiential confirmation” for doctrine?
And the Dallas Seminary professors said,
"Well, the only text we really have--"
And it's the only text anybody has, and it's not really a text.
I know some of you are from Dallas.
All I'm saying to you is all of us do this!
Is the authority the Bible, or is the authority our tradition?
I pray to God you'll check me before you think it's weird.
It's 1 Corinthians 13.
Now, 1 Corinthians 13:8 talks about three things, knowledge,
tongues, and I forgot the third one off hand,
and two verbs are used for knowledge--
If you'd look that up.
I forgot what it is. Help me.
But the middle one is tongues, and the etymology of the verb
means to cease in and of itself.
That isn't what it means there because of parallelism.
People say, "See, that shows
that tongues is going to quit before knowledge."
That doesn't say anything like that
when you read that whole chapter.
That chapter is about love, and, by the way,
1 Corinthians 13 is oreo'd between the two hair pulls
on spiritual gifts in 12 and 14.
Has nothing to do with Christian weddings.
We pull that sucker out and use it at Christian weddings
and never know it's been over fights in the church over spiritual gifts,
totally used for something totally different.
I promise you 1 Corinthians 13 is saying everything
but love is going to pass away,
not what's going to pass away first or here or then,
and when it comes to,
"When the perfect comes, that which is not perfect,"
friends, there is nothing in this text
about Scripture being written or apostles dying.
There's nothing in this text about that,
and the only reason we do this
is because the gifts are not manifested in our churches,
and we can't explain why.
Colossians 2:21, I think I've told you this,
but I'll repeat it quickly for the tape.
This is every year I had these people
who are interested in Texas Alcohol and Narcotics Education.
Thank God, they came like Gideons to my church.
They spoke 15 minutes and took an offering at the doors.
Thrilled to death to help about addiction,
but they always used to preach,
always usually out of Colossians 2:21.
Here's the text, "Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle."
That's a pretty good text, isn't it?
The only problem is that is the message of the false teachers,
so we're quoting the false teachers
and preaching their method
and using Paul for something Paul was exactly against?
Holy spit, how are interpreting this Bible?
John 11:44.
I got 10 more minutes
because ain't no chicken on your oven, so hold on.
John 11:44.
I don't know if you know Baptist Life,
but preachers, if you go to do a revival,
preachers get 60%, and singers get 40%,
so if you're smart you get a few sermons.
So I had a professional, evangelistic singer in my church,
and I preached on raising Lazarus.
And my friend came up, and I know ya'll know his name.
I know you know him. I'm not going to tell you either.
He said, "I got a sermon on that."
I said, "Really? What did you preach on that?"
He said, "I preached on verse 44." "Really?
What was your sermon on verse 44?"
"Things that bind the Christian."
Now, God knows there are things that bind the Christian,
but this verse says, "Jesus said, 'Lazarus, come out.'"
Lazarus hops out of the tomb, and Jesus says, "Unbind him,"
and that's the proof text for you to say,
"TV binds the Christian, playing dominoes binds the Christian,
"going to a movie on Sunday binds the Christian,
mayonnaise binds the--" You can put anything in there!
That's your creativity, not Bible authority.
You can't preach on one little verse like that
and change the word "bound"
and make it something you want to do,
and yet how many sermons have I heard like that?
Says far more of the unique wordplays in English
and the creativity of the preacher than it does the authoritative,
inspired Word of God.
Amen or, oh, me?
If you haven't heard those sermons,
you don't go to a Baptist church.
2 Samuel 9.
I heard this in a Methodist church, thank God.
It was the youth director. Here's the sermon.
David's table and Mephibosheth.
Now, Mephibosheth was Jonathan's son
who had crippled feet because the nurse dropped him
trying to get away from him being assassinated.
So here's this poor, little crippled boy,
and here's the sermon.
David's table represents the grace of God, and Mephibosheth,
little, crippled feet, represents human sin,
and human sin is hidden under the grace of God.
Now, I believe in the grace of God,
and I believe we're forgiven for human sin,
but who said David's table is the grace of God?
David wanted to keep the 12 tribes together,
so he was nice to Jonathan's son.
He wanted the Benjamites to stay in the group,
had nothing to do with forgiveness.
And then to even just accentuate this,
the ancient world didn't sit like we do
with their feet under the table!
They reclined on their left elbow
with their feet hanging out the back.
Those little, crippled feet were in full view.
Bingo, that sermon's gone, and it ought to be gone.
Romans 10:13.
This is from "Sky Radio" when it used to be a Christian one.
Heard this driving through here one day.
"Yes, whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved,
but if you don't call him 'Yeshua' it doesn't work."
So you call him "Jesús," you call him "Jesus,"
you call him whatever, that don't work.
It's gotta be "Yeshua."
Holy moly, what is the matter with us?
To let people say that, and they had credibility.
A plague! Well, I'll keep my plague.
Deuteronomy 23:18.
I told you about don't sell your dog, and "dog" in Deuteronomy 18,
King James, "Don't give the hire of a dog."
A dog's not fufu, sissy, prissy, bark, bark.
It's a male *** of the Canaanite fertility cult!
And we're proof texting a text,
putting one definition of an English word,
and what kills me is the people of God go,
"Oh, okay, I guess I'll just lease my dogs."
This last one, I had a black preacher in my interpretation class,
and this was a sermon at a National Baptist Convention,
and the sermon was on John 2, the cleansing of the temple.
It's a very clever English wordplay, and here's the sermon.
"Jesus always knocks over that which we count on."
The money changers are counting out to change for the shekel,
the Tyranian shekel because that's all the temple would accept,
so they're ripping' them off on the money exchange,
and Jesus kicks over that table.
It's a play on the word "count on," meaning count, literally, or trust in.
It's very clever, but would you say that John chapter 2
is trying to teach that?
Would you say that was the intent of the original author in John 2?
Of course, it's not.
Then it can't be the subject of our sermon!
We can't make the Bible teach what it's not teaching
no matter how clever you are, how much education you have,
or how black your suit is!
And you've gotta be smart enough to say, "We ain't accepting that!"
One reason pastors don't want their people to know this
is because their people are going to start saying,
"That was really a cruddy sermon.
"Three points and a poem had nothing to do
with the text you read."
And until you get the message, preachers are going to use that
because it's easy on Saturday night.
Wake up, people of God! My soul, God gave you a mind!
You're just drug around like sheep!
Not you, the Baptists in California.
Two words here I've mentioned to you, two books,
"Scripture Twisting," by James Sire,
or "Biblical Words and Their Meaning," by Moises Silva.
These are good books. I hope you'll look at them.
Finally, quickly, and I'll be through. What can be done?
What must we do to help the level of Bible interpretation,
the level of Bible knowledge?
What must we do in personal Bible study?
Not preacher Bible study, not deacon Bible study,
not Sunday school teacher Bible study,
but the pew Bible study.
The pew Bible study shouldn't stink, "pew," play on "pew," alright.
Number one, we must all reexamine our presuppositions
and methods of Bible interpretation.
If you're waiting 'till Saturday night,
and you're picking up some quarterly
to get ready for Sunday morning,
I hope you'll quit.
God spare your interpretation in his people.
If you're not praying and studying,
what gives you the right to teach the Word of God?
And you talk about an awesome responsibility
is claiming to speak for God!
And you haven't prayed, and you haven't studied,
and all you read was a quarterly written by someone else?
We all must spend time in confession, prayer,
and regular Bible study, all of us.
We must remain teachable and humble.
There's no special interpreter.
There's just all of us searching for wisdom
to live in a way pleasing to God.
We're different, yes.
We can apply it different, yes.
Our personality types are different, yes,
but we've gotta start with the only authority that there is,
and it's Scripture.
We must stay with the main point of the paragraph.
Every paragraph has one main truth.
Now, every sentence in that paragraph explains,
delineates, defines.
It's some way helping us understand that main truth.
Truth comes in paragraphs and not less than that.
Certainly you can preach or teach on less than a paragraph,
but you can't study on less than a paragraph.
If your interpretation surprises the original author,
it probably surprises God.
If you think God's a Baptist, you are so far gone,
I'm not sure I can help you.
Check with the believing community.
If you believe you've come to a truth,
and it kinda violates what you've thought
and what you've heard, just wait a minute.
Go talk to someone you trust.
Talk to your pastor. Talk to your deacon.
Talk to your Sunday school teacher.
Talk to somebody!
The believing community as a group has been given this Scripture.
It's not one person or one gift.
We need to discuss with friends and family and look at commentaries.
Are you only person God ever spoke to?
I remember a statement coming out of Spurgeon that said,
"It amazes me that those who think God spoke to them
"have so little regard to what God spoke for others
through the years."
Check with the believing community
to confirm one's interpretation,
and then we must apply it immediately.
God, have mercy on us.
We stand in the middle of a day of such fast and loose,
personal opinions, such horrendous dogmatism
and judgmentalism coming from denominational groups,
all claiming to be closer to you than others,
and yet we're all closer to Adam than we are to you.
I pray that your Spirit would help us to understand
and live the things that are pleasing to you.
Keep us from the evil one and those who speak for him.
Give us as the goal not one-upsmanship but Christlikeness.
Oh, Lord, change us, mold us, draw us to yourself
that others will know that we've been with you,
and forgive us of trying to find out something
no one else has found, so people will say, "Wow."
God, deliver us from "wow."
God deliver us from denominational traditions.
God, please deliver us from "Fiddler on the Roof."
Amen.
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