Hermeneutics 099

Now to wrap this up.

This naturally leads to my last point. Think about the intended audience and culture. A lot of the time we read the bible and think every promise and every command and ever word was written to a 21 century man or woman sitting in their comfortable 21st century home and living their 21st century lifestyle. Instead, we ought to realize that a lot of times the words were written to a specific people in a specific culture for a very specific reason, we are a third party. This is not to say that we cannot glean knowledge, wisdom, insight, and instruction from God through the scriptures. We should however always make a point to understand what is going on in the passage as we attempt to learn from the text, and especially before we apply it to our lives. Ask the questions: "Who is being written to/about and why?", and "Is this a specific promise/command for me, or more of a general principle to consider?" Let's change our thinking from "Everything in here was written and meant for me" to "Everything written in here will benefit me, if I appropriately apply it."

My final thought: What bible do you read from? You should find a bible that is easy for you to read. We could argue all day about which one is the best, but it doesn't matter how good it is if you are not reading it because it is too difficult. I think an obvious example is the Old King James; while a decent translation the wording is very foreign and hard for modern day readers to understand. I use ESV and enjoy NKJ, sometimes I'll use NIV for another perspective. I would always counsel you to use the most accurate translation possible. For example the ESV which communicates word for word translation rather than the NIV which communicates thought for thought. But if a paraphrase like The Message is the only one that makes sense to you, I would say read that. My hope would be that as you become more and more accustomed to God's word you would graduate up to a more accurate text. But while going for the most accurate is always a good thing, actually reading the bible is better. So find a translation that will help you get into the word, and not one that hinders you from reading God's message to mankind.

Hermeneutics 098

More tips!

This brings me to point three, understand the context. One of the easiest mistakes is to read a verse by itself, and take out of it what we think it means as a stand alone point this is called Eisegesis. Rather we should desire to let the bible speak for itself and find the intended context of the whole chapter or even the whole book, this is called Exogesis. We have to read versus in context of chapters and chapters in context of books. Sometimes what we think of as a whole or complete thought is merely a part, so it helps to read the surrounding passages. Honestly this is what we do with all other literature naturally, but the bible we try to read into every word every verse and sometimes detach it from its intended purpose. I would even say it is important to understand entire books within the context of the bible as a whole. The bible is not going to contradict itself, so even sometimes it is helpful to take into consideration what the bible has said elsewhere when coming to conclusions. Some questions to ask at this point: Does the bible speak to this issue elsewhere? Has the bible used this language and even imagery elsewhere? Does the bible answer this question elsewhere? ect. A lot of times the answer is yes and we just have to find it.

Next we have to consider the genre. The bible is full of different kinds of literary approaches. There is poetic, historic, prophetic, narrative, parabolic, instructional, proverbial, and even musical. The idea then is to not force one genre interpretation on another. So we should not force parabolic stories into literal history, or for that matter to confuse actual history with parables. To understand that poetry and prophecy sometimes use fantasy type imagery to communicate a point while historical parts do not. Just as instructional is meant to be taken literally and proverbial is not. Just like a narrative might not be exhaustive in all the facts but communicates a important theme. So we need to understand when the bible is using these different genres and appropriately interpret them.

more to come...

Hermeneutics 097

A lot of people have a hard time reading the bible. They believe that it is too difficult to read and even more difficult to understand. I was teaching out of Revelation this past Sunday which is arguably the most difficult book in the bible to interact with. As I was explaining some of the fantastic imagery, I was reminded about how often we pause on certain passages and never get past them because they are confusing or we have missed something: There are going to be Dragons in the future? There are going to be great Beasts and women with stars on their head? The stars are literally going to fall to the earth? These and even less troubling passages give us pause and sometimes end in us leaving the bible and walking away rather than digging in to find the answers. Think of Jesus when he said his followers had to eat his flesh and drink his blood, they misunderstood and walked away. This is a tragedy. God gave us his word to teach and instruct us so that we can live fulfilling lives pleasing to him. So I want to just list a few tips to help you read your bible.

The first and most obvious one is to re-read the passage you have just read. Sometimes we miss things because the style or even the words themselves are foreign to us. We should familiarize ourselves with the wording and meaning of words that the bible uses as much as possible. A secondary taking in of the words can sometimes help us with something we have overlooked.

Second, get a broader perspective. Read the surrounding passages, sometimes we think that because we are in a new chapter that it is a completely new thought. We have to realize that the current breaking of the words with chapter and verses wasn't added until the 16th century to make things easier for us to read and reference. This has helped tremendously but it was a two-edged sword in that it also put unnatural breaks in the flow of thoughts that were not intended. So understand that just because you are in a new chapter doesn't mean the author has moved on from the previous point he was making, sometimes entire books are building on a single theme and progressively mounting up the theology, so reading individual chapters might detached you from the overall point. A lot of times the Bible defines stuff for us if we keep reading, or remember to look back at what was previously stated.

I will have more tips in the following days.

Blogging

The internet, through all its temptations and shortcomings is not bad within itself. It is just like any other tool in life, it can be used for good or for evil. we think it is high time that the church started using it for some good. This blog is just one effort in that quest to redeem the internet for Christ. This blog will be run by the pastors of FBC Prescott and will consist of our thoughts, prayers, devotions and challenges. Please feel free to subscribe, or become a fan of us on facebook where these blogs will also post.

Blessings,
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Heaven

Last Night at Code Red youth group we talked about heaven. I got flooded with questions like: “Will there be roller coasters?” or “Will we be able to skate board?” or even “Could there be a concert like Woodstock?” I was reminded of how often we think about heaven; we try to imagine our favorite pastimes and multiply them times a million and decide that’s what Heaven will be like. We have to understand that Heaven is not an ethereal realm where we float on clouds being bored, nor is it a super enhanced form of what we enjoy most. Our understanding of Heaven must come from the Bible itself. The Bible communicates that we will be in God’s presence and we will finally see him and will know him truly. (1 John 3:2-3, John 17:3, Rev 22:4) And while it does describe a New Heaven and New Earth and our glorified bodies (Rev 21, 1 Cor 15:35-56), our minds instantly start to imagine what we will do to not get bored. We are discontent before we have even gotten there! What we fail to realize is that our very idea of contentment and entertainment is fallen and corrupted by sin. We do not even begin to understand the true joy of being in God’s presence this side of eternity. (1 Cor 2:9) That is not to say there won’t be amazing experiences in Heaven, but to think “It won’t be heaven without…[insert desire]” is to not understand that God has so much more for us. He will absolutely blow our minds with the amazing things he has for those who love him. I believe we will stand in his presence in a state of constant amazement, he will satisfy us! He has so much more in store for us than we can even imagine because God is absolutely holy and perfect. Lord haste the Day! (2 Pet 3:12,13)