Our first hard question can be posed this way: How should one go about gaining a proper understanding of what a Bible passage means? This question has countless applications. One is a question someone put on their card back when I asked people to send in hard questions. Here is their question, slightly paraphrased: How do we know which New Testament commands and practices are for all time and which are specific to a particular culture?
The reason I wanted to start with this question it is the question really behind many hard questions. By talking about how we gain a proper understanding of Bible passages, I am equipping you to discover the answers to many hard questions on your own. So in some ways, this is one of the most important hard questions we can consider.
The theme of the Faithwalkers Conference this year was “Making Disciples.” I don’t know if you have thought about this, but look at the Great Commission passage in Matthew:
Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” – Matt. 28:16-20
My question for you is this: To whom did Jesus give this command? To the disciples. And what were they to do? Make disciples. Disciples make disciples. Applying this to the question of interpreting hard passages from the Bible, this means that, if I am such a disciple, I am not obeying this command unless I give you everything I know. It’s not enough to just give answers to hard questions; I should also be showing you how I approach finding answers to these hard questions so that you can do this yourself, and later, you can show this to others. This is how disciples make disciples. It’s like how the DNA machinery makes a complete copy of the DNA. Because the DNA machinery was built based on the instructions in the DNA, you can say that DNA makes DNA, just as disciples make disciples.
The word theologians use to refer to the processes by which one interprets the Bible is “hermeneutics.” This word comes from the Greek word hermeneuo, which means to interpret. It is used, for example in Luke 24 where Jesus “explains” the Old Testament scriptures to the disciples traveling with him on the road to Emmaus. The Greek word used for “explains” is hermeneuo. What was Jesus doing? He was “interpreting” the Scriptures for them.
Unfortunately, in some churches, scripture interpretation has been greatly affected by our culture which promotes “tolerance” and “acceptance” as the one unbending good. In the area of religious beliefs, our culture would say that you are entitled to your belief and I am entitled to mine, which is true, but it would also say that your belief is true for you and my belief is true for me, which is, to be blunt, nonsense.
When it comes to Biblical interpretation, it is true that everyone has a right to his or her own opinions, but it is not true that others have to accept your opinions as valid, or even as respectable. The way in which one determines the validity of opinions on Biblical interpretation (validity as opposed to stupidity) is an important part of hermeneutics.
Now I am going to give you some hermeneutical principles. As you will see, they are not complicated; and in fact, they are a fleshing out of what most would call “common sense.” The way in which I am presenting these is based largely on material by a person known online as Metochoi, a pastor who was active on a number of Christian online groups until his untimely death a year ago. Although I only corresponded personally with him a few times, I learned a tremendous amount from him and will be forever grateful for his teachings on grace, on hermeneutics, and on several other topics.
The first principle of Biblical interpretation is to interpret literally. This isn’t a legalistic thing; it means that we understand Scripture in its normal sense, which includes figures of speech like parables, hyperbole, simile, metaphor, and symbolism. To make this simple, it means to read the Bible first and foremost just like you would read a letter from a friend. Metochoi has a great example: If your friend says in a postcard, “Having a wonderful time in Mexico,” you shouldn’t interpret that to mean that your friend was condemning you for not coming to Mexico. That would be twisting your friend’s words based on your own neurotic thinking.
Now, the unpleasant truth is that we are all neurotic, sometimes. We all tend to do this, from time to time, even when we talk to people in person. Understand that when we do this with Scripture, what we are doing is in effect telling ourselves what we think God should have said rather than what God truly has said. This is called eisegesis, and is something we should avoid. Eisegesis means to read into Scripture our own ideas, in contrast to exegesis, which means to derive from Scripture the meaning that was intended.
Now, some passages, such as some in the books of Zechariah, Daniel, Ezekiel, and Revelation, do clearly use symbolic language, and we must study them carefully to determine the literal truth they contain. But this is the exception, rather than the rule, in Scripture. Now, I am not saying that the rest of Scripture only has a literal interpretation; what I am saying is that it has a literal interpretation, and our first and generally most important job is to understand that literal interpretation. Any sort of mystical or allegorical interpretation we think we see on top of the literal interpretation cannot invalidate the literal interpretation. And in most cases, the mystical or allegorical interpretation is not the most important thing we understand. It may add beauty to Scripture, make us wonder at how God uses history like an artist uses a paintbrush, but it doesn’t invalidate or reduce the primary importance of the literal interpretation. So when you read the Bible in your quiet times, the first thing you should do is interpret literally.
The second principle Metochoi calls the historical-cultural principle. This principle is that we will be greatly aided in understanding a passage of Scripture if we grasp the historical and cultural setting in which the passage was written. Included in this understanding are related factors like the geography of the area, the political situation, and so on. Now, a good amount of Scripture we can know well with only a basic historical-cultural understanding, but as we go into passages that are harder to understand, this historical-cultural understanding is tremendously valuable. How can we obtain this historical-cultural understanding in our own study of Scripture? We can do so from Bible dictionaries, Bible handbooks, Scriptural commentaries, history books, and so on. You should use materials that have been produced “without an agenda,” so to speak.
What do I mean by this? Well, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, for example, have notes in their Bibles to support their erroneous interpretation of Scripture. Of course even their Bible translation has been altered to support their doctrine. But even some modern Study Bibles sometimes provide shaky information as they try to be relevant to subsets of readers in our modern culture. Separate books are generally safer, and looking at more than one is better yet. For example, if I were about to study Galatians, I would read my introduction to the book in my Bible, but I would also read (and pay more attention to) a Bible dictionary and I might also look at an online commentary (or two or three) that I have come to trust.
The third principle is the linguistic principle. The linguistic principle is to understand the grammar, vocabulary, and syntax of a passage. I personally love exploring the linguistics of passages even to the level of digging into the original language. Now you may think linguistic analysis is way beyond you, but it is not. The simplest way I know to do this is as follows. First, read the passage in a relatively literal translation. One of the most literal translations is the KJV, and this is what I use when I look at grammar and syntax. But the NAS is also pretty literal, and in my opinion, is sufficiently literal for this kind of exploration the vast majority of the time. The NIV is less literal, and as a result, less often sufficient for this kind of analysis. I am not saying that you shouldn’t read the NIV; this is the main translation I use in my quiet times, partly because I am comfortable with it (I can find passages by keywords because I remember the wording), and partly because I just like how it reads.
Completely inadequate for a linguistic exploration of a passage are paraphrases like the Message. Again, I am not saying you shouldn’t read the Bible in paraphrase translations; I am saying that it won’t work for linguistic analysis. By the way, Bibles with more than one side-by-side translation are wonderful for linguistic analysis. They make it extremely easy to look at these things with negligible effort.
Now, when I explore a passage linguistically, I go online to www.blueletterbible.org. You can do so much here, like clicking on a verse and seeing it in the original language, and then clicking on a particular word and seeing all the other times that word is used in Scripture. This is a wonderful way to get the “sense” of a word beyond a simple definition. You can also look at verb tenses if it is a verb, and this is useful, because especially with the New Testament, the Greek verbs have tenses that don’t precisely line up with English. For example, the passage “Be filled with the Spirit,” (Eph. 5:18) has a verb tense meaning “be continually, on and on, all the time filling yourself up with the Spirit.”
But I don’t want to overwhelm you. Even using a translation like the NIV, you can do a fair amount of linguistic exploration. For example, any time you see the word “Therefore” in a passage, ask yourself, “What’s the therefore there for?” Looking for the word “but,” “because of,” “into” and other prepositions can be equally fruitful. A key idea in linguistic exploration is to remember that verses aren’t a bunch of isolated sentences, but part of a sequence of thoughts and ideas. It is always good to read the surrounding verses when you consider any particular verse of Scripture.
Let me say one additional thing with regards to linguistic analysis: I am not saying you need to use a concordance, online or otherwise, every day in your quiet times. Far from it! What I am saying is that if you are having problems understanding how to understand, how to interpret, a particular passage of Scripture, how to see how it applies to your life today, linguistic analysis is extremely helpful.
The fourth principle is the synthesis principle. At the Reformation, two phrases became widely used to describe this principle: Scriptura scripturam interpretatur, which is Latin for “Scripture interprets Scripture,” and analogia Scriptura, which is Latin for “the analogy of Scripture.” This principle is based on the fact that the Bible will not contradict itself. Practically speaking, this means that when we think that one passage says to do one thing and another says to do the opposite, the problem isn’t that the Bible contradicts itself; the problem is that we have a misunderstanding in the interpretation and/or application of one or both of the passages.
For example, Hebrews 11:6 says “Without faith it is impossible to please God.” How do we know from this verse what faith is? We don’t. But a study of other passages speaking of faith shows a great unity in the fact that it means to believe God, to trust what He has said. And so, the synthesis principle allows us to say that Hebrews 11:6 says that unless you believe God, unless you trust in what He has said, it will be impossible for you to please Him.
The reality is that we all use the synthesis principle all the time in everyday communication. One important warning that I can give you regarding this principle is to be very careful any time you read any Christian materials that define terms in Scripture. What is the danger? The danger is that you may end up substituting the material’s faulty definitions with what the words really mean. Because we use the synthesis principle all the time, the result is that we will “plug in” these faulty definitions into every passage of Scripture we read. The Mormons, for example, have done this to many terms; the result is that when you try to disagree with them about their understanding of Scripture, they often say they agree with you, because when you say certain words, it means one thing to you (the Scriptural meaning) but it means something else to them. It is difficult to undo the damage that this redefining can cause. You basically have to unlearn your faulty definitions. This takes a lot of effort and a lot of time.
If you do not regularly spend time in the Word, you are especially vulnerable to these kinds of materials. Spending time daily in the Word helps you to get the proper Biblical understanding of these terms programmed into your head. When you do this, then when you see materials that are twisted, you may not at first be able to say what is wrong, but you can tell they just don’t “smell” right.
The fifth principle is called the practical principle. As Metochoi says, this is where you ask, “What does all this have to do with me?” This is where application comes in. Note that the order of these principles is important. It doesn’t make any sense to talk about the application of a passage until you understand the meaning of the passage, right? If you don’t correctly understand the meaning of a passage, what are the chances that you are going to apply it correctly? Just about nil.
Our question about which practices were just for the New Testament believers and which are for all believers is an issue with this practical principle. Let’s do an example. Let’s consider the question of women and how they are to dress and present themselves.
I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God. – I Tim. 2:9-10
The first principle is interpret literally. Paul is telling Timothy that the women in Timothy’s church should “dress with good deeds” as opposed to forgoing the good deeds and making much about how good they look. Dress should be modest, decent, and appropriate, as opposed to immodest, indecent, and over-the-top. Doing some research on the history and culture, the second principle, might get you somewhere in this case or it might not, depending on your materials and how long you look. For example, I did an internet search and learned that many women in the 1st century were wearing extremely elaborate hair designs that went high above their heads and took many hours to construct and weave. Julia, daughter of Titus, for example, reportedly wore her hair braided and then curled, arranged on crescent-shaped wire frames.
What about linguistics, the third principle? I would first notice the world also. (I might also get sucked into looking at the whole passage in Greek and clicking on interesting words, but you don’t have to do that.) That word “also” means there is some connecting thought between these verses and the ones before it. Verse 8 says,
Therefore I want the men everywhere to pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or disputing. – I Tim. 2:8
So the behavior of the women and the men is connected. But note that verse 8 begins with “Therefore.” What is the therefore there for? This means we have more work to do, going back further in the passage. In the interest of time I will not do that here.
The fourth principle is synthesis. Are there other passages on women and dress? Yes. If you do a search under “braided hair” you would find this:
Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight – I Peter 3:3-5
At this point I get the idea from words like “such as” that it isn’t the details that are important, but the principle. Are you focused on how you look or on who you are in the inside? Going legalistic, for example, on braided hair, would miss the point. Perhaps in that culture braided hair was something only the most fashion crazy would do. In our culture it is not a big deal. The point is that by using the fourth principle, I see that the focus should be on the inside and not the outside. Whether a person braids their hair or not doesn’t deal with the core issue. So what is the practical application, the fifth principle? To spend more time focusing on your insides. Are you cultivating a gentle and quiet spirit? Are you thinking about how to do good deeds for others? Or, to the detriment of these things, are you obsessing over your appearance? I hope this example helps you see the five principles in use.
Now I should note that these five principles are useless without the illuminating ministry of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit dwells in us and assists us in understanding Scripture and in knowing how to apply it to our lives. This does not mean that it replaces careful study of Scripture, however. They work together. The Holy Spirit is necessary for properly interpreting Scripture, but that does not mean that the Holy Spirit will answer all questions, or reveal all mysteries, or that He should be compelled to do much of anything if we do not humbly seek God and reverently study His Word.
I would add one principle to Metochoi’s list: Be humble. To put this another way, accept that there are some things hard to understand, some things that perhaps God has deliberately left as mysteries for us so that we won’t become proud, thinking of ourselves as super-Bible-interpreters. It is far more important to God that we be humble than that we have the answers to all mysteries, all hard questions. And wrapped around humility is love:
If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. – I Cor. 13:2
We need to keep this perspective on hard questions. Now I hope and pray that this discussion will help you in your own study of the Bible in the coming year. The single best thing you can do to become better able to understand and interpret Scripture is to soak your brain in Scripture as much as you can. The more you study the Word, the better you will become at studying the Word. And commit yourself to be obedient to what you read.
But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves. – James 1:23 (NAS)
Let me now turn to the second topic I am going to discuss today, a question related to our church. There are many ways to put this question. One is, “What does God desire to do in 2011 with Clemson Community Church?” Another, addressed to me, is, “Has God given the leaders a vision for CCC in 2011, and if so, what is it?” This question is one I have been asking God, in various ways, for several months. When I started to ask it, I really felt visionless, which is another word for blind, and I reached a kind of low at the end of October, right before a conference I attended in Columbia with our sister churches in the Southeast. But at that conference, actually at a pastors’ meeting prior to the conference, we all spent an extended time in prayer for one another, and it was in the opening remarks before we prayed that I was really struck deeply in my heart with some thoughts that I do believe are from God. John and Fred and I have discussed these together, with our wives, and there has been unanimous agreement that this is something we as a church should do in 2011. What is it? Well, it involves prayer. It involves prayer for the fruitfulness of us as a church. Before I get into the details, I want to look at some verses on prayer.
As for other matters, brothers and sisters, pray for us that the message of the Lord may spread rapidly and be honored, just as it was with you. – 2 Thess. 3:1
I just want to point out that Paul here is asking for what? Prayers for fruitfulness. He is asking that they pray for the fruitfulness of them as a team. We are going to pray for us, for the fruitfulness of us as a church. He is not just asking for prayers for fruitfulness, though, is he? No, there is an important adverb there. He prays not just that the message would spread and be honored, that is, that it would cause people to come to Christ, but that it would spread rapidly. Paul is asking for prayer for speedy, rapid fruitfulness.
This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of Him. – I John 5:14-15
I want you to think about the power of this verse. Anything that is in accordance with His will. Do we know His will for sure in the details before we pray? No. But it would be foolish for us to not pray just because of this. We should pray things that are in accordance with what we know about God, and pray boldly. Isn’t that the real message of this verse? Don’t pray timidly! Pray bold prayers!
If you have been going to the home fellowship meeting at the Mussros’ house, you know that there is something called “The List.” Those of us who go to that home fellowship know that we pray for the things on that list, and we also know that God has answered an incredible number of prayers this past year from that list. God answers prayer. If we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us – whatever we ask – we know that we have what we asked of Him. We have confidence in approaching God in prayer, because He answers all prayers that are in accordance with His will. Do you get it?
And I will do whatever you ask in My name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask Me for anything in My name, and I will do it. – John 4:13-14
Asking in His name is not some kind of magic formula; what it means is the same as in the I John passage. Something in His name is something in accordance with His will. These are things that will glorify the Father in the Son. Again the real message here is to pray boldly. The key word to me is whatever. That means big or small. If it is in accordance with His will, it might as well be big, right?
And the verse that haunts me, the verse has not left my thoughts since that conference in October, is this:
You do not have, because you do not ask. – James 4:2b
I, for one, do not want to get to heaven, and hear my Savior say this to me with regards to the fruitfulness of this church. This is why, in 2011, I, and Fred, and John, are asking all of you to join us in praying frequently, regularly, I would even ask, daily, that God would double our church in 2011.
Now let me explain that what and why of this prayer. By double, I do not necessarily mean that our Sunday attendance doubles. Fruitfulness can occur inside a church walls, and it can also happen outside those walls. What God cares about is fruitfulness, about whether the believers are growing in Christ and multiplying their faith. By doubling, I mean that the people we are ministering to and with, the people we can call “one another” doubles in 2011. Suppose one of you starts a Bible study at your workplace, and people are growing there and one comes to Christ because of your efforts – I would say that that is part of this number. That is part of our fruitfulness.
Next week we are going to announce a new outreach effort, something I am really excited about. I know – I am leaving you hanging on this, but trust me, it is really quite different, and I am confident that God will bless it, and its fruit would also be part of this number.
At the same time, this prayer does include praying that God would add to our core attenders here, that new families and singles would make our church “home” and grow in faith, loving and serving one another. I do want to be clear, though, that I am not asking that we pray for a bunch of people well-connected with their own churches to jump ship and join us. What I am asking God for is first and foremost salvations, and second, that people that may be believers but are adrift, spiritually speaking, would reconnect to God and begin growing again through what God does through us.
Now why double? Well, to be honest, I felt it should be such a big number that it should be impossible for me to imagine being achieved unless God miraculously does the work. I want all credit to go to Him, and none to us. I would also note the parable of the bags of gold in Matt. 25:14-30. In this parable, the man with five bags of gold gained five more, and the man with two bags of gold gained two more. To both, the master said, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” Now, is it proper interpretation of Scripture to claim that all people should therefore pray for doubles? No! (Here is a chance for you to use the hermeneutics principles we just talked about to see why this is so.)
But no where do I see in Scripture the harm of praying for something that is in accordance with God’s general will. Asking God to grow the influence of the gospel through us is clearly in God’s will. And if the doubling part is not in His will, He will choose not to answer that. But I would not feel good asking for a 10% increase or a 20% increase, or something that we can imagine. I would much rather pray for something beyond what I can humanly, pragmatically imagine, and doubling does that for me. Again, isn’t that the message of I John 5 and John 4? Pray big! Pray bold!
Now, after today, I am not going to specifically mention this prayer again, but I will remind you and encourage you to keep praying it by calling it “the secret prayer.” And this is what I would encourage you to call it when you see one another during the week. Just ask people, “Hey, are you remembering the secret prayer?” I would also ask you not to tout this prayer to other believers you know. As much as we practically can, let’s keep this between us. As it says in Matthew 6, we don’t want to pray so as to be seen by men, but we want to pray in private so that our Father, who sees what we do in secret, will reward us.(Matt. 6:5-8).
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