How to Read The Bible - Part 3

This week we’ll look at interpretation

Remember the 3 phases

Observation - What does it say

Interpretation - What does it mean

Application - How does it work

Psalm 119:34 “Give me understanding, that I may keep your law and observe it with my whole heart.”

Acts 8 Phillip & eunuch

What does interpretation mean?

There is a meaning to the text

NOT what does the text mean to you

The bible is not a subjective book and the text is just there as a springboard to fuel your own desires.

“What does God mean”

Interpretation is the process of discovering what God meant to communicate to us through his word

“think God’s thoughts after him”

Side note: “You can’t know what God thinks” Yea you can

Important to remember that God used human authors (co-authors)

They intended to convey a message to a people in a place during a time

We need to discover what that intended message is

Hendricks calls interpretation the “re-creation process”

If observation is excavating, interpretation is erecting

Why interpret?

cant we just read?

Language barriers

3 different languages

Cultural barriers

Ex Shepherd

Literary barriers

Genre

Communication barriers

People can hear two people say the exact same thing, and believe the person meant opposite things

Pitfalls to interpretation

Misreading the text

John 14:6 “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

“I am a way”

1 Timothy 6:10 “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.”

“Money is the root of evil”

Psalm 37:4 “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”

“Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” (leaving out first part)

Distorting the text

John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

Jehovahs (“A God”)

Contradicting the text

Genesis 3

Satan contradicts God’s word

Gender roles

We see abortion defended today using Gods word

Subjectivism

“Many Christians tolerate a form of mysticism in reading their Bibles that they would allow in no other realm”

We know that christanity calls us to think rightly and cares deeply about truth and our minds, yet we can approach our Bibles without our brains and simply make things to mean what we otherwise know they wouldn’t

Jesus said Matthew 22:37–38 “And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.”

Relativism

Example might be the resurrection

Deny the physical bodily resurrection

Roles of husbands and wives in marriage

You can have multiple appropriate applications but remember we are on interpretation. And there is only one proper interpretation

Overconfidence

1 Corinthians 8:1 “Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that “all of us possess knowledge.” This “knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up.”

We will never and can never plum the depths of the riches of God’s word. Some people spend their entire careers just studying one book of the bible and are still gleaning new treasure from it.

We need to remember that we are finite and our own interpretations are fallible

SIDE NOTE: Don’t fall prey to “interpretation fallacy

“You shall not lie”

“Well thats just your interpretation”

We will and should disagree on things

We can recognize that there is only one accurate interpretation of scripture and yet come to different conclusions

That is a good thing as we can use each other to sharpen each other and help each other get a better understanding of what the text means.

Our misunderstandings are not God’s fault or problems with his word but rather our sin nature, and our finite existence

Literature

One of the first questions we need to ask ourself is what kind of book is this? (genre)

The way in which an author communicates and idea is very important to understand.

Elbert Hubbard once said ““How do you avoid criticism? Say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.”

Point is not do that, it’s the absurdity of the question

Law

Covenant relationship

The parts of a covenant: history, stipulations, promises (blessings and curses)

Instruction

To reflect God’s character, purposes

For tone, look for threats, promises, motivations

Epistle

Situation

Theological truths connected to the occasion

Propositional truth with a logical flow of thought

Truth leading to application

For tone, look for descriptions of the audience and setting, powerful verbs

Historical Narrative

The parts of a story, including the climax and resolution

Smaller stories unfold a larger story

Major and minor characters

God, the ultimate character

Dialogue

Scenes

The narrator framing the story

For tone, look for descriptions for characters and settings, actions, responses

Gospel

Biographical with distinct perspectives of Biblical theology

Arrival of the promised king

Proclamation and a call for response

Storyline

For tone, look for actions, responses, questions, pace

Wisdom

Poetic, figurative, and memorable rather than literal and precise

General principles rather than absolute promises

Concerned with practical living and reality rather than purely theological ideas

Founded on the fear of the Lord

For tone, look for descriptions, contrast, and outcomes

Proverbs

Wise teacher sharing wisdom with younger listener

Also see paralelism

Proverbs 15:27 “Whoever is greedy for unjust gain troubles his own household,

but he who hates bribes will live.”

Proverbs 20:3 “It is an honor for a man to keep aloof from strife,

but every fool will be quarreling.”

Proverbs contain principles, not promises

Proverbs 21:17 “Whoever loves pleasure will be a poor man; he who loves wine and oil will not be rich.”

the proverb is emphasizing the importance of discipline and hard work and not being lazy. This is not a promise to wealth

Prophecy

“Thus saith the Lord”

Prophecy is people speaking on

Covenant relationship

Judgment with promises of hope

Layers of fulfillment

Emotive

Images

God’s greatness and holiness

God’s activity in the world

For tone, look for intense imagery, indictments, warnings, promises

Poetry

Parallelism

Images and metaphor

Emotion

Expression of the human heart

Easily remembered

Songs and prayers

For tone, look for extended imagery, emotional expressions, questions

Paralelism

Two lines

Reinforce the thought

Psalm 103:15 “As for man, his days are like grass;

he flourishes like a flower of the field;”

Extend the thought

Psalm 32:2 “Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity,

and in whose spirit there is no deceit.”

Oppose the thought

Psalm 40:4 “Blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust,

who does not turn to the proud, to those who go astray after a lie!”

Hyperbole

exaggerated language to emphasize a point

Psalm 6:6 “I am weary with my moaning; every night I flood my bed with tears; I drench my couch with my weeping.”

Apocalyptic

Symbolic imagery

End of time

God’s coming judgment and salvation

A call to endure, believe

For tone, look for intense imagery, dramatic action, threats, promises

Five Keys to interpretation

Content

Context

Comparison

Culture

Consultation

Content

We have done a lot of the work in observation mode already

What do we see inside the text.

Words convey meaning

Context

“A text without a context is a pretext”

We’ve seen this with athletes, politicians, etc who’s statements are taken out of context

Start narrow and work broad

Immediate - surrounding verses

Paragraphs

Book

Kinds of context

Literary

Words

Psalm 14:1 “The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds; there is none who does good.”

The fool says in his heart… there is no god

Historical

Where is this taking place?

What was happening then?

What influences are happening to the author, audience

Cultural

What about this culture is important, assumed, etc?

Not to be confused with relativism

Romans 16:16 “Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ greet you.”

Geographic Context

Good samaritan

Jerusalem -> Jericho was steep, rocky, desolate, notorious for criminals & bandits

Does that affect how you view the samaritans risk

Jesus calming the storm

Sea of Galilee

Below sea level, surrounded by hills, shallow

Meaning it was prime for storms and regularly experienced severe storms

Does this change how we view the storm and the fact that these seasoned fisherman would see the storms coming.

That they would have experienced these before?

That Matthew calls it essentially an earthquake on the water

Theological Context

What did the author think about God?

What was the readers relationship with God?

How much scripture did they have access to?

How does this passage fit within the unfolding of scripture

Comparison

Scripture interprets scripture

We want to compare other parts of scripture to see what this part means

Concordance

Look up uses of words in other places and basic definitions of them

“submit” in todays sermon

A person

Moses

Exodus

Acts 7

Hebrews

Hebrews 11:24–25 “By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.”

Culture

Understand the bible was written for you but not to you.

1 Cor 8 Meat sacrificed to idols

Cultural background of meat in idol temple. some thought it was a way to commune with gods. so someone who is a new convert who sacraficed that meat to idols now asked to eat it.

Consultation

The spirit has enlightened men and women throughout church history and we can glean from their findings

This should not replace your own personal study

Study bible

Concordances

Strongs exhaustive

Example

kosmos in John - 75-80 times

Multiple distinct uses

The created universe

John 1:10 “He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.”

Humanity general

John 1:29 “The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”

Fallen humanity

John 15:18–19 ““If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”

Earthly human existence

John 13:1 “Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.”

Large group

John 12:19 “So the Pharisees said to one another, “You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after him.””

Lexicons

BDAG

HALOT

Bible Handbooks

Atlases

Systematic Theologies

Commentaries

Be aware of traditions/denominations

Tech

ESV App

Logos

Esword

Biblehub

Blueletterbible

HW Rom 12 1-2