Sermon Tone Analysis

It is the beginning of a new year which means its the time where many of you will begin a new Bible in a year plan and as one of your pastors I want to help you actually follow through on reading the Bible more this year.

You see, what tends to happen is that many Christians will start of with a ton of fire and passion to read their Bible more than ever before and then they get to the later parts of Exodus and first parts of Leviticus and they begin to lose heart.They will start dreading their Bible study because they simply stop understanding it and all their effort to read the Bible starts to feel like a waste of time.This even happens as Christians read the NT because there are passages and entire books, like the book of Hebrews that are so foreign to us and our context that we can’t make any sense of them so we give up reading the Bible to quote leave it to the professionals.But I have good news for you.

You don’t have to have a seminary degree to understand the Bible.

As a Christian, you have the Holy Spirit who illuminates the Scriptures to help you understand what it says and how it applies to your life.

You just need someone to explain how reading the Bible actually works.IMAGE: Grasping God’s Word 46I want to help you to read the Bible this year by giving you a five step process for interpreting Scripture.In my experience, most Christians interpret the Bible by using the “feels-right approach.”

Basically, they read the Bible and if something is easy to apply directly to their life, then that’s what they do.But if they come to a difficult passage they usually resort to two options.Option 1 they simply shrug their shoulders and move on to another passage completely ignoring that piece of Scripture.This is wrong because the Bible tells us that “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable” for our Christian life.Therefore to ignore God’s Word is to ignore God himself and allows us to completely miss something God wanted us to know so that we could worship him.Option 2, many Christians will take a difficult piece of Scripture and try to spiritualize it.They will look at a piece of Scripture and try to conjure any truth the might feel right even if that is not what Scripture is actually saying.For example, you will commonly hear people quote Romans 8:28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose, and they will take that verse to mean that God doesn’t want anything bad to happen to those that love him.

That if you just love God, everything in your life will be good.That feels right doesn’t it?

That God is a God of love who wants goo for us?

How can that be wrong?But in context, Paul is talking about how broken our world is because of sin and how we can still experience this brokenness as we wait for Christ to return.

Paul’s point is that even though we currently suffer because of the brokenness of sin, God promises to redeem all of it by using our suffering to make us more like Jesus.Romans 8:28 isn’t a verse that says God only wants good things for you however you define them.

It is a verse meant to comfort us by reminding us that no matter what happens in our life, no matter what kind of pain and suffering we endure while we wait for Christ to return and make all things new, God will not let a single bit of it be wasted but will use it to grow us to be more like Christ.It is not good or helpful for us to use the feels-right approach to interpreting Scripture.

Doing so will at best allow us to ignore parts of God’s Word or at worst pave the way for us to build our lives on man made lies instead of God’s truth.Instead there is a better way.

Instead of reading the Bible and trying to create the meaning of a particular passage, our goal is to find the meaning that is already there.When God spoke in his Word, he wanted to say something to his people.

Our job in reading the Bible is to rely on the Spirit who wrote the Bible to show us the meaning of the passage that he intended to say.Our aim in reading the Bible should always be to listen to what God has said, not to put words in his mouth.

So how do we do that?On the screen you’ll see an image from a book titled Grasping God’s Word.

This is a book that was used in my Seminary but it was written in a way for the everyday Christian can understand.

If you want to grow in your ability to read the Bible, I would highly recommend it to you.On the left side of the image you have what the book calls Their Town.

This would be the cultural context of the Biblical audience.

Then on the right side you have Our Town.

This is the time and place in which we live today as Christians here in 2020 Northwest Arkansas.

The challenge is to get the meaning of the text of Scripture all the way from their town to ours so that we can live according to God’s Word.

How does that happen?

Step 1: Understand the Text in Their Town

Question: What did the text mean to the biblical audience?To do this, you actually will need to do some background work before you ever start trying to interpret a passage.Every book of the Bible was written at a specific time, by a specific person, to a specific people, for a specific purpose.This is what we call the historical context of the book and without it, you cannot truly understand what God’s Word says.So before you even begin reading a book of the Bible you need to find out some information.When was it written?

Who was it written to?

Who wrote it and why did they write it in the first place?

What was going on in the world which they lived?The answers to all these questions help give light to what any particular passage in the Bible actually means.Not only do you need to know the historical context of a book, you also need to know the literary context of a book.Is this passage a letter?

Is it prophecy?

Is it poetry or maybe historical narrative?The kind of writing it is will determine how you read that passage.

For example, if you started a Bible in a year plan, you might be coming close to the story of Noah in Genesis.

That passage is historical narrative.

That means it is describing what happened in the past, not necessarily telling you what God wants you to do.Therefore, you shouldn’t leave here today and go buy all the lumber from Lowe’s to build a giant boat before you go to Petsmart to start getting two of each kind of animal.

Genesis was just describing what Noah did.And you definitely shouldn’t get drunk and fall asleep naked in a tent after a long boat ride on the lake.

As historical narrative, Genesis is describing what Noah did, not necessarily what you and I are called to do.If you are reading an epistle on the other hand, those were written to churches to instruct them in their Christian life, and as instruction, when the Bible says love one another, that is exactly what you are called to do.

It is not describing something someone else needs to do.The type of literature a passage is also determines its meaning.Now I can already hear some of you saying, I’m not a scholar and I went to public school.

How in the world am I supposed to find out that kind of information?

Step 2: Measure the Width of the River to Cross

Question: What are the differences between the biblical audience and us?

Step 3: Cross the Principlizing Bridge

Question: What is the theological principle in this text?

Step 4: Consult the Biblical Map

Question: How does our theological principle fit with the rest of the Bible?

Step 5: Apply the Text in Our Town

Questions: How should individual Christians today live out the theological principles?This process is what you see me do every single week as I get up to teach you the Scriptures.

There is nothing special about me or my words.

My only aim is to help you understand what God’s Word says and to hopefully lead our church to be faithful to its message.But I will tell you, I am not a good enough preacher to for the only time you study God’s Word to be what you hear from me.

And even if I were, 1 hour and 15 minutes each week is not enough time in God’s Word for you to grow in Christ and live for his glory.Jesus himself said Matthew 4:4 Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

If you are going to nourish your spiritual life and grow in Christ, you must feed on God’s Word at least as much as you eat physical food to nourish your physical life.You must read God’s Word and read it rightly so that you can build your life on God’s truth so that can be like the blessed man from Psalm 1 whose delight is in God’s Word.

Psalm 1:3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither.