WORD: The Task of Interpretation Session 3

Introduction:

When does communication take place?

Source —> (((Signal))) —> Receptor

Here the intended meaning of Person A (source) is given through both verbal and non-verbal communication to Person B (receptor). Person A encodes a message that must then be decoded by the receptor (Person B). Accurate communication happens when the intended meaning of person A matches the perceived meaning of person B.

Here the intended meaning of Person A (source) is given through both verbal and non-verbal communication to Person B (receptor). Person A encodes a message that must then be decoded by the receptor (Person B). Accurate communication happens when the intended meaning of person A matches the perceived meaning of person B.

The goal of your Bible study is to accurately hear, respond, and communicate God’s Word. Consider what it takes to accurately communicate.

Source (((Signal))) Receptor

Here the intended meaning of Person A (source) is given through both verbal and non-verbal communication to Person B (receptor). Person A encodes a message that must then be decoded by the receptor (Person B). Accurate communication happens when the intended meaning of person A matches the perceived meaning of person B.

We believe that God has accurately communicated with the Biblical authors. He, being God, is able to communicate perfectly so that the receptors (no matter how fallen) are able to accurately understand his intended meaning.

Secondly, when we think about how this relates to the Bible we would say that the Person A is the biblical author and we are the receptors. They communicated the message of God to their original readers. We believe that the author actually has an intended meaning that he intends to get across to us—the receptors. Our task as interpreters and expositors is to accurately understand the intended meaning of the original author. If we extract a meaning out of the text that was not the original intention of the author, then we have not accurately communicated with the biblical authors.

Your Goal for Bible Study Time: The biblical author would say “yes, that’s what I meant”.

Here is your goal for the end of your Bible study time. Imagine that you are studying the gospel of Mark. And imagine that Mark himself is right there with you. At the end of your study time you say, “Here is what these verses mean”. Mark should be able to give you a thumbs up and say, “Yeah, that’s pretty much what I was communicating”. Even in your points of application—they should have an organic relationship to what Mark is saying.

Take our passage from last week as an example. Let’s say you come upon where Jesus tells the disciples to take no bread, no bag, and no money. You’ve got to get some groceries today but you read this in your quiet time this morning. And so you conclude from this that you shouldn’t take any money into the store but instead you should just take the bread and stuff that you need. Just walk right out of the store.

Now what would Mark say to this? He’d say, “That’s silly. That’s not at all what this verse means or how you apply this.”

But let’s say that you are feeling kind of down today. You just feel like you have so many things to do and you feel inadequate for them all. You aren’t sure if the Lord can use you because you just don’t feel like you’ve got what it takes. You feel empty and really dependent upon the Lord. And then you read this in your quiet time and you say, “Wow, I think this text is showing me that what Jesus really “needs” out of me is my utter dependence on him. I’ve got that.” And so you end up encouraged.

Now what if you share this with Mark? What would he say? I think he’d likely say something like—well what I’m really saying here is reporting what Jesus said to his disciples. But I think that is the core of what Jesus is saying to his disciples—so take heart and be encouraged. You’re right just as the early disciples had to learn the lesson of total dependence on Jesus now so do you.

This all means that we want to make certain that what we “hear” in the text is what God originally communicated to the biblical authors. Our task isn’t to see “what I got” from this text. Our goal is to preach God’s Word to our own hearts (or to preach God’s Word to God’s people).

But you see just knowing God’s Word is only half the job. What we are really doing is building a bridge between the people of the Bible and the people of today. Here is how I have explained this for quite a while now.

BIBLICAL BOB AND MODERN MARV

You have the world of Biblical Bob—this is the world of the biblical authors, the biblical audience, etc. And then we have the world of Modern Marv—that is where you and I live. You’ll notice that between these two is a chasm. There are things that separate us from the world of biblical Bob.

What separates us from the world of biblical Bob?

What are some of these?

Language. History. Culture. Idioms. Geography. Background.

So what we are doing in Bible study is attempting to build a bridge over this chasm. Our first task in this is to understand the world of biblical Bob. We don’t take our world into his and try to make him understand us. God chose to reveal Himself in Scripture and He chose to do it in this time. And so we need to do whatever we can to understand the world of biblical Bob.

There are some nuts and bolts practical things to this—but before we jump into this I want us to be encouraged. This is a difficult job but it isn’t impossible. We aren’t alone in this task of biblical interpretation. We believe in the Holy Spirit.

What is illumination?

Osborne quote p144—Plummer.

The Christ-centered Spirit

Last week I mentioned that all of Scripture points to Jesus. Thankfully this is also the chief role of the Holy Spirit. This should also help us by serving as a check on our interpretive conclusions. I like how JI Packer says it:

“The Spirit is, so to speak, the hidden floodlight shining on the Savior…It is as if the Spirit stands behind us, throwing light over our shoulder, onto Jesus, who stands facing us. The Spirit’s message to us is never, ‘Look at Me; listen to Me; come to Me; get to know Me,’ but always, ‘Look at Him, and see His glory; listen to Him, and hear His Word; go to Him, and have His life; get to know Him, and taste His gift of joy and peace.’

This is great news for us. The Spirit is working—and often through the church—to help us understand the Scriptures more and to enliven our hearts understanding of the Lord Jesus. And so let us take heart and be encouraged as we study the Scriptures knowing that God Himself is working to show us Jesus.

Learning the 3AM Test

Tools for Finding the 3AM

Study the background

Scripture interprets Scripture (Consider repetitive learning)

Word studies

Consider the flow of the passage

Understand genre

Consider context

Study in community

The importance of context

The three horizons of biblical context

Textual: What did the biblical author mean within his book?

Epochal: Where is this in redemptive-history?

Canonical: How does tell the story of Christ?

Textual: Don’t boil a young goat in it’s mother’s milk, it inverts the created order

Epochal: God redeemed the Israelites and this God values created order. Image-bearers should reflect this in their community.

Canonical: We like the Israelites invert the created order. That command is there because we do this. Only Christ didn’t. In him creation is restored.

3AM application point: Christ has restored the created order that we’ve inverted.

How do you cross the bridge?

1) Spend a bit of time studying the background

ESV Study Bible

OT or NT Survey Books

Sunday School

Just ask…

2) Scripture interprets Scripture

3) Consider Newton’s method of repetitive learning

4) Context, Context, Context

5) Word studies

Be careful

The key thing is slow down and be humble (we’ll engage in this a bit later)

Resources (commentaries, study Bibles, interlinear, etc.)

6) The importance of community

7) The role of faith and obedience

8) Understand genre

What do I see in ? How did this go into sermon prep?