Sermon Tone Analysis

Why study Biblical Interpretation?

Because Scripture wasn’t written by 21st Century Americans.

Because we are 21st Century Americans.

Because we believe the Bible is God’s Word and we want to understand it and apply it to our lives.

Because when we fail to account for context and culture, bad things happen.

(2 Pet.

3:16)

Biblical Interpretation gone wrong...

Has anyone ever taken your words out of context and twisted them around against you?

Should we stone witches?

Require sexually immoral men to make monetary restitution for their sin?

The Authorship of Scripture

Q: Who wrote the Bible?

God or men?

Yes!

Because God chose to use human authors to compose Scripture, Scripture bears the mark of human:

Language

Scripture wasn’t written in a heavenly language.

God used human languages (Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic) to preserve his Word.

Culture & Worldview

God met people where they were and his laws were frequently culturally contextualized.

Emotions

Scripture was not written by detached, emotionless drones.

There is passion in what was written.

Lament/Anguish

Joy

Anger

Forms/Genres

We intuitively understand our own culture’s genres, but ancient genres from foreign cultures are harder to understand.

See if you can identify the genres from these examples:

“Once upon a time...” Fairy Tale

“Dear John, ...” Personal Letter

“To whom it may concern:” Professional Letter

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth...” Poetry

“On May 7, 1945, the German High Command, in the person of General Alfred Jodl, signs the unconditional surrender of all German forces, East and West, at Reims, in northeastern France.”

History

Genres in Scripture:

Parable

Narrative

Prophecy

Apocalyptic

Letters/Epistles

Law

Wisdom

Just as you and I intuitively understand Modern English genres, ancient Israelites would have intuitively understood the biblical genres.

It just takes some work for us to understand them.

What we bring to the text

Culture--An integrated system of beliefs (about God or reality or ultimate meaning), of values (about what is true, good, beautiful and normative), of customs (how to behave, relate to others, talk, pray, dress, work, play, trade, farm, eat, etc.), and of institutions which express these beliefs, values and customs (government, law courts, temples or churches, family, schools, hospitals, factories, shops, unions, clubs, etc.), which binds a society together and gives it a sense of identity, dignity, security, and continuity.

Sometimes culture can reinforce biblical teaching

In our culture, it’s wrong to steal, kill, or commit adultery

Lying is viewed negatively, even though many people do it

Generosity is a good thing

But many times, culture conflicts with the Bible

Sometimes overtly

Sometimes it does so subtly

Every culture has blinders that put limits on the possible meanings of Scripture.

Here’s a good example of how culture—and even our language—can put limits on our understanding of what Scripture is actually saying.

This example is from a Bible translation project in Cameroon, Africa:

Translator Lee Bramlett was confident that God had left His mark on the Hdi culture somewhere, but though he searched, he could not find it.

Where was the footprint of God in the history or daily life of these Cameroonian people?

What clue had He planted to let the Hdi know who He is and how He wants to relate to them?

Then one night in a dream, God prompted Lee to look again at the Hdi word for love.

Lee and his wife, Tammi, had learned that verbs in Hdi consistently end in one of three vowels.

For almost every verb, they could find forms ending in i, a, and u.

But when it came to the word for love, they could only find i and a.

Why no u?

Lee asked the translation committee, including the most influential leaders in the community, “Could you ‘dvi’ your wife?”

“Yes,” they said.

That would mean that the wife had been loved but the love was gone.

“Could you ‘dva’ your wife?” Lee asked.

“Yes,” they said.

That kind of love depended on the wife’s actions.

She would be loved as long as she remained faithful and cared for her husband well.

“Could you ‘dvu’ your wife?” Lee asked.

Everyone laughed.

“Of course not!” they said.

“If you said that, you would have to keep loving your wife no matter what she did, even if she never got you water, never made you meals.

Even if she committed adultery, you would be compelled to just keep on loving her.

No, we would never say ‘dvu.’

It just doesn’t exist.”

Lee sat quietly for a while, thinking about John 3:16, and then he asked, “Could God ‘dvu’ people?”

There was complete silence for three or four minutes; then tears started to trickle down the weathered faces of these elderly men.

Finally they responded.

God kept loving us over and over, millennia after millennia, while all that time we rejected His great love.

“Do you know what this would mean?” they asked.

“This would mean that God kept loving us over and over, millennia after millennia, while all that time we rejected His great love.

He is compelled to love us, even though we have sinned more than any people.”

One simple vowel, and the meaning was changed from “I love you based on what you do and who you are,” to “I love you based on who I am.

I love you because of Me and not because of you.”

God had encoded the story of His unconditional love right into their language.

God had encoded the story of His unconditional love right into their language.

For centuries, the little word was there—unused but available, grammatically correct and quite understandable.

When the word was finally spoken, it called into question their entire belief system.

If God was like that, and not a mean and scary spirit, did they need the spirits of the ancestors to intercede for them?

Did they need sorcery to relate to the spirits?

Many decided the answer was no, and the number of Christ-followers quickly grew from a few hundred to several thousand.

Someday, the last word of the last bit of Scripture for the last community will be done.