Seven Arrows- Session 3 CHapter 2

Introduction-

Pray-

Thank again-

Hoping this will be profitable for you.

Make sure you have picked up your books if you haven’t got one yet.

Also, please go back and watch the introduction video and the Arrow 1 video if you haven’t watched that.

Just as a reminder last week.

We discussed Arrow Number 1-

Arrow Number One is - What does the passage say?

That question is super important and we talked about the goal of that being to slow ourselves down when we are reading the Bible.

Look for the main idea.

After answering Arrow 1- you should have good idea as to what the passage is saying in general.

A good rule is that you should be able to summarize in your own words what the passage says.

Arrow #2 is going to take a little more work.

The question associated with Arrow #2 is - What did this passage mean to the original audience?

Keep in mind, When we read the Bible, we are at least 2000 years removed from its original context.

And the text was written to a specific group of people, in a specific place and time, for a specific purpose.

One key thing I want you to take from this arrow is this- A passage can never mean what it never meant.

A passage can never mean what it never meant.

What I mean by that is, we must understand what the text meant to them, before we can understand what it means for us.

I’ll just tell you guys. There is a lot of bad preaching out there.

Good preaching in my opinion is preaching that tells you what the passage meant to the people it was originally written to, and then applies the eternal principles to our context and our time period.

We don’t just get to interpret the Bible how we want to interpret it.

The meaning of the text is driven by the context in which it was written.

Let me give you a bad example of interpretation.

Turn with me in your Bible if you have it to Genesis chapter 11.

I heard a story one time of a pastor who was leading his church to build a new building. They were starting a building program, and the pastor wanted to preach a sermon to encourage the people.

So He preached a sermon on Genesis 11:6

I want to read that for you.

Genesis 11:6 NASB95

The Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them.

So the preacher took this passage and preached an encouraging message to the church on building a church building together.

We must be unified together, like the people here were unified.

It says they were one people speaking the same language.

We need unity if we are going to build this church.

We must start the work.

It says they began to do this. We can’t wait. We need to get this building program started.

Nothing will be impossible for us if we are unified and if we just start the work.

Do you see the problem with this yet?

That all sounds great. It fits the context of a church building program very well, but is that what Genesis 11 meant to say. Is Genesis 11 a passage about encouraging people to be unified in a church building program. Is it a passage encouraging people to just start and that nothing will be impossible for them.

No, thats not what Genesis 11 is about at all.

In fact, what happened is that pastor took Genesis 11:6 and he used the Bible to say what he wanted it to say.

So lets take a moment to look at Genesis 11 and find out what it meant to its original audience.

Read with me beginning in verse 1 of chapter 11

Read through verse 9

Explain the passage quickly.

Now just a quick look at this passage shows us that what that pastor said was completely out of line with what the text originally meant.

He took verse 6 as a positive thing when in its context, it was a negative thing.

Yes they were unified, but they were unified in forming and building a tower that would exalt their own name. Read verse 4 again. And God judged them for it. Read verse 6.

in other words this passage is not about a building program. This is about the judgment of God and despicable pride of humanity.

This is why this arrow is so important. We have to understand what the text meant to its original audience, before we can understand what it means for us.

A passage can never mean what it never meant.

Context is the key.

So what we must do when we come to a passage is try and understand what is going on in the context of the passage.

What is the situation at hand?

What is different and similar about their culture and ours?

When was the text written? Who was king? Were they ruling themselves or were they in exile?

In the book, in chapter 2, Dr. Mathis spends a lot time giving you some ideas of tools to use in helping with this.

He mentions cross references, maps, Bible dictionaries, surveys of the Old and New Testaments, and commentaries.

All of these things are helpful.

I think a good resource that every believer should invest in is a good study Bible.

A good Study Bible will have the majority of this information in it.

It will have a summary of the book at the beginning along with the author the date, the situation.

A good study Bible will have maps.

A good study Bible will have good commentary notes.

Three Study Bibles I recommend are the Reformation Study Bible (RC Sproul- Presby Warning)

The Macarthur Study Bible (Dispy Warning)

And the ESV Study Bible. (Best Overall Study Bible)

I use all of those all the time.

But those thing will help you understand what the text meant so that you can understand what it means.

Three important things to remember

A passage can never mean what it never meant. Don’t make a passage say whatever you want it to say.

Context is Key. We have to know what it going on in and around the text to understand it.

Get a good study Bible. If you need one and want me to order one for you, let me know, I’ll do it and you can pay me back, but I want us to be good students of the Word.

Remember those three things.

The first two questions are:

What does the passage say?

What did the passage mean to its original audience?

Next week- We will discuss Arrow Number 3: What does this passage tell us about God?