Hey everybody, this is Pastor John Ewart from Inglewood
Baptist Church in Rocky Mount, NC.
Thank you so much for tuning in to our podcast.
You're going to hear from God today as we share from His Word
about important issues facing your life that can guide you
according to the Bible. So, so glad to see you all here
tonight. For those who are joining and
listening online, we're thankful for that.
I really do want to encourage you.
There are some parallel podcasts that go along with this Engaging
the Bible series. Doctor Aiken is joining me for
one. Doctor Allen Mosley and I are
recording one tomorrow. And how do I study the Old
Testament in the best way I possibly can?
I will be doing a New Testament later.
So some detailed stuff and some of these podcasts.
You'll really enjoy that. It'll dovetail well with what we
talked about in this series as we talked about engaging the
Bible with a a humble and teachable spirit.
But then part of what we want to do this episode and further
lessons in a sense are these are going to tie together.
So for the next few 234 weeks, can't remember it before
probably 4 weeks, they really do build on one another.
So I'm going to show you step by step by step in your personal
Bible study. How do I get the most I can
possibly get out of a personal Bible study?
So each week we're going to take kind of the next step you ought
to take. So we're going to talk about how
do we observe the text tonight? That may sound weird to you, but
it'll make sense in a minute. And then how do I interpret the
text? How do I apply the text?
How would I share that text with somebody else?
So it's going to be kind of a step by step hermeneutic,
comoletic kind of study, but we won't use those words too often.
And so it's going to be very practical.
In fact, tonight we're going to work through some passages of
Scripture as examples to help you say, oh, OK, I see how that
is some of these things you probably already know, some of
these things you might already do, but but I'm sure before the
whole thing is over, there'll be some oh, that's a good idea kind
of moment for you. And I pray that's true because
my, my, our goal is real simple. We want to make disciples.
And one of the key essentials of discipleship is that we're
engaging God's Word. If we're not doing that, then
it's going to be really hard for us to grow like we should.
And that's got to be more than just what you get in your
connect group and just what you get in a worship service or even
what you just get on midweek. You need on a personal time as
well to to really reinforce that and to let God speak to you very
personally and individually. So all those pieces together are
going to make a good healthy diet for you as well.
So Teresa and I went to an all you can eat buffet the other
night, which is not a habit of ours anymore.
It used to be something that I could destroy.
I felt like I just, it was a, it was like a, it was like a
competition event for me in, in previous ages of my life.
Now not so much, but went to an all you can eat buffet the other
night and it was so crowded. You know, you know, it's just
getting beat up and getting beat up and getting beat up just even
trying to get the food. I mean, I'm not kidding you.
I, I didn't fit what I told Teresa as we left is I didn't
fit in that restaurant. And so and so, I mean, I was
sitting, I felt like I was just like this the whole time I was
there trying to get the food off the buffet.
And, and that's not a knock on them.
They were just busy because people like it.
But anyway, and I thought it was funny because they had all these
things to eat and I probably ate three dishes, you know what I'm
saying? So to figure out your diet and
figure out that balanced diet that you need is a big part of
this. I, I am curious, I always have
been curious when snow and ice are coming our way, like when
this is being done tonight. I am fascinated why people buy
bread and milk. I'm fascinated by that.
I, I don't know, you know, there was one, a great meme on online
one time we got sitting in his lawn chair in the backyard
making French toast. I mean, I'm really not sure.
Bread pudding. I mean, I'm not sure what you're
doing. How many loaves of bread can I
eat in a week? So let's dive in.
All right, so you have a listening guide.
You'll also notice that toward the end of your listening guide,
you have some some blanks to write on.
You'll need those later, so just hang in there with me.
Psalm 19 helps us. It says this Psalm 19, seven and
eight says the law of the Lord is perfect.
Reviving the soul, the testimony of the Lord is sure.
Making wise the simple, the precepts of the Lord are right.
Rejoicing the heart, the commandment of the Lord is pure.
Enlightening the eyes. So we see how healthy the Word
of God is for us in a very holistic way.
It touches many aspects of our lives.
The Word of God must be our food.
It must be our definitions. It must be our drive.
And so we recognize how significant the word of God is.
If you haven't listened to any of these things or been here for
the last couple of weeks, been trying to show you kind of how
we got the Bible, how it came together in its current form.
I am assuming at this point for tonight and moving forward in
these lessons that we love the Bible.
We want the Bible. We believe the Bible is the word
of God. I'm not going to, we're not
going to debate about the inspiration revelation part for
the next couple of weeks. I'm assuming we believe that.
But we need to be spiritually prepared to best and to rightly
handle the word of God. And so I've said this before,
I'll say it 100 more times probably before you dive into
the Bible, I would ask God in prayer to, to show, to reveal to
you, to help your heart, your mind to be ready to receive what
he has for you. This is more than a book.
It's the number one best selling book in human history.
That is not going to change. In fact, Bible sales have risen
by over 20% in the last six months in the United States of
America. And so it's been interesting,
there's been a new surge of Bible purchases in these last
few months, but it's interesting to watch because we want to be
receptive to the wisdom and to the guidance of the Holy Spirit
who's going to help us as we walk through some of these
practical steps. This isn't some kind of
mathematical formula. It's a, it's a, a spiritual
positioning, I pray to where you're putting yourself in the
best spot to receive from God what he has for you.
And so by doing A+B does not always equal C necessarily.
It's not that, you know, may not be that automatic.
I can't but, but if we're doing this, we are putting ourselves
in the best position to as a as Augustine said, God will blow
the wind, but we have to raise the sails and so to catch the
Holy Spirit. Jeremiah reminds us in Jeremiah
9. Thus says the Lord, let not the
wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in
his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him
who boasts boast in this that he understands and knows me, that I
am the Lord who pranks the steadfast love, justice and
righteousness in the earth. For in these things our delight
declares the Lord. So we, we.
The ultimate goal, this ultimate goal of salvation, the ultimate
goal of discipleship is so that we can know God, that we have a
relationship with him, an intimacy with him, a knowledge
of him, and he's going to reveal to us those aspects of him and
his will that we're supposed to know.
So a prime way, a primary way of doing that, obviously is by
studying his word. In fact, I, I don't believe we
can reach our, our, our destiny, our, our purpose.
I don't think we can reach our community.
I don't think we're going to become who we're supposed to
become if we, we're not going to be able to touch the life of
anybody else. Well, if we're not walking with
God in this way. So this is an intimate,
continuous walk of true discipleship.
So one of the things that we are teaching here and we believe and
we will continue to repeat redundantly over and over again,
is that one of the greatest essentials of discipleship is to
engage the Bible with this humble and teachable spirit.
So if I don't come with that kind of spirit, and it's
important to just pause for a minute and think about those
descriptors, if I really am not humbling myself before God and I
really don't come with an openness to learn, it's going to
be difficult for me to receive everything I'm supposed to
receive from his word. It's kind of like when I'm
teaching classes sometimes in the past, you know, where I've
had students who, who, who kind of believe they already knew
everything they needed to know and they didn't really need me
to teach them anything. And you know, I'm me.
And so I'm the guy who'll kind of meet with them and say, if
you think you already know everything that I'm supposed to
teach you in this class, then please leave.
Drop the class and go, go bother somebody else.
Frankly, you know, I'm looking for teachable people who want to
learn something, especially in that academic situation.
So God leads us along the way. You know, God saves us.
God also sanctifies us. And this is an important thing.
Before we dive into some of the practicalities here, we've got
to remember that God leads us in our sanctification too.
In fact, First Thessalonians 5 says, now may the God of peace
himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and
soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ. So God is working through US.
God, God has to save us. I can't save myself, and
frankly, I can't grow myself very well either by myself.
I need Him to help me with the sanctification process.
But there's also this partnership of responsibility
that we share in obedience that I'm also responsible to study
and to share the word of God. And we see that throughout
Scripture. There could be a lot of verses,
but just remember what Paul wrote to Timothy last thing he
ever wrote second Timothy and he's writing in second Timothy 2
verse 15. Do your best to present yourself
to God as one approved a worker who has no need to be ashamed,
rightly handling the word of truth.
So we know how to rightly handle the word of God.
We know what to do with it and how to do it.
How do I interpret that properly?
How do I apply that properly? How do I not read things into
the Bible, but I draw things out of the Bible?
How do we actually learn that discipline?
How do we actually do that? And then in verse 2, if you go
back in that chapter, he talks about sharing and he says, and
what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses
in trust to faithful men who will be able to teach other.
So you see this multi generational sharing that we
want to do. So if you ever wonder why I harp
on you about connect groups, why I harp on you about midweek
about 100% participation in the core, it's because we, we're
supposed to not only learn this, but we've got to learn how to
share this with generation after generation after generations.
So Timothy was supposed to take what Paul shared with him, share
it with others. You kind of see, God is primary,
Paul is secondary, Timothy is tertiary and these faithful men
following. And, and the idea is that this
is a cycle that just never, ever stops.
So that's what we want to do. We want to make disciples who
make disciples who make disciples who make disciples,
fruit producing, multiplying disciples that never, ever stop.
So it's a message of this divine revelation.
It's got to be passed on. So how do we do that?
That's what we're going to talk about in these next several
sessions together. How do we rightly handle the
word of truth? Well, step one.
And there are a lot of models, in fact.
In fact, someone came up to me and was asking me about what,
what books I might be using as sources.
I'm going to bring a few next week as it was a great question.
Let me bring a couple of them if you want to know some of these.
A lot of this is an original arrangement.
Obviously, over the years I've read several and have learned
principles and, and have friends who wrote some.
And so let me show you a few of those great books that'd be
helpful if you want to read some.
But the very first thing we're going to talk about is tonight's
primary topic observation. And that may, that may, that may
be less familiar to you in the sense of what does that mean?
How do I properly observe the text?
And, and this is important because the key question here is
what does it say? See, we're not really to what
does it mean yet. We'll talk about that next time.
First, we just need to understand what does it really
say? And this is a very, very
important step and it's often one that's neglected.
There's some assumptions sometimes that's made.
And if we don't observe properly, then we don't have all
the information in an accurate way that we need in order to
interpret properly. So this is a truth and, and,
and, and I hope you'll get into a discipline to where you
recognize this is really true, that the, the more time you
spend in observation, the more accurate your interpretation
will be. And part of the problem with
misinterpretation or taking verses out of context or these
things is that they're not spending enough time in these,
this very practical initial step.
And so you just got to think about it for a minute.
We got to develop a strategy that forces us to look very
closely and honestly at the verses that you're reading and
studying, right. And so this remember, and we've
talked about this over the last couple of sessions together.
Each book of the Bible is written, you know, over 2000
years ago or a lot more, some of them and one or more non-english
languages to address specific situations and often to answer
specific questions. And, and we don't have the
original authors standing right here.
And we don't have the original recipients standing right here
to tell us exactly how they saw all that and heard all that.
We don't have the Colossians standing right here.
We don't have the Galatians standing right here.
We don't have the Old Testament Hebrew people standing right
here. I don't.
And so it, it, there's, there's a matter of trying to sort
through that. So the Holy Spirit has to help
us. And so we depend completely on
the Holy Spirit to be honest with you, but we also depend
upon Him to help us implement some of these best practices.
And So what we're going to talk about, what are the best
practices I could use for my personal Bible study?
Now, let me just stop right there for a minute and make a
statement that I think will be true.
If you do everything that I'm going to describe over these
next few sessions together, you're going to realize your
Bible study probably needs to be longer than it is.
It, you know this. I'm not talking about taking
that little devotional book and reading one verse at the top of
that devotional book, reading whatever the devotional says.
And there's my personal Bible study for the day.
Now, if that's all you can do and that's all you have time to
do, please do that. It's better than and and it's
far better than nothing. That's not even that's that's
kind of almost a crude way to even describe it.
It's far more than nothing. But if you want to get really
serious and diving into the word, then then this takes a
minute. But as you, you practice the
disciplines that we're going to have these best practices that
we talked about, you're also going to get faster.
You'll be faster at it. They'll it'll become reflex to
where I'm not necessarily spending up, you know, a lot of
time on each step because it's becomes much more natural to
you. But in the beginning this might
seem awkward. So just recognize that.
Don't give up because the enemy will say give up.
You don't have time for this. Satan does not want you to
listen to me right now. Satan does not want you to pay
attention to these next lessons. Satan does not want you to
implement these best practices. Satan does not want you to
become a better student of the Bible because the word of God
defeats him. That's how Jesus.
Think about when Jesus was tempted in the wilderness and
Satan says, look, you can have everything.
You can do this, you can be that, you can whatever.
And Jesus said, here's what God said, here's what God said,
here's what God said. In fact, when when Eve got
twisted, it's because she twisted what God said and
misinterpreted it. And so are a lot of our strength
comes from right here and a lot of the failure of discipleship
rests right here. You know, I have people who come
to me and they'll talk about how they wish their life was better.
They need to recommit their life and or they need to confess sin
or whatever. And I'll talk to them.
Let's talk about your personal spiritual disciplines.
And they admit I'm really not reading my Bible very much.
I'm really not studying my Bible.
I'm really not spending. Well, here's here's the
theological term for that. Duh.
I mean, it's, it's not that complicated, but Satan, Satan
will complicate it. So here we go.
So, so depend upon the Holy Spirit not only to, to help you
understand it, but also to help you have the discipline to work
through these things. Yogi Berra, those of you who are
a certain age have no idea who that is.
That is not the cartoon character bear.
That is not a cartoon character bear.
Yogi Berra was a baseball player, but he, he was known for
his twisting of the English language and he, he simply said,
you can see a lot just by looking.
And so we're going to, we're going to look at some things.
So here's what I want us to do. I want you, you have a list of a
few passages right there on your sheet, right?
And you can choose one or if you don't want to do one of these
and you're currently like some of you are in a, you're having a
personal Bible study. Maybe you're in the book of
James right now. Well, then use your passage.
Use what you're in, in your personal life, but I want you to
select one of these passages. Now, you can do this alone
tonight in this session, or if you'd like to get with two or
three other people and talk through this together, that's up
to you. I'm not going to force that on
you, but some of you might want to do that.
And in a moment you can make that decision.
But I these are just examples. These are just samples.
Now. These are samples of different
kind of scripture. So you have gospel narrative in
John 4, you have Pauline doctrinal type teaching in
Colossians. You have a Psalm or wisdom or
poetry literature in a very familiar passage in Psalm 23.
And then you have Old Testament teaching in Deuteronomy chapter
6. You have the Shema passage.
And so just I need you to be in an example of Scripture.
So I actually need you to open your Bibles or turn on your
screens and actually get to one of these so that you can apply
what we're getting ready to walk through.
OK, It won't it won't go as well if you're not actually looking
at a passage of Scripture. And I'm going to call for some
answers along the way as well. So again, if you want to do this
a group, you can do that. If you want to do it by
yourself, I should just force you all to get in groups.
So let's walk through a few of these steps together and
understand what it is that we're trying to talk about #1 is as
obvious, but don't take it for granted #1 is.
You'd need to read the entire passage.
So in other words, read the entire passage.
Read the whole chapter. You might have to read a whole
book sometimes to understand a passage.
Sometimes you have to understand even how a book fits into the
whole Bible. Next session, we're going to
talk a whole lot about context and why context is incredibly
important when it comes to interpreting scripture.
You'll misinterpret scripture many times if you don't
understand the context. But right here you're trying to
understand what the actual passage is.
And I know some of you know, every time I step back here,
Justin, it's interesting in it. And so we're trying to figure
out a dead spot. It's probably, you know,
something up here, reflecting the waves.
I mean, after all, I did lick a metal pole today.
So too much, too much iron in my blood.
So those of you who are listening to this later down the
road, you'll say, what is he talking about?
But but one of the things that's really important that we got to
understand is, and I know you should know this, you probably
know this, but it's it's time to remember it.
The numbers were added later. So those verse numbers and those
chapter numbers are not inspired, they are not
infallible, and they are not inerrant.
They were added much later by Christian believers, mainly
monks. In fact, there's a joke about
the one who did It was a monk riding on a horse and every time
the horse stumbled, it was a chapter, and every time he went
he did. It was a verse.
Now, that's not true, but sometimes the numbers aren't
right. Sometimes the end of a chapter
is not the end of the passage. And I could show you that often.
In fact, I've preached that here before when I preached out of
Matthew, Chapter 9 and 10. Chapter 9 does not end that
passage. You got to go on to chapter 10.
It's all the it's a continuation of the same story.
And so be careful when you're reading that you're actually
getting the context. I've mentioned to you last time
that sometimes in my personal study, I use some of those
subheadings to help me divide up passages of Scripture.
It's a good guideline, but sometimes those are not right.
And So what is the actual passage that I need to study do?
And, and it's often helpful to read beyond what you're going to
actually study. I'm going to read this whole
chapter, then I'm going to go back and I'm really try to
dissect these verses at the beginning of the chapter or
something like that. But so read the whole thing and,
and, and I don't know, I, I don't have a better way to teach
you than to suggest that you're making notes along the way.
And so as you read the text, you're writing down
observations. I do a lot of journaling.
I'm, I can't force that on anybody.
It's, it's not for everybody, but I, I, I would find it hard
to not keep track of things if I'm not making notes.
So write down your observations about the passage of Scripture.
So you want to note and list the details, the relationships that
you think you're going to need to go back and look at further.
So you're just reading the text now the next step gets a lot
more detailed. So secondly, you want to focus
your reading and your observations on the six basic
questions. Rudger, Rudger Kipling say his
name once wrote, I have 6. I have 6 honest serving men who
they taught me all I knew. Another version says, they're
always with me and their names are what and why and when and
how and where and who, right? And so this is where we're going
to slow down for a few minutes because when you go to your
sample passage that I told you to pick one of those that, that
you see there, who, who's the author?
Who wrote this, right? And to whom is he writing?
And again, I'm going to list all, list all the people
involved, list anything that strikes you about them.
Who is this? Who wrote this passage and to
whom is he writing? Now, sometimes that's not going
to be obvious from reading the passage.
This is where study Bibles and other helps come in handy to
where you can look at the background of a book to read.
A lot of your study Bibles will have a book intro at the
beginning of the book. And so this is who this who we
think wrote this and and who to whom he was writing.
But this can be a big deal when somebody's writing to the
Laodiceans about being hot or cold, and you go to Laodicea and
see Laodicea, it makes a whole lot more sense to you.
And I'll come back to Laodicea in a minute.
I'm going to pick on Laodicea more often than not tonight.
And so who wrote the Gospel of John?
And you can say, well, John, all right, well, who is that?
Who is that? John, Right.
What might have been more interesting if I'd have given
you the Gospel of Mark. Who wrote the Gospel of Mark?
Well, I know Mark, but who's who's Mark?
Anybody know? Anybody remember?
Who's Mark? John.
Mark. What'd John Mark do?
What's he known for in the book of Acts?
Yeah. Abandoning the mission, causing
a fight between Barnabas and Paul.
But later on, when you continue to read about it, you'll see
Paul commends him and Paul actually recommends him for
ministry. Now, tradition would say that
John Mark's writing the account of Peter, Mark shorter than the
other gospels. Many believe it's earlier than
the other gospels, so that it might have been a help to the
other gospel writers. They may have already had that
when they're writing the other gospel.
But to think about who this is. But sometimes it's to whom
they're writing that really becomes important.
So I'm trying to use passages that aren't yours.
So I'm making you work on your own.
But, but for example, Paul writes 2 letters, really writes
3 letters at least to the we have two in the Bible.
He mentions another one. So who are these people?
Who are the Corinthians, right? And, and, and why is he writing
to them? These are these questions.
All these questions are going to be thrown together.
So who is this? Then you go to win.
When did the events in the text take place?
This is where a lot of, to be honest with you,
misinterpretation comes in. When did they occur in relation
to other events in scripture and history?
When was the writer writing? So at what point in history are
they writing? When are they writing?
And that that's going to help you frame some of the context.
So again, I might have to go to my study Bible or, or go online.
Listen, you, you can go and search online for any Bible book
introduction you want. And, and I would read a couple
of them online to make sure that they're consistent with each
other because I don't know if you know this or not.
And not everything online is accurate.
I don't know if you know that y'all sitting down.
Not everything on the interwebs is true.
I don't know if you know that or not.
So, but but when is this? Who is this?
And then where becomes a big deal.
Where is this? All right, so let me pick on
Laodicea again for a minute. Laodicea is in Turkey.
You go to Turkey and you go to Laodicea.
One of the one of the most interesting things about
Laodicea is you, you see it long before you're there.
There's a White Mountain in Laodicea.
It's a it's a, it's a mountain where Warm Springs are dropping
mineral deposits down this entire hillside.
In fact, tourists come from all around the world to bathe, soak,
splash around in the mineral pools of Laodicea and it's hot
water, it's Hot Springs coming out of the top of that mountain.
What the bottom of that mountain is a cold lake.
And so you are neither hot nor cold if you're a Laodicean has a
whole contextual meaning for you.
You he's, he could have been pointing to the mountain in a
sense, everybody who lived there would have known about that
mountain. Everybody who was there would
have known of those springs. Everybody there would have
easily understood what he's talking about.
This is a real example. I'm neither at the top or the
bottom. I'm sliding in between right And
so where is this? Where did this take place?
What are the characteristics of the geographic setting?
This can be a big deal. Some of the countryside that
they went through was very hard and dangerous and rough.
And you wonder how you know how persevering to get there.
You you, you walk through a narrative like Acts or the
Gospels and they walked from one place to the other and it just
seems like a verse or half a verse where they went from one
place to the other. Well, you'd have been exhausted
if you made that journey. Some of those places were very
dangerous, depending upon when it was.
Was that during the Roman time? Was that pre Roman time?
Listen, 100 years, but but you know, before the Romans took
over the roadways of the Mediterranean were incredibly
dangerous, full of full of thieves and robbers and and
pirates on the seas and roam for all it's horror also stabilized
the Mediterranean world in a way.
So this is where a study map your Bible's got them in the
back. And often we don't pay a lot of
attention to them, I don't think anymore.
But where was that? Look up those places, search out
those places. Information will come alive when
you do that. And then where are the
recipients? Not only is where is this being
written as Paul in prison when he's writing it, that changes
everything. If I realize that Paul's chained
to a guard while he's writing this letter, it changes the
whole tone of everything. And then who's he writing to
when he writes the book of Romans, which is what I'm going
to preach after Nehemiah and I'll be done with Nehemiah one
day. But you all need Nehemiah.
Trust me, you need Nehemiah. I'm going to preach through the
whole book of Romans. Going to take about 14 years
now. It's not going to be that bad.
It takes a minute, but anyway, but you think about that, Paul
wrote to the church at Rome. That's a huge thing.
Paul didn't start the church at Rome.
He didn't plant that church. And so he's acknowledging the
existing body of Christ, the existing body of Christ in the
capital of the world, and writing to them and encouraging
them and challenging them, even though he didn't start the
church. That, that, that that has a lot
to do with how he wrote it and what he wrote.
All right. So how then, how are things
accomplished? How well, by what method, right?
What's going on? How's it happening?
And then why, why does a particular person do or say
something? And we recognize the inspiration
of the Holy Spirit. We're not discounting any of
that. But in the context of what he's
saying, why are they talking about that?
When you read anything by John, whether it's his gospel or his
epistles, he's fighting Gnosticism.
He's fighting false teaching every step of the way because
it's already apparent by the time he's writing, and he has to
fight this false teaching. When you read first, second and
Third John, that's the major theme of first, second and third
John, a heresy called Gnosticism and this false teaching and
these false teachers that he's trying to protect the church
from, right? And so why is a person writing?
And then what's happening? What's actually happening, in
what order, What ideas are being presented?
So what's actually taking place in the passage?
Now, here's what I want you to do.
I'm going to give you a couple of moments.
Those of you listening online, you'll have a couple of moments
where it's going to seem quiet. You'll hear my heavy breathing
because I licked the flagpole earlier today and probably have
a disease now. But I want you to take a minute
and pick one of those passages or the passage that you studied
this morning in your personal quiet time or something.
And I want you to just think about these six questions.
Now. Listen and I, and you'll see
this on your sheet later and you'll see me hear me say this
later. Not all six questions apply as
easily to certain kinds of passages as others.
Certain kinds of literature, certain kinds of writing are
easier than others. You get into a narrative.
These are a lot easier. Who, what, when, where, and how
are you know, it makes more sense when you're in a gospel or
book of Acts or history book or something like that in the Old
Testament. Sometimes it's harder if you're
in a Psalm, you know, or, or if you're an appalling doctrinal
teaching. But I want you to take one of
those passages. I want you to just think through
one or two of these questions and and I'm going to ask it's
going to be quiz in a minute. It'd be open book.
You'll be OK, but it's it's it's 50% of your grade.
So just do your best. So take a couple minutes.
Seriously answer a few of these questions with a passage of
scripture. You want to do that with
somebody else to do it. If you want to do it all by
yourself, that's fine. Those of you listening to this
online later, take your Bible and look at either John 4,
Colossians 3, Psalm 23, Deuteronomy 6, or a passage that
might be a part of your normal quiet time schedule.
Just take a moment. I'm going to give you like one
more minute. I know it's not enough just to
answer a couple of those questions, get some feedback
from you. I also hope that you would
notice that if you're teaching the Bible to someone that the
same, these same practices can be used in a group.
Some of you, I'm sure, are doing that as connect group leaders,
Bible study leaders, some of the deductive inductive studies you
might be a part of. Who's got a who?
Anybody got a who? You got to speak loudly.
Raise your hand if you got a who, what?
What book are you in? Deuteronomy.
So who wrote Deuteronomy? Moses, right.
To whom was he writing Deuteronomy?
Yeah. The Hebrews, the Israelites.
You know, this is a very Jewish passage.
In fact, Deuteronomy 6 is one of the most Jewish passages you're
ever going to come across. A Jewish male would say this
prayer every day. And so this is a very, very
thing. So when somebody give me a win,
maybe not Deuteronomy 6, somebody else got.
Anybody else got a win? Looking for a win, Got a little
win. Win.
Yes. Uh huh.
That's great. So you're actually an Exodus.
That's interesting. So you're talking about the
timing of the plagues and timing of the whole experience, the
Exodus itself. Yeah.
So when it happens, when it fits in, that's great.
Anybody else got a win? A win, a win?
I'm from Oklahoma. It's that win.
It's WINWHENI don't know if there's is there a difference
between those two words? When you know where I'm from, a
pitcher is, is something you hang on a wall, is something you
draw, is a guy who throws a ball and it's something you pour
water out of. They're all pitchers.
That's no joke. I don't know why you all waste
time spelling things differently.
Who's that Webster guy anyway? Who gave him the authority to
decide all that? Who's got a when?
Any other wins? Say it again.
Yeah, that's good because you're looking that up.
That's good. And you can do that.
Or maybe you had it. You might have had a chance.
You may have that memorized because she studies.
So. So what about a where?
Where, where, where is this happening?
Where? Where's somebody writing from?
Where's somebody writing to where?
Who's got to where? Colossians.
Yep. Paul and Tim 3 in prison.
You got a group of people who are in the middle of paganism.
I mean, if you go through all, most of Paul's letters,
Ephesians, Colossians, Corinthians, these folks are in
the middle of rank paganism all around temple after temple after
temple after temple after temple.
And they're, they're coming out of that background, many of
them. And so Christianity is a radical
departure of the, of their entire existence before that.
So you got a who and a win. They're tied together, right?
Anybody got a how or a why or a what?
One of those last three? Give me a how or a why or a
what. Yep, Yep.
So Paul's writing them to unite them and to correct them.
That's a that's a good combination.
That's a good description of that because they they're under
such attack. The early church was under such
massive attack from day was 0 that their unity, their
correction, their doctrinal sense, everything had to be so
carefully managed and and directed, so easy.
Heresies came from day one. Anybody else?
Yeah. Moses is telling them what
commands to fall. I mean, if you're in Deuteronomy
6, you got to think about the the overall lesson of this whole
thing is teaching. Your entire life.
Your entire life is teaching. Whether I'm at home or I'm
walking or everywhere I'm going, I'm teaching, I'm sharing, I'm
focusing upon the word of God and and a powerful passage.
Anybody else got any one of those from their passage?
Will that power be looking towards Christ right.
You have to keep your out of Labor just teaching them
to keep that focus. Yeah, that's good.
So in Colossians 3, that focus upon Christ all the time.
You got to take the focus off of where you are the earthly and
the and the the past, frankly, because the whole context
Colossians 3 can't exist without the previous passages.
And so you got to read understand Colossians 3.
You got to read before Colossians 3 because Paul's
describing this new life in Christ.
Here's what this looks like. And here's some things you have
to have to do so that so make sure you're reading the whole
passage. And again, next week we're going
to re emphasize this. Now I want to spend a little
time on this next week. This is really good important,
especially for a guy like me who likes who likes original
language. So after you're asking these
questions, you got to note key terms, and this is a big deal.
For example, the word believe occurs 79 times in the Gospel of
John. It's critical to understanding
the whole purpose of the Gospel of John.
And the word believe is a verb form.
It's pisto. It's the verb form of the noun
for faith. So whenever you see the word
believe in the New Testament, I wish we would just say faith,
make faith a verb. You're faith in something
because that's what it really means.
It's it's literally the noun or the verb form of the same word
that means faith. See Greek does that and changes
stuff like that. And so 79 times he's saying
you've got to faith this, you got to faith this.
It's critical to understanding his gospel message because he's
you imagine when you read the Gospel of John, it's different
than the other Gospels, much more theologically driven, much
more crystal logically. You know, driven in the
beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word
was God. So it's very much driven about
Christ and who he really is and how we have to believe in him.
And so at the end of the gospel, he talks about how those who
believe in the name of the Son of God, This is why I've written
these things. This is why all these things are
written in this gospel. Many other things that weren't
written that he did too. But the reason, the ones that
were written in this gospel, so that you might believe that he
is the Son of God, it's crucial. So as you read your passage, and
you might think this is going to take an hour and a half, well,
great, it won't. But what's wrong with that?
But it won't, I know you say I don't have an hour and a half.
I understand you'll, you'll understand how to get this down
to a time frame that makes sense for you.
But what are the key terms? Observe the words that are
actually used in your English translation.
So you, you and, and I'll talk a little bit more about this next
time too. But you got to understand in
biblical language, this is really true in the Old
Testament. Hebrew depends upon this, but
it's also true in Greek that when a word is repeated, that
means there's emphasis there. So if, if the author actually
repeats a word in, in that language system as emphasis,
it's like exclamation points. Pay attention to what I'm about
to say to you. And so we're looking for those
words that seem to be the most important to, for understanding
the passage, right. And so any repetition of a term
or a phrase or a clause is really this clue.
This is what they ought. This is a main point or I
wouldn't say that again. Rejoice always.
And again I say, yeah, why? Because you need to rejoice.
And you got to think about who he's writing.
See. And so we've got to understand
that these, you know, note these key terms.
So as you're walking through this, I'm reading the passage,
I'm trying to note a few of these things.
All this gets mixed up. You're not necessarily doing
this step one, Step 2, Step 3. But as I'm answering these
questions, thinking through these questions might need my
study, but I don't know what that is.
What when was that? I mean, for example, and, and
I'll talk to, I'm going to talk to Alan Mosley about this
tomorrow in the podcast. How in the world do you keep up
with the Old Testament prophets? You know, because our English
Bible doesn't write, doesn't present them in chronological
fashion. So when you get to the minor
prophets, the reason they're in the order that they're in, in
their Old Testament is just length.
So you got the longest to the shortest.
That's how they're arranged, which I never thought was a good
idea. You can actually buy a
chronological Bible, but it's not very common, not very often.
We done, but you, so you got to figure out, so when was Malachi,
when was Zephaniah, when was Jonah, when was, you know,
Zechariah, when was Haggai? And you've heard me talk about
with Nehemiah, the association of Ezra, Haggai and Zechariah to
the Nehemiah story. But you, you got to look that
up. And so to recognize.
And so when you're reading through and you recognize, oh,
well, that then that means that's probably tied to this
over here. See, now you're getting that
context piece again, because if I just read them independently,
I may not ever really understand the full meaning of the passage.
And here's something that we're going to learn next week.
A passage cannot mean what it never meant.
And so we often our, our greatest sin of
misinterpretation, which I'm not going to get ahead of myself, is
that we apply everything to me today and we don't pay any
attention to what it has meant throughout the ages.
And sometimes that'll change what it means for you today.
And so we, we need to be careful that we're honest about the way
we approach Scripture. So noticing these words is a
big, big deal. So if you turn to the 23rd Psalm
or quote it for me, right? What's the opening line of the
23rd Psalm? Somebody say it out loud.
Keep going, OK, Just stop. The Lord is my shepherd.
I shall not want. What are what are the most
important words there Lord give me another one shepherd or it's
another one want try or not want right and to begin to diagram in
your head. I'm not you know I'm not you
know I mean missus McIntosh would make me do it on paper in
8th grade. But but but but in my mind to
understand this is the most important part of this.
This is the emphasis that's being placed here because
sometimes I've I'm going to be nice.
I'll be nice. No, I'm never nice.
All right, So I've been in small group studies, sometimes sitting
in the back of the room, right. I'm in between some place in my
old life our at our home church. I'll be honest with you, if I
wasn't doing an interim or I was the, the one week out of six
months I was home or something, and I'd actually, I'd go to Ken
Coley Sunday School class, right?
And I'd sit in the back of the back row in the corner of Ken
Coley Sunday School. And I did that simply because I
used to be the interim pastor of this church.
And every time Doctor Ewart walks in a room, sometimes it's
like I, you know, I have no intentions of being up there
answering all the questions, talking all the time and
dominating the room, right? I just want to sit back there,
let you all have a good study. I'm there for support because I
believe in small groups. I'm going to attend small groups
no matter what, right? And I sit back there and
sometimes I go crazy. Teresa, I'll tell you, I go
crazy because I'm listening to people self interpret the Bible
for themselves and it becomes kind of group therapy rather
than Bible interpretation. I'll leave that alone.
Let's be honest about what the Bible really says.
All right, so #4 then, and this gets a little technical, so bear
with me for a minute, but we need to identify the structure.
So this really does help us understand a passage.
What's the structural relationship or patterns?
For example, is there comparison and contrast going on?
So in Colossians 3, what are you doing?
You are taking what off and putting on.
So you have this contrast in the Beatitudes, what you've heard it
said blank, and I'm telling you blank.
You have compare and contrast and and that's a very common way
of teaching and speaking in biblical literature.
Some of that's cultural, some of that's time frame.
It's a way way the rabbi's would teach.
So you're going to compare something.
The Kingdom of heaven is like you'll have some kind of
comparison and contrast right going on.
And so is that what's going on? Do you have repetition, not just
the word, but an idea? Well, he says that again.
And sometimes, especially in some of the poetic literature of
the Old Testament, you have a lot of redundancy and you have a
lot of repetition. Don't miss that.
Don't get bored with that saying.
That's a point. That's a big point.
He's trying to make a point. He's trying to drive it home
when he says that. Or the idea of proportion is
that, what does that mean? That's how many verses did they
take to tell you something. The more verses, the more words
they had to use to tell you something.
Odds are this was important. You pay attention to proportion,
you know, So you got to understand that when you're, for
example, Paul, Paul's notorious for this.
When you begin reading some of Paul's letters, he might go 5
verses before there's a period and, and you'll notice that
sometimes it's comma, comma, comma, comma, comma, comma it,
you know, and, and when you're translating Paul, it's sometimes
it gets that way to where the sentence just goes on forever
and ever and ever. Well, that's because he's, he's
trying to finish a point and he's trying to get it home to
you. And so this literary structure
can actually make sense. Howard Hendricks, who's one of
the guys who's written a very well known classic book on Bible
study and interpretation called Living by the Book, he says
there are at least five different kinds of literary
structure in the Bible. So you have biological structure
where it focuses on people. Genesis is like this to a large
degree. Genesis is following the stories
of Adam and Eve. You get Cain and Abel.
Eventually you'll get to know and you get to the patriarchs.
So you're kind of following one character after another
character after another
character. Now the main character is God
and his plan. But but the stories that are
being told are very people oriented, right?
And so when, if that's the case, or if I'm going to study kings
or Samuel in the Old Testament, I better know who Samuel is.
I better know who David is. I better know who Saul is, you
know, and I better have some understanding of these people
and where they're from and when they are.
And then you start getting into the sons of David or Solomon,
and it gets really confusing. You get divided kingdoms and
this king and that king and who's from Judah, who's from
Israel. Again, very confusing, right?
So you have biological structures, but you can also
have geographical structure. It's focused on a place.
So it's very much writing about a location or a place,
historical structure where they focus on key events,
chronological structure that focuses on time or ideological
structure that focuses on key ideas and concepts.
And some of these will mix up. And, and I'm not saying every
single time you open your Bible, every single morning, I'm
listening to go, what kind of literary structure is this?
But I am saying to have an awareness as you begin this
process, this is step one. Remember, this is not step last.
We're on step one. We've got interpretation coming
up, We've got application coming up, which is what you all will
really be interested in. But I need, but I need this step
to help set the stage for good interpretation.
So the more I'm thinking through it and, and, and some of them
are going to be easier to say, I don't, you know, but sometimes I
go, gosh, that doesn't make sense.
But if I begin to ask, well, what is this or what is this,
then sometimes it would come to light as the Holy Spirit helps
me and I study and I research the passage, right.
And then in a very similar way, you'll have different literary
forms. And so you have narrative
history sometimes is also called that.
So what, what are narrative books?
What are if I say if I like, I like preaching out of narrative.
I always have. I like stories And so I like
preaching out of narrative. Doesn't mean that's the only
thing I'm ever going to preach out of, but I just enjoy it.
What is that? What's narrative?
What's an what's an example of a narrative passage or a narrative
book? Huh.
Esther, that was good. I was Old Testament.
I wouldn't expect to know. Testament is good.
Esther. Ruth, what about New Testament?
What's a narrative? Gospels.
That's interesting. Book of Acts, really the primary
ones. Yeah.
So you think about these stories, Jonah in different
stories, these narrative books, and then you think about what
would be poetry, sometimes called wisdom literature,
sometimes called poetry. What what are the common ones?
Psalms and Proverbs, Song of Solomon.
Yeah, usually. And what Ecclesiastes.
Yeah, sometimes I'll preach through Ecclesiastes hard book
sometimes to grab a hold of. And what the hall, the meanings
that the the big meaning of Ecclesiastes is easy.
Walking through the individual verses and passages of
Ecclesiastes, not so easy if you don't understand who it is and
what he's doing. Who's writing Ecclesiastes?
Yeah, it's King Solomon. You got to always remember that.
Every single verse. This is Solomon's perspective.
It won't make sense. It's if it doesn't make sense,
if it's a common person's perspective.
Sometimes this is the king of all kings who has every single
thing in the whole world 400 times over, and he's moaning
about life. And you just got to always
remember that, you know? You always got to remember that.
All right. Another type of literature would
be doctrinal. What are the primary examples of
doctrine? Yeah.
Romans, Pauline, epistles as a whole, usually, you know, and
then any in the Old Testament say that again.
Leviticus. Yeah.
I'd say I'd be there. Parts of Deuteronomy, Leviticus,
the law. Yeah, yeah, that's right.
And to think about. So when I'm reading like I, you
know, one time I took a yeah, I'll share it.
So. So I took a bunch of inner city
Dallas kids to Glorieta one time, which is a Baptist camp in
New Mexico. You either know that you don't,
didn't matter. So we're out in New Mexico.
They'd never been to camp in their life.
They destroy a cabin. I'm banned from Glorieta for a
year. That's no joke.
And so after the kids had destroyed the cabin at
Glorietta, these were urban kids who'd never been anywhere and
didn't know how to behave. Half of them are lost.
And so they literally destroy a cabin.
And so I so punishment that afternoon was an afternoon verse
by verse study of Leviticus. I sat down with those boys for
four hours going verse by verse by verse.
Should have done Lamentations. Should have done Lamentations.
Interesting, isn't it? And yet important.
Why would it be important to study Leviticus?
Boring rule after rule after rule?
But why was that so important to be thankful we don't have to do
it. That's good.
But what else?
Contextually? Got to understand what they're
going through it. We got to understand the law.
We need to understand what was expected of them and why, why
Leviticus is an important question.
Why did you have all these rules?
Why were you done that? You know, and, and a lot of it
was to protect them. They didn't always see it that
way. And of course, the rabbi's come
along later and add to it and mess it all up at times.
But, but these are just examples.
And again, I'm not suggesting that every time you open your
Bible, you're going to process through every single one of
these steps. But these are steps I want you
to be aware of because they'll help you get to the meaning,
which we talk about next time, because you're not going to see
things in poetry necessarily that you would see in history
passages. So some of the six questions
just aren't going to apply. They're not going to work the
same way, you know, and, and so, but to think still about who,
who was that song written for in the Psalms?
This summer, we're going to spend some time in some worship
conversations. We're going to talk about the
Psalms a little bit. These are the original praise
courses. And so who is that praise course
written to and why? And some of them are a lot
easier to identify. Psalm 51 is easy to identify.
Psalm 51 is a is a a prayer of confession by David after he
sins with Bathsheba. And so, you know, you can see
certain, but sometimes the Psalms, just like, you know,
you'll see the for the choir master, you know, or such and
such. It's like, who's that?
You know, what's that for? And so these six questions may
not all work as well on some, but these various methods of
observation are going to help you.
And you might sit there and say, well, I, I didn't, I didn't get
much out of that. Well, you need to read, you need
to study because you need to prepare yourself because I'm
telling you, the more time that you spend in this step, the
better your interpretation is going to be.
I can, I can almost the next week, I'll give some examples.
I can almost, oh not always, but I can almost always go back when
I know that somebody, even denominations who have
misinterpreted scripture and created doctrines that we would
not agree with. One of the reasons is they're
not doing their homework. They're not.
They're not going beyond a an inch deep level in trying to
understand what the Word of God really is and to recognize the
supernatural, mystical, wonderful, spiritual part of the
Word of God. This is more than a book.
This is more than a record of events.
This is more than record of people.
And this is a Holy Spirit inspired and He's going to help
you understand it. But the more I can put myself in
the right place to be able to ask Him the right questions and
to research what He is in, what He has helped other people to
write for me and study Bibles and commentaries and resources
for me to say, oh, that that's what that means.
See. And so these questions will be
helpful. But in the end, we're still
dependent. Now, next week when we get to
interpretation, we're going to talk about the massive
difference between isagesis and exegesis.
And, and I'm telling you, it's a sin in the American church.
I, I said Jesus is a sin that I see in Baptist churches all the
time where I'm reading into scripture what I wanted to say,
rather than honestly drilling down and taking out of Scripture
what it actually says because people are all the time.
We live in an individualistic, autonomous culture where it's
all about me. And so I'm I'm even going to
make scripture about me. Right, I'm going to make it all
about what I wanted to be about what I my agenda and my and and
what I want my blessing to be. It's almost a name it and claim
it prosperity gospel Bible study when I really need to just be
honest laid bare before the word of God.
What does this actually say? Which often times does not agree
with what I want or what I wish or what I claim.
And so it's going to be really important for us to be honest
about it. Psalm 119 verse 18 thought was a
perfect verse for tonight. Open my eyes.
I mean, this is a prayer to God. You know the Psalm 119 if you
don't know Psalm 119 long Psalm read it sometime all about the
word of God. But Psalm 119, open my eyes that
I may behold wondrous things out of your wall.
So you might sit there and think, I don't want to study the
law, I don't want to study Leviticus.
I don't hear about all these rules.
And yet you can see him singing. Show me the wondrous things
about your law. This is why you created this for
us. You're putting a hedge of
protection around us. You're you're helping to drive
us to show us. We're supposed to be examples.
This is the whole Old Testament. The Hebrews were supposed to be
examples. They were supposed to be
testimonies. This is what it means for a man
to walk with Yahweh. This is what it looks like for
humanity to dwell with Jehovah. And they were to be the light to
the Gentiles. They were to be a testimony to
the world. I wrote a chapter for a book
that Lifeway sells on Old Testament prayers where I wrote
out of first Kings about Solomon's prayer of dedication
of the temple and part of his prayers that the the foreigners
would come and see this and experience this and and God.
And he even says God hear their prayers when they pray to you,
which was it would be. It would be crazy for a lot of
Hebrew thought who wanted to isolate and insulate and
separate and that's all. But at the same time, they were
to build a hedge of protection of doctrine and lifestyle and
morality and ethic based upon the word of God.
Nothing's changed. Nothing's changed Today.
We are supposed to be testimonies.
We are supposed to be This is what it looks like for man and
woman to walk with Yahweh. This, this church, this is.
This is what it's supposed to look like for humanity to dwell
with Jehovah, to abide in Christ, and for Christ to abide
in them so that they can bear much fruit.
Look at the fruit. Look at what's being borne out.
Why? Because we're people of the
Word. We're letting it define us.
I don't get to self define myself.
I don't get to self define my truth.
I don't get to be true to myself.
You make any sense? I'm an idiot.
I don't want to be true to that. I licked A flagpole today.
I need to be true and abiding in his truth, the truth.
Then then maybe people will understand that I licked A
flagpole to encourage you to, to make you laugh a little, to be
encouraged. So let's be that people, people
of the word, right? So it's going to get really good
next couple of sessions. Don't miss any of that.
You got to come back, bring all your friends.
How do I actually interpret the Bible?
Because I'm telling you, I run into lost people and they'll
actually say to me, I don't know, I read this thing and I
read this thing, I don't know what it means.
I can't understand it. So we got to talk about how to
set that loose so we can have understanding.
All right, let's pray together. Father, Your word is a blessing
to us. What a gift.
And Father, I know at times this might seem mathematical or
mechanical, and that's not the intent.
Father, the intent here is to give us the best way to depend
upon you for us to come to you with questions, to come to you
to seek the answers so that we can really fully understand what
your word is saying to us. That I won't just flippantly run
through the pages. I won't just skim over the
verses without really understanding what they say.
Their Father, when I read a verse and it doesn't make sense
to me that I'll stop, I'll stop, I'll pause and and do what I can
to say, this is what it this is what it means.
This is what it says. So Father, I pray that we'll be
students of the word, but Father, we won't just be
hearers. We won't just be listeners, we
won't just study, but the Father will do, will be doers of the
Word. Then, Father, our world will see
a testimony. They'll see a testimony that
will draw them as you use that to draw them to you.
So, Father, help us as we study your work together in Christ's
name, Amen. Thank you so much for listening
today. And I also hope that you'll go
to ourwebsite@englewoodbaptist.com
as well as our app and find many other resources that will bless
you and your families. Thank you once again.