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Bible Study II

-- Understanding the Word (Hermeneutics)

Sermon

Phil Hopwood

August 1st, 1988

SCRIPTURE READING:

15 Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. 16 Avoid godless chatter, because those who indulge in it will become more and more ungodly. 17 Their teaching will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, 18 who have wandered away from the truth. They say that the resurrection has already taken place, and they destroy the faith of some. (NIV)

 

INTRODUCTION:

1. How many of you remember the old song done by The Beatles, called, TWIST & SHOUT!
1. Like you to think of how that title may be appropriate to what we are about to talk about today!
2. Read from an article in a certain magazine dealing with;

Zechariah 5:5-11

5 Then the angel who was speaking to me came forward and said to me, "Look up and see what this is that is appearing."

6 I asked, "What is it?"

He replied, "It is a measuring basket.[Epaph]" And he added, "This is the iniquity {Or appearance} of the people throughout the land."

7 Then the cover of lead was raised, and there in the basket sat a woman! 8 He said, "This is wickedness," and he pushed her back into the basket and pushed the lead cover down over its mouth.

9 Then I looked up -- and there before me were two women, with the wind in their wings! They had wings like those of a stork, and they lifted up the basket between heaven and earth.

10 "Where are they taking the basket?" I asked the angel who was speaking to me.

11 He replied, "To the country of Babylonia {Hebrew Shinar} to build a house for it. When it is ready, the basket will be set there in its place." (NIV)

The angel now shows Zechariah two women. Remember these two women come on the scene at the time of Joshua’s turning away from God. This is an end time event. Have we seen two women in the end time discussed elsewhere in scripture? Yes we have. Two women are grinding grain in Matt. 24:41 and Luke 17:35. Both of these chapters discuss events happening just prior to Christ’s return. At first, there was just one woman. She was found to be wicked. Then there are two women.

Do we see how clearly this pictures the split between the WCG and PCG?

...Unfortunately one woman (found with wickedness) is "dwelling" with Babylon. The other is doing God’s warning Work in Babylon. ...Unfortunately, one woman is going to have to go into the Tribulation because she can’t understand what the flying scroll is all about. 1

1. The same author has also claimed to be the one who is given the little scroll or book in Revelation 10:9-10.
3. Talking about Scrolls, Quote from a flyer I received in the mail;
1. The attacks in the streets by Palestinians on Israelis has forced Israel to severely curtail the Arab workers passing over from Gaza and the West Bank. ...Israel is now looking to employ laboureres from other countries. ..The prophet Isaiah forecast this development. "The sons of strangers shall build they walls and their kings shall minister unto thee, for in my wrath I have smote thee but in my favour have I had mercy on thee. (Isaiah 60:10).
1. Then quotes similar verse 61:5.
4. And talking of the Jews; they verses such as

Exodus 23:19

19 b "Do not cook a young goat in its mother's milk. (NIV)

1. As the basis for their orthodox teaching that you shouldn’t have milk and meat together in a meal
1. In fact strict Orthodox Jews have two separate sets of dishes, one for foods containing milk, and the other for meat dishes.
2. Part of the KOSHER LAWS
5. One religious group forbid blood tranfusions based on verses such as

Leviticus 17:14

14 because the life of every creature is its blood. That is why I have said to the Israelites, "You must not eat the blood of any creature, because the life of every creature is its blood; anyone who eats it must be cut off." (NIV)

6. I have another piece of literature that uses dozens of scriptures to try and prove their belief that Christ was and is not God, and that he is a created being.
7. We used to read

Leviticus 23:16

16 Even unto the morrow after the seventh sabbath shall ye number fifty days; and ye shall offer a new meat offering unto the LORD. (KJV)

1. to say that Pentecost should be kept on a Monday
8. We misread JOHN 3:3 etc.
1. regarding being "BORN FROM ABOVE," to mean the resurrection instead of the regenration and new birth at conversion
2. Many other examples of people twisting the scriptures through not understanding them properly
3. It is important then that we treat God’s word with great respect, and don’t read into it our own ideas
1. Or casually assume we know what various more difficult to understand scriptures mean because we have God’s Spirit
2. And that we beware of those who TWIST scriptures, then SHOUT about their resultant belief loud enough that many follow their error!

 



Text:

2 Timothy 2:14-18

15 Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. 16 Avoid godless chatter, because those who indulge in it will become more and more ungodly. 17 Their teaching will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, 18 who have wandered away from the truth. They say that the resurrection has already taken place, and they destroy the faith of some. (NIV)

9. Second of a series on Bible Study

Last time

1. Why Bible Study is valuable
1. Why do we study the Bible?
2. Why was it written?
3. What are our goals, what should we be trying to achieve in Study?
10. TODAY:
1. Do we need any more than just the Holy Spirit to accurately understand the true meaning of scriptures?
2. Why do we need to bother with specific methods, principles, or consult experts for information and help in understanding the scriptures?
3. How can best we get to the heart of the meaning of what we read?
1. How can we avoid reading our biases and preconceived notions into it?
2. How can we best sort out some of the more difficult to understand verses?
4. Then we will begin to come up with two broad PRINCIPLES for good BIBLE STUDY that we will expand on in the future
1. NOT GUARANTEEING by using them you will never make a mistake in understanding what the Bible means,
1. but the aim is to encourage us all to DIG A BIT DEEPER when we study God’s REVELATION to us!
2. to give some basic guidelines in geting closer to the true meaning behind what we read, helping us cut down on mistakes and know God and his ways better

BODY:

1. INTERPRETING THE SCRIPTURES ("HERMENEUTICS")

1. Do we need to interpret the scriptures?
1. After all, it is GOD’S WORD, revealed through His Spirit, and to be understood through His Spirit
2. Why does it need to be interpreted?
1. As a Roman Catholic scholar put it;

If anyone is able to speak in an absolutely unambiguous faahion and to make himself understood with irresstible efficacy, such a one is God; therefore, if there is any word that might not require a hermeneutics, it would be the divine word. 2

2. But the BIBLE is not ONLY a DIVINE BOOK
1. It is a book written with human involvement
1. It’s words were INSPIRED by God, and written by particular men
1. in a particular place, culture, time
2. particular language, with all sorts of variations and ambiguities of meaning
3. languages which have changed greatly since the time they were written

It turns out, in fact, that we need hermeneutics not precisely because the Bible is a divine book but because, in addition to being divine, it is a human book. Strange though that may sound, such a way of looking at our problem can put us on the right track. Human language, by its very nature, is largely equivocal, that is, capable of being understood in more than one way. If it were not so, we would never doubt what people mean when they speak; if utterances could signify oonly one thing, we would hardly ever hear disputes about whether Johnny said this or that. In practice, to be sure, the number of words or sentences that create misunderstandings is a very small proportion... What we need to appreciate, however, is that the potential for misinterpretation is almost always there. 3

3. OHP: To read something in a book requires us to interpret what we read:
1. E.g. consider the following;
1. The rear end’s gone
2. Download the driver for your hardware from the net
3. She flew down before it all blew over and they took off
4. If they were any tougher they’d rust
5. Ezekiel 21:26-27 Thus saith the Lord GOD; Remove the diadem, and take off the crown: this shall not be the same: exalt him that is low, and abase him that is high. ²⁷I will overturn, overturn, overturn, it: and it shall be no more, until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him. 4
2. Divide into groups and come up with an explanation of each (1 minute each item).
4. CLEARLY we need to interpret everything we read, and the Bible is no exception
1. Why?
1. Firstly it was written in foreign languages, and languages that are 2000 years plus, old.
2. They used expressions, they talked about people, places, ideas, concepts we don’t have a clue about today
3. The danger is that we read the Bible through our own ideas, culture, language and background
1. That we read into it what we already think
2. Also, the Bible is not just an ordinary book, it is God’s revelation to us, and needs to be interpreted with that in mind
1. We also need guidance in the way we interpret it
2. God had provided help in that process;
1. The Bible itself helps us understand how to interpret and use it
1. One part will often give background or explanation to another part
2. God through his Spirit helps us to understand the simple and plain will of God

1 Corinthians 2:11

11 For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. (NIV)

3. As we read in I Cor 15 and Ephesians 4, God through his Spirit has provided gifted teachers in the Church to help us interpret and understand the more difficult as well as the plain teachings of scripture
3. We need to interpret the Bible carefully, prayerfully, and with these various helps God provides
1. We must be careful not to read it casually, and assume we are accurately understanding what we read
5. The most authoritative interpreter IS GOD:
1. It is his book after all;
1. And God the Holy Spirit, as we have seen is crucial to interpreting the Bible
2. God the Son, is also crucial
2. We need to seek their help in all of our Bible Study and make sure we are not doing it of ourselves
6. Jesus explained and interpreted various scriptures, just as Paul and others did, under his guidance and that of the Holy Spirit

Luke 24:25-28

25 He said to them, "How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?" 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.

1. The word "explained" = is hermenia, which gives us the word "hermeneutics" that is the word used by theologians to describe what we are discussing;
1. The interpretation of the true meaning of the scriptures
2. The people didn’t know how to interpret or understand and apply the Scriptures true meaning;
1. Jesus showed them a crucial and central underlying principle to interpreting correctly the whole of the Scriptures;
2. What point is that?
3. How the Scriptures point to Jesus himself, and how he fulfils the law and the prophets
4. If we don’t interpret the scriptures such as the law of sacrifices in the light of Jesus, what do we have?
1. An ancient religion with some gory rituals and customs that would seem to have no relevance to us and our lives today

 



2.   Definition OF HERMENEUTICS:

1. The science, or art, of biblical interpretation 5
1. One book explains it in simple terms;

Hermeneutics is a big word—what you might call a fifty-dollar word. It is a technical term Bible scholars use to refer to the task of explaining the meaning of the Scriptures. 6

1. Hermes was the God of Greek mythology whose task to was to interpret the will of the gods.
1. He was the Greek god of language
2. ...activity of communicating a message from someone else.
1. Hermeneutics is not confined merely to the bible, but is its most common accepted use and application
2. Greg Albrecht, paper at 1994 Ministerial Conference;

The broad study of the scriptures, including literary, grammatical, historical and cultural studies to determine the intended meaning by an author to his original audience. Hermeneutics also includes determining the principles outlined in various scriptures for the application to the present-day audience. 7

2. Hermeneutics then is:
1. the study of the Bible based on methodological principles of interpreting the Bible in order to find the intended meaning by an author to his intended audience....
2. It emphasises the importance of finding the meaning to the original audience BEFORE attempting to apply the scripture to your own life and that of others
1. rather than just reading a scripture and immediately making GIANT leaps to our own conclusions
3. SUMMARY:
1. HERMENEUTICS is the broad study of the scriptures to deterine the intended meaning by an author to his intended audience

 



3.   HOW CAN WE MORE ACCURATELY INTERPRET SCRIPTURE?

1. AS we have already demonstrated, We analyse and interpret the words and statements we hear and read every day;
1. Through our upbringing we have learned the language we hear and read
1. Its easy to forget how much we understand about the meaning of what we hear and read from the context of those words, and our background knowledge of our culture, our times, and language, including local expressions
2. If I say, "I like to take off and go for a run down the river once in a blue moon with my mate"
1. What does that mean?
2. GROUPS:
1. quickly go round the circle and ask for each persons instant interpretation of what this statement means:
1. Secretary write some down
3. What do we have to do to work out what it means?
1. Note there is a lot of room for misinterpretation of this statement,
1. even though it is in our own language, by someone in our own locality that we know.
2. If we really want to find out what this phrase means, what questions do we need to ask about it?
1. Questions like "what", "who", "where" and "how" and "why"
4. How much more important is it then that we ask such questions when we study statements in scripture
5. Now apply those questions to our statement;
1. Who is the speaker or writer?
1. What is their background, where do they live, what are interests do they have that might shed some light on what our statement means?
2. Who are they talking to?
3. What words and phrases do we need to examine?
1. We may have some ideas from our own thoughts and expressions that might have us thinking we know what is being said here, but we take a big risk in seriously misinterpreting what is said when we making such assumptions, as our quick initial exercise showed.
6. If we were reading this in 2000 years, would we be able to read this at face value?
1. But when we read the Bible we too often forget that it is a book written in a another place, culture and time, in languages we don’t understand and to people in circumstances we are not familiar with;
2. too often we read it like a current newspaper from our own local area
3. Assume we are interpreting the meaning correctly by a casual reading
7. Too often people make great theological conclusions based on one or two verses without in depth study to check their interpretation
1. Obviously when we read the Bible we come across a vastly greater amount of material and details that we have little or no background understanding to

If we fail to take note of the distinctive cultural features of Hebrew society or of the historical circumstances behind an Old Testament book, we allow our mental "filter"-- that is, our preconceptions--to determine what the biblical passages may or may not mean. 8

8. By the way, it is important to note, that these difficulties of lack of knowedge, understanding are OUR LACKS, and inadequacies, not lacks or inadequacies of the Bible.
1. But they are lacks and inadequacies we can be helped to overcome
2. God provides the tools, the help we need as we have seen, through
1. The Bible itself
2. His Spirit and His Son
3. The Church and the gifted teachers and scholars within it

Endnotes:

3 Kaiser & Silva, p.16

4 The King James Version, (Cambridge: Cambridge) 1769.

5 Walter C. Kaiser Jr., & Moises Silva, An Introduction to Biblical Herneneutics, 1994, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, p. 15

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