Answers In Genesis - Sunday School - Week 2

Good morning. Hope you guys had a good week. if you're not getting the emails, it's because I don't have your information. Raise your hand if you're not getting the class emails.

All right. Raise your hand if you are getting the class emails. Oh, that's good. So fantastic.

OK. I think there were, there was just, there were 3 people that I couldn't read their writing or on the rosters. I, I have it highlighted in orange. So if you go through and you're looking for your name and you're highlighted in orange, that's cause I couldn't figure out who you are.

so if you could write, write your name real clear and email, I'll, I'll give you guys a reminder at the end. let's see, a couple of announcements real quick. There is a, I'm not sure who set this out, but there's a seminar on biblical creationism, ICR October 9th and 10th, at a A church in Whittier. Called Morningstar Chapel, and it looks like there's some really good speakers and topics.

if you're interested, just look up, Morningstar Chapel, or no, Morningstar. CC.org. Morningstar CC.org. So, I might try to go check this out.

It's on October 9th and 10th. We do have our own apologetics conference, which is coming up October 3rd. And so I encourage you guys to come out to that. That is gonna be some great material.

We got various speakers coming in. We're gonna be talking about postmodernism, we'll be talking about Islam, talking about one of my friends is gonna be here, who came out of homosexuality and, into the Lord and is in the ministry now, Jim Delman, and so he'll be addressing how to minister to those that are in homosexuality. And there'll be a taco dinner that night and then in the evening, we're showing the film Found on South Street, which is a wonderful film that was created by Cal Baptist School for the Deaf, deaf, and we had a number of our members that are a part of that film.

we'd encourage you to stick around.

We're not just showing the film just to show it so that you guys can watch a movie, although that's part of it. we're actually, we're coordinating this with, deaf ministries in the area. There's several other deaf ministries that are gonna be here and they're inviting unbelievers. So we're encouraging you to come to be a part of this outreach to unbelieving deaf people in our community.

And there'll be various interpreters around campus. So, when you have your taco dinner and if you're sitting down with some deaf people, you can chat with them via an interpreter and talk to them. It's a, it's a low-key, just funnel event, just getting to know people and then hoping, hoping they'll make contacts with people in various deaf ministries. So, and it's a, it's a really neat film, so we encourage you guys to come out.

That's October 3rd. All right, let's go ahead and pray and then we'll jump into this morning's lesson. Our Lord, we thank you so much for the, your word, the power of your word. Thank you, Lord, for just giving us truth, not leaving us in darkness, but giving us the light that guides us.

Your word is a lamp to our feet. And we thank you for just giving us the spiritual eyes, spiritual glasses to be able to look at our world and see it from your perspective. We ask that your spirit would guide us now. And help us overcome.

Our remaining sin problem, which at times can hamper our interpretation of your word and our practice of your word. We just pray that you'd fill us with your Spirit. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.

All right. we're gonna be answering the question that you see on the board today. What do about hermeneutics? Herman who?

Hermeneutics, and that's part of what we're gonna, that's the big idea of what we're gonna get into, this morning. we're, throughout the next 3 or 4 years, we're going through something called Answers Bible Curriculum, which is basically, it's just a chronological study of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. This particular quarter is called We Can Trust the Bible, where we're setting the foundation, foundational presuppositions for the Christian faith. really what we're trying to build here is a biblical Christian worldview and even go further than that, a gospel worldview.

this particular lesson today is entitled Studying the Bible. And this is all part of our adult equipping school, so we're very glad that you can be here. Here's the basic outline for the lesson today. We're gonna do a little review, we're gonna do some background, we're gonna study some, scripture passages and then try to apply them to our lives.

Let's do some review from last week. First of all, how, Is that a typo? Oh, how all people look at the world around them is referred to as a person's what? Worldview.

OK. And that was the big idea last week is establishing this concept of worldview, And having a recognition of there, that there are various worldviews. last week we looked at a couple of different scripture passages. We left you to look at a few for your homework.

In these passages, what was God's word compared to or how was it described? What are some things you guys remember as far as what God's word is compared to? A lamp. Yeah, so the, the big analogy that we had was that the, the Bible is a lamp.

You go into a cave without a flashlight and you're gonna be in a lot of trouble, right? God's word is a lamp to our feet. It shows us where to walk. Without God's word, we, are in trouble.

And so we need His word. what has hampered humanity's ability to interpret the world as God sees it? Why is it that the world comes up with a completely different view of reality? There's a sin problem, right?

Adam and Eve, the fall, OK, that hampers man's or humanity's ability to interpret the world. What else? Feel free to shout it out. Yeah, Satan.

So we have the devil who's actually running around, right? He's trying to seek whom he may devour and we looked at the passage last week that he has actually taken people captive to do whose will. His will. we're real big in our culture on free will and how we're free to do whatever we want.

The Bible tells us, you're only free to do whatever you want, what you want within the confines of Satan until you are rescued from the dominion of darkness. You're actually doing his will, being taken captive to do it. And so the average person who doesn't know Christ, their eyes have been darkened, they have been restricted by sin. And they've been taken captive by the devil.

However, there's hope. God has given us his word. He's given us the gospel, which is the most powerful thing in the universe. It has the power to save and, and to wake people up from the dead.

So God has revealed Himself to us in the words of the Bible. 2 Timothy 3:16 says that all scripture is breathed out by God. And so God has not left us without hope. He's actually given us, his, his word.

And so that's, so last week, basically we're trying to set the foundation that we want to view the world through the glasses of the Bible. There's many different glasses that people put on to interpret their world. We want to, by God's grace, we want to take his word. We believe that God is the only being in the universe who has been everywhere.

In fact, he is everywhere. He knows everything, and he's chosen to reveal Himself to us. We can know truth because of a few basic facts. Number one, God exists.

God exists. Not, not only that, but God has revealed Himself. He has given us information both in nature and in the word. but not only that, he has made us in his image.

And so even though we are fallen, we are still in his image. We've been given the capacity to have language and to understand language and to know things. So God exists. He's revealed Himself to people who are made in the image of God.

And as the Holy Spirit is moving in people's hearts, they can come to a knowledge of the truth. If God didn't exist, it really wouldn't matter, right? If God chose not to reveal Himself, then there would be nothing to know. And even if God had revealed Himself, but if we didn't have the capacity to understand any of it because we weren't made in His image and we didn't have a capacity for knowledge or language, then it wouldn't matter.

We'd just be like a, a radio that can't pick up the a.m. or FM signal, right? Or didn't even have batteries in it. But the Lord has made us with the capacity to pick up a signal, and as the Holy Spirit is operative, we can pick up that signal, and we can repent.

That's what gives us hope in this life. one of the things I heard recently by, from a guy named Steve Smith, this guy is a missions, a church planner in China. They've seen literally thousands of people come to know the Lord. They've planted multiple generations of churches.

But he says as Christians, one of the things that we're doing is we are trying to find who the Holy Spirit is attacking. As we go out and share the Bible and share the gospel, we're trying to find who's the Holy Spirit attacking. You can talk to people about the word of God. and they are made in the image of God, and so they can understand the basic words that are coming out of your mouth.

But if the Holy Spirit's not attacking them yet, then they're gonna be a radio with no batteries in it. They're not gonna be able to pick up the signals from God. You can teach them truth, but they're gonna come up with, wrong interpretations. The good news is, is we know that Jesus has already told us that the field is white with harvest.

And so there are people out there that God is after, right? The Holy Spirit is attacking people. And God has given you the privilege and me the privilege to go share the gospel with them, to share the word of God with people. And, and it's really, it's not, it's not like we have to make any grand change.

We just open up the the mouths, our mouths for the gospel. And the gospel is the power of God, the salvation. And as the Holy Spirit is quote unquote attacking people, the Lord will do His work. yesterday I was talking to a kid that's been on our baseball team for a long time.

Actually, he's been with us for a couple of years. On the way home from a game, I started to talk with him, ask him some basic questions about the Bible and began to share the gospel with him. And he told me that he had never heard the story of Adam and Eve. He had no idea who Adam and Eve was.

This is a kid that has grown up in Marina Valley, who is technically Roman Catholic, although his family never goes to church. He's come up through our public school systems, had no idea, had never heard of Adam and Eve. It's just unbelievable. I just shared the basic message of the gospel with him.

Starting from Adam and Eve, talked about the sacrifice that God provided for them, moved on to Jesus. please pray for him. didn't seem like he was open to receiving Christ, but he, he listened and we're gonna keep talking to him. All right, let's do, let's talk about Some basic pre what we're gonna call presuppositional matters.

Presuppositional matters. These are things that as Christians we bring to the table. as we, as we just get up in the morning and go throughout life. We bring a certain view of the world and we wanna make sure that we bring an informed, a biblically informed view of the world that we're not just automatically buying into the air or just breathing the air of our culture, but we're breathing the air of God's word.

We understand that God has revealed Himself through the words of the Bible. And we should therefore study the Bible diligently, knowing that the Bible is sufficient to guide us on the path. Of life. Look at 2 Timothy 2:15.

In your copy of God's word. 2 Timothy 2:15. Be diligent to present yourself approved to God. As a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth, be diligent.

rightly dividing the idea is that you're cutting the word of God straight. You're trying to understand what God's word really means by cutting it straight the way God intended for his word to be cut. We're not cutting it and causing it to lean to our presuppositions or just our viewpoints. We're trying to cut it the way God wants it cut.

You guys ever take like your finger and just draw lines around your, your fingers, right? And then you cut it out and then you got a little form of a hand. The idea there is if you cut on the lines when you get done, you have something that looks like a hand. And if you cut on the lines the way God is designed for his word to be interpreted, then you come up with a whole complete package of God's word.

But when we decide just to go off in our own way and cut it any way we want, you get some Strange looking beasts, right? Strange looking animals. God has given us His word and he's given us a spirit, and his word is meant to be interpreted the way it was designed and it's, and it's sufficient for us. It's sufficient to guide us on the path.

What do we mean by sufficient? As Christians, we presuppose what we call the sufficiency of scripture. And here's what we mean by that. We'll define it the way Wayne Gruden does, theologian Wayne Gruden.

In his book, Systematic theology says this, the sufficiency of Scripture means that Scripture has contained all the words of God he intended his people to have at each stage of redemptive history, and that it now contains all the words of God we need for salvation, for trusting Him perfectly, and for obeying Him perfectly. At each stage of redemptive history, God's word was enough for God's people. What we mean by that is when, when, when the people of God, when Israel only had the Torah, when they just had the first five books, the Tanak, that was sufficient for them at that time, right?

When Israel had several of the profits at their disposal, that was sufficient for them at that time.

When God's people before the arrival of John the John the Baptist had the entire Old Testament at their disposal, that was sufficient for them at that time. And as God has given us both Old and New Testament today, that is sufficient for us at this time to help us in all the things that we need for salvation, all the biblical worldview issues that the Bible teaches or talks on, big worldview questions like we talked about last week, where did we come from? Does the Bible talk about that?

Yes, and it's sufficient.

God is omnipresent, omniscient. The information he gives us is sufficient to help us know where we come from. does the Bible tell us why we're here? Yes.

Does it tell us where we're going? Yes, it does. Does it tell us what went wrong with the world? Yes, it does.

Does it tell us how to fix it? Yes, the Bible deals with all of these big questions and the Bible is sufficient to help us answer those questions. Is the Bible gonna help how to change your oil? No, that doesn't mean the Bible is not sufficient.

That's not what the Bible was built for. The Bible is not built to help you change your oil, but the Bible is built to teach you how to change your oil without getting angry, right? And how to be patient when somebody's working with you and so on and so forth. And so that's what we mean by sufficiency.

We are to search for God's word in scripture alone. This is the reformed doctrine of solo Scripture. God considers what he has told us in the Bible to be enough for us. When we're talking about the big areas of life, the big basic questions.

Where do we come from? Where are we going? What's gone wrong with the world? How do we fix it?

The Bible is enough. That's what we mean by sufficiency. God has given us His word. We can search his word to give us the answers to those questions.

We'll talk about a little bit later about, we'll qualify this, about what we mean and don't mean by that. But we can go to the Bible confidently and say, well, I wanna know why human beings were created. I wanna know God's purpose for the human race. I wanna know what God's purpose is for my life or why I struggle with sin or why we so much, so much evil around us.

We can go to the Bible. And trust the Bible because it is sufficient solo scriptura. Let's talk about a couple other presuppositional issues. How should we study the Bible?

We know the Bible, if the Bible's sufficient, it implies that we're gonna study it diligently, right? It's efficient. It answers questions. So we're gonna want to study it.

We're gonna try to cut it straight, but how should we study it? Christians are sometimes ridiculed or made fun of for reading the Bible literally. it seems like it's pretty common to turn on the TV and if you have some religious story or somebody's critiquing a Christian response to something that's going on in the world, they say, oh, these, conservative fundamentalist Christians, they, they read the Bible literally. Right?

And, and then they'll, they'll pull out some straw man of what they think literally means. what do we mean when we say we read the Bible literally? What do you guys think? What do we mean when we say we read the Bible literally?

if it's poetry, then we're to Poetic sense Historical Excellent. So if, if the Bible has poetry, the Bible has history, the Bible has narrative, the Bible has epistles, we interpret the various genres in the Bible the way that you would read any other genre, right? If you're reading Shake one of Shakespeare's sonnets, there's a certain way that you read that. If you're reading a psalm, there's a certain way that you read that.

If you're reading the front page of the newspaper, you would tend to read that as fact, although that's getting more and more up for grabs, right? And so yeah, we just read the Bible in a normal way. What do we not mean? We don't mean that we're taking every figure of speech and moving it to some ridiculous.

Notion, right? When Jesus says, I am the door, we don't think that Jesus is a literal door. We all know that there's figure of figures of speech, right?, if I say, man, I'm starving, you guys all understand what that means. I'm using that in a figurative way.

and we see that on the pages of scripture. We'll, we'll look at some of that here in a little bit. OK. Who is Herman who, who is Herman Udix?

You may know who that is? Or what is that? OK, so how do we interpret scripture? And this is, this is a huge issue.

Everybody's got their different viewpoint on how we interpret scripture. You've got all kinds of different approaches. What is the hermeneutical approach, that we use here at Cornerstone and the vast majority of evangelicals would use the same approach. OK, yeah, we would call it the historical, grammatical.

There's a couple of different things that we'll tag on to that literal, historical, grammatical, right? sometimes we'll call it the inductive approach, sometimes we'll call it, some people will shorthand it and just call it literal, the literal approach to the Bible. Basically, if you were to sum it down to one word is we just try to read the Bible normally. What do you, if you've got a bunch of junior high kids and you just start reading through a passage trying to figure out what the Bible means, what's the normal understanding?

Now, sometimes junior high kids are gonna come up with wacky things, right? So you have to help lead them and guide them. And sometimes what appears to be the normal reading cannot be the normal reading, right? Once you put it in context.

But once you put it on context, what's the normal approach? you read a passage in Proverbs that says the Lord will bring off, will bless your memory. How does it say it? the Lord will I forget what it says.

It's something like the Lord will bless your memory. And one of my buddies in college took that passage and just prayed, Lord, bless my memory as I study my math exam, help me do well. And then he just prayed and believed that passage, studied for math, and then he got a D. The next day, he's like, what happened?

This says the Lord will bless my memory. Well, the context is, is the Lord will bless your, the memory of you, people's memory of you. And it wasn't a promise that just cause you, study math that you're suddenly gonna get an A on your math test. OK, so this is what we call an inductive approach.

Inductive Bible study is a way of working with the Bible that is intentional in trying to hear the message of the Bible on its own terms. We want to fly as low to the text as possible, figure out what is the Bible telling us on its own terms, and then try to make the appropriate adjustments in our lives, in our thought process, in our theology. We wanna do the best we can to not try to make the Bible bend to what we already think, but try to figure out what was God saying. On this, in this passage of scripture.

and so we're gonna, let's talk about 3 different, stages of the interpretive process, the hermeneutical process. As we're doing inductive Bible study, we're gonna observe and you guys probably already know the second one, several of you. What's the second stage? Interpret in the 3rd stage or step.

Apply, observe, interpret, apply. As we come to the text, we'll do this this morning, we'll ask questions of the text. We're trying to ask who wrote this, to whom, what did they write? When did they write it?

Where did they write it? Why did they write it? How did they write it? Or who's doing what, where, for what reason?

And so those are some of the questions that we're bringing to the text. Then, as we, after we answer those questions, we try to bring the interpretive process, a normal look at the passage, and this is where we bring our Our, presuppositions to bear. We're going to As we're reading the Bible, there's certain things that we assume based upon what the Bible already tells us. We're assuming that the Holy Spirit That God has breathed out His word through the Holy Spirit.

Through an original author onto an original document that we call the autographer to an original audience, and that now that comes to us in our day. So you go Holy Spirit plus original author plus original audience, and Lord willing, that leads you to the right meeting, meaning. If we forget any one of these, it's very easy for us to come to the wrong meaning. It's very popular today to just go straight from the Holy Spirit to me, right?

I'm having my devotions at Newport Beach, out on the pier. I opened up my Bible, and I'm just trying to figure out what is Jesus telling me. and I may or may not come to the right interpretation. Jesus says in John, And I will guide you into all truth.

And I'm, it's just me and the Holy Spirit, and I say thank you, Lord, for guiding me today into all truth. This is what I was telling myself in high school. And so as I go to take my exams, as I go to do Bible study, I'm walking around believing that God is guiding me into all truth. Big problem I wasn't being guided in all truth.

I, there's a lot of things I didn't understand, a lot of things I assumed I knew that I didn't know. I didn't get straight A's in school. In fact, after I became a Christian, my grades went down for some reason. I was just reading too much of the Bible.

I didn't care about my other secular studies anymore, for a while. And so we have to be careful about the Holy Spirit. So we have our Holy Spirit straight to me, it's the Holy Spirit. Breathing through someone like the apostle Paul onto the page, the autographer to an original audience, we wanna try to take into, into What's the original audience?

Pastor Milton is going, taking us through Genesis right now. The Holy Spirit speaking through Moses to probably the second generation of Israel on the other side of the Jordan. So we're trying to interpret how would Israel be interpreting these various passages as they're reading it or hearing it. and then we think, how does it applying to us in the church today.

So let's interpret. The other thing that we want to talk about, we talked about this a lot last year, is, is we, as we come to the text, we want to do exegesis. As opposed to I of Jesus. All right.

In this, when we say these terms, we're not talking about Jesus. Jesus, Yahweh, or Yahweh saves. We're talking about, these are like Greek terms that have been transliterated over into English. What do we mean by exegesis?

Larry, Thinking out of, Scripture OK. So we're trying to take out of the scripture, what it means in its context, right? We want to just get out of it. Ia Jesus, what is that?

Yeah, Kim. Yeah, so, yeah, I said Jesus is coming to the scriptures and we're trying to find our meaning in the text. There's Jesus, there's eye of Jesus. And, and you'll find this, you can find like a Like various hermeneutical approaches, like a very popular hermeneutical approach is a feminist reading of the Bible.

So you'll find people that will read Genesis through Revelation and they'll try to find feminist values in the Bible and, and, and insert feminist values into the scriptures. You'll find homosexual hermeneutics. We're trying to find, read everything and find homosexuality in the Bible. So, you and I are reading a normal story like David and Jonathan in the Old Testament and their friendship.

If you're reading it according to a homosexual, hermeneutic, you're finding something more in that text than what seems to be there on a plain reading. And this is intentional. People, but you and I will do this as well, right? There's times where we will come to a text.

We've already decided what God's word can and cannot say. we have to be careful. I appreciate the, the, the basic tone that Pastor Milton has set for us here at Cornerstone is we come to a passage, we're, we're moving through Genesis. We wanna try to move through it and just let's see what God is telling the first generation and then now telling us and just let it fall, let the chips fall.

as we move through Corinthians, we're trying to just We went through the first Corinthians series. Just what is this text saying? Let it fall. First, Timothy, the various books we've gone through, we're trying as best as we can to do exegesis.

those of you guys, you, you guys might be familiar with the various theological approaches. Let's, let's pick on free will and God's sovereignty, the Calvinism, Armenianism debates that will go on. Can we come to various texts that seem to, to speak of God's absolute sovereignty over the universe and even his sovereignty over salvation, and can we allow that to stand? Or in our Western mindset where we want to exalt absolute free will, are we trying to bring ice to Jesus to that passage?

Or if there's passages that really seem to speak of, of the responsibility of humanity and the responsibility of a human being to repent. Are we at times trying to minimize human responsibility in a passage? That can be a temptation. One of my favorite ones is, is when I get people that want to debate me about the doctrine of limited atonement.

Adrianne, if you've heard of the doctrine of limited atonement. OK, a few of you guys., and I know there's probably different views even represented right here, but In my view, I'll just share my view and you can tar and feather me later. In my view, the reformed guys commit the same logical fallacy with the doctrine of limited atonement as the Armenians commit with free will sovereignty. When you talk about free will sovereignty, the Bible is very comfortable juxtaposing those two doctrines, teachings sometimes in the exact same passage, that God is completely sovereign over all things and yet humans responsible, and yet we always see God's sovereignty trumps.

God's sovereignty is primary, human will and responsibility is secondary, but they run parallel throughout the scripture, it seems. And the Bible is very comfortable butting them right up next to each other. When it comes to the doctrine of atonement, the Bible seems to be very comfortable talking about, Christ in some sense, dying for the whole world and in some other sense, dying for the elect or dying for, the church., was it first John 2 will say things like, he's the propitiation not only for our sins, speaking of believers, but also for the whole world.

God is the savior of everyone.

Especially those who Believe. So in some sense, in First Timothy, God's the savior of everybody, but especially those who believe. And so, when people ask me, do you believe in limited or general atonement, I say, Yes. Yes, I do.

but see what some of my, my reform friends, they want to say, well, you're getting into logical problems because you're creating a double atonement and so on and so forth. We won't get into that right now. and so you, you're trying to force your logic upon what the scriptures are revealing. Instead of allowing for the scriptures to stand on their own merit, even if it, if it creates a logical problem for us.

That actually is not necessarily always bad. There's a lot of paradoxes on the pages of scripture that's hard for us to understand, which is what you should expect if you're serving and loving an infinite God, right? Anyway, we can talk more about that later, why I'm a 5.5 point Calvinist. I'm a 5.5 point Calvinist because Jesus died for the elect and the non-elect.

He died for the non-elected and non-redemptive, non-eternal sins to provide a judicial basis for common grace. We'll talk about that later. OK, so, some more background. Let's go ahead and so we, we apply God's words, so we observe, we interpret, and then we apply.

And a great passage to run our thinking through on how we apply God's word is, is the rest of 2 Timothy 3:16. all scriptures give my inspiration and it's profitable for four things, right? It's profitable for doctrine, which doctrine just simply means what? Teaching, right?

So, as we read the Bible, scriptures taught, as it's taught and understood, doctrine is formed. So we're reading the Bible. Then we discern doctrine. And then there's reproof.

As doctrine is understood, errors are revealed. So we get the teaching, if we understand it, then the Holy Spirit starts helping us see our errors, right? Through the teaching. And as the errors are revealed, they can be corrected.

So errors get revealed and, and as we keep studying the word, we find out how can we correct these errors that are in our thinking or in our lives. And as our errors are continuously corrected, we become more and more trained in righteousness. I see these four components of scripture as stair steps, right? We get taught the word and as, as we understand the word, we begin to formulate doctrine.

Doctrine, if it's rightly applied, reveals mistakes or errors in our thinking or in our lives. But then, as those errors are revealed, God doesn't leave us there with just the errors, the Holy Spirit helps us correct it. And as we're continually repenting, continually correcting errors, then we get trained in righteousness. Now, we could stop in our application at any one place and not get the training in righteousness.

Right? We could be studying God's word and understand the doctrine and then stop. I now know the teaching. But we stop there, we haven't fulfilled the ultimate intent of the scriptures, right?

We can get the knowledge and not get to the training. And so we're praying that through the word that will be reproved, that errors will be revealed. We're looking at that mirror of the word. Now we're starting to see ways in which our thinking is not right and our life is not right.

And then we could stop there and just get real hopeless, right? Oh, I'm just a terrible. Sinful person and there's no hope for me. Right?

The Bible is revealing all these errors, but that's not the ultimate, that's not the stopping point of the scriptures. It's not the stopping point of the gospel. No, God comes along and he wants to fix us. He wants to correct us.

Errors are as errors are revealed, we get corrected. And that's actually part of the job of pastors, right? Pastors and teachers are supposed to come along and equip the saints, right? Fix or mend the saints for the work of ministry.

And so pastors come along and they take that doctrine. They don't just preach and then make you feel bad about all your errors. Pastors are supposed to come along and help correct and mend and then we mend each other and as we keep doing this cycle over and over and over again, we get trained in righteousness. That's part of what Martin Luther is talking about when he says that we are always sinning.

Always repenting, always forgiving. Every, every one of us is always in a place where we continuously need the Bible, right? Because we're always sinning, this side of heaven, even though we're born again, we're gonna continue to sin and sin against each other. But as we go run through this process, we get to always repent.

Guess what? It's a lot of fun. We get to repent every single day. That's a lot of fun.

Actually, it is fun if we do it right, right? We repent every day with the understanding and the basis that we're always forgiven, that Christ has already accomplished it all. So this is the application stage. And I, I really like these 4 points to think through as we're trying to apply the word of God.

Does that make sense? So what are the three steps of inductive Bible study or exegesis? Observe, interpret, apply. OK, as we observe, we're asking 6 basic questions.

What are some of those questions? Who, what, when, where, why, how? What's that movie? I forget the movie.

you guys, I watched, I watched too many movies. The master of disguise, yeah. OK, so, so you've got OK, so you've got to observe, interpret. We want to make sure that we keep what in mind?

As we interpret Say it again. Good. OK, good. So, as we're interpreting, we're remembering that's the Holy Spirit who's written through the author to an original audience and then to us, right?

And we're gonna try to do which E and not the other E. We're gonna try to do ex Jesus, not Not IceGs, we're gonna do XGs, right? OK. And then when we get to application, let me skip that so you guys can't see it.

there's a four-st process of the application. We hear the word and it's gonna form what in our minds doctrine, and then the doctrine should what? reprove us, doesn't leave us hanging there, then it moves us to correction. And if we keep doing this over and over again, we get trained in righteousness.

That's observe, interpret, and apply. Any questions, comments, criticisms, or concerns? Alright, you guys got it? OK, write this down.

Here's part of your homework this week. You need to go to somebody else who's not in this class. And explain to them, observe, interpret, and apply. Write it down.

It can be somebody in your home who wasn't here. It can be another believer. Just say, hey, do how to, do how that we, do the inductive approach to Bible study? And they say, why?

No, I don't. How do you do that? Well, first you need to observe the text. You explain what that means.

You need to interpret the text. We'll make sure we interpret it like the Holy Spirit speaking to the original audience, coming down to us to ask Jesus, not I Jesus, and then we need to apply it through these false four steps. Doctrine reproof, correction, training and righteousness. Can you guys do that?

It only needs to take you 60 seconds. But I want you to tell one person who's not in this class, this approach. You guys got it? You promise?

OK. All right, that's homework. OK, let's ask another. Another, presuppositional statement.

What is perspicuity of scripture? Everything that we're doing right now. It would be an absolute and total waste of time if it weren't for what we call the perspicuity of scripture. What does perspicuity mean?

And why did they even use the term perspicuity? Every Christian can understand the Bible but not necessarily the word perspicuity, right? Yeah, perspicuity just means that the Bible is understandable, right? that we can understand the basic message of the Bible.

here's the definition from Gruden, the perspicuity, he uses the word clarity, which is a good updated term. The clarity of scripture means that the Bible is written in such a way that its teachings are able to be understood by all who will read it, seeking God's help and being willing to follow it. So as we read the Bible, we understand, we we presume based upon what the Bible says about itself, that we can understand it as long as two things are operative. One, we're seeking God's help.

Two, what? We're willing to obey it, right? So we need to come asking God to help and that's, that's something he wants to do and we need to come ready to obey the word. Yeah, Iggy.

Yeah, that's an excellent question. So Iggy's question, if we need to If we need to know the original audience and so on and so forth, then how do we, how do we get to that stuff from outside resources, I think, is that your question? Yeah, and my, the first answer to that is, is outside resources are not necessarily required. in fact, outside resources, while they're helpful, they are not on the same level of scripture itself.

We would follow the approach that we would call the analogy of faith. This is the principle, a hermeneutical principle that the reformers pushed over and over and over again throughout the Reformation. The analogy of faith, which means you compare scripture with scripture. So, how do we find out that Paul wrote the book of Galatians?

It says it. Yeah, Paul says, I'm writing to you and how do we find out who he's writing to? He says who he's writing to. So he says, Paul is writing to Galatians, and how do we, how do we discover the circumstances of his writing?

You read it right there, yeah, and you can compare it to Acts, that's the analogy of faith. And so, so we primarily get our data of authorship and audience and purpose from the text itself. now, outside resources can and do help. There's a lot of historical studies that have been done.

That will help fill in the gaps and the edges. But I really appreciate Iggy's question because we have to be careful with outside resources, because one, they're not, they don't have the, the same weight and authority as scripture. 2, sometimes outside resources are coming with an agenda. There's a real popular, popular approach in the Bible called the cultural hermeneutic, the cultural hermeneutic.

Basically, this idea is, is people try to invent, and a lot of times it's just pure invention, invent a cultural setting in which they say certain texts of scripture were written. And then they reinterpret the passage based upon that alleged cultural setting. So, you, you find it all the time, for instance, in the passage where Paul says, I do not permit a woman to teach or have authority over a man in 1 Timothy 2, and people will come up with certain types of cultural scenarios in order to explain away what seems to be the clear meaning of that passage.

same thing happens with 1 Corinthians 11 in my opinion, that deals with head coverings, men not putting something on their head, women putting something on their head.

there are scenarios that are created there. The biggest way you see it today is with the whole issue of how do we interpret various passages that speak of homosexuality being a sin. There's cultural settings that are created that may give those passages a completely different interpretation, not because of the, the setting of what we find in scripture, but because of these outside resources that are telling us, here's what was going on in history and in the culture at that time that gives us such and such an interpretation.

Does that make sense?

So when we, even when we talk about the historical method, primarily what we're talking about is the history that we see revealed as we compare scripture with scripture. all that being said, there are things, there are lots of discoveries that have helped us, right? and both apologetically as well. Does that answer the question, Iggy?

OK, cool. All right. So, perspicuity, the idea here is, is not that every single passage in scripture is, is as clear to us as the other. In fact, we do see that Peter even says that some things that Paul writes about are difficult to understand, right?

What we're saying is the basic message of the Bible is simple enough and clear enough where if we come to the Bible with a desire to understand it and obey it, that the basic message can be discerned. This doctrine developed by the reformers, from the pages of scripture, I believe, runs against a particular teaching that was held by the Roman Catholic Church at the time, which is what What was the teaching that this doctrine was designed to counter? Say it again, Kim. Yeah, only the priest can understand the word of God.

You and I can't understand the word. It's too difficult, it's too mysterious. there's so many different levels of meaning. There's the spiritual meaning, there's the literal meaning, there's 4 different levels of meaning if you follow origin, and only the priest can figure it out.

So you just need to listen to the priest's interpretation. The reformers came along and said, nonsense. The Bible was written for the church. the vast majority of New Testament epistles are for just people in the church, Husbands, love your wives, wives, submit to your husbands, children, obey your parents, and, and so, we can understand the Bible.

And so that's important so that when we're, all the stuff that we're talking about in this class, we're presupposing that, that we can come and say the Bible together, and, and we can get to know its basic message. If we want to unders if we want to obey it, and we want, and we're asking God for help, that we can get to the basic meaning. All right. Let's look at some passages together in our last few minutes here.

Let's, let's take a look at 2 Peter. We're gonna apply Some of these things we're talking about and then we're gonna give. You guys some homework and give the advanced students some extra homework. Cause the advanced students are so Advanced OK.

2 Peter. Chapter 2 Let's, let's flip over to Let's flip over to chapter 1 for a second. Actually, what it's supposed to say, it's a typo. 2 Peter 1.

OK, look at the first verse. Who do you guys think wrote this book? Pretty tough. Who is it?

Peter, Simon Peter, a bond servant, apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have obtained like precious faith with us, by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ. In Peter's mind, is he writing to Christians or non-Christians? He's writing to Christians. These are people who have obtained a like, precious faith, right?

And so let's, so we're asking some basic questions of the text. Who is it, who's writing to whom? Like precious faith? What form of literature is 2 Peter?

If you were to read this and read the rest of the book, what literature do you think it is? Yeah, it's a letter, it's an epistle, right? So we're gonna read this as a letter. We're not gonna read it as poetry.

We're not gonna read it as some just dream, apocalyptic literature. We're gonna read it as a letter. and so that's the type of genre it would be. historical context.

Those of you guys that have done some study in 2 Peter, what do you think would be the context? Of this book Persecution Yeah. A lot of persecution. What century are we looking at?

Probably? Yeah, first century, we know that Peter lived at the time of Christ and he, so he's writing when he's still alive. So we're talking about the first century. are there any, let's read the rest of this passage.

We'll ask some other questions of it, starting in verse two, Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and Jesus Christ our Lord. As his divine power has been given, or has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue. By which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

Let's ask some questions of this text.

what are, any commands or promises? or warnings that we see in this passage. Do you guys see any, any promises? Or declarative statements, yeah, Larry.

G Yeah, so Peter's reminding the these of like precious faith that divine power has been given to them. or his divine power has given, actually it's, that's the subject. His divine power has given us what? Everything Yeah, everything pertaining to life and godliness.

That seems to me, and you can tell me if you think I'm correct. Everything that we need. That has to do with life. And godliness.

So, spiritual matters, things that we need in this life, His divine power has given that all to us. Through, and it's, it's come through a particular means. Through what? Through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue.

So through the knowledge of Him, who is the Him? Yeah, at the very least, God, but probably Jesus, right? That's one of the things we'd have to do some study on through the knowledge of Him who has called us by glory and virtue. By which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises.

That through these you may be partakers of the divine nature. So various promises, does it really state here particularly what the promises are? Yeah, we'll have to keep reading to find out what they are, but we know that there's great promises that have been given and that through these promises that we have become partakers of the divine nature and we've escaped corruption. and so we're, we want to ask, the various questions of this text.

and then we get to the interpretation phase. And as we're interpreting, we're trying to figure out what various phrases mean. through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory. how do we get knowledge of God or Christ?

How did these, how did these believers get knowledge of Christ? Well one of them was an eyewitness and the other one. OK, good. So yeah, Peter was an eyewitness of Christ, walked with Christ.

And we know that the apostles in the early church went around preaching the word everywhere and that we would assume that since these people have all come to like precious faith, that they have come into contact with the gospel through preaching, right? Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God. So these people have come into contact with the word of God. And so the word of God, it seems, is operative here in, in giving them everything that pertains to life and godliness.

then we would be asking various application questions of the text, exeg Jesus, I of Jesus. I wanna encourage you guys to, to take a look at this for homework. I wanna look at one other passage. Let's see here.

Let's look at, I, I don't think I have. The other one Well, let's, let's ask. No, say, say it again. Yeah Yeah, what?

We'll hit that, we'll hit that next week. Let's ask some closing questions here. how would you explain what's the difference between ex Jesus nice Jesus? OK, taking out or reading in.

Let's see. We're gonna leave some of this for you guys to look at this week. let's look at this final question here. Which step of the three steps of inductive study offers the most opportunity to twist the scripture and add personal ideas into the text?

Yeah, interpretation, maybe a little bit of application. And we'll talk about the difference next week. Let me get you guys to your homework cause we're just about out of time. We want you guys to finish this week's lesson.

So take a, take a look at the Hebrews 4th passage and the 2 Timothy passage. for next week, read the prepare to learn part of lesson 3. We're gonna, I'm gonna post that earlier this week. so next week, we go to Lesson 3, just look at the background material.

I would really encourage you guys, all of your kids, raise your hand if you have kids in Sunday school right now. OK, so all your kids are starting to memorize Psalm 19:7-9. So this would be a great opportunity for you to be memorizing it with them. The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul, testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise and simple, right?

And so on. Advanced students, I will post this on CCC, but if you wanna write down just the basic titles, I'd like to encourage you to read an article by Matt Slick called How to Interpret the Bible. It's a very short article. It reviews some of the, most of the stuff that we're talking about, but it's a, it's a really good, just overview of hermeneutics.

And then there's about a 60 minute lesson, and this is optional, but I'd really encourage you to take a look at it. By RC Sproll called How to Study the Bible. Archie Sproul, I could just watch him talk about paint. He's just a lot of fun.

And, and this is an excellent lesson on how to study the Bible. It's on YouTube. You can just type in RC Sprawl, how to study the Bible. I will post that on CCC but these, these would be excellent follow-ups, for our lesson on hermeneutics.

You can always check out extra resources on Answers Bible curriculum. If you have any questions, you can email me. or you can hit me up on CCC Cornerstone Community Connection is what that means. Any questions, comments, criticisms, or concerns?

All right, let me. Let me ask you guys just a couple questions for understanding real quick. What does perspicuity mean? Clarity.

When we say the word perspicuity, do we mean that we can understand every scripture equally equally well? No, OK. what do we mean by hermeneutics? How do we interpret scripture?

Yes, it's the basic rules or approach to how do we interpret scripture. which of the Es do we want to do when we come to the Bible? exegesis and we don't want to do. Is of Jesus.

Do all of us probably unintentionally do I of Jesus? Yes. And so there's a constant growing of trying to examine our own I of Jesus and let ex Jesus do damage to our is Jesus, right? let's see, what else?

When we talk about the sufficiency of scripture, does that mean that the Bible is gonna help you with everything that you have to do throughout your day? No. What, what is the Bible designed to help you with? Godliness, becoming holy.

Knowing him Answering the big questions in life. So the Bible is sufficient to answer the big questions. Where do we come from? Why are we here?

Where are we going? What went wrong with the world? How do we fix it? When we talk about the, that the, that the Bible can answer those types of questions, the reformers had a big Latin word to teach everybody a certain doctrine, which is what?

Sola scriptura. The Bible alone, the scriptures alone are sufficient to answer the big questions of life. And so it's because the Bible alone is sufficient, and because the Bible is per perspicuitous, we can come and read the Bible and study it. There's 3 steps.

Yes. Somebody have a question? Yes, It's the Bible that tells us that, yeah, that's an excellent question. In fact, let me rephrase it.

What if the Bible is sufficient, why do we need pastors? Why do we need prayer? Why do we need the Holy Spirit? That's a great question.

Exactly. The Bible tells us, the Bible is sufficient to tell us what we need. I need my brothers and sisters in Christ, and the Bible tells me that. I need the Holy Spirit.

I need prayer and it's the Bible that tells me that. I need pastors and teachers. It's the Bible that tells me that. Without the Bible, I wouldn't know any of that stuff.

We don't, and we don't just discern, I don't just discern that I need pastors from my intuition, from nature. or whatever, I discern that I need pastors from the Bible. I discern that I need you from the Bible. I discern that I need the Holy Spirit from the Bible.

Let me show you, let me, last thing, let me demonstrate practically how this works out. As I understand that we need the Holy Spirit. I need the Holy Spirit as the Holy Spirit is teaching me through the Bible, as he's guiding me of life and convicting me of sin. I can go off into the forest by myself without my Bible.

And just sit up there and stare at the stars and stare at the trees. And just with no real knowledge of the Word of God and just say, Holy Spirit, help me out. And that's not what we're talking about when we say that we need the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will engage us through His word.

And there's got to be some knowledge of Jesus Christ through the Word of God, in order to have interaction with the Holy Spirit. You and I note, raise your hand if you have personally met Jesus Christ in the flesh. Raise your hand. OK, so how does anybody in this room know Jesus Christ existed?

And knows anything about Jesus. The only reason anything about Jesus is from the Word of God, either read or preached. If you weren't, if you didn't hear the Word of God, you would have no knowledge of who Jesus Christ is at all. And so the Holy Spirit uses his words, so solo scripture.

We only come to the knowledge of these things through His word and the word is sufficient. To give us the knowledge of these things. So that's a great question. I'm really glad it was asked.

Yes, Yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's a Let me answer it this way. I, I follow the approach that RC Sproll has. is the approach that I would have on that particular text. RC Sproul takes, he uses that text to demonstrate what we mean by the, the application of culture and the wrong application of culture.

And 1 Corinthians 11, in my opinion, follows the same pattern as 1 Timothy chapter 2. In 1 Timothy chapter 2, Paul builds his case by going back to Genesis and the Trinity, and he builds his argument based upon doctrinal eternal truths. So the overarching principle is, is when, when something's being taught on the basis of Genesis and the Trinity and doctrine, more often than not, it's an eternal principle. If a doctrine, if something's being taught like Paul says, greet each other with a holy kiss.

But he doesn't build that based upon doctrine, then we wouldn't say, hey, everybody's got to greet each other with a holy kiss, right? That's the basic, that's the rough draft kinda approach. Yeah. And Sprawl does a really good job with that on, on helping us understand how we discern something is just temporary and how, when it's normative is the term they use.

Roy Zuck, in his book on hermeneutics. I think it's him. He does, he, he has the exact same principle, goes to the exact same passage, however, in 1 Corinthians 11 and comes to a completely different conclusion. So in my opinion, Roy Zuck has the right principle and then he applies it wrongly.

and then an excellent resource would be Pastor Milton. Pastor Milton preached 9 messages or was it 50, I forget. 9 messages on 1 Corinthians 11. He's written a lot of material on this and, It has some really good, good stuff on that whole question.

So great, great question. All right. Let's go ahead and pray and then you guys will be dismissed. Lord, we thank you so much for just the blessing of being in your word today.

we ask God that you would just, guide us as we study and apply your word this week, help us to grow in our observation, interpretation, application of the word. we pray, Father, that you would just help us open up our mouth for the gospel this week. And, let us not assume that people all around us already know the truth. there are many people that just have no idea and they just need to hear the gospel shared and preached.

We pray that you just help us open up our mouths with kindness on souls that need your word. we ask you to guide us by your spirit this week. Thank you for this opportunity to study together in Christ's name we pray. Amen.