Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast,
where we are proclaiming the truth to the
world. In this podcast series, we're
going to be looking into biblical
words that have great significance to our
faith. The name of this series is
called the word of the week, where
once a week we will dive deeper into
these words that we are familiar
with in scripture. So come along with me.
Let's study the word of the week.
Pastor Josh here. The word of the
week is interpretation. Last week
we looked at biblical inspiration and
how that term essentially means that
the Bible is given to us from God,
directly from him. The source of
scripture is God inspired, means
God breathed. And so when we look at
the Bible, we know that it is given
to us by God as his word for us to
follow. But there's one thing to
recognize, that the Bible is given
to us from God. It's another thing to
interpret it the way that we should
interpret it. The Bible actually
warns us against false interpretation or
misinterpretation. The Bible says
in two TimoTHy, chapter two, verse 15,
study to show thyself approved unto
God, a workman that needeth not to
be ashamed. Rightly dividing the
word of truth. I want us to focus
in on that last phrase. They're rightly
dividing the word of truth. Or you
could say it like this, rightly handling
the word of truth, interpreting the
Bible correctly. Now, all of us understand
this, or at least we should understand
that. We will never understand the
Bible completely, perfectly this
side of heaven. But we do need to
understand that. The Bible calls
us to strive to study the scriptures,
to dive deep into scriptures, and to rightly
divide or rightly interpret what
the word of God has to say. You know,
there could be someone that says,
I believe that this is the word of
God, but I believe that this is interpreted
differently than you're interpreting
this. And so we can come down the line
on different sides when it comes to
interpretation, even if we believe
that this is the word of God. So how can
we deal with this? Well, really,
what we need to understand first and foremost
is that the study of the principles
and methods of interpreting scriptures,
something called hermeneutics, biblical
hermeneutics, I know that's a big
term, and I know that's something
that can sometimes be a little daunting
to think about. But the Bible does tell
us that there is a specific way that
we are to deal with scripture. And
it says here in two Timothy, chapter
two, rightly dividing the word of
truth. And so it's important to interpret
scripture correctly because we get
to the next step of application.
And so our application must be tied to right
interpretation. That's tied to the
inspiration of God. And so the way
that you could think about it is
this. To have the right application
of scripture, we must rightly interpret
scripture and understand that it's
inspired. So what are we doing to
apply the instruction given to us
by God through our proper interpretation,
through inspiration? And so I want
to give you some tools in rightly
dividing the word of truth. The Bible
tells us that it's so important to
see the word of God as literally
the word of God. And so I believe one of the
most important principles in dealing
with interpretation of scripture
is to take the Bible literally or basically
understanding the Bible in its normal
and plain meaning, unless the passage
is obviously and very clearly laying
out a symbolic or figurative speech.
For example, God is a rock. We know
he's not literally a rock, but we
know that that is describing something
that God could be compared to for
us to understand. So certainly there
are some symbolic, figurative references
in scripture, but contextually, we
understand those. The difficulty
that comes with interpreting scripture
is what is figurative and what is literal?
Well, we have to look at context, and that's
really the next step of understanding
the interpretation of scripture. Is interpreting
scripture historically, in context,
grammatically in context, and really
just in the understanding of contextually
in the chapter and in the book that
we're reading. You know, we can get
into a lot of difficulty when we
come to a passage of scripture and
say, well, what is this saying for
me? Well, before we start getting
to application, we have to see contextually
what the Bible is actually teaching.
And if we're interpreting correctly,
because we could look at a passage and misinterpret
that passage and then misapply that
passage to our life. And so one of
the things you have to take in, in
the understanding of how to interpret
is historically, who is the original
author through the inspiration of scripture,
addressing. Obviously, the people
that were in the time of the Bible had
a different culture. Historically speaking.
They had a different viewpoint on
certain things. If you studied the
book of Ruth and the things that
she was doing with Boaz, right. That
doesn't make sense to us in our context
today, but it made sense for them
back in the time that they lived.
And all of that can be seen throughout
the Old Testament and the New Testament.
So it takes some study to understand contextually
and historically what it's talking
about there. Grammatically, I don't
think you have to be a proper grammarian
to understand scripture, but it is
important to understand what the
Bible is saying in the original language,
in the original Hebrew, in the original
Greek. And with enough commentaries
today that are available to us online,
it's very easy to dive deeper into those
greek lexicons and to see those true
definitions of what those greek words
are. And so we have to understand
that. We have to understand that as we read
a passage of scripture, we can't just
take one verse out of context. We
have to see what's been leading up
to that verse. What's the whole chapter
been talking about? What's this whole
book been talking about? What comes
after this? And so, to rightly divide
the word of truth, obviously, we
have to get into it, right? That's
what it says in two Timothy, chapter
two, study to show thyself approved
unto goddess a workman. So it takes effort.
But through that effort comes that
confidence that we are doing our
best to rightly divide the word of
truth. Now, will we make some mistakes?
Of course, because we're human. But
obviously, we need to check ourselves.
We need to have godly counselors around
us. And so it takes a lot of steps
to get to a place where we can feel,
you know what? And we can know. For that
matter, we can know that we are doing
our best to rightly divide the word
of truth. For, for example, you could
look at the passage of scripture
where Jesus says, you know what? Love your
neighbor. Well, first of all, who
is my neighbor? Well, to understand
it from the wrong context, might say,
well, okay, I need to love the people
that live to the left and right of
me in my neighborhood and across
the street from me. But we know through
context that Jesus isn't just talking
about those who live right next to
you. He's talking about those that
you come across in your life. Another
thing that you could misinterpret
there is that word love. Our culture today
speaks of love in a very romantic
way, a very selfish way. But Jesus is speaking
there of agape love. He's speaking
of sacrificial love. He's not talking
about the love that's laid out for
us in our culture today. He's talking
about the love that's described in
one corinthians chapter 13. And so
we need to know the whole scope of
scripture, from Genesis to revelation.
What is it talking about here? Now, we
know the Bible doesn't contradict
itself. Sometimes there can be what we would
call seeming contradictions. But
if we read the Bible in its complete
form, we know that this isn't contradicting
this. This is just seeing this from a different
perspective. One of those examples
would be the book of James. If you read
the book of James outside of the
whole context of scripture, you might
tend to think that there's works
needed for salvation. Now, he's not
teaching that, but if you looked
at that from an isolated standpoint
and didn't understand all of what the
rest of scripture says, you might
be tempted to think that, hey, you know
what? Works need to be added to salvation
for our forgiveness. But we know
that we are saved by God's grace
through our faith, faith alone. And
it's the works that are produced
through that true faith. And so it took context
to understand that. Now, we could
talk a lot about this, and we will
not take up too much time dealing
with interpretation, but it is so important
to understand interpretation when it
comes to that next step of application.
And next week, we'll look more at the
application process. But it's all
about the application of the interpretation
of the inspiration. And so I would encourage
you, as you read scripture first
and foremost, to read scripture. Study,
do your best, strive to dig deeper into
the word. The Bible speaks of meditation.
Obviously, we know that this isn't
talking about the cultural meditation
of clearing our minds and emptying our
minds. No. It's about standing upon
the truths of God and dwelling upon
the truths in a healthy way. It's
so important to interpret scripture
because as we interpret scripture properly,
can guide our steps. I love what psalm
119 says. In psalm 119, we look at
a couple of different verses here.
Thy word have I hid in my heart,
that I might not sin against thee. That's
verse eleven. So as we hide God's
word in our heart, as we memorize
it, as we meditate upon it, it allows us
to live that life of holiness. It
allows us to live that life of righteousness,
not because we're just trying really
hard, but now we know the word of
God, and now we're dwelling upon
the word of God. And so, as we meditate
upon the word of God, as we dwell upon
it, as it says in verse 15 of psalm
119, I will meditate in thy precepts
and have respect unto thy ways. Verse
16, I will delight myself in thy statutes,
I will not forget thy word. And so,
over and over again in that chapter,
we are reminded of the importance of
meditating upon the truth of God.
Psalm one reminds us of that. It
tells us that we will be like trees
planted by the rivers of water when
we meditate upon the truths of God's
word. Later on in psalm 119, verse
105, we are reminded of the light
that it brings us in our life. Psalm
119 105 says, thy word is a lamp
unto my feet and a light unto my
path. And so to rightly divide the
word of truth allows us to get to
a place in our life where we are
guided by his word. And so I would
encourage you to think about, yes,
the source of scripture is God. But
secondarily, we need to understand
that as we interpret scripture, we need to
interpret it as God would have us
interpret it, not the way that we
would want to interpret it. So there's
two terms that I want to leave you
with here today. There's the term
eisegesis and exegesis. Eisegesis
is a term for the action of us, taking
what we already believe and what we want
to think and imparting that into
scripture, basically adding it to
scripture or trying to find those
truths there in scripture. Exegesis
is looking at the text and pulling out
from the text the actual teaching
that's there. And so it's important to practice
exegesis because we want to make
sure we know what the Bible says,
right. We want to be Bereans. We
want to dig deeper and say, okay,
what is the Bible teaching me? Not
what can I bring into the Bible?
And so Iseousis would be me saying, I
know that this is true. I want this
to be true. This is what I believe.
And so where can I find in scripture
that to fit into my belief system? So we
never want to bring into the scriptures
what we want it to say. We want to
see exactly what the Bible has to
say to us. So that might be different
than what we want it to say. So I
would encourage you to think about
those two terms, exegesis pulling
out of the passage to the truth, or Isajesus
infusing into the passage what we
want it to say. And so, in so doing,
we can learn from scripture, we can
grow from scripture, instead of trying
to make scripture fit into our box,
into our culture, into our lifestyle.
And so sometimes there's some justification
with that. Right. Well, I feel good about
doing this. So can I find something
in scripture that can make me feel better
about myself instead of saying, well,
what does the Bible say about my
life? And do I need to change this?
Does God want me to grow in this
area? And so part of interpretation
in that hermeneutic model is to pull out
from the passage what is there not
to infuse what we want to be there.
Now, we're seeing that in culture
today. We're seeing people trying
to fit their lifestyle, their belief
system, their comfort into what scripture
says. And we can even see a lot of
people saying, well, that was the
culture back then, but this is the
culture now. So we need to interpret
it with that mindset. And so there's
danger with that. Because if we say
that that was the culture, then,
this is the culture now. We can change
that teaching then basically, we have
the latitude and the freedom in our own
minds to then change anything we
want to our culture today. And we
know that the truths of scripture
never change. The Bible says that the grass
will wither, it will pass away, but
the word of God will stand forever.
And so the word of God standing forever
means the truths that are in the
word of God will stand forever. Forever,
o Lord, is thy word settled in heaven.
And so the word of God is eternal.
Its impact is timeless. It doesn't change
over culture. Now, sometimes in the
application, there might be some
differences, right, in the concept
of, okay, let's look at iPhones, right?
Or smartphones. Smartphones weren't
around 2000 years ago. And so obviously
the Bible doesn't speak directly to smartphones
and how we should deal with them,
but it does speak to the principles that
are involved in the idea of self
control, not putting wicked things
before our eyes, not allowing something
to control our lives. That's all
there in scripture. And so what we
do is we look at our life and we
see how the truths of scripture that
we're interpreting correctly as two
Timothy, chapter two tells us to
do, to rightly divide the word of
truth as we rightly divide the word
of truth, then we take those truths
with us and then we apply them to
our life today. We apply them to
what we're dealing with today. So
many times people want to go from
inspiration and go right to application
without the proper interpretation
there. And so, again, we're not going to be
perfect. You're not going to be perfect.
I'm not going to be perfect. We're
going to misinterpret passages, we're
going to misunderstand passages.
But it's so important for us to dig deeper
into understanding those checks and balances
when it comes to looking at scripture.
So I could say this, scripture is always
the best commentary on scripture.
And so for that reason, make sure you read
more passages. Maybe you read a passage
of scripture and it confuses you,
or maybe it kind of contradicts what
you think it should say. Go and read
the rest of scripture. See what the
Bible has to say about the topic.
I mean, ultimately, in John 1717, Jesus
says, sanctify them through thy truth.
Thy word is truth. The Bible is truth.
So many times in our world today,
people want to come up with other
truths. But what we do is we start
with scripture as our truth and we
build from there. And so I would
encourage you, as you study scripture,
read, meditate, grow in the truth
of God, grow in the understanding of
what that means for your life. But
start with that proper interpretation.
So start with the understanding of inspiration.
This is coming from God, not a work of
man. All scripture is given by inspiration
of God. And it's profitable for doctrine,
for reproof, for correction, for
instruction and righteousness. And
then go from that understanding of
interpretation, or, excuse me, inspiration,
and then take it to that interpretation
and say, okay, what is this saying? What
is this teaching? And then next week,
we will look at application. What
does this look like in our lives
after we go past the interpretive
stage? So, thank you so much for listening today.
I hope that this has been a help
for you. I hope that you can continue
to study the word of God, and as the
Bible says there in two Timothy,
chapter two, verse 15, to rightly divide
the word of truth. Well, God bless you.
Have a wonderful week. We will talk
to you next week on the word of the
week episode. Hey, I really appreciate
that you listen to the word of the
Week podcast. If you have any questions
about the podcast or about our church,
Middletown Baptist Church, you can
find more information about us on
Facebook or YouTube, or you can find
the podcast on nbcpodcast.org dot.
You can contact me directly at Joshmissaro
middletownbaptistchurch.org. stay
tuned for future word of the week
episodes where we dive deeper into
words that impact our life according
to scripture. Thank you so much. God
bless. We'll talk to you soon.