Getting into God’s Word (3)
Scott Bayles, pastor
Blooming Grove Christian Church: 1/27/2013
If you haven’t been here all this month, I started off this year talking about the Bible. Like it says in your bulletin, the Bible is the most-read, most-loved and most controversial book of all time. In America, Bibles are everywhere. You can find them in grocery stores, prisons, and motel rooms. They’re available in all sizes, shapes, translations, and versions—leather-bound, hard-cover or paperback. Every year the Bible outsells every other book. Last year 500 million Bibles were published in the world in 18,000 different languages. In America we are inundated with the word of God. It’s everywhere. Yet millions of people still miss the blessing of the Bible.
Last Sunday I talked about how you can know for certain that God has spoken. Using the acronym MAP—which stands for manuscripts, archeology, and prophecy—we can know that the Bible is indeed the Word of God. But if the Bible is God’s Word, then it’s important that we take great care in understanding everything it has to say, which can be difficult because misunderstandings are so common for us.
I read this week about a woman who was waiting at an airport one night, with several long hours before her flight. She hunted for a book in the airport gift shop and bought a bag of cookies to hold her over. She found a seat by her terminal and read a chapter or two of her book when she saw the man sitting beside her open her bag of cookies, eat two of them and then set the bag on the tray between them. She tried to ignore it, so as not to make a scene. She simply picked up the bag and ate a couple herself. But then a few minutes later, the man took another one. She was getting more irritated as with each cookie she took, he took one too! When only one was left, she watched to see what he would do. He cheerfully took the last cookie and broke it in two, munching on one half and offering the other to her. That was the last straw! She was about to give this ungrateful cookie thief a piece of her mind, when her flight was called. So she just grabbed her purse and headed to the gate, grumbling all the away. She reached into her purse to get her boarding pass and gasp with surprise as pulled out her bag of cookies!
Sometimes we’re not the best interpreters. Misunderstandings happen all the time. And we’ve got to admit that some things in the Bible are difficult to understand.
In fact, the Bible itself tells us so:
“And remember, our Lord’s patience gives people time to be saved. This is what our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you with the wisdom God gave him—speaking of these things in all of his letters. Some of his comments are hard to understand, and those who are ignorant and unstable have twisted his letters to mean something quite different, just as they do with other parts of Scripture” (2 Peter 3:15-16 NLT).
Even the apostle Peter recognized that some portions of scripture were hard to understand. And someone who doesn’t know any better (ignorant) or someone who does know better, but does it anyway (unstable) can twist the scriptures—misinterpret them—to mean something very different from their original intended meaning. But you’ll notice that Peter doesn’t say that all or even most of Scripture is hard to understand or that any of Scripture is impossible to understand; just that some portions are hard to understand. But I believe we can understand all of God’s Word, if we’re willing to put in the time and effort it takes to interpret God’s Word properly. I’d like to share four principles with you this morning to help you better understand God’s Word—to really read the Bible for all it’s worth. The first principle in understanding the Bible is the spiritual principle.
• THE SPIRITUAL PRINCIPLE
The Spiritual principle is simply a reminder that in order to understand spiritual things, we need the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The Bible says, “We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us” (1 Corinthians 2:12 NIV).
You see, when a believer receives Christ we also receive the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit then becomes our companion and guide as we study his Word. Jesus told his disciples, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth” (John 16:13). We will never understand the truth of God’s Word apart from God’s Spirit.
Many people misunderstand and misuse the Bible not because they lack intelligence, but because they lack illumination from God’s Spirit. When we come to a difficult passage of Scripture, we can ask the Holy Spirit to shed divine light on the inspired text. And the problem isn’t a lack of light; rather, the problem is that people prefer darkness. Jesus once told the crowd he was preaching to, “You will listen and listen, yet never understand; and you will look and look, yet never perceive. For this people’s heart has grown callous; their ears are hard of hearing, and they have shut their eyes; otherwise they might see with their eyes and hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn back” (Matthew 13:14-15 HCSB).
Understanding God’s word is first of all a matter of the heart. Apart from the Holy Spirit, reading Scripture is like reading someone else’s mail. Before you can be serious about getting into God’s Word, you’ve got to get God’s Spirit into you. Pray. Ask God to open your heart and mind. Ask him to fill you with the Holy Spirit. Don’t lean on your own understanding; rather, trust God with all your heart and he’ll make things clear to you. The second principle in understanding the Bible is the style principle.
• THE STYLE PRINCIPLE
I like the story about a legalistic Seminary student wanted to have “scriptural authority” for everything he did. He wanted to quote book, chapter and verse to justify his every action. It worked just fine for him until he met a beautiful co-ed. He wanted very much to kiss her, but he just couldn’t find a scripture to justify it. So, true to his conscience, he would simply walk her to the dormitory each night, look at her longingly and then say good night. This went on for several weeks, and all the while he was searching the Bible, trying to find some scripture to justify kissing her good night, but he couldn’t find one. Then, one evening he walked her to the dormitory when all of a sudden she grabbed him, pulled him close and planted a 10-second kiss right on his lips. The Seminary student gasped for air with this puzzled look on his face. Then the girl just smiled and said, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
Of course, the real problem for this seminary student was his literal-at-all-costs interpretation of Scripture. In order to avoid the dangers of hyper-literalism, it’s important to apply the style principle. Simply stated the style principle instructs us to interpret the Bible in the style and sense in which it was written.
The Bible employs nearly every form of literature. Some portions of Scripture are written in historical narrative, some in poetic proses, and others in sci-fi fantasy. Just as you don’t read a legal brief the same way you read Lord of the Rings, you don’t read Leviticus the same way you read Revelation. The styles are very different. While there are many passages that should be taken literally, every book of the Bible, regardless of style uses figurative language at times. Scripture is replete with metaphors, hyperbole, and even fantasy imagery.
For instance, when someone says, “It’s raining cats and dogs out there,” we don’t assume that pets are literally falling from the sky. Likewise, when Jesus says, “I am the door” (John 10:9) we don’t think Jesus is made of wood and hinges. The Bible is chockfull of metaphors like this.
Also, if you step on the scale and exclaim, “Oh my gosh, I weigh a ton!” you obviously aren’t saying that you literally weigh two thousand pounds. You’re using hyperbole. And the Bible uses hyperbole too. When Jesus says, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move” (Matthew 17:20 NIV), this is hyperbole. Jesus isn’t saying that we can literally change the landscape, just by believing hard enough; rather, he’s saying that a little faith can accomplish great things.
Likewise, books like Revelation or Daniel are overflowing with fantasy imagery, such as an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, and a beast that resembles a leopard with feet like a bear and mouth like a lion. It’s important to recognize that these fantasy images don’t correspond to anything in reality; rather, they are personifications or caricatures of reality. When we approach the Bible with a literal-at-all-costs mentality it inevitably leads to absurdity.
So if we want to understand Scripture it’s important that we pay close attention to the style principle. The third principle is the setting principle.
• THE SETTING PRINCIPLE
The Bible was written over a span of 1600 years by more than forty different authors form three different continents, in three different languages, thousands of years ago on the other side of the planet. So there will obviously be some references to people, places and particulars that we’re not familiar with. The Bible is best understood when we’re familiar with the customs, culture, and historical context of biblical times.
There’s a really good example in Revelation, when Jesus says to the church in Laodicea, “I know all the things you do, that you are neither hot nor cold. I wish that you were one or the other! But since you are like lukewarm water, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth!” (Revelation 3:15-16 NLT).
A lot of people misunderstand this passage. Our idea of a “lukewarm” Christian is someone who’s saved but not zealous about Jesus. They maybe he heaven-bound, but their hearts aren’t on fire. But when we apply the setting principle, we have a different understanding. Historically, we know Laodicea had a water problem. They didn’t have any. So they had it piped in from Hierapolis via underground aqueducts. Hierapolis had these natural hot mineral springs, where hot water just came bubbling up to the surface. But as the water traveled roughly six miles to Laodicea it cooled off slightly. From Laodicea the aqueduct carried the water south to Colossae. By the time the water reached Colossae, it was refreshingly cold. But at Laodicea, the water was lukewarm, tepid, and it cultivated bacterial growth that often caused diarrhea and vomiting. If the water had been either hot (like in Hierapolis) or cold (as in Colossae) it would have been good and useful, but as it was the water was disgusting and useless—just like the so-called Christians of Laodicea had become.
By taking the setting into consideration, we gain a better understanding of the passage. Thankfully, there are a host of excellent Bible handbooks and commentaries to aid us in the process of understanding the people and places of the Bible. When we’re “in the know,” so to speak, we’re in a much better position to understand the Bible.
This reminds me of the story of Bertha Belch. There was a missionary who had the unfortunate name of Bertha Belch. She was home on furlough and was going to be speaking at one of the local churches that help support her. One of the deacons changed the sign outside of the church to say, “Come Sunday to hear Bertha Belch all the way from Africa!”
The folks who knew Bertha Belch was an African missionary were in a much better position to interpret that sign correctly. Now, the final principle for properly interpreting the Bible is the synergy principle.
• THE SYNERGY PRINCIPLE
In a nutshell, the synergy principle means that all of Scripture works together in harmony. So, individual passages of Scripture should be interpreted in a way that harmonizes with the whole of Scripture. In other words, we need to read Scripture in light of Scripture and let the Bible interpret itself.
Let me share an example. As Christians we believe that Jesus is the eternal God with no beginning or ending, yet there is a particular verse that sometimes stumbles seekers and challenges Christians. The Bible says, “The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation” (Colossians 1:15 NIV). Jehovah’s Witnesses and others claim that this verse teaches Jesus was the first created being, but the principle of scriptural synergy helps to understand this statement more accurately.
First, the panoply of Scripture makes absolutely plain Jesus is the eternal Creator who spoke and the countless galaxies leapt into existence. In John 1, Jesus is clearly called “God” and said to have been “in the beginning with God.” In Hebrews 1, he is said to be the one who “laid the foundations of the earth.” In the very last chapter of the Bible Christ refers to Himself as “the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.” Indeed, the whole of Scripture precludes the possibility that Christ could be anything other than eternal.
Furthermore, the Bible doesn’t always use the term “firstborn” to mean born first. For example, Ephraim, in the Old Testament, is referred to as the Lord’s “firstborn” even though Manasseh was born first. In similar fashion David is appointed the Lord’s “firstborn, the most exalted of the kings of the earth,” and this is despite the fact that he’s the youngest of Jesse’s sons. Neither Ephraim nor David was the first one born in the family; rather, firstborn meant the one holding the highest place of honor.
So by reading Scripture in light of Scripture, we can see how the Bible is synergistic in nature and every passage harmonizes with the whole. We interpret the few in light of the many and the cloudy in light of the clear. That is the synergy principle.
Conclusion
By applying these four principles—the spiritual principle, the style principle, the setting principle, and the synergy principle—we can make sense of even the most difficult passages of Scripture and really start to read the Bible for all it’s worth.
Even after you’ve gone through the process of applying these principles, if there’s a passage that you can’t quite figure out, it ever hurts to ask for help. Remember the story of Philip and the Ethiopian treasurer? Philip spotted him read the book of Isaiah, so he ran up to the chariot and asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” And the man replied, “How can I unless someone explains it to me?” It never hurt to ask for help. You can bring it up during Sunday school and discuss it as a group or maybe post your question on the church’s Facebook page, because—trust me—if you’re wondering about it, there are probably a dozen other people with the same question.
Invitation
In the meantime, I want to invite you to get into God’s Word this week and discover how the Bible can make a difference in your life. When you get into God’s Word and get God’s Word into you, you will never be the same. If you need help with that, then come talk to me while we stand and sing.
