back to indexWed Bible Study (BCC 2) - 10-19-16
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All right, so today we're going to be going through biblical interpretation. 00:00:11.280 |
And again, I know those of you who've taken hermeneutics who've been at our church for 00:00:15.080 |
a while, again, a lot of this stuff is going to be reviewed, but I think it's important 00:00:19.400 |
that we have everybody at the church who are members and growing in the church that we're 00:00:27.600 |
You know, I think for me, one of the most frustrating conversations that I have, oftentimes, 00:00:35.080 |
I don't think it happens much in the church, but it's oftentimes outside the church when 00:00:39.120 |
I run into other pastors or other Christians or I'm speaking somewhere and we happen to 00:00:44.020 |
have a disagreement on a particular doctrine, maybe a woman in ministry issue. 00:00:51.000 |
More and more it seems like the homosexuality, that issue, even inside the church, it's being 00:00:58.520 |
But when that subject comes up, it's the way that we argue or discuss, it's frustrating 00:01:05.080 |
because we've strayed away from the authority of the word of God. 00:01:09.840 |
In fact, most churches I know will confess in their doctrinal statement that they believe 00:01:13.640 |
that the word of God is inerrant, but it's not being used that way. 00:01:18.880 |
It almost kind of like, well, you come from a conservative church, that's what you believe. 00:01:22.280 |
You know, I'm not sure if that's what I believe. 00:01:24.720 |
And so, well, do you believe in the word of God? 00:01:26.600 |
I'd say, yes, of course I believe in the word of God. 00:01:33.520 |
But it's never really about interpretation of what the word of God says. 00:01:40.640 |
It's extremely important for us that not only do we confess the word of God as having authority, 00:01:46.920 |
we need to actually practice that it has authority. 00:01:50.720 |
So the way we think, what we consider right or wrong, what we practice has to be based 00:01:57.720 |
Not your prejudice, not whatever's happening in our culture, not what other Christians 00:02:02.460 |
are thinking, that it has to be based on God's word. 00:02:05.440 |
So from the very beginning of our church, the reason why we chose the name Berean was 00:02:11.360 |
because we want to be a church that actually tested the word of God to make sure that what 00:02:17.800 |
Not just we're Baptist or we happen to be Reformed or we have, you know, whatever doctrines 00:02:23.220 |
Today, we're going to be going over some interpretational issues. 00:02:27.160 |
So again, this is not a hermeneutics class, so we're not going to be able to spend a lot 00:02:31.200 |
of time, but just basic principles of how we ought to understand Scripture and how to 00:02:39.020 |
So, I'm not going to answer all your questions, but hopefully, at least fundamentally, we're 00:02:48.000 |
So perspective of interpretation, there's three things that you'll see. 00:02:52.960 |
The first perspective of interpretation is in the third-person approach. 00:03:04.460 |
And I'm going to go a little bit more deeper into that. 00:03:07.160 |
The second is in the first-person approach, which is for devotional purposes, which is 00:03:15.380 |
So first approach is finding out what does it say? 00:03:21.660 |
And then the second-person approach is homiletical, sharing the Word to others. 00:03:33.840 |
So whenever we approach the Scripture, we have to approach the Scripture with all three. 00:03:37.880 |
The temptation that I have as a pastor or a teacher, or maybe some of you guys who are 00:03:42.400 |
Sunday school teachers or whatever, that we can get in the habit of just studying for 00:03:47.680 |
You know, it's dangerous if we just come and say, "Oh, you know, are there materials in 00:03:53.160 |
And then it never makes a personal impact on you. 00:03:55.780 |
These are the three steps that every time we open up the Scripture, one, what does it 00:04:11.000 |
First one is the third-person approach exegesis, which is discovering the truth. 00:04:17.400 |
The question that we need to answer is, what does this mean? 00:04:31.840 |
So careful attention to the laws of interpretation. 00:04:35.240 |
Applying some of the hermeneutical principles that we're going to be talking about today. 00:04:39.520 |
And hermeneutics basically means the guidelines of how to interpret Scripture. 00:04:52.360 |
What did he mean, and how did they understand it? 00:04:54.560 |
Two thousand years ago when the New Testament was written, what did they understand? 00:04:59.640 |
And we need to really be careful that when we're studying, that we're really taking 00:05:06.880 |
There are certain things that, certain phrases that we say today that may not have made sense 00:05:21.800 |
And she's so square, she didn't know what it meant. 00:05:32.600 |
And she just didn't get it because she's from a different era. 00:05:39.120 |
She's always making fun of me, so I'm up here. 00:05:42.440 |
So, you know, certain phrases or certain words that we use. 00:05:45.440 |
I mean, this was used two thousand years ago. 00:05:47.400 |
So when we interpret certain passages, that we don't go in there and say, "Oh, they're 00:05:54.600 |
Like that's another one of those words that when you see the word "heart" in the Bible, 00:05:58.520 |
the word "heart," the way they use it is very different than the way we use it. 00:06:08.360 |
So we have to be careful that we do our homework to find out what did they mean by it. 00:06:14.320 |
The other thing that I had a really hard time with is the term "slavery." 00:06:17.800 |
Because there's so many negative connotations, obviously because of recent history in the 00:06:23.520 |
And so we project a lot of things that we know to be evil, which I'm not saying that 00:06:28.320 |
slavery at that time was considered a good thing, but it culturally, it's very different 00:06:36.940 |
So when we begin to project a lot of the criticisms that you will hear from the liberal media 00:06:41.480 |
or from people who are trying to knock Christianity, it's because they're interpreting from their 00:06:49.480 |
So the first step is understanding what did they understand? 00:06:57.480 |
You have to go back, maybe read some commentary, some cultural stuff. 00:07:01.720 |
And the more you do this, the easier it'll become. 00:07:06.080 |
And the more you understand about what was happening during that period, the more, less 00:07:13.440 |
So this is the first and most important part of biblical interpretation. 00:07:23.000 |
So a lot of the passages in the Bible where you say, "Oh, that seems to contradict." 00:07:28.400 |
"He said this over here, and he said that over there." 00:07:30.760 |
But when you do a careful study, you realize that, again, it's not a contradiction at all 00:07:34.360 |
when you understand the culture and what they meant by it. 00:07:39.440 |
The danger of not doing this, or to ignore this step, is the interpretation of scripture 00:07:44.960 |
is no more than personal opinion and conjecture. 00:07:48.200 |
That if you're in the habit of just opening up in scripture and saying, "Well, this is 00:07:51.680 |
what I think this passage means," and you have an accumulation of knowledge that you've 00:07:56.760 |
gained from a superficial reading of the scripture, you can come out with all kinds of doctrines 00:08:02.320 |
and you think it's biblical, but when you actually carefully study it, you find out 00:08:09.600 |
So when we're saying that we want to be Berean, this is what we mean. 00:08:13.640 |
We want to test every doctrine, every movement, right? 00:08:18.320 |
Every doctrinal position to make sure that it's coming from scripture. 00:08:23.000 |
Not from our denomination, not from anywhere else, but from scripture. 00:08:29.160 |
So if we don't do that, the danger is it begins to lose authority. 00:08:33.680 |
If what we're preaching and saying is simply based upon my experience, well, my experience 00:08:38.560 |
is no better than yours, and it's no better than the person down the street. 00:08:43.000 |
The authority has to come from the Word of God. 00:08:45.320 |
And so if we're going to speak with authority, it has to be based on truth. 00:08:53.160 |
The second is the first-person approach is devotional. 00:08:58.280 |
So the first part is interpretation, and then the second part of it is application. 00:09:10.000 |
Meaning not to get into the scripture and say, "Well, when you read this, what do you 00:09:16.320 |
First, do the homework of interpretation, and then, applicationally, what is God convicting 00:09:22.840 |
So, if we miss this part, again, those of you who've been at our church for a while, 00:09:48.400 |
Because the purpose of interpretation is for the purpose of application. 00:09:51.420 |
Not simply so that we can read it and say, "Well, I know more than you." 00:09:58.100 |
It judges the thoughts and intentions of our heart. 00:10:01.800 |
So, the biggest part of understanding the will of God, a lot of times we say, "Well, 00:10:10.840 |
Does He want me to marry this person or that person?" 00:10:12.960 |
And a lot of times we're searching for circumstantial of what does God want me to do? 00:10:20.320 |
Does He want me to go to this school or that school? 00:10:22.360 |
Oftentimes, the will of God has a lot to do with why you're doing that. 00:10:34.380 |
Oftentimes we'll determine if that, you're doing that to honor God or for your own purpose. 00:10:38.600 |
So, God doesn't have like, "Well, this person is supposed to be a doctor and that person 00:10:41.880 |
is supposed to be a lawyer and this person is supposed to do that." 00:10:45.640 |
So, there's a reason why the Scripture says in Romans 12, 2, "Not to conform but be transformed 00:10:51.540 |
Then you will be able to test and approve that which is good and perfect will of God." 00:10:55.400 |
So, when your mind is renewed according to the Word of God and you're convicted and your 00:11:00.320 |
sins are being exposed and you're being sanctified, then you're able to discern your own heart. 00:11:08.560 |
So, the second part of the interpretation is application. 00:11:12.580 |
How do we apply the things that we are learning? 00:11:16.400 |
We're not seeking personal opinions, but application of truth. 00:11:24.720 |
What is God saying to me through this passage? 00:11:29.960 |
And then again, the danger of not applying that is that there's no spiritual growth. 00:11:35.840 |
If you are in the habit of constantly learning and not applying, what does that make you? 00:11:49.360 |
You keep eating without exercising and you're out of shape. 00:11:53.800 |
That's what happens to somebody who's constantly learning. 00:11:58.240 |
Especially if you happen to be going to a church where the Bible is taught on a regular 00:12:03.880 |
basis, right, then you probably know more theology than an average person, an average 00:12:10.400 |
Christian maybe, outside of a church that doesn't teach the Bible. 00:12:13.760 |
And you get a false sense of security that you are more mature than you really are. 00:12:21.360 |
Because what makes you mature is not because you heard the Word of God, but that you heard 00:12:28.160 |
If all it is is interpretation and hearing, and you're not actively trying to practice 00:12:33.400 |
what you're learning, it just makes you a better hypocrite. 00:12:39.560 |
And then third person, homiletical, spreading the Word to other people. 00:12:43.660 |
And that question is, how do I share this with other people? 00:12:48.080 |
Because ultimately the word "gospel," "eugelion," means "good news." 00:12:54.000 |
And the gospel is not just Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. 00:13:03.600 |
Because it is the story of redemption of mankind for His glory. 00:13:08.800 |
So the very title of what the Bible means is to tell people. 00:13:17.200 |
But if we're studying it, and we're trying to apply it, and all it is is that you're 00:13:20.960 |
just kind of introspective about yourself, but you're not ultimately sharing it, then 00:13:28.600 |
So the failure to do this is to fail the mandate to share the good news, the gospel. 00:13:40.560 |
We are the light in a dark world, so it was meant to be shared. 00:13:44.200 |
So everything that we're learning ultimately is meant to be shared. 00:13:51.240 |
So these are the three perspectives that we have in interpretation. 00:14:00.080 |
And third, how do I share this with other people? 00:14:02.480 |
So some of you guys may be sitting there thinking, "Well, I'm not a pastor. 00:14:05.040 |
I'm not a small group leader, so that doesn't really apply to me." 00:14:10.900 |
When we're talking about sharing, we're not saying that you need to be teaching people. 00:14:16.180 |
Sharing simply means if you've been convicted about something and you share this with somebody 00:14:19.420 |
else, right, you don't have to have the title "teacher" to be able to share. 00:14:25.940 |
You can share the blessings that you have in the Word of God, certain things that you 00:14:29.620 |
learn, and we're able to sharpen each other as a result of it. 00:14:38.540 |
This makes a huge difference in if the Word of God, like if the Word of God has become 00:14:43.180 |
stale to you, right, eventually it becomes stale. 00:14:46.820 |
If you're not in the habit of sharing the things that you are learning, I guarantee 00:14:55.020 |
Even the gospel, no matter how much you tell yourself, "Jesus died for me, Jesus died for 00:14:58.420 |
me, Jesus died for me," right, at some point, if you're not in the habit of sharing the 00:15:02.180 |
good news with other people, even the gospel will become stale. 00:15:09.020 |
Our sanctification and our love for the Word of God is always in the context of not only 00:15:14.340 |
learning, but convicting and sharing all three of these things. 00:15:24.980 |
Again, this is probably a review for a lot of you, but again, I want to make sure that 00:15:31.580 |
The four different stages of interpretation, and how we interpret the scripture, and it 00:15:45.020 |
If you start interpretation and how you get doctrine by philosophical theology first, 00:15:51.140 |
and you work out backwards, you're going to get all kinds of false doctrines. 00:15:54.440 |
And usually that's how false doctrines come about. 00:16:02.700 |
So let me just quickly go over it, and then I'm going to dive into it one by one. 00:16:08.820 |
Exegesis obviously is a verse by verse study of God's Word. 00:16:15.900 |
By doing your homework, this is where you get into the Greek, the cultural background, 00:16:22.660 |
This is where you read the commentaries and figure out what does it mean. 00:16:28.380 |
So you have this, you can't have systematic theology. 00:16:33.620 |
And systematic theology is basically a compiling of information that you gained from exegesis. 00:16:47.300 |
Historical theology is basically theology that was handed down to us in church history. 00:16:52.960 |
So the church fathers got together at the church councils, at church meetings, where 00:16:57.620 |
they fought and argued based upon scripture, what does the Bible say about Jesus? 00:17:04.300 |
What does the Bible say about salvation, the end times? 00:17:06.820 |
And so we compare our exegesis, systematic theology, with historical theology. 00:17:13.820 |
I'm going to get into it a little bit more, so if you're confused, I'll come back to it. 00:17:18.380 |
Philosophical theology is trying to make sense of what we talked about. 00:17:28.460 |
We get into trouble when we start with philosophical theology. 00:17:39.380 |
A philosophical theology may be embracing a theology because it makes the most sense 00:17:49.440 |
If I try to explain the Trinity to you, okay? 00:17:53.100 |
If we had two people up here, and we start debating, which doctrine makes more sense 00:17:58.620 |
A Jehovah Witnesses doctrine of the Trinity, or my doctrine of the Trinity? 00:18:13.580 |
Jesus is speaking to his Father, you know, it just makes more sense. 00:18:16.620 |
And what you're saying doesn't make any sense." 00:18:20.500 |
"That doesn't fit my reality, so therefore, that's not what the Bible teaches." 00:18:24.020 |
So if I argued this man without the scripture, which theology would you choose? 00:18:36.660 |
Common sense would tell you that you would probably choose the Jehovah Witness doctrine. 00:18:44.660 |
The doctrine of the Trinity that I'm trying to explain to you, I can't explain it to 00:18:51.980 |
So if I came up here and told you, "Who is Jesus? 00:19:13.740 |
So philosophical theology is trying to make sense of what the Bible says. 00:19:16.140 |
So if you choose theology based upon what seems to make the most sense to you, before 00:19:21.460 |
you do the homework, you're going to end up with all kinds of false doctrine. 00:19:26.100 |
If the Word of God is God's Word, we have to first study what does it say. 00:19:34.620 |
Not what makes most sense to you, but what does it say. 00:19:38.420 |
I'm going to jump into it a little bit further. 00:19:42.380 |
It's a careful analysis of the text, applying literal historical interpretation of the text, 00:19:47.260 |
doing our best to understand the original author's intent of the passage, which we already 00:19:59.900 |
I had a discussion with somebody years and years ago, when I was a youth pastor. 00:20:06.020 |
He graduated high school, and then he ended up going down to UCLA. 00:20:10.780 |
And then he started attending this church, and was very anti-charismatic. 00:20:17.940 |
I'm open but cautious, if you know what that means. 00:20:19.980 |
But I'm not a, you know, I don't practice the charismatic, because obviously you're 00:20:29.340 |
He said, "These charismatics, you know, they're not right with God, they don't know anything 00:20:36.260 |
And he was going at it with not debating with me, but thinking that I would agree with him, 00:20:43.380 |
But the concern I had with the way that he was going after the charismatics was, he heard 00:20:52.020 |
And they were very passionate about slamming the charismatics. 00:20:56.980 |
So I asked him, "So why do you believe that?" 00:20:59.580 |
And he said, "Well, because the Bible said so." 00:21:07.380 |
And he got kind of caught off guard, because he was like, "Are you charismatic? 00:21:11.460 |
He's like, "I'm not defending the charismatic. 00:21:15.660 |
So you're a young guy, you're coming here passionate, you're just like bashing all these 00:21:22.580 |
I just want to make sure that you understand where your passion's coming from. 00:21:26.940 |
That if it's coming from a conviction of Scripture, or you just happened to find a group that 00:21:32.740 |
And so I challenged him to look through the Scripture. 00:21:35.460 |
So he came up with a couple of verses, and I said, "Are you sure that's what it says?" 00:21:38.300 |
Then I played the devil's advocate, and it took no more than a minute and a half to destroy 00:21:46.860 |
My point was, if you come to a conclusion of a doctrine the way you came to a conclusion, 00:21:57.380 |
This is what causes self-righteousness and pride. 00:22:00.860 |
And you are absolutely convinced that you are right. 00:22:05.260 |
But the way you came to that conclusion is wrong. 00:22:08.320 |
You got passionate because you found somebody that you really respected, and he came out 00:22:18.220 |
So I was trying to caution him, "Don't come to conclusions that way. 00:22:26.300 |
And so any wind of doctrine that comes in that seems to be right, and certain people 00:22:31.300 |
that you respect can cling to that, then you're going to end up just jumping onto the same 00:22:37.380 |
And that's a very dangerous way to come to convictions. 00:22:40.700 |
So first and foremost, you have to do your study. 00:22:44.780 |
If you're going to say, "This is what I believe," make sure you're able to back it up by passages. 00:22:50.340 |
Not by people, not by anything else, but where in the Bible did you get this conviction? 00:22:58.420 |
Systematic theology, you can't have a systematic theology if you didn't do the exegesis. 00:23:05.380 |
So if I asked you, "What are your views about the end times?" 00:23:09.860 |
And I run into people all the time that say, "Oh, I'm a dispensationist, or I'm a covenant 00:23:13.900 |
theology, or I believe in pre-trib, post-trib, I'm a millennial." 00:23:17.780 |
And they'll throw all these terms, and I'll ask them, "Where did you get that?" 00:23:21.420 |
And they'll say, "Well, I learned it in catechism, I learned it in school, and I went to seminary, 00:23:29.100 |
They'll mention all these things, "I read this book, and this guy, the Anabaptists, 00:23:32.380 |
believed this, or Zwingli believed that," and they'll throw all these terms around. 00:23:37.220 |
I asked where in the Bible, what passage were you studying, and which passages were you 00:23:42.660 |
studying that caused you to see that that made more sense to you?" 00:23:48.460 |
So if you come to a conclusion on that subject just because, "You know what? 00:23:52.620 |
That makes more sense to me, that Jesus would come back once instead of several times, or 00:23:57.260 |
that he would be pre-trib, because it just makes sense that the Church wouldn't go through 00:24:00.660 |
the Tribulation, or the Church would go through Tribulation, that makes more sense to me." 00:24:05.580 |
It's not just not wise, it's dangerous if you come to conclusions like that, because 00:24:10.580 |
that's how false doctrine comes into the Church. 00:24:13.620 |
You can live your whole life thinking that you are doctrinally correct, without ever 00:24:18.080 |
really being doctrinally correct, if that's the way you come to conclusions. 00:24:22.460 |
So systematic theology is a collection, right? 00:24:27.820 |
So if you're not diligently—and again, I say this with utmost caution—if you are 00:24:34.980 |
not diligently studying the Bible, do not be strong in the doctrinal convictions that 00:24:50.940 |
If you're not studying the Word of God carefully, it's just your prejudice. 00:25:01.220 |
So that's not a wise way to come to a conclusion. 00:25:05.660 |
So an example of systematic theology would be God's nature. 00:25:11.620 |
So if you say, "Oh no, God is love, love, love." 00:25:14.060 |
I say, "No, God's Bible also says that God is holy, holy, holy. 00:25:20.900 |
So there's all kinds of things about God that the Bible teaches. 00:25:24.260 |
But if you say, "Oh, I grew up in a church where all I heard was, 'God is love, love, 00:25:30.260 |
Or maybe you went to a church where all you heard was, 'God is holy, holy, holy.'" 00:25:34.300 |
And your doctrine of who God is, is not systematic theology, but just prejudice. 00:25:41.220 |
So there are certain things that you can't come to a conclusion by just one verse. 00:25:49.260 |
Systematic theology is a collection of careful study of the Word of God, which collectively 00:25:55.780 |
And that's where we get the doctrine of Trinity. 00:25:59.660 |
Doctrine of Trinity was a doctrine that I had such a hard time with when I was a young 00:26:06.620 |
Every Bible study I had, I asked them, "Explain the Trinity to me." 00:26:12.580 |
And after they would give me their best illustration, they would always conclude by saying, "But 00:26:35.020 |
And then they would tell me, "It's kind of like that." 00:26:39.740 |
And then they would say, "But it's not like that." 00:26:44.220 |
So I would say, "Okay, maybe he's not smart enough, or he doesn't know the Bible enough." 00:26:48.980 |
So I would go ask my professors, because I was a Bible major at Biola. 00:26:52.980 |
And every professor I asked would always give me, "It's kind of like this, but it's not." 00:26:59.260 |
And then I realized, like, how can I believe in a God that I can't even explain? 00:27:04.980 |
How do I come to worship a God that I can't even comprehend in my head? 00:27:12.220 |
Well, the way that I came to conclusion and conviction of the Doctrine of Trinity was 00:27:18.620 |
not from reading books or from talking to people, because the more I talked to people, 00:27:25.620 |
I was firmly convinced that this was God's Word. 00:27:28.420 |
And I'm not going to explain to you how I came to that conclusion. 00:27:32.820 |
But I was absolutely convinced that this was God's Word. 00:27:36.700 |
Apologetics, the internal evidence, the Word of God itself. 00:27:39.740 |
But once I was convinced that that was God's Word, I began to study it systematically. 00:27:43.980 |
So it wasn't something that just all of a sudden I got. 00:27:46.780 |
The more I started to study systematically, the more I began to see that's exactly what 00:27:53.380 |
Jesus Christ is very distinct, but He says He is one. 00:27:57.740 |
He says He is I Am, yet He is praise to the Father. 00:28:00.600 |
So I realized the Doctrine of Trinity came from a careful study of what the Word of God 00:28:12.100 |
They didn't try to, in fact, in the early church, one of the first things that the early 00:28:16.180 |
church debated was there was this guy named Arius who was saying that Jesus Christ was 00:28:25.020 |
And so he was so charismatic and influential, he almost had the whole church convinced. 00:28:31.320 |
And this man named Athanasius who started, who was arguing, that's not what the Bible 00:28:37.380 |
The Bible says, again, if I lose you, I lose you. 00:28:42.420 |
Council of Carthage where the church made an official stand in saying this is the final 00:28:46.620 |
canon didn't happen until the Council of Carthage at 386. 00:28:50.780 |
He was arguing this in the early 300s, 315, 310. 00:28:55.940 |
And so I was convinced that they had the authoritative Word of God and Athanasius was arguing from 00:29:03.780 |
And that was the only way that he was able to convince the church that the doctrine of 00:29:12.080 |
Because without the Word of God, if he didn't have the authority of the Word of God, there 00:29:15.300 |
is no way that he could have argued against Arius and convinced the whole church that 00:29:20.220 |
almost, almost universally went over to that doctrine. 00:29:27.220 |
That Jesus Christ is the Son and not the Father. 00:29:31.020 |
See, they're all distinct, three different people, kind of like I'm the Father, Esther's 00:29:34.860 |
the Mother, my son's the Son, you know, but we're all Kims. 00:29:42.220 |
Which we call as a false doctrine of tritheism. 00:29:45.060 |
Or I'm the Father, I'm also the Son for my mom, and I'm the pastor. 00:29:51.180 |
I forgot what the other one is, but I'm the same person. 00:29:59.700 |
So the only way the doctrine of Trinity that you and I have today was able to be argued 00:30:10.860 |
He had the authoritative Word of God that was passed down. 00:30:13.820 |
It just wasn't given the official stamp later on until the Council of Carthage. 00:30:20.940 |
If it went over your head, just went over your head. 00:30:23.740 |
But the point that I'm trying to make is systematic theology has to come from exegesis. 00:30:34.140 |
It cannot come from what makes sense or what doesn't make sense. 00:30:36.600 |
So when you do enough systematic exegesis and do careful study of the Word of God, it 00:30:42.260 |
will cause you to have a better systematic theology. 00:30:45.280 |
So whatever you believe, I believe in the Trinity, I believe in the End Times, I believe 00:30:48.820 |
about the nature of God, what the Gospel, what the Bible says about the Gospel, it has 00:30:53.580 |
to come from your diligent study of God's Word. 00:30:57.820 |
The whole point of the Reformation was to get the Bible to you. 00:31:03.100 |
Because the Church kept on saying, "You're not smart enough to interpret the Bible for 00:31:09.140 |
So you had these priests who went and they studied it and they taught the Word of God. 00:31:14.260 |
They wouldn't allow it to be interpreted into common man's language, so you had to speak 00:31:19.940 |
And even if you did speak Latin, you had to have special permission even to touch it. 00:31:23.580 |
And anybody who tried to interpret it ended up getting executed. 00:31:27.420 |
So the whole Reformation was all of this corruption and bad doctrine came in because they wouldn't 00:31:35.680 |
So the real point of the Reformation was to get the Bible to everybody. 00:31:41.280 |
So that more people can examine the Word of God collectively, so that whatever doctrines 00:31:46.060 |
that we hold onto is coming from a collective study of the Word of God. 00:31:55.660 |
If you're not in the habit of systematically studying the Bible, do not sit and argue with 00:32:08.980 |
Because if you do that, you're going to end up arguing your prejudice rather than Scripture. 00:32:15.300 |
So I'm not saying that if you're not doing it now, right? 00:32:18.500 |
But if the conclusions that you came to is just because you happened to go to a certain 00:32:22.540 |
church, or you read certain books, or you heard certain sermons, right? 00:32:27.420 |
I would strongly encourage you to get in the habit of studying the Bible systematically 00:32:35.460 |
Historical theology is once you've come to the conclusion of exegesis, systematic theology, 00:32:42.940 |
historical theology is, the Bible is not new. 00:32:47.940 |
So the church fathers, these PhDs in theology, they've argued, struggled. 00:32:53.980 |
People have given their lives to stand up for certain doctrines. 00:32:57.420 |
So it's not wise for us to ignore church history. 00:33:02.500 |
So historical theology basically is, what are the theologies that were passed down to 00:33:09.060 |
What are some of the doctrinal statements that we have? 00:33:11.300 |
The Apostles' Creed, the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Baptist Confession. 00:33:16.780 |
All of these confessions are things that we compare with, right? 00:33:21.180 |
In light of the study, doctrines, systematic theology, and then we compare it with what 00:33:27.540 |
So there is no doctrine that I'm aware of that has not been at one point argued in church 00:33:36.180 |
Now the danger of starting at this point, if you grew up in a Presbyterian church, you're 00:33:44.740 |
Not because you know what you believe, because that's what you're told. 00:33:48.660 |
In fact, I know people who go to a Presbyterian church who are taught that if you marry anybody 00:33:57.620 |
And so they can't marry a Baptist, they can't marry anybody else, and you ask them why, 00:34:05.700 |
I've met, you know, I was actually invited to a church in the Valley when they found 00:34:09.420 |
out I'm a Baptist, the church said, "He can't come." 00:34:13.660 |
And I asked them why, and they couldn't give me an explanation other than the fact that 00:34:21.940 |
So historical theology is, we don't start there, but it's wise to compare. 00:34:29.300 |
Wise to see what doctrines were argued and how they argued it and what passages they 00:34:34.900 |
Different periods of church history emphasize certain doctrines over others. 00:34:40.140 |
So if you happen to be reading a lot of stuff that was written during the Reformation, what 00:34:47.580 |
do you think was the primary thing that they were concerned about during the Reformation? 00:34:54.980 |
What is a doctrine that they were arguing a lot about during the Reformation? 00:35:05.780 |
They were arguing against the Catholic Church that they were wrong. 00:35:10.300 |
Right doctrine of salvation, you know, Scripture, right view of Scripture, justification by 00:35:18.940 |
And so that was the predominant thing that they were concerned about. 00:35:22.420 |
If you go back in earlier church history, the first 700 years of church history, what 00:35:29.740 |
do you think was the greatest doctrine that they wrestled over and discussed? 00:35:33.740 |
Every time they had a church council, they discussed this one subject. 00:35:52.780 |
What do you think would have been the most important argument and discussion that they 00:36:01.180 |
had for the first 700 years of church history? 00:36:11.620 |
Because the Bible taught and Jesus said certain things that they couldn't comprehend. 00:36:16.300 |
And so they were constantly arguing and discussing and wrestling over Scripture. 00:36:20.060 |
So if there's any one doctrine that has been just pounded and searched, every word dissected, 00:36:25.940 |
it was Christology, the nature of who Jesus is. 00:36:30.060 |
So if you go back to church history, and you'll see divisions between the Catholic 00:36:33.980 |
Church, the Nestorian, the Coptic Church, and you'll see all these divisions in the 00:36:39.860 |
And if you go back into church history and find out what doctrine separated them, it 00:36:47.580 |
That they were either one group was a modalist or a tritheist or Jesus was an eternal or 00:36:54.820 |
So the first 700 years, they combed through every part of Scripture to debate this doctrine. 00:37:02.700 |
So the doctrine that we have of Christ came from hundreds, even thousands of years of 00:37:10.740 |
So for us to come and think like, "Oh, I found something new that they didn't find 00:37:13.540 |
for 2000 years," is probably, you know, a little bit prideful. 00:37:19.740 |
In fact, when I was in Seminary, I was amazed. 00:37:24.100 |
I went and did a paper on, I don't know if you guys know, in Genesis chapter 6, they 00:37:32.700 |
Okay, so you guys know, you know who the Nephilims are, right? 00:37:37.300 |
Okay, some of you know who the Nephilims are. 00:37:39.700 |
So I did just an obscure group of people that are mentioned in the book of Genesis. 00:37:47.100 |
And as soon as I decided to do this paper, I regretted it. 00:37:51.580 |
Because I thought, "How am I going to get material on this subject? 00:37:57.660 |
You know, that's what I, I just picked it because that just seemed like, you know, I'm 00:38:03.740 |
So once I started doing the paper, I had to go to Fuller Seminary, and I have to go to 00:38:08.780 |
Cal State Fullerton, all these major book libraries, even the secular libraries, to 00:38:16.800 |
So the first school that I went to was Cal State Fullerton. 00:38:19.860 |
Because they have a storage of a lot of ancient theological, like, materials in that library. 00:38:27.100 |
Which is surprising to me, because it's a secular university, but they have it. 00:38:30.420 |
So I went there thinking, like, "Okay, maybe I'll find a couple chapters." 00:38:34.700 |
So I went and looked up the Nephilims, and I found a whole wall. 00:38:40.340 |
Like, a whole wall of people writing about this subject, right? 00:38:51.580 |
So I spent two months researching on the Nephilims, but you know what I learned from that was, 00:38:57.860 |
for 2,000 years, there were people like me, who were much smarter, and had much more anal 00:39:04.780 |
than me, who actually spent and did PhDs and doctoral papers on this subject, and they 00:39:12.380 |
will give you 15 different views of how this was argued for 2,000 years, and the end conclusion 00:39:24.540 |
So what I learned from that was, every part of scripture has been dissected and argued 00:39:31.980 |
So there's nothing that we're studying that's just uniquely us. 00:39:34.820 |
So the point that I'm getting at is that for 2,000 years, the Word of God has been tested 00:39:42.700 |
And so the doctrines that you and I have today didn't just come to us. 00:39:47.260 |
It wasn't just some guy 40 years ago who all of a sudden discovers something new. 00:39:51.220 |
So whenever somebody says, "I have something new that they didn't know for 2,000 years," 00:40:05.340 |
Philosophical theology is what I mentioned is, how do you make sense? 00:40:09.740 |
Philosophical theology is when we apply philosophical reasoning to help us to better apply what 00:40:13.820 |
we've learned from exegesis, systematic theology and historical theology. 00:40:17.420 |
So I'll just give you an example of, because the way I wrestled with the doctrine of Trinity, 00:40:27.580 |
And then when I started to get a broader understanding of the scripture, I began to realize it does 00:40:36.960 |
So I used to shake in my boots every time a Jehovah Witness would come because their 00:40:42.700 |
doctrine made more sense to me, until I knew what the Word of God says. 00:40:46.380 |
And then now I go to the Word of God and it just, they hit a wall. 00:40:51.180 |
If we're talking philosophically, they make more sense. 00:40:54.180 |
But as soon as we open up the Bible, they hit a wall because there's a bunch of passages 00:41:00.380 |
The way I came to this conclusion is, the Bible clearly teaches this. 00:41:04.300 |
When you collectively see it systematically, it teaches the doctrine of Trinity. 00:41:07.800 |
When you look at the doctrine of Trinity in church history, it was universally accepted, 00:41:20.700 |
How can I embrace a doctrine that I can't even explain, my professors can't explain 00:41:25.260 |
So philosophically, so I've already concluded that that's what the Bible teaches. 00:41:28.740 |
And that's what the church historians have told me already, confirmed for me. 00:41:34.300 |
So how do I make sense of this doctrine of Trinity? 00:41:37.500 |
And this is, again, this is the way I wrestled with it. 00:41:41.460 |
If God created me, it would make sense that God will always remain a mystery to a certain 00:41:51.140 |
And it would only make sense to me that I can't explain to you perfectly who He is. 00:41:56.120 |
Just like my children can't explain perfectly who I am. 00:42:00.340 |
I know a lot more about them than they know about me. 00:42:06.540 |
And they know a lot about me that they don't know. 00:42:08.260 |
Because they showed up in my life when I was 30. 00:42:11.340 |
So there's 30 years of my life they haven't seen. 00:42:13.100 |
And then they weren't conscious until they were, what, 15? 00:42:26.860 |
So if God created me, if God created me, it makes sense that there's an aspect of God 00:42:37.460 |
And so here's the way I reconcile that in my head. 00:42:41.660 |
Again, this isn't, this is just philosophical. 00:42:47.540 |
If I told you, and let's say we don't have the word beautiful. 00:42:53.260 |
And we don't have anything even close to that. 00:42:56.180 |
You know how there are certain things that, you know, a lot of you guys who are, or a 00:42:59.900 |
lot of you guys at least bilingual enough, where you know that there are certain words 00:43:06.980 |
So I'm bilingual in Korean and English, so there's a word in Korean that I can't translate, 00:43:23.500 |
And you kind of have to grow up in the culture, and some of you guys, I'm guessing most of 00:43:29.940 |
Because it took me a while to figure that out as well. 00:43:32.860 |
That's a word that if you don't know the culture, you don't know how it's being used, you don't 00:43:37.300 |
know in what context it's being used, that there is not a word, there's no phrase that 00:43:42.260 |
I can use in English to convey to you the meaning of that word. 00:43:47.180 |
So the only way that I can convey this to you is to use something like it. 00:44:07.140 |
Like after the rain, or you eat something tasty, and you get this warm, fuzzy feeling. 00:44:14.500 |
So that's the best way I can explain to you what that word means, because it's a very 00:44:19.780 |
So you're going to have to go by how I explained it to you, because you're limited by what 00:44:26.460 |
you're able to understand based upon your culture and your language and your limitation. 00:44:31.900 |
So when I'm trying to explain to you something that I know because of that culture, I have 00:44:36.140 |
to, I have, I am limited by your limitation of how I can explain this to you. 00:44:43.700 |
So when we talk about the things of God, there's things where we say, well God is sovereign, 00:44:52.460 |
God created us, and yet when Adam and Eve sinned, even though He's omniscient, they 00:44:58.860 |
So there's aspects of what the Word of God teaches that doesn't completely make sense 00:45:05.680 |
But the fact that it doesn't make sense to me, makes sense to me, to a certain degree, 00:45:11.900 |
because I'm trying to comprehend the things of God. 00:45:15.520 |
So my conclusion was, obviously the philosophical theology is doing my best to try to understand 00:45:21.780 |
something that can't be completely understood. 00:45:27.540 |
And I, my conclusion was, not only was it okay, it makes sense that there's tension. 00:45:34.300 |
If there wasn't tension, I would be suspect, right? 00:45:39.080 |
Now again, that may, that may seem like a lot of, you know, circular reasoning, but 00:45:47.180 |
But at the end of the day, God, the doctrines of the scripture are not written for the purpose 00:45:56.300 |
The doctrine, the scripture was written for the purpose of our salvation, to reveal to 00:46:01.460 |
So you see, exactly, when I tell my children about myself, I'm trying to tell them for 00:46:06.900 |
Let's say I'm in the context of instructing them why you should choose this major over 00:46:10.940 |
that major, and I'm explaining to them about my experience, what I went through, and why 00:46:19.180 |
I'm not explaining to him everything about who I am. 00:46:23.100 |
I'm explaining who I'm revealing myself to him, because I have a specific purpose of 00:46:27.700 |
why I need him to understand that, so that he can go a certain direction. 00:46:33.100 |
Scripture was given to us for the purpose of salvation, to reveal to us who he is, and 00:46:40.540 |
So when he talks about the doctrine of sovereignty, he's not telling us how it works. 00:46:47.600 |
He's not telling us God's predestination, so let me tell you how it works. 00:46:50.880 |
So get out your calculator, you know, and we're going to make a graph, and you're going 00:46:55.180 |
When he talks about the doctrine of sovereignty and predestination, all he is saying is, "Trust 00:47:05.640 |
Nothing happens outside of my knowledge and my power. 00:47:12.280 |
So basically he's telling his people, "When I tell you to jump, you jump, because I'm 00:47:20.080 |
He's not saying it so that we can understand the intricacies of how predestination works, 00:47:27.360 |
And so I'm not saying that we shouldn't be curious or ask questions. 00:47:31.040 |
But philosophical theology is basically us trying to comprehend what was revealed in 00:47:36.560 |
So certain things are going to make sense, certain things may not make sense. 00:47:38.920 |
But if you start, if you study the Board of God and you come to a doctrinal position based 00:47:44.600 |
upon this, you will be a Jehovah Witness if you have the courage enough to be one. 00:47:51.240 |
Because it makes more sense, philosophically. 00:47:54.040 |
But if you are a Biblicist, where you are studying the doctrine carefully, there are 00:47:57.760 |
certain things that you're not going to be able to comprehend. 00:48:01.320 |
So certain positions that I take, whether it is about women in ministry or homosexuality, 00:48:07.240 |
that these are positions not based upon what I think makes the most sense, or what is going 00:48:12.800 |
to make the most sense to the world, but what does the Bible say. 00:48:20.440 |
Because if they don't acknowledge the Word of God as with authority, and we're saying 00:48:25.560 |
the only reason why I believe that is because the Word of God says so, then they're going 00:48:32.600 |
Because they don't give the same authority that it has. 00:48:35.080 |
So it doesn't make sense that our doctrines are always going to be acceptable to the world. 00:48:41.480 |
There are certain things that God says because He's pointing out sin to the world, so they 00:48:47.680 |
Alright, so again, I'm not going to—I went through most of my time talking about this. 00:48:52.480 |
I'm going to go through the other one real quick. 00:49:01.360 |
Exegesis, systematic theology, historical theology, philosophical theology. 00:49:05.960 |
I would encourage you to memorize this, so that whenever you get into this discussion 00:49:11.400 |
with people who are not basing it on Scripture, you remember. 00:49:15.400 |
Okay, I'm not arguing exegesis, I'm just arguing philosophically. 00:49:19.800 |
The other part I'm just going to skim through. 00:49:25.360 |
If you're studying the Bible, you have to—these are all different contexts. 00:49:29.220 |
You have the passage you're looking at, what is the immediate context? 00:49:35.200 |
And then the next section is the larger section, kind of like we're studying the Book of Romans, 00:49:40.520 |
And as an example, Romans chapter 7, verse 13 to 25, that's the passage. 00:49:46.040 |
Well, when you compare it with the immediate context, which is earlier chapter 7, chapter 00:49:52.040 |
6, and chapter 8, so you have to view this passage in light of the larger context. 00:49:57.400 |
And then this larger context, well, what is Paul saying in the larger, major section? 00:50:01.860 |
So in chapters 1 through 7, Paul is arguing, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory 00:50:07.580 |
He's trying to reveal sin in order to bring chapter 8, "Oh, what a wretched man that I 00:50:12.340 |
am, but thanks be to God, what the law could not do, weakened by the sinful flesh, God 00:50:24.880 |
So Romans chapter 7, in the immediate section of chapters 6 and 8, larger section of chapter 00:50:31.160 |
1 through 7, and then the book in Romans where the gospel is being taught, first 11 chapters 00:50:39.120 |
of doctrine of the gospel, and then chapter 12 through 16, talking about, "Therefore, 00:50:45.720 |
present your body in view of the mercy of God, in view of everything that you've been 00:50:53.240 |
So that's the book, the gospel message in totality, right? 00:50:57.640 |
So whenever I study that passage, I have to have that in mind. 00:51:03.360 |
So when we look at the things that Paul said in Romans, how does Paul use the word "law" 00:51:10.720 |
When he says the word "love," what does he mean by that? 00:51:15.120 |
So there are certain things that I may say, if you know who I am, may mean something different, 00:51:25.480 |
So if I say "bomb," I probably mean, "Get out of this sanctuary." 00:51:31.400 |
So if somebody much younger said it, it may mean, "It's cool." 00:51:34.680 |
So you have to understand how that person uses that word. 00:51:38.060 |
So that's the larger context of the writer, right? 00:51:44.760 |
And then the context outside of that is the New Testament. 00:51:48.380 |
So you have the Old Testament and New Testament. 00:51:50.000 |
You have the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. 00:51:52.360 |
So depending on what passage or what book you're looking at, you're going to have different 00:51:59.320 |
So how the Bible talks about the people of God sounds very different in the Old Testament 00:52:06.920 |
How we understand the law, at least in view, where the law came to bring you to sin, and 00:52:12.120 |
then law brought you to sin, and then now we have the law of Christ. 00:52:16.460 |
So we have a New Testament context and an Old Testament context. 00:52:20.360 |
And then the larger part of that in the Bible, right, the context of the Bible is, what is 00:52:35.520 |
What we call the meta-narrative, the larger narrative, right? 00:52:39.600 |
So the whole narrative of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation is a holy God seeking His glory 00:52:52.740 |
So there is not a single book that's going to be written that is going to be contradicting 00:53:01.700 |
So whatever study you're doing, you have to see it in the context of the larger picture. 00:53:13.820 |
Don't mess with God or you get swallowed up by a whale. 00:53:24.060 |
I mean, you can get, you know, small lessons from that. 00:53:27.940 |
Why does He put that in this random story, right? 00:53:33.580 |
It's about, you know, a Jewish prophet who doesn't want to go to these Ninevites who 00:53:39.760 |
in the long scheme of things, they're going to be judged and disappear. 00:53:47.720 |
Well, if you look at the, if you study that book with the context of understanding in 00:53:53.240 |
God's redemptive history, God called the nation of Israel to be what? 00:54:03.920 |
He calls Jonah, and He tells him to go, and Jonah doesn't want to go. 00:54:20.000 |
These people who can't tell from the left or to the right that I show mercy to them. 00:54:36.160 |
They were there enjoying themselves and going to temple worship, but He said, "No, I want 00:54:43.760 |
So the whole point about the book of Jonah was in God's redemptive history, the nation 00:54:49.560 |
of Israel was called to declare His glory, and Israel forgot their calling. 00:54:55.080 |
So, if you don't see that in the light of the larger picture of redemptive history, 00:54:58.760 |
the meta-narrative, it just becomes about the whale. 00:55:03.320 |
Don't mess with the whale or you get eaten up. 00:55:07.400 |
And you get a nice moral story for Sunday school, but you kind of miss the larger picture. 00:55:10.440 |
So again, every passage has to be within the context of the larger genre. 00:55:14.720 |
I'm not going to talk about it because Pastor Mark's going to talk about it next week. 00:55:19.240 |
So, those of you guys who are anal have to fill this out. 00:55:27.200 |
Don't worry about penmanship because I'm not going to give you time. 00:56:09.200 |
Pastor Mark, maybe you should start coming up.