At Providence Church, one of our foundational commitments is our belief in
the sufficiency of Scripture. We believe that God’s Word truly does speak to every
area of our lives, that either directly or in principle, it addresses all of the issues
that we face. Truly, God’s Word has the solutions to all of life’s problems.
One of the things that we need to do as people who want to follow God, is to
learn how to handle the Word for ourselves. We have to learn how to study the
Bible. The Scripture exhorts us that we’re all to be about memorizing, meditating,
and studying the Word of God. It’s so important for us to learn principles of
effective Bible study.
One of the great dangers that some can fall prey to, and in fact, many fall
prey to today, is the error of applying the Scripture before they really understand
the Scripture. Sometimes in Bible studies you may have been involved in, you see
someone read a passage, and then immediately they say, “What does the text mean
to you?” Well, “What does the text mean to you?” is a very important question. It’s
actually the reason the Bible was given, and what God wants us to see is what any
passage means to us. How does it apply? But to really apply God’s Word correctly,
“What does the text mean to me?” is not the first question you ask. Effective,
correct Bible application has to start with really understanding what the text means,
and learning the mechanics of hermeneutics, which is the science of Bible
interpretation. God has told us in His Word that He wants to be understood. He’s
given us His Word. He’s told us the nature of Scripture. In fact, 2 Timothy 3:16
says:
2 Timothy 3:16 ~ All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is
profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in
righteousness:
All Scripture is inspired by God. That phrase ‘inspired by God’ translates a
Greek word which literally means ‘God-breathed’. All Scripture is God-breathed.
The word for ‘Scripture’ is the Greek word graphē (γραφή) from which we get our
English words graph and graphics. The idea is all that which is written is GodPage 1 of 4
breathed.
That’s an important thing to remember, because many in the 20 th Century
liberal theology taught that the thoughts of Scripture were inspired, but something
happened in the mind of the author when it came into his mind, so that what he
wrote wasn’t necessarily God’s Word. But the Bible plainly teaches that of all that
which is written, all Scripture is God-breathed, and that the words that have
appeared on the paper as the author writes are what God wants there.
So it means that we have a perfect Word from God. Scripture also tells us
that He’s made it clear to us, and He wants to speak to us, but He also expects us to
come to Him and to seek Him with all of our hearts. I mentioned 2 Timothy 3:16.
All Scripture is God-breathed. A chapter before that, the apostle Paul says that we
are to study to show ourselves approved, workmen who need not be ashamed,
correctly handling the word of truth. That is, God tells us if we’re going to
understand the Word, if we’re going to correctly handle it and apply it to our lives,
we have to study hard.
Now, you always should study the Bible by first praying and asking the Lord
for grace. You have to have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ,
understand that He died for you and paid for your sins on the cross, that He rose
again from the dead, and you have to repent and believe in Christ, and then God
gives us His Spirit. Whenever we study the Word, we should come with an attitude
of dependence. “Lord, I need You to teach me. Show me what You want.” And
then He also tells us to work at it, to study.
That comes to the important science of Bible interpretation called
hermeneutics. How do you study the Bible? How do you come to understand the
meaning of the Bible? That’s the question that we want to address in a series of
teaching times that we’re going to have today and upcoming, teaching times about
how you study the Bible so that you can find God’s solutions to life’s problems in
the pages of Holy Scripture.
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I mentioned that we often jump ahead to applying to quickly. We
misunderstand the Scripture. One of the things that we can do when we come to
the Bible is we can read into the text what we want or what we think it’s saying
rather than read out from the text what God wants us to see. We’re supposed to
exegete the text. That is actually exegesis vs. eisegesis. Eisegesis is reading into
the text. Exegesis is reading out of the text what the text is saying. So, sound Bible
interpretation is exegetical, not eisegetical.
How do you study the Bible? I mentioned application. What does the text
mean to me? A good model for this is the pyramid. The point of the pyramid, the
top of the pyramid, is application. That is, it answers the question: What does the
text mean to me? That is important, but it’s not foundational. Application needs to
be built upon first a foundation of interpretation. That’s the next level of the
pyramid that the point rests on. Interpretation seeks to answer a different question.
Not, “What does the text mean to me?” but, “What does the text mean?” What was
the author’s intention when he penned the words of Scripture under the inspiration
of the Holy Spirit? What was God’s agenda? What does the text mean? That’s
interpretation.
Before you can interpret correctly, you have to actually have another layer.
The real foundation is observation. Observation answers a different question. It
doesn’t answer: What does the text mean to me? It doesn’t answer: What does the
text mean? It answers: What does the text say? You start by carefully observing the
words and the sentences of the text, the structure of the paragraph, the way that the
narrative or the story is told. What does the text say?
After having carefully observed the text and answered the question, “What
does the text say?” then you’re in a position to interpret the passage correctly.
Having carefully observed, I now can rightly interpret what the text means. What
did the text mean in light of the original audience? What was the author trying to
address in their lives? That’s the essential question of interpretation.
Once I know what the text means, now I can correctly apply the text to my
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life. Understanding what it meant when God inspired it helps me to see what the
Lord now means for it to mean to me. What claim does He want it to make on my
life today?
So we have observation, interpretation, and then application. That is the
order. That allows us to truly exegete the text, to read out the meaning that God
intended. It’s so comforting to realize that the Bible has one interpretation to every
passage. It’s not like so often you hear today, “That’s just your interpretation.” No,
in reality, the question we need to be asking is, “What was the intended
interpretation of the Spirit-inspired author of a particular passage?” That is the
single meaning and that’s what we have to strive to come to before we can
understand how to apply this to our lives.
So in subsequent messages, we’re going to talk about the three pieces of
hermeneutics, the three pieces of effective Bible study. How do we carefully
observe? How do we rightly interpret? How do we correctly apply? We hope
you’ll join us as you learn and as we learn together how to study God’s Word, so
that we can find the solutions to life’s problems.
This audio presentation, description, and transcription by Providence Church in Duluth,
Georgia, USA, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs
3.0 License.
Attribution:
Based on work at Providence Church, Duluth, GA, USA and found online at
http://www.providenceduluth.org. Permission for use beyond the scope of this license may be
requested by contacting Providence Church, Duluth, GA through their website.
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