Discipleship Pathway. Walking with God. Part One: Bible SESSION 4. Reading the Bible, part Cornerstone WLA

Transcription

1 Discipleship Pathway Walking with God Part One: Bible SESSION 4 Reading the Bible, part Cornerstone WLA

2 Introduction We ve seen that we walk with God by listening and learning to His Word in the Bible. We ve also started to work through the process of listening well: POIMA (Preparation, Observation, Interpretation, Meditation, and Application). Today we turn to a critical step of being a good listener: interpretation. The Importance of Interpretation We ve all been misunderstood before, and we ve misunderstood other people. It can be very damaging: we assume things that aren t true about someone we are close to and begin to relate to them based on false information. Misinterpretation can take the joy out of a relationship until things are cleared up, and so we don t want to neglect the importance of good interpretation. Sometimes we misunderstand because we mishear someone (e.g. we thought they said I m going to my choir practice when they actually said I m going my chiropractor ). But far more often we misunderstand people because we misinterpret them. This can look like taking things out of context, drawing conclusions that don t add up, or reading into things too much. Misinterpreting the Bible is the same. When we take things out of context, draw conclusions that don t add up, or read into things too much, we can hear something God isn t actually saying. To have as much joy as we can in our relationship with God, we need to interpret his word well. 2

3 WHAT COULD GO WRONG? When you listen to God s Word, you re trying to get from the words in the Bible to your life today. But how exactly do we get there with passages like these? You shall not round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard. (Leviticus 19:15) So Joshua did as Moses told him, and fought with Amalek Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed, and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed. (Exodus 17:10 11) And I will stir up Egyptians against Egyptians, and they will fight, each against another, and each against his neighbor and a fierce king will rule over them, declares the Lord God of hosts. (Isaiah 19:2, 5) The kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. (Matthew 25:1) Greet one another with a holy kiss. (Romans 16:16) What could go wrong if you tried to apply passages like these directly to your life? 3

4 Interpretation: Then-Always-Now Once we examine the words, sentences, structure, genre and more that God uses to speak to us, we start to interpret. The key question here is, what does this mean? Once we ve prepared ourselves to listen to God, we pay attention to what He is saying (observation). If you remember our pathway (below), you might notice that, even after preparing and observing, you still haven t left the first box! Even so, don t short-change your observation. It s those observations that form the basis for our interpretation. The way we get from the text (box #1) to the rest of the path is by using your observations to discover the meaning of a passage. When a friend is speaking, you do this naturally the words, sentences, and structure they use is how you know what they mean. Interpretation is just using what someone says to figure out what they mean. 4

5 WHAT THE TEXT MEANT THEN One of the easiest traps in reading your Bible is to immediately ask what the text means for your life. But before we can understand what God is saying to us now, we have to understand what the author was saying to his readers then. If we skip this part of the process, we can read our culture, ideas, and lifestyle back into the Bible, and distort what God is saying. (This is one of the reasons observation is so important you notice the history, genre, and context of the passage before you start asking what it means). How do we figure out what the text meant then? We use our observations to see what the author was trying to say to his readers. Howard Hendricks calls this the re-creation process: That s why I like to refer to the step of Interpretation as the re-creation process. We re attempting to stand in the author s shoes and re-create his experience to think as he thought, to feel as he felt, and to decide as he decided. We re asking, What did this mean to him? Before we ever ask, What does it mean to us? Living by the Book, p. 201 Practical Steps: Ask: Observation asks, What did the author say? Interpretation asks, Why did the author say it? After you ve observed the passage, answer the question, What is the author trying to communicate and why? This is a great question to use as you move from observation to interpretation Paraphrase: Try to put the passage in your own words. And then check your paraphrase against the passage, looking for ways you can improve it to better match the passage. 5

6 UNIVERSAL TRUTH What the text meant then is often colored by specific cultural customs that might not apply today. A simple example is Romans 16:16, Greet one another with a holy kiss. In a culture where everyone was greeted with a kiss, this makes a ton of sense. What this verse meant then is easy to see: you should greet people at church with a kiss! But this wouldn t quite fit in a different culture (for example, the British translator JB Phillips rendered the verse, Give each other a hearty handshake all around ). An important part of interpretation is discovering the universal truth behind a passage: the ideas, concepts, or commands, that apply everywhere. This helps us make sure we aren t misusing what God says because we haven t thought carefully about what he means. Sometimes the universal principle is easy to see (like in Romans 16:16), other times it s very close to what the passage meant then (like in Ephesians 1). Still other times it s not very clear (like in the story of Abraham). There is not necessarily one perfect universal principle behind every passage of Scripture. What s important is that you look for what God wants all Christians to hear from any given passage you read. Practical Steps: Take your passage and any paraphrase you might have and use it to finish the following sentence: So basically God is saying that all Christians should think/believe/do WHAT IT MEANS FOR TODAY Once we have our arms around what a passage meant then and what it means for all Christians, we can ask the question, What does it mean for today? With Romans 16:16, we can see that the universal principle of Greet others in the church warmly for us might look like a hug or a handshake and a smile. In other parts of the world, it might still mean several kisses! This is the process of figuring out how we can act on God s word in our minds, hearts, and actions. Practical Steps: Ask: What would it look like for someone in 21 st century Los Angeles to understand and obey this passage? 6

7 PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER This seems like three steps you do, one after the other. Sometimes that s true, but not often. Most of the time, thinking about the universal principle of a passage shows us more about what the text meant then, and sometimes looking for what a passage means for today adjusts how we understand the universal principle. Like any time you listen well, there s going to be interaction between all the steps at the same time and that s okay! Being intentional about these steps is not about doing them perfectly, one at a time, but about making sure we don t miss any of them. What we want is to hear God well, so we want to understand each step of the process even as we experience them interact with each other. What part of this process do you find the most helpful? Do you see this process at work in the way you currently read your Bible? 7

8 Practice with a Passage 1 Peter 1:3-9 God can say a lot in just one verse. Still, most of the time we ll be listening to him say whole paragraphs. Below is just one passage that we can use to practice interpreting. What does God mean in 1 Peter 1:3-9? 3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, 9 obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. Observe: History? Genre? Context? Structure? Grammar and Words? In light of these observations, what does 1 Peter 1:3 9 mean then, always, and now? 8

9 Conclusion Walking with God means listening and learning from His Word. We listen well when we carefully interpret God s Word. Application Questions What struck you the most from today s class? How will that be helpful as you read your Bible in the future? Try to summarize our entire class on the Bible. What are some practical ways you can use this material to grow in listening to and learning from God s Word? 9