Beth-El Baptist Church
04/02/06
Greg Tomlinson
How are we to understand the Bible?
There are many people who read the Bible and laugh at it or reinterpret it because it is impossible for most of the miracles to have actually happened. They believe for example that virgin’s do not give birth, people do not resurrect from the dead, armies are not defeated just by walking and shouting, people do not just walk out of prison, armies do not just turn on one another. These are obviously hoaxes and not to be taken as truly historical events. Some people look at the miracles that are recorded in the scripture and say they were not historical events but that they are written in order to present a spiritual meaning. Miracles are to be interpreted as an allegory or spiritual message only.
1. Are there any rules to Bible interpretation to help us understand these miraculous events?
Isaiah 28:10 – Build up understanding based on other scripture
Proverbs 3:5-6 – Man’s understanding can be flawed, thrust God
Acts 17:11 – Use scripture to interpret scripture
Deuteronomy 29:29 – Only some things have been revealed
2 Peter 1:20-21 – Scripture is God’s word, not man’s word
The essentials of Biblical interpretation are to understand that the scriptures that we have and that we call the Bible were ultimately written by God and not by men. Thus it is imperative to realize that God has reported to men only those things that we need to be able to understand and know. Some things God has not revealed to men. Since God is the author of scripture, we need to trust him and trust what he has said.
2. What can we know about God that will help us understand his work in people’s lives?
Titus 1:2 – Impossible for God to lie
Romans 3:4 – God cannot lie, man lies
Ecclesiastes 3:11 – God made everything, no man can find out what God does
Isaiah 46:10 – God’s counsel (words) will stand. He does what he wants
Isaiah 55:8 – God’s thoughts and ways are different than man’s
Job 38:4 – Who else was at the beginning of time when God created the universe?
John 3:12 – Believe both the earthly and heavenly reports of Jesus who is God
Matthew 19:26 – With God all things are possible
God being God is completely and utterly holy and righteous and he would not and could not lie to you. God is not one who will deceive but will only report to men that which is true and reliable. God can be trusted therefore his word can be trusted.
3. What can we know about men that will help us understand our ability to understand God’s work in people’s lives?
Jeremiah 17:9 – Man’s heart is wicked and full of lies
Matthew 22:29 – Man cannot fully understand the capabilities of God
1 Corinthians 2:14 – Natural man cannot understand the things of God
1 Corinthians 13:12-13 – Our ability to understand is limited.
Habakkuk 1:5 – Even when God tells us things, we have difficulty believing them
Job 37:5 – We cannot fully comprehend what God does
Our ability to understand God, his works, and his capabilities are severely limited. Man has a tendency to discount those things that we cannot fully understand.
4. What can we know about the scriptures that will help us understand our ability to understand God’s work in people’s lives?
John 17:17 – God’s word is truth
2 Timothy 3:16 – All of scripture is God breathed, directly from God
1 Corinthians 2:9-10 – Scripture is understood by the Spirit of God
2 Peter 1:20-21 – Scripture is God’s word, not man’s word
Since all of scripture is God’s word and it is trustworthy. What we read in the scriptures is the defacto standard of truth. Anything that disagrees with scripture is wrong. It does not matter what we encounter, whether scientific evidence or other great studies. If it violates the clear written word of God then it is the study or the interpretation of the study that is wrong and not God’s word that is wrong. Our ability to fully understand the full details of scripture are very limited since we are human and not God.
5. What are some of these miraculous events and how can we understand and interpret them properly?
This we will handle next week due to time limitations. When we look at this question we will take a look at several miracles of the Bible and basically as the question: What in fact happened with this event? Thus we desire to apply what we have learned today to look at what the scripture records. As we look at these miraculous events we will learn more about bible interpretation.
While there are many events in the Bible that we may have difficulty in completely understanding it is important to remember that scripture must be interpreted using scripture which also involves understanding the genre of the book and the section being interpreted. We also need to understand that God will never, ever lie to us and it is only our understanding that is clouded not the writing of scripture. It is therefore imperative that we learn to take God at his word according to the type or genre of the text. Poetry is to be understood as poetry and history is to be interpreted as history. Those sections that record miraculous events in the historical books need to be accepted as truth and as actual historical events occurring exactly as God instructed his writers to record the historical event.