How Do I Observe the Text | Dr. John Ewart

Hey everybody, this is Pastor John Ewart from Inglewood

Baptist Church in Rocky Mount, NC.

Thank you so much for tuning in to our podcast.

You're going to hear from God today as we share from His Word

about important issues facing your life that can guide you

according to the Bible. So, so glad to see you all here

tonight. For those who are joining and

listening online, we're thankful for that.

I really do want to encourage you.

There are some parallel podcasts that go along with this Engaging

the Bible series. Doctor Aiken is joining me for

one. Doctor Allen Mosley and I are

recording one tomorrow. And how do I study the Old

Testament in the best way I possibly can?

I will be doing a New Testament later.

So some detailed stuff and some of these podcasts.

You'll really enjoy that. It'll dovetail well with what we

talked about in this series as we talked about engaging the

Bible with a a humble and teachable spirit.

But then part of what we want to do this episode and further

lessons in a sense are these are going to tie together.

So for the next few 234 weeks, can't remember it before

probably 4 weeks, they really do build on one another.

So I'm going to show you step by step by step in your personal

Bible study. How do I get the most I can

possibly get out of a personal Bible study?

So each week we're going to take kind of the next step you ought

to take. So we're going to talk about how

do we observe the text tonight? That may sound weird to you, but

it'll make sense in a minute. And then how do I interpret the

text? How do I apply the text?

How would I share that text with somebody else?

So it's going to be kind of a step by step hermeneutic,

comoletic kind of study, but we won't use those words too often.

And so it's going to be very practical.

In fact, tonight we're going to work through some passages of

Scripture as examples to help you say, oh, OK, I see how that

is some of these things you probably already know, some of

these things you might already do, but but I'm sure before the

whole thing is over, there'll be some oh, that's a good idea kind

of moment for you. And I pray that's true because

my, my, our goal is real simple. We want to make disciples.

And one of the key essentials of discipleship is that we're

engaging God's Word. If we're not doing that, then

it's going to be really hard for us to grow like we should.

And that's got to be more than just what you get in your

connect group and just what you get in a worship service or even

what you just get on midweek. You need on a personal time as

well to to really reinforce that and to let God speak to you very

personally and individually. So all those pieces together are

going to make a good healthy diet for you as well.

So Teresa and I went to an all you can eat buffet the other

night, which is not a habit of ours anymore.

It used to be something that I could destroy.

I felt like I just, it was a, it was like a, it was like a

competition event for me in, in previous ages of my life.

Now not so much, but went to an all you can eat buffet the other

night and it was so crowded. You know, you know, it's just

getting beat up and getting beat up and getting beat up just even

trying to get the food. I mean, I'm not kidding you.

I, I didn't fit what I told Teresa as we left is I didn't

fit in that restaurant. And so and so, I mean, I was

sitting, I felt like I was just like this the whole time I was

there trying to get the food off the buffet.

And, and that's not a knock on them.

They were just busy because people like it.

But anyway, and I thought it was funny because they had all these

things to eat and I probably ate three dishes, you know what I'm

saying? So to figure out your diet and

figure out that balanced diet that you need is a big part of

this. I, I am curious, I always have

been curious when snow and ice are coming our way, like when

this is being done tonight. I am fascinated why people buy

bread and milk. I'm fascinated by that.

I, I don't know, you know, there was one, a great meme on online

one time we got sitting in his lawn chair in the backyard

making French toast. I mean, I'm really not sure.

Bread pudding. I mean, I'm not sure what you're

doing. How many loaves of bread can I

eat in a week? So let's dive in.

All right, so you have a listening guide.

You'll also notice that toward the end of your listening guide,

you have some some blanks to write on.

You'll need those later, so just hang in there with me.

Psalm 19 helps us. It says this Psalm 19, seven and

eight says the law of the Lord is perfect.

Reviving the soul, the testimony of the Lord is sure.

Making wise the simple, the precepts of the Lord are right.

Rejoicing the heart, the commandment of the Lord is pure.

Enlightening the eyes. So we see how healthy the Word

of God is for us in a very holistic way.

It touches many aspects of our lives.

The Word of God must be our food.

It must be our definitions. It must be our drive.

And so we recognize how significant the word of God is.

If you haven't listened to any of these things or been here for

the last couple of weeks, been trying to show you kind of how

we got the Bible, how it came together in its current form.

I am assuming at this point for tonight and moving forward in

these lessons that we love the Bible.

We want the Bible. We believe the Bible is the word

of God. I'm not going to, we're not

going to debate about the inspiration revelation part for

the next couple of weeks. I'm assuming we believe that.

But we need to be spiritually prepared to best and to rightly

handle the word of God. And so I've said this before,

I'll say it 100 more times probably before you dive into

the Bible, I would ask God in prayer to, to show, to reveal to

you, to help your heart, your mind to be ready to receive what

he has for you. This is more than a book.

It's the number one best selling book in human history.

That is not going to change. In fact, Bible sales have risen

by over 20% in the last six months in the United States of

America. And so it's been interesting,

there's been a new surge of Bible purchases in these last

few months, but it's interesting to watch because we want to be

receptive to the wisdom and to the guidance of the Holy Spirit

who's going to help us as we walk through some of these

practical steps. This isn't some kind of

mathematical formula. It's a, it's a, a spiritual

positioning, I pray to where you're putting yourself in the

best spot to receive from God what he has for you.

And so by doing A+B does not always equal C necessarily.

It's not that, you know, may not be that automatic.

I can't but, but if we're doing this, we are putting ourselves

in the best position to as a as Augustine said, God will blow

the wind, but we have to raise the sails and so to catch the

Holy Spirit. Jeremiah reminds us in Jeremiah

9. Thus says the Lord, let not the

wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in

his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him

who boasts boast in this that he understands and knows me, that I

am the Lord who pranks the steadfast love, justice and

righteousness in the earth. For in these things our delight

declares the Lord. So we, we.

The ultimate goal, this ultimate goal of salvation, the ultimate

goal of discipleship is so that we can know God, that we have a

relationship with him, an intimacy with him, a knowledge

of him, and he's going to reveal to us those aspects of him and

his will that we're supposed to know.

So a prime way, a primary way of doing that, obviously is by

studying his word. In fact, I, I don't believe we

can reach our, our, our destiny, our, our purpose.

I don't think we can reach our community.

I don't think we're going to become who we're supposed to

become if we, we're not going to be able to touch the life of

anybody else. Well, if we're not walking with

God in this way. So this is an intimate,

continuous walk of true discipleship.

So one of the things that we are teaching here and we believe and

we will continue to repeat redundantly over and over again,

is that one of the greatest essentials of discipleship is to

engage the Bible with this humble and teachable spirit.

So if I don't come with that kind of spirit, and it's

important to just pause for a minute and think about those

descriptors, if I really am not humbling myself before God and I

really don't come with an openness to learn, it's going to

be difficult for me to receive everything I'm supposed to

receive from his word. It's kind of like when I'm

teaching classes sometimes in the past, you know, where I've

had students who, who, who kind of believe they already knew

everything they needed to know and they didn't really need me

to teach them anything. And you know, I'm me.

And so I'm the guy who'll kind of meet with them and say, if

you think you already know everything that I'm supposed to

teach you in this class, then please leave.

Drop the class and go, go bother somebody else.

Frankly, you know, I'm looking for teachable people who want to

learn something, especially in that academic situation.

So God leads us along the way. You know, God saves us.

God also sanctifies us. And this is an important thing.

Before we dive into some of the practicalities here, we've got

to remember that God leads us in our sanctification too.

In fact, First Thessalonians 5 says, now may the God of peace

himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and

soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus

Christ. So God is working through US.

God, God has to save us. I can't save myself, and

frankly, I can't grow myself very well either by myself.

I need Him to help me with the sanctification process.

But there's also this partnership of responsibility

that we share in obedience that I'm also responsible to study

and to share the word of God. And we see that throughout

Scripture. There could be a lot of verses,

but just remember what Paul wrote to Timothy last thing he

ever wrote second Timothy and he's writing in second Timothy 2

2 Timothy 2:15

verse 15. Do your best to present yourself

to God as one approved a worker who has no need to be ashamed,

rightly handling the word of truth.

So we know how to rightly handle the word of God.

We know what to do with it and how to do it.

How do I interpret that properly?

How do I apply that properly? How do I not read things into

the Bible, but I draw things out of the Bible?

How do we actually learn that discipline?

How do we actually do that? And then in verse 2, if you go

back in that chapter, he talks about sharing and he says, and

what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses

in trust to faithful men who will be able to teach other.

So you see this multi generational sharing that we

want to do. So if you ever wonder why I harp

on you about connect groups, why I harp on you about midweek

about 100% participation in the core, it's because we, we're

supposed to not only learn this, but we've got to learn how to

share this with generation after generation after generations.

So Timothy was supposed to take what Paul shared with him, share

it with others. You kind of see, God is primary,

Paul is secondary, Timothy is tertiary and these faithful men

following. And, and the idea is that this

is a cycle that just never, ever stops.

So that's what we want to do. We want to make disciples who

make disciples who make disciples who make disciples,

fruit producing, multiplying disciples that never, ever stop.

So it's a message of this divine revelation.

It's got to be passed on. So how do we do that?

That's what we're going to talk about in these next several

sessions together. How do we rightly handle the

word of truth? Well, step one.

And there are a lot of models, in fact.

In fact, someone came up to me and was asking me about what,

what books I might be using as sources.

I'm going to bring a few next week as it was a great question.

Let me bring a couple of them if you want to know some of these.

A lot of this is an original arrangement.

Obviously, over the years I've read several and have learned

principles and, and have friends who wrote some.

And so let me show you a few of those great books that'd be

helpful if you want to read some.

But the very first thing we're going to talk about is tonight's

primary topic observation. And that may, that may, that may

be less familiar to you in the sense of what does that mean?

How do I properly observe the text?

And, and this is important because the key question here is

what does it say? See, we're not really to what

does it mean yet. We'll talk about that next time.

First, we just need to understand what does it really

say? And this is a very, very

important step and it's often one that's neglected.

There's some assumptions sometimes that's made.

And if we don't observe properly, then we don't have all

the information in an accurate way that we need in order to

interpret properly. So this is a truth and, and,

and, and I hope you'll get into a discipline to where you

recognize this is really true, that the, the more time you

spend in observation, the more accurate your interpretation

will be. And part of the problem with

misinterpretation or taking verses out of context or these

things is that they're not spending enough time in these,

this very practical initial step.

And so you just got to think about it for a minute.

We got to develop a strategy that forces us to look very

closely and honestly at the verses that you're reading and

studying, right. And so this remember, and we've

talked about this over the last couple of sessions together.

Each book of the Bible is written, you know, over 2000

years ago or a lot more, some of them and one or more non-english

languages to address specific situations and often to answer

specific questions. And, and we don't have the

original authors standing right here.

And we don't have the original recipients standing right here

to tell us exactly how they saw all that and heard all that.

We don't have the Colossians standing right here.

We don't have the Galatians standing right here.

We don't have the Old Testament Hebrew people standing right

here. I don't.

And so it, it, there's, there's a matter of trying to sort

through that. So the Holy Spirit has to help

us. And so we depend completely on

the Holy Spirit to be honest with you, but we also depend

upon Him to help us implement some of these best practices.

And So what we're going to talk about, what are the best

practices I could use for my personal Bible study?

Now, let me just stop right there for a minute and make a

statement that I think will be true.

If you do everything that I'm going to describe over these

next few sessions together, you're going to realize your

Bible study probably needs to be longer than it is.

It, you know this. I'm not talking about taking

that little devotional book and reading one verse at the top of

that devotional book, reading whatever the devotional says.

And there's my personal Bible study for the day.

Now, if that's all you can do and that's all you have time to

do, please do that. It's better than and and it's

far better than nothing. That's not even that's that's

kind of almost a crude way to even describe it.

It's far more than nothing. But if you want to get really

serious and diving into the word, then then this takes a

minute. But as you, you practice the

disciplines that we're going to have these best practices that

we talked about, you're also going to get faster.

You'll be faster at it. They'll it'll become reflex to

where I'm not necessarily spending up, you know, a lot of

time on each step because it's becomes much more natural to

you. But in the beginning this might

seem awkward. So just recognize that.

Don't give up because the enemy will say give up.

You don't have time for this. Satan does not want you to

listen to me right now. Satan does not want you to pay

attention to these next lessons. Satan does not want you to

implement these best practices. Satan does not want you to

become a better student of the Bible because the word of God

defeats him. That's how Jesus.

Think about when Jesus was tempted in the wilderness and

Satan says, look, you can have everything.

You can do this, you can be that, you can whatever.

And Jesus said, here's what God said, here's what God said,

here's what God said. In fact, when when Eve got

twisted, it's because she twisted what God said and

misinterpreted it. And so are a lot of our strength

comes from right here and a lot of the failure of discipleship

rests right here. You know, I have people who come

to me and they'll talk about how they wish their life was better.

They need to recommit their life and or they need to confess sin

or whatever. And I'll talk to them.

Let's talk about your personal spiritual disciplines.

And they admit I'm really not reading my Bible very much.

I'm really not studying my Bible.

I'm really not spending. Well, here's here's the

theological term for that. Duh.

I mean, it's, it's not that complicated, but Satan, Satan

will complicate it. So here we go.

So, so depend upon the Holy Spirit not only to, to help you

understand it, but also to help you have the discipline to work

through these things. Yogi Berra, those of you who are

a certain age have no idea who that is.

That is not the cartoon character bear.

That is not a cartoon character bear.

Yogi Berra was a baseball player, but he, he was known for

his twisting of the English language and he, he simply said,

you can see a lot just by looking.

And so we're going to, we're going to look at some things.

So here's what I want us to do. I want you, you have a list of a

few passages right there on your sheet, right?

And you can choose one or if you don't want to do one of these

and you're currently like some of you are in a, you're having a

personal Bible study. Maybe you're in the book of

James right now. Well, then use your passage.

Use what you're in, in your personal life, but I want you to

select one of these passages. Now, you can do this alone

tonight in this session, or if you'd like to get with two or

three other people and talk through this together, that's up

to you. I'm not going to force that on

you, but some of you might want to do that.

And in a moment you can make that decision.

But I these are just examples. These are just samples.

Now. These are samples of different

kind of scripture. So you have gospel narrative in

John 4, you have Pauline doctrinal type teaching in

Colossians. You have a Psalm or wisdom or

poetry literature in a very familiar passage in Psalm 23.

And then you have Old Testament teaching in Deuteronomy chapter

Deuteronomy 6 · chapter mention

6. You have the Shema passage.

And so just I need you to be in an example of Scripture.

So I actually need you to open your Bibles or turn on your

screens and actually get to one of these so that you can apply

what we're getting ready to walk through.

OK, It won't it won't go as well if you're not actually looking

at a passage of Scripture. And I'm going to call for some

answers along the way as well. So again, if you want to do this

a group, you can do that. If you want to do it by

yourself, I should just force you all to get in groups.

So let's walk through a few of these steps together and

understand what it is that we're trying to talk about #1 is as

obvious, but don't take it for granted #1 is.

You'd need to read the entire passage.

So in other words, read the entire passage.

Read the whole chapter. You might have to read a whole

book sometimes to understand a passage.

Sometimes you have to understand even how a book fits into the

whole Bible. Next session, we're going to

talk a whole lot about context and why context is incredibly

important when it comes to interpreting scripture.

You'll misinterpret scripture many times if you don't

understand the context. But right here you're trying to

understand what the actual passage is.

And I know some of you know, every time I step back here,

Justin, it's interesting in it. And so we're trying to figure

out a dead spot. It's probably, you know,

something up here, reflecting the waves.

I mean, after all, I did lick a metal pole today.

So too much, too much iron in my blood.

So those of you who are listening to this later down the

road, you'll say, what is he talking about?

But but one of the things that's really important that we got to

understand is, and I know you should know this, you probably

know this, but it's it's time to remember it.

The numbers were added later. So those verse numbers and those

chapter numbers are not inspired, they are not

infallible, and they are not inerrant.

They were added much later by Christian believers, mainly

monks. In fact, there's a joke about

the one who did It was a monk riding on a horse and every time

the horse stumbled, it was a chapter, and every time he went

he did. It was a verse.

Now, that's not true, but sometimes the numbers aren't

right. Sometimes the end of a chapter

is not the end of the passage. And I could show you that often.

In fact, I've preached that here before when I preached out of

Matthew, Chapter 9 and 10. Chapter 9 does not end that

Matthew 9 · chapter mention

passage. You got to go on to chapter 10.

It's all the it's a continuation of the same story.

And so be careful when you're reading that you're actually

getting the context. I've mentioned to you last time

that sometimes in my personal study, I use some of those

subheadings to help me divide up passages of Scripture.

It's a good guideline, but sometimes those are not right.

And So what is the actual passage that I need to study do?

And, and it's often helpful to read beyond what you're going to

actually study. I'm going to read this whole

chapter, then I'm going to go back and I'm really try to

dissect these verses at the beginning of the chapter or

something like that. But so read the whole thing and,

and, and I don't know, I, I don't have a better way to teach

you than to suggest that you're making notes along the way.

And so as you read the text, you're writing down

observations. I do a lot of journaling.

I'm, I can't force that on anybody.

It's, it's not for everybody, but I, I, I would find it hard

to not keep track of things if I'm not making notes.

So write down your observations about the passage of Scripture.

So you want to note and list the details, the relationships that

you think you're going to need to go back and look at further.

So you're just reading the text now the next step gets a lot

more detailed. So secondly, you want to focus

your reading and your observations on the six basic

questions. Rudger, Rudger Kipling say his

name once wrote, I have 6. I have 6 honest serving men who

they taught me all I knew. Another version says, they're

always with me and their names are what and why and when and

how and where and who, right? And so this is where we're going

to slow down for a few minutes because when you go to your

sample passage that I told you to pick one of those that, that

you see there, who, who's the author?

Who wrote this, right? And to whom is he writing?

And again, I'm going to list all, list all the people

involved, list anything that strikes you about them.

Who is this? Who wrote this passage and to

whom is he writing? Now, sometimes that's not going

to be obvious from reading the passage.

This is where study Bibles and other helps come in handy to

where you can look at the background of a book to read.

A lot of your study Bibles will have a book intro at the

beginning of the book. And so this is who this who we

think wrote this and and who to whom he was writing.

But this can be a big deal when somebody's writing to the

Laodiceans about being hot or cold, and you go to Laodicea and

see Laodicea, it makes a whole lot more sense to you.

And I'll come back to Laodicea in a minute.

I'm going to pick on Laodicea more often than not tonight.

And so who wrote the Gospel of John?

And you can say, well, John, all right, well, who is that?

Who is that? John, Right.

What might have been more interesting if I'd have given

you the Gospel of Mark. Who wrote the Gospel of Mark?

Well, I know Mark, but who's who's Mark?

Anybody know? Anybody remember?

Who's Mark? John.

Mark. What'd John Mark do?

What's he known for in the book of Acts?

Yeah. Abandoning the mission, causing

a fight between Barnabas and Paul.

But later on, when you continue to read about it, you'll see

Paul commends him and Paul actually recommends him for

ministry. Now, tradition would say that

John Mark's writing the account of Peter, Mark shorter than the

other gospels. Many believe it's earlier than

the other gospels, so that it might have been a help to the

other gospel writers. They may have already had that

when they're writing the other gospel.

But to think about who this is. But sometimes it's to whom

they're writing that really becomes important.

So I'm trying to use passages that aren't yours.

So I'm making you work on your own.

But, but for example, Paul writes 2 letters, really writes

3 letters at least to the we have two in the Bible.

He mentions another one. So who are these people?

Who are the Corinthians, right? And, and, and why is he writing

to them? These are these questions.

All these questions are going to be thrown together.

So who is this? Then you go to win.

When did the events in the text take place?

This is where a lot of, to be honest with you,

misinterpretation comes in. When did they occur in relation

to other events in scripture and history?

When was the writer writing? So at what point in history are

they writing? When are they writing?

And that that's going to help you frame some of the context.

So again, I might have to go to my study Bible or, or go online.

Listen, you, you can go and search online for any Bible book

introduction you want. And, and I would read a couple

of them online to make sure that they're consistent with each

other because I don't know if you know this or not.

And not everything online is accurate.

I don't know if you know that y'all sitting down.

Not everything on the interwebs is true.

I don't know if you know that or not.

So, but but when is this? Who is this?

And then where becomes a big deal.

Where is this? All right, so let me pick on

Laodicea again for a minute. Laodicea is in Turkey.

You go to Turkey and you go to Laodicea.

One of the one of the most interesting things about

Laodicea is you, you see it long before you're there.

There's a White Mountain in Laodicea.

It's a it's a, it's a mountain where Warm Springs are dropping

mineral deposits down this entire hillside.

In fact, tourists come from all around the world to bathe, soak,

splash around in the mineral pools of Laodicea and it's hot

water, it's Hot Springs coming out of the top of that mountain.

What the bottom of that mountain is a cold lake.

And so you are neither hot nor cold if you're a Laodicean has a

whole contextual meaning for you.

You he's, he could have been pointing to the mountain in a

sense, everybody who lived there would have known about that

mountain. Everybody who was there would

have known of those springs. Everybody there would have

easily understood what he's talking about.

This is a real example. I'm neither at the top or the

bottom. I'm sliding in between right And

so where is this? Where did this take place?

What are the characteristics of the geographic setting?

This can be a big deal. Some of the countryside that

they went through was very hard and dangerous and rough.

And you wonder how you know how persevering to get there.

You you, you walk through a narrative like Acts or the

Gospels and they walked from one place to the other and it just

seems like a verse or half a verse where they went from one

place to the other. Well, you'd have been exhausted

if you made that journey. Some of those places were very

dangerous, depending upon when it was.

Was that during the Roman time? Was that pre Roman time?

Listen, 100 years, but but you know, before the Romans took

over the roadways of the Mediterranean were incredibly

dangerous, full of full of thieves and robbers and and

pirates on the seas and roam for all it's horror also stabilized

the Mediterranean world in a way.

So this is where a study map your Bible's got them in the

back. And often we don't pay a lot of

attention to them, I don't think anymore.

But where was that? Look up those places, search out

those places. Information will come alive when

you do that. And then where are the

recipients? Not only is where is this being

written as Paul in prison when he's writing it, that changes

everything. If I realize that Paul's chained

to a guard while he's writing this letter, it changes the

whole tone of everything. And then who's he writing to

when he writes the book of Romans, which is what I'm going

to preach after Nehemiah and I'll be done with Nehemiah one

day. But you all need Nehemiah.

Trust me, you need Nehemiah. I'm going to preach through the

whole book of Romans. Going to take about 14 years

now. It's not going to be that bad.

It takes a minute, but anyway, but you think about that, Paul

wrote to the church at Rome. That's a huge thing.

Paul didn't start the church at Rome.

He didn't plant that church. And so he's acknowledging the

existing body of Christ, the existing body of Christ in the

capital of the world, and writing to them and encouraging

them and challenging them, even though he didn't start the

church. That, that, that that has a lot

to do with how he wrote it and what he wrote.

All right. So how then, how are things

accomplished? How well, by what method, right?

What's going on? How's it happening?

And then why, why does a particular person do or say

something? And we recognize the inspiration

of the Holy Spirit. We're not discounting any of

that. But in the context of what he's

saying, why are they talking about that?

When you read anything by John, whether it's his gospel or his

epistles, he's fighting Gnosticism.

He's fighting false teaching every step of the way because

it's already apparent by the time he's writing, and he has to

fight this false teaching. When you read first, second and

Third John, that's the major theme of first, second and third

John, a heresy called Gnosticism and this false teaching and

these false teachers that he's trying to protect the church

from, right? And so why is a person writing?

And then what's happening? What's actually happening, in

what order, What ideas are being presented?

So what's actually taking place in the passage?

Now, here's what I want you to do.

I'm going to give you a couple of moments.

Those of you listening online, you'll have a couple of moments

where it's going to seem quiet. You'll hear my heavy breathing

because I licked the flagpole earlier today and probably have

a disease now. But I want you to take a minute

and pick one of those passages or the passage that you studied

this morning in your personal quiet time or something.

And I want you to just think about these six questions.

Now. Listen and I, and you'll see

this on your sheet later and you'll see me hear me say this

later. Not all six questions apply as

easily to certain kinds of passages as others.

Certain kinds of literature, certain kinds of writing are

easier than others. You get into a narrative.

These are a lot easier. Who, what, when, where, and how

are you know, it makes more sense when you're in a gospel or

book of Acts or history book or something like that in the Old

Testament. Sometimes it's harder if you're

in a Psalm, you know, or, or if you're an appalling doctrinal

teaching. But I want you to take one of

those passages. I want you to just think through

one or two of these questions and and I'm going to ask it's

going to be quiz in a minute. It'd be open book.

You'll be OK, but it's it's it's 50% of your grade.

So just do your best. So take a couple minutes.

Seriously answer a few of these questions with a passage of

scripture. You want to do that with

somebody else to do it. If you want to do it all by

yourself, that's fine. Those of you listening to this

online later, take your Bible and look at either John 4,

Colossians 3, Psalm 23, Deuteronomy 6, or a passage that

might be a part of your normal quiet time schedule.

Just take a moment. I'm going to give you like one

more minute. I know it's not enough just to

answer a couple of those questions, get some feedback

from you. I also hope that you would

notice that if you're teaching the Bible to someone that the

same, these same practices can be used in a group.

Some of you, I'm sure, are doing that as connect group leaders,

Bible study leaders, some of the deductive inductive studies you

might be a part of. Who's got a who?

Anybody got a who? You got to speak loudly.

Raise your hand if you got a who, what?

What book are you in? Deuteronomy.

So who wrote Deuteronomy? Moses, right.

To whom was he writing Deuteronomy?

Yeah. The Hebrews, the Israelites.

You know, this is a very Jewish passage.

In fact, Deuteronomy 6 is one of the most Jewish passages you're

ever going to come across. A Jewish male would say this

prayer every day. And so this is a very, very

thing. So when somebody give me a win,

maybe not Deuteronomy 6, somebody else got.

Anybody else got a win? Looking for a win, Got a little

win. Win.

Yes. Uh huh.

That's great. So you're actually an Exodus.

That's interesting. So you're talking about the

timing of the plagues and timing of the whole experience, the

Exodus itself. Yeah.

So when it happens, when it fits in, that's great.

Anybody else got a win? A win, a win?

I'm from Oklahoma. It's that win.

It's WINWHENI don't know if there's is there a difference

between those two words? When you know where I'm from, a

pitcher is, is something you hang on a wall, is something you

draw, is a guy who throws a ball and it's something you pour

water out of. They're all pitchers.

That's no joke. I don't know why you all waste

time spelling things differently.

Who's that Webster guy anyway? Who gave him the authority to

decide all that? Who's got a when?

Any other wins? Say it again.

Yeah, that's good because you're looking that up.

That's good. And you can do that.

Or maybe you had it. You might have had a chance.

You may have that memorized because she studies.

So. So what about a where?

Where, where, where is this happening?

Where? Where's somebody writing from?

Where's somebody writing to where?

Who's got to where? Colossians.

Yep. Paul and Tim 3 in prison.

You got a group of people who are in the middle of paganism.

I mean, if you go through all, most of Paul's letters,

Ephesians, Colossians, Corinthians, these folks are in

the middle of rank paganism all around temple after temple after

temple after temple after temple.

And they're, they're coming out of that background, many of

them. And so Christianity is a radical

departure of the, of their entire existence before that.

So you got a who and a win. They're tied together, right?

Anybody got a how or a why or a what?

One of those last three? Give me a how or a why or a

what. Yep, Yep.

So Paul's writing them to unite them and to correct them.

That's a that's a good combination.

That's a good description of that because they they're under

such attack. The early church was under such

massive attack from day was 0 that their unity, their

correction, their doctrinal sense, everything had to be so

carefully managed and and directed, so easy.

Heresies came from day one. Anybody else?

Yeah. Moses is telling them what

commands to fall. I mean, if you're in Deuteronomy

6, you got to think about the the overall lesson of this whole

thing is teaching. Your entire life.

Your entire life is teaching. Whether I'm at home or I'm

walking or everywhere I'm going, I'm teaching, I'm sharing, I'm

focusing upon the word of God and and a powerful passage.

Anybody else got any one of those from their passage?

Will that power be looking towards Christ right.

You have to keep your out of Labor just teaching them

to keep that focus. Yeah, that's good.

So in Colossians 3, that focus upon Christ all the time.

You got to take the focus off of where you are the earthly and

the and the the past, frankly, because the whole context

Colossians 3 can't exist without the previous passages.

And so you got to read understand Colossians 3.

You got to read before Colossians 3 because Paul's

describing this new life in Christ.

Here's what this looks like. And here's some things you have

to have to do so that so make sure you're reading the whole

passage. And again, next week we're going

to re emphasize this. Now I want to spend a little

time on this next week. This is really good important,

especially for a guy like me who likes who likes original

language. So after you're asking these

questions, you got to note key terms, and this is a big deal.

For example, the word believe occurs 79 times in the Gospel of

John. It's critical to understanding

the whole purpose of the Gospel of John.

And the word believe is a verb form.

It's pisto. It's the verb form of the noun

for faith. So whenever you see the word

believe in the New Testament, I wish we would just say faith,

make faith a verb. You're faith in something

because that's what it really means.

It's it's literally the noun or the verb form of the same word

that means faith. See Greek does that and changes

stuff like that. And so 79 times he's saying

you've got to faith this, you got to faith this.

It's critical to understanding his gospel message because he's

you imagine when you read the Gospel of John, it's different

than the other Gospels, much more theologically driven, much

more crystal logically. You know, driven in the

beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word

was God. So it's very much driven about

Christ and who he really is and how we have to believe in him.

And so at the end of the gospel, he talks about how those who

believe in the name of the Son of God, This is why I've written

these things. This is why all these things are

written in this gospel. Many other things that weren't

written that he did too. But the reason, the ones that

were written in this gospel, so that you might believe that he

is the Son of God, it's crucial. So as you read your passage, and

you might think this is going to take an hour and a half, well,

great, it won't. But what's wrong with that?

But it won't, I know you say I don't have an hour and a half.

I understand you'll, you'll understand how to get this down

to a time frame that makes sense for you.

But what are the key terms? Observe the words that are

actually used in your English translation.

So you, you and, and I'll talk a little bit more about this next

time too. But you got to understand in

biblical language, this is really true in the Old

Testament. Hebrew depends upon this, but

it's also true in Greek that when a word is repeated, that

means there's emphasis there. So if, if the author actually

repeats a word in, in that language system as emphasis,

it's like exclamation points. Pay attention to what I'm about

to say to you. And so we're looking for those

words that seem to be the most important to, for understanding

the passage, right. And so any repetition of a term

or a phrase or a clause is really this clue.

This is what they ought. This is a main point or I

wouldn't say that again. Rejoice always.

And again I say, yeah, why? Because you need to rejoice.

And you got to think about who he's writing.

See. And so we've got to understand

that these, you know, note these key terms.

So as you're walking through this, I'm reading the passage,

I'm trying to note a few of these things.

All this gets mixed up. You're not necessarily doing

this step one, Step 2, Step 3. But as I'm answering these

questions, thinking through these questions might need my

study, but I don't know what that is.

What when was that? I mean, for example, and, and

I'll talk to, I'm going to talk to Alan Mosley about this

tomorrow in the podcast. How in the world do you keep up

with the Old Testament prophets? You know, because our English

Bible doesn't write, doesn't present them in chronological

fashion. So when you get to the minor

prophets, the reason they're in the order that they're in, in

their Old Testament is just length.

So you got the longest to the shortest.

That's how they're arranged, which I never thought was a good

idea. You can actually buy a

chronological Bible, but it's not very common, not very often.

We done, but you, so you got to figure out, so when was Malachi,

when was Zephaniah, when was Jonah, when was, you know,

Zechariah, when was Haggai? And you've heard me talk about

with Nehemiah, the association of Ezra, Haggai and Zechariah to

the Nehemiah story. But you, you got to look that

up. And so to recognize.

And so when you're reading through and you recognize, oh,

well, that then that means that's probably tied to this

over here. See, now you're getting that

context piece again, because if I just read them independently,

I may not ever really understand the full meaning of the passage.

And here's something that we're going to learn next week.

A passage cannot mean what it never meant.

And so we often our, our greatest sin of

misinterpretation, which I'm not going to get ahead of myself, is

that we apply everything to me today and we don't pay any

attention to what it has meant throughout the ages.

And sometimes that'll change what it means for you today.

And so we, we need to be careful that we're honest about the way

we approach Scripture. So noticing these words is a

big, big deal. So if you turn to the 23rd Psalm

or quote it for me, right? What's the opening line of the

23rd Psalm? Somebody say it out loud.

Keep going, OK, Just stop. The Lord is my shepherd.

I shall not want. What are what are the most

important words there Lord give me another one shepherd or it's

another one want try or not want right and to begin to diagram in

your head. I'm not you know I'm not you

know I mean missus McIntosh would make me do it on paper in

8th grade. But but but but in my mind to

understand this is the most important part of this.

This is the emphasis that's being placed here because

sometimes I've I'm going to be nice.

I'll be nice. No, I'm never nice.

All right, So I've been in small group studies, sometimes sitting

in the back of the room, right. I'm in between some place in my

old life our at our home church. I'll be honest with you, if I

wasn't doing an interim or I was the, the one week out of six

months I was home or something, and I'd actually, I'd go to Ken

Coley Sunday School class, right?

And I'd sit in the back of the back row in the corner of Ken

Coley Sunday School. And I did that simply because I

used to be the interim pastor of this church.

And every time Doctor Ewart walks in a room, sometimes it's

like I, you know, I have no intentions of being up there

answering all the questions, talking all the time and

dominating the room, right? I just want to sit back there,

let you all have a good study. I'm there for support because I

believe in small groups. I'm going to attend small groups

no matter what, right? And I sit back there and

sometimes I go crazy. Teresa, I'll tell you, I go

crazy because I'm listening to people self interpret the Bible

for themselves and it becomes kind of group therapy rather

than Bible interpretation. I'll leave that alone.

Let's be honest about what the Bible really says.

All right, so #4 then, and this gets a little technical, so bear

with me for a minute, but we need to identify the structure.

So this really does help us understand a passage.

What's the structural relationship or patterns?

For example, is there comparison and contrast going on?

So in Colossians 3, what are you doing?

You are taking what off and putting on.

So you have this contrast in the Beatitudes, what you've heard it

said blank, and I'm telling you blank.

You have compare and contrast and and that's a very common way

of teaching and speaking in biblical literature.

Some of that's cultural, some of that's time frame.

It's a way way the rabbi's would teach.

So you're going to compare something.

The Kingdom of heaven is like you'll have some kind of

comparison and contrast right going on.

And so is that what's going on? Do you have repetition, not just

the word, but an idea? Well, he says that again.

And sometimes, especially in some of the poetic literature of

the Old Testament, you have a lot of redundancy and you have a

lot of repetition. Don't miss that.

Don't get bored with that saying.

That's a point. That's a big point.

He's trying to make a point. He's trying to drive it home

when he says that. Or the idea of proportion is

that, what does that mean? That's how many verses did they

take to tell you something. The more verses, the more words

they had to use to tell you something.

Odds are this was important. You pay attention to proportion,

you know, So you got to understand that when you're, for

example, Paul, Paul's notorious for this.

When you begin reading some of Paul's letters, he might go 5

verses before there's a period and, and you'll notice that

sometimes it's comma, comma, comma, comma, comma, comma it,

you know, and, and when you're translating Paul, it's sometimes

it gets that way to where the sentence just goes on forever

and ever and ever. Well, that's because he's, he's

trying to finish a point and he's trying to get it home to

you. And so this literary structure

can actually make sense. Howard Hendricks, who's one of

the guys who's written a very well known classic book on Bible

study and interpretation called Living by the Book, he says

there are at least five different kinds of literary

structure in the Bible. So you have biological structure

where it focuses on people. Genesis is like this to a large

degree. Genesis is following the stories

of Adam and Eve. You get Cain and Abel.

Eventually you'll get to know and you get to the patriarchs.

So you're kind of following one character after another

character after another character after another

character. Now the main character is God

and his plan. But but the stories that are

being told are very people oriented, right?

And so when, if that's the case, or if I'm going to study kings

or Samuel in the Old Testament, I better know who Samuel is.

I better know who David is. I better know who Saul is, you

know, and I better have some understanding of these people

and where they're from and when they are.

And then you start getting into the sons of David or Solomon,

and it gets really confusing. You get divided kingdoms and

this king and that king and who's from Judah, who's from

Israel. Again, very confusing, right?

So you have biological structures, but you can also

have geographical structure. It's focused on a place.

So it's very much writing about a location or a place,

historical structure where they focus on key events,

chronological structure that focuses on time or ideological

structure that focuses on key ideas and concepts.

And some of these will mix up. And, and I'm not saying every

single time you open your Bible, every single morning, I'm

listening to go, what kind of literary structure is this?

But I am saying to have an awareness as you begin this

process, this is step one. Remember, this is not step last.

We're on step one. We've got interpretation coming

up, We've got application coming up, which is what you all will

really be interested in. But I need, but I need this step

to help set the stage for good interpretation.

So the more I'm thinking through it and, and, and some of them

are going to be easier to say, I don't, you know, but sometimes I

go, gosh, that doesn't make sense.

But if I begin to ask, well, what is this or what is this,

then sometimes it would come to light as the Holy Spirit helps

me and I study and I research the passage, right.

And then in a very similar way, you'll have different literary

forms. And so you have narrative

history sometimes is also called that.

So what, what are narrative books?

What are if I say if I like, I like preaching out of narrative.

I always have. I like stories And so I like

preaching out of narrative. Doesn't mean that's the only

thing I'm ever going to preach out of, but I just enjoy it.

What is that? What's narrative?

What's an what's an example of a narrative passage or a narrative

book? Huh.

Esther, that was good. I was Old Testament.

I wouldn't expect to know. Testament is good.

Esther. Ruth, what about New Testament?

What's a narrative? Gospels.

That's interesting. Book of Acts, really the primary

ones. Yeah.

So you think about these stories, Jonah in different

stories, these narrative books, and then you think about what

would be poetry, sometimes called wisdom literature,

sometimes called poetry. What what are the common ones?

Psalms and Proverbs, Song of Solomon.

Yeah, usually. And what Ecclesiastes.

Yeah, sometimes I'll preach through Ecclesiastes hard book

sometimes to grab a hold of. And what the hall, the meanings

that the the big meaning of Ecclesiastes is easy.

Walking through the individual verses and passages of

Ecclesiastes, not so easy if you don't understand who it is and

what he's doing. Who's writing Ecclesiastes?

Yeah, it's King Solomon. You got to always remember that.

Every single verse. This is Solomon's perspective.

It won't make sense. It's if it doesn't make sense,

if it's a common person's perspective.

Sometimes this is the king of all kings who has every single

thing in the whole world 400 times over, and he's moaning

about life. And you just got to always

remember that, you know? You always got to remember that.

All right. Another type of literature would

be doctrinal. What are the primary examples of

doctrine? Yeah.

Romans, Pauline, epistles as a whole, usually, you know, and

then any in the Old Testament say that again.

Leviticus. Yeah.

I'd say I'd be there. Parts of Deuteronomy, Leviticus,

the law. Yeah, yeah, that's right.

And to think about. So when I'm reading like I, you

know, one time I took a yeah, I'll share it.

So. So I took a bunch of inner city

Dallas kids to Glorieta one time, which is a Baptist camp in

New Mexico. You either know that you don't,

didn't matter. So we're out in New Mexico.

They'd never been to camp in their life.

They destroy a cabin. I'm banned from Glorieta for a

year. That's no joke.

And so after the kids had destroyed the cabin at

Glorietta, these were urban kids who'd never been anywhere and

didn't know how to behave. Half of them are lost.

And so they literally destroy a cabin.

And so I so punishment that afternoon was an afternoon verse

by verse study of Leviticus. I sat down with those boys for

four hours going verse by verse by verse.

Should have done Lamentations. Should have done Lamentations.

Interesting, isn't it? And yet important.

Why would it be important to study Leviticus?

Boring rule after rule after rule?

But why was that so important to be thankful we don't have to do

it. That's good.

That's good. But what else?

Contextually? Got to understand what they're

going through it. We got to understand the law.

We need to understand what was expected of them and why, why

Leviticus is an important question.

Why did you have all these rules?

Why were you done that? You know, and, and a lot of it

was to protect them. They didn't always see it that

way. And of course, the rabbi's come

along later and add to it and mess it all up at times.

But, but these are just examples.

And again, I'm not suggesting that every time you open your

Bible, you're going to process through every single one of

these steps. But these are steps I want you

to be aware of because they'll help you get to the meaning,

which we talk about next time, because you're not going to see

things in poetry necessarily that you would see in history

passages. So some of the six questions

just aren't going to apply. They're not going to work the

same way, you know, and, and so, but to think still about who,

who was that song written for in the Psalms?

This summer, we're going to spend some time in some worship

conversations. We're going to talk about the

Psalms a little bit. These are the original praise

courses. And so who is that praise course

written to and why? And some of them are a lot

easier to identify. Psalm 51 is easy to identify.

Psalm 51 is a is a a prayer of confession by David after he

sins with Bathsheba. And so, you know, you can see

certain, but sometimes the Psalms, just like, you know,

you'll see the for the choir master, you know, or such and

such. It's like, who's that?

You know, what's that for? And so these six questions may

not all work as well on some, but these various methods of

observation are going to help you.

And you might sit there and say, well, I, I didn't, I didn't get

much out of that. Well, you need to read, you need

to study because you need to prepare yourself because I'm

telling you, the more time that you spend in this step, the

better your interpretation is going to be.

I can, I can almost the next week, I'll give some examples.

I can almost, oh not always, but I can almost always go back when

I know that somebody, even denominations who have

misinterpreted scripture and created doctrines that we would

not agree with. One of the reasons is they're

not doing their homework. They're not.

They're not going beyond a an inch deep level in trying to

understand what the Word of God really is and to recognize the

supernatural, mystical, wonderful, spiritual part of the

Word of God. This is more than a book.

This is more than a record of events.

This is more than record of people.

And this is a Holy Spirit inspired and He's going to help

you understand it. But the more I can put myself in

the right place to be able to ask Him the right questions and

to research what He is in, what He has helped other people to

write for me and study Bibles and commentaries and resources

for me to say, oh, that that's what that means.

See. And so these questions will be

helpful. But in the end, we're still

dependent. Now, next week when we get to

interpretation, we're going to talk about the massive

difference between isagesis and exegesis.

And, and I'm telling you, it's a sin in the American church.

I, I said Jesus is a sin that I see in Baptist churches all the

time where I'm reading into scripture what I wanted to say,

rather than honestly drilling down and taking out of Scripture

what it actually says because people are all the time.

We live in an individualistic, autonomous culture where it's

all about me. And so I'm I'm even going to

make scripture about me. Right, I'm going to make it all

about what I wanted to be about what I my agenda and my and and

what I want my blessing to be. It's almost a name it and claim

it prosperity gospel Bible study when I really need to just be

honest laid bare before the word of God.

What does this actually say? Which often times does not agree

with what I want or what I wish or what I claim.

And so it's going to be really important for us to be honest

about it. Psalm 119 verse 18 thought was a

Psalms 119:18

perfect verse for tonight. Open my eyes.

I mean, this is a prayer to God. You know the Psalm 119 if you

don't know Psalm 119 long Psalm read it sometime all about the

word of God. But Psalm 119, open my eyes that

I may behold wondrous things out of your wall.

So you might sit there and think, I don't want to study the

law, I don't want to study Leviticus.

I don't hear about all these rules.

And yet you can see him singing. Show me the wondrous things

about your law. This is why you created this for

us. You're putting a hedge of

protection around us. You're you're helping to drive

us to show us. We're supposed to be examples.

This is the whole Old Testament. The Hebrews were supposed to be

examples. They were supposed to be

testimonies. This is what it means for a man

to walk with Yahweh. This is what it looks like for

humanity to dwell with Jehovah. And they were to be the light to

the Gentiles. They were to be a testimony to

the world. I wrote a chapter for a book

that Lifeway sells on Old Testament prayers where I wrote

out of first Kings about Solomon's prayer of dedication

of the temple and part of his prayers that the the foreigners

would come and see this and experience this and and God.

And he even says God hear their prayers when they pray to you,

which was it would be. It would be crazy for a lot of

Hebrew thought who wanted to isolate and insulate and

separate and that's all. But at the same time, they were

to build a hedge of protection of doctrine and lifestyle and

morality and ethic based upon the word of God.

Nothing's changed. Nothing's changed Today.

We are supposed to be testimonies.

We are supposed to be This is what it looks like for man and

woman to walk with Yahweh. This, this church, this is.

This is what it's supposed to look like for humanity to dwell

with Jehovah, to abide in Christ, and for Christ to abide

in them so that they can bear much fruit.

Look at the fruit. Look at what's being borne out.

Why? Because we're people of the

Word. We're letting it define us.

I don't get to self define myself.

I don't get to self define my truth.

I don't get to be true to myself.

You make any sense? I'm an idiot.

I don't want to be true to that. I licked A flagpole today.

I need to be true and abiding in his truth, the truth.

Then then maybe people will understand that I licked A

flagpole to encourage you to, to make you laugh a little, to be

encouraged. So let's be that people, people

of the word, right? So it's going to get really good

next couple of sessions. Don't miss any of that.

You got to come back, bring all your friends.

How do I actually interpret the Bible?

Because I'm telling you, I run into lost people and they'll

actually say to me, I don't know, I read this thing and I

read this thing, I don't know what it means.

I can't understand it. So we got to talk about how to

set that loose so we can have understanding.

All right, let's pray together. Father, Your word is a blessing

to us. What a gift.

And Father, I know at times this might seem mathematical or

mechanical, and that's not the intent.

Father, the intent here is to give us the best way to depend

upon you for us to come to you with questions, to come to you

to seek the answers so that we can really fully understand what

your word is saying to us. That I won't just flippantly run

through the pages. I won't just skim over the

verses without really understanding what they say.

Their Father, when I read a verse and it doesn't make sense

to me that I'll stop, I'll stop, I'll pause and and do what I can

to say, this is what it this is what it means.

This is what it says. So Father, I pray that we'll be

students of the word, but Father, we won't just be

hearers. We won't just be listeners, we

won't just study, but the Father will do, will be doers of the

Word. Then, Father, our world will see

a testimony. They'll see a testimony that

will draw them as you use that to draw them to you.

So, Father, help us as we study your work together in Christ's

name, Amen. Thank you so much for listening

today. And I also hope that you'll go

to [email protected]

as well as our app and find many other resources that will bless

you and your families. Thank you once again.