Shifting Perspectives - Biblical Conversations about Topics that Matter - Episode 17

welcome to Shifting Perspectives

biblical conversations about topics that

matter let's get to it

hey everybody welcome back to Shifting

Perspectives we've been talking about

Bible study and really how do we dig

into Bible study the first week we

talked about the different translations

what's a what's a good translation for

you to use and whether or not that's

word for word which is what I prefer a

thought forought or maybe even a

paraphrase for a devotional aspect and

and then we talked about what are first

steps and second steps um and tonight

now that we've done first steps and

second steps now we're going to talk

about now that we're digging into and

studying the Bible what are some

external sources that we maybe want to

go to um as we're digging and maybe we

want a little help finding the answer or

maybe we want to begin to start getting

the perspective of other uh of other

believers maybe more academic thought

those guys that are smarter than I am i

read them a lot um and so so my first

thought is Scott where do you go after

you've kind of done some digging on your

own to begin to look for more detail and

more information how do you approach

external sources well there's a lot of

them i mean and that's you know the

first thing you have to realize whenever

you go outside the word of God you can

learn things there are revelations that

come there there are there's great

information that comes out and even the

most prolific pastors and and here's

what I will caveat it with even the most

prolific pastors I mean you and I have

been together for a few years and I

really respect your teaching i respect

the way you teach and what you teach but

I'm going to guess you're probably not

100% right well probably not i've been

digging into this thing for you know 30

plus years i know I'm not 100% right you

talk about your Bible i've used the same

Bible and as I go through the pages

there are notes that are scratched out

now right the way I teach things even

the way that you know a few weeks ago I

was preparing for a Sunday morning and

what I was planning to teach that

morning I didn't get to by the time the

weekend went through I had done some

more study and figured out that was a

the wrong angle and not that these are

great doctrinal things but you know

ultimately we are to search the

scriptures for ourselves so I caveat all

I was saying is if you find a a person

out there whether it be a a Spotify or

YouTube or or whatever i mean even you

know they got the old Spurgeons out

there that you can hear on Spotify which

you know the Prince of Pastors and and

uh you you hear those those old messages

a lot there you still are responsible

for making sure that the accuracy of

what you've put your foundation your

beliefs on are biblical and that's where

we go back to what we talked about a few

weeks ago of not letting I I always like

to see things in context exactly the

other thing is be really cautious about

opinion a lot of people and whenever I

teach there are times I interject my

opinion and I always try to caveat that

was this is what I think right sometimes

I teach it from different perspectives

so I go to two or three different people

that I kind of trust align with what I

believe um and then I take about 75% of

what they say right and there are times

I'll be like "That's a stretch." You

kind of chase something there that you

really shouldn't have chased to them I

see that's where it's at but for me I

look at that and go "Okay what can I

learn different?" And most of the time

what I get out of those is not what they

think but a way of tying these golden

threads or crimson threads through the

Bible so depends on the source for me

but I always look at them with a little

bit of a understanding there's probably

going to be something that's missing so

that's me what about you well you know I

want to piggyback on that for just a

moment and say one of the things that um

from in in theological circles when

we're studying and we're doing seminary

and we're we're learning how to dig into

the Bible to deliver that one of the we

have a phrase um and it's this it says

that that whatever we do we want to do

no harm to the text yes and so often

times you will find that if you're

really going to read that and then you

try to to apply something that that

maybe is fringe you will actually be

doing harm to the text and so um you

know one of the things I love is is that

you'll very clearly say "Hey this is my

opinion i I can't I can't necessarily

solidify this but this is what I think

that the Lord is saying to me in this

particular text." Um and I don't feel

like when you do that you're doing harm

to the text in any way but there are

those out there uh that I listen to

sometimes and go "Wow that's that's

really kind of damaging to what what the

text is actually saying there." And

that's and so we live in a world today

where you know everybody's got a blog

everybody's a Bible teacher um and you

know everybody has an opinion of what

they feel like the Lord has has said to

them and uh and and by the way I'll

caveat the the Bible statement with the

fact that your Bible is in a beautiful

case that prevents it from getting like

this maybe I should have just put this

in a case and then I wouldn't had to buy

another it's on its third case it's a

third case third case that's And that's

probably cheaper than rebinding a Bible

too yeah so um you know there are

dynamics of how do I find somebody

that's trustworthy

um and so so the first thing that I

would say in that is is I want to take a

kiss model you know that's a keep it

simple you know yeah exactly because

because sometimes we're we're really not

that simple and so my first statement is

if you're going to begin to study the

Bible um this particular Bible um this

is a study Bible not just a translation

that's a New King James which is what I

use um but this is a Spiritfilled Life

Bible and you can get the ESV study

Bible and there's a Yours is a Scoffield

right yeah um there's a Scofield study

Bible ryy's got a study Bible um there's

an NIV study Bible DA Carson's Edits by

the way I really like DA Carson even

though I don't like the NIV Bible da DA

Carson is a is a phenomenal theologian

but find something that allows you to

have some additional information all in

one place because the first thing that

we want to do is we want to say before

we go out there in internet world if I

have some of the answers that are

available to me in a study Bible and so

what's great about a study Bible as an

example you can take any one of these um

and just jump to a to the beginning of

any particular book and this particular

one is laid out by book and I've got

background i've got the date that it was

written i got who the author is i got

the overarching purpose of the book this

is Oadiah by the way most people don't

read Obadiah very much um but you will

find that if you get a good study Bible

you will get a lot of the information

that you that you need to help you i

don't know why I'm having such a hard

time turning these pages but um you know

the overarching theme content there's

personal application um there's even a

section on Christ revealed um which I

think is the ultimate goal of the entire

Bible is revealing Christ to the world

and so this this type of study Bible you

want to um that allows you to keep

everything all in one place now I've got

lots of books on my bookshelf yes you do

and I got whole entire commentary

serieses

um but this really is a what we would

call a one-stop shop idea is get a good

study Bible to start with and so so in

that that's that's my first on externals

is keep it simple and keep it right

there what would your next one be well I

think I'll jump back to that real quick

um when you talk about um you know when

you talk about the different uh

commentaries that are out there and you

just laid out a whole bunch of them one

of the things that that you'll find if

you're looking for external sources and

please don't use chat GPT or other AI

yeah please don't do that because

remember that just reads what's out

there so it takes anything that's put on

the internet and tries to incorporate

into the spirituality piece so um you

know be very cautious if you get into

that because it's it's the old garbage

in garbage out model Uh and it doesn't

take much to throw the throw off um your

spirit your spiritual your spiritual

track um on commentaries and

commentators uh you mentioned you know

DL Carson I've got a two or three that I

really like to use one of the one of the

things that you realize is much like the

translations of the Bible are different

you know word for word versus thought

for thought versus the idea uh the

commentaries are very much commentators

are very much like that yes that's true

when I read the Bible I am very literal

i think a number is a number a date is a

date it's not

approximately and the only time that I

don't take the Bible absolute literal

literal is whenever it says it was

similar to or as a where it's clearly

saying this isn't exactly what it is but

this is the closest thing I've got for

reference right i'm a very literalist in

that some commentaries are very literal

some commentaries are very analogous to

saying you know the the locust and

revelation i'm going through the

revelation again um you know those are

airplanes and jets and you know you can

make whenever you start making scripture

whatever you want to um you you got to

be careful there um because you know

there are some there's other things

other passages say these are locust if

you go but you got to go to the Old

Testament to find where it says these

are actually locusts so um with that

being said you got to be you got to be

cautious and even the best ones

sometimes go out and I was I was

watching one the other day and he's like

very literal very literal and then all

of a sudden just in the middle of

a set series of verses he changed to

well I think this means it wasn't really

that it was something else i went well

why are you so literal and now you're

changing so you got to watch those

flip-flops not again not that they're

not that they're wrong on this piece

just listen to what they're saying and

how they're saying it and again go back

and read and examine your text and all

those little footnotes on the side of

your on the side of your things that

lead back to other that lead back to

other passages in the Bible read follow

and trail them because oftenimes that's

part of those threads that we talk about

you know one of the one of the

hermeneutic tools that we talk about

hermeneutics is basically that's a big

fancy word to say that the tool belt

that you wear to interpret the Bible

that has a screwdriver in it and there's

a flathead and a Phillips and there's

you know you got a hammer and you got

all of that that hermeneutics is the

tool belt with the tools and one of the

tools that we that we always say first

when we're studying scripture is let

scripture interpret scripture and that's

exactly what you're pointing to take

those cross references that you find in

that study Bible and go and look at them

because they're going to help you

understand the text that you just got

through reading yeah so the other thing

you asked me was what was my second

guide and I never did answer that

question right it's a strong concordance

a strong concordance or a strong a

strong concordance or strong all the

above all the above you know a good a

good search function on your Bible app

to go find the word rock and find out

where the first the law of first use we

talked about that the law of last use

where does that go through the

scriptures those are great for for

trailing down those things so that's a

great study tool and if I could say one

thing that was really po important and

we're running out of time on this

particular um episode but if I could say

one thing that's really really really

important and that is vetting

you know everybody can have a blog

everybody can have a website everybody

can have a YouTube channel everybody can

have an opinion um but I mentioned some

some guys by name i mentioned DA Carson

uh you know DA Carson is a phenomenal

vetted pastor and theologian professor

at at um um at Trinity uh Divinity

School

um you can pick guys like um I say DA

Carson's John Stop Martin Lloyd Jones RT

Kindle i mean you can just begin to

throw out names of guys they're vetted

in other words other scholars and other

people have have read their works and

reviewed their works and decided that

they are they are reliable and reputable

it's not the guy on YouTube that nobody

knows who he is that is that is telling

you that it's planes trains and

automobiles when the Bible says it's

locusts i mean it's um if you can if you

can have one thought in your mind and

that's before I take whatever this

person's saying is this person vetted

are they reputable is this someone that

I should be listening to or allowing to

influence my spiritual journey that

would be probably the most important

with everything that is out there

absolutely um and so so here's what we'd

like to do because we've run long on

time um which which tends to happen to

us um we're going to come back next week

and we're going to do a a a roundt recap

yes of Bible study we'll start at the

beginning we'll march through all of the

different aspects and maybe we'll tack

on to the end of that some other things

about this external sources of of helps

because we didn't get super far in that

tonight and there's a plethora of them

absolutely there there's so many of them

and you know just we got to we got to be

careful with what we ingest and allow to

take root in our spiritual mind yep

so all right well with that we're going

to end this episode and we will see you

guys next week as we do a recap on how

to study the Bible have a great week see

you