Review
Week 1—Two basic Bible study tools (for personal and use in evangelism)
- Read one book of the Bible repeatedly until you know it well (we are using Mark)
- Write in the margin A*?E
Week 2—Two principles of Bible study
- Pay attention to what the Bible says about itself
- Mark 4:1-20
- 4:2; Pro. 30:6; Rev. 22:18, 19
- 2 Peter 1:16 – 2:1
- 2 Timothy 3:16-17
- Identify units and write a summary of the point of that unit
Week 3—Two levels of meaning in the Bible
- What it meant–Exegesis (not eisegesis)
- What it means—Hermeneutics
Week 4—Two understandings
- 1—Understand the Bible alike
- 2—Understand the Bible’s three levels
Report on homework
- Find a unit
- Write a short summary of the point of the unit
- Describe what it meant
- Describe what it means
1—Understand the Bible alike
Some argue no two people can understand the Bible in the same way
- Some suggest why study the Bible when it is not possible to understand it?
- This argument is a trap
- How is the Bible different from other things we read?
State Rules about Driving—Wide understanding and agreement (but not obedience)
Complete Stop: A complete stop is required at a stop sign before entering the crosswalk on the near side of the intersection. If there’s no crosswalk, stop at a clearly marked stop line. If there’s no stop line, stop at the point closest to the intersecting roadway where you can see approaching traffic [2023 Oklahoma Statutes Title 47. Motor Vehicles §47-11-703(d)].
Ancestor’s will—property is passed on to descendants every day
Article III: Real Estate
My Residence: I give and bequeath my single-family residence located at 14 Elm Street, Springfield, IL 62704, including the land, house, and all permanent fixtures thereon, to my wife, Mary, if she survives me.
In the Event of My Wife’s Predecease: If my wife, Mary, predeceases me, then I give and bequeath the aforementioned property, in equal shares, to my children.
Mortgage: This bequest of my residence is subject to the existing mortgage held by Springfield Savings and Loan. It is my intention that the beneficiary (ies) be responsible for assuming or paying off the remaining mortgage balance.
What does the Bible say about this question of understanding the Bible?
- Colossians 1:9-11: 9 And so, from the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10 to lead a life worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. 11 May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy,
- Col 1:9-11 is part of the longer prayer in Col. 1:3-14
- Paul asks for God to give the church three things
- Knowledge
- Wisdom
- Understanding
- The purpose for is request is to increase in the knowledge of God
- What it meant: Pray for guidance as you study and you will receive it
- What it means: Pray as you study so you can understand
- Colossians 4:12 Epaphras, who is one of yourselves, a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you, always remembering you earnestly in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God.
- Epaphras was praying for the Colossians
- He prayed that they would be mature and have confident in God’s will
- What it meant: They were praying for each other’s maturity and knowledge of God’s will
- What it means: Pray for each other as you study so we can understand the Bible
Some interpretations are clearly wrong; it is possible to misunderstand the Bible just as we can misunderstand any literature
- 2 Timothy 4:13 When you come bring the cloak which I left at Troas with Carpus, and the books, especially the parchments.
- Not saying you need to go to Troas and get a cloak
- This is not an example we should follow.
- 1 Timothy 5:23 No longer drink water exclusively, but use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments.
- Not telling us to drink wine
- Paul offering first century medical advice to a friend
- Romans 16:16 Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ greet you.
- Not saying we must kiss each other at church
- Ecclesiastes 3:2 … a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted
- Not saying God has appointed you a time to die.
- Job 15:20 The wicked man writhes in pain all his days, through all the years that are laid up for the ruthless.
- Eliphaz was saying if you are sick, it is because of sin
- That was Eliphaz’ theology
- In the larger picture of Job, Eliphaz was wrong.
God’s word can be understood
Deuteronomy 30:11-16 11 “For this commandment which I command you this day is not too hard for you, neither is it far off. 12 It is not in heaven, that you should say, `Who will go up for us to heaven, and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ 13 Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, `Who will go over the sea for us, and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ 14 But the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it. 15 See, I have set before you this day life and good, death and evil. 16 If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you this day, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his ordinances, then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you are entering to take possession of it.”
- God’s commandments can be understood
- You do not have to have a ticket to heaven to understand
- You don’t have to cross the sea to a seminary or school to understand
- It is set before you
2—Understand the Bible’s three levels
The Bible has three levels:
- Top: Whole plan of God revealed in the Bible—Creation to Second Coming
- Middle: A particular section of the Bible story—Patriarchs, Judges, Kings, Life of Jesus, story of the early church
- Bottom: Specific narrative or paragraph. The hundreds of individual stories. Abram going to Egypt, David bringing the ark to Jerusalem, Jesus calming the storm at sea
How is this helpful?
- How does the bottom story fit into the middle and top levels?
- Abram going to Egypt (bottom) puts Sarah at risk and endangers the whole promise of descendants in Genesis (middle), and raises the question about the fulfillment of the promise to Abram in Jesus (top)
- David bringing the ark to Jerusalem (bottom) sets the stage for the Jerusalem temple (middle) which provides a background for Jesus replacing temple sacrifice and Christians being the temple of God (top)
- Jesus calming the storm (bottom) is part of Mark’s effort to show Jesus as the Son of God (middle) which is the foundation of the Christian faith (top)
- Bottom and middle levels help focus on “what it meant” while the middle and top levels how focus on “what it means”
- What it meant: Jesus’ audience and Mark’s readers saw Jesus calming the storm as evidence of His divinity
- What it means: We are more like Mark’s readers than Jesus’ audience in that we did not see the storm calmed, but we read about it and see how it elevates Jesus above mere mortals
- Bottom levels have a point. Middle levels also have a point. Both contribute to the upper-level points of God creating the world, humans sinning, and God sending a savior.
- Bottom-level point: Jesus could calm storms
- Middle-level point: Jesus was the son of God
- Upper-level point: Jesus can save us from our sins because He was God.
- Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart, How to Read the Bible for all its Worth, 74ff.
Examples
Genesis 12:1-7 1 Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse; and by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves.” 4 So Abram went, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. 5 And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions which they had gathered, and the persons that they had gotten in Haran; and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan. When they had come to the land of Canaan, 6 Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 7 Then the LORD appeared to Abram, and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him.
- Lower-level story
- Introduction to Abraham
- Shows Abraham was man of faith (Rom 4, Heb 11 will refer back to this passage)
- Middle-level story
- Turning point in Gen. 1-12
- One of Patriarchs in book of Genesis
- God promised Abraham and his descendants
- Posterity (Genesis)
- Relationship (Exod, Lev)
- Land (Num, Deut)
- Upper-level story
- In you all families of earth will be blessed
- Gen 2-11 unblessing
- Gen 12 blessing
- Jesus is ultimate blessing
Sermon on the mount
- Lower-level story—Sermon on Mount Matt 5-7
- Middle-level story—Matthew records 5 sermons of Jesus which end in similar ways
- Matthew 7:28 And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching,
- Matthew 11:1 And when Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he went on from there to teach and preach in their cities.
- Matthew 13:53 And when Jesus had finished these parables, he went away from there,
- Matthew 19:1 Now when Jesus had finished these sayings, he went away from Galilee and entered the region of Judea beyond the Jordan;
- Matthew 26:1 When Jesus had finished all these sayings, he said to his disciples,
- Recalls 5 books of Moses
- Upper-level story—Jesus the teacher is like Moses
2 Chronicles 34:1-33 Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned thirty-one years in Jerusalem. 2 He did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, and walked in the ways of David his father; and he did not turn aside to the right or to the left. 3 For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet a boy, he began to seek the God of David his father; and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the Asherim, and the graven and the molten images. 4 And they broke down the altars of the Baals in his presence; and he hewed down the incense altars which stood above them; and he broke in pieces the Asherim and the graven and the molten images, and he made dust of them and strewed it over the graves of those who had sacrificed to them. 5 He also burned the bones of the priests on their altars, and purged Judah and Jerusalem. 6 And in the cities of Manasseh, Ephraim, and Simeon, and as far as Naphtali, in their ruins round about, 7 he broke down the altars, and beat the Asherim and the images into powder, and hewed down all the incense altars throughout all the land of Israel. Then he returned to Jerusalem. 8 Now in the eighteenth year of his reign, when he had purged the land and the house, he sent Shaphan the son of Azaliah, and Maaseiah the governor of the city, and Joah the son of Joahaz, the recorder, to repair the house of the LORD his God. 9 They came to Hilkiah the high priest and delivered the money that had been brought into the house of God, which the Levites, the keepers of the threshold, had collected from Manasseh and Ephraim and from all the remnant of Israel and from all Judah and Benjamin and from the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 10 They delivered it to the workmen who had the oversight of the house of the LORD; and the workmen who were working in the house of the LORD gave it for repairing and restoring the house. 11 They gave it to the carpenters and the builders to buy quarried stone, and timber for binders and beams for the buildings which the kings of Judah had let go to ruin. 12 And the men did the work faithfully. Over them were set Jahath and Obadiah the Levites, of the sons of Merari, and Zechariah and Meshullam, of the sons of the Kohathites, to have oversight. The Levites, all who were skillful with instruments of music, 13 were over the burden bearers and directed all who did work in every kind of service; and some of the Levites were scribes, and officials, and gatekeepers. 14 While they were bringing out the money that had been brought into the house of the LORD, Hilkiah the priest found the book of the law of the LORD given through Moses. 15 Then Hilkiah said to Shaphan the secretary, “I have found the book of the law in the house of the LORD”; and Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan. 16 Shaphan brought the book to the king, and further reported to the king, “All that was committed to your servants they are doing. 17 They have emptied out the money that was found in the house of the LORD and have delivered it into the hand of the overseers and the workmen.” 18 Then Shaphan the secretary told the king, “Hilkiah the priest has given me a book.” And Shaphan read it before the king. 19 When the king heard the words of the law he rent his clothes. 20 And the king commanded Hilkiah, Ahikam the son of Shaphan, Abdon the son of Micah, Shaphan the secretary, and Asaiah the king’s servant, saying, 21 “Go, inquire of the LORD for me and for those who are left in Israel and in Judah, concerning the words of the book that has been found; for great is the wrath of the LORD that is poured out on us, because our fathers have not kept the word of the LORD, to do according to all that is written in this book.” 22 So Hilkiah and those whom the king had sent went to Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum the son of Tokhath, son of Hasrah, keeper of the wardrobe (now she dwelt in Jerusalem in the Second Quarter) and spoke to her to that effect. 23 And she said to them, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: `Tell the man who sent you to me, 24 Thus says the LORD, Behold, I will bring evil upon this place and upon its inhabitants, all the curses that are written in the book which was read before the king of Judah. 25 Because they have forsaken me and have burned incense to other gods, that they might provoke me to anger with all the works of their hands, therefore my wrath will be poured out upon this place and will not be quenched. 26 But to the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the LORD, thus shall you say to him, Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: Regarding the words which you have heard, 27 because your heart was penitent and you humbled yourself before God when you heard his words against this place and its inhabitants, and you have humbled yourself before me, and have rent your clothes and wept before me, I also have heard you, says the LORD. 28 Behold, I will gather you to your fathers, and you shall be gathered to your grave in peace, and your eyes shall not see all the evil which I will bring upon this place and its inhabitants.'” And they brought back word to the king. 29 Then the king sent and gathered together all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem. 30 And the king went up to the house of the LORD, with all the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the priests and the Levites, all the people both great and small; and he read in their hearing all the words of the book of the covenant which had been found in the house of the LORD. 31 And the king stood in his place and made a covenant before the LORD, to walk after the LORD and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes, with all his heart and all his soul, to perform the words of the covenant that were written in this book. 32 Then he made all who were present in Jerusalem and in Benjamin stand to it. And the inhabitants of Jerusalem did according to the covenant of God, the God of their fathers. 33 And Josiah took away all the abominations from all the territory that belonged to the people of Israel, and made all who were in Israel serve the LORD their God. All his days they did not turn away from following the LORD the God of their fathers.
- What it meant
- Lower-level story
- Josiah’s reforms
- Guided by reading of the Bible
- Situation in late 7th cc Judah
- “It is clear that Israel had ceded to Assyria the complete right to define the world in which it lived.” Walter Brueggemann, The Bible Makes Sense, 86
- Erosion of human values
- Loss of religious identity
- What the Bible did for Josiah
- “Josiah embodies here the faithful community of God being led to repentance and renewal by the powerful voice of the Scriptures.” The Bible Makes Sense, 86
- Josiah reordered his personal life, the life of temple, the lives of the leaders, and life of the nation
- Middle-level story
- Josiah part of the Judean kings
- Evaluations of good and bad kings
- Explanation for fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC
- Upper-level story
- Restoration starts with the Bible
- Jesus cited the Bible to lead his restoration
- Apostles and early Christians used the Bible to revolutionize the ancient world
- What it means
- Restoration movement in US based on Bible
- Restoration of your congregation based on Bible
- Lower-level story
Week 4—
- 1—Understand the Bible alike
- 2—Understand the Bible’s three levels
Homework: Read Mark
- Add to your *A?E
- Find a passage that is often misunderstood
- Use the three levels of the Bible to show what the passage meant and means
- Lower-Level Story
- Middle-Level Story
- Upper-Level Bible Story
- You might find it helpful to use What it meant, and What it means to show the intent of the passage.