Answers Bible Curriculum 2nd Edition Unit 1 Lesson 5
In this lesson, we consider the doctrine of the Inspiration of Scripture. Who really wrote the Bible, men or God? And if God wrote the Bible, what implications does divine authorship have for the way we approach the Bible’s inerrancy, authority, and interpretation?
Our main texts for this lesson are 2 Peter 1:19-21 and 2 Timothy 3:16-17.
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all right thanks Jake well good morning everyone and welcome to Sunday school for transitioning this week from our introductory lessons about God to more introductory lessons about God’s Word have you seen thus far that God’s Word must be the foundation for our thinking and the tester of all truth claims especially regarding God’s character but also regarding God’s essential nature God has triune God as the eternally existent God now we use evidences too as we speak with people but only from the perspective that already knows and presents the Bible s truth God’s Word must be our foundations and one of the frequently cited reasons from skeptics people who don’t believe the Bible for dismissing the Bible is that it’s just a book written by men it’s just man’s opinion sure the Bible’s right on some things but I don’t need to pay attention to it because it’s just the word of men huh is that really true is the Bible the word of men well because the Bible is our ultimate foundation for truth let’s go to the Bible to understand what the Bible is and how it came to us this morning we’re going to ask a number of key questions about the Bible and look to answer them from where did the Bible come for what is it useful and how should we send you as you can see the title today’s lesson is God’s Word guides us let’s pray before we get into our lists Lord God I pray that this time would be profitable that you could help me be able to explain your word well give me clarity of understanding give them clarity of understanding my god I pray that we might know you more enjoy you more and enjoy your word born in Jesus name Amen as I say we chiefly concerned today with where did the Bible come from and the Bible does answer question for us we’re going to look at a couple of main passages today and the first one is 2nd Peter 1 verses 19 to 21 so please take your Bibles turn to 2nd Peter 2nd Peter 1 verses 19 to 21 and just a little bit of quick background on this passage here we have the Apostle Peter writing and writing their fellow Christians it’s a letter filled with encouragement and warnings for Christians who are experiencing persecution but are threatened by false teachers and mockers now chapter one has a lot to say about the Word of God and at the end of the chapter Peter is saying something intensely relevant about the Word of God and our subject today so look at verses 19 to 21 with me 2nd Peter 1 verses 19 to 21 says so we have the prophetic word made more sure to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts but notice first of all that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God all right so let’s observe some details in this shorter section of text verse 19 says that believers would do well to pay attention to something pay attention to what the prophetic word and note what this prophetic word is compared to it is like a a lamp in a dark place pay attention to it like a lamp in a dark place there’s a familiar metaphor right from what we’ve already seen notice also that the idea of prophecies repeated several times in this passage but it’s specifically linked to Scripture as we see in verse 20 in essence Peter says here it is wise for you Christians use the scriptures like a lamp in a dark world now why is that well notice the phrase more sure in verse 19 we have a moisture prophetic word other translations say more fully confirmed or completely reliable but there is there are some options when it comes to understanding this phrase and we need to pay attention to the immediate context so that we understand it properly if you just look back to verses 16 to 18 and we see the immediate context Peters reminding his listeners that the Apostles didn’t make up what they said about Jesus but for themselves eyewitnesses of Jesus unveiled glory even in the Transfiguration and verse 19 then Peters making a qualitative comparison between that eyewitness experience and the Bible this means that the sentiment from Peter can be translated two different ways either the sense is as it is translated in the new American Standard of the ESV in the New King James Version so you can see the scriptures are even more sure because of our firsthand experience as to how what it said came to pass so our experience confirms the word and so it’s more sure or you can also take it really the opposite way as it isn’t it NIV and the King James Version which to be like this not only should you believe our message about Jesus because we were direct witnesses of him but even more so because the more sure scriptures proclaimed the same message so is it the experience makes it more sure as it is the new American Standard or regardless of our experience we had the moisture prophetic word in context it appears the latter sense is preferred Peter in this instance is underscoring the primacy of Scripture it says you should pay attention to it not and it’s not telling him to pay attention to their experience but the scripture and as we’ve seen in other lessons the Bible repeatedly affirmed its chief authority even above man’s experience you remember the words of Paul may God be found true and every man found the line but regardless of how you take this specific translation Peter certainly emphasizing to its listeners why they should believe and pay attention to the Bible now that’s one part of this verse but there’s more notice that Peter also wants to say something about the origin of scriptures here first when starts with knowing this first of all referring not to chronology like this is the first thing you should know but importance here’s one of the most important things to know and he explains what that is in verses 20 to 21 since two things that scriptures are not what are they not well first of all he says they’re not private interpretations of divine truth and they do not originate in man’s wills and notice how exclusive Peter is about these statements she says no prophecy comes from man’s own interpretation no prophecy has its origin than man not one none instead who moves men to write the prophetic word as as they do he says it’s the Holy Spirit they are moved by the Holy Spirit a Greek word removed has the idea of carried or borne along so Peter says every word of prophecy was the result of the spirit moving and carrying along each man as he wrote now this is very important let’s pull together these details that we see into an interpretation of this passage what is Peters main idea he wants to communicate to his Christian audience in these verses you can trust the Scriptures to be what guides you like a lamp because it ultimately comes from God not men now let’s make sure we understand this did men write the Bible well yes yes they did where their will their desires and personalities involved in the right here scriptures well yes yes they work but man is not the origin of the scriptures now man’s agency should be obvious for even meeting second Peter Peter is not simply riding in someone else’s dictation as if it were someone else’s style and tone and vocabulary now Peters using his own you can see as you look at second Peter you can see his concern his specific concern expressed for these believers his will his intellect his experience even as he has he’s already mentioned in the previous verses they’re all involved and they come through and they’re riding into Leonard so this is not God riding apart from men and yet we can’t get away from what Peter says he says I and the other writers we are not the ultimate origin of anything that you see in Scripture what is or who is the ultimate emergent it’s the Holy Spirit it’s God and this is a very important truth this is what we call the doctrine of inspiration even though God used Peter and his mind and his personality in the writing of Scripture Peter was moved carried along to write exactly what the Spirit wanted Peter to write it’s not the spirit gave Peter impressions that Peter then had to interpret no God gave him the words of prophecy God gave him the prophetic word to write exactly as the spirit what an empty right even though it was totally consistent with what Peter himself desired to write so from this passage we can affirm the Bible was written by men but only in the sense that these men were instruments of God who was the true writer of the Bible now you’re familiar with this truth but think about it if God is the writer of the Bible and that is a very big deal but once you got the only God that is the God who made everything upholds it holds you and me the God who allowed himself to be incarnating be murdered on a cross by mankind in order to pay for the sins of his people that God has written something to us and it’s called the Bible he used men but it’s God himself speaking you have a purposeful message from God in your hands this is an incredibly special message it’s written for you from God have you ever thought about that how we react to this message is one of the most important decisions we make in life the most important decisions how do you react to God’s Word because God himself is speaking you must be aware how you respond to God let’s think through another implication of this truth presented in second Peter versus chapter 1 verses 19 to 21 if the Bible is God Himself speaking how many errors should the Bible contain if this Spirit of God gave Peter and the other writers exactly what God desired for them to write how many errors should be in the Bible well none if God is God he gave him exactly what to say God can’t make a mistake and God can’t lie there should be no errors in the Bible and the original writings in the Bible and this is another important doctrine when we talk about the scriptures not only the Scriptures are inspired it is also inerrant we refer to the inerrancy of Scripture and that just means that the scriptures in the original documents contains no errors it could never contain any errors because it comes from God now what about copies and translations of the original documents could those contain errors oh yes yes they could we will talk next time them about how God preserved his word and even though we only have copies of the original document state we can still be sure that we have God’s full and accurate word as a preview and you maybe have heard these types of statistics before but know that for almost 2000 years after the writing the New Testament and the other Old Testament books rigorous textual comparison what we call the science of textual criticism has led the majority of New Testament scholars to conclude that 99.99% of the original manuscripts of the Bible and remember those that sir and Aaron have been reclaimed 99.99% and their remaining point 0 1 percent where there’s some uncertainty do not substantially affect any major Christian doctrine again we’ll talk more about that next week in terms of God’s preservation one thing I also want to mention though even right now is more than quoting you numbers the accuracy the perfection the cohesion of the Scriptures is something that each one of us can witness for ourselves can we not you read through the bottom 40 different authors writing in various places over a period of 1,600 years and yet the Bible is consistent and agrees with itself fits together unanimously proclaims a salvation not by works which can never reach God’s standard of affect the standard of perfection but by faith in God’s substitute provided to bear our penalty of sinful the penalty of sinful failure and give us his standard of righteousness so that we can be saved from the hot and a holy anger of God and delivered to eternal life with God it’s as Jesus said John 5:39 you searched the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life these that testify about me there’s a consistency there’s a a perfection in the scriptures that’s observable by anyone and that’s because God preserves his word and that’s because God’s Word is inerrant and that’s because God’s Word is inspired so can a person justifiably dismiss the Bible as merely the word written by men Peter is pretty clear no the Bible itself tells us that it was written by God through men and thus the Bible is fully accurate and fully authoritative it is indeed as Peter says the word to which we must pay attention as in a lamp in a dark place now always connected to a discussion of belief in the Bible based on the Bible’s own claims is the accusation of circular reasoning we’ve talked about this a little bit already in our Sunday School classes you believe the Bible because it says it’s the God’s Word you believe it’s God’s Word because it says it’s God’s Word it’s not reasonable for you to do that nor is it reasonable for you to use the Bible to persuade others that the Bible is God’s Word that’s just circular reasoning you probably remember my answer to this in previous lessons but let me show you another angle for why we are indeed justified in standing on the Bible to prove the Bible standing on the Bible to present the Bible as God’s Word and for that turn to the book of Hebrews Hebrews chapter 6 verses 13 to 20 so just a couple books before 2nd Peter Hebrews 6 verses 13 to 20 now in this context so the writer of the Hebrews is admonishing Jewish Christians not to abandon the faith and not to abandon the faith in Christ and go back to Judaism in the face of persecution and then this passage specifically the author is speaking about the surety of the Christians hope and he uses Abraham as an example he says you want to know that your salvation in Christ is secure that you have the truth will consider Abraham and look at what the author of Hebrews says verses 13 to 20 make sure I have their right ok very good verse 13 for the writer says when God made the promise to Abraham he could swear by no one greater he swore by himself saying I will surely bless you and I was surely multiply and so having patiently waited he obtained the promise for men swear by one greater than themselves and with them an oath given as confirmation is an end of every dispute in the same way God desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of this purpose interposed with a note so that by two unchangeable things which it is impossible for God to lie we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement that take hold of the hope set before us this hope we have as an anchor of the soul a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil where Jesus entered as a forerunner for us having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek now we’re not going to analyze these verses and in great depth but notice that the one key aspect relevant to our question in God’s promise to Abraham on what does god base his own on himself he swears by himself now first this seems unreasonable since when you swear the veracity of the second claim the rasa tea of what you swear no the rest of what you say depends on the veracity of the second claim on further examine her how can God say you know that I’m true because I’m gonna swear that I’m true is that reasonable well on further rumination on further examination it is reasonable because the only way God could swear by something else as if something else were more reliable than him there’s something else were more reliable than his own word but it’s the writer points out this is not the case God cannot lie and nothing is more reliable than him therefore God cannot swear by anything except himself to do otherwise would be unfaithful to its own truthfulness its own essence and you can see how this principle parallels how we view and use the Scriptures how how is it that we know about God’s will and his decrees well he’s told us about those things in his scriptures a new spirit has made it clear that these are the words of God to us the Spirit testifies to us God wrote the Bible is there any standard greater than the Bible no God Himself is the standard of truth by extension whenever he writes must be the standard of truth so if God cannot lie and God wrote the Bible then what can we conclude about the contents of the Bible everything in the Bible is true and we can stand on it it is reasonable to use the Bible to make an argument to support the but because like God who swears by himself because nothing else is more reliable so we use the statements of the Bible as supports because there’s nothing more reliable than the Bible God himself wrote it it alone is inerrant and infallible and since we have it it does not make sense for us to swear by other less reliable authorities now you may ask but what do we do then with a person who denies that the Bible is true he says oh don’t don’t give me the Bible I don’t believe the Bible is it useless to use the Bible with such a person but you can’t force him to listen but we do use the Bible even with those who say they don’t believe it because the Bible shows reality we let the word of God be what it is and do what it does as Hebrews 4 says it is the living inactive word sharp as a double-edged sword able to pierce between the most intimate divisions and expose the heart that’s what we do we need to show people show people their own hearts in the light of God’s revealed righteousness in the Bible we don’t pretend that reality is untrue we present reality as God expresses it in his word we’ve seen from Romans 1 and elsewhere that everyone has a basic understanding of the true God but they suppress that understanding in unrighteousness and one sense we do not need to prove God and the Bible to people since they already know in their hearts that it’s true they know about God already and when they hear that word they know it’s true but because of man’s corrupted mind and because of his love of sin and his love of idols they need to be in awakens to the truth that they do not want to see and the way God does that the means God ordained is through the word and through the explanation and persuasion that’s based on the word faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ and truly the Christian sinking as my geology teacher which it puts it it’s not viciously circular but virtuously circular that’s different than what people can’t commonly mean when they refer to circular BC and say it is variously circular is to say that only the Christians thinking is truly reasonable because a biblical worldview is both internally and externally consistent ascending well that’s the idea that a perspective based on the Bible is consistent with itself the teaching of Scripture fits together perfectly with itself and it’s consistent with the reality we experience it makes sense of life it makes sense of man it makes sense of the universe in a consistent way it accurately describes the world outside of the Bible no other system of thought provides a consistent rational treatment for the world and for what is within us every other explanation every other world of you is actually inconsistent in some sense now these concepts I presented to you they fall under a form of argument that’s commonly referred to as presuppositional apologetics he probably heard the term or I’m sure you’ve heard the term apologetics before that just means a reason defense of something and a presupposition is just another word for an assumption something you presuppose something you assume and presuppositional apologetics rather than trying to show the possibility or probability of Christianity being true based on objective treatment of the evidence the presupposition list is straightforward about his presuppositions he assumes he does not deny because it’s true that God exists God wrote Bible and the Bible is true presuppositionalist then argues for Christianity from the foundation of the Bible and argues against false worldviews by exposing faulty and self invalidating presuppositions that’s presuppositional apologetics that’s not the only brand of apologetics it might not have heard of it it might it might sound a little bit strange to you but don’t worry we’ll be talking more about this kind of reasoning as we go through our course but one thing that I appreciate about presuppositional apologetics is that it emphasizes what we’ve been seeing so far in our course which is the Bible as our foundation for truth we start with the Bible we stand on the Bible which is what the presuppositional apologize for now brands of apologetics aside don’t lose sight of this most important truth the Bible shows us that it is right and reasonable to seek to persuade others with the Bible even if they say they don’t believe the Bible now again it doesn’t mean you can just talk at people and you can not pay attention to what they say but it does mean that we don’t ever or we should never surrender the truth or just lay it aside God’s Word is true we should not argue as if it isn’t or might not be especially if we want to ultimately prove to people that they need to see the Bible as the ultimate authority we can’t do that if we appeal to another authority that to try and prove the authority of the Bible but anyways let’s rather return to the subject of the Bible’s ultimate origin and for what it was given us we can’t really talk about the inspiration of Scripture or the authorship of Scripture without going to that other key passage on the topic and that’s 2nd Timothy 3:16 and 17 so take your Bibles and let’s turn over there 2nd Timothy 3 verses 16 and 17 what’s the context of this letter well you may remember Paul sin his second imprisonment awaiting execution he writes one last letter of encouragement and charge to his ministry partner and protege Timothy charges Timothy to be faithful and preaching God’s Word declaring God’s word and one way to Paul that monitors and encourages Timothy is reminding us by reminding Timothy what the scripture is and we see that in our verses look at these two verses in 2nd Timothy 3:16 and 17 Paul writes all Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching for reproof for correction for training in righteousness so that the man of God may be adequate equipped for every good work all right let’s observe these two verses main subject of these verses are the scriptures what is the source of Scripture according to this it’s God all Scripture is inspired by God the new American Standard says this described the transition the transmission of the word from God to man but other English translations are even more informative about this term inspired ESV says breathed out by God and I be God breathed well you may have heard the Greek term used before earth you made before her the Greek term used for inspired by God and that is theö new stuffs the openness tous Theo sir Thais meaning God yep new stoats meaning breathe out we even have that that roots new PNG you in some English words that have to do with air or breathing a pneumatic drill is a drill powered by air or gas pneumothorax is a hole in the lungs this has the idea of air or breathing in it and when paul describes God’s Word he says it is what is breathed out by God it’s God’s breath that breathing is a very intimate expression for the transition transmission of God’s word the words description and spoken by the apostles and prophets are the very breath of God now this is a very important for us understanding of the new American standards use of inspiration because our inspired because when we hear the word inspiration or inspire we might think of how it’s commonly used today I think about art or music being inspired art or poetry ah that was just an inspired poem but this understanding of inspiration is an ACME for talking about God’s Word but these writers wrote as we saw from second Peter they wrote exactly God’s Word they didn’t put their own ideas down based off of promptings from God these words themselves are God’s breath it’s not even that technically speaking it’s not even that the men were inspired to write God’s Word as we’ve seen that the word for inspired means God breathed so the men are not God breed but the word written and spoken by the men that is God breathed that is the very breath of God now Paul has other things to mention here he mentions four four areas and which Scripture is profitable he says it is useful for teaching that is showing us right doctrine useful for reproof showing us what is wrong it’s useful for correction showing us the way back to what is right and it’s useful for training in righteousness showing us how we can consistently practice right behavior and verse 17 gives us the purpose of our receiving this inspired scripture it is so every person may be made adequate which is I think is it may be a misleading term for us it can also be translated complete or mature that’s why I have a little picture there of a baby growing up into a man that’s what the word does it makes a person mature adequate complete it equipped for every good work every good work of ministry so we can paraphrase of the passage in this way in terms of what Paul is communicating to Timothy Paul says Timothy you can trust God’s Word in the face of persecution and apostasy because it is God’s very breath and it will give you everything you need for ministry she noticed by the way how similar the context and content of this passage is to what we read in second Peter verses 1 19 to 21 both are written by authors about to die and giving people their last words and exhortations both are in the context of persecution and apostasy and you are filled with a reminding and warning and both are excitation to the audience to remain true to the Scriptures and to be motivated to do so by remembering the scriptures divine inspiration that it is not man’s word but God’s Word so then let’s let this instruction of these dying apostles ring in our ears we need to recognize the Scriptures for what they are they are ultimately not the word of men no men dude right then the Scriptures are the Word of God and thus carry divine perfection authority and instruction you can’t trust the Scriptures because they are God’s words and God’s words never fail you can reason from the scriptures because there’s no higher authority than God but you must pay attention to the scriptures or else as Peter says you’ll be walking around in the dark or else as Paul says you will stay immature and then complete not ready to feel the good works that God has called you to do if this is the Apostles instruction and it is we need to ask ourselves what is our response to this instruction ask yourself do you regard this word the Bible for what it really is the Word of God do you treat it as such do you value it as such do you submit to it as such do you read the Bible do you study the Bible do you care about the Bible this is God’s Word we’re talking about this is no mere man’s word of course I’m not referring to the actual physical book in your hand I mean that’s just paper and ink but the words in the meaning within that’s God’s Word how do you respond to God’s Word do you love it it’s a precious to you do you love God for it do you put it into practice don’t ignore the Word of God and expect that God will not care how you value God’s Word says a lot about how you value God himself how you revere God’s Word says a lot about how you reveal condoms Revere God himself value the scriptures for your own blessing ignore it or demean it at your own peril this is God’s Word now there are a few other implications based on what we’ve read today now one of them is this if Scripture is the Word of God or rather if scriptures are the words of God giving the message of God in the way God desired and what is the right way to study God’s Word well from what we’ve seen this is God’s Word we want to uncover God’s meaning not our own so what wave steady does that uncover God’s meaning not our own think you’ll agree that the only appropriate way to study God’s Word is to take it on its own terms it is to say to allow them meaning to come out of the text rather than to try to force meaning into the text that is to say we need to exegete the Bible leading the meaning out rather than ICG the Bible leading the meaning in you may have heard these terms before exegesis eisegesis plenty of people can make the Bible say what they wanted to say that’s not really letting the Bible talk that’s not really letting God talk that’s just man and his eisegesis talking man putting meaning into the Bible putting his own ideas in survival but we want God to talk therefore we want exegesis of the Bible we want the meaning to come out what is exegesis it’s the process of understanding the meaning of Scripture exegesis as a process is both a science that is is a it has objective rules and standards and an art it takes skill to apply these to apply the process and the rules correctly and consistently exegesis both a science and an art well how should one exegete well according to proper hermeneutics okay introducing a bunch of technical terms but these are important terms what is hermeneutics hermeneutics is a term that refers to principles of interpretation hermeneutics equals principles of interpretation you need to have the right principles for interpreting a text if you’re going to execute it properly well how do you know the right principles are well one sense you use the same principle as if you would for any piece of communication that you first discover and you want to understand for example if you find a piece of paper with writing taped to your door you do not stare at this piece of writing blankly wondering how on earth you’re supposed to understand it no you approach it as you would any text reading it and looking for clues within the text for how to understand it as you learn more about your unknown text you then can refine your approach according to the stack the texts own stated or implied rules according to the text owen demonstrated nature as another example the rules of interpreting an op-ed piece in a newspaper are different than the rules for interpreting a bank statement though many principles many hermeneutics would overlap and those two pieces of communication ultimately the nature of the text drives how you interpret the text therefore when it comes to Bible the approach that best reflects the nature of the Bible and how it was written man how was transmitted to man is called the historical grammatical hermeneutic the historical chromatic wa hermeneutics sometimes also called the literal hermeneutic or the literal interpretation for short now notice hermeneutic singular has a slightly different meaning than hermeneutics plural a hermeneutic refers to a particular approach or system of hermeneutics plural one system or one method of hermeneutics is called a hermeneutic there are different hermeneutics but the one that is most appropriate for the biblical text is a historical grammatical hermeneutic this method I should clarify even though sometimes called a literal interpretation does not take everything in the Bible literally but rather the historical grammatical hermeneutic pays close attention to the words and grammar of a text as well as the literary and theological and historical context of a text in order to some understand the author’s original intent for a text whether it’s prose or poetry that’s key the stroke or grammatical hermeneutic is chiefly concerned with recovery based off of the clues in the text in the context of the text the author’s original intent in this method we are asking what did the original author intend to communicate what Clues has to given in the text to inform us of his intention and with what historic information did he assumed his audience would have been familiar now granted we can never fully recapture the mind of another person I can’t each one of you listening now I can’t just observe you and say I know exactly what you’re thinking in every single aspect of your mind I can’t do that that’s impossible and certainly we couldn’t do that with God we can’t read the scriptures to say I know everything that’s in God’s mind but we can sufficiently and adequately understand an author’s intent if he is a skilled and purposeful communicator and if he wrote us a perfect communication and this is exactly what we have in the Bible so even though we may not have exhaustive understanding of the author’s intent we do have adequate understanding we can’t have adequate understanding because God is a purposeful communicator he’s a skilled communicator and he wrote is a perfect communication I succeed from the text of Scripture itself it is inspired it is an area it is authoritative thus we use the historical grammatical or literal interpretation of the Bible to exegete to lead out the meaning of the text that God intended another term that is somewhat interchangeable for what up for what I just described is called the inductive Bible study method and this is a term that I’ll be more commonly referring to in this course and inductive Bible study method is proper heard and permit exciting to the store for grammatical method with an emphasis on asking questions and following a distinct three-step method for understanding any passage of the Bible many of you better in strum enters Bible critical in version one will remember these three steps they’re not just featured in the answers about the curriculum but many many good publications for interpreting the Bible they break down the method the inductive I will study method into three steps observe interpret and apply what are these well observe you start by just noticing the various details of the text the text asking questions such as who is the writer who is the audience who is speaking in this passage what words are repeated what is the tense of the verb are their transition words what are the authors say before this what does he say afterward they’re essentially asking simply what do I see in the text you must start with observations simple observations that cannot be argued can’t say ah that’s not in the text it should be clear should be clear to anyone reading when you make an observation you must start with these observations and build your interpretation from it because otherwise if you interpret according to some system of doctrines some creator some other thing you might actually be miss reading the text you must start with the details of the text the clues that the author actually gave and there’s so much to observe in every biblical text you may come to one verse and say okay what do I see and it’s just one verse it’s only so many words how much could there be to observe how do you be surprised there’s almost unlimited maybe they’re saying it too strongly but there’s far more to observe in any text and we commonly suspect even short sections of Scripture even rephrase this they tell us a lot in the particular road choices Pence’s context and we can observe all these things and get a clearer idea of the author’s original intent so our first step is the trigger our second step our first step is observe our second step is interpret once you’ve gathered your observations you look to synthesize the data to make conclusions about the texts that are not obvious in the text you’re essentially asking what does it mean for example you might ask after you’ve done your observations what is the main idea of this passage you might ask why did the author write this to his audience what is the structure of the author’s argument why did he say what he said in the exact way that he said it why didn’t he say it another way how does the author’s message here fit with other sections of the Bible what does this passage teach us about God man the world said it these are interpretation questions and these can only be assessed and answered after you’ve done observations and the third is apply apply in the apply steps you look at the conclusions from your interpretation step and ask what difference should those things speak to you and others in the world today there will always make a difference God’s Word is meant to be put into practice so we could essentially say that the question in the apply step is how does it work it does work well you just want to know how how does this passage work out in my life some good questions to ask and any passage to relate to what we see in the Ephesians passage where we talk about what Scripture is useful for you might ask up a passage what doctrine does this passage indicate that I need to believe how does this passage give me a necessary correction or rebuke what is the correction that I need to make in my life what do I need to do to get back on to the way that God has for me how can i integrate what I’ve learned here to a righteous plan of action so I can be trained in righteousness God’s Word is always relevant it is his purposeful communication to us there’s always something for us to apply sometimes we forget or ignore this last step though because we’re lazy or because we’d rather just keep doing what we’ve always done oh I don’t need to apply the scriptures I’m sure I’ve got everything already squared away we don’t want to get in it to that mount line of thinking rather we want to do what James exhorts I don’t want to be mere hearers of the word but doers and as Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount it’s not the ones who hear Jesus’s word that are gonna be blessed or saved it’s those who put it into practice they are the wise people to build their house on the rock so this inductive our study method is a method that we’ll be using in class and really it’s the method that’s at the heart of any truth study of the Bible when you read the Bible don’t just let the words pass before your eyes but ask questions according to these three steps what do I see what can i or what does it mean and how does it work this method of interpretation flows out from the nature of Scripture itself it is the inspired Word it is the inerrant Word for it needs to be approached in a certain way as I say this is not too different from how we would approach any text but it is refined by those characteristics of the Bible will we come to understand from the body that this is not just any word it is God’s Word God’s Word is a great gift to us but it’s also a great responsibility let’s reap the benefit of God’s gift by revering and setting his word appropriately alright now what questions or comments do you have on today’s lesson are you thinking you would like clarified or further extended okay if not that’s totally fine or if you think of something later that you’d like to email me about I’m more than happy to help in any way I can well that’s all for this week next week we’re gonna come back to that question I raised in part of the lesson we go that because the scripture says so God’s Word was perfect without error in the original documents but how do we know it’s still God’s Word today because we don’t have the original documents all we have are the copies can we trust the copies of God’s Word well we’re gonna see next week that we can because God preserves his word so looking forward to discussing that with you that’s closing prayer I great God and this is a really profound truth God that you have given us your word what a privilege what a blessing what a serious reality you have given your very word to us O Lord what you say is so important god what you communicated to us must be paid attention to you not only because you are worthy of that but because that’s for our good if we why don’t we bless that we will pay attention to your word but I pray that people listening today would be paying attention to your word that they would value your word that they would seek your word and seek your wisdom which is communicated in your word just as proverbs extorts what more diligence and with more echinus in’ and one searches for silver or gold these words are precious and Lord we think back even to Psalm 19 and other other places God they talk about just how sweet and valuable your word is God forgive us for how we have how to use your word we have ignored it we have put other things I already to it we have explained it away we have even twisted the meaning of it God forgive us for our ignorance and forgive us for our disobedience but lord I pray that by your spirit you’d be gracious to us so that we can gain the benefit of your word that you designed us too that we would truly understand it that it would impact us in the deepest way even into our affections and that it would be put into practice in our lives I pray Lord that you would help those listening to be able to study the Bible properly according to the way you meant and within the community of believers so that none of us gets off course in our own interpretation when I prayed should protect your church I pray Lord that we would love your truth that you would enable us understand it bless Calvary and the rest of the worship today bless your people in Jesus name Amen you’re welcome thank you everyone else