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Post by Josh on May 20, 2010 17:08:51 GMT -8
Elsewhere Marty wrote:
So I am really new to this and have some difficulty understanding how to navigate sites such as these (I still only have 2 or 3 pictures on my facebook because it confuses me trying to make changes to pics to post). Be that as it may, I would like to get into some discussions, or at least hear what others are thinking is worth discussing. My question for anyone interested might be: If we believe what the Bible says so far as to base our eternal security on it, why don't we think it's important to really read and study it to understand what the heck it's all about?! I for one have a difficult time understanding what in the world Jesus is talking about most of the time. When I hear a teaching, I wonder how they get out of the passage all that they do. Am I the only one who has this problem? Blessings to any who read this.
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Post by Josh on May 20, 2010 17:25:33 GMT -8
Marty, Thanks for joining in the discussion. Great questions. In response I'd say that, yes, even though some things in the Bible are pretty clear and plain, there is a lot that doesn't make sense without understanding it in context, and that can be a difficult challenge for those of us living 2,000+ years later in a different culture. That's why bible study resources are really helpful. Some tools that very useful in getting the most out of bible study are: 1) Commentaries, which give you scholarly viewpoints on how to interpret various passages. If you're going to use commentaries, it's a good idea to use several different commentaries so you're not just getting one person's perspective. Some that I would recommend: For starters/ basic info, the NIV Bible Commentary (two volumes). I'd also recommend Matthew Henry's Bible Commentary. There are many other good ones as well. For more in depth, though somewhat liberal on the biblical criticism spectrum, I really like the New Interpreter's Bible series. 2) Study Bibles: a good study Bible is going to have cross-references in the columns, some commentary at the bottom of the page, and a concordance in the back so you can look up various topics. 3) I saved the best resource for last: www.biblegateway.com Here you can look up all the occurances of a word or phrase in Scripture, compare and contrast several English versions of the Bible, and tons of other resources. Perhaps you have or have used some of these resources and your deeper question is "how do interpreters figure stuff out"? Well, there's a whole science to interpretation. It's called hermeneutics, and you can get books which explain the process. I'd recommend "How to Read the Bible for All It's Worth" by Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart. But, in short, hermeneutics outlines how you take into consideration the author's intent, cultural background, the context of a passage, and it's relation to the larger text, etc.. Stuff like that. Does that help answer the question a bit? Feel free and keep the questions coming. |
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Post by asaph on Feb 14, 2015 15:36:57 GMT -8
E-Sword. Invaluable for studying. It is free. Some translations, because of copyright issues, must be paid for. That said, what is free is tremendous. The guy has done a tremendous service for believers.
That said I might ask, are you born again? Only you can know, though those around you will certainly see the 'new man.' Spiritual things are spiritually discerned. I remember being exposed to the Bible and other books and study materials. Some things I got. Most went right past me. Very frustrating. The night I gave my life to Christ and was born again, it was late. I was too overjoyed and shocked to sleep. I was electrified and I know not everyone has such an experience. I began to read. It was like the words were alive with meaning. They seemed to leap off the pages. The only difference in me was an experience, one that truly opened my eyes.
That said, some people do, indeed, have an ability from the Lord to see deep and gather information that can astound people. It's a gift. A spiritual talent at the very least.
I should add, the Bible interprets itself. Commentaries are great but, the word will always speak for itself the more you compare scripture with scripture. God has taken into account we do not live in times and cultures from thousands of years ago. The Bible has a way of explaining itself that is quite miraculous, considering the authors and time span they wrote within.
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Post by Josh on Feb 15, 2015 20:08:33 GMT -8
Asaph, there is indeed a balance to be struck between acknowledging the benefits of reading the Bible unmediated and the benefits of studying it with the aid of other's insight which is broader than our own. There are benefits and pitfalls in both approaches. The word of God in the Bible is living and active and able to hit anyone anywhere where it counts, yet it is also historical, rooting in time and place and culture removed from our own, which requires us to give thought to context. We are, none of us, immune from misunderstanding and misapplying Scripture, so we have to handle it carefully (and humbly).
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Post by asaph on Feb 16, 2015 7:27:02 GMT -8
When I was doing public evangelism I often used the illustration of a farmer, far removed from anything 'biblical.' He is plowing his field. He sees a book in the dirt. Never saw one before like it. The Bible. Dirty, worn and torn, both he and the book, he begins to read. Will that man find salvation, regardless of historical culture of bygone times and places? Does he need commentaries to find the truth?
I have a bunch of commentaries and the three common concordances and appreciate the men who spent lifetimes researching, writing and sharing. I could not say, though, that man needs those books to understand God's word. You mentioned my being a Historicist, and certainly I have read my share of commentaries and historical works peering into Bible prophecy. If a man had no understanding of prophetic events may he still have an understanding of the message contained in prophecy? I believe so. Without any help from commentaries. What if the commentator has it wrong? From my point of view Futurists do have it wrong and most commentaries are after that order in our day. Broad insight is not necessarily correct insight.
How did Christians live, exist, and thrive before there WERE any commentaries or such materials? They just had the word and in some cases less than perfect, if not outright biased translations. Revival and reformation still existed when the Lamp was uncovered and able to shine.
Precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little, there a little. I would say that is the humble and careful way, praise the Lord.
I might say commentaries are a dressing on the luscious salad.
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Post by Josh on Feb 16, 2015 10:34:32 GMT -8
My answer to this is that the Bible is simple enough for anyone to be saved by interacting with it, and complex enough that we can never exhaust it with study. But there's a big difference between gleaning enough from Scripture to begin the journey of faith and actually understanding some of the very complex concepts contained within. It's pretty common to hear people with a wide variety of differing theological viewpoints claiming that their version is the "plain" reading of the Bible. I would say that the plainer the concept in Scripture, the easier it is to grasp. But it's no wonder we see so many different views on aspects of prophecy- to even begin to piece prophecy together requires sustained study.
My view of prophecy is Partial-Preterist, btw. And from my perspective, the problem with both the Futurist and Historist viewpoints is that they don't pay enough attention to historical context and end up reading way too much of their own perspective into prophetic passages in Scripture.
There never was a time when Christians studied Scripture without some tradition of interpretation, whether written or oral. The early Christians had the Old Testament, plus various popular interpretations of it, plus the apostles perspectives and traditions.
Let's step back a bit here. I think we need to expose the myth that anyone can every read anything from a completely unbiased vantage point. First, we all have our own personal backgrounds mediating our experience: our education, our temperament, our society outlook, our subconscious values. And then we have the challenges of time and distance from the culture we are studying when reading Scripture. At an even more basic level, we aren't even reading Scripture in it's original language, which means we are reading something even in the best cases slightly different than it's original intended meaning.
Should this cause us to despair? No, because, as you point out, we have the Holy Spirit to bring these words to life for us. Can God communicate the important things to us with all these limitations? Of course. But I'd suggest there are far fewer "important things" (ie, things necessary for salvation) in Scripture than we might think. As to the rest, Scripture itself exhorts us not to be lazy, but to study Scripture, which entails attempting to bridge the gaps I mentioned above.
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Post by asaph on Feb 17, 2015 6:34:22 GMT -8
I don't recall stating prophecy had "plain" meaning. That would be a rather foolish thing to state. The message contained within prophecy, though, is plain. God is love is always plain to the converted mind and heart. When comparing Scripture with Scripture if one has dozens of passages which state the same thing about a subject I would say something has been made 'plain.' As Jude stated - there was a 'common salvation' at one time. What happened? Are things now confused because we do not have enough commentaries or possibly far too many? I have never seen the OT as a commentary. It is the Bible. It is what NT believers had, as you state. Nor would I see inspired apostolic literature as commentary, even if it makes comments on the OT. It is another lamp of heavenly origin. Its divine/human corroboration is a testament to its origins, as God designed. Being a lifetime pursuit I would say anyone truly interested in studying the book is going to read other books related to it. Perhaps I misread the OP's intent. To say there never was a time when Christians studied without commentary is odd to me, given the historical statements of Christians to the contrary. When the 'war' began between those looking to Rome and those looking to Scripture for the bottom line, believers discarded the "fathers" and just stayed with the word as they had it. There were no Wycliffes or Luthers for help. And even then it was light out of the dark ages and even the Reformers had some things incorrect. That is why I say study aids can be harmful. I don't need Luther's later thoughts on Jews, nor the Reformer's take on capital punishment for religious dissenters. Even today we have professed Christians making demands on people about vaccinations. Good grief. Because I believe both Preterism and Futurism are basically inventions of Roman Catholic Jesuitism, (Alcazar and Ribera) designed to derail the Reformation on the matter of antichrist and the universal harmony evangelicals had on that subject (if few others), I am bound by common sense and logic to look at them with great caution, if not abhorrence. From the Jesuits to the counter-reformation, to the Oxford apostasy, to Darby, to Scofield and all his notes in his Bible I must, by compelling burden, try to keep people clear of that book. If I am wrong, may God have mercy on me and steer me to the truth. If I am right, commentary can be deadly and I would not recommend its necessity to any new born believer. The OP mentions 'eternal security.' Another major subject in the current controversies to be seen in every direction. The OP may have used the term in general, or he may have been using it as the actual doctrine. I do not know. I do know I reject the doctrine of eternal security and would not steer anyone to commentaries which have that as a foundational belief of Christian truth and understanding. So, here again, whether I am wrong or right the issue exists and commentaries could really mess a person up. The basic current Christianity I see out there, which I have endeavored to understand more by worshiping with people from various stations of belief, IS a mess. A revival of primitive godliness and apostoilic purity is certainly the greatest of all needs right now, especially for me. Most churches I have been in, while having some really nice people, contain not only stated biblical abominations but enough confusion to fill a stadium thrice over. You come down here in the south and people believe you get to heaven just by going to church. "Oh, so you are a Christian?" "Yes, I go to church."  !!!!!!!!!!!!! We have the Hollywood Jesus, the Billboard Jesus, the NFL Jesus, the Madison Ave. Jesus, the Nascar Jesus, the White Jesus, the Black Jesus, the Jesus ROCKS Jesus, the bejeweled Jesus, and a host of others but, where is the biblical Christ? Mercy, it is no wonder Jews want nothing to do with such a Messiah as portrayed within much of today's Christianity. I have to believe it is the simple truth that people are not even reading the Bible anymore with any desire to know they know the truth, let alone studying it in depth to know the truth. So, I'd just like to see people reading and comparing Scripture with Scripture. Get a Strongs. Get esword, whatever but, keep thine eyes in the book and not so much what others have written about what it means. Mankind should know what it simply says. When one is ready and hungry hit the books but, know what you believe and why. The OP seems a babe. Babes need the milk of the word, then stronger food. I do not see the Bible even mentioning the need for outside commentary, and the commentaries of the Jews caused great confusion, so much so everything Christ said shocked people. They were saturated with commentary on Scripture. Indeed, we are dealing with ancient cultures. Nonetheless, we are dealing with an ageless book of eternal principles. I am not denying the need for history books to better understand times and conditions, etc. That should be color as opposed to black and white. But, when men take it upon themselves to tell others what the Bible means ... there my eyebrows raise. Proceed with caution. |
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Post by Josh on Feb 20, 2015 10:41:05 GMT -8
I don't think I was very clear. I was trying to say that even in the early church, when there was no fixed New Testament canon, the early church had the inspired Old Testament AS WELL as commentary (both written and oral) on it. So, my point was that Christians have always had to think about and weigh commentary and various interpretations of their sacred texts. Even the characters in and the writers of the New Testament had to engage in debate about various interpretations that were popular in their time. So, in other words, there never was time when Christians didn't interact with various commentary/ interpretations.
Yes, the reformers hoped to roll back the clock of interpretation for a fresh look at Scripture, and that attempt to clear away the clutter of centuries and interact anew with the text was a good and helpful impulse. However, the Reformers sometimes (more often than some of us might admit) ended up incorrectly interpreting aspects of Scripture precisely because of the time and cultural distance they had from the original context of Scripture. Today, we are in the best place since the 1st century to be able to understand the original context of the New Testament canon because of advances in textual analysis, understanding of 1st century languages and cultural context over the last 100 years.
The Reformers, try as hard as they did, could not completely escape the limitations of their own context when trying to understand the complexities of Scripture. They re-invigorated some key concepts in Scripture that had been glossed over far too long. But they also read things into Scripture thinking they were simply reading it "fresh and unbiased". We all do. Sounds like you agree. This should keep us humble.
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Post by Josh on Feb 20, 2015 10:54:39 GMT -8
First off, and now I feel I'm swapping places with you a bit here, I think you should judge all things, Preterism and Futurism or whatever other interpretive grid, not based on your prejudges against them but about how well they correspond to the Bible, understood as best as we can in it's original context. It almost sounds like you're adhering here (somewhat ironically) to the tradition of the reformers over the original meaning of the text of scripture.
Secondly, while I think a new believers needs to use commentaries, etc.. to understand Scripture better, I would want to steer them toward commentaries that help them understand the original context of the New Testament as unbiasedly as possible and warn them of commentaries that are very heavily oriented toward some particular secondary doctrine or school of thought. I think we agree that those can be harmful for new believers, but beneficial to dig into for those who are ready to go deeper into critical study.
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Post by Josh on Feb 20, 2015 11:04:40 GMT -8
Looking back on this thread, I think we have more agreement than it seemed at first. It might help to differentiate two general types of commentaries:
1) those that attempt to help the reader understand the original context of Scripture (historical context, literary genres, linguistics, time, place, purpose, and details about the author of various books, etc.)
and
2) those that attempt to persuade the reader toward a particular, formed theological viewpoint (whatever side of the fence it falls on- Calvinist, Preterist, Catholic, etc..)
I'm arguing that we need to seriously involve TYPE 1 commentaries in our Bible study, from babes in Christ to the mature believer.
As to type 2 commentaries, we need to read them with a critical eye. They can be valuable (whether we end up agreeing or disagreeing with them), but they should be tested and retested against Scripture.
And, as a last point, most commentaries are actually some kind of mix between TYPE 1 and 2, somewhat muddying the waters. That is also something to be aware of. |
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Post by asaph on Feb 21, 2015 6:50:44 GMT -8
I would agree. No one writes a book without glasses of red or blue, as it were. No one is totally unbiased. The thing is to be honest of heart and a noble Berean.
I am also aware that archaeology has its factions, too. Discoveries are not always interpreted correctly, and can be colored by one's theological convictions. So saying we now know more of the first century and before than at any other time seems a mite overstated to me.
I do not see a Jesuit behind every bush. I also know Rome never sleeps and Rome never changes. Ever. Regardless of periphery issues from Vatican 1 and 2, and stuff the current pope is into, Rome never changes. Protestants have changed. Rome never changes. Her agenda remains the same and always will - make the world Catholic. So, when I see the credentials of scholars I see things that cause me concern. I look with caution at their discoveries and commentaries, especially from the 20th century and on.
I shall always take the simple position the Bible interprets itself. Even prophecy. The symbols are to be understood by comparing Scripture with Scripture. I have no desire that a new born should read the works of those who believe in the doctrine of eternal security or a secret rapture. Mercy, just the word raptura is a dead give away. The Greek is 'harpazo' and it is not difficult to see the futility of the secret rapture doctrine when you look up harpazo ion the NT. Admittedly one needs a concordance or two to do that. So be it. In the end though, I would rather know what the Bible says, than what men say it means.
As far as categories of of prophetic interpretation, if I know where orange juice comes from, I'll either squeeze my own or take something from American orchards I trust. I am not going to drink orange juice from China. I need not taste it. I need not read their label and marketing. I just know I cannot trust Chinese agriculture by virtue of what the Chinese do. So, yes, because I know where and why Preterism and Futurism came into being I reject them. The tracks of truth and error always lie close together. But once I know error exists, especially if from the outset of its existence, I do not feel the burden to explore it as being Scriptural in whole. I know it cannot be. And I have, ultimately, seen enough of both to know they are not. I have not seen problems with the principle of Historicism to reject it.
Alcazar did not design a mode of interpretation to find the truth. He designed it to derail the Reformation's understanding and trumpeting of the RCC as antechristos, the little horn, the man of sin, the beast, and whore of Babylon. Alcazar's works actually garnered little support within Rome. It was Ribera's futurism which Rome saw as the better fight against the Reformation. Many champions of Rome defended Ribera's works. Even at that it took more than a century for them to do the work intended. Now ... Ribera would be dancing all over the basilica to see what evangelicals are into. So, would Alcazar for that matter.
I have never seen a discussion on prophecy go well on a forum. The major difficulties are two.
It is difficult to write things out in a way which is not book-like. And two, it is difficult for people to then comment or ask questions on particulars of posts without a thread turning into War and Peace.
It is one thing to sit around the living room and discuss something as involved as prophecy. It is another, in my experience, to try and do it on a discussion board. Talk about muddy waters. But that is another matter than this thread addresses.
Suffice to say if I had the choice of steering someone to read Hal Lindsey or just stay with their Bible and a concordance, I would choose the latter. At least I could be confident the student would, sooner or later, be ready to discern problems in commentaries, that just do not jive with the Bible.
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Post by Josh on May 5, 2015 20:37:21 GMT -8
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