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Biblical Blueprints exists to fight the bad presuppositions that "set themselves up against the knowledge of God" (2 Cor. 10:5), the glasses that keep ordinary Christians and theologians alike from seeing how "the key of knowledge," the whole Bible — and every word of it — applies to the whole person and all of life. Biblical Blueprints wants to equip ordinary men and women to use the key of knowledge themselves — to equip a generation of radical Reformers who don't just consume theology-already-done-for-you, but rather continue to mine and apply Scripture's axioms for all of life.
Hi, this is Phil Kayser. And in my last podcast I promised that I would begin to show you some of the super easy rules for interpreting the Bible that have been laid down by Christ and the apostles. We don't make the rules up; we take them from Christ and the apostles. We call the method for interpreting the Bible hermeneutics. And you don't have to be expert to do it. We saw in Deuteronomy 6 that God commanded fathers to not only understand God's Word but to also be ready to teach it and apply it to their children in every area of their chlidren's lives. This means that you don't need a PhD to do hermeneutics. Which is super encouraging, because the last 100 years have seen a bewildering array of competing views on hermeneutics. Each of these systems has rejected the Biblical hermeneutics as being too simplistic and they have substituted very sophisticated systems of hermeneutics that take years of study to master. But rather than helping us to understand the Bible, each of these systems of hermeneutics has been twisting the Scripture and forcing the Biblical text to conform to a pre-determined philosophy. For example, Liberation Theology Hermeneutics insists that communism is the only system that can properly interpret all of life, and so we need the presuppositions of communism or Marxism to properly interpret the Bible. But they aren't the only ones who have done this. Strange as it may seem, there is Feminist Hermeneutics, a Gay Hermeneutics, A Freudian Hermeneutics, and other weird ideologies that have infected Christianity with disastrous results.
But we also saw that conservative Christians, while they may reject some of the more extreme forms of these ideas, have invented their own systems. We looked at Talmudic hermeneutics that some Christians have adopted with disastrous results. We saw that Klinean hermeneutics basically secularizes all of modern life. Then there is there ANE hermeneutics that insists that we must read the Bible through the lens of pagan Ancient Near Eastern literature. And there are other so-called hermeneutical systems that are man-made rather than given by Jesus and the apostles.
Instead, the Reformers insisted on the Sola Scriptura principle. Just as we don't appeal to authorities outside the Bible to prove the canon, we don't appeal to authorities outside the Bible for how to study the Bible. Instead, we imitate Jesus and the apostles. They and other prophets interpreted earlier Scripture so frequently that we can derive an entire system of hermeneutics from the Bible alone. I won't show you that whole system today, but let me start with a few presuppositions that absolutely must be in place if you are to properly understand the Bible.
First, we must approach the text with humility rather than pride. Too many people have a system that they are defending when they read the Bible, and they are constantly trying to explain away "problem texts" that don't fit their system. Well, they don't fit their system because their system is wrong. That is not approaching the text with a humility and submission that says, "Speak Lord, for your servant hears." Proverbs 11:2 says, "with the humble is wisdom." James says that God resists the proud but gives more grace to the humble. So if we want the Holy Spirit's illumination, we must be prepared to change our minds, even if that is embarrassing. And we must be prepared to obey the Bible as soon as we understand it, even if that would be tough. In John 7:17 Jesus said, "If anyone wants to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God or whether I speak on My own authority." Jesus indicates that God will not open the Bible up to those who really don't want to obey it. And I am encouraged by this because it means that *any* father can approach the text of Scripture humbly. And that father will be miles ahead of a prideful PhD expert who is trying to force the Scripture to fit into his grid. Now, I will grant you that it is impossible to approach the Bible without some preconceptions and perhaps even some wrong ideas. But those can easily be corrected if we have humility. Graham Stanton worded it this way:
> Once exegesis is seen as an on-going dialogue between the interpreter and the text, the interpreter's starting point becomes less important than his willingness and readiness to run the risk that the pre-understanding with which he comes to the text may well be refined or completely renewed: *he must be prepared to be interpreted by the text. That is the necessary presupposition with which he must attempt to operate.*
>
> *The exegete cannot allow either his own personal bias or prejudice or his pre-understanding to dominate the text.* They cannot be avoided completely, but they must be no more than a door through which the text is approached. *The text is prior: the interpreter stands before it humbly and prays* that through the scholarly methods and the questions with which he comes to the text, God's Word will be heard afresh. This is the exciting task to which the interpreter is called. *But it is also a dangerous task: God's Word sweeps away my comfortably secure presuppositions; it is a Word of judgment as well as of grace.*[^1]
The second presupposition that we must have if we are to engage in proper hermeneutics is that God wants us to live by every word of Scripture. Matthew 4:4 is our theme verse for this podcast. It says, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." (Matthew 4:4). And you might object, but aren't we supposed to be New Testament Christians? And my response is that if you really believe and follow the New Testament, you will be whole Bible Christians because the New Testament mandates that you follow the Old Testament. In 2 Timothy 3:15-17, Paul appealed to the Old Testament Scriptures that Timothy had been brought up on and said that those Scriptures are able to make you wise and are able to save you. Then he said,
> 2Tim. 3:16 All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Many hermeneutics throw out Old Testament law as being no longer authoritative. But Paul says that every portion of the Old Testament continues to be profitable not only for doctrine, but also for reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness. In fact, the Old Testament is sufficient to thoroughly equiip us for every good work.
So, what does it mean to live by every word of Scripture? It doesn't mean that we are under the ceremonial law. We are not. It would be blasphemy to sacrifice animals in a temple today since the Person those sacrifices pointed to has already come. But we can still live by the ceremonial law in several ways. It teaches us about sin and the Gospel. It also teaches us the axioms or first principles for mathematics, geometry, and other disciplines. We must have a hermeneutic that can accommodate Christ's command to live by every word that proceeds out of God's mouth.
The third presupposition is that the Bible is the standard by which all other truth claims must be judged - including truth claims about hermeneutics. This is radical. If the Bible contradictions a scientist, we must believe the Bible. Jesus said about the Bible, "Your Word is truth" (John 17:17). It's pretty simple, right? Every word of the bible is truth, and to despise any of it is to throw out the truth to our own peril. If someone claims that the Bible has errors, tell them that they are making Jesus out to be a liar. He said that God's word is truth and that God's Word cannot be broken. If they throw out the Old Testament, then they are throwing out truth and contradicting Psalm 119:160, which says, "The entirety of Your word is truth, and every one of Your righteous judgments endures forever." So rule #3 - treat the whole Bible as your source for truth. Without the Old Testament you don't have the complete blueprints for mathematics, geometry, science, civics, and so many other areas of life.
Wayne Grudem said there is a great difference between Christ's statement, "Your word is truth" and someone saying, "God's word is true." Let me read from him at length.
> The difference is significant, for this statement encourages us to think of the Bible not simply as being “true” in the sense that it conforms to some higher standard of truth, but rather to think of the Bible as itself the final standard of truth. The Bible is God’s Word, and God’s Word is the ultimate definition of what is true and what is not true: God’s Word is itself truth. Thus, we are to think of the Bible as the ultimate standard of truth, the reference point by which every other claim to truthfulness is to be measured. Those assertions that conform with Scripture are “true” while those that do not conform with Scripture are not true.
> What then is truth? Truth is what God says, and we have what God says ...in the Bible.
> This doctrine of the absolute truthfulness of Scripture stands in clear contrast to a common viewpoint in modern society that is often called pluralism. Pluralism is the view that every person has a perspective on truth that is just as valid as everyone else’s perspective—therefore, we should not say that anyone else’s religion or ethical standard is wrong. According to pluralism, we cannot know any absolute truth; we can only have our own views and perspectives...
> Pluralism is one aspect of an entire contemporary view of the world called postmodernism. Postmodernism would not simply hold that we can never find absolute truth; it would say that there is no such thing as absolute truth. All attempts to claim truth for one idea or another are just the result of our own background, culture, biases, and personal agendas (especially our desire for power). Such a view of the world is of course directly opposed to a biblical view, which sees the Bible as truth that has been given to us from God.[^2]
This principle is violated by all of the hermeneutical systems that have been invented in the last 150 years - all of them. They do not derive their hermeneutical principles from the Bible, and yet those rules are used to judge the Bible.
The fourth presupposition is that hermeneutics involves more than simply reading the text. It does take some training in Scripture. Peter complained about individuals who were unstable and untaught in hermeneutics twisting the Scriptures written by Paul. He said,
> as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, 16 as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures.
The Pharisees were one of those who refused to get their hermeneutics from Scripture and who therefore twisted the Scriptures. So Jesus reinterpreted the Old Testament passages and in doing so contradicted their oral teachings. The Sermon on the Mount is a case in point. He opposed what they orally taught and properly interpreted those Old Testament passages. He did the same for the apostles. Jesus said in Luke 24,
> Luke 24:25 ... “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?” 27 And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.
Because of their bad preconceptions, Jesus had to interpret the Scripture properly for them. In Nehemiah 8 it says that the teachers "gave the sense, and helped them to understand the reading" (Nehemiah 8:8). So you really do need to try to understand the principles of hermeneutics if you are to properly read it and apply it to yourself and to your family. The Protestant Reformation restored Biblical hermeneutics to the church and to the family.
One of the Biblical rules of interpretation is the rule of context. This rule states that the meaning of a phrase must be gathered from the context. Jesus and the apostles were amazing at correcting bad teaching by going to the context. For example, Jesus used this rule in opposing Satan's false interpretation of Psalm 91 when Satan was tempting Him in Matthew 4. Here's what Satan said,
> “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: “He shall give His angels charge over you,’ and, ‘In their hands they shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone.’ ”
Satan quoted the passage in Psalm 91 correctly, but he yanked it out of context. The context made this promise of protection to those who walked in God's will, and God had not told Jesus to throw Himself off the temple - only Satan did. So Jesus rightly responded with why this would be tempting God rather than walking in His will. In fact, it would be walking out of His will. Context is King.
Just as a side note, you may not have realized that Satan also interprets the Scripture. He does. He is very motivated to deceive believers through bad hermeneutics, and I believe that there are demons behind all those crazy types of hermeneutics that I mentioned earlier that keep people from interpreting the bible the way Jesus did. Demons are very interested in hermeneutics and they will do everything in their power to keep you from Biblical hermeneutics.
Let me give you two more rules of interpretation. The sixth rule laid down by Christ and the apostles is that the Bible must be interpreted literally according to its normal grammatical sense. In Matthew 4:4 He wasn't just telling you to get the general idea of a passage. If we are to live by every word, then every word of every sentence counts and we need to understand the relationship of those words to each other. We call that grammar.. In Matthew 5:18 Jesus not only said that God would preserve every yod (the smallest Hebrew consonant) and every tittle (what I take to be the smallest vowel - some people take it to be the smallest mark on some consonants), but he insisted that we needed to obey every letter of the Bible. Jots and tittles require some grammatical understanding. In Galatians 3:16 Paul bases a major doctrine upon determining whether an Old Testament noun was plural or singular - seed or seeds. Jesus appealed to the present tense in a verse in the Old Testament to prove that souls continue to live after the body dies - something that the Sadducees did not believe. This means that the words, sentences, paragraphs, and other divisions should be understood in the normal sense in which they are used. Obviously the Bible has metaphors, similies, and other figurative language, but even those are still interpreted literally in that the images picture a true objective reality, not just some idea that we insert into the text. The bible isn't a mystical code book that only the superintelligent few can understand because they have a decoding ring. Deuteronomy 6 says that God intended it to be able to be understood by every father. And every word of a sentence needs to be accounted for. People who allegorize are inserting their own ideas into the text. The text is merely a launching pad for their own creative ideas. The Bible itself will identify all types and symbols. So the sixth rule laid down by Christ and the apostles is that the Bible must be interpreted literally according to its normal grammatical sense.
The last rule that I will deal with today is that each passage has only one meaning, even though it can have many applications. In Luke 8 when the disciples ask, "What does this parable mean?" Jesus does not give multiple meanings. He gives one. The interpretation of the Old Testament ceremonies in the book of Hebrews is straightforward and does not exhibit manifold meanings. And there are many other examples of this principle. The Westminster Confession of Faith worded it this way: the full sense of every biblical text “is not manifold, but one.” (WCF I.ix) Or as the Puritan writer, John Owen, worded it, “If the Scripture has more than one meaning, it has no meaning at all.” Daniel 9:15 says that he explained the meaning of God's revelation - not meanings plural, but meaning, singular.
What about symbols - like the rock in the wilderness? Do such symbols falsify this rule? Didn't Paul say in 1 Corinthians 10:4 that the rock represented Jesus? Yes, but that is still one meaning. All symbols have a singular symbolic purpose, not layers of meaning. Symbols are anchored in literal history, but they serve to point to redemptive history. Thus the literal rock Moses struck was intended by God to have one symbolic meaning, not manifold meanings. It pointed to Christ being struck by God so as to pour forth the gift of the Holy Spirit. Likewise, though the vision being interpreted in Daniel 8 was a rich symbol, the vision as a whole had one "meaning" according to verse 15 - it represents in pictorial form the future of two empires. And each word in that vision gives one (and only one) meaningful contribution to the overall picture. Thus, the text says that "the male goat is the kingdom of Greece" and should not be seen as representing multiple kingdoms.
There are dozens of other hermeneutical rules that are clearly laid out in the Scripture. I've given you these six just to show you that hermeneutics is not scary or too complicated. It does take some study, but it is accessible.
In my next podcast I hope to deal with two rules of interpretation that directly answer an objection that at least one person has raised to one of my books on ethics. The objection is, "Why is it legitimate to use historical examples when discussing ethics? Shouldn't we restrict our ethical discussions to only the direct commandments of God in the Bible." It's a great question, and a question that deserves its own podcast. When Paul uses history in 1 Corinthians 10 to mandate actions in the church, was he deriving imperatives from history? Was he in violation of his own mandate that without the law there is no sin? Stay tuned for my answer to that.
[^1]: Graham Stanton,"Presuppositions and New Testament Criticism," in I. Howard Marshall, ed., *New Testament Interpretation: Essays on Principles and Methods* (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), 69-70, emphasis mine.
[^2]: Wayne Grudem, Bible Doctrine: Essential Teachings of the Christian Faith, ed. Jeff Purswell (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 1999), 41.