Last week I sent you an email where I completely screwed up. Perhaps you saw it. Perhaps not. It really doesn’t matter, because I made a right hash of it.
I want to make it up to you today.
Here’s what I want to explore with you … What does it mean when you study the Bible for yourself?
The kicker is that when you study you learn what God’s Word says.
That sounds really good. It’s probably why you want to study in the first place.
But when you study and learn, you become responsible for your own knowledge. Sometimes that feels like a heavy burden when others have different opinions.
I feel that weight myself. I have studied a lot of the Bible, and I hold my own opinions about it. They aren’t always ones that people around me agree with.
So how do I do it?
How do I stand firm on the beliefs I have learned from years of study?
I won’t say the process is simple. But the principle is.
If you’ve read my book Study The Bible – Six Easy Steps, then I’ve given you a bit of insight into it already.
I follow the LITERAL method. In more scholarly circles it’s called the “Literal Hermeneutic.”
But what does “literal” mean in this context?
Here’s a little phrase one of my pastors taught me:
“If the plain sense makes sense, then seek no other sense.”
Literal means that we take the words of scripture at face value and when we determine what they mean, we stop searching for their meaning.
Literal means that we approach the text with no preconceptions about what it means. We let the text inform us about what it wants to say.
https://literalhermeneutic.wordpress.com/2014/12/16/to-whom-is-jesus-talking/
This is a post I wrote a long time ago. I was studying the Sermon on the Mount. Some people call it “Jesus’ greatest Sermon.”
I don’t know about that. Sounds like someone’s opinion there.
In the post above I wanted to specifically avoid making assumptions like that. I wanted to ignore the hype and the opinions of others and see what the text itself said.
I don’t care about the opinions of man. I want to know the full counsel of God’s word.
The blog post, written back in 2014 examines the Sermon on the Mount to determine who Jesus was talking to when He delivered the famous speech.
Who He was talking to says a lot about the message that He was trying to deliver. We can’t make any decisions about His point unless we understand first His audience.
- Was it His disciples?
- Was it the Jewish crowd who gathered around Him?
I won’t say here. But I dig deep into that in the post. And to be quite honest, I didn’t have to dig too deep to see a pretty obvious answer emerge.
This post shows the power of a simple convention: Asking a question. By saying “to whom was Jesus speaking?”, I set the stage for the text to supply a very literal answer
By following the Literal approach, I let the text itself tell me how I should think about the text.
It’s so rewarding to dig into God’s word and have it answer our questions.
I highly recommend it.
Does this raise any questions for you? I’d love to address them – personally, or in a future newsletter.
So look at the post and follow my logic. And if you have questions, reply back to me and ask them.
Questions are our friend in studying the Bible. They lead us onto the path of truth.
I welcome hearing from you.
Till next time!
Dennis
