THE WORD OF GOD PART 4: INTERPRETING THE BIBLE ACCURATELY PASTOR CHARLES PRICE

Now I’m going to read some verses from Psalm 119. Psalm 119, this is the longest chapter in the Bible. It has 176 verses so we won’t read it all. I’m going to pick out about six verses. We have looked on several occasions at the Scripture itself. Earlier in the year we had that reading, that public reading, of the Bible, from Genesis through to Revelation. It took us 82 hours to do it, and we have several times looked since then into what the Scripture says about itself, about its role, about its function, about its purpose. But I want to speak today about interpreting the Bible accurately. And I’m going to read first of all Psalm 119, verse 9 down to verse 16. David, who writes this, asks the question, “How can a young man keep his way pure?” He answers it, “By living according to your Word.” “I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands. I have hidden your Word in my heart that I might not sin against you. Praise be to you, O Lord; teach me your decrees. With my lips I recount all the laws that come from your mouth. I rejoice in following your statutes as one rejoices in great riches. I meditate on your precepts and consider your ways. I delight in your decrees; I will not neglect your Word.” That’s as far as we’ll read, and, in fact, of the 176 verses in Psalm 119, more than 150 of them refer to the Word of God, either as the law, the statutes, the commands, and so on. And this is one of those sections. He talks about “hiding God’s Word in my heart that I might not sin against you.” And that, of course, is one of the key reasons for reading the Word of God and listening to it being taught. Now, in talking about interpreting the Bible accurately, let me just begin by acknowledging that there are thousands of Christian denominations across the world. I tried to find out how many there were. And I couldn’t find a figure, but I discovered there are 20,000 Baptist groupings, let alone the rest. There are hundreds of sects and cults that would trace their roots back to this book and would claim, to some extent at least, to be teaching this book. And yet the message that many of these cults and sects have is vastly different to the main line Christian denominations. Amongst the main line Christian denominations, there are many varied interpretations as to what the Bible means. There are many hot potatoes. People say, “What does the Bible mean about, or say about such and such a thing?” And you get lots and lots of different ideas and responses. And so it can be very confusing. And sadly, it can be so confusing that there are some people who conclude, “Unless you are an expert, you really can’t interpret this book with any reliability yourself.” Well, I want to dispel that myth tonight. I want to talk about how can we be sure that we really are understanding the Bible as it’s intended to be understood. And I want to say to you tonight I believe it’s very simple. What I’m going to share with you tonight is very simple. Are there safeguards that enable us to avoid sidetracking onto issues which are not really the teaching of Scripture? Are there ways to read the Bible with confidence? Are there ways to be certain that

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our understanding is pretty well right? Now, of course, there are areas – I’ll mention this towards the end – of ambiguity, where it isn’t easy to know exactly what the Scripture means in some areas, but those are not dealing with central issues. We’ll comment on that a bit at the end tonight. Now, the technical word for the study of Scripture is hermeneutics. Now, you can forget that word. If any of you are theological students, you’re tired of that word probably because it’s a word that you hear a lot. When I first heard of it, I thought it was a German theologian called, Herman Neutics. But it’s not; it’s the science of interpretation. And it’s applied particularly to Scripture. And I want to give you some simple hermeneutic principles, if you like, tonight to help you and help us to read and interpret the Scripture well. And it’s all about studying the Bible contextually, that is understanding, interpreting it within its context. Now I wanted to show you seven different contexts that the Scripture is to be understood within. You see, normal communication is broken up into units of thought. When we communicate, the basic unit of thought is words. We use words. With words, we comprise sentences. That’s the second basic unit of thought. From sentences, we produce paragraphs. If we’re writing, of course, we do it in paragraphs, or if we’re communicating, we kind of pause and we start on another idea. And those paragraphs are usually broken up, break up a subject or theme. That’s how we communicate normally. Now, as far as the Bible is concerned, I want to suggest seven units of thought. I’m calling them, “seven units of truth,” and these are the building blocks on which we can build an accurate understanding of what the Scripture is saying. Now, the first unit of truth, as I’m calling it, is the sentence in the Scripture, are sentences. What I mean by that is never build anything on a collection of words that is less than a complete sentence. I can’t tell you how many errors I’ve heard that are based on five, six words taken out of a sentence. You see, if you try and explain something using less than the sentence that the Bible uses, you can prove almost anything you want to say. Did you know, for instance, that fifteen times in the Bible it says, “there is no God?” Fifteen times the Bible says that. So an atheist has got fifteen texts he can preach from. The Bible says, “There is no God.” Deuteronomy 32, verse 39: “There is no God ...” Psalm 14, verse 1: “There is no God ...” Psalm 53, verse 1: “There is no God …” 1 Kings 8:23: “There is no God ...” 2 Kings 5:[15,] Naaman said, “Now I know that there is no God …” But actually, if you put every one of those statements, “there is no God …” into the sentence in which it comes, it means something totally different. So, for instance, Deuteronomy 32, verse 39, says, “There is no God besides me.” That has a totally different meaning. Psalm 14, verse 1, says, “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” That’s repeated in Psalm 53. 1 Kings 8:23: “Oh, Lord, God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven above or on the earth below …” And when Naaman – you remember the Syrian commander who was asked to go and dip seven times in the river Jordan when he had leprosy, and he was told, “If you do that, God will heal your leprosy.” When he had done that, he said, “Now I know that there is no God in all the world except in Israel.” Totally different meaning. And so never base anything on less than a full sentence, and you’ll eliminate thousands of potential errors. If every time you hear somebody quote something that’s part of a

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verse or part of a statement you go back and put it into the full context of the sentence it was given in. Here’s another one. Three words in the New Testament that says, “search the Scriptures.” That sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? I have a book at home; it’s called, “Search the Scriptures.” And it’s about Bible study, and on the front page it gives John 5:39. That’s the verse that the words “search the Scriptures” come from. But actually, when you read that verse, it is a criticism of the Pharisees and the Jews. It says, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life but they bear witness to me and you refuse to come to me that you might have life.” That’s the full sentence. So if Jesus’ says, “You search the Scriptures and you think that they will give you something but they bear witness to me and you don’t come to me.” But take those three words, “search the Scriptures,” sounds very good but out of the sentence we give it a very different meaning. So the first unit of truth is the sentence. And these are very simple. I apologize for them being so simple. Read the sentence. The second unit of truth is the paragraph of which the sentence is a part. Now, some Bibles divide the text up into verses, and I have to say this – and I’m sorry if you don’t like this – that is not a helpful way to divide up the Bible. Chapters and verses are not inspired. The chapters were divided up by a French Bishop on horseback going from Paris to Lyon and the verse structures were done by an Irishman. Now, they’re very helpful. If I say to you, “Psalm 119, verse 26,” you can go straight to it. That’s very helpful. But as a division of truth, they are not helpful. So the context is not the verse. Leave aside the verse and the chapters when you study the Bible, and think of it in sentences. The sentence is part of the paragraph, and the paragraph, of course, are the verses either side of the sentence. Let me give you an example of when the devil quoted Scripture to Jesus at His temptation. Matthew, Chapter 4, we have the record of this: verse 5 and 6. And the devil quotes complete sentences, but he messes up taking it out of the paragraph in which it came from. He quotes the Old Testament Scripture. This is what the devil says. “[Then] the devil took Him to the holy city and had Him …” That’s Jesus. “ … stand on the highest point of the temple. ‘If you are the Son of God,’ he said, ‘throw yourself down. For it is written …’” And then he quotes from Psalm 91. “ ‘He will command His angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”

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End of sentence. So the devil says to Jesus, “Hey, if you’re the Son of God, how come nobody knows? You need to get yourself on the map. You need to make a bit of a stir. Jump off the highest point of the temple. Instead of your body being crushed as you hit the ground, your Father will send angels. It says so in Psalm 91: ‘He’ll command His angels concerning you; they’ll lift you up in their hands. You’ll not strike your foot against the stone.’” It’s Biblical. The devil is quoting the Bible. And by the way, the devil can quote Scripture, and he does. But he’s taken the sentence out of the paragraph. If you read the next sentence that the devil didn’t quote, it says, “And you will tread upon the lion and the cobra; you will trample the great lion and the serpent under foot.” Now, who’s the great lion prowling around? Who’s the serpent in the Bible? Well, of course, it’s the devil. And he’s talking there about you crushing the devil. And had Satan quoted the next sentence, he would of course been committing suicide. He’s saying, “You’ll trample on the lion, and you’ll trample on the serpent under foot.” And so, you can take a sentence, but the sentence then has to be understood in light of the paragraph. And the one sentence won’t contradict the paragraph. You’ll derive the meaning of the sentence from the paragraph. Let me give you another example. In Philippians, Chapter 4 and verse 13, there’s a great verse that we all love. It says, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Now what does that mean? Well, you say, “That means what it said: ‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.’” I remember on one occasion, one of the students in the Bible school I was leading in England came to me one day and said, “I’m really, really confused.” The previous day she’d been part of a team of students who had gone to a church to take a Sunday evening service. And when we arrived there – there were four of them – she said the person leading the service said to us, “Which one of you is the singer?” And she said, “There wasn’t a singer, so we said, ‘We don’t have a singer.’” And they said, “But we asked if there would be a singer in the team.” And somehow that information had got mislaid. So she said, “Well, I used to sing when I was younger, so I claimed this promise, ‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,’ and I said, ‘I will sing.’” She said, “It was a disaster. Why didn’t God fulfil His promise?” I said, “Because that verse – ‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me’ – has nothing to do with your singing.” It has a context. Look at the paragraph. Paul is saying, “I know what it is to be in need. I know what it is to have plenty. I’ve learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want; I can do everything through Christ who strengthens me.” So he says, “I’ve learned the secret. I can live with nothing. I can live with lots. I can live in poverty. I can live in riches. I can live well fed. I can live hungry. Why? Because I can live in any circumstance when Christ is my strength.” That’s what he’s teaching there. He’s not saying, “Well, I can jump over the moon through Christ who strengthens me. But I can live in any context, in any circumstance.” And Paul is just talking about the fact that when Christ is his strength, whatever his external circumstances, he can live and survive within them. That’s the

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meaning of that sentence, but you’ve got to put it into the paragraph in which it comes to understand that meaning. Similarly, a bit later in Philippians, Chapter 4, another great verse, verse 19: “And my God will meet all your needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus.” Again, this is the kind of verse that we love to take and stick on the wall as a kind of blank cheque from God. “And my God will supply all of your needs.” Let’s just claim this verse, we say, this promise. But what’s the context? The context is Paul is saying to the Philippians that “I have been neglected and forgotten while I’ve been in prison,” and he says, “But you sent me a gift. I have received full payment and even more, I’m amply supplied now that I’ve received from Epaphroditus the gifts that you sent me. They’re a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God. And my God will meet all your needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus.” He’s saying, “In my time of need, you have met my needs. You sent me gifts. You supported me. Thank you. And my God will meet your needs.” Why? “Because you have been meeting other people’s needs.” That’s the context, so we can’t sit down and say, “I’m not going to meet anybody else’s needs. I’m not interested in giving anything away to anybody else; I’m just going to claim this promise: ‘My God shall supply all your needs.’ ” But the context is, as you are giving to others, God will meet your need and give to you. That’s why the sentence begins with the word, “and.” “And my God will meet all your needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus,” because the “and” follows what’s gone before. You have met my needs, and God will meet your needs. So I’m making the point that if the first unit of truth is the sentence, the sentence has to be understood in the context of the paragraph of which it’s a part. The third unit of truth is the subject that is being dealt with at the time. Let me give you a couple of examples of this. Let me ask you, “What is 1 Corinthians, Chapter 13 about?” Somebody tell me. This is a very well known chapter. What is 1 Corinthians, Chapter 13 about? Love. That was almost in unison. You all got it. You are wrong. Let me tell you something very profound. 1 Corinthians 13 lies between 1 Corinthians 12 and 1 Corinthians 14. Does that sound profound? 13 lies between 12 and 14. What is 1 Corinthians 12 about? Spiritual gifts. What is 1 Corinthians 14 about? Spiritual gifts. You see, the whole section, the whole subject Paul is dealing with here is spiritual gifts, and so when he gets to Chapter 13 – or what we call Chapter 13 – he starts, “If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.” See, he’s talking about spiritual gifts and said, “Listen. If I exercise spiritual gifts but don’t have love, I’m just a noise, just a clanging cymbal,” so he defines how that love is to be the central

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ingredient in the exercise of spiritual gifts. And when he finishes explaining that, he then starts again. “Now follow the way of love and eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy.” And he goes back to the main theme again. So when Paul wrote 1 Corinthians 13, he didn’t say, “I think I’ll write a nice little treaties on love that people can read out at weddings.” He’s saying, “I’m writing to you about spiritual gifts, and I want you to understand that spiritual gifts are not used simply to fulfill the needs of the person exercising them so that he’s got some kind of niche in life. They are expressed in love in order to minister to the needs of others. And the benefit of spiritual gifts are the receiving ends of those gifts, the people on the receiving end. And that’s why it’s governed by love.” In fact, whenever Paul speaks about spiritual gifts, he always talks about love, in every instance. It’s the oil which lubricates the exercise of those gifts. Now, 1 Corinthians, Chapter 13, is a great chapter on love, that’s true, but that is not what Paul was thinking about when he wrote it. He’s writing about the exercise of spiritual gifts. So the third unit of truth is the subject. The first is the sentence. The second is the paragraph. The paragraph then is part of the subject being dealt with at the time. Let me give you another example. I heard a wonderful sermon on the story of the Good Samaritan some years ago. Now you know the story of the Good Samaritan. It’s about a man who was on a journey from Jerusalem to Jericho. And as he was going along that road, some thieves jumped out from behind rocks. They robbed him, they stripped him, they beat him. They left him half dead. And lying half dead on the road, a priest and a Levite came down the road. They passed to the other side because they were busy going to their meeting, and they passed him by. And then a Samaritan, the despised person to the Jew, came by, got off his donkey, bandaged up the wounds of this man, took him to the local inn, asked the innkeeper to care for him, gave him two silver coins to cover the expenses, and said, “Later I’ll return and reimburse you if there are any other expenses in addition to these two silver coins.” Now you know that story. It’s a great story. I heard a sermon preached on that one day, and this is what the application was. He said the man on the journey, going from Jerusalem to Jericho, is the human race. We’re on a journey, he said. It began in the Garden of Eden. But as we set out on the journey, suddenly thieves rob, strip and beat the person. That is the fall, where in the Garden of Eden, the devil attacked and destroyed man’s relationship with God and left him lying wounded on the roadside. And then God sent the law; that’s the Levite. They couldn’t help. The law passed by on the other side. And the priest also couldn’t help; passed by on the other side. And eventually a despised Samaritan came down the road. He said, “Who was the despised one?” He quoted Isaiah 54, “We esteemed Him not,” and talked about Jesus as the Samaritan who came by, picked the man up, bandaged his wounds, put him on His donkey, took him to the inn. The inn, he said, represents the church. And He put him in the inn, and we’re intended, this preacher said, to be part of a community of believers for our well being and strengthening and help and encouragement. And then He left the two silver coins, which were the Holy Spirit, to enable us to have our needs met within the church. And he said, and then when these two coins have been spent, I will return and reimburse you for the rest.

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And I remember him saying this: he said, “I don’t want to be dogmatic about this, but when h said after these two coins have been spent I will return” – this is talking about the return of Christ – he said, “I don’t want to be dogmatic, but I have my strong suspicion the two coins equal two thousand years when Christ is coming back.” You see, that was his message. Was that a good message? It was a great message, but it was rubbish as far as that story was concerned! There was nothing untrue about the fact that the human race on the road on the journey is being attacked by the devil and all the rest of it. But that isn’t what the story of the Good Samaritan is about. The story of the Good Samaritan is about the time Jesus said to a group of people, “Love your neighbour as yourself.” And a lawyer interrupted, as lawyers do, and said, “Excuse me. Be specific. Who is my neighbour?” Jesus told this story, and having told the story, He said, “Which was the neighbour to the man who was beaten and robbed?” And the lawyer answered, “The Samaritan.” And Jesus said, “Go and do likewise.” That story is about how to love your neighbour. That’s the context. That’s the subject being discussed at the time. So the sentence must be understood in light of the paragraph, the paragraph in the light of the subject, and fourthly – the fourth unit of truth – is the book from which you’re reading because each book of the Bible has it’s own purpose. For an example, the Book of Proverbs is not the book of promises. It’s the Book of Proverbs. So when you come across a proverb such as, “Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is older he will not depart from it,” that is not a promise. That comes out of the Book of Proverbs. What’s a Proverb? “A stitch in time saves nine,” is a proverb. It’s not a Biblical one, but it’s a proverb. It’s a generally true statement. You see, the Book of Proverbs also says, “A man can have a fool for a son,” so you can bring up your child in the way he should go and when he’s old he won’t depart from it. Generally that is true. Proverbially that is true. It’s not a promise that God has made to you. You can’t say, “Lord, I want to claim this as a promise.” He says, “I didn’t give it to you as a promise. I gave it to you as a proverb.” But amongst the proverbs also “a man can have a fool for a son,” so maybe you’ve got a fool for a son. You may have brought him up well, and he’s turned his back. So you can’t turn proverbs into promises. Here’s a great verse from another book in the Bible. I’ll quote it to you. It says, “Submit to God and be at peace with Him. In this way, prosperity will come to you.” Now that’s a good verse, isn’t it? “Submit to God. Be at peace with Him, and this way prosperity will come to you.” That’s the kind of verse that we would like to put on the wall in our homes and remind ourselves if I submit to God, I will prosper. But where does that verse come from? Which book does it come from? It comes from the Book of Job. In the Book of Job, there are four people who speak at length. Job, himself, and then he had three friends: Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, and then a fourth who came on the scene a bit later. His name was Elihu. And they take up thirty-five chapters of the forty-two chapters of the Book of Job, and at the end of the book, God said to Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar, and Elihu, “What you have said is not good.”

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Now, when I first read through the Book of Job using a marking system in my Bible, I marked that verse. It sounded a good verse: “Submit to God. Be at peace with Him, and this way prosperity will come to you.” That’s a great verse! That’s one we can claim. Wonderful! I got to the end of the book, and God said, “What you have said is nonsense.” I thought, “I’ve just underlined some of what they said, in ink.” And God said it’s nonsense. So you’ve got to ask, “What book am I reading this from? Who is saying this?” Now, the Book of Job is an accurate record of false teaching. It’s still accurate, but it’s what these men taught to Job. And that’s just one of many examples in the Book of Job that are false teachings. So you say, “Well, what book is this in?” Let me read you something else which years ago, when I had not been a Christian very long, somebody read this verse to me, and it really, really confused me. I won’t tell you where it is at this moment. I’ll just read it to you. It says, “Man’s fate is like that of the animals. The same fate awaits them both. As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath. Man has no advantage over the animal. Everything is meaningless. They all go to the same place. They all come from dust, and to dust they return. Who knows if the spirit of man rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?” Did you know the Bible says that? That animals and people have no advantage over each other. Where does that occur? You’ve got it. Ecclesiastes. That’s right. Of course. What is Ecclesiastes about? Well, you find out in the opening verse. The opening two verses say, “ ‘Meaningless! Meaningless!’ says the Teacher. ‘Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.’ ” Great verse that. It’s kind of one I recommend you memorize! “ ‘Meaningless! Meaningless!’ says the Teacher. ‘Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.’ ” Actually, thirty-six times in the Book of Ecclesiastes he talks about being meaningless, meaningless, meaningless. Why? The next verse: “What does man gain from all his labour at which he toils under the sun?” And thirty times he talks about being under the sun. Ecclesiastes is giving a humanistic perspective on life, and he’s saying, looking from under the sun, that is, at the end of your nose, take God out of the equation. Just me as a human being. What I can see at the end of my nose, what I can touch, what I can hear, what I can smell, what I can taste. That is all the reality there is. I come to this conclusion: “It’s meaningless, meaningless, utterly meaningless. Everything is meaningless.” It’s like a chasing after the wind, which is another recurring phrase. You try to get the wind, put it in a bag, and take it home. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t happen that way. He said, “What advantage is there to being a human being over being an animal?” I mean, from a

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humanistic point of view, there’s no advantage. You both go to the same place. You both go back to the ground, back to the dust. But that is from the Book of Ecclesiastes, and Ecclesiastes is about a humanistic perspective on life. When you get to the last chapter, he then says, “Well, then, if that’s what life is about, what’s the way out of this?” And he says, gives several things: “Remember your creator in the days of youth,” and he says, “The whole duty of man is to fear God and keep His commandments.” So at the book, he tells us what is true and what is right. But the first part of the book is giving a humanistic perspective on life. So when you read that text, you say, “Well, okay. The sentence sounds pretty depressive. Even the paragraph sounds a bit depressive. The subject – “meaningless, meaningless, everything is meaningless under the sun” – sounds even more depressive, so what is the book? Ah ha. It’s Ecclesiastes. Now if this was the last chapter in Romans or something, you might have reason to be anxious. But it’s Ecclesiastes, and so we interpret the subject by the book in which it is contained. Here’s another quick one. If I asked you what was the Book of Revelation about. End times, somebody said. It isn’t actually because Revelation tells us, “This is the Revelation of Jesus Christ.” The end time scenario illustrates the supremacy of Jesus Christ, but the writer, John, tells us, if you understand the Book of Revelation, understand what it’s about: it’s about a revelation of Christ. So in every part of it, look for Christ. That’s what it’s about. But we have made that a revelation of the end times, which we’d like to assume we’re living in because we also interpret it in the light of what’s happening right now. Now, there’s lots in there about the end times, but I’m just saying subject it to its original context. This is a revelation of Jesus Christ, says John when he wrote it. So the first unit of truth is the sentence. The second unit of truth is the paragraph of which the sentence is a part. The third unit of truth is the subject of which the paragraph is a part. And the fourth unit of truth is the book that it’s in. The fifth unit of truth is the testament that it occurs in: Old Testament or New Testament. You see, there are certain things which have very different meaning when you realize which testament they are contained in. For instance, in the Old Testament, there are 613 commands given to Moses. Some of those, like the Ten Commandments, the moral law of God, apply for all time. There are other laws, the ceremonial laws, which were abolished the moment Christ died on the cross. The civil law, which are for the national life of Israel, not intended to extend beyond that. There’s no indication of that. And that’s why we don’t carry out capital punishment for adulterers, for instance. Though, if you look in Leviticus, Chapter 20, it tells you if a man commits adultery with another man’s wife, or with the wife of his neighbour, both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death. Now, we don’t say, when we come across adulterers, we need to put them to death because we understand that this is the civil law of the nation of Israel, directed to a particular people at a particular time in history. So we have to understand that command within the context of the testament it’s a part of. There’s a statement in Psalm 51, for instance, that says, “Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me.” I remember somebody who I spoke to on one occasion, who believed that the Holy Spirit had been withdrawn from his life. And I had said to him, “Well, no.

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The Holy Spirit has been sealed forever in your heart if you were a genuine Christian.” He said, “But look at this verse.” And he quoted this verse, Psalm 51, where David says, “Don’t take your Holy Spirit from me.” And David, by the way, writes Psalm 51 after he committed adultery with Bathsheba. She had become pregnant. He had arranged the death of her husband so that it would never be known that her husband was not the father of the baby. And then Nathan, the prophet, had come to David and accused him, told him a story about a man who had lots of his own sheep, but he wanted a lamb to offer to a guest at a dinner party. And he went to somebody down the road who only had one lamb. And this lamb, he said, was a member of that man’s family. It used to eat in their home and jump on their knees. And he took this lamb from his neighbour, and he killed it and fed it to his guest as a meal. Meanwhile, he had all these sheep as his own. And Nathan said, “David, there’s a man in your kingdom who has done just that.” And David said, “Tell me who that man is! And we’ll bring him to justice.” And Nathan said, “You are the man. David, this is you with Bathsheba, and having her husband Uriah put to death in battle.” And David was overcome with remorse and repentance, and he wrote Psalm 51. And he said, “Take not your Holy Spirit from me. God, don’t withdraw your Holy Spirit from me.” Because he had seen that happen to Saul, his predecessor, when Saul had messed up, and the Holy Spirit departed from Saul, it says. David had seen that. But you see, this is in the Old Testament. It’s in the old covenant. Under the old covenant, before Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came on people for certain purposes at certain times, and then He would withdraw. But after Pentecost, because of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ through the cross, the Holy Spirit comes to indwell and remain. And so, Ephesians, Chapter 1, verse 13 says, “Having believed, you are marked in Him with a seal, which is the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession – to the praise of His glory.” You have been sealed by the Holy Spirit, guaranteeing our inheritance. So we get two verses. One says, “Take not your Holy Spirit from me.” In other words, that seems possible, but don’t let it happen. The other one says, “You’ve been sealed forever by the Holy Spirit.” So which is right? You say, “Which testament are those two verses in?” One is in the Old Testament; it’s part of the old covenant. The other’s the New Testament, part of the new covenant. And so it’s important that we interpret in the light of the testament it’s part of. And the sixth unit of truth is the whole Bible. Interpret the testaments in the light of the whole Bible because the Bible is one book. A man called Alec Matière – he’s a well-known minister in Britain – he’s retired now. But he wrote a little pamphlet, which he called, “The Mischievous Piece of Paper.” Intriguing title to this pamphlet. And do you know what the mischievous piece of paper is according to Alec Matière’s pamphlet? It’s this piece. It’s the blank piece that appears at the beginning of the New Testament and the end of the Old Testament. And he says … he calls it the mischievous piece of paper because it conveys the idea that there are two revelations whereas there’s really only one revelation. And although the Old Testament has different aspects to the New Testament, as each book has different aspects to each other book, it is one progressive revelation of truth.

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I learned many years ago a little ditty that says, “The new is in the old contained; the old is in the new explained.” In other words, they dovetail together. Paul talks several times about the mystery, he calls it, that God has revealed in the past, and now at last it’s come into full light. There’s always been an element of mystery in the revelation through the Old Testament. Now it’s come to full light, and that mystery has been made known through Christ, he says. And the mystery is that Christ is in us and that Jew and Gentile have been reconciled together as the two aspects, what he calls the mystery, which now at last is understood in the New Testament. You see, the Old Testament looks like a Jewish book. It is a Jewish Book. It looks as though it the agenda is all about the Jews. Paul says, “Get to the New Testament you understand it isn’t all about the Jews. Now Jew and Gentile have been incorporated into one new body, which is called the church.” And it’s a progression of truth. We talk about progression of truth. That’s a term that is often used of Scripture, but the progression is not from part truth to whole truth. The progress is from promise to fulfilment. And the Old Testament is full of all kinds of leads that give promise, something’s coming, something better is going to happen. Right in the Garden of Eden, when God said to Eve that the seed of the woman will bruise the head of the serpent … what’s He say? “He will damage your heel, but you’ll bruise his head.” In other words, the seed of the woman will become damaged, hurt. That’s Christ again, speaking about. But He will crush the head of the serpent. And there’s that promise right back in Genesis that there’s going to come a deliverer. And when Eve gave birth to her first son, whose name was Cain, she said, “I’ve gotten the man,” – is the force of the original – “from the Lord,” meaning I’ve got the promised one. This is the Messiah. This is the seed that was promised to us. Of course, it wasn’t. He grew up to be a murderer. And as time went by, of course, there were all kinds of promises that are thrown in by God to Abraham, then through Moses, all looking forward to something. And there comes the fulfillment in Christ. And so we’ve got to interpret the testaments in light of the whole of Scripture. And the seventh unit of truth … let me just go back to it. Make sure you get it. The first unit of truth is the sentence, which has to be interpreted in the light of the paragraph, the paragraph in the light of the subject, the subject in the light of the book, the book in the light of the testament, the testament in the light of the whole of Scripture, and the final seventh unit of truth by which it must all be interpreted is in the light of Christ. You see, a marvellous thing happens in the New Testament, and it is this: the Word becomes flesh. It’s no longer words now, it’s the living embodiment of truth. Jesus said, “I am the truth.” Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 1, verse 20, “No matter how many promises God has made, they are yes in Christ.” That’s where they find their fulfillment. And the whole of Scripture ultimately has to be interpreted in the light of Christ. In fact, He is the key. On the road to Emmaus, remember that time? When those two men, on the morning Jesus had risen from the dead, they were on their way home, discouraged. Jesus came along side them; they didn’t know it was Jesus. Didn’t recognize Him. He said, “Why are you so discouraged?” They said, “Have you not heard? Are you the only person in Jerusalem who doesn’t know about Jesus of Nazareth? We had hoped,” they said, past tense. “We had hoped He was the one who would liberate Israel, but now He’d dead. He’s been crucified.” And as they walked on, it says,

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“Jesus, beginning with Moses and all the prophets, explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning Himself.” That must have been a fantastic Bible study to have been part of. I wish they’d have invented cassette recordings in those days, and we could have listened to the cassette of Jesus on Jesus in the Old Testament. All the things about Himself. And as they got back to their home, when they offered Him … they invited Him to come in for a meal, and as He took a loaf of bread, as they offered Him some bread, He broke it and they noticed His hands were wounded, and they suddenly recognized this is who it is. I love the fact that all the Old Testament Scriptures, from Moses on through the prophets, He explained in relation to Himself. That’s why Jesus criticized the Jews. I mentioned that verse in John 5:39: “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” “The Scriptures are about me. They point to me.” As all roads lead to Rome, all truth lead to Christ. “I am the truth,” He says. So these are seven safeguards I want to recommend to you for studying and reading the Bible accurately. What does the sentence say, the whole sentence? What is the paragraph about? What is the subject being dealt with at the time? Which book is it in? What is the book about? Which testament is it in, and what is the testament about? You interpret that in the light of the continuing revelation of the whole of Scripture, and you interpret Scripture in the light of Christ. If we detach the Scriptures from Christ, we have a dead book. If we detach Christ from the Scriptures, we end up with mysticism and all kinds of ideas that have little foundation. That’s why Scripture and Christ got intimately connected together. Now, I give you these as safeguards. As I read and study and prepare to preach, I always ask these kinds of questions: Is this true to the context? Because you can take verses that have wonderful ideas out of context, and people build all kinds of things on them. The only problem is they will collapse eventually. They simply won’t work. Do you know the worst kind of preaching? If I may dare say this. The worst kind of preaching is preaching backed up by Scripture. Preaching should never be backed up by Scripture. Preaching should come out of Scripture. You see, you can back up anything if you’re selective in how you back it up. That’s why preaching must come out of Scripture, and it’s the Scripture itself which is its own interpreter as we interpret it in its context. Two last things. One, recognize we can’t understand Scripture simply by an intellectual process. 1 Corinthians 2, verse 14, says,

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“The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.” We do need to come not just as you might study Shakespeare in its context, but we come acknowledging our need for the Holy Spirit to open our understanding, to open our eyes to see it. In fact, we never get an appetite for Scripture apart from the work of the Holy Spirit within our hearts. So we recognize our dependency on the Holy Spirit. And secondly, just very quickly, let me acknowledge there are difficult passages. Some things are ambiguous. We do hold genuine differences of understanding as to what the text is meaning. Take, for an example, the second coming of Christ. There are people on all sides of the different interpretations of Scripture about the second coming of Christ who are equally seeking to understand Scripture in its context. But they come to different conclusions. What do we do in those kinds of situations? Let me just read you a verse in Romans 14, verse 2. Romans 14, let me just read this to you. He says, “One man’s faith allows him to eat everything, but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. The man who eats [everything] must not look down on him who does not and the man who does not eat everything must not condemn the man who does, for God has accepted him. Who are you to judge somebody else’s [servant]? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand. “One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains, does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God.” Now Paul is saying there, “Listen, there are a few controversies there in the church of Rome.” Apparently, vegetarianism was a controversy at that time. There are some people who say you shouldn’t eat vegetables. Some people said you can eat anything you want. Paul says the important thing isn’t whether you eat vegetables. In one sense, God couldn’t care less whether you eat vegetables or whether you eat beef or chicken. But if you do, what God cares about is that you do what you do as unto the Lord. You do it with integrity before God according to your conscience. And there’s room, he says, for different understandings, provided the one who says you can eat anything doesn’t condemn the man who eats just vegetables, and the man who eats vegetables doesn’t condemn the person who says he can eat anything because each do it to the Lord. Now no one’s salvation depends on vegetables. You know that. So these aren’t big issues, but you know it’s amazing how they divide Christians. They really do. And then he gives the next example, and this is still a controversial one. It’s not mine; it’s Paul’s here. He says, “One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike.”

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Well, that’s a tough one. What should our view be of the Sabbath? A day of rest. Paul says, “Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord.” And he’s saying that you live with integrity with your conviction about a certain matter if it’s one that’s controversial. But again, salvation doesn’t depend on your understanding of one day in the week being special. We won’t talk about that issue because some of you think, “Oh, that’s an interesting one. What about that issue?” I’m just illustrating Paul saying here that there are issues. The important thing is we respect the integrity of each other who has different views on these relatively minor issues. And we do it to the Lord. I have a friend in California who writes to me once in a while. Whenever he writes, he always signs off his letter the same way. He always finishes saying, “Keep the main thing, the main thing.” And he signs his name. “Keep the main thing, the main thing.” Well, let’s do that. If we keep the main thing, the main thing, we actually realize that it’s not worth getting worked up over some of the minor things that we do divide over. And we do divide over some minor things. Some of you have different views to me on issues, and you let me know about it. And I appreciate your insight. And I listen to them. When you send me twenty books, I don’t read the twenty books, but … people have done that! But the point is this, where things that really count, that are really important, that really matter, we can open this Book. You don’t have to be an expert; you just have to read it, and trust what it says in the sentence, in the paragraph, in the subject, in the book, in the testament, in the Bible as a whole, and, ultimately, in relation to Christ.

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