Frameworks Of Interpretation

A few notes on interpreting Scripture:

Take a look at the following verse:

"For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them." ~Matthew 18.20~

I want to ask you a question: "Is God Omnipresent?" Or to the contrary, are there certain conditions to where God shows up or to whom God is with? Do you have to have two or more people with you in order for God to be present in your life?

Now of course, God IS Omnipresent and He is with you whether you are by yourself or if you are in the presence of others...So what's my point? Well many times, the aforementioned verse and a host of others, are taken way out of context. For instance, read alone and without a proper framework in which to understand it, Matthew 18.20 is sometimes used to say that we must have two or three gathered in order to know that God is with us...this is not in line with what the passage actually teaches, nor with what The Bible as a whole teaches. So what do we do?

To start, we must read in terms of a framework instead of simply pulling a verse out in isolation. Scriptural references and verse numbers are great, but think about it, in our own day-to-day conversations, we don't speak in sentence-by- sentence manner...we have a context of person, place, and time in which we say certain things.

In the same manner, when reading Scripture, we must read with the proper framework, and this framework is based around certain understandings of context, genre's, observations, etc.

In terms of context, we have the context of content and the context of culture. With content, we must read the surrounding paragraphs in order to understand the verse at hand. Our minds work in a whole-parts-whole manner, so we need to interpret the part in light of the whole. In terms of culture, we need to know the who, what, when, where, and why of the passage.

So going back to Matthew 18.20 noted above, we need to, at the very least, start at verse 15 and see that Jesus is speaking about a situation where a brother in the Church may need to be ex-communicated due to non repented sin and unchanging behavior. In this process, there needs to be two or three witnesses, and so Jesus is saying, if these witnesses and the Church are in line with Biblical teachings and find that this particular brother is turning his back on such teachings, then Jesus will agree with the two or three witnesses and "will be among them" in this ex-communication process.

In conclusion, here are a few more frameworks that anyone can implement in order to better understand The Scriptures:

> Use the two types of context: content and cultural

> Use OIA
• Observation (ask who, what, when, where, why?)
• Interpretation (what is going on then and there?)
• Application (How do we apply it here and now?)

> Understand the proper Genre of Scripture - just as we read newspapers, magazines, ads, announcements, articles, etc, we need to know Biblical genre's as well...is the genre historical narrative, law, wisdom, psalm, prophecy, apocalyptic, Gospel, or epistle (letter)?

> We need to interpret the New Testament in light of the Old Testament

> Be objective instead of subjective: Never ask, "what does this verse mean to you?" The better question is "what does this verse mean?"

Here are two really good books for gaining proper insight into God's Word:

How To Read The Bible For All Its Worth by Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart

Never Read A Bible Verse - by Greg Koukl (FREE 20 page book from Stand To Reason)

Love Wins? No, Jesus Saves!

I just watched the promo video for Rob Bell's new book, Love Wins, a title he chose because he states that the Good News is that "Love Wins." It's a hidden message that takes Scripture out of context and leads certain people down a road to destruction...

...The Good News of The Bible is not that "Love Wins," but rather, "Jesus Saves." What does Jesus save us from? He saves us from the "disease" of humanity known as sin. Bell has it all wrong...another blasphemous statement he makes in the video is that Jesus is saving us from a wrathful God, as though it is God versus Jesus instead of God versus satan.

Jesus is not saving us from God...Jesus is bringing us to God...Jesus is the path to God, and the only path at that! Jesus brings us to God by saving us from sin and death and a life of eternal torment. We are on a sailboat to hell and Jesus thankfully was sent on a rescue mission by God The Father to reverse our direction and redeem humanity back to Himself, restoring the image that sin tarnished...this is the core message of Christianity...one look at John 3.16 shows this to be true, and you don't have to have a Ph.D. in Theology to understand it!

Bell's message is basically saying to do whatever the hell you want because everyone ends up in Heaven...

That would be like a doctor who knows his patient is sick, yet tells them to go ahead and live on without worry, because in the end everything works out...

Let me conclude with one final thought. If a diabetic needs insulin to live yet chooses not to take it, they would not die just because they refused insulin. They would die because they refused to receive what insulin and only insulin can do. To an even stronger extent, people do not go to hell simply because of a refusal to believe in Jesus, as though He was some pride and joy trophy that satisfies God's ego...no, they end up in hell because Jesus not only sustains life, He restores the life God desires for us to live...Jesus is Salvation...He is THE cure to the disease...Jesus gives us victory over sin and death...

Love wins because Jesus Saves. Jesus diagnoses the problem and offers the solution. I pray for Rob Bell and his followers to come to this understanding...

Adam & Eve...Predestined To Sin?

The next few posts, I want to run some thought experiments...they deal with the issues of inconsistency in reference to our Calvinist brothers and sisters...

Not having the perspective of God Himself, I by no means claim a dogmatic declaration that my Arminian view is correct, but I want to at least put a "stone in the shoe"* of the Calvinist viewpoint, and make them think about some inconsistent doctrines they hold...I could give many examples and even point out tons of Scripture, but that will just lead to the prooftexting battle that has already gone on for centuries...so I want to take a more philosophical approach...

Calvinist will say the following: "God created Adam and Eve for a relationship with Himself, but their sin brought an end to that. God became an object of hostility to them and to us (Romans 8.7), and we all became 'objects of wrath' (Ephesians 2.3) to Him." **

Stone In The Shoe Response: If the Calvinist view is correct, then this means by default, that God predestined, and thus determined Adam and Eve to sin...God determined for the human race to be hostile towards Himself...God determined humans to be "objects of wrath."

Yet, at the same time, Calvinist will claim that God is good, loving, and perfect...which He is...but, by being good, loving, and perfect, God can not be the author of evil and sin.

Friends, how do Calvinist sleep at night? I don't see any way around this...if God is the screenwriter of determinism and predestination, then He deliberately chose Adam and Eve to sin and thus desired the human race to be separated from Himself...

Prooftext all you want, try to cherry pick your Scripture references of election (election will be discussed next) all day long, but that is simply skimming the surface instead of obtaining a deeper and more contextual understanding...

...but on the other hand, when one views Scripture as a WHOLE instead of pieces and parts, God's true character shines through...He is a God who desires***, but does not will us to love Him...thus, because of our choosing, we became objects of wrath, not because He determined it...as a result, through the incarnation, Christ becomes the Author and Perfecter of our Faith, sent on a rescue mission to redeem our incorrect choice of lust, not to cover up his predetermined plan of sin...

The next post will deal with choosing and rejecting God...What exactly does "elect" mean, and Do we have a choice in all of this?

*Greg Koukl, in his amazing book Tactics, (a MUST read for all followers of Jesus Christ) discusses this great concept of "putting a stone in their shoe." Greg is of the Reformed/Calvinist persuasion. Again, I love Calvinist, and I learn from them...I am simply trying to put a "stone in their shoe!"
**This is an excerpt from a fabulous book, The 5 Minute Theologian. Again, the author is Reformed, so it is a great book, I just happen to disagree with The Doctrine of Salvation from the inconsistent Calvinist viewpoint.
***You may claim I am prooftexting here, but I simply provide this link to show that my philosophical viewpoints are grounded in Scripture, not my own opinions.

No Chance For Chance

I was curious this morning, as I am most mornings, and I was hoping someone, specifically a naturalist, or perhaps a group of evolutionary biologists, could help me understand the pictures above.

How is it that the architecture of the PowerMac computer MUST have a designer responsible for it's creation, and that anyone with a sound mind knows that there is NO way, that it could have been put together by random events...but when some people see images from the human anatomy and think about life as we know it, they actually come to a conclusion that we are nothing more than the products of time and chance?

...there is no chance for chance...

The sooner everyone realizes this, the sooner our world will improve. Belief in evolution and naturalism does not simply stop at the discussion of origins, it bleeds into the outcomes of our decisions. The way we view and understand God shapes every fabric of life...

...it's time to stop believing in science fiction.

...Jesus is Truth. Jesus is reality.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made;
without him nothing was made that has been made.
~ John 1.1-3 ~

Loving God With All Your Mind

Wanted to follow up the last blog post with a few thoughts on Luke 10.27 and the emphasis on loving God with all our mind...

• Loving God with all of our mind would facilitate Followers of Jesus Christ in the re-shaping of culture from secular to sacred...

This is so important because understanding and loving God with our mind leads to an understanding of Christian truth...and Christian truth is the truth of reality...therefore, if there is a lack of mental discipline, then our understanding of truth goes from objective to subjective (the famous cry of "what is true for you may not be true for me.")...and a subjective truth is the foundational issue to most political, social, and cultural problems we face today...i.e. political correctness...so we need to get back to the objective truth and away from postmodern relativism...

• Knowing and Loving God with our mind is a benefit, not a detractor...when it comes to the mind and knowledge of God, some will go as far to say that knowledge takes away our need for faith...this is not true, because faith and knowledge are not enemies of each other...they complement each other...one strengthens the other...

...if knowledge is harmful to our faith, then that would mean any evidence whatsoever for Jesus Christ would actually be a bad thing...even General and Special Revelation...why would anyone believe or have faith in something in which they have no reason for believing it?...the anti-intellectualism has to stop...as important as experience and feelings are, we must base them off of truth...what happens when your friend or family member does not "feel" the need for God? Does that mean that they don't need Him? Of course not...our feelings should not be our spiritual compass...

...the Buddhist, the Hindu, Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons, atheist, etc, all have a faith in something, they all have fuzzy feelings, and feel good experiences, but that does not mean what they believe is true...The Christian on the other hand has a world view that lines up with reality...

• I am not saying we have to be sold out on Evidentialism, because I am a firm believer in The Holy Spirit and how He reveals truth...I also believe that most of what we believe as true is not something that has to proven with empirical evidence. (i.e. Love, Aesthetics and beauty, morality, thoughts, etc)

• I do want to stress what another Biola professor has stated, when he says, "our picture of God in written revelation should harmonize with what we already know about God from natural revelation." And that is precisely what The Christian, Biblical, Trinitarian God does!

• people may quote 1 Corinthians 8.1, and state that "knowledge puffs up," but I love the rebuttal J.P. Moreland gives, "If knowledge “puffs up”, the solution is not IGNORANCE. The solution is HUMILITY."

[Jesus] answered: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and,
'Love your neighbor as yourself."' ~ Luke 10.27~

Three Ways Christians Must Change

Here is a must read blog entry...it's a real quick read, titled, Three Ways Christians Must Change...it references J.P. Moreland, distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Talbot School of Theology at Biola University.

Moreland holds degrees in Chemistry, Theology, and Philosophy...he also wrote a book (among many others) that should be required reading for all Christ Followers, called Love God With All Your Mind.

God, Gekko, and Greed:Discerning Truth From Superstition

Christmas night 2010...1930 hours...as things were settling down we had decided on how to wrap up the day (pun intended)...and as huge movie fans, what better way to do it than by inviting Gordon Gekko into the living room! So I gathered together with the fam, sat by the Christmas tree, sipped on hot organic apple cider, and watched Wall Street:Money Never Sleeps.

One of my favorite things to do as I watch movies or read books is to evaluate the writing and the characterization from a world view perspective. I was pleasantly surprised tonight, because one can not watch more than a few minutes of this movie before they are rushed into worldview content!

The movie starts out with Gekko being released from prison, and as he is walking out to freedom, we hear Shia LaBeouf's character, Jake Moore, narrating about the Cambrian Explosion (mentioned at least twice in the movie) and then whether or not the human race is a product of evolution or design. I will paraphrase his narration, as he says something to the effect of, "There was a single event in history, The Cambrian Explosion, where we all evolved at once...some say we are here by evolution, some say it's by design...no one can explain it, but now we are all here."

Now, I will not go into depth about the Cambrian Explosion and evolution vs design, but suffice it to say, the Cambrian Explosion poses serious problems for those who try to defend Darwinian Macro Evolution, and there is overwhelming evidence for Intelligent Design overthrowing evolution as the origin of life.

So to move on, I want to get into a thought experiment. The movie is plastered with stereotypical Wall Street persona...the cut throat, stab-in-the-back, 'eat your own,' strategies of big business, where personal worth is defined by net worth and egos are measured by the size of one's bank account. Thus, we see an evolutionary theme peppered through out the movie...characteristics of social Darwinism, where Wall Street traders and corporate raiders are on the prowl in a contest of 'survival of the fittest.'

So here is the thought: If Darwinian evolution is true and we do live in a survival of the fittest environment, then why would it matter if people used insider information and spread false rumors in order to make personal gain? Why do we see pain and suffering in the characters of this movie who get wronged? Why did Gekko ever go to prison in the first place in the original movie? If evolution is true, then this is how things should work, and those who get destroyed in the process simply are not fit to survive and the evolution mechanism continues to do its thing...

...but those who are intellectually honest know why. It's because man is made "Imago Dei"...in the Image of God...we are created in God's image and therefore have inherent value independent of our utility or function.

Unlike animals in the wild, we have a moral code, a moral law, and a moral law needs a moral law giver = God of The Bible. Even those who believe in evolution know it. They just simply deny it. They may, in theory, believe in evolution, but in reality, they live in God's world.

We know this is true because as the people of Wall Street are cheating and scheming, those who believe in evolution say that it is wrong and that those guilty should be punished. But on what grounds do those who believe in the origins of life happening via chance, have to call something right or wrong?

Even Gekko's famous quote, "Greed is good," has implications. When it comes to cheating and lying, or whether greed is good or bad, if evolution is true, how do we know how to categorize lying vs honesty or good vs bad. Dishonest actions and evil scheming should simply be strategies for survival and greed should simply be a technique used by the fittest of all...but anyone who actually thinks about life and is aware of truth, knows deep down inside that explanation of life outside of God is mere superstition.

We even see this in the movie, as Jake Moore goes onto say, "It's funny. The more we found ourselves as the slaves of chance... the more superstitious we become."

Superstition sums up evolutionary theory. It's nothing more than a way to rationalize one's denial of a Creator God. And as Moore's character at the beginning of the movie says, "...no one can explain it, but now we are all here," I want to say that it's not a matter of explaining, it's a matter of accepting...

The explanation comes via accurate historical documents contained in The Holy Bible as well as Jesus of Nazareth, The One who was sent on a rescue mission for all of humanity. The Bible teaches it and reality confirms it. All one has to do is observe life and accept the reality of truth.

Greed is not defined by what something costs, but by what it costs you.

If anything costs your faith or your family, the price is too high. ~Max Lucado~