How to Understand and Apply the Bible, Lesson 7
Welcome to 30 minute classes, a course of 15 Bible lessons, all about 30 minutes each. Our topic for this course is “How to Understand and Apply the Bible.” In this seventh lesson, we’ll give you some ‘Practical Rules for Understanding and Applying the Bible.’
But let's first do some review. So, we’ve laid a foundation with the Doctrine of Scripture.
We’ve learned that the Bible is authoritative. It is powerful and it creates obligations. We’ve learned that the Bible is inspired. It’s breathed out by God. The Bible is inerrant. There’s no errors in it. And the Bible is infallible, it cannot err. We also learned that the Bible is sufficient. It gives us all the words we need for salvation, faith, and life. The Bible is clear. It’s understandable—clear enough for each of us to perform our present responsibilities. The Bible is complete. There’s no new revelation, no one’s adding to God’s words. And lastly, the Bible is effective. It always does just what it was intended to do. Alright. So, those are some attributes of the Bible.
And if those weren’t enough reasons to feast on God’s word, we then listed eight reasons why you SHOULD study the Bible. Remember these? 1. Truth, 2. Happiness, 3. Victory over Satan, 4. Victory over demons, 5. Victory over temptation, 6. Growth, 7. Power, and 8. Guidance.
And then after that we asked, “WHO Can Study the Bible?” and we listed 6 qualifications or requirements. And let's slow down a bit here and re-look at these. Now, it’s not that you can’t read or study the Bible without these, but it’s just that you won’t be as successful. And I want to set you up for success. So, six requirements. 1. You must be a believer. 2. You must be diligent. 3. You must be holy. 4. You must have the desire. 5. You must be led by the Spirit. And 6. You must be prayerful.
Alright. Number one. You must be a believer. You need the Holy Spirit to help you understand God’s words. 1 Corinthians 2:14, says that “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.”
The natural person, the unbeliever, the non-Christian won’t be successful in understanding and applying the Bible. We need to be spiritual, we need the Holy Spirit.
Requirement, number two. You must be diligent. We talked about the example of the Bereans. Remember this group of Jews from Paul’s first missionary journey? After facing persecution in Thessalonica: “The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived they went into the Jewish synagogue. Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.”
So, they were diligent. With eagerness, they examined the Scriptures.
I combined requirements three and four. You must be holy and you must have the desire. 1 Peter 2:1-2. It says:
“So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation.”
We first empty ourselves of those things, and then we’ll have space to fill up on spiritual milk.
And then you can see how desire becomes the next requirement—number four. With empty stomachs, we get hungry. We crave food. And then that satisfaction we get from a full stomach, it just creates more desire.
Next is: You Must Be Led By the Spirit. The Spirit ‘guides us into all truth.’ John 16:13.
The Holy Spirit always testifies to Jesus, Jesus is the Word. The Spirit always points us back to God’s words, the Bible.
And lastly: You must be prayerful. Remember Paul wrote the Ephesians that his prayer was that the eyes of your hearts be enlightened.” It’s through prayer that we receive insight.
Alright. so six qualifications or requirements: You must be a believer. You must be diligent. You must be holy. You must have the desire. You must be led by the Spirit. And you must be prayerful.
Let’s get into today’s lesson, and this may actually be one of the ones you’ve been waiting for from the very start. We’re finally gonna get into hermeneutics, or the study of biblical interpretation. So, we first laid a foundation with the doctrine of Scripture, and then we built a framework of why we should study the Bible, and how we can be successful. Or, to use our food analogy, we first set out the buffet, and then we handed you a plate, and a knife and fork. And now it’s time to dig in. It’s time to get into the Bible, and start trying to understand it and apply it.
So, I wanna give you some practical rules for understanding and applying the Bible. These rules, I believe, give us the best chance of interpreting God’s word in a way that honors him.
The great Reformer, Martin Luther, fought hard in the sixteenth century to win back for the church, away from the Pope, the right to read and interpret the Bible for ourselves. Remember Martin Luther, that great hero of the faith? For hundreds of years, during the middle ages, the church was run by the papacy, who tried to claim sole authority over the Bible. They taught the Bible in a language that the people didn’t understand, and they wouldn’t let those people read it for themselves. The church had gotten off track, and Martin Luther, by the grace of God, helped get it back on course.
We know the story, he did what no one else dared do, he challenged the Pope. He nailed the 95 theses to the church door, his list of grievences, demanding that the church be reformed. He was quickly brought to trial before the Emperor under threat of execution, and when given the chance to recant, he gave us his famous speech. He said:
“Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Holy Scriptures or by evident reason—for I believe neither pope nor councils alone, as it is clear that they have erred repeatedly and contradicted themselves—I consider myself convicted by the testimony of the Holy Scriptures, which is my basis”
And then those famous words . . .
“My conscience is captive to the Word of God. Thus I cannot and will not recant, because acting against one’s conscience is neither safe nor sound. Here I stand; I can do no other. God help me. Amen.”
Incredibly bold. Luther did narrowly escape with his life. After his trial, his friends in high places snuck it out and kept him in hiding until the movement had a chance to take over. We owe a great debt to Luther and his Reformation. That we can read and interpret the Bible for ourselves is both an honor and a privilege. We must take our responsibility seriously. It’s not something to take lightly, and it’s not something that we just jump into without some instruction. It’s crucial that we follow some basic rules. Now, I think THESE rules, the ones I have for you here will help you be responsible. These aren’t the only rules, but they are the ones that I consider to be most important. Let’s work our way through these rules.
First rule, and probably most basic: When we read the Bible, we read it literally. We read it like it’s literature. Literal and literature both have the same latin root, litera, it means letter. We must read the Bible like it’s a book with letters, words, sentences, and paragraphs. When we read the Bible we follow the normal rules of grammar. The Bible IS a special book, certainly, BUT in the Bible a subject is still a subject, a verb is still a verb. It’s still a book.
Now, even with this most basic rule, some people freak out. They say, but the Bible’s filled with mysterious religious language, it’s all symbolic. Yes, there are symbols in the Bible, but the Bible itself usually tells you when something’s a symbol. So, to read a symbol AS a symbol is still to read the Bible literally. Did you catch that? Reading symbols as symbols IS reading the Bible literally. A literal reading of the Bible always takes into account things like figures of speech.
John 10:9, for example, Jesus says: “I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved.” Now, this is obviously a figure of speech. We know that Jesus was not really a door, made of wood. He didn’t have hinges or a door handle. No, that’s a figure of speech. So, to read the Bible literally, does not mean that we must think that Jesus is literally a door. That would be silly. We read it in its normal sense. And like I said the Bible often helps us by telling us something’s a symbol. John 10:6 says, “This figure of speech Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.” So, let’s don’t be like Jesus’ audience who didn’t get that this was an obvious figure of speech. Let’s don’t make that mistake.
Now, we do, however, recognize different literary genres in the Bible. We know what genres are: different categories of writing. Some people read romance novels, for example, or science fiction or fantasy. These are genres. And then even within one of those books you can get different writing styles.
So, with the Bible, remember it’s a book of many books. 66 of them, and they’re not all the same genre. There’s history and there’s poetry. There’s biography and there’s prophecy. So, reading the Bible literally actually takes into account all these genres, and we read them accordingly. People often think that reading the Bible literally means that we ignore genres, but no, we read and interpret the Bible in its plain sense, according to genre. Sometimes, the plain sense is poetry; sometimes its prophecy.
So, first, read the Bible literally.
Next rule: Don’t personalize, spiritualize, or allegorize the Bible.
So, personalizing the Bible. This is actually really common, and many of us do this. This is when we study the Bible, asking ourselves the question, “ok, so what does this mean TO ME?” Now, we absolutely DO want to apply Scripture personally. We want it to be applicable to our lives. But first we have to ask what the Scripture meant to the one who actually wrote. The author always had something to say; something he wanted to get across. So, we owe it to the author to first figure out his original meaning, before we ask what it means to me.
If I wrote a book, and my readers all just kinda read it and then told me what they thought it said, what they thought it meant to them. I’d say, no, that’s not okay. I meant something when I wrote, and I made it pretty clear. You don’t get to decide what I meant. So, we owe it to the author to take him at his word. And of course, God is ultimately the author. So, we have to let God tell us what he meant.
But we hear this all the time. Someone saying, “Well, that’s just not how I read that passage; that may be your interpretation, and that’s fine for you, but I have a different interpretation.”
But you gotta know that there’s just one meaning, the meaning given by the author. So our goal is to go back to the original context and try to figure out what he meant [as best as we can], and then, from there, we’re free to make some personal application.
And you gotta believe that we do this, for the most part, when we don’t like what we read. We’re quick to say, we’ll, it can’t mean that. I want it to mean THIS instead. But, as we study the Bible, we should be prepared to hear some things that we’re not gonna like. Jesus often followed one of his difficult teachings, by saying, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” Meaning, hey, this is gonna be tough to hear, but WILL YOU hear it? Do you have ears to hear?
So, we gotta be careful not to personalize Scripture. It’s not ‘what does the Bible say to me’, but ‘what does the Bible ACTUALLY SAY’, and it’s only after that we figure out what it originally said, that then we apply that to our personal lives.
Next is spiritualizing. We’re often guilty of spiritualizing Scripture. Sometimes, we’ll read something that we don’t like, and instead of reading it naturally or taking it in its plain sense, we simply spiritualize it away. We say, “oh, we don’t really need to do what it says there, that’s just something spiritual”—whatever that means, and we give the passage some wispy, ethereal meaning. But what we’re really doing is just trying to remove any obligation. We wanna eliminate any responsibility on our part to respond to Scripture with obedience. So we just spiritualize it away.
So, we personalize Scripture, we make it mean something personal to us that was never really intended by the author. And we spiritualize Scripture, we make it mean LESS THAN what it really says. We spiritualize it away, so it becomes meaningless. And then sometimes, we allegorize Scripture.
What is allegorizing Scripture? That’s when we make the passage mean MORE THAN what it really says. And this was common early on in church history, with some of the church fathers. They thought that the Bible had mysterious, hidden, secret messages. It was like a code that had to be broken. So, they’d just make up stories, essentially, about what the passage meant. And you can see how that might be dangerous, to let the imagination run wild like that.
So we have to be careful not to personalize, spiritualize, or allegorize. We’re trying to figure out what the author meant, not what it means to us. And we don’t want to make it mean less than intended, OR make it mean more than intended.
Alright. Next rule. We want to let scripture interpret scripture. So, the Bible will never contradict itself. We talked about how God cannot lie. He also doesn’t contradict himself. God will not say something in Scripture somewhere and then turn around and say the opposite somewhere else. The Bible is consistent. So, as you’re studying, if you come across a passage that seems to say something confusing, it may be that it says something similar somewhere else, in a way that’s more clear. So, rather than accusing the Bible of being contradictory, we should give the author the benefit of the doubt and let the one part of Scripture, the more clear part, interpret the other, more confusing part.
And this next rule is similar. Get the implicit meaning of a passage from the more explicit passage. We do sometimes imply things from Scripture. Something is not said in Scripture, but it’s kinda implied. We might say that it’s only implicit, there in the Bible. But we have to be careful when something is only implicit, and isn’t stated explicitly. If there’s ever a question between two interpretations, we need to go with what’s actually stated, rather than what’s implied.
For example, some people have said that gender and sexuality don’t really matter because in heaven there are no genders or sexes. And they look to Mark 12:25 for support. Mark 12:25 says:
“For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.”
So, Jesus is answering a question regarding the resurrection. What we will be like in heaven. And Jesus says that we won’t marry or be given in marriage, but we will be unmarried like the angels are.
Now, what did Jesus actually say? Did he say there are no genders or sexes in heaven? No. He said there is no marriage or given in marriage. Now, some have implied that there are no genders or sexes in heaven, BUT we have to look at what was said, what’s actually there. Jesus didn’t say there are no genders or sexes in heaven.
Now I suppose the inference is not crazy, it might even be possible, BUT it’s not an absolutely necessary inference. And we could also just go over to Matthew 17 to the Transfiguration where Elijah and Moses showed up. They were there in their resurrected bodies. They weren't genderless, they were recognizably men. Peter wanted to set up some tents for everybody, so they could all hang out. Or we could go to John 20 where Thomas had no more doubts after touching the risen Jesus. Jesus was a recognizable man.
So, explicit Scripture takes precedence over implicit reading between the lines.
Next rule, pay attention to words. God communicates in the Bible verbally, using words. Misuse and misunderstanding of the words of Scripture has caused all kinds of problems. It’s important that we get the words right.
There’s a couple ways that we can analyze words. One way is to look at their etymology, their roots and their origins. For example, the word hippopotamus, can be broken down according to its roots and origin. Hippo is Greek and it means ‘horse.’ And Potatmas, also Gree, means ‘river’, so a hippopotamus is a ‘river horse.’ So that’s its etymology, its roots and origin.
Another way to analyze a word is by its usage—how it’s used in a certain context. And we know that words are used differently, in different places, and over time. For example, when Shakespeare, writing in Elizabethan English, wrote that a young woman was cute, it meant that she was bow-legged. Look at that cute girl. She’s bow-legged. That’s not at all what we mean today. So how the word is used in a certain context is important.
Another way we let words confuse us is when we take a familiar theological word, and think it means the same thing in every instance. Take the word salvation, for example. We usually think of it only in terms of Jesus’ redemption. Which is understandable. We expect that to be the case most of the time. But what about in 1 Timothy 2:14-15, that reads “Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.”
So, it says that women are saved through childbearing. What? That can’t be right. Women aren’t saved through childbearing. What’s this all about? Well, the word ‘saved’ in this case is not talking about Jesus’ redemption. It can’t be talking about redemption because we know that people aren’t saved by works but by grace through faith in Christ.
Saved in this verse means ‘rescued.’ Women are rescued through childbirth. So, when the human race fell, through Adam and Eve back in the garden, it’s like all of humanity is now on a sinking ship and we’re going down fast. But there is hope, woman is like a life-preserver, or better, she’s a life-giver. The name Eve actually means life-giver. In giving life to the human race,she pulls us out. And not just in birthing babies, but also in bearing them. She keeps the human race from drowning by infusing life into the human race.
So, even if we think we’ve got the word right—certainly saved usually means salvation in the Bible, we still gotta be careful with words. In this case it meant something else. So we gotta check the etymology and the usage.
And I’ll plug a website here that I use often. It’s great for word studies. It’s blueletterbible.org. It’s awesome. It’s a dictionary, a concordance, a lexicon, all in one. Check it out.
Alright, a couple more rules before we’re finished.
So, we know that the Bible was written thousands of years ago, so how do we make it relevant to our lives today? Is everything in the Bible just kinda stuck in the past? Is it all just the cultural practices of some ancient peoples who lived on the other side of the planet, OR are there some timeless principles in the Bible that cross over time and culture? That’s part of the challenge of understanding and applying Scripture.
So, how do we decide between cultural practices to be left behind and the timeless principles to be carried on into our lives?
Well, we can easily think of some things that are obviously cultural like food, language, and clothing. We’re not, of course, expected to eat, talk, or dress like people from other cultures, from earlier times, in other areas of the world.
And in the Bible, we see some of those cultural practices get left behind. We know that some old Jewish food customs were changed by Jesus himself. Mark 7:18-19 says, “And Jesus said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.).”
But then there are some aspects of language, for example, that are timeless principles. The Bible addresses the way we talk, but without specifying the exact words. Eph 5:3-4 says,
“But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving.”
So, obscenity, foolish talk, coarse joking. Every culture has language that’s meant to shock and offend. Now, we don’t know which words the Ephesians were using, but Paul said that they were improper for God’s holy people. Now, we understand that it’s not that we shouldn’t use those exact words that they were using, the ones the Ephesians were using (whatever they were), but there’s a principle there that transcends culture.
We KNOW what words we shouldn’t use today, and if you have to ask about a particular word, then you can probably assume that, yes don’t use that word. I mean com’on. Paul said ‘not even a hint of immorality or impurity.’
So, we talked about food and language. What about clothing? Everyone always wants to point to women’s head coverings in Corinth and ask if it is custom or principle. Let’s look at that. The passage is 1Corinthians 11:2-16. I won’t read the entire passage, we’re short on time.
But it says, “Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head, but every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, since it is the same as if her head were shaven. For if a wife will not cover her head, then she should cut her hair short. But since it is disgraceful for a wife to cut off her hair or shave her head, let her cover her head.”
So, Paul told the women in Corinth to cover their heads in church. But what about us today? Is that just a cultural thing? Or is there a timeless principle there? There’s certainly a cultural custom there. We know much of ancient dress was like drapery—both men and women wore long, flowy, dresses or cloaks that could be pulled up over the head. Certainly it would’ve been practical in the sunny climate, but it also was for modesty.
Paul brought it up because, verse 3, “I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.” So Paul is telling us how God wanted husbands and wives to relate to each other. That the husband was the leader of the home and that men would lead the church. And that the wife should use this head covering as, verse 10, as “a symbol of authority on her head.” So, the head coverings were in fact a cultural custom, showing a wife’s modesty and her submission to her husband, but there are timeless principles there too. It’s just that ‘the symbol of authority’ might look different today. So, wives, we could ask ourselves, how am I today, currently, showing that I’m under my husband’s leadership. Is it evident to those around me that I’m following the biblical principle?
Now, clothing is cultural, we know that, but modesty is not. We should all dress modestly. It was God, after all, who covered Adam and Eve’s nakedness. He gave them clothes to wear on their way out of the garden, and there set a standard for dress.
In fact, when looking for timeless principles, it’s always best to go back to the beginning of the Bible, to Adam and Eve, to Noah, and to Moses. At Creation, for example, God gave ordinances, or laws for life, that were meant for everybody, for all time. Things like gender and sexuality, marriage and family, work, crime and punishment, it’s all there. And then God also gave the Ten Commandments, which were just the working out of those ordinances. So, if there’s a question about a cultural issue, it’s always a good idea to go back to the beginning. If fact, that’s what Jesus and Paul did.
When Jesus was questioned about men divorcing their wives. Jesus responded in Matthew 19:8. He said it was “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.” The timeless principle was there in the beginning, he said, so stick to that.
And when Paul anticipated questions about the husband's authority over his wife, in that passage about the head coverings we’re looking at, Paul talked about the Eve being created from Adam, for Adam. We went back to the beginning. Paul did that again in his letter to Timothy when he restricted the pastor-elder role in the church to men only. He went back to creation.
So, things like food, language, and clothing are mostly cultural. But often there is a timeless principle that we can’t just dismiss—they are truths that we must apply today. And often, if we aren’t certain of what they are, we can always refer them back to the creation ordinances and the Ten Commandments. Certainly for things like gender and sexuality.
Alright. We’ve got to finish this up.
So, three things we can look for in any passage to help us with application. One, the Bible will always leave us with something that we can do—some duties, for example, and two, it’ll also tell us what kind of person we want to become (it’ll give us some ways to help us improve our character), and lastly, third thing, it will point us in the direction that we need to go—it’ll give us some goals. So, I like those categories. I got those from Daniel Doriani’s Putting The Truth to Work.
Just some things to think about as you're looking for application. See if you can draw out some duties, character, and goals.
Alright. We’re out of time. Thanks for listening to this lesson. Hope you’ll continue on to the next one, as we continue to learn ABOUT God AND how to live for him.
SOURCES:
Sproul, R.C. Knowing Scripture. InterVarsity Press, 2009.
Doriani, Daniel. Putting the Truth to Work. P&R Publishing, 2001.