Lecture 2.docx

All right, with that as background, let's now come to the actual course outline that we're going to be developing during these class sessions. And we begin by introducing ourselves to Bible study. And there are three basic components to Bible study. The first is observation. Saturating ourselves wit...

All right, with that as background, let's now come to the actual course outline that we're going to be developing during these class sessions. And we begin by introducing ourselves to Bible study. And there are three basic components to Bible study. The first is observation. Saturating ourselves with the particulars of the biblical text. And there is no plan B. The observation is really reading and rereading and rereading the biblical text. And I mean the complete biblical text, beginning in Genesis and going all the way through Revelation. Now a first basic observation concerning the Bible is the uneven nature of the Old Testament in relationship to the New Testament. What I mean by this is that 22% of the Bible is the New Testament. 78% of the Bible is the Old Testament. Now here's a very significant observation. We spend about 90% of our time in 22% of the Bible. And we hope believers spend at least 10% in the other 78% of the Bible. Take a look at 2 Timothy chapter 3. Paul is speaking to Timothy beginning in verse 14 in the context of false teachers, deceivers. He says, You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you've learned them, and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Jesus, in Christ Jesus. Okay, Timothy, since childhood you have known the sacred writings which can lead to salvation through faith which is in the Messiah Jesus. Now those sacred writings were the Old Testaments. Probably the childhood of Timothy, Timothy was probably closing in his late 30s when this was written to him by Paul in the mid 60s. So that his early years would have been somewhere around AD 30. In other words, his childhood years 30 to 35 and there was no New Testament written at that point. And yet he's known from the childhood the sacred writings that are able to give you this wisdom. It's in that context, in verse 16, Paul goes on to affirm the importance of all scripture. All scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. The same scripture that is able to bring one to salvation is the same scripture that allows one to grow as a man of God. And so tying in the sacred writings, the scripture in verse 16, first and foremost what scripture is Paul affirming in this context is God-breathed and profitable for even the man of faith in Jesus Christ, the man of God to be equipped for every good work. It is the Old Testament. Now certainly in 1 Timothy chapter 5, Paul as he's writing earlier to Timothy, as put in chapter 5 verse 18, New Testament scripture on a par with Old Testament scripture, but notice that he quotes the Old Testament first, 1 Timothy 5, 18, for the scripture says, You shall not muzzle the ox while he is threshing. He goes back to Deuteronomy chapter 25 verse 4, and the laborer is worthy of his hire. Luke chapter 10 verse 7. The scripture says, and he puts together an Old Testament passage and New Testament passage. So certainly when he speaks about all scripture in 2 Timothy 3, 16, even though the immediate context, he is first speaking about the Old Testament, just as he does in 1 Timothy 5, quotes the Old Testament first and the same principle is also seen in the New Testament as well. That the New Testament partakes of the same character as God-breathed scripture has did the Old Testament. But notice for Paul as he writes to Timothy, it is the fact, if I can put it this way, the New Testament measures up to the Old Testament, not that the Old Testament measures up to the New. At first and foremost, what is God-breathed is the Old Testament. And like unto that, also God-breathed all scripture, including the New Testament now. And so yes, we can use this to refer to all of the Bible, but it's highly significant when we think about all scripture being God-breathed and profitable, we automatically think of the New Testament. Whereas if we think in terms of the context in which the verse is given, our first thought should be, yes, all scripture is God-breathed and profitable, and that begins with the Old Testament. So gentlemen, by placement, by length, and even by use in the New Testament, we are reminded that truly to understand the New Testament is to understand the Old Testament foundation. Now I know after the years of teaching this class, by the time we get to the New Testament, I'm going to have students who come will say, I never saw that passage in the New Testament in that light, but now I keep hearing, in fact I hear this a six or one all the time, I keep hearing the echoes of the Old Testament every place I read the New Testament. Praise the Lord. That's the way it should be. You should be continually hearing echoes of the Old Testament in the New Testament. And all of a sudden the New Testament starts to take on, talk about color, it takes on color that it never had before your reading and going through the Old Testament. So by sheer length and by placements and by New Testament emphasis, we realize the importance of the Old Testament for the Christian believer. Now let me also put in the middle between the Old and New Testament the life of the incarnate Jesus Christ. It is that life that is anticipated in the Old Testament and to which the New Testament looks back. Now it is significant, here's another observation, Jesus Christ came to this earth and wrote nothing canonically. I know John 8, he wrote with his finger, he knew how to write, but it's significant that the Son of God becomes incarnate in human flesh and speaks much, but he writes nothing for posterity. Everything that he says is continually referring back to the Old Testament and then John 16, the words that he spoke were remembered by his disciples, his apostles to become then the foundation of the New Testament. The New Testament like the Old Testament is written by servants of God not by the Son of God. And so in between is the life of Christ. This is what the Old Testament was pointing to. It's interesting, Matthew begins with the genealogy that reminds us of the Old Testament promises given to David and to Abraham. And just through names reminds us of the Old Testament history as a preparation then for what God did in the person and work of Jesus Christ. And then the New Testament from the Gospel writers to the writer Luke of Acts and the letters and only revelation are looking back and showing the significance of what God did in sending Jesus Christ to the earth. And so the centerpiece of the Bible is the life of Christ anticipated and then looked back to. And so shows us the Christo centric nature of all of scripture. It's a Theo centric, Christo centric because God has been pleased to reveal himself to mankind both before and after the incarnation through Jesus Christ. No man is seeing God at any time. The only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known. He has revealed him. Psalm 118. So Jesus Christ has always been the means of revelation to man. Now certainly in Revelation chapter 4, John sees in heaven the one seed upon the throne. So I think what we're talking about is an earthly manifestation. When we get before the heavenly court, we too will see the Father. And I know that's the Father, the one who sits upon the throne because the lamb who was slain is the one in chapter 5 who goes and takes the scroll out of his right hand and breaks the seals because he's worthy to do so. Chapter 5 then gets into the breaking of the seals in chapter 6. But John sees the Father. So we will see the Father. So when John himself says, it is the Son who has made him known, I think it means an earthly manifestation. So that no man upon the earth has ever seen the Father. The revelation is always through the Son. By the way, we'll talk a little bit about that as we go through the Old Testament in what is known as theophanies, appearances of God to men in the Old Testament. When Yahweh comes and speaks and appears to men and gives visions to the prophets, etc. Who was speaking? Who was being seen? Well, on the basis of John 1.18, it seems to be the pre-incarnate Christ. The manifestation of the man upon the earth has always been through means of Jesus Christ. By the way, all the way into the millennium and the eternal state, how ultimately is God going to be known? We will see God, but still, the means basically of the manifestation of God to man will be through the person of Jesus Christ. Well, you can pick that up in Christology. I said I'd keep talking about where theology will pick up where we leave off. So you can get a little bit more of that. I believe in theology 2, theology 3 as well. That comes up. All right, now moving beyond the Bible as a whole, we get into the content and realize that the Bible is broken down into books, but books that find relationship in a unit of material. Now we're going to see later that when it comes to the Torah or the law or the Pentateuch that that is a literary unit based upon common authorship. When we get to the prophets, we have four distinct prophets who write reflecting upon Israel's history. And then we have the anthologies of prophetic oracles and writings that are brought together in Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the 12. These are distinct books, but they, because of commonalities, find themselves in the same block of material and also in the writing. So one of the things as far as context is to know, number one, when we're dealing with a biblical book, what testament is it in? Is it in the Old Testament or New Testament? I don't think you came to seminary to find out which books were in the Old Testament or New Testament. You probably already know that. If I say Joshua, you know that's Old Testament. You know if I say Acts, you know that's New Testament. But then we get just a little further. What about the blocks then that make up the Old and the New Testaments? Where does the book fit? Not just as far as testaments, but as far as block. Where does Joshua fit? Joshua is the first book of the prophets, and the prophets are divided between the former prophets and the latter prophets, and Joshua is the first of the former prophets. And you say, well why is that important? Well hang on, we'll get to that when we get to Joshua. All right, but this is all part of starting to find out the context of the biblical books. And so I gave you a chart when we come to the Old Testament because we have to determine as we come to the Old Testament which order are we going to use. Now I'm going to follow the Jewish order. Now during this course I'm going to show you some charts that come from the chronological charts of the Old Testament. All right, and that's what it looks like. And the author is John Walton and published by Zondavan. Now I can show you the charts, but you cannot reproduce the charts. You have to get the book if you want to use them. All right. So now my charts I give you that are in the notes, you can do whatever you want with those. There's no copyright on those, but on these charts there is. And I use a chart because he has charted out the distinction between the Hebrew arrangement and classification and the English arrangement and classification. The Old Testament in the Jewish tradition is divided into three sections. The Torah, the prophets, which itself is subdivided between the former and latter prophets, and then the writings. The English Old Testament is subdivided into four divisions as he shows. The law, which is equal to the Torah as far as the Hebrew canon is concerned. So Genesis 1 through Deuteronomy 34 is exactly equal in the Hebrew arrangement and the English. And then the second portion is what we call the books of history beginning with Joshua and going through Esther. By the way, this is the books that we are going to look at in this course because it was devised in the curriculum by someone who followed the order of the English text. And then we have poetry and wisdom, Job through Song of Solomon, followed by the prophets, which are subdivided in the English text as the major prophets and the minor prophets. And of course also includes Lamentations, which was traditionally thought to be by Jeremiah, one of the major prophets. And of course Daniel is also included in that as far as the English version. And the English order goes back to the Vulgate, which goes back to the Septuagint. And so in translating the Bible from Hebrew into Greek, not only was the text translated, but also the order of the books was changed as well. Now the question comes, all right, which is the way God wants us to read the Old Testament? And the answer ultimately is he wants us to read what is in the Old Testament because all scripture is God-breathed. So why do we follow the Hebrew order instead of the Greek order? And I'm not going to say because one is right and the other is wrong. But what I will say is, is that the Hebrew order has warrant in the New Testament. And the order seen in our English Bibles does not. Read if you would to Luke chapter 24, Luke 24, verse 44. These are Jesus' final words to the apostles as recorded by Luke. Now he, that is Jesus, said to them, that is the disciples, these are my words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. That's Jesus' way of saying all that is written about me in what we now call the Old Testament must be fulfilled. This is like saying all scripture is God-breathed and profitable. So all scripture, all of the Old Testament is referred to by Christ as the law, the prophets and the Psalms and the Psalms was the first book in the writings, the third division of the Old Testament canon. We have Christ incarnate referring to the Old Testament and of course he can use other terminology too. The law, you have to look within the context, is that something within the first five books referring to scripture because all of the Old Testament in Christ's day could be referred to as law, as God's instruction or the law and the prophets was as a shorthand for the law, the prophets, the writings or as Luke spells it out in Luke chapter 24, the threefold division. So following the example of Jesus, going back to Walton's chart and these charts are found in most of the study Bibles as well. Here's the Hebrew classification, here's the English classification and arrangement. But what we are going to do is follow the Hebrew order and so as you take a look at the course schedule you'll realize that you don't read Ruth with judges. You're going to read Ruth at the beginning of the writings that are included in this class, this course after you complete Kings. You're also going to read Esther before Ezra and Nehemiah. The last book we're going to look at is Chronicles and why? Because we're going to even in those writings follow basically how these books appear in the Old Testament order as far as the Hebrew canon to this day follows this order. This is the Tanuk, Torah, prophets, Nehemiah and the writings, Ketibim and so you can see how Tanuk and here's your three consonants that make that Old Testament. By the way never refer to, never state to a Jewish person this is in the Old Testament. They don't have a New Testament. To a Jewish person always say in the Tanuk. That means in the law, the prophets and the writings. This is their Old Testament scripture. And what I've done is note and see how this threefold vision when we get to word count approximately the first quarter of the Old Testament is the Torah and then approximately half of the prophets almost evenly divided between the former and latter prophets and then the writings. By the way it is significant that I put Old and New Testament together notice how the Torah is almost equal in length to all of the New Testament. So one of the first observations you're going to make about reading the Torah is it's long and it is. And this is what Israel was to hear you know Sabbath by Sabbath and sabbatical year by sabbatical year. And this becomes foundational to the rest of scripture. So here is about a quarter is the Torah and then about half just a little under half is the prophets and then the final quarter is the writings. And by the way the prophets and the writings continually refer back to what? The Torah. It's foundational. And even when you put the Old and New Testament together as far as percentages again you see how vital that the Torah really is about one fifth of the total Bible. And to a certain extent everything that God was going to reveal in the canon in skeletal form is all in the Torah. When Jesus Christ said that all things must be fulfilled concerning me he began where? With Moses. Everything in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms concerning me must be fulfilled. So the foundation and Jesus Christ sees that foundation as being the law the Torah. In fact you can say in John chapter 5 what if he believed in Moses you would what? Believe in me. Because he what? Wrote of me. So if you really follow Moses you believe me. He wrote concerning me. That doesn't mean every last word was Christ Christ Christ Christ Christ. But essentially to understand Moses is to be prepared to have faith in Jesus as the Messiah. That's what Jesus was affirming there in John chapter 5. Well in the same way that the Old Testament has these three divisions same thing in the New Testaments. We have the first five books the first 60 percent of the New Testament is the historical books followed by the epistles followed by finally one book the book of Revelation. You can follow along with the notes because I have those books listed out for you but I also I gave them to you also in this chart. And again realize that in the New Testament the Gospels and Acts make up 60 percent of the total but only a little over 13 percent of the total Bible. Now the Pauline letters that which we concentrate on and well we should he was the apostle of the Gentiles. You would notice the Pauline letters make up approximately five percent of all of the Bible. I would say the average TMS grad preaches 50 percent of their messages from the Pauline letters and yet they make up only five percent of the Bible. Well you better learn like Doc McArthur to jump off from Paul and get a whole lot more of the Bible into your messages. Else you're going to leave your people somewhat impoverished not so much theologically because I think Paul gets the essence of everything that Gentile Christians are to know. No problem with that as I said he's the apostle of the Gentiles. But to really understand Paul is to understand him within the context of the total canon. He certainly knew Moses. He certainly knew the prophets. He certainly knew the writings. And again is much more understandable. And the letters themselves all the way from Romans to Jude only make up about seven and a half percent of the Bible. Probably 75 percent of TMS men preach from seven point five percent of the Bible. Now this is anecdotal it only comes from me interacting as I do with alumni and what are you preaching these days? And it's almost like it's going to be something from Romans to Jude. It's going to be a gospel and at times revelation. By the way men who are consistently from graduate of the seminary preaching the Old Testament are few and far between. Is that good? As far as it goes yes. I'm just glad they're expositing scripture. Could I wish they do a little bit more of the Old Testament? Yeah. So that's why I have you for the next two semesters trying to help you to move from Old Testament understanding ultimately to Old Testament preaching. Of course having said that I'm assigned to teach chapel next week and I'm going to preach from the New Testament. Maybe I'll have an epiphany over the weekend. Maybe I'll end up doing the Old Testament. See I don't even follow my own advice. All right well going back okay here are the the blocks and then obviously within these blocks are individual books. I have no problem with the individual books except for the Torah. Gentlemen there is biblically no such thing as the book of Genesis all the way through the book of Deuteronomy. You will search in vain for that nomenclature. All right it's always the Torah the law the law of Moses the book of the law of Moses etc. Other than that yes we're dealing with books. Now when I say that first and second Samuel first and second Kings first and second Chronicles are one book. They have been divided since obviously the New Testament was made up of 27 books. First and second Corinthians aren't you know the same letter that has been divided within the canon that we have. There are two distinct letters that Paul sent to the Corinthian church. So the book as a whole and we can say that from Joshua on so the basically 62 of the 67 books that make up the Bible 6 I'm sorry the 66 61 of the 66 only problem we have to realign our thinking is with the Torah. But each book as a whole is divided into divisions and sections and segments that basically come to the unit of study for preaching which is the paragraph. And what you're going to find out is that basically paragraphs on down through the words that make up the phrases and clauses that make up the sentences that make up the paragraphs and in many ways obviously sentences are verses in our Bibles not always but sometimes there are less than a verse many times more I mean a sentence many times more. But the whole idea of having verses is here's the basic sentence and then the paragraph and we don't have paragraphs we have broken down segments which is you know basically where from the top down we come and this is where OT and NT studies. This is where we're going to spend the bulk of our time that's part of our purpose you know to understand the books within their context to understand the structure of the books. And that's why I want you to go through and read the books chapter by chapter segment by segment because these are the blocks that then build into the sections that build into the divisions that make up the book itself. This as a backdrop then particularly to OT and NT exegesis courses which are going to basically take that information and then come to the paragraph and analyze and exegetes given understanding of what is in the paragraph. Now gentlemen let me just give you a little bit of insight about my own study methodology. Like many of you I am not the sharpest individual when it comes to Greek and Hebrew. I can pick up the Greek text and read it and with the proper lexical aids I can do the same you know with the Hebrew. When it comes to quickly reading through a book in the original that is not my forte. I praise the Lord for the barracks and Grisantes and Murphys and Farnells and Osborns of the faculty but I'm not one of them and probably not many of you will be either. In other words if I said I want you to read through Genesis you know and just take about four or five hours to read through and get your chapter titles. I don't think many of you are saying I'm going to do that in Hebrew or going to come up and say can I do that in Hebrew? Even I can't read through Genesis in four or five hours in Hebrew. So I do that reading in what? English and you can do it in your vernacular. When do I go to my Greek and my Hebrew? When I get to the paragraph. Right now having isolated within you know the English all right here is the paragraph which for many of us as Dr. McCarthy yesterday in chapel will become the basic unit of our preaching safely from the New Testament. All right that's when I go to the Greek or to the Hebrew and obviously use that and read it and do my exegetical analysis at that point which at many times just confirms what I've already started to learn from the English. So unless you're able to really get a reading skill beyond most expositives that I know that are preaching week by week even Dr. McCarthy when he begins to get ready to exposit a book he reads and rereads the book as many times as he can over 30 days. Well that's usually in the English not in the Greek but that point is gained a good awareness and then obviously he like the rest of us pulls down his Greek testament or his Hebrew text and starts then to look at the paragraph on down in the original. So gentlemen do that. Do that as far as your study here. If you want to try out a little bit of Hebrew and Greek you know in some of your papers that's all right with me I can read it but you don't need to do it. It's not going to enhance your grade you know to say but read instead of saying covenant. It's just all right that's wonderful. I'm glad you know the Hebrew but it doesn't faze me. I mean you can put it in or you can just use the use the English because at this point I expect you to be reading the English or your vernacular. By the way something I haven't said at this point too as we're talking about the English in the Provenance of God I began seminary right at the time when the New American Standard was first published. I began in 69 71 is when the New American Standard came out. So I started my seminary studies reading the old American Standard because that was what was required and then the NASB came out and then the Provenance of God we switched and it's been my preaching Bible ever since. I don't know where things are going you know but for many of you you're probably going to preach from the ESV. It seems to be the versions catching on you know in our theological circles. I say that because I look back to those early years of studying the Bible and sometimes students can actually see me because not only do I do I remember things in the New American Standard but I even remember where they are on the page. It's almost like you can almost see me you know I know where that is and I'm looking for it and if I use a Bible that is like this not my original single column New American Standard I mean I'm looking all over the place because I know it's there somewhere and it's very interesting that Dr. MacArthur himself when he first came out with the study Bible he tried to preach from his own study Bible and went back to the New American Standard because he knew where everything was. It's the worst thing in the middle of your sermon to want to say something in the Bible and you can't find it. I know when the study Bible came out I tried to use it in class and six weeks after trying to use it I went back to my Bible where I knew where everything was. So I thank the Lord for the MacArthur study Bible but it's not going to be your reading Bible. It's not going to be your preaching Bible. It's hard to say that. So get the Bible you're going to preach from and as I jokingly say buy two or three copies because you might never be able to find it again. Yeah if you're going to have a long ministry I'll bring in my beat up New American Standard next week as we start getting into biblical texts and you'll see this thing has been through more reclamation projects than a Hollywood actress. So that many faceless just just so I still have the Bible where I know where everything is. That's the Essex study Bible. All right. So let's get back. So what we're going to be dealing with is here the book goes all down to the segments and as we read we've already talked about this we're going to look for the purpose why is why is the book in the canon. Why was it written. What are its themes. It is terms for people places events ideas that are used repeatedly in the book and then we have to realize that the Bible is been written. It is a written document and what we're seeking to do with literary structure is to find the compositional strategy. And I have puts that there what do we deal with with the literary structure we're looking for the comprehensive plan and the textual fabric of the book by which it exhibits meaningful cohesion and thoughtful direction reflective of an authored strategy. We assume the Bible has an author and the author has written a coherent piece of literature. Now gentlemen underline that because that goes counter to most biblical scholarship of our day. The average biblical scholar is not looking for cohesion. He is looking for contradiction. And the reason he's looking for contradiction is he doesn't believe that God has directed a single individual to write the text that is before him. And once you give up not only in the fact that the Bible is God breathe but the God bore along men who who wrote exactly what the spirit directed them to write and that's direction and the basis of what they wrote could you know could have you know different sources and many of those are no longer available to us but what we have before us is a text a text which was written by a single author. Now we might not always know the name of the author I do not know who authored Chronicles but I know that a singular man did because it has all of the evidence of a authored text. It has a beginning it has a flow it has an ending it has cohesion. Now you can be caught up in the and the aura of contemporary intellectualism and scholarship and come to the Bible looking for how it is it is uncohesive it is contradictory but you're a TMS. We believe that you believe that the Bible is the word of God and the Bible 2nd Timothy 2nd Peter chapter 1 the spirit bore along men to write exactly what God wanted written and no book of the Bible is the result of a committee it's the result of a man a God directed God used man who authored that book. All right I'll leave the rest of it to the you know theology one you know and bibliology but we we assume that and so we are looking for for coherence. We are not looking for contradiction. If we find contradiction the problem is ours as the interpreters not the writers. We are to find his plan his strategy his cohesion. This encompasses both the organizing framework and the embedded patterns that are found within that framework as far as the text is concerned. All of it to fulfill the effect the purpose for which the Holy Spirit directed the man to write the text. That's what I mean. You are going to be biblical detectives for the rest of your lives. This is what makes Dr. MacArthur an expositor. He is a biblical detective seeking out the purpose for which the book was written and how that purpose is then found as he understands the framework and embedded patterns that are seen within the text. And he spends hours and hours and hours looking for purpose and looking for structure at the macro level all the way down to the micro level. And gentlemen so will you. So will you. So you are becoming biblical Sherlock Holmes today. Charlie Chan although maybe most of you don't remember him and I don't know who the latest CIS person is on TV because I don't watch the shows but whoever your favorite detective is you've now become a biblical detective and you're looking for clues and you're going to put those clues together and your ability to do that kind of biblical detective work is going to really be the basis upon how God is going to use you as far as your preaching ministry is concerned. Now this is all just observation just getting just getting saturated with the particulars seeing what is there. All right now once you have determined what is there what does it mean. So interpretation moves beyond observation to determine the meaning of the biblical text and we do this by using the historical grammatical method. I think Dr. Well I think the professors have gone back to using Zuck so I put the new work by Kostenberger and Patterson there in parentheses but you can just substitute Zuck there. What Zuck introduces you to in the basic Bible interpretation is what we're dealing with and is based upon knowing history and knowing grammar. And I give you some of the resources as far as historical background is concerned and of course the basic book we use for the Old Testament is Merrill's Kingdom of Priests. The New Testament we now obviously just use a chapter in Cradle, Cross and Crown but if you want a greater books there Barus and Bruce's New Testament histories and we'll be making reference back to these resources and gentlemen again you don't have to get them all for this course but ultimately you want to have these references and learn how to use them these reference tools research tools because as someone says about Dr. McCarthur where does he get that information? Well because he uses his tools and by the way he doesn't do it with a computer. He has no search engine can you believe that? His search engine is right here. Amazing and from here he just writes it down and then he's got some of you and I don't have he remembers what he wrote and where he put it. So I guess that's what I mean he has his own search engine. He's photographic as far as his memory is concerned. He says he isn't but I've heard him quote things he's probably not as good as Spurgeon. Spurgeon did have a photographic memory. I saw one of his original outlines from which he preached and he just had there he just had quotes quote sonnets and had the name of the sonnet and then you go to his sermon and literally he quoted the sonnet by memory when he preached. All he had in his notes was quote sonnet. And then we go on Spurgeon where is the sonnet? That's all he wrote in his notes. He gave it by memory and that was again and again in his sermons. I mean Spurgeon's sermon notes literally were about one side at most probably a half a page on a side. They literally pinned it to the Bible. The pulpit Bible he pinned his notes and he had the notes here and he had the Bible here basically about four by six and here was his notes and that was the basis of all of his preaching. Now tell me he didn't have a photographic memory. So you will never have a photographic memory because you use computers. I'll just leave it at that. Think it through. I don't think any one of the computer generations are going to have a photographic mind because you don't need to train your mind to be photographic because you always got what? You got the photograph right before you and you got the search engine. You don't have to give things some memory. It's very interesting. Computer guys say how much memory does your computer have? Ever think about that? The memories where? In the computers. So it won't be here. All right well moving right along. That was for free. All right then we got the grammatical tools. You'll be introduced to these also in your exegesis courses. Now in this class we're going to be talking about the fact that we are not the first people to read the Bible and we won't be the last. And over the course of generations there have been certain what are known as crux interpretums. That is interpretive discussions that have been lively, have at times divided good and godly men and some of these continue to this day. And we want to introduce some of those interpretive issues to you because that really is a part of starting to get acquainted with the biblical books. Now it really doesn't. I have to talk to the WASC representative about this. It really is not part of the outcome for this class. In other words we don't have to deal with the interpretive issues for you to learn what is in this class but it's going to enhance the foundation for your preaching because that's one of the things you do want to become aware of as you come to different books of the Bible. Where are the key interpretive discussions? Because if these are key interpretive discussions that are taking place within the Christian community what do you think people are expecting you to know the answers to when you preach? One of those crucial interpretive discussions. So we can't deal with them all and if anything goes in the class it will be some of the things that are in the notes when it deals with interpretive issues but we'll try as much as possible to introduce you to them all and some will spend a little more time on others depending upon the time restraints that we have as far as the class. But that's part of introducing yourself to the book is knowing the interpretive discussion so we'll get into that and so you can put on the evaluations many people do that I wish we could spend more time on the interpretive issues. So I've already told you why we don't. It's because it's not the major outcome that we want from this class but it adds to it These are some of the lively discussions that we have in class so we will get to those points as we go through the different books. And from the meaning and by the way when we're dealing with interpretation we're dealing with what did it mean to the author as he communicated to the original audience. Because there's a basic principle which is this the biblical text cannot signify today have a meaning to us today it did not previously have. We don't come to the Bible to invent meaning to find what is not there we come to find what is there. So that is the original author and the original audience. So you want to even in your reading as we talk we'll talk as much as we can about who is that author who is that audience. And in fact at times I will I will base my interpretation upon the fact this is what the original audience would have understood. Well can it mean something else. Well yeah but that's not what the original audience would have meant thought it meant. We'll talk about that as far as the days of Genesis chapter one. Well can days mean other things besides the 24 hour day. Yeah it could. But put yourself with the Israelites on the plains of Moab and could it. No. All right. Exegesis resolved. Interpretation complete. All right. So so meaning is what it meant. Application is the significance of that meaning to you and to the people to whom you preach. And so application and we will start to move into how do we preach the books of the Bible. And so obviously this personal application because in expository you first make application to yourself and then that becomes the basis of your proclaiming not only the meaning but also the the implication and significance of the biblical passage to the contemporary audience. So truly your public application is expository preaching. All right. And that gets us ready then to take a look at the Torah. And that's where we will begin next week. We have a few minutes if you have questions or comments on this introductory material. Do you make the correlation between what we just discussed and what you're going to be doing as far as your assignments are concerned. Hopefully you see the connection between the two. The Hebrew Bible the Torah so they don't have Genesis, Exodus, and Leviticus. Oh yeah yeah. No they're in there but they're not defined that way. Yes yes yes yes. What I meant by is starting with Joshua and going all the way through Revelation as you take a look at how the Bible refers back to what is in what we call Genesis the Deuteronomy it will never say Paul never says well as Genesis says or as Leviticus says it's always as Moses said or as Moses wrote. There's nine different designations we'll take a look at the beginning of the next week already in your notes. So that's what I meant. All right. Starting in Joshua as you take a look at books except again when you're dealing with first and second Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles. But as you're looking at Joshua on those are singular books. What I mean by Samuel is that it was later where Samuel was divided into first and second Samuel as one author who wrote everything from first Samuel 1 through second Samuel chapter 24. The whole of first and second Samuel was written as one unit. So that's what I mean it goes back to this okay God always called a man. By the way there is no evidence that any woman ever wrote any part of scripture. So even Ruth and Esther yeah they're characters in the book they're not the writers of the book. So I know we have to say this in this day and age that God used men and I mean that not mankind. He used men you know to write but he did he used a singular man to author a particular text and again we might not know who the author of Chronicles was. We don't know exactly although it's one of the Crux Interpretums who the author of Hebrews was. Now you know what a Crux Interpretum is because you know that's been debated ever since the third century who was the author of Hebrews and not been resolved to this present day. But we do know there was a singular individual who was responsible for that text and that's what we mean by authorship. Even when Paul says you know beginning of Thessalonians which we read yesterday in Jappil you know Paul Sylvainus Antimathy to the church. Well yeah they were part of the missionary team he included them but who was the singular author of First Thessalonians? It was Paul and certainly when he talks about you know first person singular at times he can talk about we the reception we receive obviously that goes to his missionary team but then he can talk about I being left alone you know chapter three that I is all wasn't left alone Paul was left alone in Athens. So he is he is the author although obviously he includes within that the fact that he is with Silas and Timothy as he writes this letter to the Thessalonians. So all I'm saying is as you come to the text I mean this is the first great presupposition you have as you come to the text because it is because it is God breathes in heron scripture and that is it is cohesive. You are to look for that cohesion. Frankly gentlemen I wish I was a liberal. I wish I didn't believe in inerrancy. It makes studying the Bible a lot easier. You know because I can't I can't fathom how this passage goes together with this passage. Well all right they're in contradiction they come from two different sources. The committee didn't know what to do so they put both in. I mean that's easy exegesis but to understand the Bible as the word of God men born along wrote these things. I now have to say why did the Holy Spirit direct the man to write it in this way. Why is it like this? And so by being an inerrancy you just you just compounded your exegetical work because you have to seek to find unity not contradiction. And you got to keep working at the text until you do. Dr. MacArthur's famous statement you stay in the chair until you figure it out. Fervently pray and pray you're not still trying to figure it out Saturday night because you've already announced what you're going to preach on Sunday morning. But you got it you got to work at it you got to work on how does this fit together.