The Victory of Defeat

     Sounds like a contradiction in terms, yes? No. Let me explain...

     I've bee taking chess lessons from some of my schoolmates. For some inexplicable reason, I've felt the push to learn some new things, and strategy has been at the top of my list for quite some time. One of my friends gave me a bit of advice to help take the sting out of (what felt like) and endless cycle of agonizing losses. He said, "Just accept the fact that you are going to lose for a while. The goal right now is to learn, not to win -- that will come later. Just focus on lasting for as long as you can."

     That may sound fine and dandy, but when you're in the thralls of a game -- bear in mind that I'm extremely high strung during games. I stutter and sweat; my heart races, and my hands shake even long after the game is over -- it is hard to remember that the goal is NOT to win. I can't win a game of chess -- not against the people who are teaching me. Yet, even with that advice it can be very demoralizing to suffer loss after loss with little to no improvement.

     The question that follows would be, "Why continue playing? If it gives you that much stress, why continue putting yourself in that position?" The answer is that if I don't, I KNOW I will never improve -- emotionally or

tactically. By exercising my mind and emotions, I have the hope of growth.

     Don't think that I'm looking at the situation with rose-colored glasses. It sucks -- royally sucks -- to have your tail repeatedly handed to you after a six minute round of chess. But through the effort I put forth and with much help from my patient teachers I will get better. I have yet to win a chess mach, but my first game lasted 6 minutes and 14 seconds; my latest game lasted 15 minutes 57 seconds.

     Our walk in Christianity is just like this. We humans are battling our sin nature with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, but sometimes it feels as though no matter how many times we fight, sin right-hooks us in the jaw. There are times we want to scream, "I give up!" and cave into temptation. But, God is faithful to His children. He provides teachers to help us grow stronger, friends to help us carry the burdens that are too big to be handled alone, and the Holy Spirit to supernaturally help us when there seems to hope at all.

     If ever you're feeling like a spiritual failure, it may be helpful to have a friend point out the ways you have grown over the years. Have you become more patient? More caring of others? Have you learned to lie less -- or better yet, to not lie at all? Have you grown wiser in how you spend your time or money? Each improvement is a victory! The point is not to be perfect, but to always be better. We are no longer doomed to be defeated by sin, but with Jesus Christ we are promised victory!

5 Principles Of Good Hermeneutics (3)

     Now that we have established that Hermeneutics is a science that must follow rules in order to be considered valid, here are five principles of GOOD hermeneutics.

1) The Literal Principle
     The Bible is about real people, real history, and uses real (normal) language. It is not a metaphoric, symbolic list of mumbo jumbo. When the writer (namely God) wanted to communicate something, he said it. I like to say that if God is smart enough to know what He wants to say, He's smart enough to be able to make sure the message gets across.
     Going back to my previous post, keep in mind normal language does have NORMAL metaphorical language (e.g. she's as smart as a whip, it's a stone's throw away). But as the great Hal Lindsey once said,

If the plain sense makes perfect sense, seek no other sense, lest you end up with nonsense.

     If you torture the data long enough -- even the Bible -- it will confess to anything. The Literal Principle is to be take very seriously.

2) The Historical Principle
     Historical context is everything! Culture, geography, racial views, figures of speech, politics, problems, pressures, customs... All of these factors shape the lens through which we interpret scripture. For example, in America we have the phrase, "Benedict Arnold!" (coming from American History, it means a liar, backstabber or traitor). If a person who never learned American history heard the phrase not only would it mean nothing, it would be confusing. On another level, right after the Twin Towers in New York City fell to Muslim terrorists, how do you think the entire Muslim community was viewed by native New Yorkers?
     All of these issues are present in the Bible. What the author intended to communicate is the most important of all of these factors: understanding the culture is everything.

3) The Grammatical Principle
     The Bible was NOT written in English. Although some would like to argue otherwise, the BEST interpretation of the Bible must come from studying the original languages. This does not necessarily mean that one has to go to seminary and take four years of Greek and Hebrew (though that certainly helps!) but there are plenty of sources for the layperson to use and still have just as much understanding and access to the original languages (see my sidebar link to Blue Letter Bible.)
     The Language and Syntax of a text -- word studies and the syntactical construction -- are the brass tacks of understanding any language. When proper time is spent on understanding the actual words and phrases another level of meaning is revealed.

4) The Synthesis Principle
     Very simply: Scripture interprets Scripture. The Bible talks about itself all the time! The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge is a colossal cross-reference system to help you find the places where the Bible interprets itself.

5) The Practical Principle
     I'm not talking about application of scripture here. The question is, "What are the implications of this interpretation?" Does it make sense with the more clear, more easily understood passages? Most importantly, it is the Holy Spirit that illuminates Scripture so that it may be understood. If the scholar has not submitted himself to Christ Scripture CANNOT be understood.
     Read the whole chapter of 1Corinthians 2, but I'd like to focus on verse 14:

But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.

     Natural Man cannot understand the Bible because he does not have the Holy Spirit guiding his study.

     With these tools under your belt, hopefully, you're better prepared now to study the Bible in the fullness God desires for you. Something I like to do (I've tried to adopt it for everything) is to pray that in anything and everything that I may bring glory to God, and that He will guide me to know Him better. Since the Bible is God's mode of speaking to us, why not ask Him to help us understand it?

     One last thing: The smartest people in the world don't have everything memorized; they just know where to find it. Undertaking the study of anything (much less God) can seem overwhelming. Don't be afraid to ask for help or search for those who've been doing it longer than you have. They are usually the best sources of encouragement.

Errors To Avoid In Hermeneutics (2)

     As promised, here are three errors to avoid in biblical interpretation.

     1) Do NOT make a point at the price of proper interpretation.

     This can be difficult if you're like me, and will go to great lengths to win an argument. The tricky part is understanding and remembering that this is God's word with which we are dealing! Mess with it and you mess with HIM. Something of which I have personally needed to repent is when I continue to use a particular interpretation that is widely accepted -- even when I know it is FALSE. God is powerful enough all by Himself; He doesn't need any "extra help" that we have to offer by resorting to petty or manipulative means in order to get His (or more likely OUR) point across.

     2) Avoid Superficial Study.

     Bible study is hard work -- it cannot be done flippantly. We are aliens reading an alien text; EVERYTHING about the Bible is foreign to us -- therein lies the work. It takes time and effort to be able to understand the Bible AS IT WAS INTENDED. One cannot expect to open the Bible to any random page and understand what it says without proper study.

     However! Do not be dismayed. The perspicuity of scripture stands true! The Bible is NOT so alien that is cannot be understood. It is hard work to get the the meaning, but it can be done if proper time and effort are put in to understanding the Word of God.
     With this in mind, it is arrogance to believe that one has the ability to perfectly interpret scripture WITHOUT the education and wisdom of two thousand years of Biblical scholarship. Those who say, "I understand the Bible perfectly. I read it myself and I don't need anyone else to explain it to be. I can do it all on my own," those are the ones who most likely fools. To believe that one can understand the depth of a text written over two thousand years ago, in another language, in another part of the world is foolhardy, arrogant and dangerous.

     3) Do NOT spiritualize or allegorize the text.

     This would be classified as using the scripture to make up a story in order to make it mean whatever you want it to mean, OR to mystify the scripture into being inapplicable (call it, glossing over the "hard" parts). This is dangerously close to Deuteronomy 4:2,

"You shall not add to the word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you."

and Revelation 22:19,

"and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city, which are written in this book."

     Does this mean we must interpret every single verse of the Bible completely literally? No, but keep in mind, we are aliens reading an alien text. Just as we have idioms and metaphors in English, the Bible has the idioms and metaphors of its time. The great danger of spiritualizing and allegorizing the Bible is to take away the real meaning being communicated through the Bible. God put those words there for a reason, and He wants to be understood.

"It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, But the glory of kings is to search out a matter." (Proverbs 25:2)

"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you." (Matthew 7:7)

Beginnings of Hermeneutics (1)

     Being true to my former post, I am going to try to give some beginnings/basics of theology. Or perhaps it would be better said, "Deeper study, in small pieces." I do not want to water down truth in an attempt to make it shorter, but I don't like reading long blog posts anymore than you do ;) That being said, here is a little bit that I learned about HERMENEUTICS.

     Hermeneutics is the interpretation of Scripture. It is the study of the biblical grammar plus syntax in order to come up with the proper translation AND asking a series of questions to best understand the translation AS THE WRITER INTENDED.

     Hermeneutics is a SCIENCE. Just like any other science, hermeneutics operates under a list of fixed rules -- the same way the study of any literary or historical document is to be taken seriously. Scripture therefore has ONE true interpretation (there may be several or many applications but ONLY ONE correct interpretation.) If you think about it, that's the whole point of good communication. For example, if we're in the military, and the general gives his troops a list of commands, what good does it do if there are multiple interpretations of the commands? How will the troops ever know what the general really wanted if he was not clear in his orders? Why should it be any different with God and man? After all, there is a war going on and the troops need clear instructions from their Leader.

     The question, "What does this verse mean to me?" has nothing to do with what it actually means. If one cannot rightly divide scripture they will stand before God ashamed. (Scarey thought! But this emphasizes why digging deep into scripture and theology is so important!) Misinterpretation is not believing what the Bible says because one believes what is does NOT say. (Wrap your mind around that one! It sure blew mine!)

     There are two words that we will probably be using a lot -- if not they're still good words for any aspiring biblical scholar to know ;P -- so let's get those out of the way...
     Exegesis : this comes from the Greek root exe which means out of (think like the word exit). Exegesis means to pull the meaning out of the text. Keep in mind, this means the meaning being taken OUT of the text must be IN the text in the first place.
     Isogesis : this comes from the Greek root iso which means into. Isogesis means to put meaning from the outside into the text. This will result in poor or false interpretation of the text.

     That seems like a good start for now. I'll follow up with some more posts on errors to avoid and principals of interpretation.

"It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, But the glory of kings is to search out a matter." (Proverbs 25:2)

"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you." (Matthew 7:7)

Who You Are

     My last post began with a very short, rant-like paragraph on how I wasn't going to talk about "true beauty." I felt a little bit bad about that =D ; so, I decided to show two these videos that I think are AMAZING at explain who you are in God's eyes. It's also a really good "pump up" speech if you're having a down day ;)

The first one is for GUYS:

The second one is for GIRLS:

     I was having some trouble getting these to play on my computer; so, if you were also, the titles of these videos are: "Who You Are: A Message To All Guys" and "Who You Are: A Message To All Girls."