 Okay, so shall we, is everyone ready to share what you learned in your group discussions? So we were looking at Galatians 4, 22 to 31, and Isaiah 54-1. And just looking at how that passage in Galatians uses the Old Testament scripture. Anything y'all, I want to share about what you learned as y'all were looking at that, specifically using the steps that we discussed. We are able to use those steps and did it help better understand the passage. Let me just open those, yeah. Sure, Indel, you can go ahead. Yeah, mom, I'm really, I'm really lost because I am not able to hear you. Are those online able to hear? Yes, I said I'm lost. I'm a little bit lost because I just can't get my mind, I can't wrap my mind around Galatians 4 verse 22 because... Sorry, Indel, we're not able to hear you here. Okay. I mean, we'll just check if it's something that we need to change. It's all okay. Indel, do you want to try again? Sorry, were those on the online classroom able to hear? Yes, I'm sorry. Okay, okay, I think it was a problem with my settings here. Okay, you can go ahead. We can hear you now. Yes, ma'am. My question is, when we talk of two covenants, I don't, I don't understand what are the covenants? Because here I see verse 24, it says, which things are an allegory for these are the two covenants, the one from the Mount Sinai, which gendered to bondage, which is aga. So what is it talking about? Because I'm lost like, I don't know what it's all about. Okay, okay. Does anyone from one of the other groups want to share something that if you have an answer to Indel's question? No, I think we discussed it as prophetic about Israel. It's a prophecy about Israel. And it is narrative. And it is also an illustration. Okay, okay. Maybe brother Sanjay can explain better. Sanjay, do you? Just add a small thing to, I think Sister Gertrude had shared almost what we discussed. So I would only add only one thing. What we read in Galatians 422 to 31, the poetic that is Rejoice O'Baron, you who do not bear, break forth and shout, you who are not in labor for the desolate has many more children than she who has a husband. It's almost like parallel to what we read in Isaiah. Again, say single baron, you have not. It's almost talking about the same context, referring to Israel again. That's about what I would add to that. Okay. Okay. The other group online, would you like to share anything? Okay. Any in-person from the groups here on campus? Anything you learned from your discussion? Old Testament reference of Isaiah 54, one basically refers to the promise and the transition of being barren to being fruitful. And here the barrenness is referring to the people in the New Testament when you actually look more in-depth. It refers to more of people being subject to under the law. So the reference is given of Haggar and son born according to the flesh. So reference to Ishmael. So there it had to be more, which was given under the law when it refers to one given from Mount Sinai, which gives birth to bondage and a thing. But when you actually look, the promised one was Isaac, which was born according to the promise. So that's where the person is set free. So you're no longer under bondage, but you're under a spirit of freedom. So that's the kind of implication. Typically referring more of being under barrenness and under a thing and coming to a place of fruitfulness. Okay. Thank you. So that was this group. Does the other group have anything you want to share? Okay. Okay. So we in there, we will address your question. I think Akhil did go into that a bit about the two covenants. So here in Galatians 4, I'll just quickly read the passage out for us. For it is written that Abraham had two sons. One by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. So here he's contrasting the two women who were with Abraham and the two sons. One son, his son by the slave woman, was born according to the flesh. But his son by the free woman was born as a result of a divine promise. So there's a contrast between the flesh and the promise. Verse 24, these things are being taken figuratively. Okay. So he's not saying and now this is important for biblical interpretation. So this is not typically the way we are going to interpret scripture, but he's taking this just to give them a picture of what the old and new covenant look like. Okay. This is not to say that that whole story about Abraham, Hagar and Sarah are pointing to the old and new covenant. That's not what he's saying. He's saying I'm just using this as a picture. I'm using it figuratively to help you understand this. Okay. The women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and there's children who are slaves, who are to be slaves. This is Hagar. Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem because she's in slavery with her children. So here he's taking the picture of Hagar who was a slave to point to the fact that the Jews were still under slavery because they were still following the law. Okay. And then he says in verse 27, for it is written, be glad, barren woman, you who never bore a child, shout for joy and cry aloud, you who were never in labor because more are the children of the desolate women than her who has a husband. And sorry, I missed verse 26, but the Jerusalem that is above is free and she is our mother. So he's contrasting between the city, the physical city of Jerusalem and the heavenly city of Jerusalem, which is the new body of Christ. Okay. So which is the people of the new covenant. And he's saying these people who belong to the new Jerusalem are the people who are free and these are the people who didn't, there weren't any children to this woman previously, but now she has more children than the previous woman, the slave woman. So to say that now the Gentiles have been welcomed into the new covenant and so the new covenant, the people of the new covenant have a greater number of people than the people of the old covenant, which is limited to the Jews who are following the law. And then verse 28, now your brothers and sisters like Isaac are children of promise. At that time the sun born according to the flesh persecuted the sun born by the power of the spirit. It is the same now. So he's talking to the Galatian Christians and saying, you are like Isaac because you have come into this covenant through promise, right? You've not come through the law, but you've come because of the promise and that promise comes through Jesus Christ. But what does scripture say, get rid of the slave woman and her son for the slave woman son will never share the inheritance with the free woman son. Therefore brothers and sisters, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman. And so basically saying the Jews are persecuting you like Hagar persecuted Sarah the same way you are being persecuted. But like Hagar, they were sent away that slave woman was sent away. Now we no longer are under the law. We are no longer people who live in slavery. Rather, we are people of the promise and we are the true sons and daughters of God. Okay. Indel, is that okay? Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Okay. So I hope that looking at the passage in the context of Isaiah 54 helped you understand this. It looks like you grasped the meaning of it pretty well. So that's how we will study passages where Old Testament scriptures are quoted. We have to look at the context, understand the meaning and understand how the right in the New Testament is trying to use that passage to explain whatever he's talking about in the New Testament. Okay. But this was a difficult passage also because he is using that figurative language, all of those things are not usually what we'll see in Old Testament quotations. Okay. So coming back to where we stopped in our previous class, in the previous class here. So we looked at narratives. The other kind of literary style that we see in scripture is poetry and wisdom. So this we can look at the Psalms. We can look at Proverbs. Proverbs would be the wisdom literature and we can look at prophetic books as well because all of them use pictures, they use images rather than literal text to talk about whatever they want to communicate in their message. So there's a lot of creative use of language, a lot of imagery that is used to capture imagination and to tug upon people's emotions. So it's much more relating to the emotional, the imaginative than what we will see the next one, which is prose and discourse. And yes, examples of these would be songs, poems, prophetic literature, the wisdom literature, all of these books would be using the poetry or wisdom style of writing. And we look a little bit more at that, but before that we see the prose and discourse. So prose and discourse, a lot of the epistles will fall under prose and discourse, where it's much more logical. So whereas poetry is using pictures, figurative language, emotional language, the prose and discourse is using logical linear ways of thinking and writing to communicate whatever the end message that it wants to communicate. So usually it would be something that builds upon each other and we see this in the book of Galatians as well. Each chapter builds upon the previous chapter. It's like an argument that is being built to help convince the readers about whatever the writer wants to communicate. So the books of the law would be considered as prose as discourse or discourse, some of the wisdom literature and then the epistles like we talked about. So why it's important to understand the literary style is because then we know, should we be taking this literally, how was this kind of writing used at that time? We talked about this with the Gospels. We want to know the genre of the Gospels so that we can correctly understand how what the writer was trying to do. If we don't, if we try and interpret the Gospels from today's way of writing biographies or today's way of writing historical narratives, we won't correctly interpret the Gospels because we will place our own modern day standards and ways of thinking upon a culture that is completely different from us. Not only was the culture different, the language was different, the style of writing was different. So we need to understand what was that style of writing, what were the rules for that style of writing so that we can then correctly interpret it in our present day. Okay. So just a little more on poetry in the Bible. So in English poetry, we know that there's a lot of rhyme that is used, right? So the end of each line will rhyme with the next line. So if you say sing, ting, wing, all the words will kind of sound the same at the end of each sentence. At the same time, it also has a rhythm. So it has a specific meter. The number of syllables in each sentence will be the same. So those kinds of things help to put it to a beat. So like for a song you're singing, so you're able to do like a one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four or so that is similar to what poetry is also in English. Now in the different languages that we speak, poetry may look different, but we're looking at English compared to the poetry that's used in scripture, which will be a lot of Hebrew poetry because of the Old Testament Psalms. Whereas in the Old Testament, Hebrew poetry uses more repetition rather than rhyme and rhythm. Okay. So we'll see the same thought being expressed in a different way. And so when we are reading it, we need to understand that it's a single thought, but it's just being repeated in one way to help us, to help explain the thought further. An example, so we have a few examples here. Joel 1.5. So we see here an example of repetition. It says, awake ye drunkards and weep and howl all ye drinkers of wine. Okay. So both things are saying the same thing. Awake ye drunkards and weep, right? And howl all ye drinkers of wine. So weep and howl are the same thing. Okay. Howl kind of explains further how just how drastic the weeping is. And then all ye drinkers of wine is the same as drunkards. Okay. So the same thought is being repeated. It's just being said with different words. So that is one example of how poetry will repeat a thought. The other is an example of contrast. So if someone can read Proverbs 15 1 for us, Proverbs 15 verse 1, a soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. Okay. So here is an example of the same thing being said, but it's the same message, but it's a contrasting thought. So a gentle answer and a harsh word, those are opposites. Okay. And a gentle answer turns away wrath. Okay. So it causes wrath to reduce or to be gone, to disappear, but a harsh word causes anger to increase. So they're contrasting a harsh word, a gentle answer, what is the result of that one causes anger to disappear, one causes anger to increase. Okay. It's the same thought, but the same thing is being said in the opposite way. Okay. That's another example. And then the third is to amplify. That is, it'll say something and then the second part will just further increase the intensity of what it's saying. So if someone can read Isaiah 24 1, we'll just look at that example. Isaiah chapter 24 verse 1, Behold, the Lord makes the earth empty and makes it waste. Distort its surface and scatters abroad its inhabitants. Okay. So here, what is being said in the first part is being further explained or given more of a graphic description in the second part. So God is going to lay waste the earth. It says he will ruin its face in my, I'm reading from the NIV. And then it says he will devastate it. And here it says he will scatter its inhabitants. So it's further explaining or giving us a clearer description of how God is going to do what is described in the first part of the verse. Okay. So that is an amplification. So with that, we come to the end of literary styles and we come to the last chapter in your textbook. After this, we'll do the questions. So we'll do that next week. Which is on applying God's word. So we have a quote here from Martin Luther, the Bible is not merely to be repeated or known, but to be lived and felt. So whatever the goal of interpretation is always application, we want to correctly interpret the word so that we can correctly apply it to our lives, that we are living in accordance with the truth of Scripture. If we are misinterpreting, then we are misunderstanding and we are misapplying Scripture. Okay. So the main goal now we've looked at all of these ways in which we interpret Scripture. But the end goal of that is how are we going to take that and put it to practice in our lives. So some guidelines for application. Okay. The first is to take, to first interpret correctly and then take it into, take into consideration all teaching in Scripture also. So you interpret that passage, look at it in the light of all of Scripture, and then put into practice whatever you've interpreted. Okay. So write interpretation, then look at it in the context of all of Scripture, and then find practical applications for your life personally, or for the lives of the people you are leading or preaching or teaching to. Okay. The second is progressive revelation. So we'll always look at what is the latest revelation we've received on this topic. Okay. So we had looked at previously in Job, if there's sickness being talked about, we don't base our understanding of sickness and healing on the book of Job. We base it on the New Testament on the cross and what is promised on the cross, what was fulfilled on the cross and what is seen in the church after Christ's resurrection. Right. So we look at what was the latest revelation on that topic in Scripture, and that is what we will put into practice in our daily lives. The third is we will always understand difficult passages or passages that are unclear in light of passages that are much more clear or easy to understand. Because difficult or obscure passages can be misunderstood and misinterpreted, we won't base our practical application on those passages. Rather, we look at the passages that talk about the same topic, but are much more clear. We look at those passages and help use those passages to help us understand the difficult passages. Okay. We always look at the life and teaching of Jesus. If Jesus said something that is different from what we have interpreted in a specific passage, we will go with what Jesus has said. Okay. Because Jesus is the word in flesh. Okay. So he's the actual application of that word. And so we look at the life of Jesus. And if it is in line with the life of Jesus, that's how we want to live. We want to make sure application is in line with his life. We look at ways to apply truth into our present day. So we want to see what is the principle that we can take. We take the principle of what is being taught and we apply that principle to our present day lives. And we want to understand contemporary context, contemporary ministry and apply it in those ways. So even how we do ministry nowadays, if in the Old Testament it talks about a voice shouting in the wilderness, we don't take that and we don't go stand out in a desert and start screaming messages to people, right? We recognize that as some way to draw people to God. So how do we do that today? We use media, we use so wherever we take that message or we take that principle and we use it in a contemporary way in our present day. Okay, is that understood? Yeah. We write out specific responses that you can make. So actual things that you can do in response to what you've studied and always rely on the Holy Spirit. From interpretation to application, we rely on the Holy Spirit. So with that we come to the end of all our teaching on interpreting scripture. If we have any questions, we can talk about that now. Sister, I heard once a pastor say that I can do all things to Christ who strengthens me, is use a lot in out of context. I'm not sure sister in what way, because can you explain this? Okay, sure. Yes, I've heard that as well. I think we'll just open that passage. Philippians 4, let me just open that. Yeah, yeah, Philippians 4. Sorry, I'm just trying to find the worst. Okay, so verse 13. So I'll just read that section for us from verse 10 onwards. I rejoiced greatly in the Lord that at last you renewed your concern for me. Indeed you were concerned but you had no opportunity to show it. I'm not saying this because I am in need for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength. Yet it was good of you to share in my troubles. Moreover, as you Philippines know in the early days of your acquaintance. Okay, so then he's talking about how they have previously supported him. So in this context, he's basically saying that he's been able to serve God and he's been able to minister no matter what his circumstances were. So we see that whether he was hungry, whether he was well fed, whether he had a lot, whether he had little in everything, he was able to continue to serve God. And so his confidence is in God himself, his strength is in God himself, not on the things that people, although he's grateful for their support, he's grateful for their the financial aid they've sent. He's saying that my dependence ultimately is on God, which I think is usually that's how people use that passage. They usually say in my weakness, I know that God is my strength. So I'm not sure if there's some specific instance where your pastor had heard it used differently. But that's how we I think he felt that, you know, like, because what Christ has done like, you can do everything in that strength, you know, I can do all things, you know, like in his strength. So they like, I think when you're praying, you know that they're using it out of context. Okay, yeah. So basically, it's to understand that Christ is our strength. For whatever we're doing, we are ultimately fully dependent on him. So that doesn't mean that we just come up with our own things and then we just expect God to help us through it. But to say that our faith, our ultimate dependence is always on God to do whatever it is that is entrusted to us to do, that he is entrusted to us to do. Thank you, sister. Thank you. Mr. One more help. Yes. Mr. In Sam's 119, it's been divided into so many sections. Can you just put some light on it? Okay, so this is also an example of poetic scripture. And if you look at Sam 119, it actually goes through the Hebrew alphabet. And from basically like how English we would have A to Z uses the English alphabet for each section. And that's how the sections are divided in Sam 119. And the focus again is on the law, God's word, God's commands. So with each section, he's starting with one of those alphabets, talking about it, and then going to the next alphabet using that alphabet to start the section and talk about it. But the main, so it is poetry, and which is why we see all of those sections. But the main message again is our heart being drawn to the law of the Lord. And that being our ultimate desire, our ultimate delight is in the law of the Lord. Does that, any significance to each section? Not specifically, it's just poetry. Yeah. So that's one of the ways in which Hebrew poetry is written using the alphabets like that to start each section. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So that's a good question and very relevant to what we talked about today in terms of styles of writing. Okay, sister. Thank you. Thank you. It doesn't mean what is that? It just means a cat alphabet letter. That's all. Yeah. Alif is the first alphabet of in Hebrew. Okay. Okay, sister. Thank you. Thank you. So that is what we say alpha. So when we say alpha, omega, it's alpha is Alif, which is Hebrew, the first letter and Omega is the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Okay. Shall we close? I think we come to the end of our time. So next week, we'll just look at those questions for the last chapter. And if we're able to finish it in next week's class, that'll be our last class. Okay. So thank you all for being here. We'll see you next week.