 All right, the recording has started. OK, so once again, good morning. Welcome to this course, BC 106 on interpreting scripture. Let's take a moment, please, to pray together. And then we will get started. May I request somebody to just please unmute your mic and take a moment to pray with us together. Would like to pray? Go ahead, said Karen. Go ahead. Father, we come to the throne of grace, Lord. Thank you for the time you have given us, Lord. The morning Lord, we are going to be spending your learning about your word, Lord. Let whatever interpretation we are going to learn about your word, Lord, it should be the seed, the EPC Bible, it's pouring in our heart, Lord. It should become a great tree, Lord. Whatever we will be learning, it should be used for the expansion of your kingdom, Lord. And all glory be given to you, Lord. We don't want any credit, Lord. Just you take glory from our Lord. Lord, mold us and shape us the way the water do with this clay, Lord. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Amen, amen. Thank you. All right, so I have posted the PDFs that we will be using to get started in this course. And then as we go along, lecture by lecture, I will keep giving you the lecture notes, the PDF, so you can keep downloading them from the coursework section of Google Classroom. So let us just introduce the course today, get an overview of what this course is about, what are we going to be studying, and then we will get started. I'm going to share the PDF of the course overview. So this is course 106 on interpreting scripture. Technically, the technical term that is used is hermeneutics. So when somebody says, have you studied hermeneutics, they're just asking you, have you studied how to interpret scripture? And then you can say, yeah, I have done a course in hermeneutics or interpreting scripture. Now, there is another course on hermeneutics. Hormeletics is how to preach, how to exegete, that is how to communicate the meaning of scripture. But this one is hermeneutics, which means how to understand and correctly, correctly understand and correctly apply, interpret and apply scripture. That's hermeneutics. So what are we going to do in this course? Our main focus here is to learn how to understand and correctly interpret scripture so that we can apply it correctly. So hermeneutics deals with the process of how to correctly understand and interpret the text of scripture so that we can apply it correctly. Only if you understand it correctly can we interpret it and then apply it correctly. So sometimes we can get into trouble even if we misinterpret it because then we will misapply it and then we will get into trouble. You may say, well, I read it in the Bible. True, we may have read it in the Bible. But if we misinterpret it, then we will also misapply and then there will be repercussions. Now, especially for us who are in some way involved in ministry, some of us may already be involved in ministry, some of us may be preparing for ministry. For us, it becomes all the more important on learning how to understand and correctly interpret scripture because we are going to be teaching others. And Paul told Timothy, he said, take heed to yourself and to the teaching. Continue in them. If you do this, you will save both yourself and those who hear you. So you're saying to Timothy, you watch over your own self and you watch over what you're teaching. And if you do that carefully, you will save yourself and also those who are listening to you. So it's so important for us, especially for us who are going to be ministering the word of God because we are going to offend the lives of those who listen to us. And so we need to rightly divide the word. So Paul told Timothy, and we will be looking at this scripture again, he told him to rightly divide the word of truth. You know, rightly, the picture there is to cut in a straight line. So you must correctly cut, so to speak, the word of God. So that then we can present ourselves as workers who are approved by God. So part of us being approved by God involves us rightly dividing the word of truth. So that's our focus. And of course, we are going to do this under the leadership of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the author of the Bible. And so we have to listen to him. Under his leadership, they're going to learn. So what are some of the things we are going to cover in this course? And there may be some additions as we go along. But just to know of you, we'll start off by, first of all, emphasizing the importance of the word of God in the believer's life. And we'll talk a little bit about meditation in the word of God. That's a discipline. We must all develop meditating in the word. And we will learn how to meditate in the word. Because through the process of meditation comes revelation. That the Holy Spirit brings revelation to us. And it is the revelation that then brings transformation. If we don't get revelation of the word, our life will never be transformed. So we need to get revelation. Our eyes must be open to see the truth that is in the scriptures. And when we receive revelation, there will be transformation. Otherwise it'll just be an intellectual knowing of the word. A lot of people know the Bible. They may know the history. They may know what the text says. But that doesn't mean that life has changed. So the real test that we have received a revelation of the word is if there's life transformation. Is our life changed? Then we know that, yeah, you have received revelation of the word. So part of receiving revelation is meditation. So we're going to learn about that. Then we're gonna talk about handling God's word. We must handle God's word very carefully. We're gonna talk about tools and methods of study. That means what are the tools we can use when we are studying the word of God. And thank God we are living in a day and a time when we really have many tools that we can use. Unlike maybe 50 years ago, or maybe even 30 years ago, they had tools but they didn't have as much as what we have today. And then if you go back in time, it was a lot more hard work studying the Bible than today. So we have to be very grateful to God for all the tools that we have that will help us study the word of God. Then we're going to go through the whole sequence of interpreting scripture, right? So this is where the main course starts. So once we, these are like all the appetizers, the preliminaries, and then we start talking about, okay, how do we receive illumination of the Holy Spirit? And then when we look at scripture, we talk about culture, the different things that we must keep in mind as we go about interpreting, understanding and interpreting scripture. We talk about culture, grammar, figures of speech and poetry and parables and types and shadows and some of the things to avoid, avoid allegorizing scripture, interpreting Bible prophecy, looking at the Old Testament from the New Testament and looking into the New Testament from the Old Testament. If you talk about that, then how do you apply God's word? And then towards the end, we will discuss some difficult topics or passages, right? So the whole objective in this course is to show us how, what are the some, what are the things we're to keep in mind when we are interpreting scripture? And how do we study the word of God? So we'll talk about different methods for studying the word. And what are the tools we can use? So it's really to equip you, equip each of us to study the word, to bring out the right meaning of the text and then interpret it for people, for ourselves of course, also for people so that they can, we can all apply the word of God correctly, right? So there's a very important cause because this is something you and I are going to be doing for the rest of our lives as long as we're reading the Bible, we are going to be understanding and interpreting and applying the word of God. So things that we learn here will be very useful for the rest of our Christian lives and ministry, right? And I will be giving you lecture notes and so you could use that for your studying. In terms of assessment, we will give three simple assessments during the course or towards the end of the course that covers the material in the course just for you to review and learn, right? And that's how the course would be great. There are a lot of books out there that you could use. One is a basic Bible interpretation and so on the different books that you could reference if you feel like getting further perspective but I will make sure that I'll give you good notes so that you could use it, all right? Any questions you're about to the course before we get started, everyone's with me, okay? All right, so today, what we're gonna do is we're gonna do some initial part which is to show us why the word of God is important to us as believers and also to take us through an understanding of how the word of God will actually bring change in our lives, right? And we will be looking at the parable of the silver and also we will touch on the whole aspect of meditation in the word of God, right? So for that, I have shared with you an APC book called God's Word, The Miracle Seed. It's a small little book that we've put together so you can download this PDF and take some time to read it and so we'll use this book to get started. So this is not getting into the main course of interpreting scripture but it's part of the preliminary, something that's important for us, okay? As we prepare to learn how to interpret scripture because we must understand the word of God, how important it is for our lives. So we'll be talking about God's Word being the foundation of our faith. We'll talk about the purity and power of the word of God. We'll talk about the word of God being the medical seed, how this works in our lives. We'll be talking about meditation. How do you meditate in the word of God? We will break it down into a simple process. So each one of us must learn how to meditate and must develop the ability to meditate in the word of God and how the word of God will produce in our lives or and also what are some of the things that hinder the word of God from producing in our lives? We will look at that and then we've given a summary of word seeds. I will explain that, okay? So what we must understand is that while God works powerfully by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God works in powerful ways, we must never forget that God works by His Word, right? And this sometimes is actually a very simple process where people, it's a non-spectacular way of God working, right? You know, when we say God works by His Word, just by the simple process of hearing the word of God, letting the word of God get into our hearts, God is actually working in our lives, but it is not spectacular. It's not to, people don't see some big manifestations happening, but it is no less supernatural because it is still God who's working. So just because the work is being done by His Word, it seems very, very, you know, very simple. It's like the seed being sown on the ground, you know, it doesn't seem very spectacular, but yet it is no less supernatural. And in fact, this is an approach or this is the way God works in our lives, most often it's by His Word. Now the tendency for many of us is to look to the anointed man or woman of God to minister God's power, right? You know, the tendency is, okay, there's an anointed man of God, I must go and get them to lay hands on me and maybe something will happen, which is true in the sense God does work by His anointing through human vessels, He does work, but you know, all of us have the Bible with us and we don't have to wait for some anointed man or woman of God to come and do their work in our lives. We have the Bible, we have the Word of God and this Bible is anointed, the Word of God is anointed. It's from the Holy Spirit. And if we can learn how to receive from God through His Word by His Spirit, then we can receive God's work in our lives anytime, anywhere, anyplace, right? We don't have to depend on some anointed man or woman of God to come and pray for us. I mean, if God chooses to do that, that's wonderful. I'm not against it. And we all, of course, are serving God and God works through us that way. But what I want to emphasize is that, hey, you have the Bible. This is the Word of God. God is ready to work in your life in mind through His Word by His Spirit, right? And so we must learn how to make that connection through the Word of God and by His Spirit. Another thing that we will learn is about meditation and God's Word. I may not be able to state in simple words how important this is, meditation in God's Word. We're going to learn how to do it. And yes, we must read the Bible. That is, you're just reading it and looking at chapter and verse, okay? Yes, we must study the Bible. You look up the Hebrew and the Greek and you use the tools. All that is fine as part of our understanding, but for the Word of God to produce in our lives to release its power, we must learn to meditate. So meditation in God's Word, we can compare it to germination of a seed, right? So for example, you take a seed, whatever tree, maybe a tamarind seed, the seed of a tamarind tree, you think you have a small seed in your hand. Now the seed, it has potential in it. It can produce, but it will not produce until it germinates in the ground. So you have to put it in the soil. And let it get in there and you pour water and all that. And you let the seed germinate in the soil. Then what is in the seed comes out, and it begins to produce. So we can compare meditation to germination. When we are meditating in God's Word, we are letting the seed of the Word of God germinate in our lives, in our heart. Our heart is the ground. And when it germinates, then the power of the Word is released in our lives. Otherwise, we may have the Bible, we may know the reference, we may know the text of the verse, we can quote it, but it's not producing in our lives. Why? Because we're not letting it germinate. So we need to let the Word germinate inside. And we must learn how to do it, right? So that's why I intentionally put this first before we get into the interpretation, because we must learn how to do this. Now, let's get started here in chapter one. The Word of God is a foundation for our Christian faith and for our walk with God, right? Many of us know that. I'm just bringing this as a reminder. God's Word is so important. It is the foundation for our faith. Now, I want you to think about this. Think about the eternal Word, the incarnate Word and the written Word. The eternal Word is, you know, is the incarnate Word before he became incarnate. So this is God, you know, we've got the Son, but before he became, came into the earth. He was the eternal Word with the Father. In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God. The Word was God, the eternal Word. So God the Father, God the eternal Word, and God the Spirit. From eternity past, the triune God was always there. Now, the eternal Word became the incarnate Word. That means the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. So we refer to the incarnate Word as the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who lived on the earth. So think about this, the eternal Word, the One who always was, became the incarnate Word. That means he walked on the earth as a man. What we see is when he walked on the earth as a man, he submitted himself to the study, to the preaching, and the teaching of the written Word. And this is such an awesome thought, that the eternal Word, who became the incarnate Word, studied, he lived by the written Word. He studied the written Word, he preached the written Word. So one example, Luke 24-47, is talking about Jesus, the incarnate Word. It says, and beginning at Moses. So remember, when Jesus came, they had the entire Old Testament from Genesis to the Malachi. It was there. And what did he do? He, beginning at Moses, that means from Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, numbers, beginning at Moses, and all the prophets, all the way through all the Old Testament books, he expounded to them in all the scriptures, the things concerning himself. That means the incarnate Word was pointing to himself in the written Word. He was handling the written Word, Genesis to Malachi, very carefully. And he was bringing out of the written Word, the scriptures, the things concerning himself. You know, this is such an awesome thought, at least for me. I feel like, wow, you know, when God, who gave the scriptures, when he became a man, he actually lived by the scriptures. You know, and we see so many examples, right? He preached, he taught from the written Word, the scriptures. He engaged in the study and the learning of the scriptures. He, when he faced temptation, he used the written scriptures, you know? So when he lived his life, he walked in a way to fulfill the written scriptures. Many times, Jesus would say, today the scripture is fulfilled in your years. That means he was saying, look, I'm fulfilling the scripture. I'm walking in alignment to the written scriptures. So this is such an awesome thought, that if God, the eternal Word, when he became the incarnate Word, he became man, when he handled the written scriptures, that means Genesis to Malachi, but such, I use the Word, I will use the word respect over such honor. How much more you and I should treat the Word of God, the written scriptures with honor, you know, that this is given to us by God. It is what we're living by. We're going to use it in our battle against the enemy. We're going to live by it. We're going to preach it. We're going to teach it. This is the written scriptures. So if Jesus handled the Word of God with such honor, how much more should we, you know, that's the thought I want to bring to us, right? Now, another important part about the Word of God, being foundational for us is, that God has given to us the Word and he has chosen to use the preaching of the Word to save those who believe, right? So somebody could read first Corinthians 121 for us from, it's there in the notes, you could read it. Oh, have I stopped sharing it, hey, sorry. Were you able to see my notes? I don't know, somewhere I stopped. No, I'm not seeing the notes. Oh, I was... No. Okay, I was, I don't know where I lost it. I was presenting, I was sharing this. Were you able to see this? Like, God's Word foundation of faith. Yes, Pastor, we can see that. Sorry, when I was talking earlier, were you able to see this? I was talking, I may have clicked on it. No, Pastor, no. Oh, okay. That tent was not visible. No, it was not visible and I'm really sorry. Okay, so I was talking to you from this book on God's Word, the Miracle Seed, which I had uploaded for you. So this is what we were getting started with and I was actually, I was looking at this and talking to you and I just, I may have clicked the stop sharing button and missed it. But this is what we started with. God's Word, this is a book that I was just talking to you about and I was talking to you about how God works by His Word. It's no less supernatural and that we must receive from God through His Word and by His Spirit. And I was talking about the meditation of God's Word, how it's the same like germination. And then I went into chapter one, God's Word, the foundation of our faith. And I was talking about the eternal Word, the incarnate Word and the written Word. And we read Luke 24, 47, which I just read that for you. So I finished till here. I thought, you know, everybody could see my screen and I'm sorry by mistake, I may have clicked on stop sharing and so it may have lost it. All right, so this is where we, and I wanted us to move forward from your first Corinthians one, 21. Let me pause here before we go forward. Any questions till now? Any questions, I'm sorry by mistake, I must have clicked stop sharing. So I would have lost it. Any questions till now? You are with me, at least through what you were listening. Hello? Yes, Pastor, we were listening. Okay, okay. I'm sorry about my mistake. Okay, let's go back and continue from where we were. And we will, all right. So let's pick up from here. All right, could somebody read first Corinthians one, 21 for us please? For sent in the wisdom of God, the world through which them did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message, preached to save those who believe. Okay, thank you. So what has God chosen to do? God has chosen that through the foolishness of the message preached to save people, those who believe. So what I wanna emphasize is sometimes this whole act or this whole process of preaching the message, preaching the word, the message means preaching the word or the gospel or preaching the word of God, may seem foolish. Okay, you're standing up there and you're talking to people for Sunday after Sunday or sometimes many times a week, you are preaching the word. And it may seem like, you know, oh, wow, what is this? You're spending so much time just preaching, preaching, talking, talking, but God has chosen through the foolishness of the message preached to save people who believe. So when you are preaching the message, when you're preaching the word of God, when you're preaching the gospel, when you're speaking what the Bible is saying, even though it may seem foolish, you and I are actually working together with God to affect the lives of people, to save those who believe. We are affecting the lives of people. So that's another important thing that as we preach the word of God, we are affecting the lives of people. God is working with us because God has ordained this whole process or this whole approach of what may seem like foolishness. We are through the foolishness of the message preached. We are saving the lives of people. We are transforming the lives of people. We are affecting the lives of people because God is working with us. So keep that in mind. Many of us are already preaching the word of God and God is working with you through you to touch lives. Now, another aspect of the word of God being foundational to our faith is this that we believe all scripture is God breathed. So could somebody read Second Timothy chapter three verse 15 and 16 for us please? And that from childhood you have known the holy scriptures which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. Thank you. Now, when Paul was writing to Timothy when he was using the term the holy scriptures, at that time, they only had the Old Testament, right? They had from Genesis to Malachi. Now, in one of the later chapters, when we will talk a little bit about how the canon of scripture was assembled and why we have different versions, we will mention that when we talk about the tools and methods of study, I will mention that, okay? But Paul, when he's writing to Timothy here, at that time, they had only the Old Testament. But notice he's referring to it as the holy scriptures. So the holy scriptures, right? And of course, subsequently through the, you know, the Paul was writing the epistles and the others were also writing and the gospels were written, the epistles were written and you know, the canon of scripture was put together. We will explain that in a little later, the chapter. But what I want to point out is the written scriptures, the written scriptures, Paul is calling it the holy scriptures. You know, it is, we have to hold the Bible, the written scriptures with such respect, the holy scriptures. He's not just, you know, not referring to Genesis, to Malachi, he's not referring to the scriptures. Okay, yeah, this is just a book or this is just some, you know, something somebody wrote. No, it's the holy scriptures. See the reverence with which the apostle Paul is referring to the scriptures, the Old Testament in that, in the specific context. So he calls it the holy scriptures. And he says, this is able to make you wise for salvation. So even the Old Testament, he says, we bring you to salvation in Jesus Christ. Very interesting, you know. Yes, the Old Testament scriptures would bring you to faith, and bring you to salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. Which is true because, you know, as we saw earlier from Luke 24, that Jesus took from Genesis all the way through the prophets. And he pointed, he showed the scriptures pointing to himself. So the holy scriptures make sure wise for salvation through faith in Christ. And then Paul says in verse 16, all scripture is given by inspiration of God. So this is something very important for us. As we prepare to learn how to study and interpret the Bible, very basic, very important, foundational, that all of the scriptures is given by inspiration of God. That means even though man wrote it, so we have 40 different authors, 40 different people who wrote the 66 books in the Bible. So even though man wrote it, God was the source of inspiration. It's a God inspired it, God breathed it. So man wrote it, but God inspired it, right? So all scripture is given by the inspiration of God. So that's how we say the holy scriptures that this was inspired by God. God breathed into it, right? And God breathed it. And man, people wrote it, of course. And therefore the scriptures is useful for doctrine, that is for teaching. Doctrine simply means to teach. For reproof, the word reproof simply means to bring conviction. Conviction, it's just an old English word. So to say conviction, to have the assurance, to have that confidence. So scripture is useful for teaching, to give people the conviction, the confidence, the assurance in their hearts. It is also useful for correction. So if we go off the wrong path, it says, come back to the right path. This is the right way. So it's useful to correct. And it's also useful for instruction, to tell us what to do, which way to go. What is the right thing? Give us the wisdom for living, right? So he says, the word of God's been inspired by God. And it's useful to teach us, to give us conviction, to build conviction in us, to bring correction to us, and also to instruct us in how to live life, right? So the word of God, the holy scriptures, we hold it with reverence. We receive it as from God, because it's inspired by God, and we let God do these things in our lives, through His word. So, there are related references, which we will again look at later on, where we see here that Peter says, no prophecy of scripture, there's a second Peter 1, verse 2021, no prophecy of scriptures, any private interpretation. The prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. You know, a long time ago, I remember in school, one of my friends came, now of course he didn't know too much about the Bible, he said, hey, why are you thinking so highly about the Bible? Somebody sat somewhere and wrote something and you believe it. You know, but he actually didn't know that the Bible was not some fiction. You know, sometimes people, they don't even, they don't know what the Bible is, and they don't know what the Bible has, and they just think that somebody just wrote some stories. But like we see here in second Peter, chapter 1, verse 2021, it says, the scripture was not given of any private interpretation. It wasn't somebody sitting and writing some fiction. No, it didn't come by the will of man. So it wasn't, this is not the work of man. The scriptures is not just the work, it's not the work of man. Yes, man wrote it, but how did man write it? It says, holy men, they spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. So man wrote it, but it didn't come originate from man or from somebody's private interpretation or somebody's personal ideas. No, the scriptures came through man, of course, but they were moved by the Holy Spirit. That means the Holy Spirit inspired these 14 different people to write things, to record things, to put things together for us, right? So this is something we believe and we see the evidence of it that the scriptures, which was written over a period of over 1,000, 1,500 years, written by 40 different people that they are consistent in what they say about God. They're consistent in the truth they bring to us and they somehow wonderfully point to the person of Jesus Christ, right? So this has to be the work of the one and the same Holy Spirit working through different people in different stages, in different points in time, but there is this wonderful unity that comes together, right? So we understand the Bible is not somebody's writing of fiction, but people wrote as they were moved by the Holy Spirit, okay? One last thought before we go for our break. We understand that the scriptures is our window into God. That means if we want to know God, we see him through the scriptures. It's our window into God. Now, of course, we can learn about God by looking at his creation because the Bible says the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows his handiwork. So we do see and we learn about God by just looking at what he's created. That's wonderful. But our primary access into God, our primary revelation of God comes through the scriptures and especially through the person of Jesus in the scriptures, right? So the scriptures is our window into God. If we want to know God, we look at him through the scriptures, right? And that's our window into God. And our eyes are opened to see wonderful things in the word of God, okay? So let me pause here and we will pick up from this next point when we come back from the break. Are there any questions before we go for our break? Everybody is with me so far? Yeah. Yes, Master, yes. Okay. All right, so let's take our break and then we will come back in 10 minutes and we will continue. We're just kind of laying the preliminaries during the initial things in preparation for the course, okay? So we'll be back in 10 minutes. Thank you.