 Okay, the recording is on. Good morning once again, and welcome to BC 106 Interpreting Scripture. Today is January 27th, and we are making progress in this course. We are going to get into the details on our artist. We're going to start talking about all the various rules and guidelines involved in interpreting scripture. So we're getting into the main course now. Let's pray together, and then we will get started. May I request somebody to please unmute your mic, and pray together with the class this morning. Let's have ourselves and pray. Please go ahead. Father, in heaven we thank you for today, this wonderful Thursday, on the 27th of January, 2022. Lord, we know that you've got good plans for us. The Bible says that the plans you have for us are the plans to prosper us, Lord. So, Lord, as we are going into hermeneutics, Lord, the interpretation of your word, Lord, please use the pastor as a vessel, because the Bible says that none of us will be and often we shall wait for a conferter. So, Lord, since the time of the conferter came, so please, Lord, use our pastor as a vessel for the conferter to communicate through us. So, Lord, I also pray for all the students here to have understanding. The Bible says in James 1.5, that we serve a laxwith, don't you ask from your Lord who gives freely to all. So, Lord, we open our mind to receive from you in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Thank you, Collins. All right. Good morning once again. So, last week we finished talking about God's Word, the Miracle Seed, and then we transitioned into the next chapter. So, I hope to be able to just cover chapter 3 and then go to chapter 4 where we will talk about methods and tools that we use for studying scripture. So, let's see how far we get into that. So, let me go ahead and share the PDF today. Right. So, we started talking a little here on chapter 2 on Handling God's Word. Last week we defined some of this terminology that's typically used in this area of hermeneutics or interpreting scripture. We also looked at the fact that God's Word is inspired. So, the inspiration came from the Holy Spirit. He gives elimination or revelation to us today and he also helps us in the interpretation of the scriptures. But we need to do our part as human beings because each one of us are reading the scriptures in our language and we need to apply our mind to understand it and also to help other people to interpret it for the benefit of other people. That's where we stopped in my chapter. So, we then started discussing what are the challenges in interpretation? What are the difficulties that we would encounter or need to address as we look at the scriptures? So, the scriptures, of course, were written a long time ago. The Old Testament, close to 3,500 years, the New Testament, close to 2,000 years ago. They were written in different languages, the original scriptures written in Hebrew, parts of it in Aramaic and the New Testament in Greek. And then, of course, they've been translated into so many different languages. So, for us, the challenge is to rightly divide the Word. So, let's look at Second Timothy chapter 2, verse 15. It's a very well-known and also very often used scripture in the call to interpret scripture correctly. So, could somebody read that for us please? Second Timothy, chapter 2, verse 15. Be diligent to present yourself to approve to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of truth. So, one of the things if you read Paul's last two episodes, that is First Timothy and Second Timothy, these were the last writings of the Apostle Paul and after he wrote Second Timothy, he was killed, he was martyred. So, you can get the burden there in First Timothy and Second Timothy. As Paul is writing to Timothy, you can get the burden about sound doctrine. You know, that means over and over again, he repeats to Timothy whom he has put in charge of the church in Ephesians, over and over again he repeats to Timothy, you know, make sure that there is sound doctrine. Make sure that you teach the people the wholesome and the whole Word of God. You know, you can find that coming through both the episodes and he wants Timothy. Timothy, you know, the latter times that are going to be people who will get drawn away through deceiving spirits or seducing spirits and doctrines of demons. So, he is warning so you can feel that burden coming through both First and Second Timothy, the importance of sound doctrine. And Second Timothy 2.15 is one of those key verses where he's telling Timothy and therefore all of us who are ministers of God, he's saying, you know, you do your part to present yourself approved to God. That means God must put his mark of approval. Of course, in one sense, we are all approved in Christ. But then in the other sense, which is our part, he's saying, you do your best to present yourself approved to God as somebody who's not going to be ashamed, you know, a worker who's not ashamed. And then in that context, he presents this, he says, rightly divide the word of truth. So part of you and me presenting ourselves as approved to God, somebody, you know, whom God says, yeah, that's somebody I approve. And somebody who will not be ashamed, our responsibility to be approved and unashamed before God, one of them, one of the responsibilities is to rightly divide the word of God. And the word rightly divide simply means if you break it down, it means to make a straight cut, you know, so don't cut according to our own likes and dislikes. I like this part and I like that part. So don't do that. Just make a straight cut the way it's supposed to be. So that's the idea, rightly divide, make a straight cut. Don't cut it according to your personal choices and conveniences. No, make a straight cut, rightly divide the word of God. So that becomes now our responsibility as ministers. True, the Holy Spirit is the inspiration. He's the one who gives the illumination. But our responsibility is how do I make sure that I'm rightly dividing and making a straight cut in when it comes to the word of God, right? And another great example, if you can go to Act 17, 10 and 11, let's read that because I think that's also a good example. Act 17, 10 and 11, somebody could read that for us, please. Act 17, 10, 11, then the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to burial. When they arrived, they went into the San Diego of the Jews. This we are more fear-minded than those in Thessalonica. In that day, we see the world with all readiness and search the scriptures daily to find out whether these things fair so. Thank you. So Paul and Silas, second missionary journey, they come to this place called Berea. And usually, whenever they go to a new city, they would start off preaching in the synagogue and what would happen is they'll get thrown out of the synagogue and so they'll go outside and preach. So they went to the synagogue inside of preaching to the Jews there and also the proselytes and the others who came in. And it tells us in verse 11, Act 17, 11 that these people at Berea, they received the word, that means they very patiently heard what Paul and Silas had to say, but what did they do? They went in search the scriptures. So at that time, of course, they had the Old Testament scriptures. And can you imagine, in those days, they preached the gospel from the Old Testament because they didn't have any of the New Testament scriptures, but they preached the gospel of Jesus Christ from the Old Testament. That's what they did. So you can imagine Paul going through all the Old Testament scriptures that were pointing to Jesus and preaching Jesus from the Old Testament. But these Berean Christians, what are they doing? They are going in searching the scriptures. They're looking through the Old Testament. Hey, is what Paul and Silas, is what they're saying, is that correct? Right. So we just want to highlight the effort they made. They went in search the scriptures. Was the Holy Spirit using Paul and Silas, of course, but they were doing their part, which is they were searching the scriptures, whether what they were hearing was right or wrong, and then they believed. So that's a good example, which you and I must also do that, is we put our effort to search, to study, to understand the scriptures so that we can rightly divide. Later on, maybe today, we will learn about the inductive method of studying the Bible. There are many different ways to study the Bible. We will go through those methods, maybe hopefully in the next chapter. And one of the very simple, easy to use ways to search the scriptures is what is commonly referred to as the inductive method. The inductive method is simply asking three simple questions. It involves three things, asking three simple questions, which is observation, what does the text say, interpretation, what does the text mean? And third, how do I apply the text application? It's very simple. Which we can do every day, like even this morning, when I read my Bible, I'm reading through 1st John. So I read chapter 3 on into chapter 4. And after reading, you pause and you just do this. You observe, what is God saying? Or what is God saying through John? What's he saying here? What does it mean? And how does it apply to me? Meaning, what should I do with it? That's a very basic, a simple way to study the scriptures. Something that all of us, I think, are probably doing without necessarily doing it in a very structured manner. But we are doing it. You read it, what does it say? What does it mean? What must I do with it? But we will learn many other ways to search the scriptures. There are many other ways and tools that we can use, which we will share. Now, why are we doing that? What is our goal? See, what was clear to the writer may not be immediately clear to the reader. I mean, the scriptures are written, like we said, so many thousand years ago. And there are a lot of gaps that we have to bridge the spiritual time, geographical cultural language, literary gap. So what was clearly understood by the writer? So the writer is receiving revelation, inspiration from the Holy Spirit. He has understood something that he is trying to put down in words, in the language and in the words and the literary style of his day. And in the context of his day, he's writing it down. But here we are reading it. And we may not necessarily clearly understand what he was saying. So that's what we study. So in our interpreting of scripture, we depend on the Holy Spirit, but we also use the abilities God has given us to think, to study, to research, to reason, so that God can use the effort we put in to correctly understand and interpret the scripture. Some simple guidelines, I think, if you take the some of the older men and people of faith, how they studied, and of course, these are times way back when they didn't have all the tools that we have. How did they study? And it's good to just look at their approach. Martin Luther said, the scriptures are to be retained in their simplest meaning ever possible and to be understood in their grammatical and literal sense, unless the context plainly forbids. Obscure passages are to be understood in the light of clear passages. Scripture is its own interpreter. This is the true method of interpretation, which puts scripture alongside scripture in a right and proper way. So this is a very, very important principle, or these are important parts and principles that we can take away from Martin Luther. So keep it simple, understand it as literally as possible. It's there, okay, understand it, unless the literal interpretation would be an absurd thing. That means then God is speaking metaphorically. Scripture is its own interpreter. So what one practice we must develop is scripture puts scripture alongside scripture in the right and proper way. So scripture is its own interpreter. So whenever we are trying to understand something, try to look at it from a complete perspective and put scriptures alongside each other on the same subject, of course. So in the right and proper way, scripture that are speaking on the same thing, put them alongside each other and then draw the meaning. And of course we have to do it in the light of present truth. That means we will also learn that revelation is progressive. So I must interpret today in the light of present truth, not in the light of what was relevant sometime back. For example, marriage. So you see in the Old Testament, you see the New Testament. Where are we living? We are living in the New Testament. So how was marriage presented in the New Testament? In the Old Testament, people had many wives. New Testament, very clear. Every man be the husband of one wife. So in understanding marriage, yes, I will find scripture in the Old Testament. I'll find scripture in the New Testament. Put them alongside but I must interpret it in present truth. That means what is God's, what is God, what is the last revelation or what is the revelation relevant to where I am, which is New Testament. Every man be the husband of one wife. So that's what the Bible is saying about marriage. So like that, in a way to put scripture alongside scripture, interpret it in the light of present truth. And again, John Calvin mention stated this. It is the first business of an interpreter to let his author say what he does say instead of attributing to him what we think he ought to say. Now this is again a very interesting statement. That means our goal is what is God saying through the author rather than we trying to put the meaning to what he is saying. We attribute to him what we think he ought to say. So we don't do that. What is he saying? And interpreting it of course in the light of the rest of scripture. So what does he say? The application must be always in the light of the rest of scripture. So we will learn to do these things. Now we have to admit that there is the possibility of error during interpretation. The apostle Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 4, too, that some knowingly distort the word. You know, that means they purposely do it. 2 Corinthians chapter 4 verse 2. Can somebody read that please? 2 Corinthians chapter 4 verse 2. But we have renounced the things hidden because of shame, not walking in craftiness or adulterating the word of God but by the manifestation of truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. So Paul is mentioning here of people who are like John's version was saying adulterating the word of God deceitfully or here the New Kingdom says they're handling the word of God deceitfully. That means they are knowingly adulterating it, mixing it. They know what the word is but then they are adulterating it. They're handling it deceitfully. They're knowingly doing things with it because they want to use that word to support their own idea, their own agenda, their own position. So there are people who know knowingly do that. But sometimes others unknowingly make faulty interpretation. Now this unknowingly usually happens because they have not done their homework. That means they have not made the effort to do their study. They have not made the effort to apply the rules or make the effort. So then what happens? They come out with faulty interpretations. So some knowingly distort the word. Maybe they want to stay true to their denomination. So even though they're able to see things, they say, no, no, no, I can't say it because I belong to this denomination. I have to say that, you know, things like that for whatever reason. If they knowingly say the wrong thing. But sometimes people are knowingly do it. And many times they are knowingly happens because we haven't done our homework. We haven't made the effort to study. So then they come out with wrong interpretations. And then, like we said in the very beginning, if we interpret things incorrectly, it can, people will misapply the word. They will get into trouble. They will do wrong things. So our goal is to avoid error. That's our goal. Of course, knowingly you don't want to distort the word. You won't do it. But we want to make every effort that even mistakenly we don't misinterpret the word of God. So that is where we study, we put our effort and we will follow these guidelines. Now, the Bible is both a human book and a divine book. So what do you mean? As a divine book, we know that God inspired it. God is the ultimate author of the Scriptures and God sovereignly saw to the forming of the Scriptures, the coming together of the 66 books. God's hand is in it. So we say things and we can say the Bible is inherent. There is no error. The Bible is authoritative, meaning it's final authority in our lives. The Bible has unity. So therefore, the Bible is not going to contradict itself. It's coherent and consistent. Seeming discrepancies, we interpret it in the light of the harmony of Scriptures. And we will address some of these scenarios. We will look at specific examples as we go along. And what may be obscure and secondary, we interpret it in the light of clear and primary passages. So it's okay. What do we know? What is very clear? We follow that. If there are two equally possible interpretations, go with what is clear and sensible. The Bible interprets itself. We will see that example of that as well. And we acknowledge the progressive revelation. That means God over time continuously revealed more and more. And over time, he may have stopped some of the things that he had stated earlier. For example, he gave the law through Moses. Then Jesus came. Grace and truth came for Jesus Christ. And he said, okay, you're no longer under law. You're living in a different way. You're living under grace. So there's a progressive revelation. And God is changing. Or God has changed certain things that he has given to us. So we must be aware there is progressive revelation. And we live in present truth, meaning what God has revealed to us now in the Scriptures. And the Bible is supernatural. That means there are things in the Bible that are beyond human logic and understanding. It's the work of God. So the Bible is a divine book, but it's also a human book. That means it is written in the language of the day and time in which it was written. So the Old Testament was written using the language and the grammar and the figures of speech that were available in that day and time. And as you keep progressing, you come into the New Testament. The New Testament was written in the language that is Greek using the grammar of the Greek language and using the figures of speech that was relevant during those days. So it's a human book because it is using the language and the grammar and the figures of speech of its day and time. And secondly, it's human because it was written by a person to their immediate audience. Most of the time it was written directly to the immediate audience who had a certain historical, geographical setting. There was a certain time in history, they were living in a certain place and it was written for a particular purpose. So it was written by a person to a people for a purpose within a certain historical and geographic context. So that's something, so it's very human. Thirdly, it's human because of the cultural environment in which the person was living. So they would talk about maybe the clothes of their day, maybe the way they traveled or those kinds of things which was relevant to their environment. Some other things is when we understand it, we must understand it in its context. That means what did it mean as it was written in that time to those people in that language, what do those figures of speech mean? So it must be understood in that context. So in understanding that actually going back in time, historically, geographically, culturally, literary, in a literary way, we're going back in time and we're understanding it. But then we have to bring it back to today's application. So we have to do that interpretation. We have to understand it. We have to recognize the literary form that was used in that day and time. And we must understand that the basic principles of logic and communication are being used. That means a certain thought is being developed or the writer is, you know, he's progressively developing an idea. So let's wait till he finishes developing the idea before we arrive at the conclusion. Don't just stop in the middle and then try to jump to a conclusion. You might end up in the wrong conclusion. So follow through. Maybe he takes four or five chapters for him to develop something. Or maybe in chapter seven, he's referring to something he had mentioned in chapter one. That means, of course, they didn't write it in chapter and verse, but what he referred in the beginning, he's referencing a little later. So these forms of logic and communication we must keep in mind and not forget, you know, which is something how we also in our speaking in our writing today follow. So these basic principles of logic and communication, we must also apply as we go back in time to understand the scriptures. Okay. So this is a, you know, a simple introduction. Our next chapter, chapter three, is we're going to get into the tools and methods of study. But before we do that, I want to pause here and see if there are any questions so far. Everybody's with me so far. Any questions? Okay. I see a question there from John Paul. What approach should we should have understanding imprecatory psalms. So I do not know what is what are imprecatory psalms. Could you explain that John? Yeah, this means the science which is written to, which reads about invoking judgment on others, especially since 109 verse nine, which says that their child be fatherless. Things of that sort. Yeah. So there will be, you know, in the Old Testament, thank you John. Thanks for the question. So basically how, you know, how do we understand these psalms? Or let's just extend this question to a lot of things that we see in the Old Testament where God tells his people to go, you know, kill the tribes, you know, kill all the tribes, occupy a land, out of fight against the enemy, or, or, you know, they pray for judgment against their enemies, so on and so forth. Now, again, so we must understand, and which we will be mentioning later on is there is the context where God is leading his people to go in and possess a land and their enemies and so on. And in the Old Testament, in order to achieve that, God has, you know, God directs and empowers his people a certain way, right? So to go possess the land, to go occupy territory, to conquer, obviously the people are militant, the people fight, and they, of course, you know, are intent destruction on their enemies. And that's where all the prayers and such prayers and such things are all, you know, that's the context in which the psalms, those psalms, those prayers and those actions were taken. The context was you have to occupy the territory, that's for you, you have to conquer tribes in order to get access to the land, and then you need to protect the land, which means you need to fight off the people who are trying to attack and take it. So that's the context. So in that context, there is a lot of militancy and fighting, killing, and so on. But that's Old Testament. And when you come into the New Testament, things have changed. It's no longer about having to possess a physical land. It's no longer having to fight tribes of people to occupy something that is your inheritance, that context has changed. Therefore, those things do not translate to us directly. But in the New Testament, everything changes to spiritual dimension. So we are now engaged in a spiritual battle, we are fighting against spiritual enemies, and we are contending for spiritual things. So what was Old Testament context is no longer the same context for us here. What was in the natural has now shifted to the spiritual. So when we read those sounds or read those prayers or read about those actions, understand it in that context. And if there's anything that they're going to translate or take from it, it has to be in the context of our time, which is spiritual engagement. So in fact, I did a complete study and I wrote a book a long time ago called The Lord is a Warrior. So meaning God hasn't changed. God is still a warrior in the Old Testament. He's still a warrior in the New Testament. He's still a man of war. But the context has changed. And so I was just trying to draw a parallel of spiritual warfare principles from the Old Testament to New Testament. I was just drawing a parallel. It's very interesting. It was an interesting study and saying, okay, we can use this parallel. So to that extent, it's fine. But the context has changed, so we cannot directly use it. So today, we won't be paying judgment on our enemies in that sense, because it's not a physical fight. We're not fighting flesh and blood. So we won't pray those kinds of prayers against other people. But they did that in that time because that was the natural context in which they were engaging. Yes, thank you. All right. Good question. Any other questions? Okay. So let's get in now to our next chapter as we make progress. This is some of the tools and methods for Bible study. And after this chapter is when we're going to get into rule by rule on how to interpret scripture. We will go through the rules. But this is laying some background on how to study, because as you start applying the rules, you are studying and then you're applying the rules to what you are studying. So what is our objective in personal Bible study? So this is very important. So when you and I are studying first of all, be it's personal Bible study. That means I must desire to study the Word of God. I remember a long time ago, somebody asked me, do you study the Bible just to preach sermons? Then I had to explain. No, no, no. I study the Bible because I want to know what the scriptures are saying. And I used to study the Bible in various topics. Yeah, just for me to understand that topic. Now, of course, I do study or I do prepare when I want to go preach a sermon. But to prepare a sermon, I might take five minutes or sometimes I might just take, you know, it doesn't take long to prepare a sermon. It's not, you know, sometimes I may put in a little bit more effort because I have to write everything down because our pastors are preaching. But otherwise to prepare a sermon, it's sometimes I don't even need to prepare. I can just open my Bible and speak. Why? Not because I don't value in preparing for a sermon. For me, everything you study in the Bible is part of your preparation for a sermon. So in a sermon, you're just giving a little piece of what you've already been doing as part of your personal study, right? You're just letting them have a little piece of what you've been eating. Right? That's what a sermon is if you want to look at it that way. So the sermon itself is not a lot of work. Sometimes it is, but sometimes it's not. Why? Because if you are studying the Bible all the time, you know, various topics and searching and understanding and all of that, then you are putting in, you are ready all the time. You know, if somebody says, can you teach on a particular subject? If you have studied that subject, you're ready to speak. Of course, you may need your notes and that's okay. You already, you know, done your study, you put your notes together so you can then decide, you know, what part I want to share and what, because of limitation of time and all that. But what I really want to encourage all of us is if we want to be ministers of the Word of God and let us put a lot of time into personal Bible study, you study because you want to learn. Don't study because you have to preach a sermon. Study because you want to learn, because you want to know the Word, because you want to be like the Burian Christians, right? That means you want to search the scriptures and know the truth for yourself. Study because of that. Then sermon is, okay, I'm just taking a portion of what I have learned or discovered and I'm giving you a little piece of it, you know, and that's how sermons should come. Okay. Now, what is our motivation in doing personal Bible study? At least three things. We want to know the truth. That means, okay, what does the Bible actually say about something? So there's a desire to know the truth. There's also, of course, a greater desire. I want to know God through his Word. And so God has given me the Bible and if I look into the Bible, I can understand God. God is unveiled to us through his Word, right? And then there's another desire. What is it? So that I can be changed, right? That as I read the scriptures and I discover the Word, the Word is going to change me. The Word is going to correct me. The Word is going to strengthen me. The Word is going to empower me, equip me, so on. So I'm going to be changed and the net result is God can be revealed through me, right? I will become a little bit more like Jesus and God can be revealed through me. So these are simple motivations. Why you and I study the Bible? We want to know the truth. We want to know what is the right thing. We want to know God and we want to be transformed so that we can reveal God, right? Now, some other background as we do Bible study is a simple question. You know, why do we have so many versions of the Bible? What's the difference and what must, which version must I use? We will get into more details on this in our second year course on apologetics when we talk about the scriptures and so on. But I'm just doing a little bit of background here. You know, there are, you know, so the original or the original copies of the text, the Bible text are known as manuscripts, Bible manuscripts. And there are numerous manuscripts, new testament for the New Testament and the Old Testament. Actually, I think more than around 24,000 copies of our New Testament manuscripts in various languages, Greek 5,800. And there are numerous Old Testament manuscripts, again in different languages. And, you know, people who do translation work, and I'm not an expert in these things, I can just share a little bit here. They categorize manuscripts and they categorize their translation approach, broadly speaking, into two types. So one approach of using manuscripts is the Byzantine text type or the majority. So the Byzantine is an area in Turkey, eastern part of eastern Orthodox area. So it would be more on the eastern part of Turkey, I guess, maybe because of the texts from that area, manuscripts from that area. But the idea here is you have all these manuscripts, what is the majority of the manuscript saying, that's what we will translate. That's one approach. The Alexandrian type, again, Alexandrian refers more to the Egyptian type, looks more on what did the earliest manuscript say, right? So we'll go by that, the date of the manuscript. So there are two ways to do the translation. One is, what is the majority of the text say, we'll go with that, or what is the earliest one say, we'll go with that. In many cases, there is coherence in both approaches. I would say that most of the time there is coherence. In some cases, what happens is there will be in a timeline wise, there may be small changes, variations in later manuscripts, because manuscripts were hand copied, right? So the person copying later may have added a certain few words in order to make it understandable in their time. So in the Alexandrian type, they would say, let's go with what was the earliest. Or in the majority of the manuscripts, there may be one or two that are odd ones out, which may have had a few variations, a little variation in the text. While the majority are saying, say, example, if you have 500 copies of a certain, you know, the Gospel of Matthew and 498 have the same text, but maybe there are two with a little variation, then it's okay, we stay with the 498. So that is it, but the majority are consistent, coherent. But there are these two broadly speaking approaches in the translation of text, just to keep that in mind. And that's why when you read your Bible, and I'm talking about the English Bible, you will find that there will be in the margin or sometimes in the footnotes, there will be in some cases something that says this manuscript says this. That means that is one, you know, okay, here's some slight variation. They're telling us about it. But what have they done? They have stayed with either the majority or they've stayed with the earliest text. And they will let you know, okay, this manuscript says this. Okay, so you'll find that in the footnotes or in the margin, you'll find it. Now, that is one aspect of translation. And then we will get into more details in the second year course on apologetics. But there's another thing we must keep in mind, which is translation philosophy. So when these translators sat and translated the Bible, in most cases, groups of translators worked together. So it's not one person doing the entire translation. There were instances of, you know, the individuals like the early days, I forget their names, like Wycliffe and others who worked independently. But later on, like the King James, new King James, others for groups of translators. So there's big advantage because it has the collective knowledge and understanding of people who knew the language working together. But when the translators were working, or when they start working on a translation, they're going to decide on the translation philosophy. That means, how are we going to translate it? So there are some, so we need to understand. One is referred to as a formal equivalence. That means it's a word for word translation, word for word translation. It tries to be as literal as possible. So this would include the English standard version, the King James version, the new American standard Bible. Okay. They follow the formal equivalence of word for word translation. Then there is the functional equivalence. It is thought for thought. That means, what was that person thinking? Let me say the same thing in today's language. I'm communicating thought for thought. So I'm not translating word for word. That means I'm going to introduce some of my own words, but I'm making sure that I'm bringing across the same thought, which means they're actually doing a little bit of interpretation for you already, right? Because they're interpreting that thought in our modern thought. They're using modern language to communicate the same thought. That's called functional equivalence. The new living translation, the new international version would be of this. Okay. So let me pause here. It's 9-5-0. So we'll take our 10-minute break and I'll come back and we'll go over this and then we can discuss as well. So let's take a quick break here. I hope you're with me up. This is not boring for you. I hope it's interesting. Okay. Let's take a break and we'll come back in 10 minutes and continue.