 Okay, let's get started. Alright, good morning everyone and welcome to BC 106, our course on interpreting scripture. Welcome those who are in class and those who are online. Let's pray and then we will get started. Father, we thank you for this day. Thank you for another day to come together to study, to learn, to be equipped to do the work of your kingdom. Father, we commit the time we have today that as we study God, that the Holy Spirit will be our teacher, the Holy Spirit will enlighten our hearts and minds and help us understand things, help us understand truth and establish principles in our hearts and minds and how we study the Word and how we interpret the scriptures. So we invite the teacher, the Holy Spirit to teach us. We thank you and honor you in Jesus' name. Amen, amen. Okay, good morning, welcome. Let's pick up from where we stopped last week. We were talking about the illumination of the Holy Spirit. So I'm going to go ahead and share the PDF that we were using last week and then we'll get started. Alright, so even lesson number four, and we started talking about the illumination of the Holy Spirit. That when we are studying the Word of God, studying the scriptures, it's very important for us to depend on the insight or the illumination which the Holy Spirit gives to us as we study the Word of God. So the Holy Spirit is the author of the scriptures and He illuminates to us today the meaning and the insight into what He inspired many years ago. Okay, so He inspired the scriptures many years ago through the prophets. But today when you and I read it, almost 2000 years later, when you and I read it, He's going to give us insight. He's going to help us see the meaning, the application, how it applies to us, how it applies to us personally in our life situations and also in general to the church. So we said that the natural man cannot understand the things of God. They have to be spiritually discerned like we learned in 1 Corinthians chapter 2. It means it takes the help of the Holy Spirit to understand spiritual things. So that's why when a person is not open to the things of the Spirit, when you tell them about spiritual things, they can't connect. They don't understand or what you're saying. They can't connect to that because it takes spiritual discernment to be able to receive and understand the things of God. And so Paul in his praying in Ephesians 1 verses 15 to 21, as the Apostle Paul prays for the believers in Ephesians, he prays that God would ground to them the Spirit of wisdom and revelation. So let's just look at that. I know last time we didn't actually turn in our Bibles to look at that, but let's do that quickly. Ephesians 1, just look at the prayer that the Apostle Paul was praying for the believers and Ephesians. And I'd encourage you to pray this for yourself as well, often, whenever you can. Just pray. Ephesians 1 and we'll go straight to verse 17, 17 and 18. Ephesians 1, 17 and 18. Paul writes, he's saying, this is what I'm praying for you, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. Verse 18, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that you may know. So he's saying, I'm praying that God would give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation. So the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of wisdom and revelation. So we have to pray, Holy Spirit, you're filming, you give me wisdom and revelation. And what is the purpose of that? The Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, that means in order to know him, in order to know God, we need wisdom and revelation that comes from the Holy Spirit. So he's saying, I'm praying that God will give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation so that you can know him. So to know God, we need the wisdom and revelation that comes from the Holy Spirit. And then he continues in verse 18, that the eyes of your understanding may be opened or enlightened, illuminated, that the eyes of your understanding be enlightened. For what purpose? Again, he says, that you may know. That you may know. That means there is knowledge that comes only to the enlightening of our understanding from the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has opened our understanding. So we call that revelation knowledge. That means you're reading the scriptures, but the Holy Spirit has to open our eyes. The Holy Spirit has to give us wisdom and understanding. The Holy Spirit has to open the eyes so that through what we read, we may know God and we may know. And then if you read the remaining verses, he talks about three other things, that you may know the hope of your calling, that you may know the inheritance he has for you and that you may know the power that is available to us. So really in this passage, four things, to know him, to know the purpose of his calling, to know the inheritance he has given to us and to know the power available to us. All of that comes through the revelation from the Holy Spirit. So somebody says, you know, you ask him, what is your calling? I don't know. Then what do you need? You need the spirit of wisdom and revelation to know your calling. So do you know God? Not much. You want to know him more? Yes. How can you know him more? The Holy Spirit has to give you wisdom and understanding. He has to give you revelation in knowing God. Do you know what God has given you? I don't know what God has given me. Oh, do I know the inheritance God has given you? You need the spirit of wisdom and revelation so that you will know what is yours. So there are believers who, and I'm not saying this in a demeaning way, but I'm saying it more of a statement of fact, that there are believers who've been in the church for many years, maybe decades. They have been reading the Bible for decades, but they still don't know their inheritance. Why? Because they have not received revelation, knowledge. They've not said, Holy Spirit, I want wisdom and understanding that comes from you. I want you to enlighten my eyes. So they're reading the same Bible, but they have no knowledge about our inheritance. They have no knowledge about the power of God. They have no knowledge about the calling that God has on their lives, because all of that comes through revelation, knowledge. That means what the Holy Spirit reveals to us. You all with me, Shafa? So very important thing to pray. Holy Spirit revealed to me. Holy Spirit, give me wisdom and understanding. Holy Spirit, enlighten my understanding to know God, to know the purpose of his calling, to know the inheritance he's given to me, and to know the power that's available to me. Open my understanding. So we need to be enlightened. And that comes through the revelation of the Holy Spirit. Towards the end of last class, we were discussing, or we were just looking at Matthew 16, 13 to 23, where we talked about Peter. We looked at the example of Peter in Matthew 16, 13 to 23, where at one instant, Peter was the one who spoke out and said, Jesus, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. So Peter spoke out. And then the Lord Jesus said, Peter, flesh and blood has not revealed it to you. But my Father in heaven has revealed it to you. That means you have received this knowledge, not through natural means, you receive this knowledge by revelation, what God has revealed to you. So even to know Christ, it comes through revelation. The Father reveals to us. But what we saw also was in that same chapter, just further along, when Jesus is telling his disciples, I have to go and be crucified. These people are going to crucify me. Peter says, no Lord, that's never going to happen. And then the Lord Jesus turns around and says, get the behind me Satan. In other words, the same man who was receiving revelation from the Lord now was moving in the flesh and being actually embracing thoughts that were coming from the devil. Jesus directly put it that way, get behind me Satan. So he was receiving thoughts on the devil and he was speaking those thoughts and he was not understanding the mind of God on what had to happen through Jesus on the cross. So we stopped over there and I just mentioned this, that it is possible that if somebody at one point is speaking revelation from the Holy Spirit, it is possible that in other areas they may be blinded or worse off, they could be speaking wrong things. That's not from the Father, but from the wrong source. They could actually be speaking things that are demonic. So we have to be careful to always align ourselves with the Word of God and to always listen to the Holy Spirit. Be careful, check everything in line with the Word of God and is it from the Holy Spirit. So our goal is to continue in the Word. In John 8.31.32 family of scriptures Jesus said, if you continue in my words, then you are my disciples indeed and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. So in order to know the truth, he said, you have to continue in my words. You have to continue in my word, you have to stay in my word. That means you don't just casually read it a little bit one day and say, I want to know the truth. Well, you have to continue in it, you have to stay in the word. Stay in it day after day, day after day, day after day, stay in the word. If you continue in my words, you will know the truth and that truth, the truth that you know personally, that truth will set you free. So we have to continue in the word. And then in John 14.21, Jesus teaches us that as we obey his word, we receive more revelation. Jesus said, he who loves me, it is he who keeps my word and my father will love him and we will come and manifest ourselves to him. So if you love the Lord, you keep his word. That means you obey his word. Then he's going to manifest himself. He's going to unveil himself or reveal himself to you. So greater revelation of the Lord comes out of being in a place of obedience. You obey God, he will reveal more of himself to you. A classic example is that of Abraham. You know, God told Abraham, Abraham, I want you to go and sacrifice your own son, your only son. Go sacrifice. Abraham obeys. He went and he sacrificed. And at that moment of sacrifice, when God said, okay, don't kill Isaac, I know you really believe in me and you really obey me. At that moment, God revealed himself as Jehovah, Jaira. That means he received an additional, a further revelation of who God is through that place of obedience, being in that place of obedience. So obedience always puts us in a place to receive a greater revelation of God. Right? So the more we grow in our obedience, the more we are going to know him more and more. There's a connection there. Jesus said, blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. That means our revelation of God is influenced by the purity of our heart. You understand? Okay? So revelation, we're talking about revelation. We need revelation that comes from God and this is how it comes. Now, there's a flip side to it. That means the other side to the illumination of the Holy Spirit is this. And it's very important. The illumination of the Spirit, what it is not. Just because somebody says the Holy Spirit revealed something to me, doesn't mean that what they are saying is infallible. That means it's, that's, oh, just because they say Holy Spirit said, that means it's absolutely correct. No. Everything that's been received by revelation has to be tested with the scriptures through interpretation. You understand? Somebody says, oh, Holy Spirit revealed to me. Okay, let's test it with the word of God. Let's interpret the scriptures because a personal revelation is not superior to proper interpretation of scripture. A personal revelation will always be aligned to proper interpretation of scripture. Are you with me? Yeah. So just because somebody says Holy Spirit revealed, don't jump. You first test. Okay, good. You're saying Holy Spirit revealed something to you. Let's test it according to the scriptures. Come back to the word. Second point. The work of the Spirit and interpretation does not mean that he gives some interpreters hidden meaning that is different from the normal literal meaning of the passage. If somebody says, oh, Holy Spirit showed me, it is not there. It's in the white space in between the two verses. It is in that white space. Don't pay attention because any revelation from the Holy Spirit, it can be read in the script. I mean, it can be tested. So somebody says, oh, the Holy Spirit showed me that actually means like this. Well, let's check it out. Let's test it in the scripture. Like scripture must be its own interpreter. Okay, so just because somebody says Holy Spirit revealed doesn't mean we are going to follow that. Is it in the Bible? It's there in chapter and verse. Is it the essence of what's taught? Number three, the Holy Spirit in interpreting the Bible, that means that he does not normally give students sudden intuitive flashes of insight in the meaning of scripture, independent of careful study and meditation. That means most of the time, the revelation we receive through scripture is as we are studying the word and we are following these rules of interpretation. Okay. So what are we going to study? These rules of interpretation are very important. And as you are engaging with the scriptures normally through study, through interpret, then you're going to receive revelation. There may be times when that revelation just comes up in your spirit, but you can always go back and study. Okay. Be very careful. Some thought, some idea comes to your mind. Doesn't always mean that's correct. You have to come back, test it with the word of God. Okay. Lastly, the Holy Spirit guides the believer into all truth. Bible truth is available to all believers, but it's up to the believer to follow obedient limits. This truth is accessible to all believers. So nobody can say, hey, I got special truth. You don't know. Nobody can say that. But sometimes some cult leaders, leaders who are heading up cult, they claim special knowledge like that. You know, I got knowledge. It's outside the Bible, but I got give it to me. You follow. Don't follow somebody like that. Okay. Because the Bible is available to all believers. We all, all of us have access to the same truth. Right. Maybe we haven't studied it yet or we haven't learned it yet, but we all have access to the same truth. So nobody can claim some special revelation from God. That's very dangerous. Okay. So to be careful. So now we're going to get into, I will pause for some questions. Now we're going to get into practical things about interpreting scripture. All right. The first thing, this is lesson number five. So we're going on into the next lesson. Any questions before we start the next lesson? Are you all getting Xerox? You're printing out the notes. Nobody's printing out the notes. You're happy with the self copies. Okay. If you're happy with the PDF, then that's fine. It's up to you. But if you want printed copies, you can take it up upstairs or you tell me, I'll get it printed. The lessons that are coming up, but the ones that I've given you, you can print out. Okay. We'll discuss it later. Yeah. Yes. I'm going to give the mic. I'm sorry. I can't hear to what Anna. I'm on the same. Yeah. Some pastors are telling like, I mean, God said, said to me like this to do prayer in ash and like job, how job did pouring ash on him and praying in a pit. So they're telling like they got a revelation and all. So how we can consider those things. Okay. So the question is sometimes a pastor might say, God is telling me we have to throw ash on ourselves and pray. Are you telling all the believers to do that or just himself? He's doing that. He's cashing everything, everything from believers. For them, he's charging money to do personal prayers and all. Charging money for personal prayers. So see, okay. So here's the thing. There are all kinds of strange things that happen in the Christian world. And sometimes, you know, like what Anna was saying, people will charge money. I'll give you money. I'll give you, you give me money. I'll give you prophecy. You give me money. I'll pray for you or you do like this. You know, you have to put this whatever different things. My response to that is, hey, if God told you, you do it, but don't put it on somebody else. Right. And it is wrong to merchandise spiritual things. It's a wrong thing. You know, for example, even in Jesus time, you know, when you remember when Jesus went to the temple and he found people, you know, they were selling the things that people would use for offering. So, you know, in those days, when people came to the temple to worship, they had to bring an offering of a bird or some animal or those kinds of things. So people who are coming from long distances, they would not carry the animal and bring it from their home. They would come to the temple and then there they will buy the animal or bird for sacrifice and then go and offer it. But these people at the temple would charge huge amounts for the sacrificial animals because those people have no choice. Right. They've come from such a long distance. They're here at the temple. They've come to worship and they have to bring an offering. And so they have to buy those, you know, those animals, birds, whatever they're selling in order to go and make the offering. So they would charge, they were making money. So Jesus comes and he pushes, chases all of them away. Right. And he says, don't make my father's house a house of merchandise. That means don't make this a place of business money. So, you know, so if Jesus did it then I'm sure he would rebuke some of the things that we are doing today. Where we are using the church to make money. I'm sure he will do the same thing. Come and tell us, hey guys, stop doing that. You know, don't make my church a place of business. Don't do that. That's what he did then. I'm sure he will rebuke some of the things that we are doing. Yeah. So when we see these kinds of things happening, like a prophet says, give me, you know, so much money. I'll give you a prophecy. You give me so much money. I'll pray for anyone. I've heard it in other cases, you know, and I've seen it also these advertisements. I would just ignore it. I just say I'm not participating in this. This is not from God. Full stop. Sorry. Yeah, go ahead. If it is personally said by God, you can do it. Don't push on others. So, I mean, is there any scripture references to do like these things and all. See, if it's an instruction from God, example, we know, even in the ministry of Jesus, right? Sometimes he told somebody, go wash in the pool of saloon, right? Or he told somebody, go sell what you have, give to the poor, come and follow me, right? That was a specific instruction to a specific person in a given situation where God was addressing something or going to do something in their lives. So if somebody gives a prophetic word like that to an individual, right? You should do this, this, then it's up to the individual to test it. The Bible says test all things. And if it is, if the person believes feels that this word is genuine, then you obey it. Right? So that is, they're not making money. They're giving a word of instruction and so on. That's okay. Right? But if they're trying to make money out of all the people by giving some strange thing, we have to be careful. I don't necessarily, I don't care who does it. Even if it's some big name preacher, I don't bother. I just laugh at it because it's against what God wants us to do. Yes. Another question. Similar to this question. Actually, there is one church. If you want to join even online, they used to charge some monies. Even online. Join online. Yeah. And I talked with one of my friend kind of. So he told me like, yeah, they are doing, we need money for ministry. We need money to survive. God blessed us. God will not give us directly. My friend told me like that. And he told me like, they're doing, they're doing. So if you want to prosper, if you want to grow, if you God said growth, God said you will be blessed. So money is very important. What my answer for that kind of question. Okay. So, yeah, I understand. You know, some people will example. Some people charge a fee for certain things. Like if you want, they don't give books for free. You have to buy the book. Or if you want to listen to the sermon, you have to buy their sermon. You know, usually it's some amount of money. Or in some cases, like you're saying online to join online, you pay some money. Now, there is a practical side, meaning everything costs money. Right. So even to stream online, it costs money because, you know, you need all the equipment. You're paying for the internet. All of that costs money. Nobody gives it for free. It costs money. Or to print a book, it costs money to release a video or audio file. It costs money because there's a whole process of recording it, editing it, pushing it online. Hosting it. All of these things cost money. It is true. Right. But how do we go about raising money for the ministry? That's another thing. Right. Now, if somebody wants to charge money for a book, that's fine. In the sense, yeah, we understand it costs money to print a book or write a book and publish it. It costs money. So we understand there's a cost involved. But how much, you know, what is the cost compared to the, what is the cost, purchase cost compared to the production cost? Are they doing it, you know, like, okay, if the production cost is example, 50 rupees. Are they charging 150 rupees, you know, three times more, then that's a huge margin, you know, three times more. They're charging. That means, hey, that's not very comfortable, you know. So I think in all of this, we have to be true to ourselves that, okay, yeah, I know it costs money. It costs money for, you know, example, you'd rent this building, pay all these bills, all that. It costs money. But how are we going to raise the money to do that work? Right. So if somebody says, I'm going to raise it through selling books, okay, but how are you selling it? All those things are going to be very careful. So we don't want to be against people who are charging money for some of the resources. As long as they are doing it fairly, they should not be misusing that, you know, charge fair, whatever is fair, the actual cost per piece, charge it, okay, fine. You know, I don't think that's it. But in our case, for example, in our case, at APC, we decided that, look, there are certain things we are just going to give for free. We don't need to charge because the money that we are using is coming through the church that tides and offerings, right? And so right from day one, when we started, we decided we made a decision, all our books will be free. So right from 2001, when we started, all books are free. What will we put on the internet is for free because the cost for hosting it is already covered. You know, we already have the money from the tides and offerings. It's already covered. We don't need to charge for it. The cost for printing the books is already covered. And we intentionally wanted to give these things for free for the people who cannot afford it, you know. Think about people who, even in the city and more so in places outside the cities, but they hardly have any money. So if you say this book is 100 rupees, for him 100 rupees, maybe one week he gets 100 rupees. He's not going to come and buy a book for 100 rupees, right? But he's a believer. He needs to grow. Where will he get the resources? So you know, so that's why from beginning we decided to do it. And we are able to do it because through what God is providing, through the tides and offerings, everything is covered, more than enough. So there's no need for us to charge. So let me just pause here since we are taking some questions to see if there are any questions online from our online class. Any questions from anyone online? Okay. All right. So we're going to go now. Now we are going to start talking about. Sorry. Question. Yeah. Good. Pastor in Uttarakhand, I went somewhere. So I saw the church, they made altar. They made the altar in the front? In church. Okay. And pastor is wearing something and he's doing, and that is Pentecostal church. And it's good or... So they have an altar and pastor is what? Wearing something and doing something. Why? He's wearing that white robe and all. Okay. And doing what? Doing some like... It's for my understanding, I thought he is doing some idol worship type thing. Oh. Okay. I don't know what it is, but look, if I don't exactly what you saw. But if it is something that is taking us away from worshiping Jesus, if it's like worshiping an idol or worshiping an altar or worshiping some image, then obviously it's wrong. Even though it may be done inside a church place because we worship God in spirit and truth. Now, of course, we come together and in a place so that we could all be together, gather together, but our worship is in spirit and truth. It's not because of that altar. It's not because of that thing. See, the altar is only a part of the building and it serves certain purposes. The main purpose, the way they use the altar is when people come for prayer. They say, if you want to pray, come and kneel at the altar. It's a place to pray. So there's nothing wrong with that. That means, hey, you come here, you kneel at the altar and pray. Nothing wrong with that. They're not praying to the altar. They're praying at the altar just so that they all gather together and pray. That's fine. So we keep a dedicated place, like example, this place right now is dedicated for the classroom. So you want to have class, come here, sit here, and then we use the same place for worship and all that. We have set this place apart to do these things. So nothing wrong with that. So nothing wrong with having an altar inside a building. That means it's a place to pray. But if people think that the altar itself is something to be worshipped, then that is a wrong idea. The altar is only a place where you worship the living God. The altar itself is not to be worshipped. Pastor, the word hallelujah, where is it in Bible and how it comes? Hallelujah is the Hebrew words, right? I think hallel means praise or something. Hallel and jah, yah is the short form of yahweh. So hallel, praise, yah, the Lord. So it's praise the Lord. So it's a Hebrew word. It literally means praise the Lord. So every time you say hallelujah, you're saying praise the Lord. When you say praise the Lord, you're saying hallelujah. Same. One is in Hebrew, one is in English. Hallelujah, all over the Psalms, where it says praise the Lord. When it's translated in English, praise the Lord. It means hallelujah in Hebrew. But they've translated it to English. Son. But sir, we don't need altars in this day and age, right? Sorry? Altars. We don't need in this day and age. It says part of the building structure, right? If somebody wants to build it and there are many buildings that have an altar, even modern buildings have an altar, right? For example, we meet at St. Joseph's, right? We can say, come and kneel at the altar. What do we mean? We mean the front portion of the stage that becomes an altar. It means a place where you come and pray. That's all. You know? So when we give it up, we might say, come kneel at the altar, come to the altar, you know what? But it just comes to the front of the stage. It just doesn't. So some church buildings have that. There's nothing wrong with that. And in the times of the great revivals, you know, when Charles Finney and John Wesley others, they use the altar a lot. It was a place where they called sinners to repentance. They had what is called an altar bench. That means in front of the altar, they have benches on the side. If you want to receive Christ, you come and sit there, altar bench. And you go, you know, they start crying and all that. And then somebody counsels them and prays with them and all that. So they had all these things and God worked through all that. But it's not that the altar itself is special. It's just a place where people would come and meet God. That's it. Right? Nothing too much for that. All right. So we got a little sidetrack on it. Let's get back now to lesson number five. We're going to start talking about the rules of interpretation. The first thing we need to understand about the first rule to keep in mind is about culture. Right? That means remember there's a cultural gap when we are reading scripture and where in what we are living. Right? And scripture itself was written in the context of the culture of the people at that time. So their culture. It was written in that context. Right? So understand, you know, the verses before and after the passage, understand the paragraph, the book, the time in which it was written. And then, of course, there is the entire message of the Bible and the historical cultural event of that time. So when we talk about culture, we are referring to actually a lot of things. We are talking about political, religious, economic, legal, you know, the agricultural, the architectural, maybe even the clothing, the domestic, the geographical, the military, social. So many aspects of everyday life that is carried into the scriptures. That's why in Ephesians 6 Paul says, put on the full armor of God. We don't use armor today. Put on the helmet of salvation. What helmet? We only have a helmet for bikes. We don't have a... He says put on the breastplate. We don't wear in here. Put on the, you know, the shield. Take the shield of it. We don't walk around with shields. Right? Okay. So if you go to our military today, our military, nobody generally use the shields. They are in, you know, fighter jets and, you know, tanks and all those kinds of things. Right? So then that's when it's in the Bible. It is scripture. It is given by inspiration of God. But it is written using cultural language. Meaning it is used, it is using the military, military of that time. In those days when they fought, the soldier wore all this thing. Today we have no idea about it. We don't even see that. So what do we do? Okay, we have to interpret that. The important thing is salvation. That is something we have today. So that's what we should focus on. Don't worry too much about the helmet. How long it was. Did it come like this? Did it go like this? Did it have the hair? What color hair? Don't worry about that. It's not about the helmet. It's about salvation. The helmet of salvation. So focus on the salvation part. That's what is going to cover our mind and our thoughts. The breastplate of righteousness. We have no idea. None of us have ever worn a breastplate. None of us will ever wear a breastplate covering, carrying about a metal shield covering up. At the most we have people who wear that, maybe some very important people, they'll wear the bulletproof vest. Maximum. None of us are ever going to, I don't think we'll ever wear a bulletproof vest. But we get the idea. That means protect your heart with the understanding of our righteousness in God. Righteousness is what you focus on. Don't worry too much about that. You get the meaning. You get the idea. So I'm just going to give you an example. Military. A military example. Like that. We'll have many examples. Things that are agriculture nature. We saw example. We saw how Jesus used the parable of the sower to communicate spiritual truth. So the seed, all of that, or the apostle Paul, he uses the athletics, the sports as part of his imagery. So first one is nine. He says, you see the athletes, they run to obtain a perishable crown. That means those athletes who fight, who run, sorry, they run their race. But in those days, what they received was not even a medal. They received a small wreath. They'll put a little wreath on your head two days after it will dry up. That was your reward for winning the race. So it was literally perishable. Even if, of course today, they give a little medal, but even the medal is perishable. After some time it will rust and so on. But the point is that is a temporary reward. But we are running for an imperishable, something that is going to last. So then he says, you run, that you may win. But in order to do that, he says, we discipline our body and keep it in subjection. Just like how the athletes, now this is 1 Corinthians 9, 26, 27, the athletes have to discipline their body. We discipline our body. So he's using language from their culture, how they use to run the races and all of that. But he's communicating truth to us. And that's the truth. The truth is what we must take. So the cultural gap. Now when we talk about cultural gap, we must also understand that some things given in the Bible, they're for that culture and they're also for that time and they're not transferable to our day. I mean, God never intended, okay, we should follow it. Example. And we'll look at some examples. In Ruth chapter 4 verse 8, in Bible times, when you buy a house, the owner who's selling the house will take off one of his sandals and he'll give it to the buyer. I think we mentioned this earlier, some earlier class. So that was the practice in those days. You sell something, sell a house, you take your shoe, your sandal. Today nobody does it. You try doing it, they'll think something wrong with you. Let me say it's in the Bible, can I follow the Bible? Yes. Okay, yeah. So maybe some places they have their own, whatever they want. But generally we don't follow these things. These are not normal. In fact, today if you want to buy land, you have to go through a proper legal process. You have to go get your documents signed, you have to go and register it, all those things. If you don't do it, the sale is not counted good. You can lose the land. Somebody will just come and take it, do something with it. Even after doing it right, still people come and take it. So it's crazy. But the point is this, there are certain things we've seen in the Bible, instructions given in the Bible, which were meant for their day, meant for their time. So what we're going to do after break time is this. We're going to go through a list, and I want to hear from you. So here's a list of things, just a random list, okay? There are many more like this. And you have to decide by reading. It is in the Scriptures. We are looking at Scriptures. But you have to decide, is it permanent or is it temporary? It is all in the Bible, right? These are cultural things, things that happen in the culture of the day. Is it permanent or is it temporary? So after break, we'll come and discuss this. Okay? All right. Let's take a break. Ten minutes we'll be back.