The Right Hermeneutics
To understand the Bible (that was written about 2000 years ago), requires the right hermeneutics. The majority of Old Testament was written in Hebrew and the New Testament was written in Greek. 2000 years separates us from the day of Apostles (New Testament), but the Old Testament books were written long before that. Today we can see how cults use the bible to defense their heresies. Bible is read through out the world in many languages and not every person who teaches the bible have a seminary degree. Bible itself was not intended to be used by educated or scholarly people. John wrote, “The anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing teaches you about all things” (1 John 2:27). Yet having stated that, ignorance is not an excuse to make dramatic interpretation mistakes. Bible is not a book to have it be used anyway someone desires to.
In fact, Bible as a book did not come until a printing press was invented. After the Bible was distributed to people, it opened the door to all kind of interpretation. Before the printing press, the church controlled the doctrine of the church, only scholarly educated men were able to give interpretation of the Bible. When a layman got a hold of the Bible, it brought more divisions and confusion. To a point where some churches claim that God will protect them from a bite of a snakes, as they quote Mark 16:18 passage. Or state that they have received a gift of healing as they escape hospitals and sick people. People have misused the Bible for the purposes to gain power and wealth. In the of God, men in history abused the Bible and waged wars on the opponents.
When observing how Bible came to be, we can see that the Old Testament was recognized by Israel and the church and the New Testament was recognized by the Synod of Carthage in 397. The church always used the New Testament writings as inspired and authoritative before the Synod of Carthage, but in the midst of attack, it clarified to skeptics what books are the inspired by God. In 15 centuries, the printing press was invented and gave a rise to the Bible. People began reading the Bible and that was what feed the reformation— a layman was able to read the Bible for himself. Because Bible is the word of God, it should be taken more serious than any other books. No one should take teaching of the Bible lightly. This is where basic rules of interpreting the Bible come to be. Grammatical rules and the rules that Bible itself have established by apostle and the Bible. Ignoring the grammar, leads one to ignore the language that the author used when he wrote the letter.
Hermeneutical Position
Thus, because of the time, language, and culture some of the things that we read today can be misinterpreted or taken a wrong way. If the Bible can be easily understood, why then there are many religions today. I would argue that the only option one has when he interprets the Bible is the Grammatical Historical Hermeneutics. Grammatical stands for “literal.” The focus is on the meaning of the word and how it relates to one another. Common sense applied when studying the bible. Words have meaning and they are placed in phases that lead to sentences. When couple sentences express a single idea and are written together, they are called paragraphs. A single letter consist of couple paragraphs. People communicate using words, words that connected to an events, objects, or ideas. There are many languages today, yet people understand each other because there is a common knowledge of what each words means. Bible references how languages came to be. In Genesis 11, God confused the language, so people were not able to understand each other, and that prevented them to continue construction they wanted to use a tower to reach God. Words have meaning and because of grammar, language principle used to communicate idea to each other. Common sense comes as why we would approach the written language different that spoken language. When someone says, “can you give me a cup of water.” No one who understand what that means, would allegorize and say that the person is asking for a bread.
Hermeneutical Approach and it’s Grammatics
Talking about hermeneutics and the bible, there are couple things to understand. First, bible is not a human book. Yes, the bible was written by man but it was supervision (or another word to say, directed) by Holy Spirit. Apostle Peter made this statement regarding the message of the Bible: “For no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God” (2 Peter 1:20). This is the key towards understanding the Bible. It was written not by man! God said His words through men —“no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will.” Because Bible is a spiritual book, a message from God, creates difficulties for the unbelievers to understand.
Apostle Paul mentions this idea when he wrote to Corinthians church. “A natural man does not accept the things for the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannon understand them, because they are spiritually appraised” (1 Cor 2:14). This does not mean that an unbeliever can not read the Bible and derive meandering and sense for himself, he can. This is talking about accepting the meaning behind those words. One can read the Bible and say, no I don’t believe what it says. The other can read the Bible and say, “I believe what is says.” In order to have the right hermeneutical approach, the bible claims that a person needs to be a believer, in other words, born again. The prerequisite for reading, understanding, and interpreting the Bible is that the person needs to know God personally. Hermeneutics does not come from some religious man who made up rules for their religion, hermeneutics came from the Bible.
Second, there needs to be a greater appreciation to the Bible. It is God’s word; it is God’s message to man. God by his nature is perfect in every aspect of His being. If there is an error, it is not because of God, but because of man. Many Bible critics say that Bible is inconsistent and have error, but Bible cannot have errors because God does not have errors. And when the examples are given by the critics, close analysis of those text dismisses their claims. These days, people use computers that have spellcheck. In those days, people made copy after copy. Because God is the one who wrote the bible, original copy had no errors. There can be an error when there are thousand copies made. Yet, today we have access to early manuscripts that clarify the confusion. When approaching the Bible, an appreciation of the author needs to take place.
Some suggest that bible has a hidden meaning, they call it senses plenior. The idea behind senses plenior is that there is a deeper meaning than what the author intended to write in the first place. They say there is a difference between divine and human intent. Divine intent communicate more than human intent. Holding this view brings difficult to understand divine intent. What did God actually mean by saying this or that? Who embraces senses penior leans toward subjectivity. Personal feeling and experience become the basis of how the Bible is understood. Apostle Peter speaking about his personal experience on the mountain when he was the eyewitness of God’s majesty and belittles his experience when it came to the Bible. “So we have the prophetic word made more sure, to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shin gin in a dark place” (2 Peter 1:19). God’s word is more sure than any human experience.
One thing to keep in mind when approaching a text (and there are some difficult texts) is a context. In fact, context give the meaning to the word. Often it said, “A text without a context is a pretext.” When analyzing a context, the reader should pay attention to historical circumstances, canonical context, central purpose, general structure, and immediate context. The story should not be ignored that the words describe. Too often, when the text read, the reader associates his life to what he reads. Something that sounds to a reader applicable to his life, he goes ahead and connects to what he reads. That is part of the anatomy of reading, yet often, this is where the meaning has been misinterpreted. Questions that help to see a context better: what is the purpose of this book? When was it written? What political atmosphere surrounded the writer? To whom was it written? Was there other letters that this writer wrote? What were the problems that the writer addresses? Context provides the buffer to a word that it addresses. Ignoring the context, one cannot derive the meaning to what is read.
Why hold Grammatical Historical Hermeneutics
The reason why only Grammatical Historical Hermeneutics is applicable when interpreting the Bible is because it is rooted in language itself. No one want’s to be misunderstood. If someone is writing a letter to his wife, he would expect that his wife would understand the meaning behind his letter. When someone receives a court order, ignorance is not an excuse to disobey. There are practical steps or instructions written in the letter. When IRS sends a letter, the recipient of that letter can not allegorized the meaning of the letter. Those who disobey to interpret the letters using grammatical hermeneutics will be put in jail. There is consequence behind not complying to letters that mean business. Why would someone use a different approach to something that is more important than the courts or IRS letter.
Second, if grammatical historical hermeneutics not used, there can be different meanings. People can make up things and say that God said it, when in reality God never said it. There is no accountability to some preachers but the Bible. It can be dangerous at times. There was a gentleman from our town that believed God spoke to man today as he has spoke to Apostles. He said God told him to jump off the roof of his house. That is exactly what he did. He claimed on to his roof and jumped. Wrong hermeneutics lead to wrong interpretation of the bible which leads to wrong application to our lives. People can make claims for God that God never claimed and that would leads to serious consequences. If a preacher speaks for God, he needs to know for sure that what he is saying, God is saying.
Third, the writers of New Testament used Grammatical Historical Hermeneutics. When they quoted an Old Testament verse, they approached it with the writers intent. When the OT author wrote a prophesy, the NT writers respected the context and build on it when they used it in their sermons. The application of Old Testament was Christ and that’s how disciples used it.
Fourth, there will be a time when a men will stand before God to give an account. “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad” (2 Co 5:10). How would one know what is good and bad? These days, some come out and approve homosexual lifestyle. They claim that Bible never disproves their lifestyle. A homosexual will stand before God to give an account to for his sin and in his mind he might think that what he did was right. Apostle Paul wrote in Romans about unrighteous men suppress Gods truth purposefully because of their sin (Rom 1:18). A wrong hermeneutics mislead people and present a wrong view of Gods and misleading to how one out to live.
Examples of NT use of the OT
One of the example shows that Apostles applied Grammatical Historical Hermeneutics can be seen clearly in Acts 4:25–26 use of Psalm 2. At the beginning, it might look that Peter ignores the context and reinterprets the Psalms, but close analysis reveal that when Peter preaches and quotes Psalm 2, he quote in respect to how the Psalm was written in the first place. Psalm 2 was messianic Psalm. Some critics say that Psalm 2 was applicable to David, yet there is little evidence in the Psalm itself that support this idea other than David who wrote the Psalm. The language of Psalm 2 declares of the coming of the messiah and Jesus was the messiah. The Psalmist writes, “His anointed” (Ps 1:2), “You are My Son, Today I have begotten you” (Ps 2:7) all point to a Messiah. Peter, knowing that Jesus was the Messiah applies Psalm 2 to Christ. When carefully observing the NT use of the OT texts, there will be a consistency how the Apostles used Grammatical Historical Hermeneutics in their writings.
Other Hermeneutics
Grammatical Historical Hermeneutics shines in midst of other hermeneutics. For example, New Hermeneutics is focused not what the writer wrote, but what the interpreter imagined the message to be. The meaning is not in words but in the interpreter. The end result is not of what the biblical writer actually wrote but what neo-orthodox interpreter imagines the message behind. This means people who use New Hermeneutic read into the text. Theology controls the interpretation vs the text itself speak. At the end, the interpreter does eisegesis vs exegesis. Reading meaning into text one makes grave hermeneutical mistake. This of course signifies hermeneutical problem. When the author wrote the letter, they intended to be understood!
Another example would be Feminist Hermeneutic. They use gender identity to view the passages. The idea comes from male and female having no gender distinction when coming to the Bible. Their gender lens applied when the scripture is viewed. Once again, the meaning of the text does not have full authority when it came down to interpretation. They presume a question when the Bible is read, does is imputes on feminism roll or not. When the rest of hermeneutical example observe, like Marxist, reader-response, lutheran, or other, there is a lens applied when the Bible is read and interpreted. The whole argument behind Historical Grammatical Hermeneutics is let the text speak for itself. In other words, let the author speak!
Conclusion
I want to leave a word of caution. Before dismissing Grammatical Historical Hermeneutics or brushing it off, one should pay close attention to what God had to spoken related to misuse of His word. The book of James said, “Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment” (James 3:1). God will judge the interpreter of the Bible. And when a reader takes God’s word and speaks other than what God had originally said, one should know that the judgment is coming. From the beginning, God’s word was attacked by Satan. The first humans that were instructed from God directly, the meaning of the words can’t be more clear. God spoke to Adam and Eve face to face. Yet, Gods word was under attack by Satan. He approaches Eve and says, “For god knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen 3:5). If Satan attacked God’s word then, he sure is doing the same today. Satan had audacity to approach the Son of God and tempt him on the level of God’s word. Satan said, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down; for it is written” (Matt 4:6). Thus, let the readers and interpreters of the Bible tremble!
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