Video Transcripts for Day 11-20

3 Video Transcript

Video Transcript: Meet Professor Jeff Weima

Hello, my name is Jeff Weima, and I'll be leading you on these online videos on behalf of Christian Leaders Institute. Before we get started, I thought it would be important and hopefully helpful for me to introduce myself. Not that that's so important, but most people are curious by nature and probably wonder who's leading them in these series of instructions. And so please permit me to give you this brief introduction of who is this guy named Jeff Weima? Well, in terms of roots, I first have up there some wooden shoes, because both of my parents are immigrants from the Netherlands after the Second World War. And on one hand, that might not seem so important for my life, because after all, I was born in Canada, and I hardly speak any Dutch. But I've come to realize over time that my immigrant upbringing was more formative and shaping whom I was when I first realized, in fact, when I meet other immigrants, whether they're from a Dutch background, or Korean or whatever country, we often have a lot in common as we share our experiences. You also see up there a Canadian flag because I was indeed born in Canada. But a number of years ago, my wife and I moved to the United States and after a period of time, become now American citizens. And we've lived now in the United States for the past 20 years. Speaking of my wife, there she is, we've been married now 28 years. As we're recording this The year is 2011. And we've been together then for a good while, and we hope the Lord willing to continue to be together for a good longer while yet we have four children here, going from the oldest to the youngest, from right to left. The oldest is married, and she is a Spanish teacher in a Christian school. And she and her husband live in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where I live. Our second daughter is also married. This picture comes from her wedding from a couple of years ago.

She is a special needs teacher. And she works in Niles, Michigan, and she has lots of challenging stories and experiences that come from teaching kindergartener and first grade special needs children. And her husband is a PhD student at Notre Dame in South Bend in chemical engineering. Our third daughter has always been a little bit independent and marking her own course. And so she went to school quite a ways away from our hometown of Michigan. She's studying at Seattle Pacific University, she's studying a combination of business and fashion. And then our baby, if I could put it that way, if you can call someone who's six, five, a little over 200 pounds a baby is Sam, and he is a sophomore at Michigan State University studying business. I do a lot of other things besides a teach, although surprisingly, I have very few pictures of me actually teaching and so I don't have one to show you of that. I also do a lot of preaching. In fact, I preach about 70 times a year, but hardly have any few pictures of that either other than this rare picture of me and an old fashioned pulpit in of all places, South Africa. But I think it's important for you to know that I spend a lot of time thinking about how do you communicate the gospel to a contemporary world? How do you move from the study and the academic world to the world of the pew. I hope that that practicality, that issue of relevancy will come out in our study sessions together. 

Here is a picture of me leading a two day seminar for pastors. I travel around the United States and Canada often leading these two day intensive seminars on a particular theme or subject, and then encourage these pastors to steal as much as they want. And they can kind of hit the ground running with a sermon series that will hopefully benefit them in their church. I also lead biblical study tours, here's an image of me in front of a temple in Corinth. I lead the study tours both to Turkey and to Greece and less so to Israel. And that's another important way in which our understanding of the biblical text comes alive when we visit these places. And we see the link between archaeology, history, geography, and the biblical text. Of course, I have to be involved in publishing. You can see from the title of the books that my area of specialty is a Paul and especially his letters, and even more narrowly the thessalonian letters. I'm also in addition to these books, just about finished rather massive commentary on First and Second Thessalonians. But there's more to life than academics and so I've got a few other things to round out the picture. My life. You can see here, me a picture with my daughter and son in law participating in a triathlon. I selectively picked out a picture or two in which it was a little more flattering to me, you didn't see me passed out from exhaustion. 

Here's another picture of me with my second daughter. I do a lot of running and five K's. But my real passion is actually waterskiing. So here's an image of me slaloming. And another interesting thing I do is barefoot waterskiing, this is actually one foot barefooting sometimes have a little picture in a caption underneath this picture outside my office door that says something like this. Why not barefoot? After all, Jesus walked on water to? Well, friends, this is a little introduction into me and my life. And I hope it's been helpful to kind of round out some of the more academic things that we'll be talking about. I am glad to speak to you in this way and to work with you and understanding and becoming better readers of the biblical text. And I pray that our time together will be a profitable one for you, not only for now, but also for your future ministry. Thank you.

Video Transcript: Explanation of Key Terms (Dr. Weima)

Hello, and welcome to How to read the Bible for all it's worth. Actually, that's just a user friendly title for what we're really going to be talking about. And that's the subject of hermeneutics. But the word hermeneutics is a little bit intimidating, and you probably wouldn't be looking at this series with much excitement if I use that. But that's indeed what we'll be talking about hermeneutics. But actually more accurately and outline of reformed biblical hermeneutics, hermeneutics we're going to see is just another word for explaining or interpreting things. And we're going to be busy talking about how we can become better interpreters of the Bible, hence, we call it biblical hermeneutics. However, I've added the adjective reform because reformed Christians have a unique perspective on how to interpret the Bible. Of course, there's lots of overlap with broader evangelicals. And so there'll be lots that we have in common, and one or two places where I'll have a chance to highlight how as reformed Christians, that includes Presbyterians, many Anglicans, the reformed camp is very, very large.

That includes then how reformed people have a unique, maybe angle on interpreting the scriptures. And finally, it's only an outline, I'm not pretending that we're going to cover everything. This is hopefully enough to whet your appetite. And to get you to hit the ground running in terms of your becoming a better reader of the Bible, or, as our user friendly title puts it, how you can read the Bible for all it's worth. And that really is the goal of our becoming church leaders, not only for us to become better readers of the Bible, but also to encourage and equip others to become better readers of God's Word. My name in case you haven't watched the intro video is Jeff Weima. And you can see from my middle initials A.D. that I was predestined to be a professor of New Testament, I can thank my parents for naming me wisely.

You can also see that I am a professor at Calvin Theological Seminary, which is located in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Now, there are many things we're going to talk about, we're going to start off first with an explanation of key terms. There are four terms that we need to understand and not only understand these terms, but maybe even more importantly, their interrelationship with each other. And the terms are Hermeneutics, Exegesis, Eisegesis, and Homiletics.

Let's begin then with that first term hermeneutics. The word hermeneutics comes from a Greek word Hermeneia, which means literally interpretation or explanation. You can see here a book of a commentary series, and the editors thought about what to name their series, and they decided on the name Hermeneia, because they thought to themselves, oh, this series will Hermeneia  this series will interpret this series will explain the Bible for our readers. The word hermeneutics is a biblical term, it occurs 11 times in the New Testament, one text that we can take time to read comes from Luke 24:27. And it goes like this. And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he that is Jesus, (di)hermêneusen, right? He explained, he interpreted to them what was said in all the scriptures concerning himself. 

The word hermeneutics doesn't technically occur, but it's certainly alluded to in a story of the New Testament, you perhaps are familiar with the story about how, during the first missionary journey Barnabas and Paul, after engaging in the healing, were thought by the locals to be gods, and they identify Barnabas by the gods Zeus, the head God, but Paul, they called Hermes. And why do they call Paul Hermes? Because Hermes, and you can see the wings on his feet is the messenger God. So he flies around, and he gives the word or he gives the explanation or the message from the gods to different people. And because Paul apparently was the apostle, who was explaining who was interpreting things, they identified him by the god Hermes. So in the word hermeneutics, we see also the reference to the Greek god Hermes. Now, even though the word hermeneutics literally means one thing, it functions differently within the biblical world, especially when you talk about textbooks and studying and so forth. The word again literally means interpretation explanation, but it's used in a more broad or wide sense as a set of rules or guidelines for interpretation.

So it's a broad overarching term, and it has to do with establishing some guidelines, some principles, some rules, if you will, for how to properly interpret the Bible hermeneutics. Now, there's a distinction we ought to make right off the bat that I think is an important one and it goes like this. Hermeneutics is often defined as one the science and two the art of biblical interpretation, it is considered a science because it has rules. And these rules can be classified into an orderly system, it is considered an art because communication is flexible, and therefore a mechanical and rigid application of rules will sometimes distort the true meaning of a communication. 

To be a good interpreter of Scripture, one must learn the rules of hermeneutics, as well as the art of applying those rules. So this quote highlights this distinction between hermeneutics as a science and hermeneutics as an art. There are others who have made this distinction, I have a quote here from the acts of Synod, these are decisions of the collective body of the Christian Reformed Church of which I am apart. And notice how this report also makes a distinction between hermeneutics as a science and hermeneutics as an art that goes like this, drawing up a soundly biblical hermeneutics is one thing, applying such a hermeneutics to a given passage is another, there is nothing mechanical about the process of understanding, understanding literature. And in this case, understanding the Bible is an art as art, it is not the mechanical application of a set of rules, which would automatically yield uniform results. Let's think about this distinction of hermeneutics as an art and a science for a moment.

So on one hand hermeneutics, which again, we said is the guidelines or principles for interpretation, on one hand, it's a science, science classifies things, science puts things in certain kind of order, and analyzes them and, and that's what we're kind of doing in this video series, right? Where we're kind of analyzing this business of hermeneutics or interpretation. But on the other hand, it has to be an art. In other words, we just can't in a kind of mechanical way, memorize these rules and then apply them. In other words, we can't become like robots and be programmed certain rules or guidelines and principles. If that were true, then we could do something else, we could just kind of program a computer to do all the interpretation for us. In fact, I think that's what many people in the church I served many years ago probably thought, when I was a seminary student, some 26 or so years ago, I went for a summer assignment to serve a congregation in northern Alberta, Canada.

So I was in a rural church in the middle of nowhere. And I had I was rare in those days, I had a personal computer. And so everybody, of course, in this rural community heard about their new pastor, and he came to our village, he came to our area with a computer. And I really think that many of them thought I could just kind of sit behind my computer and I could kind of keyboard in the text I want to preach in and then look on the keyboard for either the reformed or the Baptist, or the Anglican or the Pentecostal button, then hit that and then out boom, would pop automatically a reformed sermon. Now I trust you realize that that's impossible. That would be possible if hermeneutics were only a science, right? If hermeneutics were only a set of rules and guidelines and principles, then all we have to do is kind of identify what they are and program some mega computer to, to to learn them. And then we could just spit out automatically a sermon, whatever we would like.

But communication is not just a science, it is also an art. Now, maybe the Word Art is a bit misleading. I'm going to say it this way, we have to have wisdom in knowing how to apply the rules or guidelines of hermeneutics. Okay, you need to have wisdom, to know how to apply the rules. So in our series together, we're going to be learning the different rules or guidelines or principles. And that's crucial. That's important. That's the science part of hermeneutics. But we also need to have the wisdom to know how to put those into practice. And so prepare yourself to be a little bit flexible, right in the implementation of these rules. And that wisdom and that flexibility comes frankly, just with time and experience. The more you deal with the scriptures, the more you spend time explaining and proclaiming the scriptures. I think the more wise and able you are to treat not only the science part of the interpretation process, but also the so called art or why side of the process. hermeneutics as a science and hermeneutics as an art Now the second term that we need to think about is the term exegesis, exegesis.

And it two comes from the Greek language. And it literally means it comes from the verb exêgeoman, it means literally to lead out to lead out. And I love the Greek meaning, because there's something very important implied in that Greek word. It implies that there is some objective truth claim found in the Bible. And then we're like explorers, we have to find what that truth claim is, and so to say, lead it out of the text, in order for us to see it, and for our parishioners, and the people to whom we're called to minister to see it. And that actually is quite a countercultural idea. Because in our postmodern age, many people claim that there are no objective truths. They're only subjective truths, things that may be true for me, but not necessarily true for you. But the word exegesis presupposes that. No, there are some objective truths and they're found in the Bible. And exegesis is the means by which we find what those truths are, and we lead them out, exegesis. Now, what about the relationship of the term exegesis to hermeneutics, because on one hand, they're very, very similar. 

Remember that hermeneutics means interpretation, explanation, and exegesis talks about leading out the meaning of a passage. But the relationship between these two terms need to be clarified. Remember, I said to you that hermeneutics is the broad overarching term, a set of rules or guidelines for interpretation. But exegesis now is when you take those rules, somewhat abstract principles or guidelines for interpretation, and then you put them into practice. So exegesis is a more narrow term, a more restricted meaning about the application of hermeneutics. Maybe if I sent it this way, it would help. When I come into my study, to prepare to write a message or a class on a biblical passage, I come into the study, so to say with a hermeneutic. Already in my mind, even before I sit down at my desk, I have a set of questions I'm going to ask of the text I have a I have a set of guidelines or principles by which I'm going to approach the passage. It doesn't matter what passage of scripture I'm going to look at, I know that there are some things I ought to do things like take seriously what kind of genre or where in the Canon that comes from? Or am I dealing with a letter with poetry, apocalyptic or history? I know before I even sit down and look at a passage, I have to look at the original language because I know that every translation involves interpretation. 

So if it's a New Testament passage, that means thinking about its Greek text, if it's an old testament passage, thinking about its Hebrew and possibly Aramaic background or text. I know regardless of the passage, I have to know something about its historical context, Who said it? Where did they live? To whom are they writing? What was happening in the author's life? What was happening in the audience's life? And then I also have to ask myself, even before I look at a passage, how does this passage that I'm preaching on fit within the rest of Scripture, you see, these are a set of principles. These are a set of guidelines, this is the hermeneutic, if you will, that I carry with me everywhere I go. And I use whenever I open the scriptures. But then when I finally sit behind my desk, and I open the Bible, that's when I take that somewhat abstract rules or guidelines, and I tried to put them into practice.

And then now I'm doing exegesis, I'm leading out the specific meaning of a particular passage of scripture. So again, hermeneutics even though it literally means interpretation, we use it in a broad sense guidelines, principles for interpretation. And the next Jesus is in that more narrow or restricted sense, where we take those guidelines or principles, and we put them into practice. I have a little image here. It's obviously from a few years ago, I've got a little more hair than than I do now. But notice the direction and exegesis, the arrow moves from the Bible to the interpreter, right? There's the truth claim the objective truth claim found in Scripture. And now the reader or the preacher or the teacher is going to involve himself or herself and exegesis, they're gonna find that truth claim and lead it out for them to see, and for others to see and also to live by as well. Now the opposite of exegesis is then this third term called eisegesis, if exegesis is to get my ex, even in English, we have the word exit to go out. Right? I said Jesus is just the opposite. It's to lead a meaning into the text. And this is a well meaning, but unfortunately all too common practice that many Christians engaging. And that is when they have a preconceived notion already ahead of time of what God wants or what his will is. And they find it in the text, even if it isn't originally in the text, or to put it differently, they take their preconceived interpretation, and they lead it into the Bible, even though it's not originally there. And again, this happens with far too much frequency. And most times, and this is what makes it kind of scary, is most people aren't even aware of what they are doing.

And so it's very important for us to be aware of the danger of somehow forcing interpretations into the text or onto the text. And the more we're aware of this danger, the less likely we are to be guilty of committing it. So in a certain sense, we come to the text in a neutral way, in an open way, I know we can't come to the Bible in a completely neutral way. We're shaped by our own experiences, our own previous knowledge of the Bible, by our own culture, and so forth. But in a ideal sense, we come to the Bible with a clean slate, right? I'm open to whatever it is that God may be saying to me in the text. And it won't matter whether I like it or not. In fact, there are a lot of things in the Bible that I don't find very happy or exciting. I mean, when somebody asked me when somebody does something mean to me, I've got to forgive them, I've got to love them. That's not something I read with eagerness or with great joy. And so it's not a matter of whether I like what I find, it's not a matter of whether I don't like no exegesis is again, we're open to whatever it is that God is saying in His Word, we're going to lead it out. So again, we can submit our life to God's will. And we can not only understand that well, but we can teach it and proclaim it to others. 

I have a picture for this eisegesis too. I forgot to advance and you see the definitions there before you but the picture, right is the opposite of the one I gave you before right? In eisegesis, the interpreter in the senses blind. I mean, they don't say that they are but they really don't care what the Bible actually says because they think they already know it. And they force their meaning the arrow the wrong direction into the text, even though it's not originally there. Well, we've covered three of the four terms we have now the fourth one homiletics, to talk about, and especially its relationship to the other terms. The word homiletics likewise, comes from the Greek language, it literally means a conversation or speech. But the word homiletics is used today to refer to the art or the science, if you will, of preaching. If you find somebody who is a Homletitian or somebody who is a homiletics professor, these are people who think carefully and seriously about preaching right, what goes into a good sermon.

Now, to understand homiletics, I want to distinguish it from I think, exegesis. So exegesis focuses on what the text meant. homiletics, or preaching deals with what the text means. Or to say it's slightly different, right? Exegesis focuses on God's message to his people then and there. Whereas preaching or homiletics focuses on God's message to the people here and now. Now, there's a danger with this distinction, and I might as well own up to it. You might not like this distinction, especially the first one, you might say, I'm driving a wedge between somehow what the Bible meant is if that were somehow different from what the Bible means. Now, that's a danger. I'm not intending it. But there's some important advantage to making this distinction. We have to first in exegesis focus on what God said to the people then and there or we have to first focus on what God was saying to the people back then. Why? Because if we too quickly jump to today. And when we do that, yes, there's a great, great temptation for preachers and teachers to be relevant to be practical, right? People want to take something home with them. And so there's a great, great temptation for interpreters of Scripture, to spend very little if any time on what God was saying to the people then in their, you know what the text meant, and to quickly jump to the hearing now to what it means. 

And when we do that, while we're not guaranteed to make a mistake, but we increase the possibility of making the tech say something it was never intended to say, or to put it differently. The possibility of eisegesis goes way, way up. If we don't slow down. Yes, we want to get to what the text means. But we first want to make sure we understand what it meant. Yes, we do want to get to the here and now but we want to first make sure we understand the then and there. So make sure that in your interpretation of scripture, you do due diligence to exegesis. And you avoid the temptation of too quickly jumping to the here and now. Now my somehow downplaying the hearing now, no, not at all. That's an important part of both teaching and preaching. And let me explain to you I would, I can see two dangers. Here in thinking about these terms. By the way, I think I have a, I have my I'll put up my picture here, for the homiletician. the two dangers are this, and that is having a sermon or a class, that's all one and not the other, right? One that's all focusing on the text meant and not enough with what the text means, or one that's all been in there and not with here and now. And I'll give you examples of both halves. I had a person I know quite well, who was actually good preacher who said, I do very, very little of application. 

In other words, he says, I don't spend any time hard at all in my sermons talking about what the Bible means. He says, I don't know what my hearers are going through. So I can't really make a specific application to their life. And what's more, he said, that's really the Holy Spirit's job, the Holy Spirit's responsibility. And so his sermons, I guess, and they were relatively well received, but his sermons were almost all exegesis, if you will, and virtually nothing on homiletics, nothing on application. And my problem with that is, too many people today are gifted, I have to put that in quotation marks. It's one of the spiritual gifts we don't read about in First Corinthians 12, or 14. But far too many people today are gifted and quote, unquote, in failing to see how the text is relevant for their life. And so I think that a good preacher and a good teacher has to have enough homiletics enough application so that the here feels the force of the text in a very specific way for their life.

So that's, that's the one danger if you go only exegesis, and you downplay application. Now, however, the other side of the equation is also dangerous. And by the way, far more common, because of the spirit of our culture where people want us to be practical and relevant, it's more likely we're going to be guilty of this second danger. And that is where we have very little if any exegesis and we have all in our sermon or our class, all application, all homiletics. I had a person who had many years in ministry who explained his strategy this way, he says, I do all my exegesis in the study at home. But I don't take that to the pulpit on Sunday. Right? My parishioners know that I do that they trust that I do that. But they want to hear how it's relevant for them. And so my sermons are almost all again application or how it is relevant for them. And I have two concerns with that temptation or that tendency. The first concern I have is this, if all we have in our sermons or classes our application, then very quickly, it turns only into what my opinion is about this or that you see exegesis gives us the authority of the text.

And so every sermon has to have enough exegesis. In other words, every sermon has to clarify clearly what God was saying then and there so that people do indeed hear the authoritative voice of God. But there's a second reason why every good sermon and every good class should have enough exegesis as well as application. And that is, if you're preaching or teaching over a long haul over many, many years, your parishioners will learn not only the content of what you're preaching about, but they will indirectly they will implicitly learn how you deal with the Bible. Or to put it differently, you through your ongoing ministry will in a sense, be teaching others your hermeneutic by how you deal with the Bible. But if you don't have any exegesis, or very little in your sermons, you rob your parishioners or your heroes have the opportunity to learn that. Or I could say it this way. If you and your sermons regularly referred to the original texts in Greek or in Hebrew, I would imagine that your hears over time would say, in their own Bible study or in their own interpretation of Scripture, I wonder if I had some information about the original language and that would help me better understand this passage. 

Or if you're the kind of preacher who regularly goes back in time and explains maybe practices in the Jewish world or common attitudes or activities in the Roman world. I could imagine that your parishioners are Your heroes would when they come across certain passages, especially if they're wondering about what it means might say to themselves, I wonder if I knew more about Judaism, I would if I knew more about the Greco Roman world, whether that would help me become a better understanding of this particular passage. And if you're the kind of person who regularly interpret Scripture with Scripture, right, then I can imagine your hearers, not just blindly looking at one passage in isolation from the rest of the canon, but they would say something along the line, I wonder how this passage fits within other passages of Scripture that deal with the same topic or subject.

So I'm suggesting to you that every sermon or every good sermon should have an appropriate amount of extra Jesus and an appropriate amount of homiletics, or application. Now, how much of each? Well, that will depend from passage to passage. Some passages are dealing with situations that the modern reader hardly knows about and is puzzled about. And so you need a fair amount of time to exegete the text to explain, and to be sure about what God was saying to the people then in there. However, there are other passages of the Scriptures that are quite simple and easy to understand. If we have a text like john 3:16, For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, there, there isn't a lot we have to explain. Actually, there, you've got to take something that's almost too well known and thinking creative ways about how you can get your hears to hear the force of that gospel message. So I'm going to say it this way, I think that there should be enough exegesis in every sermon or class for people to hear the authoritative voice of God. And also enough so that over a long time, they can be implicitly or indirectly taught how they should read the Bible for all it's worth.

And there should be enough application so that the here doesn't fail to see how the text is relevant for his or her life, there should be another application so that the Holy Spirit has some fertile soil to take that truth claim that you have discovered through your exegesis. And you've presented now to your audience. Well, permit me to say one more important thing about this larger discussion of hermeneutics before we bring our first session to a close. And this has to do with the criteria by which people listen or evaluate a sermon. Nowadays, people judge a good sermon, I think with these three criteria, number one, how long is a sermon and long is bad. In fact, I do have a motto that I try to follow. I'm not always good at it. But the motto is, the longer I am, the better I better be, the longer I am, the better I better be. In other words, if I'm going to be long, and people are impatient, I better have my best stuff, right? so short, rather than long second criteria is how, how interesting the message is, and preferably funny. People want our pastors to be interesting to capture their attention, is it possible to make them laugh.

And then the third one is one we've already talked a little bit about. And that is how relevant the message is. Because again, people are ruthlessly pragmatic nowadays, and they want to take something home with them. So the three criteria I suggest to you by which people far too often judge a sermon, or devotional, or whatever else that they are dealing with in connection with Scripture is, 

how long or short is it 

how interesting preferably funny it is, 

and also how practical or relevant it is. 

Now, the sad and sobering Truth is, I can preach a sermon that's not very long, I can be quite confident, you'll find it interesting, maybe even get you to laugh once in a while. And I can give you some three or five or whatever, many steps, some marching orders for you to take home and to apply to your life. But notice, I've never once asked in this three criterias, how faithful the text or the sermon is to the biblical text, how faithful was the exegesis to the original text. And my goal for this series of how to read the Bible for all it's worth is to get you to be not only a better reader of Scripture, but maybe to have a different set of criteria by which to judge a good or a bad sermon, by a good interpretation or a bad interpretation. In fact, sometimes people when they hear me they complain, they say, Oh, I, you you ruin the way I listen to a sermon. Although I'd like to think that even though the experience may be unhappy, it ultimately is a good one. 

Because maybe now you will suddenly discover after this series that we'll be working on together, that maybe the preacher you thought was so good, well, actually maybe isn't so good after all. I mean, He may be short, he or she may be interesting and funny and may be practical. But how faithful is he or she to the biblical text? That's so crucial question for you to ask and answer. And conversely, a preacher that maybe you weren't so impressed with maybe suddenly now you have a more grudging respect for him or her. I mean, I'd like this preacher to be more interesting. I'd like this preacher to be more short and brief. And I'd like this preacher to be more practical and relevant. But this preacher maybe does an excellent job in exegesis. And so maybe you have a deeper appreciation for this pastor or a preacher than you did before. Well, friends, we've got the basic terms kind of analyzed and presented. And now we're sort of say ready to continue this very, very crucial discussion of how to read the Bible, for all it's worth.

Video Transcript: The Necessity of Biblical Hermeneutics (Dr, Weima)

So far, we've clarified four key terms hermeneutics, exegesis, eisegesis and homiletics, and also talked about their inter relationship. So maybe now we're ready to finally get to that hermeneutic and see what those guidelines or principles for interpretation are. However, before we do that, we have to deal with an objection we have to talk about the necessity of biblical hermeneutics. And that's because you might be listening and you might indeed have an objection, you might be listening to everything I've said so far. And you might be saying to yourself, hermeneutics, Smyrna Dix, I don't need to study this course, I don't need some egghead professor from Calvin Theological Seminary, to come along and tell me what the Bible quote unquote really means is if I can't figure it out by myself, now, the Bible is quite simple and clear, all I have to do is read it and do what it says. In fact, that objection that you might have, I've heard in a song, I haven't heard that lately, but on the Christian radio station, it went something like this. God said it, I believe it, and that settles it for me. I mean, maybe that's your perspective.

God said it, I believe it. And so I don't need to take these online courses. I don't need to think about this business called hermeneutics. In fact, I bet you this hermeneutics is some liberal left leaning way to get about what the Bible really means. So again, how am I going to respond to such an objection? Well, my response is going to be both a kind of a yes, and a no. And then on one hand, I'm going to affirm this person's objection and say, wait a minute, I believe, like you do in the perspicuity, of Scripture. And don't be intimidated by the word. perspicuity is just a fancy word, which refers to the clarity or the clearness of the Bible, on this image, you can see that the woman in the front is clear, and the person in the back is out of focus. And so the word perspicuity, has to do with the clarity, the clearness of the Bible, and its meaning and its teachings. And the perspicuity of Scripture actually was a big teaching of the reformers, in fact, of Calvin, and Luther and others. And as a person who is not only a Protestant Christian, but a reformed Christian, of course, then I would have to believe in the perspicuity, of Scripture. 

But if you're going to use this term, and this idea of the clarity of Scripture, you have to be careful, you use it in the right way. And for that, I want to explore with you again, how the reformers thought about this business called the perspicuity of Scripture. In other words, you need to have a proper historical understanding of the term perspicuity. Now the reformers use this idea, not only the term perspicuity. But again, the idea that scripture and its teachings were clear and straightforward. They use this because they were reacting to a situation in the Roman Catholic Church, in the church at that time, the common person didn't have the Bible. It's kind of like that that movie, you know, you can't handle the truth. Well, some people were saying to parishioners that you can't handle the Bible, only the trained laity, the magisterium, the priest and the church leaders. They're the only ones who are equipped to handle the Bible. In fact, the Bible wasn't even in a language where the common person could understand. That's one of the reasons why Luther was so eager to translate the Bible into German, so the common person could read, and then also hear the gospel for themselves. And so the reformers came along in that kind of context and said, No, you don't have to be a priest or train theologian to interpret the Bible. 

No, they argue that the teachings of the Bible were perspicuous. Right? They were clear. And so again, I want to affirm as perhaps you do now, the perspicuity of Scripture. But and here comes an important correction. When the reformers argued for the perspicuity, the clarinet clarity of Scripture, they didn't mean that everything in the whole Bible was simple or easy to understand. And they didn't mean that for a very good reason. They knew of texts like Second Peter 3:16, which says, there are some things in them that is the letters of Paul that are hard to understand. And you probably say Amen, Peter. That's right. I read Paul, it. There's some things in there that are not easy to get my mind around. And think about this text for a moment, if you're hesitating a little bit about this business of hermeneutics. If one apostle if one inspired writer of the Bible says about another apostle, and another part of Scripture, that this this writer has some things in them that are hard to understand. Are you now so vain? Are you so proud as to say, not for me? I mean, you know, Peter may have a hard time understanding, Paul, but not me, it's all clear and easy for me to understand. Is that really the position you want to have.

And the reformers also knew of another text like Acts 8:26-40, the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch, you remember how the spirit kind of caught up, fill up and brought him to this guy from Africa, you had, obviously, roll or scroll in front of him, and he was reading from the prophecy of Isaiah. And then Philip said to him, sir, do you understand what you're reading? And then comes the answer that we all know so well, you know, that answer, don't you? He said, Of course I do. Philip, don't you believe in the perspicuity of Scripture? Well, wait a minute. No, that's not what he said. No. He said, instead said, How can I understand unless somebody explains it to me. And so again, I suggest to you, even though the reformers argued for the perspicuity, the clearness of Scripture, they did not argue that everything and the whole Bible was simple or easy to understand. And so the reformers apparently had a more restricted or narrow sense of the term perspicuity. They use the word perspicuity, to refer to what two things in the Bible not only that were taught clearly, but things in the Bible that we need to know to be saved. They didn't argue that everything in the Bible was simpler, easy to understand. 

But those things that we need to know to experience salvation, those things, those, if you will, essential teachings of the Bible, are taught in a clear way. What are those essential teachings, I guess things like that God exists, that He reveals Himself as three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that salvation is not by works, anything that humans can achieve, but by God's undeserved favor made possible through Christ's sacrifice, that the Christian life is a holy life. I mean, these are the central teachings of Scripture, that you don't need to take an online course right from this place to understand even little children, even my kids, when they were younger, can understand those truths. And so again, that's what we mean. That's what the reformers meant by the perspicuity, of Scripture. But this also means that there are other parts of the Bible that are not so easy to understand. And actually, this makes common sense, because we're separated, we're distant from the Bible, and all kinds of ways. We're distance from it. linguistically, the Bible is written in Greek and Hebrew, a little bit of Aramaic. Most of us don't know those languages. 

And so we're separate from the text by virtue of language, we're distance from the text. Geographically, most of us live in North America or in other parts of the world, and aren't really familiar with the Middle East. And those geographical places where the biblical stories took place. We're separate by geography, we're separate by time, we live in a modern era in a post rationalistic age, the biblical period obviously happened a long, long time ago. And so we're separate from the Bible in all kinds of ways. No wonder it is at times difficult to understand. And so for those parts of the Scripture that are more challenging for us to understand, we need a well, not just a hermeneutic, I have to add an adjective, we need a good hermeneutic in order for us to properly do exegesis, to understand what God meant. Because once we understand what God meant, then we can be confident about what God means for the church today. Or to say it again differently. Once we have a good hermeneutic are we need a good hermeneutic in order to hear the then and there of the biblical text and be confident about that, so that we can equally be confident when we apply it to the here and now.

And so if you're listening to this, and you're the hermeneutics, hermeneutics person who thinks this isn't really necessary, this is maybe just a clever smokescreen, by professors like me to get around the real meaning of the text. Wait a minute, don't to quickly use the word perspicuity. If you're not using it in the right sense, yes, I believe in the perspicuity of Scripture. But again, with the reformers, I want to limit that in a more narrow sense to those teachings in the Bible that are essential for us to be saved. And yet there are other parts of the Scripture that are difficult for us to understand. And we need not just to hermeneutic but we need a good hermeneutic or in other words, hermeneutics is a necessary and legitimate activity. What's my first response to an objection that you might have but I have a second one too and it goes live. This, well sorry, I have some quotes here about the perspicuity of Scripture from some reformers to show you that this is not just my idea.

But notice what they say Luther says, I admit, of course, there are many texts in the scriptures that are obscure and abstruse. That's quite surprising. Here's the same guy who argued for the perspicuity of Scripture. And yet he says, there are many texts in the Bible that are obscure. And he says, not because of the majesty of their subject matter, but because of our ignorance of their vocabulary and grammar. And these texts and no way hinder our knowledge of all the subject matter of Scripture. I have a quote here also from the Westminster Confession, the Westminster Confession is a very popular and widely held reformed confession. And this is a good quote, because it, it shows you in print this more narrow or restricted view of perspicuity, that I've suggested to you, that confession says. 

All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor are alike clear unto all right, not everything in the Scripture is equally clear. But when things are those things which are to be which are necessary to be known, believed and observed, for salvation, to seal the limited, those things that are necessary, not the things that we would like to know, but the things that we need to know believe and observed for salvation. Those things are so clearly propounded, and open in some places, scripture or the other, that not only the learned not only the egghead Professor types, but anyone in a dual use of the ordinary means may attain to a sufficient understanding of them.

I also have a quote from the belgic confession, the belgic confession is not as well known as the Westminster Confession. It's one unique to my own tradition. But it's a very helpful manual for instructing new believers. And I love the way the belgic confession says just enough, but not too much about scripture. But belgic confession doesn't claim too much about the Bible. Notice what it says, second, and the confession is dealing with the two ways by which we know God, we know God through the world, we call that general revelation, and we know him through the word we call that special revelation. And so now it's dealing with that second special revelation is talking about scripture, the Bible. So secondly, God makes himself known to us more openly than in general revelation, by what his holy and Divine Will and then this very modest phrase, as much as we need in this life, for His glory, and the salvation of his own. I love how modest This is. The confession does not say that the Bible answers every question we have in life and in death, you might want it to say that, but the Bible doesn't do that the Bible doesn't answer, frankly, every question we have in life and death. 

But what it does do, it answers all the questions we need to know, right? For two things to happen. The confession says, For God to be glorified. And for us to be saved. The Bible does that perfectly. Clearly, the Bible perfectly clearly makes known as much as we need for him to be glorified, and for us to be saved. Well, I was about to introduce to you a second. And here we go a second response to the hermeneutics, smhermeneutics objection, or if you think that maybe this business of hermeneutics isn't legitimate or necessary, and the second response goes like this. It's not as if I have a hermeneutic.

Therefore, I'm liberal and bad, and you don't have a hermeneutic. Therefore, you're a conservative and good, I want to suggest to you that we all have a hermeneutic already, it's just a question of whether it's a good one or a bad one. Well, I'll give you an example. I call this the Mrs. Smith example. I can't use a real name because I don't want this person to be identified and maybe embarrassed. But Mrs. Smith is a real person. And she is a very good friend of my mother in law. And I happen to know Mrs. Smith, because she was a member of a church that I was a member of for a while. And I know that Mrs. Smith, a while ago, was unhappy with our church and left our church and went to another one and subsequently has gone to get a third church. And anyway, I was visiting home one time and I heard Mrs. Smith talking with my mother in law. And Mrs. Smith was complaining about her pastor.

She said about her pastor that she said he doesn't take the whole Bible literally. Now if I were a wiser person, I wouldn't have said anything. But instead, in my perhaps foolishness, I jumped in and I said, Mrs. Smith, you don't take the whole Bible, literally. And she kind of like, Oh, you know, how dare you say such a terrible thing. And I said to her Well, I think Said, I said, the Bible says, if your right hand caused you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away. And I wonder why Mrs. Smith, you still have your right hand and your right eye.

You see, she didn't take the whole Bible literally, after all, even though she didn't realize it. You see, she must have had a rule, a guideline, you might call it, she must have had a hermeneutic some sense that she shouldn't take those verses literally. And she was right actually, in that will explain that later on. That's a form of hyperbole, the gross use of exaggeration in order to make a more memorable point. But my point is, she had a hermeneutic, she had a lens by which she was reading the Scripture, she had some kind of principle or guideline in her thinking, which allowed her not to take that verse literally, even though she didn't realize it. And so again, I say to you, it's not as if I have a hermeneutic. Therefore, I'm liberal and bad, and you don't have a hermeneutic. Therefore, you're conservative and good.

Everybody has a hermeneutic already, everybody has some kind of lens by which they interpret the Bible, some kind of principle that they follow for interpreting the scriptures. And so the whole question is, whether we're aware of that hermeneutic that you have, and whether or not it's a good one or a bad one. It seems to me it's a lot more healthy, to be upfront and to acknowledge the lens that we have, or the lens that we ought to have. Why? So that we can as the title of this series puts it, we can read the Bible for all it's worth. Well, I hope then, that you realize now that well, we have to keep on with this series. So we just, you know, if it weren't the case, of course, we could just stop pack up and go home. But no hermeneutics is indeed a valid yes, a necessary thing. And so let's continue on in our quest, to, to know and to follow a good hermeneutic let's continue on in this quest to read the Bible, for all it's worth.