Was amazing to think that Paul was so full of joy, even though he was imprisoned for his faith.
Abraham Lincoln said, "people are generally as happy as they make up their mind to be".
I think this has some truth.
Certainly our response to situations makes such a difference, even if we can't change the circumstances.
Anyway, the bit of my sermon I wanted to comment on was about exegesis and hermeneutics.
Did you get what I was trying to say?
I was basically making the point that the Bible is always addressing a particular situation.
So even though it's God's divine Word, and does speak directly into our lives today -
We have to work hard to "correctly handle" the word (as Paul says in 2 Tim 2:15).
I used the example of receiving a phone bill through your door.
And you open it and it says you owe £300. And you panic thinking "Oh no, that's terrible news"
But then you breathe a sigh of relief as you realise it's actually addressed to your neighbour and was delivered to you by accident!
It's still true, and tells you something about the sender, and the recipient.
But as you understand the context it is addressing, then it helps you know how to understand it properly.
This is the same with the Bible.
Take the 7 churches in Revelation, for example.
Each of the messages was read by each of the 7 churches.
However, the church at Ephesus wasn't meant to read what Jesus says to the church at Smyrna, as it if was speaking to their situation.
The message to them was different, even though all of it was God's word, and all of it is useful for "teaching, correcting, rebuking and training in righteousness" (2 Tim 3:16).
So our task in "correctly handling" the word of truth is to first find out what the message meant to the original readers (technically called 'exegesis') - and then to seek to interpret it for us ('hermeneutics').
So over to you...
- Is it ok to open a page of the Bible at random to see what God wants to say to you that day?
- Have you had experiences when this has happened to you?
- Is it ok to read a passage completely out of context, but for God to speak through it anyway?
- What does Paul mean when he tells Timothy to be a 'work man... who can correctly handle the word of truth?'
- What problems in church life, or in church history, can be put down to different ways of reading scripture (e.g. debates about women in ministry, homosexuality, sunday trading etc)
Have a great week!
You can listen again to all sermons at...
www.coshambaptist.org/sermons
"Cool blog! Great sermon too!
ReplyDeleteNot sure my answers to your Qs are useful but:
1) I think it's OK to open a page at random, as long as (like you say) the context is considered/understood, rather than taking it at face value.
Otherwise so many conclusions can be drawn from random scripture.
I've heard people say things like:
'Jesus said "ask for anything in my name and God will give it"... so I'll ask God for money'
2) I've definitely received clear answers from God, after praying and then reading a devotional or the Bible.
3) Sometimes passages out of context could be useful, but it's quite a grey area. Probably best to ask for guidance from God and godly/wise friends in situations like that... I can think of examples where I haven't, and later realise that was a 'bad/foolish decision'.
4) Could this mean, we need to be 'equipped' with the Word of God, in order to carry out God's work fully?
On a slight tangent: Is worship short for workmanship? I remember someone telling me that, and it sounded reasonable enough, because just singing songs and praise without action seems a bit lazy.... maybe Paul's saying work is a given, but we need to know God's word to discern the correct decisions to make?
5) There are too many, 2 that come to mind: transubstantiation (literal transformation of bread to flesh and wine to blood?)/symbolic communion, child baptism/adult baptism.