Published: October 10, 2024 | Speaker: Chuck Hartman | Series: Biblical Theology 1 - The Arc of Revelation - Part 8 | Scripture: Galatians 4:21-26; 2 Corinthians 3:1-6
Transcript
View Full Transcript →
0:03
father we do thank you very much that we can be back together and we thank you that you preserved us safely through the storm and we do pray for uh those in Florida who have just recently been hit
0:14
by another one that you would give them Grace and still the the people in Western North Carolina as well who are still suffering loss from the hurricane and
0:26
the flooding so father we do pray that these events would draw people's minds toward you and not in blaming you as as if this
0:39
was an act of God or even an act of judgment but to ponder the corruption that has come upon creation because of man's sin and the futility and the
0:51
frustration that creation undergoes as in the Pains of Labor we do pray that you you would guide us in this time that our thoughts
1:02
would be according to your word and to your wisdom that what we do say would be seasoned as it were with salt the salt of the Holy Spirit and of your
1:12
word and that we would not be rash in judgment or give ear to falsehoods but rather that we would desire truth and that we would seek it
1:24
in your word and by your spirit we ask that you would guide our conversation tonight as as we consider your word and how we should read it and study it learn from it open our minds and help us to
1:37
understand that we might read and understand your word and know you better but we ask this in Jesus name
2:17
uh right okay so tap's family her parents and siblings down in the Tampa area um are evacuated uh to Southern Georgia and
2:29
we'll have to stay there until the authorities allow people to return so they do they have any idea how their home managed through
2:51
good that's probably wise my sis my sister is in Orlando they had a long night of it but um no damage just loss of power um so apparently it was a pretty interesting
3:03
night so okay um I have a a part of a poem now those of you who know me know that I'm not really into poetry um who's the
3:13
who's the guy that I do like um Ogden Nash because he's funny um but most poetry I don't understand and but this was this is a a poem by a 16th century
3:27
um English uh English uh I don't know that you you couldn't really call I don't think you'd call him a reform or a Puritan but he was definitely of the reform um the
3:40
Protestant Reformation and it's it's the first the first part of it it has to do with Holy Scripture and it was in two parts and actually what I've quoted here is the second part but what I really liked
3:52
about it was the way he speaks of the the illumination of scripture as stars but not just Stars a
4:03
constellation um and so and so this this quote here but all the constellation of the story again we've been talking about The Narrative of of scripture and then
4:14
this verse here where he says this verse marks that and both do make a motion to a third that 10 leaves off doth lie 10 pages off um so and these
4:27
three um like a dispersed Herb in a potion these three make some Christian Destiny um now what he's saying there and it I think it's
4:38
poetry the way I read it um is he's he's basically saying what what what I've been saying and that is scripture Echoes scripture and and when we begin to hear
4:51
that echoing and the Illusions and the kind of the bouncing back and forth of the sounds of scripture they come together and form a Harmony and and often they
5:03
form um not necessarily A Doctrine as a a theme of Redemptive Revelation now we're we're moving into
5:15
the direction of actually looking at some of these themes and considering finishing off the course in about 16 weeks which is our average um I think
5:26
what we will do hopefully uh we have a little bit more to talk about in the nuts and bolts and actually getting into some of the those tonight and then we're going to look at some of the overarching
5:39
motifs of scripture for example creation and then along with creation there is new creation and another motif of course is
5:49
man but there's man as the image of God there's also man as Adam and man as last Adam and and so there there's the the um
6:01
the Garden in which there was a river okay and there was a tree of life well that shows up in Genesis 2 and in Revelation 21 kind of like book ANS um
6:13
so that that's another one the Tabernacle I don't know that we'll get into that one because what I think I want to do is finish up this course this session by looking at the major motifs
6:23
that that really run from Genesis 1 through3 on through the rest of the Bible uh many scholars and and and I do agree with them consider Genesis 1
6:35
through3 to be the prologue of the entirety of scripture so um pretty much everything that you read about in scripture in terms of Revelation can find its or origin in re
6:49
Genesis 1 2 or 3 and so we're going to be looking at those major creational themes and then I think in the next session we're going to look at the
7:00
at the the uh the covenantal themes where we're going to start for example with um maybe Abraham but looking at the different things involved in in Israel's history
7:12
in the old Covenant and seeing how things like Passover and The Exodus and the Exile they they are events that then become themes around which Redemptive
7:25
history coales as progressive revelation continues so we'll be looking at the the large umbrella which is creational and
7:35
then within that the the smaller covenantal uh motifs and so that's the plan uh hope it's a good plan um I hope
7:45
it works but this poem um kind of leads to the to the question is there is there
7:57
meaning is there meaning meaning to a star apart from the constellation well to some extent yes there is a star is a thermonuclear
8:09
reactor somewhere out in space either that or it's Firefly stuck on you know um adhesive tape or Big Balls of gas you know uh we'll we'll quote Pumba on that
8:21
one for those of you who know um Lion King but for human beings individual stars for most of the history
8:32
of humanity individual Stars didn't really have a lot of meaning except perhaps North Star but they had their meaning in their constellations in their in their
8:43
organization and those constellations became very very significant to astronomers and to Mariners um and then of course to astrologers but we won't go
8:54
there uh but the the the idea of of calling the scripture constant ation of stars George herbet what he's doing he's he's um he he's basically saying that while
9:07
there is meaning in the individual texts the truest meaning is that text's place in the constellation of revelation
9:17
of which it forms a part that's a pretty good 16th century definition of biblical theology so it's kind of comforting to to realize that people 400 years ago
9:28
were you know were also or 500 years ago were also thinking along this line um and and I felt like that was a good summary of what it is that we're doing
9:38
so we we kind of return in in this idea here uh
9:56
to something that we've talked about many times especially in hermeneutics class and that is the role of context it's often said that the key to exegesis is context context
10:12
context yes and as I SP as I talked about a few weeks ago whenever we last met the idea of the historical grammatical hermeneutic which is the typical evangelist Evangelical
10:24
hermeneutic is still valid and I don't want to detract from that because we still have the
10:40
context of the text itself and we don't want to lose sight of the text within its own context if you remember uh we use that we use that
10:57
often the pericope The Cutting around round is the idea um to cut around and so the idea of a pericope is that that is the immediate
11:07
context or passage of thought in whatever book that we're reading in the scripture and it's actually the same way when we're when we're reading a textbook
11:18
especially well even a fiction but certainly non-fiction the pericopes tend to be the chapters or some authors will actually subdivide their chapters into to
11:30
different Set aart uh paragraphs well that's they're kind of making it easy for us that's the pericope that's a certain event that's happening that has significance for the overall plot or
11:41
this is a particular aspect of of quantum atomic theory that you know that that is coh coherent within its own set so we put that off as a chapter or a sub
11:53
chapter that's the pericope and that's kind of an uh you know that's a that's a Greek word and it fits within the the other $225 word hermeneutics but frankly
12:04
it's the way we read it's the way we
12:14
write um that's part of we're going to go there yeah that's yes the answer is yes okay so it's it's first of all it is the it is the scripture around it and often times if you remember another word
12:25
that we used um the inclusio okay that there's there's something at the beginning and the same
12:35
phrase or very similar is at the end and we understand that okay those two bracket what's in between all right um and so that so we know okay that's the
12:47
pericope right that's the immediate context of whatever passage inside there and we can't ignore that but when we do that when we go to that passage in this
12:59
context we use the
13:16
hermeneutic okay well that's why I said yes to your question okay because the passage is place within its immediate context is the grammar but its chronological context is
13:29
is the is the historical okay and so the historical does matter and yet we understand that that the Bible is timeless right we have to be careful that we don't get into
13:40
historical conditioning like so many do with for example Paul's teaching on women and say well you know that was just the culture in which he lived and you know we're more enlightened now and
13:52
we don't need to you know what I'm saying that that yes some things were cultural there are of course there are of course churches that that still practice foot
14:05
washing yeah we don't why because we see it as a cultural manifestation of a principle of serving one another okay so
14:18
you know but I can't really argue with the church that says they did it we do it okay but so culture does chronology history has a a definite role role in
14:30
our exegesis but we have to be careful that we don't try to reproduce that history in our own time or that we don't we don't discount or dilute what this
14:40
passage is saying because of the historical conditioning in which it was said Yuri
15:14
yes um you call it rerouting I would call it call it derailing um yeah in that in that regard nobody should go to Seminary who doesn't already understand
15:25
scripture it's really a dangerous thing um Spurgeon in in his lectures to my students um he he did
15:36
not admit many young men to his Seminary he felt that men should have a career and be successful in it before
15:47
then going into the ministry now somewhat ironic and maybe a little bit of hypocritical I think he preached his first sermon at 15 um but he was definitely a prodigy and he also did not
15:59
go to Seminary but when he did have his um his college spurgeon's College he did not want young men coming in because he felt like they didn't have enough
16:10
experience of either scripture or life to be able to properly um exag scripture and it's it's just a little interesting aside but hermeneutics is very powerful
16:20
but not only not only in scripture but in all of life hermeneutics is the way we interpret reality whether it's spoken whether it's written we interpret it a certain way okay I'm I'm reading um a
16:33
book by a historian that I particularly like Max Hastings and it's on the the uh the Cuban Missile Crisis uh which is which is kind of you know comes close to
16:43
home to me because it happened a month before I was born so it was like I might not and when you listen to also it's interesting because John F Kennedy was the first president to audio tape
16:57
conversations in the Oval Office office without anybody knowing it okay so I we all we all think when we think tapes who do we think of nich yeah but guess whose
17:09
tape recorder Nixon was using it had already been in the Oval Office for 10 years history is wonderful um but that's why we have so much
17:19
information now because all that's been released to historians it's been opened and so we can hear and boy you can hear some of the Joint Chiefs of Staff would have had us in World War three in a New
17:29
York minute just amazing the the hermeneutics of how the different the politicians versus the military brass how they were reading the situation and
17:41
interpreting kusf and what he's trying that's hermeneutics okay and your hermeneutics is is largely determined by your culture and your upbringing and
17:52
also your situation in life
18:14
how can that apply to us now yeah yeah uh how that's a very good question it's one that we all are struggling with all the time every generation is struggling with how do I apply a 2,000 year old
18:26
text to my current situation or church or or situation in life and I think um I I Hon I really do believe
18:38
that you have to move out of the immediate context okay and you have so this is this remains important
18:49
it's it's where exog Jesus where the rubber meets the road in terms of interpreting scripture is in the the passage itself within its its
19:01
own letter or within its own pericope or whether it's poetry or prophecy or apocalyptic okay the genre is also
19:12
important here important here okay we don't interpret uh apocalyptic the way we inter interpret historical narrative so that's all just basically
19:25
hermeneutics but Abe's question is how do we know what to I I'm going to rephrase it but how do we know what to take from the passage and what to leave
19:36
behind and the example of foot washing I think is an excellent one why don't we wash one another's feet well we say because we don't wear sandals and we wash our socks you know
19:49
we we don't have Dusty roads we have sidewalks and you know that we we are we just explaining it away some would say yes you're just explaining it away Jesus said but then
20:02
there's the difference between the a kind of a principial approach to scripture versus a rigid literal approach if we are rigidly literal then
20:12
we should be washing one another's feet right so you know I don't know that any of us are disturbed by the fact that we don't wash one another's feet but I
20:22
imagine that most of you have probably at some time in your life as a Believer as you read that Passage wondered why don't we do that Jesus actually tells his disciples
20:35
to do it right what you see me doing do also to one another but does he mean washing your washing your feet or does he mean
20:48
serving what what is it that he means when he says what you see me doing okay so often times when we look at the genre and the his history and the
21:01
grammar we're still not at the point where we can walk away from that passage with what the holy in Holy Spirit intends for us to carry away we either
21:13
want to carry away all of it I'm just talking about the extremes now we want to carry all of it with us or none of it those are the extremes right now that's
21:24
all cultural we don't need to deal with that we move on we don't carry anything away from that or we say no that's exact another one is head covering right for women isn't that another passage that
21:37
people still deal with as to should women wear head coverings in uh in the assembly that with the whole idea of um
21:48
of the role of women frankly is is one that if if we allow women and we we know this intimately don't we if we allow
21:59
women to have any role within the congregational life is that not um being culturally relevant and departing from the truth of
22:12
scripture well that's what we've been told so we've walked away from those passages carrying some less than others have walked away from the same passage
22:23
carrying right are we ever going to all walk away from the p Mage carrying the same doubt it not not until the Lord comes back and we begin to understand
22:34
fully or more clearly when the when the seeing is in a mirror Darkly is taken away and we know as we are known then was oh that's what you meant but we're
22:46
still striving toward that and I and what what Biblical or canonical theology does for us is it gives us um if we call this the trees we
22:58
need to step back and look at the forest so I've used this phrase several times and since we haven't been together for three weeks I felt like it might be a good idea to do a little refresher but
23:10
that's the idea of Canon as
23:20
context so we look at a passage I'll use a diagram hopefully this will help and so we we see the
23:36
and we're able to isolate maybe because it starts with a phrase and then ends with a very similar phrase and we can say okay that's one coherent cohesive thought let me kind of deal with that I
23:47
mean frankly Mark and I do that every week we we try to choose a coherent section of scripture to preach from um
23:57
other uh um preachers you know throughout church history and today don't do that they they would take a verse and then even from that verse um
24:08
I'm not sure I mean Martin Lloyd Jones seems to have the record for how many verses can be preached from one word okay um we don't we don't do that we try to
24:18
try to do this okay and even to the point of we you know we alternate four months each okay well we don't just start when
24:31
it's our Sunday and and go as far as we can you know we have an idea like Romans 910 and 11 that's a pericope right and
24:44
so my goal of course is to in this session to preach through Romans 9:10 and 11 so there's that context that that we operate in when we Exige scripture
24:56
and I think that's necessary but then how do we how do we actually apply it to the life of the church and to our own lives well I think what we need to do
25:06
then is to step
25:29
echoed in the passage we're looking at okay and this starts to tie together in what I call The Ark of
25:41
Revelation seeing the passage like Romans 910 and 11 in and of
25:56
itself only gets us as far really as the technical understanding of what it is Paul's writing but Paul himself is not staying in Romans we we saw just this past Sunday
26:07
that he's in Hosea Isaiah and Daniel in just this one section of Romans 9 and that doesn't include what what he does
26:18
elsewhere but they're they're writing so so this is our kind of our Focus passage what we're reading whether it's it's not necessarily something that I'm preaching
26:28
on it just may be something you're reading in your devotions okay and you want to kind of understand it a little better well so you get a commentary and you get a couple commentaries and you you look at
26:39
the passage in its historical grammatical parape and you get a better understanding of the of the grammar and of the meaning of the words but a good commentator will also
26:52
tell you that the writer is quoting from Isaiah 10 or Isaiah 16 or he's not quoting he's alluding to
27:04
Hosea 1 right or Hosea 14 so you have
27:25
oops these three represent a concept that I I mentioned when we were together last a concept called
27:37
intertextuality I'm going to mention that yeah so this is the idea of intertextuality now you're you're that's that's the right question what's the differ between illusion and an echo the three differ in terms keeping with the
27:49
idea they're all actually Echoes they differ in terms of volume a quotation is the lest as Isaiah has written or even as
28:04
the scripture the scripture says that's a quotation that quotation that that's that's an unmistakable reference to a prior text
28:15
or texts or texts right an right an illusion doesn't quote anything but uses a
28:26
marker that that immediately takes your mind back to another text classic example John example John 1:1 in the
28:37
beginning right now you can finish it out one of two ways you can either say in the beginning God created or in the beginning was the word
28:48
right well John intends or the Holy Spirit through John intends for you to do that but it's not a quote he's not quoting Genesis 1:1 he doesn't say as
28:59
the scripture says in the beginning he just simply says nrk in the beginning but that that's an illusion because there's a marker there's something in it
29:10
that triggers a mental connection with another text and maybe other texts does that make sense so the
29:22
quotation usually has some type of introductory formula that tells you it's a quotation a quotation often times even with the prophetic author although sometimes that gets a
29:33
little confusing uh because the writer tends sometimes quotes an author for a text that seems to be in a different book we're going to talk about that
29:43
tonight what's an echo well an echo is
29:54
background reverberation that doesn't have either a quotation formula or a marker
30:04
word but it sounds like something that you've read before that's that's an echo so the idea
30:17
here is that these go in
30:34
okay so this one usually has an introductory formula this one usually has a marker a word or a
30:47
phrase that triggers a memory of another text and in triggering that memory it brings your mind into the context of
30:59
that other that other verse so if as I did in in uh one set of notes if if I start the notes it was the best of times it was
31:11
the worst of times and I don't site my source I am not guilty of plagiarism am I
31:31
am quoting Charles quoting Charles Dickens in A Tale of Two Cities no I'm not am not am I bringing the reader mind back to the
31:42
context of The Tale of Two Cities which was the French Revolution and London in Paris yes I am because in fact we're
31:53
going to talk about Alexandria and Antioch okay and and early Christian hermeneutics so the the use of intertextuality when when you
32:05
quote um you'd like to think that wouldn't you right Princess Bride that's intertexuality okay it it is a literary way whether
32:18
spoken or written it is a way by which cultures um weave together their their their manifest
32:30
their manifest thought okay we we think in many different ways in our in our Cinema in our music in our literature with that is all the fabric of our cultures thought
32:41
life and as we grow up in that culture these different words or quotes draw us into that whole fabric
32:56
that's intertextuality that's intertextuality okay somebody gave it a word it was back in the 1960s some Professor kind of said intertextuality she came up with the word um but it's not a new thing at all
33:07
it's just how cultures communicate within their own if you say the same thing in a different culture and and and even to the point
33:18
I'm not sure if I can think of an
33:29
um uh you know ah trying to think one I don't think we're in Oz or in Kansas anymore okay well where's that from Wizard of Oz okay but that's Wizard
33:40
of Oz I think was 1939 so it's starting to fade from the intertextual consciousness of our society okay I've actually encountered students who who don't get Princess
33:52
Bride re references I think oh what's happening to our culture um so even the culture even within a culture the intertextuality changes as Generations
34:05
pass and you might be reading something for example something from Jane Austin something from Dickens which of course that was not our culture neither was Austin's but you might be reading
34:16
something and you don't get the reference because that intertextuality represented a fabric of culture that has passed away that was
34:27
not yours fabric of culture okay I I I remember when I was in engineering I worked for a client and the client Lea on between our company and their company
34:38
was from was from Pakistan and um he did very well with his English very very well but he didn't do all that well with his idioms and I
34:49
remember one day I was out at my desk and he came out and he he said he wanted to pick up my brain
35:00
I didn't know I had dropped it obviously he wanted to pick my brain but you know you encounter that and I'm sure we do the same thing if we try to do the the you know if we're in France
35:11
and we try a French idiom we probably look like an idiot you know um and it's probably best not to do that but that's another example of intertextuality that works within the
35:21
context now how does that work with the scripture well the scripture this is where the um the understanding of the people of God which is one of those motifs we're going
35:32
to look at in this session we have our own culture our culture is the same as Abraham's it's the same as seths and
35:44
Enochs and Noah's and David's and Paul's it's the context of the people of God to whom the scriptures are
35:55
written therefore we canar hear Echoes that our culture around us can't hear but that that the people of God
36:07
have heard throughout the era of the Canon does that make sense okay so we are actually of dual citizenship we are here on Earth but our
36:19
citizenship is from heaven we we are of the new creation we are of the body of Christ we are the people of the book so that means that the the timelessness
36:30
of divine revelation allows those Echoes to keep reverberating in our minds I use the comment the the comment that one writer said about Paul is that he
36:43
thought multi- thought multi- textually he did not he was not searching for proof texts his mind was so steeped in Scripture that his thought
36:56
naturally echoed naturally echoed the purpose of God revealed in the word of God so that the the individual context that is necessary for us to read
37:06
and understand and we really it's it's very important that we do this because if we don't do this we will not know what Arc we're
37:18
on does that make sense okay we we really we need this in order to do this but and and these are not of our own
37:29
making okay what what is significant about canonical theology is that the passage that we're looking at takes us to these other ones okay we don't go
37:43
there on our own it's not imagination and it's not trying to do something novel with the text that's text that's allegorizing when you make up your own
37:55
string no we're we're being taken there by one of these three and sometimes a combination of them one of these three
38:09
literary methods that that tie together the whole fabric of Revelation concerning whatever the topic is of that passage so again we're not we're not
38:21
coming up with these and I I hope you'll see uh certainly you know we were looking at Romans 9 this past Sunday you can't miss Paul taking us out
38:32
of Romans right to Hosea to Isaiah right we we can see that because our margins tell us that's Isaiah 10 okay but it's
38:42
not just Isaiah 10 and in fact when you when you go for example you go to Isaiah where he says though the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea yet
38:54
only a Remnant will be saved well that takes us back to Isaiah but where does it say that the children of Israel will be at this as the Sands of the sea
39:06
Genesis 22 you see so bounce bounce okay and and that that's the multi textual thinking is that the writers of
39:16
scripture don't intend for us just to go back to the verse they're quoting when they take us back to a verse they're quoting they're taking us back to the context in which it's quoted
39:28
so that's why I drew a box and not a point because even a quote takes us back to another to another pericope but then within that one that often bounces off into other
39:39
directions because of intertextuality the reason all of this works is because the scriptures only have one author okay and we lose sight
39:50
of that and it's amazing when you read the scholars how they talk about this author and that author and they never seem to talk about the author they only talk about you know with the capital A
40:02
they only talk about the authors with the lowercase A's
40:49
good yeah that's that's a good point they did not prize originality they prized Authority um and and um the the idea of the idea behind plagiarism is that it
41:02
it's it represents an illegitimate use of someone else's thought but when someone's thought becomes so famous that nobody can miss you know I don't have to
41:14
quote chapter and verse if I say four score and seven years ago okay things like that or
41:41
and that's how they treat it yeah yeah each book is is God every time God speaks it's something original um but that's not exactly that in fact that's exactly not how God has given us the revelation of his will everything he
41:52
speaks then becomes the language of everything he's about to speak that that's kind of the key here is Genesis 1-3 is the language of the rest
42:03
of scripture Exodus becomes the language of the old Covenant into the New Covenant the Exile and return from Exile becomes the language of the postexilic
42:14
and intertestamental writers as well as the New Testament so the the the progressive revelation should teach us that each individual author is by no
42:26
means hermetically sealed from all the others they are all inspired by the one same spirit of God and therefore what they're writing is in the language of that which has been written and they
42:38
didn't seek any other
42:57
Tim are oral later beware things that are to years the noties get up
43:10
in yeah any Doctrine I as I said earlier it was nice to see somebody 500 years ago with the same concept because
43:21
um mankind can be wrong in a majority way for a long long
43:32
but when it comes to the revelation of God he has not waited 1,500 years 2,000 years to reveal his purpose he has done that already so if you encounter if I
43:46
encounter a a a theory um a hermeneutical Theory or interpretive scheme that no one's come up with in 2,000 years is probably not
43:59
right because I think this this um Arc of Revelation this hermeneutical intertextuality it it continues as I said the intertestamental writers
44:10
between Malachi and um I don't know Thessalonians James we don't really know what the first New Testament book was but you know those 400 years in which
44:20
there was no prophet in Israel there were a lot of writers and their their books are worth reading and you hear the same echo in um in uh fourth ezis as you as
44:35
you hear in Ezekiel you know the same kind of um expectation of the Messiah couched in the language of Exodus and Exile that's that's still there and it's
44:46
also there in the non-canonical first century writings and then you can find it in the writings of the church fathers and even all through the middle ages
44:58
because God has had his witness in all ages and in every generation so novelty is yeah I appreciate that because that's why I had the lesson on allegory to try to make sure everybody understands
45:09
that's not what we're about we're not trying to come up with some cute interpretation and and cuteness is really big in the Pulpit these days relevance and then cuteness you know
45:21
trying to um and one of the things that people think is really cute we've talked about alliteration alliteration is kind of gone the way people don't do that anymore U and I I made the comment at
45:31
home alliteration was kind of started by uh a 20th century scholar by the name of Warren w Warren w weby but he had an
45:41
excuse can imagine Warren w weby in the internet age
45:51
www now the cuteness is hyphenated words and making nouns into adjectives so instead of new creation we have to talk about new creational okay so okay fine cuteness is
46:03
is kind of a thing um but it it it's like cotton candy you can have too much of it you know in one in one sitting so I'm I'm not trying to be original and that's why I have the quote from George
46:13
Herbert is that this is not something that I'm coming up with this is something that that people have seen throughout the ages but it's also something intertextuality is something
46:24
that we just naturally do within than our cultural communication methods and we understand it in that context or in that application why shouldn't we
46:35
understand it in scripture and what I what I want to do is to begin to show examples of that by looking at these three although I I want to take each one
46:46
um in in its place so looking fin just summarizing intertextuality um intertextuality
47:00
this this is the cultural heritage of a people's literature okay so just to give it a
47:26
definition and that is applying it in the realm of literature but that I'm using that word literature very Loosely because uh certainly it it um it it probably was
47:36
the case when in cultures in which transmission of the heritage is heritage is oral I I don't really I've never lived
47:46
in a culture like that although um growing up in an Italian family that's a whole lot more of that than you know than an American or English derived
47:57
family so there was there was definitely some of that um but that it's also in as our forms of communication change I I expect that well I mean this
48:10
is kind of embarrassing but you know we we we all kind of say l lol now we wouldn't have said that 40 years ago we we would have been
48:23
embarrassed to to be so cheap on letters you know an OMG you know it's like so what is that that's isn't that intertextuality that our culture is
48:35
adapting and adopting not necessarily in a good way or in a good direction but we're adopting a a a communication Heritage that becomes
48:46
Universal okay it passes away as time goes on and other things take its place so but the point that I'm trying to make here is that the literary Heritage of
48:57
the people of God is the Bible is the cannon of cannon of scripture that doesn't change because that's it's divine it's Timeless Thy
49:09
word O Lord is settled forever in heaven and on Earth I mean it's not it's not subject to change so to answer Abe's question and I can't do it definitively because that would be uh
49:20
presumptuous but how do we know how to come away from a historical grammatical analysis and apply it to our current situation well the reason I can't answer
49:31
definitively is because the church has never been in uniform agreement as to how to do that or at least how to apply it to this passage or that passage but one thing I can say is that we're going
49:42
to be a whole lot better off if we recognize the place of our Target passage in the overall Arc of divine revelation because then what we're
49:53
seeing is what God is doing in revealing himself in revealing Us in revealing his purpose whether it's
50:04
historical or or prophetic okay what what it is that he's revealing In this passage when we follow the the
50:14
intertextuality of the passage itself because the Holy Spirit working through the human author is tying us into all the rest of the Divine author work
50:30
again I I'm we're going to look at some examples but obviously that that does not settle the question for example of the role of women in church does it has that been settled definitively by
50:48
denomination they all think so often times that's why their a denomination because they've settled the meaning of Covenant children for example or the meaning of baptism they've
50:58
bounced all the way back here's where we differ they've bounced all the way back from baptism in the book of Acts or in or in U Matthew 28 they've bounced all
51:10
the way back to circumcision in Genesis 17 okay 17 okay so they bounced off a block that I never bounced off of I never I never got there
51:22
so I'm not saying that this is a cure all and we all follow the same thing we don't but that's because of the dullness of our minds and also our presuppositions and our
51:33
prejudices which we're not going to escape while in this flesh so I'm not trying to offer some Panacea that'll help us understand every passage of scripture now I'm just simply saying
51:43
that that this is the way that we can better understand the passages that have caused us trouble in the past Aon and
52:03
yes I actually um that that kind brings a memory um it was a small group many years ago we were going through the Minor Prophets and I actually was teaching I can't remember exactly what the passage was but my conclusion was I
52:14
don't really understand what this means afterwards I was severely chastised by one of the members that I should never
52:25
admit that that as as a pastor that people expect you to understand what the scripture says well to me that seems like that means I have to make something up and be
52:36
dogmatic about it right okay if I say it loud enough but if I don't understand then the thing to say is sorry folks at this point in my walk
52:47
I don't understand it okay Yuri I be a an adult and I all these
53:27
cathod that IOD because
53:49
IOD well that's why I said our our hermeneutics is largely defined by our cultural situation in life and we are always adjusting even
53:59
within our own cultural context that that never changes cultures always change we don't make culture I don't we don't really know how culture is made but we're we're not
54:11
consciously making culture more so culture is making us and that is seen in retrospect from generation to
54:22
generation and we are always adjusting and and there's always the what if I made I made this comment you know I was thinking about this that many uh many people today think that that okay
54:33
you're a Christian because you were born in a Christian Nation if you had been born in Saudi Arabia for example you'd be you'd be Muslim uh or if you were born in Turkey you'd be Muslim um now of
54:45
course that's totally discounting the Providence of God as to when and where we each of us is born Psalm 139 um but there is some reality to the question what if I had stayed in the
54:56
Orthodox Church well frankly if you were regenerate you'd be a child of God and His holy spirit would lead you on the way Everlasting okay there there are
55:07
believers in the Orthodox Church there are believers in the Catholic Church there are believers among charismatics okay they are so even Presbyterians um they they they are
55:19
definitely Believers there because they are regenerate children of God um and and if they are seeking God in his word then they will find Fellowship of
55:31
like-minded people within that group it may be a very small group but God has 7,000 who have not bowed the knee to bail um so I it's it's an interesting
55:42
thought I was raised nominally Catholic uh but but functionally Pagan um so everybody's everybody's adapting and and I feel like I'm always adapting as well
55:54
we're we're all adapting as the word we're being conformed in the image of God's son by his word by his spirit so we are adapting the question is what is it is adapting us is it the culture
56:07
around us or the culture within us and and I think that's why we have to keep the whole Cannon Paul says when he's when he's leaving the Ephesians and he's
56:17
warned them about wolves rising up from among them who will lead the flock astray and devour not sparing the Sheep he says I did not shrink from declaring
56:29
to you the whole counsel of God he says morning an evening with tears so what is the protection that anybody anybody not anybody anybody has
56:43
any congregation has that is if everybody is engaged with the whole counsel of
56:53
God that that is our protection it's not confessions that will never protect and it has never protected any denomination from apostasy and heresy historically it
57:06
has never has never worked so that is a a a um a read that will go through your hand when you lean upon it so that was an intertextuality
57:17
there okay starting to throw them in try to see if you catch them some from Princess Bride Princess Bride okay um
57:33
has changed right to it's to be the same yes exactly exactly see that's a good another example of how we have left the
57:45
historical and and and we've taken the meaning and we've molded and manipulated the meaning so that it now fits into our cultural right no God God's culture is
57:58
timeless so the meaning of it remains constant and he you know they say well the Bible doesn't use that word no it
58:09
describes the action an action that goes by no other word than that word okay so the the the argument among professing Christians who have no trouble accepting
58:22
the Trinity a word that the Bible never uses but deny God's anathema on homosexuality but even that teaching needs to be uh
58:34
conditioned by the fact was equally firm on all sexual
58:48
sins we we can't single one out and say for example that fornication's okay but homosexual isn't is okay but homosexual see that's that's hypocrisy we have to
59:00
at least be consistent and say Purity is the principle that you shall be holy for the Lord your God is Holy and then the manifestation of that is the various
59:12
edicts and and punishments that one sees in scripture for sexual sins and that is one of the examples in our society where people love to take you back to your
59:23
alleged TR Tex