0:03
so this morning we're finishing up our study uh which began as a study on worship and became a study on how to read the Bible so um which was all good I've enjoyed it very much and I
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mentioned last week the different approaches uh of going toward your bible to read it to study it um I I you know in talking with folks last week and
0:26
through the through the week uh this this isn't a start Revelation it's more a acknowledgment of what I think we've all seen in the churches that we've attended and that is
0:39
learning has been co-opted by seminaries uh if you look at the average Church generally speaking the Believers there are are not really there to study
0:51
their Bibles they're there to be primarily Pro preached to preaching and teaching We Believe are two different things both of which are very important
1:03
within the within the church um but within the reformed tradition especially a necessary emphasis on emphasis on preaching has become perhaps maybe an
1:14
overemphasis to the exclusion of teaching so in most churches if you uh if you're a young believer and you really want to study the Bible then you're going to be encouraged to go to
1:26
Bible College and if you still want to do it then you're going to be encouraged to go to Seminary there's not going to be a whole lot of opportunity for you within the actual local church and I
1:37
don't think that's the way it was intended to be so in emphasizing this um every member learning through reading
1:47
the Bible I think we're trying to um to in a small way undo that phenomenon of of the seminary in modern
1:58
in modern Christianity but I listened three reading plans and the first one of course we talked about last
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week the historical approach and the reason why it's a priority because the the Bible is the revelation of God and His will mediated
2:24
through history and particularly through people his people but I do want to reiterate that these are not three separate approaches to the Bible that
2:34
you can choose one and ignore the others I'm I'm presenting this as if everyone here is a new believer knowing that most of us here
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are not new Believers but we might be new to actually approaching the Bible with a kind of a strategy for reading it
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and then we also have a lot of children and so in in teaching your children the Bible um I I think my think my greatest fear would
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be we would raise a bunch of doctrinally pure unbelievers and and that that is a real danger in a church that emphasizes
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Doctrine is that you don't actually emphasize the living relationship of repentance and Faith or the understanding of of being a part of a
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people uh not only the people of God as Israel was but in Christ part of a new Humanity part of a new creation and that's something that if we can transfer
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that to our children uh we will give them a tremendous defense against the ever increasing forus forces of Atheism
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in our society so teaching them how to read the Bible uh would be first laying the foundation of the historical relationship between God and His creation all of creation but
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approach uh again not to say that you spend five years on just the historical approach before you can pick up the theological if anything um this is
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if you have the time and the energy to do it this is probably a a three corded rope that you you read the scripture along these along these three not parallel but intertwined lines
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so the theological approach is where we actually do look um at the uh the doctrine that scripture teaches and in this I would reverse your
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order and begin with the New Testament now that probably seems obvious but our Christian theology the the full explanation of what God has
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done from creation to Christ is in the New Testament so to start your theological approach in the Old Testament is to begin in the shadows
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hoping to find light rather than beginning in the light and then going back and seeing the foundation and the heritage in the in the shadows so I
5:40
would begin uh and again this is this is certainly subject to your own wisdom this is not there's there's no I didn't get this from the mount you know
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I didn't have any personal revelation of of these but I would start with John um because it is the one that that kind of pulls together both the history
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and the Theology of the of the person of Christ so I would begin with John and then go to
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Romans now the reason I would go to Romans is that it is the least personal of Paul's of Paul's letters and by personal I mean Paul
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didn't found the Church of Rome and and while the Church of Rome may have had some issues Romans 14 indicates that they had some of the common struggle
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between Jewish Believers and Gentile believers they didn't have any
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um ethical or doctrinal issue so Paul is presenting in my opinion he's presenting his credentials to a Christian Church that he hopes to visit and I think he hopes to transfer his base of operation ations from
7:01
Antioch to Rome because he's done as he says um he's he's done with all of the the churches in Macedonia and aaya and Asia Minor he's planted those churches
7:12
they're now growing and he's ready to move on further west and hopefully to Spain well it's a long distance from Spain to Antioch even today so by
7:23
shifting his base of operations from Antioch to the church at Rome he now has a a a new family a new uh support base and that's what he's hoping for I think
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that's why he's writing the letter so it presents us perhaps the most comprehensive summary of Pauline theology is in
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Romans without also having to weed through the particular heresy or struggle that that local church is going through so for example we have a lot in
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Corinth that has to do with I mean it it teaches us principles that are valid and Timeless but there are problems in Corinth that he is trying to
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fix um Colossians there's been Arguments for the last 2,000 years as to what exactly was the heresy that Paul was battling in his letter to the Colossians but there was some heretical teaching
8:18
happening that he was addressing so Romans doesn't have that so it's it's really kind of pure Pauline gospel in fact I think it's the only letter
8:31
uh you correct me if I'm wrong but I think it's the only letter where he refers to the gospel as my gospel and and doing so and he may do it elsewhere but doing so I I think kind of
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confirms that the letter of Romans was his um his uh resume as it were that he was sending
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Romans I don't know that you can read Romans enough that every time you read Romans especially if you've been reading the Old Testament and the history of God's Redemptive people Romans just keeps
9:12
coming more and more alive um frankly I'm not sure how anybody understands Romans 9:10 and 11 if they don't have any grounding in
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the Old the Old Testament I mean those chapters are just uh uh they're they're an appendix and some people consider it to be a parentheses and it is of A Sort but they
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they there there are some Scholars commentators who said Romans 9:10 and 11 are somewhat are somewhat Expendable but they are not and and so the more you read Romans the the more it
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Ephesians and I would read Ephesians and Colossians together because they are actually um kind of like a rack ink test right uh
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one of them is the Church of Christ the other is the Christ of the church one of one of them emphasizes the body the other emphasizes the head Ephesians emphasizes the body Colossians
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emphasizes the head together and and I think it's it's interesting that that it's in um Ephesians or Colossians I think it's think it's Colossians where Paul actually mentions
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these and in one other letter to the Lans as Lans as circulars that they were to be passed around those churches and I think that kind of tells us that we ought to be
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reading those very close together I think it's very interesting that liberal theologians have um disallowed Pauline authorship of these letters uh because
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he talks too much about the church so obviously the must must be some letters from the second century it couldn't possibly be from the first century because they don't meet the liberal uh idea of what the first century
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Christians actually believed um there is no internal evidence or Reason To Doubt Pauline authorship of these letters none whatsoever and in fact there are many
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places where the language is very clearly Pauline but it's it's interesting to see where the enemy attacks okay it doesn't you really don't
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find many people worrying about whether whether Paul wrote phiman okay so if if the enemy is attacking a particular part of the Bible whether it's Isaiah or
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Deuteronomy that's probably one that we should put high on our list to read and to understand okay because they're going for the for the the strong points knowing that the rest of the wall will
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fall if you can take out the Peno if you can take out Isaiah if you can take out Ephesians and Colossians you you know if you take those out you don't have a whole lot left because the rest kind of
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starts to crumble um so and these These are among that and then of course and I would put this really Hebrews can go
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anywhere okay in in this list okay and also in the next one
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but Hebrews and Romans are the two power-packed theological treatises of the New Testament okay spend a lot of time in those I mean if you're in a read through
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the bible the bible program don't don't just read Romans once throw it back in somewhere during the year same with Hebrews keep going back to them now I believe that Hebrews
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um is a transcribed sermon my personal feeling is that it was probably by Apollos um but that it was definitely not by Paul most of your commentaries still
13:03
will say Paul was the author um but there's one thing in Chapter 2 that the author says and that is that he received his gospel from others which is
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something Paul would never have said in fact Paul vehemently says otherwise elsewhere so it kind of disqualifies that from being Paul but it it reads the
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the beauty of of Hebrews is kind of like Romans 9:10 and 11 the more you understand the Old Testament the Richer Hebrews becomes the more you study
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Leviticus uh we we'll be studying Leviticus in a couple of weeks and on Thursday evenings the author of Hebrews in chapter nine calls Leviticus a par or the levitical system a
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parable uh which I think is a fascinating concept that not just type or a symbol he uses the word Parable which is a living story that symbolizes
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a deeper truth and so it it teaches us in a backwards view what we gain from studying The Book of Leviticus for example and all of those sacrifices and
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all of the different rituals and the the burnt offerings the sin offerings the guilt offerings the peace offerings and what they what they meant so um definitely put Hebrews up
14:26
here um any comments any additions I wouldn't throw out any of the others but this is where I would
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ofit certainly yeah um James would be very good yes um in fact you might want to you know you might want to put James
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in or you know if you're not reading them together you might want to put James right
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love novelty that that is how they gain notoriety um sometimes tenure is by you know they're they're not that much different than the citizens of Athens
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who desire nothing more than to say or hear something new okay and time times haven't changed the the areopagus is now represented by our universities and um in order to make a
15:55
name for yourself you kind of have to come up with a a different view well in the 19th century with higher criticism coming out of Germany um one of the most popular paradigms was to pit Paul and
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James and James and Peter against one another and particularly Paul against Peter and James okay so James of course the head
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of the Jerusalem Church Peter the chief Apostle and then Paul this upstart Apostle who was was once a Pharisee and a persecutor of the church and and so
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there's um there are a number of commentaries from the 1800s and 1900s that try to show there's a different gospel in James and in Peter
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and in the Pauline letters and that they were not in agreement so I appreciate both those contributions because um that you're going to you're going to hear that okay
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that okay um young people if if you do you go to college and you take a course in Bible study or whatever there may be some of this um criticism of these three new
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testament authors but when you read their letters you you see that James is not advocating a a Salvation of works and Paul is not ignoring works it's Paul who
17:20
says that we must all give an account before the Judgment seat of Christ according to the Deeds Done In the Flesh okay that's Paul um and um James also
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has a tremendous amount about Grace uh and and he he points out that um he who would keep the law but is guilty of one infraction is guilty of the whole law
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that's in James so James basically discourages us from trying to keep the whole law and Paul tells us that we will give an account for the Deeds that we do in the flesh so they're not two
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different types of salvations appreciate that contribution the Old Testament
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reading priority I think it would be good to um to continue to focus on the Old Testament in either the historical or the
18:23
literary approaches until you're well grounded in your theology from the New Testament because if you don't do that there is a tendency within the
18:33
church and its history to go back to the shadows and I I have been a Believer since and I'm not going to do the math but it was
18:44
1978 um so in that time I have encountered probably three different
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significant groups uh that not just not just a Messianic Jews Jewish people who become Believers I'm talking about groups within Gentile within Gentile Christianity that want to go back and do
19:07
the things that back in the 80s the dietary laws were all about that was the big thing and they were trying to show how um how God made the dietary laws
19:18
because this was better for their health um you know like for example pork you you don't you know when they ask you how do you want your pork you go to another the restaurant okay because
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you only want it cooked well done all right and so they say well you know the the ignorant ancient people didn't know that they needed to cook their pork so
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God just simply denied them pork instead of telling them to cook it all right you know why not give them a recipe cook at 450 for an hour and a half all right no we're just going to because they're too
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stupid to know how to cook their pork all the way okay and you wonder why weren't all the other people around the Jews around Israel falling down dead because of all the pork they were eating
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so these ideas were coming up that we should go back to the Old Testament dietary laws U and and so these kind of things I think will will come up because
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if you don't understand what Christ has done to fulfill all of the types and shadows of the Old Testament then there's a great Temptation in wanting to
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please God to go back to those things and do them again as part of your Christian life and that's not valid okay that's not right in fact it will it will
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detract from the grace of God and lead you into bondage and ignorance so that's why I say you know keep reading the Old Testament as history understand what the
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people were required to do but immerse yourself in Romans and Hebrews and Ephesians immerse yourself in the light of the Fulfillment in Jesus
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Christ before going back and trying to understand the theological underpinnings of the Old Testament Yuri I
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a ladies Christian ladies who believe that we need to go to the pre dietary laws of only eatings and vegetables and anything of the ground and they were having dehydrated and
21:29
that I that I for that sounds exciting a dehydrated fruits and vegetables party how do I get
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invited yeah oh it it it's amazing what they can do to to modernize the Old Testament or even pre flood um dietary laws but you know we are the American
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people especially we are obsessed not just with eating but with what we eat I mean nutritionist and and that it's a multi-billion dollar
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multi-billion dollar industry um so that that can get into the church and we start to talk about these dietary laws and we want to try to find a a path forward for our own lives
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You Know Better Health uh better weight control but also being pleasing to God because we're uh we're obeying the laws and I I have been told you know I have
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to um some some amazing mental gymnastics regarding the vision that Peter had of the sheet let down from heaven with all forms of unclean animals
22:53
and even though both Jesus when he talked about that which goes into a man does not defile him you know thereby declaring all foods clean okay thereby declaring all foods clean I'm still told
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well that's not what that passage really meant and you can't even go back to the Greek because that's what the Greek says you know it's
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always it's a thing that we as follow want to earn our Salvation we do so we come up with something whether it drinking alcohol games F something that we can earn salvation take
23:49
away sin and apostasy and to extra set apart I kind of feel that that behind a lot of lot of theal oh it was we're just trying to not fall into Helm right we're just we're
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trying to be we're trying to be pure which is what Pharisee means uh very much like much like Puritan which was an insult not that was
24:10
given to them by the Queen Elizabeth and her Court it wasn't meant to be a compliment okay it's this idea so I want to suggest that within
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evangelicalism we get our Doctrine right we kind of know that we're not earning our Salvation okay so let's just make a little modification here and we'll say okay we're
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not you know we're not earning our salvation but we want our heavenly father to be pleased with us not recognizing that we're already accepted in the Beloved we're already washed in the blood of Jesus Christ we already
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have access free and bold access to the throne of God through Jesus Christ now we feel like we need to do a little bit more ourselves more ourselves and and by obeying the dietary laws by
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doing things in a in what we consider to be a Jewish way um you know by celebrating for example the Passover every year and things like that we somehow think that we're more
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pleasing to God um but actually I think we're less pleasing because we're rejecting his greatest gift and that is his son we're going back into the
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Shadows thinking we're going to find the light and we're ignoring the light that God has given so that's a danger and um just the fact that I think we've all
25:35
encountered something like this you know I know that that um in my family one of the nieces got married in in uh married to a man who is British but thinks he's
25:48
Jewish but he's a Believer he's a Christian and I didn't get we didn't go to the wedding but we heard about it afterwards and apparently at one point in the wedding my my niece danced around
25:59
her groom seven times uh was he supposed to fall down I don't know I couldn't quite get the the illusion there um I don't know what quite that was about but
26:10
neither did my siblings who related it to me so you get some kind of weird stuff because what we've done also is that we we we incorporate Judaism into
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Christianity but we're not incorporating biblical Judaism we're incorporating Judaism actually since the fall of Jerusalem Jud Jewish Traditions that
26:31
have come about since the destruction of the temple okay so even even the Seder meals today are are much
26:42
embellished you now have a hard-boiled egg you you got you know got different things and they're all the symbolism have nothing to do with what the scripture says about the Passover okay
26:53
and yet we now we embibe not just the Old Testament but we start to add on like the Jews did Traditions that had nothing to do with the Bible and we think somehow that
27:25
yeah will care and love your your you Merry Christmas might not don't get as many thumbs up on merry Christmases as you do with happy Hanukkah um or crazy Quanza whatever
27:36
goes with that one yeah um that that's a lot of there's a lot of political correctness in it too but reading the Old Testament theologically though I think at some point you you do need to
27:49
um to see the foundations because there is also a very very strong underlying thought Paradigm within
27:59
modern Christianity and that is that Christianity replaced Christianity replaced Judaism that Paul came up with Christianity Jesus brought Christianity
28:10
because people couldn't keep the law and therefore God decided to give up on that at least for a time and to bring in grace to to be able to reach these
28:21
absolutely hellbent Gentiles who couldn't even begin to keep the law so we're just going to let them in on Grace instead of Law And so there's this idea that Paul is not just a theologian of
28:34
Christianity he's kind of the founder of it and that's a very very dangerous heresy U it is it is the primary so or ecclesiology
28:46
of dispensationalism so if you've had any experience with experience with dispensationalism or um if if you read popularly published Christian
28:57
instruction books whether commentaries or devotionals dispensationalism is still the predominant theological
29:09
predominant theological Paradigm in modern American Christian writing okay so you're going to be getting this idea that Christianity is something brand
29:20
something brand new okay and and so that's that's a very dangerous Paradigm I remember um I was doing a study on what the Bible has to say about say about economics and there is a a popular uh
29:34
radio personality a Christian uh many of you I'm sure are very familiar with with him um and he he wrote a book um the subtitle of the book was all the
29:46
Bible has to say about wealth or or something wealth and economics or something that was the subtitle I can't remember the title um the book started in Matthew the book
29:57
Book of Book of Matthew and except for peppering in a few Proverbs here and there it never went back to the Old Testament it did not look for example at
30:08
the Holiness code in Leviticus which is incre incredibly economics based okay but there's nothing to be learned from that because we know we have it all new
30:18
now in Christ in the New Testament that's the impact of dispensational it's very subtle um and then so it's it's one of the reasons why reading and studying the Old Testament has kind of fallen out
30:40
found because they don't apply but information you just take information they and make connection and not connect to the Millennium connected
30:51
to things that have already happened I I find that more interes yeah I have a little trouble getting over um so going back to the Old
31:02
Testament I think at this point we would go on to Exodus and
31:25
up the pentad here are the books of the law um
31:37
Isaiah oops these are kind of like Ephesians Colossians now nice thing about Micah is it's a lot shorter so you can kind of digest Micah pretty much in a sitting it's it's not that long and that's good because you
31:49
can get a big picture um of the same canvas that Isaiah is going to take and make a m out of okay but Isaiah uh I
32:01
would say Isaiah is like Hebrews in the New Testament you you ought to read it several times for each of the others that you read even Jeremiah okay uh
32:13
Jeremiah is excellent um but Isaiah there there's more gospel in Isaiah I hate to say this I mean there's gospel in Jeremiah no doubt there's the New Covenant is in Jeremiah but the the
32:26
overall red Redemptive plan of God that includes the Gentiles and the new creation the new Heaven and the Earth that's Isaiah Isaiah 53 is really The Gospel
32:36
According to Isaiah he talks about the the one whose form was marred so much that he had no appearance and that he was bruised for our iniquity that's Isaiah so like Hebrews in the New
32:48
Testament Isaiah should be a book in the Old Testament that you read more often than say Lamentations okay
32:58
noticed we haven't we haven't got into that is last maybe yeah pet but Isaiah would be the first really
33:22
yes but we do in Romans 8 that's true yeah Romans 8 gets us there and we could go to 1 Corinthians 15 that's no no doubt I mean I'm not uh and actually in the midst of this if we had time um and
33:32
if you had time I would add an a fourth approach and that would be a thematic approach where you would you would take a particular Doctrine like the kingdom of God and then read but in doing that
33:44
that's a little bit more difficult because again this is not a Systematic Theology it doesn't have an index you can't just say oh this book's about the kingdom of God I'll read that one no it's it's interwoven in Daniel and
33:55
Ezekiel and okay so it's interwoven in the Old Testament and the new um but a thematic approach is something that I think that mature Christians should should do often uh that you should say
34:08
okay this year I'm going to study the doctrine of justification from the scriptures I'm going to see what does it mean uh now at that point you probably should also Avail yourselves of some
34:19
assistance some books you know that that um would help you follow the path of scripture concerning scripture concerning the kingdom or the new heavens and the
34:29
new Earth but Aaron is right in the Old Testament of course but Isaiah was actually very early you know you read Isaiah and this is why they they've come up with at least three maybe four or
34:40
five Isaiah um because they can't accept the idea of actual prophecy especially prophecy by name because Isaiah names Cyrus okay um and interestingly also
34:53
calls him calls him christas he's he's a messiah which is kind of an interesting Twist on that word but um Isaiah is is you read it and
35:03
you think this must have been written very late but it was actually written very early uh in the history of um of Israel and and then I think at this point I would go to the Post
35:27
and Malachi uh because at this point you're you're also learning that the return from the Exile and the re rebuilding of the temple wasn't
35:39
temple wasn't the it wasn't the answer and that this is this is going to bring us up to a 400-year period in which there was no prophet in Israel and
35:50
Israel knew that there were no prophets and then that brings us up to John the Baptist so this is going to be introducing us but what's important for that period is that in these books as
36:02
well as in the intertestamental writings as well as in the gospels no one thinks that God has returned to his
36:13
Temple see in Ezekiel the vision of the glory of the Lord leaving the temple is the central the central theme God has left his
36:24
home he promises to to come back so the people are released from Exile they go back to the land they rebuild the Temple does God come back
36:35
no and nobody thought he did because there was no shikina glory there was no appearance as there was in the Tabernacle as there was in Solomon's
36:45
Temple that never happened even after Herod spent millions of shekels making it one of the wonders of the world nobody thought Jehovah had come
36:56
back now that's very important when Jesus comes in proclaiming the kingdom of God and then on the day of Pentecost the spirit descends as if Flames tongues
37:20
shikina the temple remember Cry of the old because the building was not because of the building were they really crying and complaining because of the sh I think they were crying because
37:30
the shikina had not returned the glory he says the glory of this latter house will be greater than the former but then you go to Malachi and you read that that suddenly the messenger of the Lord will
37:42
come into His Temple that which you have expected will arrive okay so that that glory is what they're looking for to them they had the pattern of the
37:53
Tabernacle Moses built it consecrated it the glory of of the Lord came down to where Moses couldn't even go in Solomon's Temple he prayed the prayer of dedication the glory of the Lord
38:04
descended on it and the priest could not enter because of the glory it was a visible manifestation that Jehovah was with them that didn't happen they saw that they saw that yeah they recognized
38:16
that it is it is in the writings the rabbi writings rabbi writings that he hasn't come back that that's one of the most common you know among rabbis there there's the Jo that if you know if
38:27
you have six rabbis in a room you have at least seven opinions okay so this is one of the things that they were United on during the second temple era now they weren't United on whether or not the
38:38
glory would ever come back many of them said he's not coming back it's just it's just us now but that that he had not come back there was no one at least in the writings no one who said he had no
38:51
one who said that the glory had ever come to this Temple many of them thought that by going along with Herod in the refurbishing of it and these were mostly the herodians and the Sadducees but they
39:02
thought that um that would at least that would at least entice the Lord to come back because we built this beautiful house for you how can you not come and live in it well he didn't he actually
39:13
said tear it down and in three days I'll rebuild it so there's that these books right here once you've read uh Luke and acts for example together once you understand what happened at Pentecost
39:25
but even Matthew and Mark the coming of Jesus the coming of John makes straight the way of the Lord okay um then you go back to the post exilic prophets and you
39:35
say well this is what they were looking for this is what Simeon was looking for when he said my eyes have seen the consolation of Israel and the glory of the Gentiles thou let thy servant depart
39:46
in peace or Anna you know who lived in the temple and took up Jesus In Her Arms this is what they were looking for and the more we understand what they were looking for we more we understand how
39:57
God did fulfill it we talked about this in Pauline eschatology we think of eschatology as something yet to happen for Paul eschatology was something that was fulfilled in Christ
40:08
they had an eschatology and he fulfilled it we're actually manufacturing our own since then not recognizing that God has already done the work it is finished
40:20
Christ said so definitely you know these are these are often overlooked they're short little books at the end of the Bible but they're so critical for understanding the mind of the second
40:31
temple Jew to whom Jesus would speaking the men and the women who were hearing The Sermon on the Mount were immersed in the expectations and and honestly you
40:42
know it's it's kind of it's in this next one but you could throw in Daniel anywhere here okay anytime you could throw in Daniel and and get the uh the es
40:53
eschatological expectation of Israel moving in the period where God would send you know the fullness of time okay so finally
41:15
then God has given us his Revelation in a multitude of different literary genre he has not given us a book of Mormon or a Quran where every chapter is
41:26
the same style it's not a history book it's not a Systematic Theology it has poetry prophecy narrative Chronicles um
41:37
and it has letters and it has apocalyptic which is a style of writing that was very popular in the inter testamental years and several centuries
41:47
after Christ um it's a form of literature that it's it's like a reading
41:59
Canterbury Tales you you need to become accustomed to that type of writing which those people in that day were but for us we're
42:10
not and so people who read the book of Revelation and think they understand it by taking it absolutely literally don't understand the genre of the apocalyptic
42:20
it was never meant for the symbols to be taken literally were intended to create a graphic picture of what the gods or God
42:31
was doing in the world so learning reading these this is why I think you know sometimes I read through the bible program it's not the healthiest approach
42:44
for young for young believers because it does take them into types of literature with which they have no familiarity and so they have really no good basis just on on our first
42:56
reading for understanding I I don't recommend that a young believer read the book of book of Revelation I give it 20 or 30 years I mean I mean no you you got to
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understand the eschatology of God which means you have to understand the eschatology of the Old Testament you have to understand the promise of God in the garden the Proto evangelium and the
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and the the reason for the flood and the Covenant with Abraham and then with David and you understand the Prophecies of Isaiah and Micah of the New Covenant
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and the new creation Jeremiah and Isaiah understand the the meaning of the glory coming to the temple that God is dwelling in the midst of his people in
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order to understand the lampstands of the letters to the churches okay the symbolism is so seeped in Old in Old Testament that if you don't if you're
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not also seeped in Old Testament I don't see how anybody could understand the Book of Book of Revelation okay I just I don't mean that that it's it's not intentionally
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parallelism you see that that the old that Revelation is written in a style that would have been common in the day that it was written WR so we need to kind of put ourselves
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back into that to to understand um that that genre of literature so that we can understand better what it means
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okay but as with modern literature generally speaking a a piece of narrative has really only one
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meaning the event that happened here is the description of the event that happened a happened a poem often has more than one not
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intentionally necessarily okay the author may have had one intent in writing it but any of you who've had literature class knows that in reading that poem we don't all
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interpret it the same way the meaning of the reading seems to be more um varied than the meaning of the writing and that's because of the genre so when you get into the Poetry of
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scripture and you get into the apocalyptic of scripture the important thing is to have a firm idea of what God means so that we're not taking the Book
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of Revelation and trying to read the Cold War into it which of course was very common during the Cold War every interpretation of Revelation was talking about nuclear warheads and multiple
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independent re-entry vehicles and uh you know it's like no I don't think John had any of those things or God had any of those things in mind when he wrote
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it to do that yeah to read it in terms of current events and then to try to make those images apply to something that was new to their time oh this means this is the end because we have these we
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have now we have trebuchet okay we have catapults right they didn't have those so obviously Revelation applies to us right um so so
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in the Old Testament I think we can we can definitely again go um Old Testament New Testament
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here running a little low on time so I'll put these up quite a number of them actually um uh and this is just the order that came to me I would I would start with
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Psalms and I I think it was it's it's worth reminding us that uh the Psalms were they tell us uh for the most part they were written to Be Sung okay so you're kind of reading the
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lyrics of songs when you read psalms that's a different genre isn't it uh there there's going to be a a
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structure that structure that is to for lack of a better word it's basically forced on the text there's going to be a parallelism for us it might be rhyming okay they they didn't
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necessarily rhyme and poetry doesn't have to rhyme but there's going to be meter there you know the characteristics of poetry because you've been through that class but um you know there's going
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to be iambic pentameter or there's going to be chastic parallelism okay and when you when you see that you almost read you're supposed to read that with the
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Lil with the with the timber of the poem of the meter okay so Psalms is is definitely different than um uh than
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Genesis Genesis is a um cosmology all of the ancient cultures had their own story of Origins the origin of the universe and particularly the origin of man well Genesis is the Jewish cosmology
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that doesn't mean it's myth but that was its literary purpose was it's a book of Beginnings it also has um
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a consistent I won't call it a meter but stanzas these are the generations of the word is toot there there are like nine I I
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forget the the Full Count but these are the generations of Adam these are the generations of Tara these are the generations okay those are markers that they're like stanzas of
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this of this um of this epic Narrative of Beginnings okay so it is a literary piece as well as um as well as a
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historical piece job Ecclesiastes the the wisdom
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books definitely have um their own literary genre that and you understand these these books were written
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um they put it this way nobody was tape recording the conversation between job and his and his friends that's not what was happening okay this was a a wisdom a
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piece of wisdom literature that consists of dueling of dueling monologues okay and when when you understand this is not a dialogue these are dueling
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are dueling monologues and and there are some edits okay um what's the what's the Young Guy's name eliu you know he he
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doesn't show up in the first 34 chapters then there he shows up okay but these are these are dueling monologues and I I think that's something and also I think as as Tim brought out in his uh Sunday
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school class you know this is the voice of the suffering of a righteous man this is the articulation of the suffering of a man like Jesus now he wasn't sinless but
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he was declared righteous by God himself okay so the sufferings of a righteous man in the midst of the corruption of creation and Humanity that's job um
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jumping on then to well let me throw up Daniel there as well because I think Daniel um I think even the Jews don't know where quite to put Daniel do you
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put it in the histories do you put it in the writings do you put it in the prophets he's generally considered a prophet um but he was not actually of the school of the prophets so it's an
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interesting Nehemiah would be another one that you could put up there in the New Testament um
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Matthew there's less in terms of literary distinction in the New Testament than there is in the old it's there but not nearly as as as graphic but I would I would read these two
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Matthew and Luke and the reason being is that Matthew is a Jew writing primarily to a Jewish audience Luke is a gentile writing primarily to a gentile audience
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and yet they're writing about the same events so they give you kind of a two- perspective view of the life of Jesus and they harmonize fairly well together
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okay which is why of course they Ed the same material that's what the Liberals tell us that they use they they both used Q all right so um first and 2
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Corinthians again not so not so much a literary type as it is a letter but it's a letter that is a
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polemic and almost all the way through Paul is chastising them for something Corinth was one hot mess and and so
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that's both encouraging to Modern Believers to realize that you can you can be a hot mess and still be in God in Christ um but also very uh challenging
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um Revelation well before we go to Revelation let's put first in second Thessalonians again kind of for the same reason that I
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put Micah with Isaiah and that is it covers the similar Concepts but does so in a much shorter version so first and second the Thessalonians and then
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all believers um I'm going to put Hebrews up here as well because as I said I don't it it's called in our Bibles the letter to the Hebrews it's it's not really a letter it
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doesn't have the format of a letter it does have a a salutation at the end but doesn't have a greeting okay and the salutation is almost appended to it so
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the letter itself doesn't have the format of a I'm sorry the book itself has the format more of a sermon than it does of a letter and so in that if you read it and honestly you should read it
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through at least once you know you study it but then sit and just read it you know take a Saturday afternoon and cup of tea and just read the book of Hebrews and listen to it as you read it you know
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let the author speak it to you if if that's possible I think it is um and as because that's I think how it was originally delivered was as a as a
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verbal sermon um so anyhow that is the end of our class um but I would encourage you to to to
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consider these different approaches but we be glad to give any assistance and uh advice as needed so let's pray father we do thank you for
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your word and for the depth and complexity and beauty of it we ask that you would you would by your spirit that you
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would keep our hearts as as children as it were in awe of your word that we would not worship it but
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that we would worship you in it and we would understand that it is your infallible your infallible Revelation but we also understand that
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to understand it we need your Holy Spirit we need your light we need the unfolding of the word to give to give light we need to be taught and so we ask
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that you would teach us through your word and by your spirit For Your Glory and for and for our growth we ask in Jesus name
