Understanding Scripture
This audio is from a teaching recorded at our Wednesday Gathering on October 18, 2023.
Key Terms
Dual Authorship:
Every text of Scripture has two authors — God and man. God is the ultimate author; man is also an author.
Authorial Intent:
the design and purpose of the author in writing a text — what the author means as indicated by the text itself. (Since texts of Scripture have two authors, some passages may have more intended by the divine author than the human, but the intention of the divine author will never contradict the intentions of the human author.)
Exegesis:
the process of discovering God’s intention in Scripture; to bring out the author’s intention
Hermeneutics:
the study of the correct methods of interpreting Scripture
The Inner-Testimony of the Holy Spirit:
“[T]he Spirit persuades ‘by and with the Scriptures.’ He does not skirt the Scriptures and substitute private revelations about the Scriptures. He removes the blindness and hostility and rebellion, and thus opens the eyes of our hearts to see the self-evident brightness of the divine beauty of Christ.” (Piper, Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ, 118ff)
Perspicuity (Clarity) of Scripture:
The Bible clearly communicates the central truths, including the gospel. Not all Scripture is plain and clear, but God saw to it that its main teachings are accessible to all who seek his help to genuinely understand and obey.
Sufficiency of Scripture:
At each stage of redemptive history, Scripture has contained all of God’s words that he intended his people to have; Scripture contains all that we need to know God, be saved, and grow in holiness.
Bible Translation:
God means for his word written (the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures) to be translated into the tongue of every people and nation, to convey his special revelation to all people in the heart-language.
Sola Scriptura does not mean Scripture is our only authority, but that it is our only supreme and final authority
Do unto authors:
Read to discern the author’s intention in this text, not your own preferences.
Come to terms:
getting your bearings enough from the normal language of the passage to discern what the author has in mind by his key words and phrases.
Aggressive attentiveness:
a kind of attentiveness to words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs that asks questions and seeks to answer them from the immediate and wider concentric circles of context.
Meditation:
Lingering over God’s words, pressing them into the heart. God does not mean for our engaging of his word to end at the more cerebral, intellectual level of discerning meaning in the text through informed, patient, attentive reading and study. Rather, he means for his words to go deep into the soil of our souls — not just freshly inform our minds but profoundly change our hearts. Meditation means filling our minds with his truths, rolling them around on our tongue, savoring what he says, and not ceasing before coming to personal reflection.
Key Texts and Quotes
Acts 17:11,
“Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.”
Ephesians 3:4,
“When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ . . .”
Joshua 1:8,
“This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it.”
Psalm 1:2,
“Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; 2 but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. 3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither.”
Psalm 119:14–16,
“In the way of your testimonies I delight as much as in all riches. 15 I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways. 16 I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word.”
Colossians 3:1–4,
“If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. 3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”
Thomas Watson (1620–1686):
“Study is the finding out of a truth, meditation is the spiritual improvement of a truth.”
Samuel Ward (1577–1640):
“Stir up thy soul in [meditation] to converse with Christ. Look what promises and privileges thou dost habitually believe, now actually think of them, roll them under thy tongue, chew on them till thou feel some sweetness in the palate of thy soul.”
Edmund Calamy (1600–1666):
In meditation, be like “the Bee that dwells and abides upon the flower, to suck out all the sweetness.”
William Bates (1625–1699):
Since meditation often requires persistence, especially when you’re first learning the lost art, meditate “till thou dost find some sensible benefit conveyed to thy soul.” Many of us give up far too quickly and easily. Don’t let him go till he blesses you! Keep at it “till the flame doth so ascend.”
George Mueller (1805–1898):
“[T]he first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day [is] to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about [is] how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished. . . . [T]he most important thing I [have] to do [is] to give myself to the reading of the word of God and to meditation on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed; and that thus, while meditating, my heart might be brought into experimental communion with the Lord. . . .”