Bendito
Loyal
- Joined
- Jul 31, 2015
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- 3,854
I was thinking about how we read the Word and think we have gotten all of what it says from what we see with our eyes....Yet we know, or at least we are told that the Word of God is a mine of knowledge, information. So...What happens if we dig into it. Look....
Genesis 6
We are discovering that there is a gold mine of information that God encoded into the
stories presented in the Torah (especially in the book of Genesis) just waiting to be unearthed. The sages of Israel have told us that it would take a faithful student of the Word a lifetime just to discover most of the secrets God presented to us in Genesis 1–3. Over the years, several students have attempted to develop an exhaustive study of the book of Genesis for their doctoral dissertations. As they examined the original language of the Hebrew text and discovered such a treasure trove of information, they concluded that their dissertations could only cover a fraction of what is available in just the first chapter. Even then, many of their papers far surpassed the required standard length of a
doctoral dissertation. What God can say in one sentence can become a lifetime of study for any serious student of the Word.
The perfect example of the power of one sentence from God is when Jesus made a seemingly simple statement in Matthew 24:37: But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. (Matthew 24:37) Jesus was speaking of the last days. In the verse that preceded this statement, we find: But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. (Matthew 24:36)
Since we have been so deprived of our Hebraic heritage, most students of the Bible miss the fact that Jesus had just used a Hebraic idiom that connected what He was sharing with the Feast of Trumpets. The language He continued to use in verses 40–42 confirms this fact for those who use the tools of hermeneutical research to understand the cultural setting in which Jesus taught. Although the purpose of this chapter is not to teach on the importance of cultural idioms and their proper use within our exegetical exercises to glean truth from the Word of God, I hope I have sparked
your interest enough to promote expansion of your hermeneutical toolbox. We need to realize that Jesus did not minister in the streets of Detroit or the country hills of Kentucky. He spoke to a culture that had a deep and enriched heritage cultivated by the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and nourished by a study of Torah. Biblical scholar Dr. John Garr makes this observation regarding our habitual dismissal of the cultural setting in our interpretative processes: The problem is that practically all societies and people groups have read their own concepts and cultures into the Bible rather than drawing out of the Holy Scriptures the truths that have always been there. The church’s approach to Holy Writ has been ignorant at best and disingenuous at worst. When interpreting the Bible, Christians have engaged in eisegesis rather than exegesis by injecting their preconceived notions into Scripture rather than extracting from the text what it clearly says.
M Lake
Genesis 6
We are discovering that there is a gold mine of information that God encoded into the
stories presented in the Torah (especially in the book of Genesis) just waiting to be unearthed. The sages of Israel have told us that it would take a faithful student of the Word a lifetime just to discover most of the secrets God presented to us in Genesis 1–3. Over the years, several students have attempted to develop an exhaustive study of the book of Genesis for their doctoral dissertations. As they examined the original language of the Hebrew text and discovered such a treasure trove of information, they concluded that their dissertations could only cover a fraction of what is available in just the first chapter. Even then, many of their papers far surpassed the required standard length of a
doctoral dissertation. What God can say in one sentence can become a lifetime of study for any serious student of the Word.
The perfect example of the power of one sentence from God is when Jesus made a seemingly simple statement in Matthew 24:37: But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. (Matthew 24:37) Jesus was speaking of the last days. In the verse that preceded this statement, we find: But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. (Matthew 24:36)
Since we have been so deprived of our Hebraic heritage, most students of the Bible miss the fact that Jesus had just used a Hebraic idiom that connected what He was sharing with the Feast of Trumpets. The language He continued to use in verses 40–42 confirms this fact for those who use the tools of hermeneutical research to understand the cultural setting in which Jesus taught. Although the purpose of this chapter is not to teach on the importance of cultural idioms and their proper use within our exegetical exercises to glean truth from the Word of God, I hope I have sparked
your interest enough to promote expansion of your hermeneutical toolbox. We need to realize that Jesus did not minister in the streets of Detroit or the country hills of Kentucky. He spoke to a culture that had a deep and enriched heritage cultivated by the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and nourished by a study of Torah. Biblical scholar Dr. John Garr makes this observation regarding our habitual dismissal of the cultural setting in our interpretative processes: The problem is that practically all societies and people groups have read their own concepts and cultures into the Bible rather than drawing out of the Holy Scriptures the truths that have always been there. The church’s approach to Holy Writ has been ignorant at best and disingenuous at worst. When interpreting the Bible, Christians have engaged in eisegesis rather than exegesis by injecting their preconceived notions into Scripture rather than extracting from the text what it clearly says.
M Lake
