Hello and welcome to classical stuff. You should know a podcast about classical education in the ancient world and stuff My name is Thomas Magby. I'm joined as always with mr. Graham Donaldson.
Hey and mr. AJ Hanin bird Howdy So it's weird as that to the listeners of the podcast they didn't hear the spiel Graham that you just gave ahead of time You know, I'll just do the cliff notes version It was tough to tame an audience of two or three thousand it's hard to count at this point It's true, but your booming voice was overheard you rallied all of them to our cause Well the protesters protesters were outside we were entertained with the dance number of the classical stuff you should know dancers Yeah, that's really nice. Yeah, we didn't really we didn't ask for that, but it was just really nice. I just kind of spontaneously did that I thought the flag team was nice, you know, the last year Last year but Thomas, sorry, I'm sorry.
Yeah different opinions on it, but they definitely tried so anyway, mr. Graham Donaldson I will leave it to you to describe your topic, but what you talking about today? So as you listeners have been able to discern we are yeah in front of a live audience today It is the Pidea conference at Veritas Academy and we are And we are actually People from the people But before you crack and bees what's a good definition of Pidea? Oh Pidea is the discipline crafting of the man the whole man and wisdom in virtue is the thing I've memorized the one we got definition this morning that was that Pidea is the Inculturation of the next generation so it is the passing on of culture so don't know the whole man Yeah, so this is a conference that we put on for our co-teachers which are parents other schools people starting schools our own faculty and for some reason They asked us to do a live podcast.
So here we are here We are so fun fun classical stuff fact many years ago We did a live podcast that we lost all of the data to and Thomas had his microphone backwards And I was trying to figure it out the whole time So I was like pushing buttons and at some point I muted Thomas and then lost his entire track But there was really it's uttered during the podcast lost that was lost forever So anyone who was there had their life changed forever today We're going to do that topic again So the topic that we're going to be talking about is hermeneutics which is sort of a long sounding word Well, we're talking about it hermeneutics is just the art of how you read something and we're going to talk about it in terms of the art of reading The Bible of reading scripture. So when someone says oh Let's take a biblical a biblical understanding of money or let's have a biblical understanding of some topic The question is well, how do you derive that understanding? How do you get to that theological statement of the Bible says x about topic? And so we're gonna we're gonna talk about the sort of the steps that one does in order to do this This isn't the first time we've talked about how to read the Bible on this podcast We have an older episode many many moons ago on the four Forst, yes, the four senses of scripture talking about how Dante says we should read the Bible Don't I just use it.
It was a point of some kind of from probably a gussman. I don't know I'm from like older dudes. It's been around for a long time And so you can go back and listen to that one too. Maybe this is part of series very series has long gaps in between now.
I have to go back and put like number one and Anyway, so how do you read scripture? So you have a story if you have a text in front of you How do you interpret that and how do you end up saying things about it that is supposed to be a helpful for your own life? For the life of the church for the life of the Christian person So I'm gonna use the passage that I was taught her mutex on and probably it's a familiar passage It's one that gets taught a lot in seminaries to and it's from Exodus 21 verse 28 So I'm gonna read it out in the question is how on earth do we derive theological principles from this? When an ox gores a man or a woman to death the ox shall be stoned and its flesh shall not be eaten But the owner of the ox shall not be liable But if the ox has been accustomed to gore in the past, you know has a history And its owner has been warned but has not kept it in and it kills a man or woman the ox shall be stoned And its owner also shall be put to death for a ransom is imposed on him Then he shall give for the redemption of his life whatever is imposed on him if it gores a man's son or daughter He shall be dealt with according to this same rule if the ox gores a slave male or female The owner shall give to their master 30 shackles of silver and the ox shall be stoned Okay, so we have this passage and it's you know one of those stereotypically Old Testament Passages that's talking about the civil life of the ancient Israelites and how they should deal with their problems Why do we what do we do what do we as faithful Christians in the 21st century?
What do we do with this kind of thing? How do we interpret this? How do we derive biblical principles? Does this have anything at all to say to us?
Well, I can ask questions of it and I feel like my first one is who is in charge of ox gore warnings Right if he has been warned then such a thing is that like a guy whose job it is to walk around and be like hey Watch it. That's one I won't go or you've been warned. Yeah, apparently so Alright, so there's a couple of steps we do one way there's you can think about in terms of three steps Some people talk about her moves in terms of five steps I think five steps is the most helpful for so for step number one if you were running a Bible study or if you were trying If you were reading this passage and you're like, okay, how in earth am I going to? Understand what this passage has to say is that anything the same is the first step is you are summarizing the thing that it says You are offering no interpretation you are offering offering no sort of like life advice Which is I think we've all said in Bible studies where you read the passage and then someone jumps in it's like immediately apply what this says to me Is that and everyone gets uncomfortable is that we should all watch out for when our neighbors pets are doing things?
They should make sure everyone's warned. That's actually maybe a good interpretation But the first thing is let's just write out as much as that we can observe from it even if we and especially if we have big old questions There's probably gonna be cultural understandings. We don't understand there's gonna be all sorts of It's probably at the end of the exercise We're gonna have more questions than answers But the first thing that we should do is we should write out everything that we can kind of observe and any sort of questions that we have about this So if you're doing this with kids or if you're doing this just in your own devotional life You summarize okay, so there's a couple of steps in here when the ox was the man if the ox has never done this before the ox gets killed The man doesn't it has a history. It says that the ox is killed the man is killed the same rule applies for kids There's something about a ransom which I don't really understand and then there is some discussion.
Oh slaves. Oh, oh, oh, the Bible talks about slaves What are we gonna do with that? Is the Bible okay with slavery? And how come their rules are applied differently than the rules for the kids or the rules for people right?
You just sort of you come at it you come up with all the questions But you also try to summarize in point form what actually it's talking about just a little little little level You're just talking about oxen people and getting bored And in this section It's probably easier to do the literal level because it is sort of a rocket like it's telling a story about something that happened An ox if an if an ox does this then you do this if you have something like Paul's epistles They it's a little more difficult to talk about literally what he's saying because it can get a little Complicated but with this one that one summarizing it is relatively straightforward, but then yes all these questions arise So that is step one When I do Bible studies, I actually if we're doing a passage I will print out the passage on a sheet of paper. I will take away all verse notes I will take away all footnotes and I will take away everything so it's just a block of text and then we can all write all over it So you know our questions in the margins We can this is also the place where if you notice repeating patterns in here, you know, so we have this repetition the ox cores first case Ox core second case kids. We have the sort of the ox shop. He's known.
Yeah, which sounds like a shopping Colorado. Yeah Okay, that's step number one step number two is then it's often a step that gets avoided because this is the step that You would use if you needed to go do a little bit of research on it And the question you ask yourself is is how different is the audience listening to this from me today? How different is the context of this being applied? So the older you go that question becomes more important when you are talking the Pauline epistles That is less different because he's talking to the church where the church the churches has continued through history But if you know Rome was there and stuff and that's a big deal.
Yeah, so you ask yourself this question. What are the big historical differences? More prevalent that's definitely like I don't know how many of us are dealing with ox corgones on a daily basis But I feel like it would be you know at least although Coring frequently less so less so if you're in like Manhattan or something The ox gore and slave problem. Yeah, and then that last thing I mean the I'm using the ESV which translates as slaves What do you got there Thomas?
That's like this is a speed there's there. This is also translated as bond servant This else would be translated to servant somewhere can needs to be done in understanding what that term means for the audience Who would have heard this and then I mean even just figuring out who the audience who would have heard this in the first place We need to be able to locate this story or this text in the history of the Bible This is Exodus this is spoken to the Jews in the desert when they're eating manna and You know Moses Moses stuff. Yeah, right. Did you just summarize all of that?
Sometimes I'll the pendant ticket sometimes called Moses stuff. No, that's not right Oh Anyway, so yes, we noticed all these differences so if we need to know what the prevalence of ox back in the day But yeah, the cultural understanding of of slavery And maybe I'm gonna jump to that when we when we talk about interpretation and application But that is an obvious question is okay The Bible says the Bible assumes at least in this passage that they're going to be people for whom? Something happens in their life and they need to deal with the fact what they need to deal with their servants They need to deal with their slaves. Does that mean that this text is permissible to the concept of slavery?
What does the Bible say about slaves? Is this the only text? Alright, so that's step number two is a historical difference How different is this story from us step number three is the big one? This is where you try to make principles from What is being said you're not trying to apply these principles and you and you and you may make principles that you know in the back of your Mind other sections of scripture repudiate But we'll get there, but this is where you make principle statements So you're trying to not universalize the statement We're trying to bring some sort of like categorical statements to what's happening So what could be like some principles from the text?
So a principle would be that people are responsible for their stuff. Yeah, take care of yourself. You're responsible for your things Yeah, perfect. Okay, neglected thing So if if someone gets hurt because of something you fail to do you're responsible It is the Bible if frowns on neglect if someone is responsible for something and they know about it and neglect to take care of it They are liable for it.
That's a principle from this so you can say that you know biblically speaking Personal responsibility especially vis-a-vis your stuff is a biblical principle. Yeah, it's interesting that so when there's a problem You can pay to fix that problem or even I guess first there's the obligation to pay to make it right But then even that trade that's just like an interesting thing that a wrong can be paid for yeah, so then the other thing is is Maybe this goes back to the step into the observation that in for the Jews in Moses time During the accident as they were enshrining these laws into a into a polis they had a Penal system where also payment was acceptable for wrongdoing that may seem obvious to us because we also have that system But you can say and maybe it's wrong But at least at this point reading this passage this passage seems to assume that having monetary punishments for wrongdoing is Biblically permitted. Yeah, now we may go back and say that's not a universal statement But at least according to this it seems to indicate that it says yes, okay What about a principle about the worth of children? The equal value to the owner and that's children are equal in value to their parents So if you're a ragi ox kills kid it is the exact same punishment as if it kills an adult So the principle we can derive is the Bible says that the life of children are equal to life about it's not like a Child is like two thirds of an adult or something, but so these are principles So the the biblical interpreters job is to when they read sections is to try to come up with these principal statements You worry about these principles being only in this passage like I can see myself I don't know if you're gonna take this passage to say well therefore the Bible condones this like servant master relationship That's not right.
Yeah, yeah, that's not done. Okay, so at some point we'll look at these principles and say is this actually a good one? Yeah, no, no actually is this a good one Does it change is all right? Well, that's the next step cool And then also yeah, so that's next step so next step is step number four and this is Only step only happens if you're in the Old Testament the question is if you were in the Old Testament Which we are does anything about the new covenant in God's kingdom through Christ change something of this text So we're reading a section talking about like when you're sacrificing your goat make sure you do it this way Those no rosemary.
Yeah, yeah, it's not a fan No, we don't have a sacrificial system anymore So a new covenant has so we as questions are not bound by those laws in the past And then the other question that we have is and we can do this in regards to maybe talking about the servant relationship is Is the fact that in the Old Testament there is Civil laws around master servant mean that the Bible is condoning the institution of master servant. That's that's still an open question Right now like it And so it's no other words It would be inappropriate to say that this that this section of scripture is condoning is condoning servant to a d'or slavery Or however you want to phrase it. Maybe another one you can talk about this is does this section of scripture as it's written condone the death penalty? It seems to just like a stretch.
I don't know why it's part of it I don't know part of his weird in that it's talking about the death of an animal or no It's an animal killing a person. So it's a life for life I don't know could I say that that has been overturned by the New Testament that That's seven paid for in Christ therefore. Well, this is the business of the this is the business of of churches and scriptural interpretive traditions And if you were writing a book a book on systematic theology like this is what you're doing So you're going through the Bible and you're going through all these sections and you're categorizing them And you're like alright if we want to figure out what the Bible says about that let's just use the death penalty the death penalty What are all the passages where they make reference to something happen and then somebody somebody being put to death for that? So let's get them all into a big pile It's got all the verses that we can think of and then let's all do this process Let's all try to derive principal statements from these things and see if there are ones that are contradictory if see if there are ones that That if the New Testament offers a changing view to some of the older testament ones And you don't need to the we don't need to be inventing this completely all by ourselves like there are helpful little Little ways of like with this fourth step where we're talking about the New Testament the Old Testament So the one that I was taught which I think is really helpful is all of this law stuff and the Old Testament has three points to it It's civil law so laws about how to like people dealing with each other So how do how do these individual specific Jews in the desert deal with one another civil stuff?
You have ceremonial laws how do you like how do you cut that goat to making bleed so that it could be a weird Ceremonial the ceremonial washings the ceremonial washings how you approach the altar all these sorts of things there are These precepts for it. So you have the civil you have the ceremonial and then you have the moral laws of the 10 commandments Moses when he's talking about when he's dying and he's giving his last little command his last little sort of send off to His people in in Deuteronomy chapter 20 is you know have no other gods as for me in my house? We will serve the Lord there are those things as well So the rule of thumb is that the New Testament changes the civil laws. We're not living in the desert.
We're not Our our civil times have changed we don't need to don't live in tents. Yeah, we don't need to reproduce Ancient society to be faithful believe followers of God. We don't need to do that Maybe there's some Christian denominator thing we do but by and large we don't need to do that So can I ask a question from students sometimes so those three categories are really helpful, but they're not in like scripture doesn't say that So it doesn't say laws are split up into these three categories. Therefore do these don't do these two you have any how do you respond to that?
I mean I would talk about you know I would look at when Paul's talking about how our relationship with the law when he talks about in Romans or talks about it Yeah, I mean the New Testament should give us enough interpretive tools to be able to deal with them Is I guess would be my answer even if they're not explicitly split into three categories, right? Yes, yeah, so the civil laws change the ceremony laws change We don't have the temple sacrifices anymore, but the more laws don't change right the 10 commandments And so then it is the interpreters job to say okay is this is this descriptive of a ceremonial or sorry of a civil law killing the man for For his negligence or is this a moral is this a moral command that doesn't change? I don't have an answer for that. I don't think we're gonna bounce around that debate your question is whether the discussion of bulls is a moral law No discussion of you dying for your bulls misdeeds is a moral law or is that just a civil law?
I think you'd call it a civil law that has moral implications. Yeah, right? It's not a moral law like don't covet Right? It's definitely one to maintain a civil society I'll put it firmly under the civil civil law, but there are perhaps you know I think a lot of Christian proponents of of the death penalty agree and see and use these examples as saying the Bible is for this Our job is but the reason why I'm talking about these tools is that it is incumbent I think on every believer to be able to have the ability to sit down and to go through this themselves But you don't need to do it in a vacuum you have the church you have the traditions of the church you have theologians who have written these things So it's that balance between we should be accepting the authority of the people that God has put over us But we should also have the tools to be able to read and understand this for ourselves Okay, we're still on the way we are getting to the last step and the last step I think is one that we can all pretty much have figured out what's going on that's application And so how do you apply this?
So how would you apply this specific text to our lives? Well, the way that I do this in my leadership class is the application question is how can Mr. Gollison be a better Christian I find that the students have a lot more fun talking about that than like if you asked them to Because they are they are ruthless moralizers when it comes to how I should be a better Christian, right? but Shocking that teenagers really tell right from wrong exactly black and white That's something someone not them.
Yeah, but for example like you know You have a really crappy chainsaw You know, it's crappy and like the things falling off and you lend it to your friend and he takes an arm off And you know telling like another guy's arm off last week. Yeah, this works fine Well, and then you're trying to figure out if you did, you know, I didn't take your arm off You go with the chain so bro. So what does the Bible say about this? I was just sort of maybe a stupid example.
It's not that you'd still be responsible Yeah, but you wouldn't you wouldn't take it the next step of saying well therefore we should cut your arm off No, I wouldn't because I would make him pay me There's a language in to talk about the chainsaw problem and I have no idea by the way how a chainsaw would take your arm off if Incorrectly serviced. I can't wrap my head around that anyway if it took his arm off there There's a principle in there that you can like pay right pay the penalty and so pay his medical bills Then the question is the length or the severity of that restitution is it Morally mandated or is it civilly mandated? Yeah, and that's still an open question So if we take this as civil we'd say the specific payment isn't like it's a Course a law that has to be 30 checkers, but the idea of payment is important. Okay, so then the difficult one is talking You know is saying is this is this passage?
Descriptive it's just describing the way the world is and the world then had servants or it's prescriptive that world with servants is the way the Bible wants it to be Yes, I mean that is that ultimately I think that is the answer But this passage doesn't get us there so then the business of scriptural interpretation is is being able to understand all of the other Passages that talk about master some servants or these sorts of things And then apply that to these passages that are just more descriptive of the world around them So I mean if you're a listener or someone sitting here being like oh my goodness What's the Bible say about this? I'm already thought about it like you know go read fine Leanin which is dealing with how Christians deal with this master servant relationship. Yeah, we are one body Jeward greeks labor free in first Corinthians 12 Love passage The one chapter right? Yeah, anyway And so then it is so that if you want to be biblically literate and say well This is what the Bible says about X at some level you need to have gone through this business of of doing some version of this hermeneutical framework and to And build up and see where those principles align where do the principles are saying similar or same things In various different parts of of the book old story.
Yes. Yeah Yeah, is that a part for drama? Yes, no, it's a spasric happy Other things that you need in order to do this is a understanding of the different genres of scripture because they all Assume that you are coming to those books differently. I definitely remember when I was a kid at Bible camp Someone sat down he said you know the Bible predicts that Russia is going to invade invade Canada.
That's a fact Yeah, and I read that part. I know that I know that I was going to invade Canada using Wooden tanks. I was like well, I was like, okay, they're gonna win Anyway, so then he and he sent me through and he walked me through like the Psalms or some apocalyptic verse where I was talking About like God and my god. He's like, you know, that's Russia.
Okay, and and their wooden chariot seems like that's just tanks And I was like, oh man, this is terrifying. I'm gonna do it. I should probably tell my parents And so you know and so then I was like now that I'm older I'm like is that wise biblical interpretation and this was an older guy now if I think of the ages who's probably like 15 And I was probably like 12. Okay, my mind is an ad.
Yeah, they have some stage advice. Um, bring she knows men They'll trade for anything Yeah, don't move Russians since by movement Okay, so there's different there's different genres and these genres have different are assuming that you're reading them with different Tools so just to be real quick the genres we have are we got perfect books? And this was the book that my friend at Bible camp was misinterpreting He was thinking about prophetic prophetic in terms of trying to tell the future when we're talking about biblical prophecy by and large We are talking about people who have been sent by God to cause people to repent So that is the perfect books. There's poetic books like the Psalms like passages of Song of Solomon, which fun fact back in the day They wouldn't let young Jewish boys read song-solving because it was too risque And I don't know I think it's lost in translation anyway, whatever there's wisdom books, so these are books like Ecclesiastes and Proverbs and There are different ways to apply those verses when Proverbs says things like, you know, the I'm trying to think of there are definitely Proverbs I'm not prepared.
There are definitely Proverbs that talk about My podcast But there's Proverbs where you read it in context you're like if that was that's doesn't seem to be a universal Christian principle It's talking about that the rewards go to the shrewd Under their even Proverbs where they say the opposite thing like the fool is praise in the community and the fool is outcast So how do you how do you apply the fact that you've got these wisdom books that? Maybe even contradict some of the love your enemies of Christ in the gospels is this a big inconsistency problem in the Bible On you have historical books. This is books where they are telling the history of things that happened And this is where they are more on the descriptive side than the prescriptive side Especially when you get to the book of judges and Joshua and where they're cutting people up telling me I shouldn't act like Samsung I'm telling you you should definitely know that I'm like Samson get a haircut Bro you're looking good and That's good Apocalyptic books there's there's this whole weird genre that we don't actually I was gonna say we don't have apocalypse anymore but I kind of feel like do we have a pocket modern apocalypse what do you mean like books that talk about Hi that are highly symbolic and I guess like political cartoons are apocalyptic No, no, I'm thinking less like the end of the world and more like using symbols to tell stories so for example if let's say there was an election and Let's say that the Republicans like took everything in the election and on the front page of the New York Times You had a picture of an elephant stepping on a donkey, right? That's what I'm hearing right?
We would all know what that means because we all have this the associations of animals of what you know the Republicans I'm not getting this right. I'm out from here. Other Republicans are elephants Other animals for your political parties like a moose and a musset. Oh, they're just all they're almost One's a reminder one's a muskrat.
The other kids parties like a raccoon. Yeah, anyway, so like apocalypse Books are doing that kind of thing so they're having these big wacky so it's not actually that we're having like flying locus eat Like that are eating men. It's just you have this you have this picture that the people when they read it They would say oh, yeah, I know what you're talking about when we're like I don't know what you're talking about Maybe it's Russia Wouldn't tanks and so then there needs to be some that step number two the historical differences on that one needs to be a A beefed-up step when you were doing the apocalypse then we get gospels And a gospel is you know the genre of telling of the good news of Christ's life It's it's a genre that is specific to the Bible. There are history books there wasn't books their apocalyptic books outside of scripture But the gospels are a genre that has been sort of invented in in scripture And there are all four gospels are doing different things they are all telling the story of Jesus, but they all have their own Audiences and their own reasons for organizing them as they are this trips up a lot of kids where it's like yes Like the different orderings.
Yeah, I mean the big one being that in Matthew Mark and Luke Jesus dies on a Friday and in Johnny Jai dies on Sabbath so it's like well what the heck I mean he died twice Well, how do you what do you do with that right about that is one wrong? Yeah, and so then you know there's reasons why John does that which are different for reasons why Matthew Mark and Luke do that I think what you're talking about is that those things aren't inconsistencies So the other example would be the different genealogies in the gospel well, they don't contradict they're telling different stories Yeah, but you through the king line and once the dad line Yeah, and so to understand like the audience of like who are those different gospels written to they're meant to proselytize a different group of people People who care about those lines Yeah, and so it's not to say one is wrong and one is right because both of them have gaps in the genealogy That's intentional. Yeah, yeah, I agree with this You is there any risk of like oh, you know because the apocalypse literature is really hard to read like I don't know is there any risk of like just ignoring chunk of scripture because you say this doesn't like actually applied us today Or the context is so far away anything like that. I think so I mean other reasons are any risk for just going off and doing this yourself and I was Saying yes, yes, it's a very risk.
It is no, this is no, but there's definitely risks of ignoring things. I mean just it's risky to be But There are hard things that there are hard things that we have been that are asked of us as Christians and then to sort of ignore them is Risky. Yeah, is that we're getting it? Sure.
Okay The last and then the last genre is epistles other letters you interpret an epistle less and differently than you interpret apocalypse You you just like if you go to an action movie you're expecting something different than if you're going to one of those big like biopics of Like that oh man, I will not go see I'm that new like Tolkien biopic. Oh, I'm sure it's just hot garbage I'm saying that it's a good. All right. How much is him sitting at a desk writing?
Because I feel like it'd be more accurate if it was mostly that Jumble that I do like a writer biopic. I'm like more like 60% of that should be hitting a desk Anyway, you go into those movies with different expectations and even different allowances of realism right in the biopic You want to be a little more realistic in an action flick like you don't care about realism It's you know short-sneigher hanging from a little future exactly, you know So you have but they can both still say things and so the reader just needs to be a little cognizant of How to what tools that they need in order to in order to read those different things But as I write as even as I say this I'm convicted Like on the one hand this seems like a very heavy Prescription like you need to go through the entire Bible for every topic and then Compile this giant list and then create these principles from those lists and see how they all interweave and interfere and fit together So that you can say this is what the Bible says about Money that seems incredibly daunting And on the one hand but the other hand it's really fun. What you start doing it? No, seriously, yeah And like I said before it doesn't need to happen in a vacuum like there are scriptural traditions There are we are all part of churches that the Bible is interpreted before our eyes every Sunday We have we when you have a pastor or a preacher who is preaching from from scripture There is a modeled interpretation so there's some of this like memetic learning that we do and so And just like anything with learning having the tools to be able to do it is incredibly liberating Yeah, I think maybe there's some fear that happens in parents and teachers because when you teach kids these tools The first thing they like to do is you know use them to tear things down Like when I teach the logical fallacy is the first thing I go home and use them against their parents Yeah, yeah, yeah, I go to bed because I said so, ah, actually well you give me only two options That's a false dichotomy.
I'm trying to come up with other stuff in the parents like no actually like if you don't go to bed I will hurt you. Yeah, I will thank you. You will be saying you you know how to be right to still hurt you But there is a bit of like the raising of the potentiality for danger by giving interpretive tools But not having those tools is I think We're guaranteeing the potential for either being mistaken other being led astray or just like falling apart or thinking that this This text has absolutely no bearing in their life And lastly as Christians We also believe that the spirit of God in the hearts of believers is aiding in the interpretation of his scripture so that That it does give life and that this is sort of in a mystical way a living text unlike any other text that we read in school or study that it That it responds to you as much as you were responding to it and that when you are reading in those little verses jump out of the page and It seems to have it is saying something about your life and that application is sort of a very burning application in your own personal context As Christians we believe that this is God speaking to us through his word I think we need to sort of lean into into sort of how strange and mystical that sounds because this is this is sort of the key defining Characteristic then just using this as like a history textbook or some sort of or like the Jedi or the proof that I say I Like or just giving people interpretive proof texting tools to say like well If you want to know what the Bible says about X just go to X is 22 and you'll find all about chainsaws or whatever Well, it's also helpful in at some point the Christian has like deal with parts of scripture that aren't palatable to 2019 today Sure, and so understand to be able to put that in context appropriately and not just write off and say well actually the Old Testament doesn't matter That is unfaithful scripture. Yeah, so to get the the value out of the Old Testament without I don't know there's a way yeah There's a way where you'd like overly focus on like rules if you still involve the Old Testament Another way where you just want to totally dissociate from it There are difficult passages like in Psalms where the author where the poet is saying is praying fervently to God that he will smash the heads of His infant of his enemies infants on the rocks.
How do you pray that one? Yeah, how do you do that in the Psalter in Sundays? You just not ever talk about it again. Everyone just feels real awkward while they sing it and then That's one thing is like one guy's like there are people who there are people who are saying are saying say with gusto one guy We're singing and saying the Psalms every day Daily and so the question is we have these things in them that that at first blush We don't know how to deal with do we just sort of ignore them and go to and go to Love his patient love I'm or we need to we need to have the ways of understanding of how to deal these things deal with these things Because I mean just for listeners me the answer to how do you pray that that terrible?
Psalm is that the Psalms are giving us words for our feelings doesn't mean that God's gonna go do that But it's saying when you feel that way when you want to smash the heads of your enemies children on the rocks You don't do that you pray to God for justice now God is going to be just and that justice is not going to be smashing the heads of the infants on the rocks But that is how one deals with those feelings when they happen. I mean that's so that's just in a bummer I just want to be in the audience when you like when you feel like you want to head and they're like Yeah, a couple of like sideways nods But that's the name we have Now those people we didn't know that you that the Psalms are God's words to us that we give that give language to our feelings That we pray back to God then you can do all sorts of crazy things like the Russians and their wooden tanks You know there's one Russian is gonna hear this and be like oh, that's genius. It's like we got a chance of the plan Anyway, that actually brings us to our time That's all I've got in terms of that's been a helpful tool for me It is a lot of work if you get faster at it Just because that number that historical difference you just learn to understand a lot of the stuff of the Old Testament goes a lot faster but You know there are those things which I go back and forth over You know, we can just use a death penalty is one of them you have an annual testament with this permissible thing Maybe my own biases don't want to be that but maybe I saw then the question is that you say all right? Let's if this is God's authoritative word over me How do I how do I work through that and the answer is with fear and trembling?
Do we do we want to leave five minutes? I mean we have a 15 minute passing period here We could leave five minutes for Q&A and then you guys should know this episode We'll go up later today as soon as I get a chance to edit it so you can hear it on What's the point in the live pocket yeah about anything How do you balance between feasting and God's word just reading large swaths of scripture being bathed into this more Interpretive exercises other question. Yeah, and I think the answer is you have different times of reading the Bible Or you have different way you get into different head spaces so there are times where you were studying scripture for this kind of process So even personally for me. I read the Bible in the mornings when I'm a good Christian And I don't do this this is not I'm not going through with a pen and pencil and talking thinking of principles I am one I'm praying and asking God to show me his word for my life this day or this season or whatever so there's that and that sort of Our mystical relationship with God mediated through his word but if that's all we have Then then if we're not tempered by what it actually is saying then that can go real wrong And and then also if you were out of community with church then just your own private interpretation of scripture can go real wrong So it's it's that there are this isn't the only way to read the Bible But this is the way one of the ways to understand it For the Christian life, but it doesn't by no means the only way of understanding for the Christian life Or the only application that we have of God's word for how to apply to us a question Yeah, yeah Your topics.
Hmm Graham, how did you come up with this topic? We tried it two years ago and I had to try it again Um, yeah, I'm very persistent. I guess that's a good question So when we when we record we record three episodes all at once and then release those over the subsequent weeks So that's I guess a big reveal so usually the episode you're hearing is you know one or two weeks removed from recording Which means if there are any really big news events we'll probably have missed those but I'm not acknowledge them on the podcast Yeah, yeah, why didn't they say anything about last Thursday? Yeah, so I I guess we each have our own little different processes a low hanging fruit is gone by this point or it's getting to be gone Yeah, so for me, it's it's a lot of interesting Maybe I don't know There are a lot of books that I still feel I need to get through I'm currently going through Plato's Republic slowly because I've tried three or four times and made it like three quarters the way through like a few times I need to just finish that sinker So it puts pressure on me to finish books that I wanted to like I'd adjacent the Argonauts another one that I had a little trouble getting into and I guess it's good motivation to do books They're out there that I know I should know and I just haven't had a chance to so I end up reading Cicero Which was a little bit like I'd say no chalkboard I like them for me.
Yeah, for me. I just don't want to disappoint Thomas or AJ. Oh, so Serious so it is like It is this motivator to make sure that I sort of come up with things on a weekly basis It's usually whatever has been interesting to me in class in the classical world in the previous month So right now I'm going through a four-part thing on the namesake of our houses So the episode on saying I got sent in one out last week and I'll do Francis I think next Francis Mueller than Bonhoeffer you mean the 2018 2019 House Cup champions house of So Graham's got to live in the past man. Yeah, yeah Graham tried to pass a resolution that our student Congress retreat to require that entire title every time Francis is referenced and that failed So we get a second one that was we only called in Francis from now on that is now the only way Yeah interesting urban reading about recently and luckily classical stuff is a pretty big umbrella So like any old book is a book that I can read and talk about so we get stuff from all the way from Dory and Gray to Darganautica, right?
So I got a pretty big chunk of time that I can pull fun books from I'm sure there's very angry listeners Yeah, we have one more last question Okay, all right All right, this has been classical stuff. You should know. Thank you Graham for that There's really a lot of that to finally record this one correctly Yeah, only my microphone correctly you can find us online at classical stuff that you can email us at classical stuff at veritas academy Not net you can find us on Twitter at classical stuff CLS S C AL stuff We never make mistakes. So we have no classical things to get wrong and I think that's all I have so we're signing off Cool, say bye.
Bye So affirming