Firm Foundations (Pt. 13) Interpreting the Bible – Paul M. Williams

Part 13 – How do I Interpret the Bible? The claim of Holy Scripture is not that men wrote as it pleased their fancy but rather that "…holy men of God spake as they were moved (carried along) by the Holy Ghost" (2 Pet. 1:20).  This fact becomes the key in answering questions that often arise concerning the compilation of the Bible, for example; why 66 books and not 67?  What about so-called missing books - the Gospel of Thomas or Psalm 151?  Who determined what books went into the Bible and what books didn't?  These questions are easily answerable when one understands that the Bible claims not mere human authorship but divine authorship! Then there is the matter of rightly dividing the Word of God.  All too often, one will encounter Christians who have very little consistency when it comes to reading the Bible and even when they do read it, they do not really have any real method of approach to meaningful study.  Often one will find that rather than studying the Bible, Christians will dabble with the text i.e. they will open it up and see which page it lands on and begin interpreting based on how they feel.  In this thirteenth teaching part, we look in a very practical way at how to interpret the Bible by using multiple translations, cross-referencing, dictionaries and commentaries to first establish the true meaning of a passage (exegesis) so that the correct application might then be made (hermeneutics). Download teaching notes (pdf) http://traffic.libsyn.com/bethesdashalom/13_How_Do_I_Interpret_the_Bible.pdf