How to know what the Bible says

About ten months ago I published this article, and since it goes with my previous post about people who believe that Bible can be made to say what you want it to say, I thought it would be timely to post it again:

The following is adapted and condensed from an article, "Rules of Biblical Interpretation," by Melody Drake.

The reason why there are so many different churches and beliefs among Christians today is because many do not follow sound rules for Biblical interpretation. The Bible itself tells us how to study the Bible, either directly, or indirectly through observation. If all Christians followed these rules, we would not have so many different Christian churches and beliefs.

1. With a good concordance, search out everything the Bible says on the subject before coming to a conclusion. “For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little.” (Isaiah 28:10) One can pull out a Bible text to prove just about anything, but when one first looks at all the Bible texts on a certain subject, then a pattern of truth will emerge.

2. All conclusions should be based upon the weight of evidence and must make logical sense. God created us with minds to think and He appeals to our intellect. “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord.” (Isaiah 1:18)

3. Each passage of Scripture should be carefully considered in its context. What does the Bible say before and after the passage? First we must consider the immediate passage, then the chapter, book, other books by the same author, and finally other writers of the Bible.

4. A literal interpretation of the Bible should be given unless the context clearly shows that the verses under consideration are symbolic. When the interpretation is symbolic, the Bible will tell us the meaning of the symbol either in that passage or elsewhere. The Bible must always interpret itself.

5. One text of the Bible must not undo another text. The Bible never conflicts with itself.  Sometimes Bible texts, at first glance, can appear to contradict with other texts, but upon a deeper study, the contradiction will disappear. For instance, one can find Bible texts that appear to support works in order to obtain salvation. Elsewhere, the Bible states that faith obtains salvation. On the surface these texts appear to be contradicting each other, but upon deeper study one finds that works and faith are the flip sides of the same coin. Without one the other does not exist. Sometimes the Bible will give us a harmonizing text and sometimes it will not, leaving us to do the harmonizing. Here is a harmonizing text. “Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.” (James 2:18)

6. All words should be accurately defined and understood. A good dictionary and concordance will aid in this. Since, over time, language changes, sometimes we have to search a word through a prophet’s writings to see how they define that word so we can correctly understand what they are saying.

7. We cannot conclude more or less than the evidence allows. “Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.” (Deuteronomy 4:2) “If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book. And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.” (Revelation 22:18-19) These are serious words not to be taken lightly.

8. Consider the words of the text in the original languages. We do not need to be scholars studying Greek and Hebrew in order to do this. Using Strong’s Concordance one can easily find the original meaning of a word. As in English, some words in Greek and Hebrew have multiple meanings. Sometimes a contradiction may appear because the wrong definition of the word was used. However, by carefully considering all texts on a subject, one can determine the correct definition. For easy access to Strong's, use Blue Letter Bible with the Strong's numbers (click on Strong's box at the top of your KJV Bible text).

9. Each prophecy in the Bible has a beginning and ending point in time, and the elements within this prophecy occur in chronological order. This rule is not for conditional prophecy in the Bible but only for prophecy which has definite time frames. Daniel chapter 2 gives us a model. In this chapter the head of the image, which represents Babylon, comes before the chest, which represents Medo-Persia, which comes before the belly, which represents Greece, etc.

10. When God sets up a pattern, He never breaks this pattern. At times the Bible clearly sets out the beginning of a pattern. By following this pattern one can then determine the rest of the pattern and discover wonderful truths. For example, here is a pattern: three, six, nine. Once we see this pattern the next number is easy to determine. Our Heavenly Father is a God of logic and order.

11. Pray that the Holy Spirit will guide your mind before beginning to study because without the Holy Spirit one cannot obtain truth. “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Corinthians 2:14)

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Other writings need to come under the same scrutiny. Do they align with the Bible? New truth doesn't erase old truth. New understandings build on old understandings, and this is good, as long as the old understandings are correct. When the original understandings are not scriptural, or off just a little bit, the newer understandings go farther astray.

Naysayers

I have, for a long time, wanted to use my real name on this blog, but because of opposition and stigma, I have not. The right time will come.

An acquaintance of mine has written a book entitled Feast-Keeping and the Faithful, and this book has caused more opposition, stigma, and heartache to those of us who truly believe we have found a long-forgotten gem in God's Holy Word. Back to that book another day.

When I first shared with a bunch of friends, about seven years ago, that I had attended a Yom Teruah at a local synagogue, I had no idea that anyone would think something was wrong with it. At that point, I was just interested in what Orthodox Jews did on that day. However, my Trumpets attendance had an immediate affect in that I was quietly uninvited from teaching an adult Bible class, i.e., teaching the class was not mentioned again. I did not protest, because not having the responsibility was something of a relief to me, but it, and having a shocking number of friends in other locations removed from church membership, gave me caution about saying much about what I have learned through my studies.

A very good Adventist friend of mine told me that observing the feasts is wrong, it makes people leave the church, and it keeps us from focusing on the sanctuary, which is the truth for the end times. I can't help but wanting to say, "Excuse me? What is observing the feasts all about if not gaining a deeper understanding of the sanctuary and its depiction of the plan of salvation through the annual holy days?" But I never did get to say it, because this friend is a talker and not a listener.

Yes, some have left the church, usually not so much because they chose to, but because they were asked to leave. And yes, some have been so excited about what they have learned that they are not judicious in how they share it. They trust that all will want to know and embrace what they have embraced. Some have been accusatory towards those who are not ready to accept it, saying things such as, "You cannot be saved if you don't believe this," so I know not all the fault is with the churches who have booted sincere people out of their congregation. And yes, there are those who did choose to leave, some because they cannot tolerate the hoopla around Christmas, a holiday not based on the birth of Christ at all; He was just pasted in later, on top of a pagan background. Have I mentioned Christmas in this blog? If not, I will attend to it at some point. Even though my church is increasingly secular in its Christmas celebrations, so far I find it relatively easy to avoid participating.

Some feast keepers, it is obvious, have attached to it strange doctrines, and because of that, their wanderings have painted the entire movement in shades of dark gray. Many, including the author of the book I mentioned, who travels around the world teaching his theories, seem to think that all who observe the Biblical feasts are following weird unbiblical doctrines not related to the feasts at all.

There are those who are strong advocates of using the term "Yeshuah" in any of its various spellings for "Jesus" and teach that if you use the name Jesus, you are not talking about the Son of God. Though I know "Jesus" was not how his name was pronounced, I don't agree with the Sacred Name movement, and I have already gone into that in other blog entries. Some have adopted what is called the Lunar Sabbath, in which the week begins at the new moon, and the weekly Sabbath is every seven days after the new moon. Of course, this leaves a few extra days at the end of most month which are not counted, and every month the "Sabbath" is on a different day of the week, an obvious contradiction to Bible teaching. Some believe a day starts in the morning instead of the biblical "even to even," and some teach that a day is only the sunlit hours. This has got to please a lot of people who see the Sabbath hours as restrictive instead of a blessing! These ideas get wackier and wackier and stray further and further from the Bible, and one can easily see how, in every case where there is truth, it gets attacked from all sides.

I believe that the biggest reason for these strange beliefs is that people will listen to someone, or read something that has been written, without checking the Bible for themselves. What's keeping people from coming together on beliefs is that so many will just read a book, such as Feast-Keeping and the Faithful, without studying to see what the Bible says. "This highly-educated person is smarter than I am, reads the Bible more, and has done more research, so I'll just go with what he says," appears to be the thinking of many -- on many topics, but especially on Bible truths.

Some believe that one can't know what the Bible says, and that you can make it say whatever you want it to say. Those who have that belief are exactly those people who will not study anything for themselves. They will listen to speakers, read books, and pick the one who has ideas that they like the most. It's a sorry state for those who want to follow the One who said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life."

Trumpets shall blow

This is a quickie about the Feast of Trumpets, Yom Teruah, a sabbath that started tonight at sunset. It is the first of the three fall convocations. Next is the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, then the eight days of the Feast of Tabernacles, Sukkot.

In Lev. 23:23-27, God was speaking to Moses when He told him to tell the people to observe this feast, saying it was a "memorial of blowing of trumpets." The spiritual event that they were to remember, the only one that accompanied trumpet blowing in their history, must have been when Moses went up on the mount to receive the Ten Commandments and other instructions from God that he was to share with the people.

The sounds of the trumpet were loud, as trumpets tend to be, and were accompanied with thunder, lightning, and an earthquake:

"When the ram's horn sounds a long blast, they shall come up to the mountain... So it came about on the third day, when it was morning, that there were thunder and lightning flashes and a thick cloud upon the mountain and a very loud trumpet sound, so that all the people who were in the camp trembled. And Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God and they stood at the foot of the mountain. Now Mount Sinai was all in smoke because the Lord descended upon it in fire; and its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked violently. When the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke and God answered him with thunder." Exodus 19:13, 16-19

God invited His people to covenant with Him, and they promised to do everything that the Lord commanded. In a short time they broke this covenant. But still, God said, "Let them make me a tabernacle, that I may dwell among them."

When Jesus came, He was God With Us in the flesh, and a tabernacle was no longer necessary, because He promised to be with us and desired to live in us. He reaffirmed the covenant, a better one. Soon we will hear the trumpet sound and be living with Him eternally.

That's what Trumpets is about -- the heralding of Jesus' soon return to be with us.