Bible - 3 UNDERSTANDING THE BIBLE … based on 2 Peter 1:20-21

 

Bible - 3

UNDERSTANDING THE BIBLE

… based on 2 Peter 1:20-21

When I was in seminary, I did my internship at a Presbyterian Church back in PA.  I worked there for 2 summers.  One of the elders had a house that wasn’t being used, & so that’s where we lived.  One Sunday morning as we were getting ready for worship, this elder stopped by to drop something off at the house.  And while we were talking my 4-year-old son could be heard in the other room, “I don’t want to go to church!”  And I looked at this man who was standing there in front of me, sort of shocked, 

& I tried to explain … “you must understand the context of that outburst.  

I just got Marty out of the sandbox.”

That’s the #1 rule for interpreting the Bible … 

we must understand the context.

Have you ever heard someone say, “People can make the Bible say whatever they want it to say?” … And you know what?  

That’s absolutely true.  We can make the Bible say whatever we want … 

if we refuse to follow some basic rules for interpreting it.

There are ground rules for interpreting every kind of literature.  

It doesn’t matter if we’re reading Shakespeare’s plays, or Robert Frost’s poems, or Danielle Steel’s novels, or the Bible … there are basic rules for understanding & interpreting each kind of literature.

The rules for understanding the Bible are referred to as hermeneutics.  

If you remember any Greek mythology, Hermes was the messenger god.  

It was his job to see that messages from the gods were faithfully transmitted to humans.

The Bible is God’s Word … 

so the rules for understanding it are called hermeneutics.

Now Scripture does not mean what everybody wants it to mean.

It can only mean what God intended for it to mean.  There may be a variety of applications for a passage … but there’s only 1 meaning … God’s intended meaning.  So, how do we figure out what that is?  Hermeneutics, the ground rules for understanding the Bible.  And the most basic rule is context.  

Listen now to Good News, as found in the 2nd letter of Peter, to us who have gathered here for worship.  Within our hearing comes the Word of the Lord.

Above all else, however, remember that none of us can explain by ourselves a prophecy in the Scriptures.  For no prophetic message ever came just from the human will, but people were under the control of the Holy Spirit as they spoke the message that came from God.  (2 Peter 1:20-21) 

May my words & my thoughts be acceptable to you, 

O LORD, my refuge & my redeemer! (The Psalms 19:14)

May the Lord grant that we may engage in contemplating the mysteries of His Heavenly wisdom with really increasing devotion, to His glory and to our edification.  Amen 

We’re in the 3rd week of this series on the Bible.

We’re learning how to read, interpret, & apply the Bible.

This morning’s message is the interpreting part.  And the most basic rule for interpreting Scripture correctly is understanding the context. 

There are 4 kinds of context that we’re going to look at this morning.  

But before we do, 

there are 2 necessary factors needed to understand Scripture.

#1 … if we want to understand what we’re reading in the Bible, we need The Holy Spirit.  And that just doesn’t happen automatically.  God’s Spirit is a gift that Jesus gives His followers. (John 14:15) When we come to faith, 

God’s Spirit comes to live within us as our resident teacher & counselor.

So, when we read Scripture … it makes sense, because God’s Spirit is involved. (John 14:26)) So, no commitment to Jesus means no Holy Spirit, 

& no Holy Spirit means that we’re on our own for understanding God's Word.

A 2nd factor is the storyline … what’s the theme of the Bible,

from Genesis to The Revelation? … from last week? … (redemption) We must know that in order to understand what we’re reading in a particular passage. 

Every now & then I like to put together a jigsaw puzzle.

Try to imagine putting together a 1,000-piece puzzle without the help of the picture on the box.  It’d be insane … trying to put it together without the reference to the big picture.  We need to understand the big picture, 

the Bible storyline, in order to make sense of its’ individual pieces.

So, if we have The Holy Spirit, & if we’ve got the big picture … we’re ready to understand the context, & the context can be seen in 4 different ways.

#1 … there’s the historical setting.  I touched on this a bit last week as we talked about the books of prophecy.   If we pick up the O.T. & read Joel or Amos, we need to understand who that Prophet was, who he was speaking to, & what their situation was … or we’re not going to be able to make sense out of what that prophet wrote.  Let me show you what I mean.  

Let’s go to the book of Jonah.  It’s a little book, kind of hard to find.

I’ll give you a hint … it’s right after Obadiah!  Jonah, chapter 1.

We saw last week how the Hebrew nation got separated into 2 parts.  

The northern kingdom continued to be known as Israel; the southern kingdom became Judah.  Sometimes the prophets addressed Israel, 

sometimes Judah, & sometimes the enemy nations that surrounded them.

In this particular case Jonah was sent to the enemy nation of Assyria.  

He was told by God to take a message to the capital city, Nineveh.

“One day the LORD spoke to Jonah son of Amittai.  He said, ‘Go to Nineveh, that great city, & speak out against it; I am aware of how wicked its people are.’  Jonah, however, set out in the opposite direction in order to get away from the LORD.  He went to Joppa, where he found a ship about to go to Spain.  He paid his fare & went aboard with the crew to sail to Spain, 

where he would be away from the LORD.” (Jonah 1:1-3)

A little geography lesson … Assyria was east for Jonah, 

he gets on a ship & heads west, the opposite direction; 

he was trying to get as far as he could from where God was sending him.

Why?  Aren’t you just a little bit curious as to why he did that?  

Was he prejudiced?  Maybe he didn’t like Assyrians.  Maybe he was just lazy.  God gave him a job to do & he’d rather take a Mediterranean cruise.

Does it help to know that the Assyrians in Jonah’s day were a particularly brutal people?  And if they conquered you, they would do unspeakable things.  They would go into a village & cut off the heads of the leaders & stack them in the town square.  

They would stake people to the ground & skin them alive.  They would put people on the end of a stake & let them die slowly.

Does that help us understand why Jonah didn’t want to go to Nineveh?  

If we had been in Jonah’s sandals, would we have wanted to go to Nineveh? 

 I don’t think so.  You see, understanding the historical setting helps us interpret this portion of Scripture.

Let’s look at one of the N.T. letters.  Paul writes a couple of letters to believers living in Corinth.  And even if you’ve never read these books, I bet you’re familiar with 1 Corinthians 13.  It’s sometimes referred as “the love chapter.”  It describes all these wonderful things about love.  

And it’s almost always read at wedding ceremonies because it’s “sweet.”

But the Corinthians were anything but sweet.  They were contentious.  

They were prideful.  They were arrogant.  They were rebellious.  

They were a pain in the neck to the Apostle Paul.  1 Corinthians 13 wasn’t written about love to be sweet … it was meant to be butt kicking.  

That changes our whole perspective … if we know the historical background.

Here’s another example, The Psalms 1:4.  The Psalmist writes that people who don’t live their lives according to God’s Word are like chaff … 

what does that mean?

It helps if we understand that chaff is the outer shell over a grain of straw.  

And in David’s day farmers beat straw in the air, usually on top of a hill where there was a breeze.  And as they did that the husks would come off 

& the grain they wanted to save fell to the ground & was gathered up.  

But the chaff would be blown away by the wind.

That’s what David means when he writes that people who don’t live their lives according to God’s Word are like chaff that the wind blows away.

Let’s go to 1 Kings 18.  Elijah the Prophet has a showdown with the false prophets of Baal.  Baal is an idol god of an enemy people.  

Elijah tells Baal’s 450 prophets to meet him at Mt. Carmel for a “contest.”

Elijah tells them that he will build an altar to his God, 

& they’re to build an altar to their god.  Sacrifices will be put on both altars; then Elijah will call upon his God, & Baal’s prophets will call upon their god … & whichever sacrifice catches on fire wins.

My question is, “why Mt. Carmel?”

It helps if we understand that Baal’s dwelling place was said to be …

Mt. Carmel.  So, Elijah is giving them home field advantage.  He’s saying, “my God will demonstrate that He’s more powerful than your god … on your turf.”  

Does that enrich your understanding of that passage?

Or how about Ruth 4:7?  Here’s a man named Boaz, who happens to be one of Jesus’ ancestors. (Matthew 1:5) Boaz is purchasing a piece of property.  

And as he concludes the sale, the man takes off his sandal & gives it to Boaz.  What in the world is going on here?

It helps if we know that land transactions in those days were concluded by the giving of a sandal as a symbolic way of saying, 

“the ground I used to walk on … now belongs to you.”  

If we understand the historical setting, 

we’ll be able to do a better job of interpreting & appreciating the Bible.

Here’s a 2nd kind of context … the literary setting.

Every day we read all kinds of writings: newspapers, e-mails, menus, novels, business contracts, recipe cards, magazines.

And different kinds of literature, or as our English teachers taught us, different types of genre, require different rules for interpretation.

Actually, that’s true of most things.  Basketball & football are both sports.  But because they’re different sports they’re played by different rules.  

In basketball we can pass the ball forward, backward, or as Caitlin Clark does … behind her back or between her legs or over her shoulder … anyway we want.  In football, a backward pass gets us penalized.  In basketball we can’t kick the ball.  In football, we get points for kicking it.  They’re both sports, but because they’re different sports, there are different rules.

Because the Bible’s 66 books are different kinds of literature, 

they need to be interpreted differently.  So, what I want to do quickly is show 6 different kinds of literature that are found in Scripture, 

& give some rules that will help interpret what we’re reading.

The 1st genre is laws.  I covered this a little last week.  

The 1st 5 books of the O.T. are called “the books of the law”;

& there are 3 kinds of law found in them.  There are civil laws, which helped ancient Israel govern themselves.  There are moral laws, which helped God’s people determine right from wrong.  And there are ceremonial/religious laws which helped ancient Israel maintain their relationship with God.

Now I pointed out last week that the civil laws & the ceremonial/religious laws are no longer applicable today. 
They were for ancient Israel.  However, the moral laws are timeless.  They’re still in force today.

Turn with me to the 3rd book in the Bible, Leviticus 19.

I’m going to read a couple of verses, & I want you to tell me what kinds of laws we’re dealing with.  Verse 18 … “Do not take revenge on others or continue to hate them, but love your neighbors as you love yourself.”  Does that sound like a civil law? … Does that sound like a ceremonial/religious law? 

… It sounds to me like a moral law, & it’s still applicable today.

Now look at the very next verse.  “Do not crossbreed domestic animals.

Do not plant 2 kinds of seed in the same field.  

Do not wear clothes made of 2 kinds of material.”  

(It’s verses like this that keep people some people from reading the Bible.)

Does that sound like a civil law? …Like a moral law? … 

That only leaves ceremonial/religious laws.

So, what’s going on?  Here’s some background.

God set apart the nation of Israel for Himself to be a blessing to all peoples; & that was going to happen in 2 ways.

They would be the ancestors to the coming Redeemer.  And their lives should be lived in such a way that other people would want to know their God.

Now they didn’t do a very good job.

But regardless, God set them apart for this special mission.  

So, how could God remind them that they were a set apart people; 

that they were different from the surrounding peoples?  

What could God do to remind them of that?  We end up with laws like these. 

 Don’t mate different kinds of animals.  Don’t plant your fields with 2 different kinds of seeds.  Don’t wear clothing woven with 2 kinds of material.  That’s what the other people were doing.  So, every time they followed those laws it reminded them that they were different from all other people.

So, when we come to a law like, “do not cook a young sheep or goat in its mothers milk” (Exodus 23:19) … which is another of those ceremonial/religious laws that makes sense only if we know the historical background.  

Other nations were doing that when they worshiped their gods … 

& the true God doesn’t want His people doing the same thing.

The 2nd kind of literary material is … narrative.  These are stories. 

Over 1/3 of the Bible is written this way.  All the O.T. books of history from Joshua through Esther, & the N.T. Gospels & The Acts are all narratives.  God teaches us through stories because He knows we all like a good story … the Hebrews crossing the Red Sea (Exodus 14:21-22) … Samson falling in love with Delilah (Judges 16:4 )… David fighting Goliath (1 Samuel 17:41-51) … Jonah being swallowed by the big fish (Jonah 1:17) … Jesus walking on water. (Mark 6:48) 

Stories … & the best thing about these stories is that they’re true.

They describe a supernatural God intervening in the lives of ordinary people.

So, how do we interpret these stories?  Here’s the rule … we must decide what is descriptive & what is prescriptive; what is merely being described & what is being prescribed as something we ought to do.  

What God wants us to apply to our own life, 

will always be confirmed by other non-narrative parts of Scripture.  

Here are some examples of what I’m talking about.

Genesis 39 … this is the story of Joseph & Potiphar’s wife.  Joseph, one of God’s people, is working for a man named Potiphar, & Potiphar’s wife thinks Joseph is hot.  So, she tries to seduce him day after day.  

In fact, one day she grabs him by the robe; but Joseph shakes himself loose, 

& takes off running, leaving the robe behind.

Is that descriptive, is the writer simply describing what happened?  

Or is it prescriptive; 

is God saying this is how we should respond amid sexual temptation?

The way I know it’s prescriptive is because of other non-narrative, 

non-story examples.  Paul writes, “flee from sexual immorality.” (1 Corinthians 6:18) He instructs Timothy, “flee the evil passions of youth.” (2 Timothy 2:22) 

Run!  Put distance between you & that kind of temptation.

Here’s another example … the story of the arrival of The Holy Spirit.  J

esus has returned to Heaven.  It’s been 50 days since His resurrection, 

& He had told His disciples to stay in Jerusalem because He’s going to send them this special gift of The Holy Spirit.  And so, on the day of Pentecost, 

that’s exactly what happens.  The believers are filled with The Holy Spirit,

& they start speaking in other languages, tongues. (The Acts 2:4)

Descriptive or prescriptive?  Is this something that happened, 

or is this something where God is saying, “You should do the same thing?”

Now there are some from Pentecostal circles who say this is definitely prescriptive.  When we come to faith in Jesus, 

& The Holy Spirit comes to live inside … we must speak in tongues.

I have a couple of problems with that.  The 1st is kind of incidental … 

if we go to the story in The Acts 2 we’ll find that they not only spoke in tongues, but fire appeared over their heads.  So, is that what we’re going to demand of people when they come to faith in Jesus, & The Holy Spirit comes to live within?  We’ll know it because of the fire over their heads?  

I don’t think so.  But there’s a more basic reason … there’s not a single, 

non-narrative portion of Scripture that teaches, “You must speak in tongues once you’ve come to faith.”  In fact, I find just the opposite.

Paul writes, “tongues is a spiritual gift that some have” (1 Corinthians 12:10) … 

& I’m all for that; tongues is a gift that many have today.  But Paul goes on, “But not all speak in tongues.” (1 Corinthians 12:29-30)

So, when we’re reading a story, a narrative portion of the Bible, we must separate the descriptive from the prescriptive.  And the way we know the prescriptive is that it’s going to be reinforced in non-narrative portions of the Bible.

Let’s go to a 3rd genre of the Bible … poetry & Psalms.  

Here’s a rule to remember … the language is colorful, figurative, & highly emotional.  And the way we understand figurative language is figuratively.  

These portions of Scripture are not meant to be taken literally.

When someone asks me, “do you take the Bible literally?” I say,

“it depends.  I take the literal passages literally, & the figurative passages figuratively.”  So, when there’s poetic language it’s meant to be understood in a figurative way.  If Jim says to me, “I could have strangled that guy who cut me off on the way here this morning.”  I certainly hope he’s not thinking murder.  If my granddaughter tells me, “I bombed my history test” … I’m assuming she didn’t literally take explosives into her school & set them off.  

Now sometimes this poetic language is very dark & mournful.  

But other times, it’s rich & inspiring.  And if you’ve never become a reader of The Psalms, you’re missing something extraordinary.  

It’s in the middle of your Bible, & I think God put it there on purpose.  

It’ll help us worship & love God like no other portion of Scripture.

A 4th genre … The Proverbs.  

Here’s what we need to know about reading The Proverbs.  The Proverbs are not absolute promises; they’re meant to be statements about how life should work.  Here are some examples.

“Honor the LORD by making him an offering from 

the best of all that your land produces.  

If you do, your barns will be filled with grain, 

& you will have too much wine to store it all.” (The Proverbs 3:9-10)

What’s that proverb teaching? … 

If we honor God, He’ll see to it that we’ll prosper.

Is this an absolute promise?  Is this promising that everybody who tithes will experience great financial wealth & affluence?  No.  But I’ve discovered that people who become generous & give God His 1st cut … 

their financial needs will be met.  Their bills get paid.

Here’s another one … “A gentle answer quiets anger, 

but a harsh one stirs it up.” (The Proverbs 15:1)

A great principle to live by, but does it mean that if we give a gentle answer to an angry person, 

100% of the time they’ll respond with a kind response?  I wish.

These are good principles to live by, but they’re not absolute promises.

Here’s one I hear cited often by parents.

“Train a child in the way he should go, 

& when he is old he will not turn from it.” (The Proverbs 22:6)

What’s the general principle? … If we raise our child in a godly environment, 

good morals, & so on … that’s the way they’ll end up.  

But have you ever known a godly parent who had a wayward child?

When the child got to a certain age they threw it away.

So, this isn’t an absolute promise … but how life should work.

A 5th genre … prophecy.  I covered this a little last week.

The 1st thing to keep in mind in reading the prophetic books is that they’re not about predicting the future.  Most of the time the O.T. prophets are confronting sin in people’s lives … & urging them to turn back to God.  And even when they do predict the future … most of the future they’re predicting is the immediate future of the people they’re addressing … 

not our future a couple 1,000 years later.

So, if a Prophet is addressing a group of people in 750 B.C. & predicts something that happens 150 years later in 600 B.C. … that’s history to us. But it’s the future for the people the Prophet is addressing.  Now there will be some end times predictions.  They’ll be found especially in The Revelation, 

which is called an apocalypse.

The rule we need to keep in mind when reading

The Revelation is that God didn’t give us this book in order to communicate a bunch of details … this is exactly how everything is going to happen.  

So read The Revelation in one hand & the newspaper in the other.

The symbolic language that’s used in The Revelation is meant to communicate 1 major point … in the end, Jesus wins.  And everybody who has come to faith, they win too.  If we get carried away with trying to make it all work in respect to current events, we’re going to embarrass ourselves.  

It’s really dangerous to try to interpret each of the details & think that 

we have it all figured out.  The Revelation uses highly symbolic language.

What do you think the favorite book of the Bible is for people living in persecuted countries? … The Revelation, because they need to be reminded that while they’re getting beat up & their Pastors are being hauled off to prison … that we win in the end … & that’s because Jesus wins.

The 6th kind of literature/genre … epistles/letters.

Many of these are written by the Apostle Paul, & they’re some of the easiest books to read & interpret & apply, because they’re so straight forward.

But let me give you a couple of rules anyway.

Rule #1 … & I keep beating this drum; learn the historical background.

Why did Paul or John or James or Peter write this particular letter?  

Who are they writing to?  What were the problems that they’re addressing?  (That’s why a Study Bible or Life Application Bible is so good.)

The 2nd rule is … before we start studying a particular verse or section of a N.T. epistle, sit down & read that epistle from beginning to end, 

because that’s how letters are read.  Right?

Early in my relationship with Kathy, we were apart for several “long” months.  During that time, she would faithfully send me letters.  Let me tell you what I did with them.  I’d put the letter in my pocket, & then I’d take it out 10 times during the course of the day.  The 1st time I took the letter out I went to the 3rd page & read the 5th paragraph.  Then I put it away.  

The next time I went to page 2 & read paragraph 2.  Then I put it away.  

A little later I took it out again & read page 1, paragraph 3.

And before I went to sleep, I read the whole 4th page.

Does anyone believe that’s how I read her letters?

No, because that’s not how we read letters.  When I got her letter, 

I sat down & read page 1 paragraph 1 & I continued reading through the whole letter.  In fact, I read it through a # of times.  Now after reading it through a bunch of times, I had favorite paragraphs, & I’d go back to those & read them; but by then I understood them in the context of the whole letter.  You’re following me, right?

So, when we want to understand a part of a N.T. letter, 

1st sit down & read it from beginning to end.  And this takes very little time.  The longest of the letters is only 25 pages; it can be read in a ½ hour.

 

Okay, we’ve looked at the historical setting, literary setting,

& now we have the theological setting.  Don’t be scared by the word “theological.”  Here are a couple of examples of what I mean.  

The Acts 2 records the very 1st sermon Peter preached, 

& at the conclusion he says something about Baptism.

“‘All the people of Israel, then, are to know for sure that this Jesus, 

whom you crucified, is the one that God has made Lord & Messiah!’

“When the people heard this, they were deeply troubled & said to Peter 

& the other apostles, ‘What shall we do, brothers?’

“Peter said to them, ‘Each one of you must turn away from your sins & 

be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, so that your sins will be forgiven.’” 

(The Acts 2:36-38)

Now when we read that at face value, doesn’t it seem that Peter is saying that a requirement for experiencing the forgiveness of sin is that we get baptized?  Is getting baptized something we absolutely must do in order to get our sins forgiven?  What does the rest of Scripture teach?

“For it is by God’s grace that you have been saved through faith.  It is not the result of your own efforts … (not even a good religious effort like Baptism) … but God’s gift, so that no one can boast about it.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)

“God saved us.  It was not because of any good deeds that we ourselves had done, but because of his own mercy that he saved us.” (Titus 3:5) 

Not because of any good deeds we’ve done … not even Baptism.

How do we experience the forgiveness of God?  

By faith in Jesus Christ & what He did on the cross.  

Is Baptism a requirement for experiencing forgiveness?  

No … based on what the rest of Scripture teaches.

Well then, what’s Peter trying to say in his sermon?

Peter is telling us that there should be some kind of public demonstration of our commitment to Jesus Christ.  Baptism is not a requirement for forgiveness, but it’s something we want to do.

Here’s another example … prayer.  Jesus says, “I am telling you the truth; the Father will give you whatever you ask of him in my name.” (John 16:23) Jesus makes an incredible promise that sounds too good to be true.  All I have to do is pray for whatever I want … & then tag on “in Jesus’ name” & I’ll get it!  A TV preacher calls this the “name it & claim it” principle.  

What does the rest of Scripture teach about prayer?

Jesus says, “if you remain in me & my words remain in you,

then you will ask for anything you wish, & you shall have it.” (John 15:7) Jesus is saying that if we want to get our prayers answered here’s something we need to do.  We must allow His words to become part of our life, & then we’ll find ourselves praying about stuff that God delights in & will answer.

In Luke 18 Jesus uses a parable to teach us that if we want God 

to answer our prayers, we better be persistent in praying them.

James writes …

“When you ask, you do not receive … because your motives are bad; 

you ask for things to use for your own pleasures.” (James 4:3) 

God answers prayers that are free of selfish motives.

“We are sure that he hears us if we ask him for anything that is according to his will.  He hears us whenever we ask him; & since we know this is true,

we know also that he gives us what we ask from him.” (John 5:14-15) 

God expects us to ask for things that are in accordance with His will.  

So, you see … there’s a lot more to prayer than just John 16:23.

If we want to be sure that we’re interpreting a passage of Scripture correctly … then we need to consider what the Bible teaches about that same topic elsewhere.  Someone has put it this way … 

“the best tool for interpreting the Bible is the Bible.”

Real quickly, here’s how we can do this.

Most Bibles today supply cross references, either on the side or down the middle of the pages.  My Bible has them at the bottom.  So, 

if we’re reading John 16:23 on prayer, we’ll see other verses to check out.

Another tool is the A-to-Z list of words at the back of our Bibles.

So, if I want to know what else Scripture has on prayer, 

I go to the “p’s” & I find verses on “prayer”.

A 3rd way, read the footnotes.  

Often when we come across a topic that could be easily misunderstood, there’s a footnote which provides an explanation.

Make sure to take advantage of these Scriptural helps.

Historical setting, literary setting, theological setting, & finally, 

immediate setting.  This one is real simple.  Let me ask you, “What do you think I mean by the word “spring”?  Do I mean, (a) a time of the year?  

(b) a metal coil?  (c) a source of water?  or (d) an act of jumping?  Which do I mean?  When I say the word “spring,” how do you interpret me? … (You tell me to use it in a sentence.)  You need a context.  Okay, suppose I say, 

“You know, that was kind of a warm spring we had” … now what do I mean?  

Immediately you can eliminate 2 of the possible meanings.  

You know I’m not talking about a metal coil or an act of jumping.  However, 

I could be speaking of either a season of the year, or a source of water.

You need more context … you need another sentence.  What if I say, 

“& today is the 1st day of summer”?   Now what am I talking about? …

I’m talking about a season of the year … “spring.”

When we come across a word, or an expression in the Bible & are wondering what it means … the 1st thing to do is look at it in the verse.  

What does the verse say as a whole?  And then look at the paragraph … 

to make sure we’re not taking something out of context.  

The context will determine the meaning of what we’re reading.

Okay, we’ve covered a lot this morning, & my hope & prayer is that these kinds of hermeneutics, these basic ground rules for reading the Bible, will enable you to not take the truths of Scripture “out of context,” but to know, with confidence, that you are indeed, receiving God’s intended meaning of the Bible.  And with the help of The Holy Spirit, & knowing the storyline, & understanding the context, that the Scriptures will come alive, 

& that God will speak to you.  And do you know what?  He will.

MARANA THA