Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Without further ado, let's begin with the word hermeneutics. I said this earlier, but that's what we're talking about here when we talk about interpreting the Bible, when we talk about interpretation. Hermeneutics is the art and science of interpretation.
[00:00:33] And now in order to do hermeneutics, you need something. Because here's the thing, this applies not just to the Bible, but it applies to any text you ever read anywhere. If it's a text message, if it's a novel, if it's something with words, you're going to do hermeneutics, right? You're going to. Like when you get a text from a friend who maybe says something kind to you, you're going to interpret that, right. You're going to take that a certain way. Or if somebody says something in the passive voice asking you to do something you don't want to do, you're going to interpret that. Right? Every text demands interpretation.
[00:01:24] That's the idea.
[00:01:25] Every single thing that we read on paper requires some kind of interpretation. Right?
[00:01:33] So there's a few things you need in order to properly do hermeneutics.
[00:01:41] What do you think you need just in order to interpret anything? What are some, like, basics? A brain.
[00:01:48] A brain. Good eyes.
[00:01:53] Something to read.
[00:01:55] Who else?
[00:01:58] There's three things. Yeah, you need background. This is very, very simple. Three things you need. Number one, you need an author.
[00:02:07] Right?
[00:02:08] You need somebody to, like, write the thing down that you're going to read. All right?
[00:02:14] So you need.
[00:02:15] Behind every text there is an author.
[00:02:18] Yes. Following. Somebody wrote something down. Yeah, cool.
[00:02:24] Number two, you need a text.
[00:02:28] You need the words themselves. You need the words on the page. So you have an author writing the text, and then you need the text itself. What do you think the last one is? Audience.
[00:02:40] Audience, yeah. You need a reader.
[00:02:43] You need an author, a text and a reader.
[00:02:49] All three of these are required to do hermeneutics. Now let's take this into.
[00:03:00] Let's just open it up a little bit with all of these.
[00:03:06] With any text that we're talking about, maybe like, take the Bible away for a second. There are going to be certain limitations.
[00:03:13] What do you think when.
[00:03:15] Take your favorite book or a text message or whatever words you read this morning. What are some limitations with an author of a text language? Good.
[00:03:31] We can't ask him what he meant. You can't ask him what he meant because the author is what, dead?
[00:03:39] Maybe. Maybe.
[00:03:42] A lot of times that's the case. So, like, not present maybe is a more polite way to put it.
[00:03:50] Presence.
[00:03:52] That's great. Awesome. What else? What are other limitations? Huh? Bias. Bias.
[00:04:02] The author has a point of view. Right. The author has a particular perspective.
[00:04:07] Anything else?
[00:04:09] The author might have a limited or different vocabulary. Vocabulary, Right. So that's similar to language, vocab.
[00:04:17] What about a text? What are some limitations of a text?
[00:04:22] You can like, hear them say it. Their voice tones. Okay. You can't hear a voice or tone.
[00:04:30] What else?
[00:04:33] It's inert.
[00:04:35] What do you mean? It cannot respond. It cannot elaborate on itself like an author would. Yes. It's static. Yeah. Right. A text is. It's frozen.
[00:04:48] It has a specific theme that defines what it is about.
[00:04:52] It has a specific theme? Yeah, yeah. There's a. In every text there's a subject. Right.
[00:05:03] Good. Dan, Anything else? Any other barriers, limitations to a text?
[00:05:13] What about availability?
[00:05:16] Sometimes a text isn't readily available to or it's not accessible. Accessibility, limitations of the reader.
[00:05:34] Dan, the text itself is subject to reader's interpretation of it. Okay. How is that a limitation?
[00:05:43] Because it's limiting our. It limits the reader's capability of coming up of accepting a new idea or need or interpretation. Yeah. Good, good.
[00:06:05] Right. So the reader has particular ideas and biases. What other limitations are there for the reader? The definition of words.
[00:06:15] Definition of words. Good.
[00:06:18] Cultural separation, I guess, is tied to the bias.
[00:06:22] Yeah, there's a cultural separation.
[00:06:36] What about experience?
[00:06:41] You think about, if you're reading like a book on how to be a farmer and you were born in a village, in a town, you don't necessarily have the right experience to be able to relate to what the author and text is trying to convey. Right.
[00:07:02] So you have limited experience as a reader.
[00:07:07] Anything else?
[00:07:12] Trustworthiness of the text.
[00:07:15] Trustworthiness.
[00:07:17] Okay. That would go in the text. Right.
[00:07:21] Is it trustworthy?
[00:07:24] Same thing for the author. Are they credible?
[00:07:28] They have the right credentials to be saying what they're conveying in the text.
[00:07:34] So this is true for any book, right? Any book.
[00:07:40] Think about, let's bring the Bible back, because that's what this class is about.
[00:07:45] How does the word of God. The holy word of God. Right.
[00:07:50] The inspired, inerrant, authoritative, infallible, on and on and on. We could go with the how does the word of God overcome these limitations that we've just listed out?
[00:08:05] Being written by a holy and perfect God. Being written by a holy and perfect God. Right.
[00:08:11] So how. That would be under the author. Right. Kendall, how did God write his word? He spoke it.
[00:08:22] He spoke it. Okay. What do you think, Dan?
[00:08:27] Well, yes. He spoke it to a person who would then write down his word. Interesting. Okay, so he spoke it to somebody who would write it down.
[00:08:37] Did he.
[00:08:40] Did he dictate it?
[00:08:46] Inspired it.
[00:08:49] What does inspire mean? What do you think that means?
[00:08:55] Peter uses the language that they were carried along.
[00:09:01] I don't think there's not a lot of crystal clarity on the exact way that the Lord did it.
[00:09:10] Real people writing with their real experiences, their own backgrounds.
[00:09:20] Yeah.
[00:09:23] Certain examples he would have. Right.
[00:09:26] Yeah. That he dictated. But the vast majority of what we have is not that. Yeah. Which is harder to kind of wrap your head around.
[00:09:37] The language of inspiration is the right one.
[00:09:41] And here's kind of how scholars. The word that they use is that God is not overtaking the author of Scripture when it's not as if the Spirit is possessing them and then saying exactly what he wants them to say, or like dictation, like Sean is talking about. But the word is. He's superintending his word. He's superintending the author, meaning he comes alongside the author to overcome the traditional limitations like language, culture, experience the own sin of the author. Right. Because the Bible was written by sinful man to allow for his word to be carried along.
[00:10:36] Listen to second Peter 1:21. He's talking about prophecy. But this applies to all the scriptures. It says, for no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man.
[00:10:48] But men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
[00:10:55] That's second Peter 1:21.
[00:10:58] They spoke from God as they were carried along by the Spirit. So ultimately, when we're talking about the Word of God, inspiration is a work of who?
[00:11:11] God? The Holy Spirit. Right. The Holy Spirit inspires His word through men across generations, across approximately 40 different authors over 1500 years. So that's the first way that God overcomes these limitations, is through inspiration. The second way, just for the sake of time, I'm just going to keep going. Here is the word preservation.
[00:11:48] Preservation. In other words, God sovereignly preserves the text of Scripture.
[00:11:55] Does he? Is it. Is it preserved? Okay, here's a question. Is it preserved holy and perfectly?
[00:12:05] Yes.
[00:12:06] Yes.
[00:12:09] Josh.
[00:12:12] Saying it's necessary content. Yeah. But not necessarily textual.
[00:12:16] Yeah. Interesting.
[00:12:18] There's something.
[00:12:20] There's a practice in textual criticism called.
[00:12:27] There's different things called textual variants, meaning that the Bible, when it was written, was copied over and over and over again.
[00:12:37] The copy of the Bible that you're holding is not. It's the original manuscript.
[00:12:43] The manuscripts were copied over and over and over again. And sometimes there's what's called textual variations.
[00:12:50] So, like, if you look in your Bible right now and you go to John chapter 8, or Mark chapter 16, you'll see brackets around it, meaning that the earliest manuscripts of the New Testament did not contain John Chapter, the story of the woman caught in adultery, or the tail end of Mark 16 in that commission.
[00:13:14] Now, we hear that as Christians, and we're like, what's going on?
[00:13:22] The reality is, is that.
[00:13:24] And even secular textual critics have studied, 99.5% of the copies that we have are held to be accurate and true to their original form, meaning that none of the textual variants we have, whether it's spelling, like spelling errors, or grammatical errors that took place from the copying of the original over into what we have today, none of those affect any major Christian doctrine whatsoever from the time of orthodoxy. So the Word of God has been preserved. It has been preserved, and its message that it's trying to convey and communicate has been preserved perfectly. Has every single technical word been preserved? No, but that's okay because we're like, 99% accurate. Okay. So preservation is how the Spirit overcomes the limitation of the text. What about the reader? This is a harder one. Right, because who's the reader?
[00:14:40] What's wrong with us?
[00:14:44] A lot.
[00:14:45] A lot of stuff. Right.
[00:14:48] We're sinful, we're biased. We have a particular cultural context. We have a particular language that we speak. There's all kinds of limitations that we bring to the text. So how does the Spirit overcome the limitations of us?
[00:15:11] Translation.
[00:15:13] Translation.
[00:15:14] Is it.
[00:15:16] What'd you say? Special revelation. Special revelation. That's. That would be the text itself.
[00:15:22] Illumination. Illumination. Good. Stephen.
[00:15:28] Illumination.
[00:15:29] What does. What does illumination mean?
[00:15:34] I think of Luke 24, where he says he opened their minds to understand.
[00:15:40] Good. Exactly.
[00:15:43] Luke 24, Jesus is raised from the dead.
[00:15:47] He meets a couple of friends on the road to Emmaus, and the text says that he opens their minds to understand the Scriptures.
[00:15:59] Illumination is a work of who?
[00:16:02] The Spirit. Right.
[00:16:05] God is the one who brings to mind the things that Jesus taught. What does Jesus say in John 14 when he's talking about, like, the helper who will come? What does he say about him?
[00:16:22] Yeah, yeah. Because the Spirit's going to bring to mind the things that I've taught you. Right.
[00:16:30] We have every, you know, recorded word that Jesus has said, and we could go and reference it and look it up right now, but we're still so sinful that we're going to forget about it by tomorrow. Right.
[00:16:46] Most of us are probably going to forget. Brad's sermon by tomorrow. It's okay. You're going to forget this, too. But that's why we have the spirit, though, who brings to mind the truths of God's word that have been taught.
[00:16:59] So whenever you do remember Brad's sermon, it's not because of anything that he said or I said. It's the Holy Spirit of God that brings to mind the truths of God. Amen.
[00:17:13] So that's a basic way that hermeneutics works. Now, I wrote up here, and I need to go faster here, folks.
[00:17:27] Where is meaning located? Because every text has a meaning.
[00:17:34] We believe that. So where do we find meaning in a text?
[00:17:41] I'll just. Spoiler alert.
[00:17:43] I believe that meaning is not found here from the reader.
[00:17:50] Not going to be found here.
[00:17:52] The meaning starts with the author and moves to the text. Okay? So there's a downward momentum, beginning with the author, the one who wrote it down. Moses, Isaiah, ultimately the spirit, and ends at the text. That's where we're going to find meaning. So meaning is at the intersection of the author and the text.
[00:18:20] There's a lot more we could say about that, but I have to keep chugging along. Now, interpretation is done solely by who?
[00:18:32] The reader? Right.
[00:18:33] Because the author is what?
[00:18:39] Static or not static.
[00:18:42] The humans who wrote it down are deceased. Humans who wrote it down are dead. Right. As Brother Austin said.
[00:18:51] Here's the idea. The spirit is alive, Right? The spirit is moving, not dead. Okay.
[00:18:57] However, the canon of scripture is what, open or closed?
[00:19:01] It's closed, meaning that there's not going to be any new revelation added to the canon. Okay.
[00:19:09] So that means that when we interpret the Bible, we are doing so from going from a place of static to meaning. Does that make sense?
[00:19:26] Okay, that is those three things. So meaning is located where?
[00:19:37] At the intersection of what?
[00:19:39] The author and the text. Who does the interpreting?
[00:19:42] Who does the illuminating?
[00:19:45] Who does the preserving and the inspiration.
[00:19:49] Good. Okay.
[00:19:51] That's Hermeneutics 101.
[00:19:54] Let's talk about the law. The law of God.
[00:19:58] When you think about the law of God, what comes to mind immediately?
[00:20:07] The Ten Commandments. What else? Ceremonial laws. The ceremonial laws. Good.
[00:20:14] Yeah. So the law is this word Torah.
[00:20:20] Everybody say Torah.
[00:20:22] Torah.
[00:20:23] This is the Hebrew word for law.
[00:20:27] It doesn't just mean rules.
[00:20:31] It actually carries with it this idea of instruction.
[00:20:38] It literally means to point and shoot like you would an arrow, like you're aiming for something.
[00:20:48] So when you transgress and you don't follow the law, you what?
[00:20:54] And when you sin, you miss.
[00:20:57] Yeah. There we go, so the idea of instruction means.
[00:21:06] The idea of instruction itself implies that there is a relationship of the one giving the law. In other words, this isn't just coming from a cold draw judge. This is coming from someone who has a particular relationship with his people. And we're going to talk more about that in a second.
[00:21:29] Technically speaking, the law of God in the Old Testament, when you read that phrase can mean a lot of things.
[00:21:35] The first one is that it can refer to laws in the plural.
[00:21:42] These are the 613, I believe, commands from found in the first five books of the Old Testament.
[00:21:52] So like what Randall was talking about, like the Ten Commandments, you know, do not lie, do not steal, do not commit adultery. Those are commands, those are laws. Right? Those are laws plural.
[00:22:07] It can also mean law if I can write a W in the singular or the collective sense.
[00:22:17] Okay, so what we mean by that is basically taking all of these plural laws and referring to them as one collective. Right?
[00:22:28] So the law says this like. So when Jesus says the law, he's talking about the whole set of the commands. Okay.
[00:22:38] The third way to think about the law is the book of the Law, which would be what?
[00:22:47] The Torah, which is first five books of the Bible. Right? Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.
[00:22:58] You also might hear the Greek word Pentateuch, which just is derived from the Greek instead of the Hebrew.
[00:23:10] The Greek Testament translation is called the Septuagint, and they refer to the books of the law as the Pentateuch. So when you hear the Pentateuch, specifically think first five books of the Bible, you also have the Law.
[00:23:29] The last way we'll talk about it as a.
[00:23:33] The whole religious system in Judaism.
[00:23:47] So Jesus is around during the time period of Rabbinical Judaism, which basically means that they were adding that there were other commands added to the law later on in a work known as the Talmud. These are extra rules and traditions built around commandments as interpreted by Jewish teachers. Does that make sense? For our purposes, we're going to primarily be looking at these first three.
[00:24:24] Okay, so that's the law. But in order to understand the Law, we have to understand the context in which it is given. We have to understand its nature.
[00:24:37] And the best way to understand the nature of Old Testament law or the Torah is through this big word. Not big word, but important word. Covenant.
[00:24:52] Anybody know what a covenant is? Want to take a stab at what a covenant is?
[00:24:58] It's an agreement. Yes.
[00:25:03] A promise. Good.
[00:25:10] This is, this is sort of my definition, but taken from a few scholars, a Covenant is a binding contract or agreement between two parties. Right. So you need more than one person to make a covenant in which one or both make promises under oath to perform or refrain from certain actions stipulated in advance.
[00:25:37] It is a binding contract or agreement between two parties in which both make promises under oath to perform or refrain from certain actions stipulated in advance. So question for you.
[00:25:56] What's the first covenant given in the Bible?
[00:26:05] Eat of this tree.
[00:26:07] Mmm, works.
[00:26:17] That's good. Covenant of works is a. It's a real thing.
[00:26:21] What'd you say, Austin? What was the question? What is the first covenant in the Bible?
[00:26:28] Technically it's Noah, right? Technically it is. Theologically speaking, it's what actually what Rachel is referring to, referring to as the covenant of works.
[00:26:39] Some call it the Adamic covenant. Right.
[00:26:43] So there's elements of covenant. When God creates Adam puts him in the garden, he gives him what?
[00:26:55] He gives him a job. He gives him instructions. He says, be fruitful and multiply.
[00:27:02] Work the garden, keep the garden and do not what?
[00:27:10] Do not eat from the tree of knowledge and good and of evil. So there's particular stipulations given to Adam of what we are going to agree upon in this relationship. Right.
[00:27:27] I will walk with you. I will be your God. I will be with you in the cool of the day if you are to be fruitful and multiply, if you are to work the garden and keep it and not eat from the tree of knowledge and good and of evil, and the tree of life will be available to you. Right.
[00:27:48] So that's the covenant promise that is given to him. And he says there's even curses given if he disobeys. Right. What happens if Adam disobeys?
[00:27:59] He dies.
[00:28:00] Right. And the day, if you eat of it, you will surely die. You see how that's kind of the making of a covenant in and of itself.
[00:28:08] So the first time covenant is mentioned is with Noah.
[00:28:12] But I would say theologically, we have a covenant of, sometimes called the covenant of works, given to Adam. The baseline point to get is this.
[00:28:25] Before any law is given, the foundation of God's relationship with man is covenant. Okay? So it's important to understand covenant as the backdrop for all of God's law. Right.
[00:28:44] Let's talk a little bit now about how there's a couple of different kind forms of the law. So there's two forms and three kinds.
[00:28:57] I wish that these words were different, but they're not. So we just have to go with them.
[00:29:05] The first form of law is called the apodictic and the second form is the causestic law. Apodictic and causestic.
[00:29:23] Think of the apodictic, the first form, as direct commands given by God. Okay, so this is language of do or do not, all right? They're generally applicable. And tell the Israelites that the certain things they're supposed to do to fulfill their part of the covenant with God. Okay, so direct commands, do not steal, do not lie, do not murder.
[00:29:53] Apodictic forms are also universal in scope, meaning that it applies to all people everywhere, no matter who you are, no matter what gender you are, no matter what background you are.
[00:30:06] This law of God applies to you when it is given in this form, apodictically. Okay, does that make sense?
[00:30:15] Second form is the causestic law.
[00:30:19] These are specific conditions that prevail in certain types of situations. Think of these as case by case. Okay, so these are going to be more specific to the people of Israel and contain if then language.
[00:30:41] So if you do this particular thing, if you wash yourself this particular way, then it will go well for you.
[00:30:52] Right? It's if, then it's causistic. Okay.
[00:30:57] Most of these laws mostly are not renewed in the new covenant framework.
[00:31:08] And so these causal laws, for the most part, are not going to be binding to the believer. Does that make sense?
[00:31:17] Okay, apodictic, causestic, We.
[00:31:25] Gosh, we gotta go.
[00:31:30] The next thing I want to talk about, which we could talk about these for a while, are the three kinds of law. So we have two forms, direct and causal. And we have three kinds. Let me get a different marker here.
[00:31:48] Three kinds of law.
[00:31:53] There's the moral, there's the civil, and there's the ceremonial.
[00:32:05] The moral, the civil and the ceremonial. The moral is sometimes called the ethical.
[00:32:11] What do you think these kinds of laws are? What do you think of an example of, like a moral law that God gives?
[00:32:18] What do you think, Dan? Something that you should not or should do according to the natural common sense of a good conscience.
[00:32:28] It's really good. It's like a definition of like natural law.
[00:32:33] Yeah. Something that you should not do because it's right or wrong. Right. There's morality to it. What would be an example of that? Do not kill.
[00:32:43] Do not kill. Do not steal. Like the Ten Commandments. Right? Like.
[00:32:47] What about like love your neighbor as yourself?
[00:32:52] Moral.
[00:32:53] Moral good. Okay, so you understand the basics of that? Civil laws are what.
[00:33:00] What would a civil law be?
[00:33:02] Pay taxes, Dan?
[00:33:13] Well, essentially it's something that the government would impose in order to keep order and prevent a descent into moral Chaos. Yes.
[00:33:25] Yeah, perfect.
[00:33:27] Such as do not kill people.
[00:33:29] These are specific penalties for crimes shaped by the daily life of Israelite society. Okay. So whoever strikes a man so that he dies shall be put to death. That's a civil law.
[00:33:44] Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. That's a civil law.
[00:33:53] If he knocks out the tooth of a slave. This is from Exodus 21.
[00:33:57] Male or female, he shall let the slave go free because of his tooth.
[00:34:01] Civil right.
[00:34:05] All kinds of civil laws in the first five books of the Old Testament. The last form is a ceremonial law. What do you think those kinds of laws are?
[00:34:15] What do you think of Sabbath?
[00:34:19] Sabbath laws. Oh, that's a good one. We'll get to that one in a second. Cleanliness, purity. Cleanliness, Purity. Ritualistic.
[00:34:27] Think like the whole book of Leviticus. Okay. Like it's all ceremonial and how to purify yourself to be in the presence of a holy God. Book of Leviticus is all about holiness and how to live a set. How the Israelites were to live a set apart life as God's people.
[00:34:45] That's the book of Leviticus.
[00:34:47] So there's laws for clean and unclean animals. There's laws around the day of atonement and rituals to perform. There's laws about feasts.
[00:34:57] Those are ceremonial laws.
[00:35:01] So let me ask this, taking the moral, the civil and the ceremonial, which part of the contents of these laws do you think applies to Christians today?
[00:35:15] What do you think, Dan? Primarily, the moral and civil laws. Primarily the moral and civil. Okay, why do you say civil?
[00:35:23] Well, because we shouldn't steal from people. That's.
[00:35:31] Yeah.
[00:35:34] And of course, some civil laws, if we don't obey them, we will be incarcerated.
[00:35:39] Civil laws in our context, not Israel's civil law.
[00:35:44] Yeah.
[00:35:47] Yes. Yeah. As an American citizen, we are to abide by civil laws. Right.
[00:35:53] We are to obey the law of the land. Right. But as far as the laws that are located in the law of God itself, what do you think is binding to the Christian moral?
[00:36:08] I think the civil might be in the context of, like, permissible, but not always beneficial. Yeah. It might apply to us in a political context, but we are healthy.
[00:36:19] That's a good point.
[00:36:21] There's principles within the civil laws that may still, like, reflect good guidelines for and inform and inspire other laws. Like an eye for an eye as a civil law is a pretty good idea.
[00:36:45] So what about ceremonial laws?
[00:36:50] So here's the idea with the moral, the civil and the ceremonial. The civil law is fulfilled by Christ as king.
[00:37:00] Right.
[00:37:02] So if you take the three offices of Christ, you have prophet, priest and king.
[00:37:08] It's principles of justice are now applied universally in his kingdom.
[00:37:15] That's the idea with the civil law. So Jesus was not meant to come and establish a theocratic state or be a political messiah. That was not his primary mission as the Messiah, the people of Israel. The ceremonial law is fulfilled by Christ as priest.
[00:37:37] Okay?
[00:37:38] His sacrifice is completely sufficient to cover the sins of his people for all time. This is what the entire book of Hebrews is about, right? How the one sacrifice of Jesus, how he doesn't need to be sacrificed over and over and over again. Right?
[00:38:00] Because his blood is sufficient to, to cover his people for all time. Amen.
[00:38:07] That's how Jesus fulfills the ceremonial law. Now this categorization, I will say, of moral, civil and ceremonial has come under more scrutiny by scholars as of recently because they've pointed out, well, there's limitations here and it's fair. So like take the moral law for example, where we're saying the ten Commandments are moral commands, right? But what do you do with the Sabbath?
[00:38:43] If we're going to say that the moral law is still binding to all believers, how do we understand the Sabbath?
[00:38:55] It's pretty simple. And actually Paul addresses it in Colossians 2. I believe about like not letting anybody keep a Sabbath or festival to keep the Gentiles from approaching the throne of Christ. Don't let anybody do that. I'm butchering the text, but that's essentially what it says.
[00:39:21] The reality is that the way that we get around kind of some of the scrutiny that people give another one is you're minimizing parts of the law that are not moral.
[00:39:39] You're also, people are saying you're putting a pre made grid onto scripture, that Scripture itself doesn't use the language of moral, civil and ceremonial to describe these things.
[00:39:53] And all of that is well and good.
[00:39:56] However, we have to, number one, let the Bible speak on its own terms. Right?
[00:40:06] So we have to let the Bible speak for itself.
[00:40:09] We also, whatever law passage we're dealing with, we need to just locate it properly in the context of the covenant. Okay, so where are we in the story and what we're talking? If we're looking at Deuteronomy, what's happened up to this point? If we're looking at Exodus, what's going on in the storyline of the Bible, that's going to help give us a guardrail for interpreting the law. And the last one is the New Testament.
[00:40:36] The New Testament is going to do three things with one of three things with a particular law.
[00:40:42] The first one is that it's going to reaffirm or recapitulate the law. Recapitulate just means summing it up.
[00:40:52] So when Jesus says that the sum of the entire law is, love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself, what is he doing there? He's recapitulating the law. He's saying that all of these moral laws that were given in the Ten Commandments can be summarized in this.
[00:41:17] Okay, so he's reaffirming or recapitulating.
[00:41:21] The second one is that he's transforming the law or raising the stakes a little bit. A good example of this is the Sermon on the Mount. When Jesus said, you have heard that it was said, do not commit adultery. But I say to you that if you look at a woman with lust in your heart, you've already committed adultery. What's he doing there?
[00:41:43] Transforming it. He's raising the stakes. Okay. He does that several times with murder and anger as well. Or the last thing is he's fulfilling the law. Okay, so a good example of this is in Mark 7 or in Acts 10, when Jesus declares all foods clean, what's he doing there? He's setting aside the ceremonial law and saying, I am the fulfillment of these things, and because of my blood, because of this ceremonial sacrifice and the atonement that I'm going to make, these particular laws are now set aside. Does that make sense? So he's either reaffirming, recapitulating, transforming, or he's fulfilling. Okay, that's going to be a good checklist for us. Look at your worksheet for a second.
[00:42:40] The one that says.
[00:42:43] It's like a list of 12, nine things that says guidelines for interpreting the law. You see that one?
[00:42:53] Do's and don'ts. Yeah, do's and don'ts for interpreting the law. I call it something different.
[00:42:58] This is from Gordon Fee, from a book called how to Read the Bible for All It's Worth. It's a really good book. A very, very like, kind of holistic introduction to biblical hermeneutics.
[00:43:13] So that is for you. I'm not going to go through all of those right now because we need to get going to our activity.
[00:43:21] But one thing that I want to do for our activity time together is go over this right here.
[00:43:34] This is what's known as a covenant framework. And it's going to be what we kind of use to interpret the passages that I have for us today.
[00:43:46] So over the last century or so, scholars have found parallels in the ancient Near Eastern context, which is when the law was written to the Hittite civilization, which is a neighboring people group, to the Israelites in the days of the Old Testament. And what they found is that when the overlords made agreements with their slaves, they called them vassal treaties, okay? And these overlords were known as suzeraines, okay?
[00:44:25] Suzerain. And the underlords, or the slaves were known as vassals. And what they did was they came together and they prepared a covenant document for how basically defining the terms of how their relationship is going to function. And this document included six primary components. Okay? The first one is the preamble.
[00:44:53] The preamble identifies the parties of the agreement. So you're basically, when you look at the preamble, ask yourself, who is speaking?
[00:45:03] Okay, who is the one?
[00:45:07] Who is the suzerain giving these instructions to the vassal?
[00:45:15] It's the subject, okay? The second component is the historical prologue. And what this does is this describes the previous relationship, the two parties, and emphasizes the gracious character of the suzerain in his past dealings with the lesser party. Okay? So it's rooted in the character of what the overlord has done. So when you get to the historic prologue, think, what has God done?
[00:45:45] Who's speaking? If it's God, God's the one speaking.
[00:45:49] If we get to the prologue, what has God done?
[00:45:53] The third one is the stipulations. This is the commands themselves. These are the individual laws serving as rules of behavior and terms of loyalty.
[00:46:07] So these are for remaining true to the covenant, not entering into it. Does that make sense? This is how you remain true to the covenant. Not enter into it.
[00:46:17] You enter into it by the grace of the suzerain.
[00:46:22] The next component is blessings and curses. We've talked about this a little bit.
[00:46:28] These are the conditional components of the covenant that if you live this way, there's blessing for you. If you rebel, there's curses.
[00:46:39] A lot of the book of the Deuteronomy is structured this way. Okay? If you live this way, if you do this, it's gonna go well for you. If you do not, you will be cursed in the land.
[00:46:50] Fifth component is witnesses.
[00:46:53] Who testifies to the covenant. Who's present, you know, who gives this woman to be married to this man? That's a covenantal statement.
[00:47:01] These are witnesses.
[00:47:05] Frequently, the suzerain would also appeal to the gods of heaven and earth as their witnesses. So I appeal to heaven and earth as my witness. Today that you and I are entering a contract together. Okay? And God actually does the same thing. In Deuteronomy 30 at the end of the book, Moses says, this day I call the heavens and earth as witnesses against you. I call heaven and earth as witnesses against this new constitution that I give you.
[00:47:37] The last one is called Provision for Continual Reading.
[00:47:41] You're asking, how will we remember the covenant? How are we going to retain the information that we're going to write down here? So this is meant to ensure familiarity and safekeeping of the covenant. Okay?
[00:47:56] So the reality is it's not all of these things are going to be present in law passages that we're going to read.
[00:48:06] But what we're going to do right now at our tables is we're going to do an activity where we just look at the text of scripture that I've given you from Exodus 20.
[00:48:19] We probably don't have time to do Deuteronomy 6, but let's just do the Exodus 20. And I want you guys in your tables to identify. Okay, where's the preamble?
[00:48:33] Who's speaking?
[00:48:35] What is the subject? The speaker done? That's the prologue. What are the stipulations of this covenant document?
[00:48:43] Are there any blessings and curses?
[00:48:46] Are there witnesses? And are there provisions for continual reading? So look at that. Now. Does everyone have the worksheet that I have that kind of lists those things out? So take the text.
[00:48:59] And what I just want you to do is all you do there is just use the language of the text. Text in the blanks.
[00:49:06] Where's the preamble? Where's the prologue? Where's the stipulations? Blessings, curses, witnesses, provisions.
[00:49:14] Cool.
[00:49:15] All right, y', all, hey, let's come back together. For the sake of time, let's just work through this together. So where did you identify the preamble in Exodus 20? God speaking to him in God spoke.
[00:49:31] And God spoke all these words, Right?
[00:49:34] That would be the preamble. There's other places in scripture where you will see, like in Deuteronomy 6, there's more of an introduction at the beginning, before the Shema actually takes place.
[00:49:47] Good.
[00:49:48] What about the historical prologue? God brought them out of Egypt, out of the land of. Yeah, this is what God has done. I am the Lord your God. I'm going to remind you who I am. I brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. What are the stipulations?
[00:50:04] Verses 3 through 17. Good, good. So these are the actual commandments themselves, right?
[00:50:13] How about blessings and curses. This is an interesting one. What do you guys think?
[00:50:20] Verse 12.
[00:50:25] Like a curse and a blessing. It's right now a blessing, but if you don't do it. Well, that's a great one, Liz. Implied blessing. Anything else?
[00:50:37] Verse 5 and 6. What do you have there, Austin?
[00:50:43] Visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me. Showing steadfast love for thousands.
[00:50:51] Yes.
[00:50:52] Yeah. So the idea here is again, he's reminding you, like, this is my character. And this is why I don't want you to make a carved image out of this. Because I visit the generations and.
[00:51:12] Yeah, and it's part of the steadfast love of his character. Good. Anything else?
[00:51:20] I thought 19.
[00:51:22] Okay, good. Yeah, that's a great one.
[00:51:34] Yeah. Seven. Seven is.
[00:51:37] What did you say there? The Lord will not hold him guiltless.
[00:51:43] Oh, good, good. I didn't see that one. So that would be.
[00:51:48] That would be a curse, right?
[00:51:51] Be considered a curse.
[00:51:55] Good. Guys, DJ had a good question. Yeah.
[00:51:59] Would verse 11 classify kind of as a historical prologue, in a sense, the beginning of.
[00:52:09] For in six days, the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. Yeah, that's a recapitulation of Genesis. Right? So, yeah, that would definitely be a prologue.
[00:52:29] Yeah. It doesn't have to be in a. Like, our Western brains want to read it in this, this, this, this, this.
[00:52:39] But a lot of the Old Testament people even organize this with whole chapters of the Old Testament law, like classifying, like, you know, certain portions of Deuteronomy are preamble or in numbers.
[00:52:57] So this is just a helpful way to organize when you're approaching the text to just look and see what it says.
[00:53:07] That's really all. That's really what we're trying to do here. I'm trying to give you tools to help you see better what it's actually saying.
[00:53:15] And then we use some of these principles that we talked about to say, okay, is it apodictic, is it causestic, is it moral, civil, ceremonial, etc. And then we can start doing the hard work of interpreting. Does that make sense?
[00:53:33] How does recognizing this framework help you read passages in the law differently than if you were to just read them as rules?
[00:53:44] How is this helpful?
[00:53:51] Cup. Context. Good.
[00:53:56] It's kind of like when your parents tell you, don't do something, and they say, because I said so versus, hey, this is why I don't want you to run across the road without looking both ways. Good. Yeah.
[00:54:07] There's a relational and character aspect to it. Right.
[00:54:11] We think of the Ten Commandments as like, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 plastered on a poster with two tablets. Right. Like, when we think of the Ten Commandments, that's what comes to mind. But in actuality, when we see the text, we see the loving character of a gracious father all over the place here. Right.
[00:54:33] So we're just. We're putting it into context of who this God is and what he has done, because there's a lot there in addition to the stipulations.
[00:54:47] Yeah.
[00:54:48] I think even just looking at this gives more helpful framework for covenants in general. And then when you see in the New Testament, this would go in a different direction than we're going today, but being able to understand. Okay, is this talking about the Old Covenant or the New Covenant and how that fits into what you're reading in the text?
[00:55:11] Yeah, definitely.
[00:55:14] Good. That is the class today, guys.
