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Lesson OneWhat is Biblical Interpretation?4 Activities1 Assessment
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Lesson TwoA Short History of Interpretation4 Activities1 Assessment
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Lesson ThreeBasic Principles of Interpretation4 Activities1 Assessment
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Lesson FourInterpreting Narratives or Stories4 Activities1 Assessment
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Lesson FiveInterpreting Poetry and Wisdom4 Activities1 Assessment
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Lesson SixInterpreting Prophecy4 Activities1 Assessment
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Lesson SevenThe New Testament Use of the Old Testament4 Activities1 Assessment
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Lesson EightThe Theological Use of the Bible: Putting it All Together4 Activities1 Assessment
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Lesson NineContemporary Approaches to Biblical Interpretation4 Activities1 Assessment
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Lesson TenInterpreting the Cultural Aspects of the Bible4 Activities1 Assessment
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Lesson ElevenWhen the Bible Doesn’t Address Our Questions4 Activities1 Assessment
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Lesson TwelveInterpreting the Bible Devotionally4 Activities1 Assessment
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Course Wrap-UpCourse Completion1 Activity1 Assessment
Participants 229
Discussion Questions
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Do you agree with the lecturer that a person must be a born-again Christian in order to understand the Bible? Give reasons for your answer.
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Yes – in order to be able to have a full understanding of the Bible, you must have the Holy Spirt living within you and be a Believer in Jesus or it will not make sense to you.
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Absolutely! so that we can rely on the help of the Holy Spirit to understand & interpret spiritual things.
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I understand the idea but I don’t believe that you must be born again to understand the Bible. I can assume that there are many people that understand the Bible and able to interpret it in many languages but choose not to be born again, not because they don’t believe but because they decide they do not want to do the will of the Father and will suppress the truth.
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Yes, absolutely, one must be a born again Christian, with reverence to the Awesome and Mighty God and led by the Holy spirit because spiritual messages should be interpreted spiritually. 1 Corinthians 2:14.
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Yes, I believe that one must be a born again beliver to understand the Bible. The mind of the natural man is limited. The natural man cannot know God or His word (1 Corinthians 2:14). The Holy Spirit dwells in the born-again Chrisitan (Ephesians 1:13,14). The Holy Spirit, which a born again believer has, teaches the believer (John 14:25,26).
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If we all come to the biblical text with bias and previous conditioning, how can we expect to arrive at an interpretation that resembles the authoritative Word of God?
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Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2:4 “and my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive human words (bias and previous conditioning) but in the demonstration of the Spirt (Holy spirit teaches all things) and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.” We can’t expect to interpret accurately without the help of the Holy Spirit.
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We can only do this by being on one accord with the truth from God’s word not our own
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First of all, we have lost so much through the passing of time. We have many different cultural standards and social norms. What was once known and believed (myths also), is now forgotten. With that we can interpret in the English something very different than what was originally said. We have to use the various tools (concordance, bible dictionary, and commentaries, etc) to ensure proper interpretation. We must also rely upon the Holy Spirit (Prov 2) to grant us the wisdom in what He would have us to understand. And as in all things, we must be humble enough to listen and obey in submission to our Lord.
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First, becoming aware of these linguistic and cultural biases will help us to check for their influence on our interpretation. Then, we need to intentionally pray for the Holy Spirit to guide our study rather than try to lead the way and affirm our predisposed beliefs. A careful grammatico-historical exegesis will help us to approach Scripture at each level to fully interpret the meaning in context, testing our interpretation against the central truths of the Bible as the unified Word of God to see if it aligns with what we know foundationally. In all steps our thinking must be led by the Holy Spirit in submission to the Lord.
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Using our own bias cannot correctly interpret the Word of God. To do so, one has to one has to submit to the text, using the rules of hermeneutics. The original writer had only one meaning in mind when the text was written, it is our responsibility to determine what that meaning was, not what our own understanding to it is.
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When believers interpret a passage differently (either within a church or across denominations), how should they relate to each other in a way that promotes unity in the Body of Christ and yet continues to minister God’s Word with conviction?
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That’s a good question. Well with the help of the holy spirit we can discern what should be said and not. 1 COR 2:14 ESV
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When a brother or sister construe a passage of scripture differently, it’s important that we discuss the matter. And as others have mention, we do it in a loving, kind, and respectful way, and we do this by allowing the Holy Spirit to be our guide through the word of God. And we can do this by comparing scripture with scripture or even doing a word study to get the proper exegesis of the text.
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It's always important to pray and ask the Holy Spirit to guide you in Biblical interpretation and to help you have patience and kindness when discussing interpretations with other believers. I believe that if you lovingly communicate what you believe to be the meaning behind the passage, but are also willing to listen to what someone else’s thoughts are on the meaning, you can have a fruitful discussion without tearing each other down. The goal should be learning, encouragement, and challenging each other to grow closer to Jesus through discussing interpretations of Scripture.
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We need to interact with humility and respect and gentleness, but appeal to the classical historical grammatical approach to understanding what the scripture writer meant and how the reader in that day would have understood it.
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The Bible calls us not to be people of argument. One must provide respect in love without compromising one’s belief through faith. One must always speak truth in love.
