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Knowing There Are Rules
(Ver 1.1) I believe many times it is a good idea to review the basics and establish a firm foundation to build upon. In thinking about this topic of Bible Interpretation I thought I would review the obvious. Of course it may be obvious to me, but to a new Christian it might not be common knowledge, so here I go. There are rules to Bible Interpretation by God’s design. God has established rules and guidelines to follow and once we learn these, they often time become second nature and you don’t have to think about them in order to follow them automatically. It is much like the law of gravity, it doesn’t take us long to discover that if we climb in a tree and we slip, we fall quickly and hit the ground. I learned this as a kid in my backyard and I never forgot it. I didn’t want to disregard this law of gravity again. If you ignore God’s laws of Bible Interpretation, you might not get the wind knocked out of you physically, but spiritually it can be the same.
So what do we need to do first? Learn that there are rules to follow. Then learn what the rules are. Then follow the rules. This is not rocket science, just a simple truth about understanding the Bible and the author of the Bible. The same God that established natural and physical laws has also established spiritual laws. He lives by them and He expects you to learn them and apply them also. These are the basic principles that we all should live by everyday. We drive our cars using the traffic laws everyday. Normally once we learned how to drive and passed the test for the license we don’t go back constantly and review all of the laws that we learned every minute of the day while we drive. No, the laws and rules have become second nature and we follow them while we drive without even thinking about them.
I do not profess to know every rule of Bible Interpretation, but the ones that God has taught me, these I will transfer to you for your benefit. By reading the rest of these posts in this blog, you can learn some of the do’s and don’ts of Bible Interpretation and apply these to your study and improve your learning capacity, I guarantee it.
Genesis 1:14-19 Day 4 Part 4
We have been exploring the revelation of night and day, light and darkness and have discovered that these are symbolic elements that represent the state of the heart’s of men. We have explored the fact that God created a division between two different distinct groups of people which Jesus Christ implemented with His death and resurrection. One group is those who belong to Christ and are said to be the children of the light and the day. Those who don’t belong to Christ are those who walk in darkness live in the night. Let’s look at another verse that confirms this:
Romans 2:19 And art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness,
According to this scripture God writes to the church and declares them to be a guiding light to the blind, those who are in darkness. Right there we know that we the church are not in the darkness, but yet we are the one’s which can shine the light for those who are unable to see spiritually. What is blindness? It is the inability to see light. How is it that some people can see and understand the Bible and many others can’t? Here is the answer to that question:
2 Corinthians 4:4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
This verse of scripture contains so much revelation that it is difficult to stick to the point at hand. However, it declares that the “god of this world” has blinded those who are in darkness. Let’s stop right there and determine who is the “god of this world”? Most of you should already understand that this is Satan, the dragon, the serpent, the devil, the deceiver, the thief, the accuser of the brethren, the adversary, the father of lies, Beelzebub, Lucifer and I could go on and on. This enemy of God and the church goes by a bunch of identities and names in the Bible but they all direct us to one spirit being called Satan. The verse in 2 Corinthians 4:4 tells us that there are those who are in spiritual darkness because of this enemy that has caused them not to believe. It in effect says that Satan is blocking the light from shining in so that they are not able to see spiritually. It also confirms that Jesus Christ is the light or the Sun that is trying to shine in on the hearts of those men in the darkness.
I hope you are grasping the powerful symbolism that Genesis is providing us. What we are beginning to see is two different rulers, two different gods, one god of this world and one God our Lord Jesus Christ. Two different kingdoms, one of light and one of darkness. Two groups of people those who live in the night who are unable to see and those who walk in the light and can see where they are going. It is a profound symbolic representation of the spiritual state of two completely different groups of people. We will continue more in the next lesson and hopefully finish up day 4.
Genesis 1:14-19 Day 4 Part 3
I knew this day would take a lot to explain and even more effort on your part to understand. But I’ll do the best that I can in a limited space to teach you as much as I can. In the last lesson we concluded with the revelation of the identity of Sun as being Jesus Christ. Before we move on to the moon, let’s back up and address the purpose of Day 4 from God’s perspective. We saw that Day 4 was an emphasis of a division occurring. I believe the divisions already existed back from at least Day 1 when God said let there be light. The implication of Day 1 was light did not reach the surface of the planet and therefore darkness prevailed upon the face of the earth. When God said let there be light He allowed the light to penetrate into the darkness. This is probably a mixture of my personal opinion and the implied references found in the word of God. Unless I find some scripture to back that statement I really don’t expect you to believe it.
Back to the subject of Day 4. We can see in the scripture the reference to the existence of two distinct realms or dimensions. One is called “Day” and the other is called “Night”. I think it would be good to look at the symbolism of these two divisions. Let’s start with the obvious, the day is the time where we experience the presence and warmth of the sun and it’s light. The night is the period of time when normal people sleep and the sun is not present. One division has the sun light and the other does not. From what we have seen Jesus Christ represents the Sun. Scripture also tells us that God is light. We can already begin to see a spiritual reality being stated. The day is for those who are in the light of the Sun of God, the night is for those who are without God. Do you understand this? This is the division that took place when Jesus died on the cross and after He arose.
In 1 Thessalonians 5:5 God writes to the church and says to them “You are all children of the light and children of the Day…”. I already mentioned this next verse in the last lesson, but I’ll show it to you again in 2nd Peter 1:19, God writes that “The Day will dawn out of the darkness and the Day Star will shine in our hearts.” I know I paraphrased that verse a little bit but I didn’t change the meaning. God is saying that Christ will dawn in our dark hearts and light them up with His light and cause us to be the children of the light. Let me give you one final scripture from Romans 13:12 God tells the church “the night is far spent and the day is at hand, let us therefore cast off the works of darkness and put on the armour of light”. All of the key elements are mentioned, day, night, darkness and light. Where do you stand today? The Day and Light symbolism goes through out the New Testament. You are welcome to study it and find out how the physical characteristics of the night and day are symbolic of the spiritual conditions of men’s hearts.
So we have established the identity of the symbolic night and day as being the spiritual condition of men’s heart. In our next lesson we will continue to expand the identities of the other symbolic elements that we have found in these verses.
Understanding Bible Interpretation! Getting God’s Definitions!
(Ver 1.2) This is Part 6 in the study series of Correct Bible Interpretation Rules. If you have not read from the beginning I would recommend that you go back and start reading with “Part 1” first. The last time I taught on this subject of Bible interpretation rules we talked about a very specific type of erroneous interpretation called the private interpretation. We of course now realize that a private interpretation simiply is one that is dominated by our opinions and they contain our personal subjectivity in determining the meaning of what we have read in the Bible. If you are smart you will realize that your opinion is not what is important to God or to me. Just as my opiniion should not be important to you. God is not going to ever ask our opinion on what we think the Bible means. You do realize that, don’t you? So as a result we discovered that we should let the Bible interpret itself. What we think has no determination on the final outcome of what truth is. God is so smarter than all of us combined and He wrote down very specific words that mean very specific things and we should find out what He said and what He thinks and then we should go by that as being the truth only.
So here is a related topic to no private interpretations allowed. Let God define the Words in the Bible and not you or even Daniel Webster. I look up words all the time in dictionaries to learn what they mean, but I have found that God’s definitions of these words are many, many times not in the dictionary. Let me give you a couple of quick examples. We have been studying the 1st chapter of Genesis and it refers to the 6 days of creation and then the 7th day when God rested. But if you have been following the lesson, the term “day” is defined a little bit differently in the Bible. When the Bible says “A Day is…” that indicates a direct definition is about to occur. It is about to tells us what God thinks a day is equivalent to.
2Pe 3:8 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
So if God says a day is as a 1000 years and that a 1000 years is as 1 day we can attempt to apply this definition to the scriptures we find “day” mentioned. I know this doesn’t work everywhere all the time but it does help us in many places, especially Genesis the 1st chapter. The difficulty comes when we realize that words have multiple definitions and this is the same with Bible words. We are going to have to use the word in context to see if it fits. I know this defintion fits nicely with Genesis 1 based upon what else the Bible says on the subject. You can read about a coming 1000 year day of rest in Revelation chpater 20, for example. This day of rest is described as a coming event in Hebrews chapter 4. Therefore the clarification of a day being as 1000 years directly applies to Genesis 1 with ease.
Let me give you another example of when God’s definition is better than a man’s definition. In the 9th chapter of John, Jesus comes upon a blind man and his disciples start asking him questions of why. I’m not going to get into the details of this story just one comment that Jesus makes in answering the question. Jesus says “I must work the works of him that sent me…” in John 9:4. In reading this verse I automatically assumed like many others that healing the man was the work that Jesus was talking about because we can see that this is what Jesus did at least at first. If we look up the word “work” in the dictionary it would refer us to a manual labor task or a place of employment or occupation among other related meanings. Of course none of these definitions would help us to understand what Jesus did and why. What is work to God? What is God’s definition of work? Did you realize Jesus tells us the definition, if we only look for it. If we back up in the book of John to the 6th chapter and the 29th verse we can see God’s definition for what work is:
John 6:29 “This is the work of God, that we believe on him whom he has sent.”
That definition changes everything so dramatically about what we read in John 9 that it is almost ridiculous and it shows us why we should be looking for God’s definitions in the Bible and leaving our opinions and our definitions out of the mix. You can now go back to chapter 9 of John and reread the entire story based upon this new definition and you will see that God did accomplish this work. Jesus met up with the former blind man and asked do you believe in the Son of God (John 9:35)? The man asks who is that to Jesus and Jesus says it is who you are speaking to now. The man then says “Lord I believe”. This was the defined work of God demonstrated. Getting people to believe in Jesus in still our primary work today.
Let me give you one more example on getting God’s definitions to help you see that this is a very important subject to learn. We are all told in the Bible to expect eternal life as our reward. However, every spiritual being in the world saved or unsaved will live forever somewhere. Those that are saved will live with Christ and those that are not will be in hell. So what is the Bible defintion for eternal life? Let’s read God’s definition of eternal life for the believer:
Joh 17:3 And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
There is a direct explicit definition for eternal life in this verse and there is also an indirect definition for eternal death in this verse. Since every truth has an opposite truth associated with it, we can learn both definitions from a single verse. Eternal Life is us knowing the True God forever. We can conclude that Eternal Death is the opposite of not knowing the True God forever but knowing the false God Satan forever. These are very important definition of eternal ife and death. Because they came from God’s word and not the dictionary they contain truth that is unrefutable by human reasoning.
I just gave you three quick examples of letting God define the words we read in the Bible but there are so many others to be found in the Bible. It will help you so much in understanding what God wrote if you let God show you what those things mean. The Bible is one Book by one Author and He is smarter than I am. God Bless!
Correct Bible Interpretation Rules Part 5 — No Place for Private Interpretations
(Ver 1.2) This is now Part 5 in the series of lessons on Correct Bible Interpretation. If you have not read through this series from the beginning I would strongly suggest that you return back to “Part 1” first. I’ve been going through various rules and the keys to successful and correct Bible Interpretation and now want to touch on probably one of the most important rules that I have been shown by God. The ignorance and the misuse of this one rule gets more Christians into the hot water of error than probably the others all combined. It seems like humans are naturally opinionated and like to express their opinions usually very loudly. Whenever a person doesn’t understand what is being said, many times they close their eyes to it and attempt to come up with their own explanation of the meaning of the verse. This is called a private interpretation. The Bible actually warns us not to go there, but still this is a common human trait we all must face and conquer. Here is a definition of interpretation that I found on the web:
Interpretation: Opinion regarding a set of facts. A degree of subjectivity is involved on the part of the individual, based on his or her experience, personality, and biases.
Did you notice what that definition said? It said people often times use their own experiences, their personalities or their biases to determine what they think about a stated fact. I see ministers doing this all the time in what they teach. They are letting something external to the Word of God dictate what they believe it says. That is a very dangerous approach to take when studying the Bible. Here is a verse of scripture that I referred to earlier:
2 Peter 1:20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.
That is a critical word from God with far reaching consequences. It says we shouldn’t use our own private interpretations to explain God’s Word. The clear implication that is made is that the Bible interprets itself. Some would read 2nd Peter 1:20 and say that is a restrictive context that only applies to prophetic books like Isaiah or Revelation and other books that were written by God’s prophets. But I’ve got news for you that almost every book that I’ve studied has some very clear prophetic words recorded in them. It’s easier to find a scripture of prophecy than to find a scripture that is not prophetic.
So the bottom line, is if you don’t understand what is being said shut up and don’t try to teach it like you do. Unless you can find scriptures that back what you think is true and accurate leave it alone and don’t speculate. I’ve recently heard some ministers teach Revelation and they said some things that were clearly just their own opinions. The problem is when they stand up and teach it with authority like it is a word from God they influence others to believe a lie. This makes it much harder when God does reveal the truth for people to accept.
Here is another example of a private interpretation. Many in the body of Christ teach that healing went out with the death of the last Apostle. God doesn’t heal anymore, we have doctors that have replaced God. It doesn’t matter that they don’t have any scripture to back what they are teaching, the damage is done, people’s faith is destroyed and many Christians die as a result. There are more private interpretations of the Bible on the internet than there is the truth of God. That makes it extremely difficult to place the truth at the top of the list. I have heard men leave me comments and tell me why I am wrong over and over and almost everytime, it has to do with their private interpretation of the scriptures. Whenever you have to look for a reality outside of the Word of God by studying commentatires or history books, you have departed from the truth to teach a lie. Please learn to give God more credit than that. There is much more information in the Bible than what you currently know and understand. God help us all from people teaching their own opinions.
Genesis 1:4 Day 1 of Creation
(Ver 1.2) We are of course still in the beginning of the creation of our world system in God’s Day 1. It is important to note what God does on each day of creation. It is important to note the order of the events of creation. I believe from years of Bible study that each day of creation is a prophetic view into God’s overall plan for the future of mankind. I believe sincerely that each day of creation reveals something that either already occurred or will occur at a specific time in the natural timeline of man’s existence on the earth.
Isa 46:10 Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:
We learn these concepts from reading verses like Isaiah 46:10 that says God “declares the end from the beginning…”. From this information we understand that the story of the beginning of our world also reveals to us the end of our world and it’s timetable. Since we are discussing day 1 and a day is to the LORD is as a 1000 years we further understand day 1 until the end of day 6 have already passed by. It is only the end of Day 6 that is still occurring right now. Then we will learn that Day 7 will be the coming millennial day of the LORD described in the book of Revelation. You might say I’m jumping to conclusions and making some radical assumptions, but nevertheless I will stand by that statement. I hope as we continue to go through this chapter that you will begin to see it also.
Gen 1:4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
So what did God do on the first day of creation? God looked at the earth and saw darkness and said “light be”. According to Genesis 1:4 God informs us that this first act was done in order to “divide” light from darkness. That is a amazing revelation if you choose to understand it. We know from 1st John 1:5 that God is revealed to be “light” and then the verse goes on to teach us that in Him is no “darkness”. If we search the Bible using our Bible Search software we should look for verses containing the words “light”, “darkness”, “day” or “night”. These verses connect us to a revelation of a spiritual realization that we can see being initiated first in Genesis 1:3-5. If God is Light, what is darkness? We all understand that darkness is defined as the absence of light. Therefore, spiritual “darkness” would include anything not being a part of God.
The implied meaning of this verse is that God has separated himself (God=Light) from darkness (Eph 6:12). Let’s look briefly at the word “divide” in the Hebrew. According to Strong’s the Hebrew word H914 means to “sever”, “separate”, “divide asunder”, “make a difference”. This word implies a cutting into two pieces using a sharp knife. I could probably go into a lot more detail right here but that might just cloud the issue. What we should take away from the 1st day of creation is that there was a plan of God implemented for the separation of light from darkness. I will also mention this for the sake of argument later, if the world was introduced to light on day one the “sun” has to also already exist doesn’t it? It is an interesting puzzle, but one that we will address later.
Correct Bible Interpretation Rules Part 4 — Introduction to Symbolism in the Bible!
(Ver 2.2) This is Part 4 in the series of Bible lessons on Correct Bible Interpretation Rules. If you have not read this series from the beginning it would be advised that you go back and start reading at “Part 1” first and continue forward through the series. Getting a firm grasp on God’s usage of symbolism is very critical to correctly understanding and interpreting the Bible. Many times we read the Bible and see the mention of something that can be taken either literally or symbolically and this makes correct Bible interpretation infinitely more complex. The Bible is full of symbolism from the very 1st chapter of Genesis to the very last chapter in Revelation. We will eventually discuss why God uses symbolism but for now let’s attempt to define what it is. I like to view symbolism as a method used by God to convey hidden spiritual information in a coded format or reference. Symbolic Bible reference almost always describe concealed and hidden spiritual things using the terms, descriptions, names or titles of natural things, events or people that we all should be familiar with or at the least should be able to look at them and then learn to understand them with study. For example, have you ever seen God? No, God is a hidden spiritual being and the Bible says no man has ever seen God, but yet for you to get to know who God is, He describes Himself in the terms of natural things like the Sun so that we can understand Him and learn about His hidden qualities.
If while you are reading the Bible you encounter a reference to something or someone that doesn’t make a lot of sense to be a real physical entity it would be a good time to ask is this a symbolic reference to a higher spiritual truth. Let me give you an example in Genesis 3, the Bible speaks of a creature called the serpent in Genesis 3:1. Most Bible scholars agree that this is Satan, but the controversy comes when they attempt to say that Satan appeared in the garden of Eden as a physical snake. If you ever attended Sunday School as a child you have seen the picture of a naked man and woman in the garden with an apple in their hand and a talking snake near them tempting them. I guess this is the picture that these verses in Genesis 3 have conjoured up within the minds of men and women who have read the story. I could give you several scriptures in the Bible that directly contradict this account that helps us to see the real meaning behind this symbol, but I guess because of the time it would take to do that, I won’t go into that level of detail until we get to those verses in Genesis 3 later. What I will say is that this serpent in Genesis 3 is a symbolic reference and not an actual literal physical talking snake and you will have to wait for why I know this until later.
Please realize that the first three chapters of Genesis are heavily covered with symbolic references and not literal references. God is attempting to teach you about spiritual things and not about natural things and this is the failure that many Bible students fall into by simply ignoring which references are natural and which ones are just symbolic of a much greater spiritual reality. The book of Daniel has many symbolic references throughout the book. The beasts seen in the visions, are all symbolic of earthly empires and spiritual beings behind them. The book of Revelation is literally the most symbolic book that I know of. There are very literally few things in the book of Revelation that are mentioned that are not symbolic of something that is spiritual. You can find Daniel’s beasts repeated in Revelation, you can find the serpent from Genesis 3 repeated and finally being revealed to who this was in Revelation 12. There are two major symbolic women in Revelation, one in Revelation 12 and the other in Revelation 17 called the Whore of Babylon. There is another symbolic city called a woman in Revelation 21 named the New Jerusalem and the bride of the Lamb.
I hope that you understand symbolism and can learn to identify God’s usage of this technique. God Bless!
Correct Bible Interpretation Rules Part 3 — The Bible Is Not Complete!
(Ver 1.2) This is Part 3 in the series of Bible lessons on Correct Bible Interpretation Rules. If you have not read from the beginning of the series I would recommend that you go back and start with “Part 1” first. This is one of those obvious Bible facts, but sometimes it is really good to state the obvious for public general knowledge and for clarification to help avoid misunderstanding. The Bible does not contain a complete story, account or description of anything, anyone, any place, or any event within human history. The Bible omits more details than it includes on any subject given to us by God. I believe God puts only the most relevant and pertinent facts in the Bible that He wanted us to see and know and that He omitted whatever He felt was not important or too dangerous for us to know at that time. For example it is very clear that Genesis is not a complete account of creation. The Old Testament is not a complete account of the natural nation of Israel. The Gospels are not a complete account of the life and ministry of Jesus. The book of Acts is not a complete account of the early church. The book of Revelation is not a complete account of the end. On and on I could go. What we must begin to realize is that the facts and information given to us in the Bible are all extremely important and then we must learn to focus on what they say or don’t say in order to understand what God wanted us to know. Did you notice what I just said? There is more than one way to learn from what God wrote in the Bible. One direct way is to learn what was written to us. The other indirect way is to observe what was not written to us. Wow that could get really complex, couldn’t it?
In the book of John the 20th chapter and the 30th verse it says there were many other things that Jesus did that were not written for us to see. Why were some things recorded and other things not recorded. Correct Bible study and interpretation is certainly more complex and involved than anything that you can imagine.
Joh 21:25 And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen.
Notice what God declares to us in this last verse of the book of John. God very clearly states that the world could not contain the volumes of information that were performed and spoken by the Lord Jesus Christ. That just amazes me tremendously. God was obviously highly selective to which words that He wanted us to see and understand. It certainly does not belittle the words that were not included but God placed great value upon these words that were written to us. Seeing the value of these words has been the theme of the last two lessons on Correct Bible Interpretation. If you do not value God’s Words then you will never correctly understand them.
Understanding that God has written the Bible using a technique of limited and confined information is one of the keys to unlocking the meaning. Look at the Bible as a single piece of the pie from the much larger complete knowledge of God’s wisdom. Gaining a correct perspective of the Bible will great assist in the correct interpretation of the Bible. This technique of limited information displays the extreme intelligence of God and His ability to say a great deal in a few words. Often it is not the amount of the words but rather the purpose and content of what was spoken that makes them most valuable to us. I hope you are grasping the significance but we have only initiated the subject of Correct Bible Interpretation. We will continue on in the next lesson and learn more important concepts.
If you would like to continue reading about Correct Bible Interpretation please go to “Part 4” now.
Correct Bible Intrepretation Rules Part 2 — Recognizing that Every Word of God is Important!
(Ver 2.1) This lesson is Part 2 of the Correct Bible Interpretation Rules series. If you have not read from the beginning I would recommend that you start with “Part 1“. In this series I discuss the proper approaches and rules to interpreting and understanding what God has given to us to know. When reading and studying the Bible, I have learned that it is absolutely critical to pay close attention to every word that is written. If it wasn’t important, God would not have written it down for us to read and study. Think with me and consider the fact that God could have written us any words and these are the ones that the most intelligent being in the universe wrote down for you to personally read. That tells me that God thinks they are important. Did you ever notice that God pays attention to the smallest details in your life? The Bible says He knows how many hairs are on your head (Mat 10:30). Since this number changes on many people’s head daily this is an amazing attention to some details that we do not even know. That is an amazing revelation to the level of detail that God is interested in you. If He cares that much for you, I believe that He expects you and I to care that much for Him and His words.
2Ti 3:16 All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
This scripture in 2 Timothy 3:16 informs us, that every word of God is important for us to see and learn. If you continue reading in the next verse you will that it claims that these words will help a man to grow up spiritually and become mature to do great works. Sometimes I think we either do not understand what this means or we forget that this is true. Especially when we read through boring genealogies or lists, laws or something that we are not interested in. Does “ALL” mean every word? I believe it does and we need to read it like God is saying something very important to teach us or correct our life’s course.
Luk 4:4 And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.
You can clearly read from the mouth of God some words that are extensively ignored by some Christians. According to God Himself, He says that man will only live by knowing every Word of God. God is comparing His Word to that of symbolic natural bread. It just so happens that I really like bread so I can relate to this analogy and type of symbolism with ease. You see I also like the Word of God and that is what makes me different than a lot of people. What I want you to see is the emphasized qualifier in this verse that it states that “EVERY” word of the Bible is important to feed on spiritually. The next time that you read a genealogy like in Genesis 5 you should change your attitude towards it and find out why God put it there and then try to learn what it means. When I discovered that the Genesis 5 genealogy had a hidden message within it, I changed how I looked at the Word of God. Suddenly every word seemed to have more significance and meaning attached to it than I ever realized before. I began to look at every word differently and just because I did not understand why it was there, it did not deter me from taking away what I could find out about it and then making notes about what I still needed to learn. Writing down your questions and praying to ask God to answer them will open the door for Him to show you what they mean.
Maybe I’m different than you are. I learned as a computer programmer to pay close attention to every jot and tittle that existed within the programming text. Every bit and byte of information had great significance to whether the program that I wrote worked or failed. Believe it or not, this is what God is trying to teach you today about the Bible. Become a detail oriented person in your Bible study and it will change your point of view and I will guarantee that you learn more than you ever have before. Learn to feed your spirit on every word of God and treat them all as being valuable for your life. There is a famous quote that states “Success is in the details” and I believe this more today than I ever have. I hope you do this also! Ignoring little details will most often lead us into errors of wrong interpretation. Taking a portion of a verse out of context is often a main way people fall into error.
I thank you for reading this short lesson on Correct Bible Interpretation. It had only one main point and I pray that you understood the significance. If you would like to continue reading in this series please continue to the next lesson called “Part 3“.
Correct Bible Intrepretation Rules Part 1 — No Verse Stands Alone
(Ver 2.1) This is Part 1 of a series of lessons on Correct Bible Interpretation. In this series I try to present basic rules governing correct Bible interpretation. Today is a very simple rule to learn and to follow, yet so many have totally missed it. Everyone needs to understand that no single verse of scripture is an island. You might not understand that analogy but what I mean is that no verse of scripture is independent of the rest of the scriptures in the Bible and stands alone. So many people read one scripture and get so excited by what it says they seem to forget how it fits with the rest of the Bible. As a result of an overabundance of enthusiasm for the one solitary verse they have taken it and tried to treat it like God didn’t say anything else in the whole book. Many take a single verse of scripture and change it into a verse named Robinson Crusoe and have stranded it on an island in their mind. This kind of reasoning makes the Bible very easy to change the meaning into saying something that it does not say. If you isolate any verse in the Bible you can make the Bible say some very bad things. This is a common error found in incorrect Bible interpretations everywhere. Here is a verse of scripture that Jesus taught us and it actually says a lot about this subject that I am talking about today:
Mat 4:4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
What you can see is that Jesus contrasts two realities, physical food and the Word of God. God compares both of them to be essential, but for the later to have precedence over the former. In this verse Jesus says one key word that is essential to apply correctly. This word is “EVERY” and that implies you better know more than one verse on any subject. It is clear to me that the Word of God is spiritual food and you must feed on it as often as you do natural food in order to grow strong spiritually. If you are only feeding on one verse then you are probably being starved spiritually. If you are focused on one verse only, you are ignoring the rest of God’s comments on the subject. Here is another very relevant verse for this subject of isolated verses:
2Co 13:1 This is the third time I am coming to you. In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established.
God tells us that every word that we believe must be based upon more than one witness. A witness is someone who speaks the truth in a court case or a trial. A witness is always sworn to tell the truth and the whole truth and nothing but the truth. This is a Bible basic concept of correct Bible interpretation. Do not take one verse which is one witness and teach anything. Go and search the Bible for a corresponding witness to the verse. Many times this is one verse from the Old Testament and one verse from the New Testament. Other times it is two or three verses in just the New Testament. What we find in doing this is that God’s truth is rightly divided based upon our ability to find multiple witnesses in the Bible of what we have read. This is why some people are very foolish in their practice of handling snakes in their church services because they found one verse in Mark that they think says for them to do this. That is STUPIDITY gone to seed bursting forth into great error!
What we should be doing is asking how does this verse that I found fit into the Bible’s big picture? How does this verse relate to the other verses on the subject? What else does God and the Bible say about this subject? Can I find more than one witness in the Bible in order to declare this verse a truth? This is the way God designed the Bible and this is how the Bible works. If you learn these concepts they will help you tremendously in changing how you study the Bible.
If you would like to continue reading in this series of lesson concerning correct Bible interpretation please continue to the next lesson Part 2.
Genesis 1:1 Part 2
Gen 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
(Ver 1.2) This is Part 2 in the series of Bible lessons on Genesis chapter 1. If you have not read this from the beginning I would suggest that you go back and start with “Part 1” first. Genesis 1:1 is not a long verse but yet it contains profound information about creation and the creator God as we learned in the first lesson. Bible scriptures can be viewed in at least two different ways and probably more than that, if you think about it. There are actually many ways to view every scripture, there is a natural perspective, a literal perspective, a symbolic perspective and a spiritual perspective to name just a few possible ways to interpret verses. There will always be explicit truths that are given in every verse as well as the implicit or implied truths that are indirectly derived from studying the verse. The first verse in the Bible tells us explicitly that there was a stated beginning and that it was initiated by a creator God. What we learn from this explicit definition is that the beginning of all time and all physical matter occured in this single verse. The implications of this verse are of course enormous and very significant for us to understand also. We can learn by implication that it would have required an all powerful being to create everything that we can see in our vast universe. We can further learn that it would have required a being of tremendous intelligence in order to create the complex systems, physical laws and all of things that we have learned through modern science and technology.
One of my goals to teaching the Bible, is to help you learn how to study the Bible correctly. That of course is a subjective statement that is open to many different opinions. I really can’t help that people see things diferrently reading the exact same words. Just because something is different does not make it accurate or true, in fact it raises the point that someone is definitely wrong since both views if they conflict cannot be simultaneously correct. 
Therefore, while I teach you a subject I will occasionally introduce you to new concepts, principles, laws that I follow for Bible interpretation to help you understand my approach. This might be beneficial to you based upon the old proverb that you can help a man temporarily by giving a man a fish, but to really help them long term you need to teach them how to fish for themselves. So me doing the study and telling you what I have seen is only a short term benefit if I don’t explain how I got to what I said. So today I will start by telling you two things that I observe in every verse that I study. First I pay attention to every word. I look up every word in the Strong’s dictionary to understand the definition of the word in the original language. I also search for that word usage in the Bible to see where else God used it to help me understand what else God says on the subject. Next, one of the key things that I observe is the order of mention. Every word of God is designed with purpose. Nothing is given to us int he Bible that is not important and the order of mention is many times as equally important or even greater to understand than the words that are mentioned. So let’s look at the words in this first verse of Genesis.
What else can we learn from this verse? Since we learned by explicit and implicit definition that there was a beginning to time, we can therefore conclude by logical definition that before this creation event of a stated time initiation point occured, the concept of time did not previously exist. Therefore prior to Genesis 1:1, God existed eternally and indendepntly outside of the constraints of the dimension of time when He created the time diemension. Modern astronomers have concluded from observation that the universe around us, is expanding at an astronomical rate of speed. They can look through their telescopes and see back into time literally millions of years or even longer. Several scientist have concluded that the universe can be mapped in reverse to a starting origination point they call the “Big Bang”. But, hardly any have concluded there was an external force that caused this bang to occur. What many of these same scientists call the “big bang”, the Bible just simply calls the beginning. Therefore, we can learn from science and from God’s Word that there was a single point event in the past where all matter originated from something which is not directly stated or revealed in this verse. This beginning was the stated central point of creation origination and most definnitely an explosive powerful event that was triggered by someone that we call God. We see three basic essential components for our existence in this verse of creation; these were space, time and all physical matter.
In reading and studying the Bible I often times observed that the words in a list of items are ordered or organized in either priority or time sequence. What I have derived from this information is that in verse one of Genesis, time is mentioned first (the beginning), space is mentioned second (heaven) and finally specific matter was mentioned last (earth). 
This would seem to imply that God created the concept of time first followed by the concept of heaven or space both before the concept of matter and our planet earth was created which makes the most logical sense to me. Therefore, the order of mention in a verse can have meaning. However, the concept of heaven is more complex than just a simple statement of space. This of course is a little difficult to discover in the Bible, but since I have spent significant time extensively studying the Bible I have discovered that there are three different realms or dimensions that are referred to using the same word translated as “heaven”. Two stated realms are physical and one stated realm is spiritual. While we can fairly easily understand what the “earth” repersenents in this verse, the term “heaven” could potentially refer to any of the other possible entities foud in the Bible; either the earth’s atmosphere, or the known physical universe or to the spiritual place where God’s throne resides today. This is where we need to introduce the concepts of contextual word asociation interpretation and consistent word interpretation so that we can correctly understand the meaning of one word by understanding the correct interpretation of another associated word in the same verse or chapter. Since we are on the very first verse in the chapter, we will narrow our interpretation to only other words found here.
Let’s take the the word translated as “earth”. This Hebrew word literally means “to be firm”. Thus it teaches us that it could be related to the existence of physical matter if viewed from a purely non-spiritual perspective. If the earth is a physical firm planet then the only correct interpretation of heaven in this verse must also be of the same like substance also being in the physical realm consisting of the surrounding bodies observable from the earth. If we tried to make both heaven and earth in this verse in spiritualrealm then we would need to ask where did God reside when He was making this spiritual realm? Since this does not logically make sense to me, I would have to conclude therefore, that heaven in verse 1 was not referring to throne of God in the spiritual realm since that is where God is when He created our natural realm. It is only logical to conclude that the spiritual God existed eternally somewhere before the creation of all physical matter and this must have been the spiritual realm called heaven which pre-existed the created heaven in verse 1.
There are other very basic implied opposite truths found in this scripture that we can learn from today. This is what I call the “law of antithesis” and there is much to learn using this logical concept throughout the Bible. This law of Bible interpretation states that for whatever truth that is directly stated in any verse, there exists an implied oppostie realm of truth that is not directly stated. This is a common theme of life. For every good there is an evil. For every negative there is a positive. For every east, there is a west. Therefore, if there was a stated beginning then there must also be an implied ending. We can also ascertain this by the direct hidden reference to the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet that we looked at in lesson 1 that describes the God who created everything. The implication is confirmed to us by what we read in Revelation when Jesus told us that He was the first and the last, the beginning and the end. There is coming an end and I feel very confident that it is going to be very soon. There is further the revelation that if time had a beginning that time will have an ending. Therefore, what exsited before time will be that which exists after time. Antithesis truth is really quite outstanding if you can see them.
I could have spent a lot of time looking up the Hebrew words and all of their references, but you can do that on your own. I feel that Genesis is one of those books that is greatly misunderstood. I have spent more time studying Genesis than almost any other book of the Bible. This book is rich with information that is essential to understand correctly. One key way to understand it is to see what God says in the other parts of the Bible where He gives us His professional commentary on the subject. This is called a “letting the Bible interpret itself” concept and that is a rarely found technique used by people to study the Bible. However, I have found that it is essential or you will remain in a isolated text mentality for Bible interpretation using only your failed human reasoning. I hope and pray that you are learning something about God’s Word today that you did not know before and not only that but are grasping new ways to study the Bible that will help you to see what God has given to us. God Bless you until next time.
If you would like to continue reading in this Genesis 1 Series you may go to “Part 3“.
Genesis 1:1 The Missing Word
Gen 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
(Ver 1.5) This is Part 1 in the Series of Bible lessons on the first chapter of the Bible in the book called Genesis which means beginnings. I will be stepping through the chapter almost verse by verse talking about specific things that I found interesting. I believe Genesis 1 is one of my favorite chapters of the Bible. I have read this chpater repeatedly and continue to see and learn new things that it says. In this series I will be emphasizing the importance of studying this information. I will further go into several important concepts on how to study this information properly. Finally, I will be addressing the significance in getting the correct interpretation of the information in order to understand correctly what was written. Genesis is the first of the five books of the law written down by the prophet Moses. All of the law was originally recorded in the Hebrew language. The law is often called the “Pentateuch” which is a Hebrew word that means “five books”. The name of the book “Genesis” comes from the Greek Septuagint which was the Greek translation of the original Hebrew text. The first occurrence of the Greek Word “Genesis” is found in Matthew 1:1 where it is translated as the “generations” of Jesus Christ. The book of Genesis is widely called the “book of beginnings” by the Holy Spirit and by many knowledgeable Bible teachers and scholars. The first chapter of the book of Genesis has been divided into 31 verses. Clearly the first chapter of Genesis reveals God’s personal involvement in the design and creation of our current natural world system. There is considerable hidden information found in this chapter and we will explore a significant amount of it in these Bible lessons. Before I start lesson 1, I want to bring in another N.T. verse statement that Jesus made speaking about the Old Testament verses that we will be studying to help you see what I just said about this hidden information:
John 5:39 Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.
The first thing that I would like to point out about studying any book of the Old Testament is that these books contain one central subject theme even though this subject was well hidden on the surface text reading of the information as you will begin to discover in this lesson. What I am referring to is the hidden spiritual content of Jesus Christ, the concealed central theme found in every book of the Bible. If you do not understand what Jesus said in John 5:39, it is obvious to me that you will not understand the book of Genesis correctly. Jesus told us to search for Him in the scriptures. The implied statement found in that information is that Jesus was well hidden in the words that are recorded if it is necessary to search to find Him. What I am going to do today is to show you one of these hidden references to Jesus in the first verse of the Bible.
Today’s lesson is the beginning of the discussion on verse 1. Verse 1 is not a long complex verse, but like many other verses God can say a lot using a very few select words. There is an amazing revelation found in the first verse of Genesis that most have never seen. Unless you can read and write in the Hebrew language you probably have not ever seen what I am about to talk about before. The fourth Hebrew word of the original Bible text is omitted and not translated into English. We can only assume that translators didn’t know how to translate the word so they ignored it completely. You see the problem is that this word is not a word at all and didn’t spell anything that they were familiar with. However it says something that is very profound when you understand what it is and what it means. Genesis 1 is comprised of exactly 7 Hebrew words and seven is the number associated with God. The number 6 is a number often associated with man. Therefore the omission of just one word changed the meaning of the verse dramatically. This omitted word falls between “In the beginning” and “God” in the English translation. So it appears to be an adjective that qualifies the noun “God” which is the Hebrew Word “Elohiym”.
This word is made up of just two letters in the Hebrew alphabet. The first letter is called the “alef” and second letter is called the “tav”. This still doesn’t appear to have any significance until you begin to understand that these are the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet and that changes everything doesn’t it? The verse should read something like this in the English “In the beginning the A-Z God created….”. Who is the A-Z God? Well of course this A-Z God can only be Jesus Christ who created all things. Let’s find the key that unlocks the mystery in the New Testament:
Rev 1:8 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.
You should begin to see that the O.T. pattern discovered in Genesis 1:1 for the first time is now repeated and even explained to us in the book of Revelation. In the first chapter of Revelation and the 8th and 11th verses, Jesus makes the following statements: “I AM, the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the ending”. Jesus repeats this statement in Revelation 21:6 and in Revelation 22:13. Since it occurs 4 times in the book of Revelation, it must have some very significant meaning to somewhere else in the Bible. We can quickly see if we become familiar with the Greek alphabet that Jesus has just identified Himself as the creator God. The Greek letters of “Alpha” and “Omega” are the first and the last letters in the Greek alphabet. Being a Hebrew, Jesus would have spoken this in His natural language and said I am the “Alef” and the “Tav”. But, since the N.T. Bible was written in Greek, it was recorded as the “Alpha” and the “Omega”. Jesus has just informed us that nothing happened or started in the world without Him and nothing will end in the world without Him either. Jesus confirms He is the reason we exist and that He created everything that we see. Jesus was intimately involved in the creation everything that we have and can do in this world and nothing will come to an end that He has not already done. So the first verse in Genesis 1:1 should read something more like this:
“In the beginning the A-Z God created the heaven and the earth.”
Now we can understand that the God of creation being revealed in this verse was the Lord Jesus Christ, the Alpha and Omega! I find that very important, informative and quite comforting information that everything that we can find in the rest of the chapter was done by Jesus our Creator. Keep this in mind as we continue to study through the rest of the chapter. We will eventually find Jesus hidden in other verses in this chapter also, but we will get to those soon enough. God Bless!
If you would like to continue to read and study in the first chapter of Genesis you may go to “Part 2“.
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