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The Rock Family Worship Center
Taking The Church Outside The Walls
The Rock Family Worship Center
Context Matters
Unlock the mysteries of Scripture by learning how to read it in context—it's not just a skill, but an essential practice for any believer striving to understand biblical truths. Ever wondered why different interpretations abound and how some verses seem to promise things they were never meant to? We challenge conventional wisdom and explore how context—be it immediate, historical, or literary—shapes our understanding and keeps us aligned with God's true message.
Instead of accepting teachings blindly, we encourage questioning and self-reflection. How does the gospel resonate with your personal beliefs and experiences? By examining potential discrepancies between traditional doctrines and individual interpretations, we foster an honest dialogue that bridges the gap between faith and personal understanding. Through meaningful questions and deeper engagement with Scripture, this episode aims to enrich your spiritual journey.
Understanding God's will and growing in faith are the ultimate goals of our exploration. We emphasize the critical role of honoring the context of His Word to avoid errors and deepen our relationship with Christ. With insights from 2 Timothy 3:16, we advocate for thoughtful comparisons between personal beliefs and biblical teachings, hoping to inspire a meaningful alignment with God's Word. Join us as we become faithful stewards of truth, equipped to navigate the complexities of Scripture with clarity and purpose.
and we've just been moving along, I mean pretty quick on some stuff and I've said this many times. I understand that a lot of stuff that we're saying does not align with traditional teaching, and the reason I'm saying that is because I can see your faces sometimes when we say something, and I do know people come on Wednesday nights questions you're asking and different things like that. So we know that it's not traditional. We know that it can be very, very challenging. So what I want to do is kind of slow down today. I hope you'll be okay with that and it's kind of like we've been chugging along. But I just want to stop today and just kind of settle in for a minute and look at what does it actually mean? When we talk about reading verses in context, we say it all the time that context matters. No matter what you're doing, you know context actually matters. So I got to thinking about it and we're throwing a lot of verses out here to you and we're so we and we're telling you what these verses, what we've always thought that they meant, and then we're coming back saying this is what it means biblically, and we're taking and looking at the Greek and the Hebrew and different things and we're not really explaining how to do that. How do I take this verse and break it down and really look at it in context? So that's what I want to do today is really just slow down and look at that. I've got a couple of things. I asked Ron to bring the board out. I said it last week. Sometimes you see something and it kind of sticks a little bit more than just hearing about it. So we'll go over a few of these in just a few minutes. I'll slide it back because I will trip over this.
Speaker 1:Let me start out this morning with one verse. I want to open up with this verse. I want you to really keep this verse in your mind this morning 2 Timothy 2, verse 15. We're going to launch from this point. But it says be diligent. Be diligent To present yourself approved to God, not approved by God. Approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed.
Speaker 1:Here's the key part of it Rightly dividing the word of truth. I believe the church as a whole has really slipped in this area. I believe we have confused people. I believe we have tried to make the word say things that it really don't say, because we want it to fit the narrative that we put in place or the church has put in place. And I think we have really got people to a point of really pushing people away from the church. And I'll be honest, because what happens? We preach so many verses out of context and then, when this person don't see this thing that they thought that they was going to see, all of a sudden they get mad, they get angry and really what it is is did you read the verse in context? Did that verse really say what we were saying? That it said so it makes a difference, but it says here rightly dividing the word of truth.
Speaker 1:The Bible is, without a doubt, god's word. I hope everybody in this room believes that it's, without a doubt, god's word. It's living, it's active, it's revelation To his people. I won't even get into that. Something just hit me, but I won't get into it because I'll get off my notes.
Speaker 1:Misunderstanding and misinterpretation when we start looking at those things often arise when we fail to read Scripture in context. One of the most crucial tasks for every Christian is, as that verse says, to rightly divide the Word. And again, I want you to understand I'm not going to do my best not to preach this morning. I want to just slow down and really look at a couple of verses. I'm going to pull out a few verses this morning. That's very common verses. Everybody knows them. You can probably quote them. But we're going to look at the way that we've probably misapplied them, misinterpreted them, and what the true interpretation of that verse is and how we need to look at it.
Speaker 1:Because what happens is when we don't rightly divide the Word, when it's not without context, when we're taking it out of proportion, we risk distorting God's Word and distorting God's word and distorting God's message that he's sending through the word. Remember we said the word was written for us but it wasn't necessarily written to us and we've got to understand what that means. When we say that, that means the word is important for our lives and the way we live our Christian life and the way we walk things out. But we can't take everything in the Bible literal and we can't take every verse in the Bible and say he is talking to me here in 2024. Because if I do that, I'm going to misapply that verse Because he was not talking to me. He might have been talking to the people of the church of Ephesus or the people in the Corinthian church, and there may be something I can take from it, but he was not speaking directly to me during that time.
Speaker 1:So today we're going to explore how to read Scripture in context and why this approach is vital in understanding God's truth. So what does it mean to read Scripture in context? I wrote this up here because I want you to really see it. There's different contexts when you look at it. There's immediate context, historical context, literal context, literacy and biblical context.
Speaker 1:When I was sitting there reading this and looking over it, I said I want this to make sense. I want to come up with a way that somebody can just remember this, that when you read a verse I can boom, boom, boom, boom. I can go through these four contexts, I can remember what they are. And I got to looking at these words and I said I'm in black, I'm his biblical light. I know that's lit, but just act like there's an E on there. I'm his biblical light, because we should be. We say it so often. You may be the only Bible that somebody that day may hear. Okay, so think about that. I'm his biblical light. Immediate context, historical context, biblical context and literary context. All of those things are important and I know some people they don't care nothing about this.
Speaker 1:Some people are going to sit there and say I just know the Word's truth and that's all I'm going to say, but they don't understand what they're saying. They're saying it but they don't really understand what they're saying. And especially if you're standing behind a pulpit saying it, you're confusing people and you're taking people to a place that God never intended them to be at, because you're saying something that God never intended them to be at, because you're saying something that God never intended with that specific verse. So if you look at an immediate context, what does that mean? It means the surrounding verses and chapter when I cannot take a verse and pull it out as what we call a standalone verse and just go on what that says in that one verse. I have to take that verse and look at the ones ahead of it, look at the ones behind it, look at the other verses in your Bible that it relates to. I cannot take it and just use it by itself. It's going to make perfect sense to me then if I do that, because that's what I want it to say and I'm going to make it say whatever I want it to, but is that really what God intended it to say? That's the question. So we have to look at the immediate context.
Speaker 1:Next one is historical context. You have to look at the time, the culture, the audience, the circumstances that was going on when this text was written. I like to look at the time, the culture, the audience, the, the circumstances that was going on when this text was written. I like to look at it from this temple. Who was he talking to? Why was he saying this to him? And what I mean by that is whatever was being spoken to the corinthian church at that time. Why was he saying that? What was going on during that time period that made it necessary that paul had to write a letter to these people and correct them or encourage them or whatever? Whatever he was doing, why did he have to do that? There's a reason behind it. That's looking at the historical context of that verse. The biblical context is how a passage fits with other larger stories that you're reading about.
Speaker 1:Again, you can't take a stand-alone verse, pull it out and just make it mean what you want it to mean. It's got to fit. The Bible always will interpret itself. Scripture will interpret Scripture. There is nothing in here and I believe this. There is not a verse in this Bible that is going to contradict another verse.
Speaker 1:Now, I've done this over the last few weeks I've taken you to verses and I've read them, and then I've stepped over here and I've took you to another verse that seems like it's totally contradictory to that verse. Now, when I read that verse and I look at it and say, okay, this is contradictory. You know what I tell myself now because of this, I'm reading this thing wrong. I'm missing something in here. Because I know it's God's Word and God is not going to contradict in the Word. I have to believe that. Okay. Now, if I don't believe that, then I can just read however I want and be fine with it. But if I truly believe that the Word of God is the Word of God and it is not a lie, it is not contradicting other verses, then I have to ask myself where am I missing this at? Okay, so then you move to the literary context, the type of literature it is.
Speaker 1:Is it poetic, is it prophecy? Is it a narrative? Is it an epistle? What's an epistle? It's a letter that was written. He wrote epistles to the church, to the different churches. It was just a letter that they wrote to say, hey, do this or do that, or good job, or hey, pick it up. Whatever the letter said, it's just a letter that was written to the people, and some of them was apocalyptic, where there's different imagery used and different things, like that Mark of the Beast, all these different things. There's imagery and symbolism that's used in the Bible and sometimes I think we take some of that stuff so literal that we really miss the point of what's being said in it, because everything in here cannot be taken literal. So if you look at it from this standpoint, I'm His biblical light that will help you say how do I begin to.
Speaker 1:Ms Louise actually inspired this message. I'm putting her on the spot. She asked me some questions last Sunday. That was a good question. There was questions I want people to ask. But when I got to thinking about that after we talked, this message I'm putting her on the spot. She asked me some questions last Sunday. That was a good question. There was questions I want people to ask. But when I got to thinking about that after we talked, I said you know, I want people. I'm throwing these verses out there and I'm saying, look at it like this and don't look at it like this. But then I thought I'm not really telling how to do that. So that's what this is for today, to show you.
Speaker 1:When I'm looking at a verse and I'm standing up here saying that is not what that verse means, this is what I'm basing it off of. I wish I could just stand up and say, hey, I'm just so intelligent, I just know this. That's not it. I'm studying these. I'm studying other people, what they've said on it, people that I trust. I'm listening to what they say. And then I'm going back and I'm looking at it myself and saying what am I getting out of it? Because just because Tommy Miller or just because somebody else says it, I'm not going to take it as the truth, because it ain't become truth to me yet.
Speaker 1:I know when somebody, when some of those guys teach that, I know without a doubt that it's absolutely correct, because I trust them. I trust what Tommy said. I trust what Jamie Englehart's saying. I trust that they've studied this thing out. But guess what, if I haven't studied it out, it don't mean the same thing to me. I can't live off of somebody else's revelation, even though it's good, I can gain something from it and I can say, wow, I've never seen that before, don't really understand it, but it makes sense. So now I go back and I begin to break it down and say, yes, I know what he's saying. Now, that's why he's saying it. It sounds strange. Why? Because most people are not doing this. Most churches are standing up throwing scripture out and they're telling you exactly what it's always meant and they're never breaking it down to give you all of these different contexts of what it really means. Okay, so if you do this, if you choose to do this because context matters, you should and I'm trying to make it. I mean, this is actually really simple if you ask these questions. But that's what it's going to motivate you to do is ask questions.
Speaker 1:And some people are adamant this is the Word of God and I will not question it. That's ignorance. That is ignorance. The Word of God and I will not question it. That's ignorance. That is ignorance. The Word of God needs to be questioned.
Speaker 1:I need to say listen, I don't understand this. I have no idea what Paul's trying to tell these people. I have no idea why the Word says this, but my life ain't lining up with it. So if my life is not lining up with the promises of God's word, it is ignorance, not to say God. I'm missing it somewhere. Something is wrong. I'm not understanding this. I'm not getting it to the point that it's becoming active in my life and therefore it's not manifesting in my life, because somewhere I'm missing it. That don't mean you don't have intelligence. That don't mean anything negative. It just simply means we miss it at times.
Speaker 1:I'm going to show you some scripture today that I probably taught on at least two, three weeks ago and I missed it. I missed it the way I was teaching it, okay. So just keep this in mind, write it down, try it out, pick a couple of verses out that you're familiar with, that you know, you feel like you know what this scripture means, and then walk through this and find these four different types of context and then read that verse with this in mind and see what you get out of it. I think it will make a difference. But we have to be willing to ask those questions. What was the original author trying to communicate to the original? Listen? That's key. What was the original? Listen? That's the key. What was the original author trying to communicate to the original audience? Not to you, because you wasn't the original audience. You was not sitting there when Paul was writing these letters. You did not receive the letter because you wasn't living back then, but what was he trying to communicate to the original audience that he was speaking to? That's going to make a difference.
Speaker 1:How does the passage align with the overarching message of the Bible and our overarching message of the Bible? I think when you ask that question, I think you have to be real with yourself and say what is the overarching message of the Bible in my opinion? Because what I see the overarching message is the gospel, the good news. What I see the good news as is what somebody else sees the good news as may be totally different. Okay, because I've heard a lot of people preach good news. What they call good news and burning in hell is not good news to me. Being born again and living your life for Christ and doing all this stuff and going on mission trips you do everything right and then all of a sudden, right before you pass, you slip up and now you're going to burn forever that's not good news to me. Having to follow certain rules and regulations to be good enough is not good news to me. So what I consider the gospel and what somebody else considers the gospel may be totally different. So we have to be real with ourselves. We have to be honest with ourselves and say what is the gospel, what is the gospel message to me?
Speaker 1:Okay, the problem with what we're teaching right now is the gospel message that we're teaching is not always in alignment with what's always been taught, and it's disturbing to a lot of people. It really is. I mean, you'll get called all kind of stuff, all kind of things that get said about you, and that's okay Because I've got context to back up what we say in that matter. I love when you talk to somebody and they argue with you about it and you say, well, tell me the context. Well, that's just what the Bible says. Tell me about it. Well, that's just what the Bible says, and I believe the Bible.
Speaker 1:That's not an answer, that's a lazy answer. That means you really don't know. So you're just going to go off on God's Word. That's kind of like that thing people used to say when they don't really know what to say. They say, well, god knows, of course, god knows. We know that God knows. We know that God understands what's up. God knows my heart yes, he does. He created you. But that's not a good answer for something, that's not a good answer for my ignorance when I don't know something, just to say, well, god knows. Why don't I open up my mind a little bit and say you know, this is really not difficult, to just take these four little steps right here and say, even if I just do one, just one of them, and find a little bit of context, because I tell you, what's going to happen is when you find that context, then all of a sudden you're going to say wait a minute, let me go a step further, let me go a step. I know he was talking to this church, but what was he saying? And wait a minute, I see what he said. But now, why was he saying that? And now, before you realize it, you done covered every one of these and the verse makes more sense to you now and the true meaning of what God really meant begins to come out.
Speaker 1:When Scripture is taken out of context, it can do really three different things, and this is what I feel is happening in the church in a lot of places we either begin to misinterpret the Word, we create false doctrine or we misapply the Word. And I want to look at each one of them, because we throw these words out there. But do we really understand what we're talking about? If I look and say, oh, that person misinterpreted that word, that's a misinterpretation. If I don't really know what that means and understand what I'm saying, or somebody don't understand what I'm saying, it don't mean nothing. So when we're talking about misinterpreting a verse, it means assigning a meaning to a verse that was never intended, putting a meaning to a verse that God never intended on being there.
Speaker 1:Quick example right here. You ain't got to go here, but Philippians 4.13. I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me. That's a wonderful verse and we have taken that verse to. Really we've grabbed on to it. During times of stress and times that things aren't going good and everything, I grab on to that verse and I make it personal and I say I can do all of that. Okay, this was really not nothing to do with achieving personal gain. It was talking about enduring trials. Same thing in there. We want to overcome.
Speaker 1:But what we've used that verse for a lot of times is not really what it was saying. When you go and you start looking at the context of it, okay, what does it mean? To create a false doctrine out of something? Um, building theology on isolated verses rather than the full counsel of God, rather than reading it and looking at the whole thing, we take one verse and we build a theology around one verse. Can't do that. Okay, what's an example? Okay, we know that the word rapture is nowhere in the Bible. Okay, but the verse that people use out of 1 Thessalonians 4 that says that the people were being caught up, that's the verse that's used. One verse in the entire Bible. One verse has created a doctrine, a rapture theology. One verse Nowhere else in the Bible. Okay, there's something to think about Because of the words caught up. Those words caught up, they don't even mean going into the sky, but that's what's been taught over the years. We haven't done this. We just said because pastor said it or evangelist said it or somebody said it, that must be what it means.
Speaker 1:Then we can misapply the word misapplication, applying promises and warnings rather to specific people that it wasn't meant for. Think about how many people in today's society we condemn and we put them in a box and we judge them. We like to use the word judge, we put all this stuff on them and then we come back and we judge them. We like to use the word judge, we put all this stuff on them. And then we come back and we take the Bible and we hold it up and say because the Bible says so, and a lot of times we've taken that verse in the Bible and we've misapplied it to something. Jesus or Paul was talking to somebody back here and we've taken it and now we've put it on you and we've misapplied that verse to your life and we've caused people to get angry and hurt and leave the church because of it. Okay, so misinterpretation, false doctrine and misapplication it's important to look at those.
Speaker 1:I'm going to pull this verse out. I don't know if I mentioned it a while ago, but this is a very familiar verse Jeremiah 29 and 11. I'm going to pull it up. I know you know it, but I'm going to pull it up on the screen and let you see it Jeremiah 29 and 11. For I know the thoughts that I think. Towards you, says the Lord thoughts of peace and not evil, to give you a future and a hope. That's a very encouraging verse. Most everybody here has probably used this at some point talking to somebody or looking at yourself when you're going through something. I've used this verse many times to encourage people because there's things in there that we can take out of it. That's encouraging, for I know the thoughts that I think. Toward you says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.
Speaker 1:Okay, so let's just ask the question how could possibly this verse be misused? And a lot of times we say that God has a specific plan to prosper me individually. I turn it around and I take this and I put it on me and I say that God is talking in this verse about prospering me individually. Okay, but if you go back and you do this and you look at the proper context of it now we're not going to go step by step through it, but this is what you get. This was a promise to the exiled Israelites, assuming, assuring them that the restoration after 70 years in captivity in Babylon, that they still had hope, that they were going to be there for a while the broader principle of God's faithfulness is there. God is faithful. So I don't want you to miss what I'm saying. This verse is saying God is faithful. But it wasn't necessarily talking to me as an individual. He was talking to the people that were in exile and had been captured by the Babylonian people. Okay, so when you look at that, it changes things around just a little bit.
Speaker 1:This was part of a letter that was sent by the prophet Jeremiah to the Jewish people in Babylon. I will just look at this historical. How do you break it down? What's the historical context of it? In 586 BC, jerusalem had been conquered by the Babylonians and many Israelites were taken into captivity. What was going on during this time? Why did he say this? So we have to look at the historical context of what was going on.
Speaker 1:These exiles were struggling, listen to this with despair, with uncertainty and with false prophets claiming a quick return to their homeland. So here's Jeremiah's message to them. He wrote this, this verse, right here, and he wrote these other verses, and this is what he said. The letter instructs the exiles to settle down. Settle down, now, I'm not just talking about chill out. He literally told them settle down.
Speaker 1:Look at, I think it's verse 10. Go back to 10, just a minute. Nope, I'm sorry. Back to verse 4. 4 and 5. Look what he says right here. 4. Back to verse 4.
Speaker 1:So what he's saying right here is Thus the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all who were carried away captive, to all of you who were carried away captive, whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon, here's the key to it. Look at verse 5 right here. Build houses and dwell in them, live there, plant garden, eat the fruit. Verse 6 and dwell in them, live there, plant garden, eat the fruit. Verse 6. Take wives and begat sons and daughters, and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands so that they may bear sons and daughters, that you may be increased there and not diminished. He was telling these people live your life, don't give up. Plant gardens, build houses, have children, do all these things. Why? Because now, if you go to verse 10.
Speaker 1:Context here, for thus says the Lord after 70 years are completed at Babylon, you know how long they was going to be in Babylon 70 years. He told them that there was no guessing game right here of how long they was going to be there. He said you're going to be here 70 years, so live your life, enjoy it. I will visit you after these 70 years and perform my good work towards you and cause you to return to this place. And then in 29 and 11. The one we just read For I know the thoughts that I think towards you says the Lord Thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and to give you a hope. That's context of it. Now I know that verse seems awesome to put it toward us and broadly there is he's an awesome, faithful God. But context he was talking to people that was imprisoned in Babylon. It changes, but the context actually shows me what was he really saying, what was his intent right here in this message? So it does make a difference. So why does context matter? Again, it honors God's Word. It honors His Word.
Speaker 1:To misinterpret Scripture is to risk misinterpreting God. When we read in context, we respect the authority of God, we respect His Word and it actually we put across the true intent of what he was trying to say. Also, if we read something in context, what else is it going to do? It's going to deepen our understanding of the Word. Context illuminates the richness of the Scripture. I'm not just a surface Bible reader, but I'm digging into it and I'm getting the meat of it and I'm understanding the deeper things. I mean, think about this how many times this verse in Jeremiah 29, 11 is quoted? But now when somebody quotes it, you know you can say yeah, do you remember what was going on right here? That's when the people was in Babylon and Jeremiah wrote the letter to them to tell them chill out, calm down, live your life because everything's going to be good. You're going to be here for 70 years, but guess what? God has a plan and a purpose for y'all and man people's like turn. I mean, it digs you into the next level of what the Scripture's really saying. It builds unity.
Speaker 1:In truth, correct interpretation protects us from theological division. I believe that's what we've got in the church today is theological division. People are divided. Listen, I can't stand up in some churches and say this I could one time, but I wouldn't be back. You're not going to teach this in some churches. It's just not going to happen. There's certain people that don't get invited to speak at men's breakfast and stuff like that, because people hear you on Facebook, they hear what you're teaching and they're not going to invite you to teach to their congregation something that they feel like is contradictory to what is being taught. That's not saying we're better or they're worse or anything else. That's just saying when we're reading it in context it can really mess some things up. It can really throw your theology off a little bit.
Speaker 1:Let me look at one more verse right here Matthew 18 and 20. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there in the midst of them. Again, very, very encouraging verse. The misused interpretation a lot of times that we get is that God is present when we gather in group, where two or three are gathered. We use this verse I've used it a hundred times to try to get people to come to church. Come on, where two or three are gathered, we need you here. Nothing wrong with that. I'm not saying that we can't use it.
Speaker 1:But again, context matters. The proper context is this refers to church discipline and the assurance of Christ's authority in resolving disputes. This is just one of those verses that we use so often and we say it so much that it loses the truth of the verse and what it was really about. What did we do here? We took a verse and we applied a meaning to it. That was really not there. Guess what, if I come in this church tonight at 12 o'clock and there ain't none of you here, god's here with me. If you come in here, god's here with you. So it don't take two or three to be gathered together to all of a sudden say Holy Spirit and beg Him to come in and get Him to invade a place because we've got two or three gathered together. Now I believe that some things change when you gather together corporately. So don't misunderstand what we're saying. There's still truth in the broader context of that verse, but not in the way we have always preached that verse. So if you start with again, start with the immediate. What's the immediate context? Read the surrounding verses to understand the flow of thought. Right there I pulled one verse out right here. But if you start reading ahead and start reading below, now you've got the true, immediate context of what that verse is saying.
Speaker 1:You've got to look at the whole thing and ask yourself what is the author trying to say in this paragraph or in this chapter? What is he talking about? Study the historical and the cultural background. Who's the audience? Who was he talking to in this verse? What were the struggles going on? What was the customs of these people? What was the circumstances that were happening during this time that made him say this? We talk about the book of Revelation so much the book of Revelation, so much. The book of Revelation has been twisted and messed up. We use it to say so many things that God never intended it to say.
Speaker 1:The book of Revelation is filled with first century Roman persecution and apocalyptic imagery. If we try to take it and read it from a literal standpoint, that book don't make sense. I can't read it like that. I have to understand the history behind it and what was being said and who was being spoken to and what time frame was this written in? Because the people in the first century understood what was going on. If somebody had mentioned something about the revelation, they understood. Okay, there's the one I haven't talked about too much literacy. And looking at that and saying, what's the narrative? Is somebody telling a story? Genesis and Acts it's two books where they're telling a story. So you've got a narrative there.
Speaker 1:Some books, such as Psalms, is poetry. When you read it, you have to read it from the standpoint of poetry. It uses imagery and it uses a lot of emotion in there. There's books like Isaiah and Revelation, that's more prophetic books. So when you look and you read those two books, there's often a lot of symbolism and it's tied to specific historical events. What does that mean? They are speaking about something and they're prophesying something that you can go back in the Old Testament and you can see that it come into path. They're referring to something that has already happened a lot of times in the past and they're showing that this prophetic word came to pass. So again, what type is it? How's the book being written?
Speaker 1:And I know this stuff here is not exciting. This is not something that you just say. I see people yawning and I see people ready to go and I do understand that. Listen, this is not exciting. It's not exciting to teach, it really ain't. But I do understand that. Listen, this is not exciting. It's not exciting to teach, it really ain't. But I believe it's important because it's kind of like, if we don't get this, how can we keep throwing verses out there and keep showing you these verses? Because you know what's going to happen if we keep doing that. You're going to keep saying, oh, I don't know about that, I don't know about that, I don't know about it and there's going to start being division in the church. And that's what happens in a lot of places. The pastor is speaking one thing, the congregation hearing something different and now all of a sudden there's division because we're on different understandings of what we're saying. So I want to encourage you to just try to use these in a couple of verses and just see what you think.
Speaker 1:I said a while ago comparing Scripture to Scripture. Another example right here in the day of the Lord, in 1 Thessalonians 5, when you see those words the day of the Lord and you go back and you say, okay, where have I heard that at? What is that really talking about? If you look all the way through Matthew 24, he's talking about the day of the Lord. Let's go back to Matthew 24. You see it all through there. You start seeing all these other 1 Thessalonians and Matthew 24 being put together, where normally we just read this one over here and we read this one over here. Now context starts doing what, pulling these books together, and starts creating a flow to it, where you start seeing how this thing really makes sense.
Speaker 1:Reading Matthew 24 in context will change your life Matthew 24. If you don't read any other passages. If you will read Matthew 24, I'm going to challenge everybody to do that Just start in Matthew 24 and take these. I'm going to challenge everybody to do that. Just start in Matthew 24 and take these. I'm going to leave this out back so people can take a picture of it if you want to, but if you'll take these, just read a few verses in Matthew 24. Read the whole chapter, but begin to use this. It will change your life. It will change your theology. It will change your viewpoint on how you look at things, because there's actually here's what most churches are teaching A futurist theology. What does that mean? Someday in the by and by, somewhere way out there, one day, it's in the future. Everything's in the by and by, somewhere way out there. One day it's in the future. Everything's in the future. It's a futurist theology. You know why most Bibles are contradictory to the Greek and the Hebrew when you're really going back and studying that? Because it was written from a futurist perspective. So everything was. One day, this is going to happen.
Speaker 1:Preterist the Latin word preter. It means past, beyond it's already done. Now. I don't encourage you to get too far into this. Past Beyond it's already done. Okay. Now, I don't encourage you to get too far into this, because there's two types of what's considered a preterist there's a partial preterist and there's a full preterist.
Speaker 1:Partial preterist is, if I had to understand it now that's what I've come to understand myself as why? Because I believe that the majority of the stuff that we're waiting on has happened in AD 70. Biblically, you can show it. Okay. Now I believe there still is a return of Christ and different things. So a full preterist believes everything has happened. We ain't waiting on nothing. I don't believe that. I don't believe that, but I believe a lot of what we're waiting on, a lot of what futurists are waiting on to happen, has already occurred, and a lot of times it's occurred simply because we misinterpreted what we were waiting on to begin with. We're waiting on the earth to burn up and blow up and whatever, and pass away. When, really, when you talk to a first century Jew, they understood heaven and earth to be the temple. So when the temple fell, heaven and earth, they understand that it's being passed away.
Speaker 1:The old covenant was made obsolete during that time, for the old old covenant was made obsolete during that time. For the old covenant to be made obsolete, a new covenant had to be installed. Jesus come to put in place a new covenant and it didn't all happen on the cross. There was a 40 year period from the time of the cross in AD 30 to AD 70, 40 years, he said it'll happen in this generation. 40 years as a generation. It was a process, but you only get that when you start reading the Bible in context. That's the only way that you're going to see that.
Speaker 1:I've been accused and I know other people I know my brother has, I mean different ones of being New Age. That's a New Age teaching, okay. And I got to thinking about that the other day because I used to argue with people that ain't New Age. And then I sat there the other day and I thought you know, this is New Age, not the New Age. They're talking about the New Age, science and everything. But guess what? When the old covenant see, we wasn't waiting on the end of the world, we was waiting on the end of the age. Go study that out, you'll see that it wasn't talking about the end of the planet, it was talking about the end of the planet, it was talking about the end of the age. What was the age? It was the covenant period of the Mosaic Law. So when did that end? It ended in 70 AD, when it was done away with with the destruction of the temple.
Speaker 1:So when you do away with the old age, guess what kicks in A new age. We are living in the new age. We are living in something that is different from what it used to be. It's not the same as it used to be. We are not bound by all these mosaic laws anymore. I don't need anybody to walk into the Holy of Holies and get in touch with God for me. I don't have to do things a certain way to be accepted by God. That's old Mosaic law. It's done away with. It's obsolete. Yes, it was important at that time, but it's done away with it's obsolete now. It doesn't matter in the new covenant.
Speaker 1:So when you look at this the futurist and the preterist this is the future versus the past, what's already been done, and there's a lot of misinterpretations because of the viewpoint that I have here. Many interpret Matthew 24 as entirely about the future apocalypse. There's going to be an apocalypse and there's going to be all these things that's going to happen in the future. And that's the way when they read Matthew 24, everything Matthew 24 is about the future. According to somebody who has a futurist theology, everything's in the future Historical context.
Speaker 1:If you just take this and begin to read Matthew 24, jesus was addressing his disciples about the destruction of Jerusalem temple in AD 70. That's real, really clear to see. In there he said this generation will not pass away until these things have taken place. He didn't say the generation in 2000 years. He said this the people. Who was talking Jesus? Who was he Jesus? Who was he talking to His disciples? What time frame was he talking? In first century, and he said this as in you disciples, until this happened. So he was talking to them.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you can see the reason I'm saying this is. You can see if I use a futurist mindset and lens to look at this verse. This verse does not make sense to a futurist and the only thing I can come up with to say is one day, one day. That's it why? Because you don't know, and that's the truth. That's not an arrogant answer. You don't know Because you're looking at it from a different perspective. The immediate audience would see these events primarily fulfilled in the Roman siege of Jerusalem If you was talking to first century Jews, they would understand exactly what you was talking about here.
Speaker 1:21st century Christians have no idea. First century Jews would have understood this. I've said this many times and I believe this If we taught our theology, our escapism theology, to the disciples, if they were sitting right here, they would not understand what we were talking about, because that is not what they taught and it's not what Jesus taught. They would not understand it. Let me get ready to end right here.
Speaker 1:Last thing I'm talking about is application, living out Scripture in context. We have to recognize that we have biases and we've got to rely on God's Word. I realize that I am biased when it comes to these two views. So if I'm talking to somebody who has a futurist view, I'm biased because I don't have one. I believe a lot of the things that they're looking at in the future is in the past. So I'm biased in that area. But I'm biased and I got Scripture to back me up. A futurist would say the same thing, and the only difference between what both of us are saying is I can go back in context. If they go back in context, you know what's going to happen. They're probably going to start agreeing with this because they're going to say well, jesus did say that he was talking to those people. Oh, I've never seen that before. Now the viewpoint begins to shift, so it does matter.
Speaker 1:Last thing here the ultimate goal of reading the scripture is, in context to know God better, to grow in faith and live according to His will. By honoring the context of His word, we can be faithful stewards of the truth, avoiding error and deepening our relationship with Christ. I want to close with one verse right here 2 Timothy, 3 and 16. And these things too are not for just to cause debate with people, although it's fun sometimes to talk to people and show them this stuff. It says All Scripture is given by inspiration of God. Who talk to people and show them this stuff?
Speaker 1:It says All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. I love that, because what does that mean? That means I'm not going to get in a fight with somebody who don't agree with me. If they don't agree, then they don't agree, but it is my responsibility. When I get an understanding of this.
Speaker 1:It's profitable for me to reproof, for correction. How is somebody going to come to an understanding and looking at these things differently if we never present them with it. And that's all I'm saying. I've said this the whole time with everybody in here. You don't have to agree, but just open your mind up enough to just say let me compare. Let me compare what he's saying to what I believe, and then you come to your own conclusion. But I believe, because it's the Word of God and it's in context, I believe that there's a specific conclusion that you'll come to. I'm biased in that way Because I believe that if you read it in context, there's only one conclusion to come to We've got to take Jesus at his word.