343 – How the Bible Interprets Itself part Two

How to Read the Bible for Understanding and Power

God bless you abundantly in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

The Syllabus Session Three

How the Bible Interprets Itself part Two

Scripture interprets itself in the context, story, and record. This is how students learn what a new word means in a passage they are reading.

Matthew 13:24: What is the good seed? Let’s guess. Quit thinking and guessing! Let’s read the whole story and record it. We keep reading until someplace, somewhere, the meaning is explained. If it is not explained, we will not know.

Matthew 13:25-31, 36: The disciples did not guess.

Matthew 13:37-40: The interpretation was in the context.

Acts 7:56: Why was the Son of Man standing? I don’t know. That’s right. If God doesn’t tell us, we don’t know.

If scripture does not interpret itself in the verse or context, then the interpretation is found in its previous usage or where it was used before. Bibles are like dictionaries. You can look up words or where words were used before and learn more about them, even groups of similar words. The first usage of a word is very important. It expresses an idea, and the explanation is usually complete enough to carry throughout the Bible. If God ever changed the usage of a word or expression, He always explains it.

Genesis 1:5: The meaning is carried throughout the entire Bible. It will not change until God changes it. This is true of all the truths in the Bible.

We will get into the subject of "Figures of Speech in the Bible."

When I meet people, and they hear that I let the Word of God speak for itself, they say, "Oh, so you take the word of God literally." I answer. "No, I take the Word of God accurately. One way to understand the Bible accurately is to understand the figures of speech used.

We've looked at this verse of Scripture before, but I want to point out the figure of speech in the verse.

2nd Timothy 3:16. We looked at the five words "given by inspiration of God." These five words are translated from one Greek word, "theopneustos." This compound word comprises two Greek root words, "Theo" and "pneustos." It means God-breathed. All Scripture is given by God's inspiration, as all Scripture is God-breathed.

I have a question for you. Does God breathe? It says in God's Word that God is Spirit and Spirit doesn't breathe. What's going on here is that the Scripture is giving human characteristics to God by saying God-breathed. What does that mean?

Whenever the Bible attributes human characteristics to God as it does in this verse, it is a figure of speech. A figure of speech in the Bible is God's markings as to that which God wants to emphasize.

Figures of speech are legitimate grammatical usages that depart from literal language or regular grammatical structure to call our attention to it. It slows your mind and makes you take a second look at what has been written. We use figures of speech all the time in our English language. If it's been very dry, we might say, "the ground is thirsty," but it's not. We might say it's raining cats and dogs if it's pouring rain. I've never seen cats and dogs come falling out of the sky. But we use figures of speech all the time. And we know what they mean. And if we don't know what they mean, it slows us down, so we have to think about it. This is what God is doing with the figures of speech in the Bible. God is drawing attention to it. It is God's markings in the Bible that he wants to emphasize.

The Bible is to be accepted literally whenever and wherever possible. But when a word or words fail to be true to the fact, they are figures of speech. Figures of speech have a Godly-designed emphasis that must be grasped and understood to obtain the Bible's impact fully.

There are 212 different figures of speech used in the Bible, and sometimes there are many as 40 different variations of one figure. You can see that this is a good opportunity for research in figures of speech.

I want to handle with you three figures of speech that deal with comparisons.

The first one is a simile. A simile is a comparison by resemblance. The keywords in the simile are "as" and "like." For example, 'the lawyer is like a fox.'

The second figure is a metaphor, a comparison by representation. Where one thing is declared to be another thing. For example, 'that lawyer is a fox.' In the metaphor, we look for one thing declared to be another.

The third figure of speech is called “hypocatastasis” in Greek, a comparison by implication. You would look them straight in the eye and say, 'you fox.' or sometimes say, 'fox.' Out of these three, “hypocatastasis,” most arouses the mind. It attracts and excites attention to the greatest degree. It has the most impact of the three.

Another thing that I'd like to point out is that in the English language, educators, songwriters, poets, and others, whenever there's a figure of speech that they don't understand, call it a metaphor.

Now let's look at some examples from the scriptures.

Psalms 1:3a "He shall be "like" a tree planted by the rivers of water."

Psalms 1:4 The ungodly are not so but are "like" the chaff which the wind bloweth away." A comparison by resemblance, a simile.

John 15:1 - 5, "I am the true vine," and verse 5, "I am the vine," are two metaphors. A comparison by representation. Where one thing is declared to be another, the point of comparison is explained in the context.

John 15:1 - 5

1st Corinthians 10:4 "that rock was Christ." The metaphor is a comparison where one thing is declared to be another, a comparison by representation.

John 2:19 "Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it." 'This Temple' is the figure by implication. That's a “hypocatastasis” comparison by implication. It's not a simile, 'my body is like the temple,' or a metaphor which would be 'my body is the temple.' but “hypocatastasis.”

Matthew 26:26, Has caused all kinds of problems throughout the history of the Christian church simply because they did not understand figures of speech.

This is a figure of speech, a metaphor that compares by representation.

In 1st Corinthians chapter 11:23 - 27, These verses explain it more fully and completely.

I have used two books extensively to help me understand figures of speech. One is "Figures of Speech used in the Bible" by E. W. Bullinger, D.D. A search would give you plenty of resources for the book.

The other book that has helped me is "Go Figure! An Introduction to Figures of Speech in the Bible" by Julia B. Hans. To get more information or to order: www.baystatebiblefellowship.org

May God Bless you Abundantly

Steve

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