How to Study the Bible III - Intro 2 How are we doing this?

We looked last week at why are we doing this study. And this week, shifting the emphasis a bit to how are we doing this. And the way we're going to go about this is first, we're going to skip past the first page and look at the second page here. You've got a chart that looks like this landscape. And these pages two and three are kind of overviewed in order to give us the big picture. One, we say the Holy Spirit is involved in every part of the right understanding of scripture and our beholding the Lord Jesus Christ through his word, and thereby being changed from glory to glory.

2 Corinthians 3.18, But we all with unveiled face, beholding as an appearance of the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image of the glory of the glory of justice from the Lord the Spirit. So there's a transforming that goes on as we behold the Lord through His Word. It's a ministry of the Holy Spirit, one of the ministries of the Holy Spirit. God's Word is for two kinds of growth. One is individual spiritual growth.

1 Peter 2.2 is a good passage for that. Like newborn babes, long for the pure milk of the Word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation.

And then we have God's Word teaches the growth of the church body as a whole. And so Ephesians 4, 11-13 is a key passage for looking at that. Ephesians 4, 11-13 says, and he gave some of his apostles, and some of his prophets, and some of his evangelists, and some of his pastors and teachers. For the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. So there is both individual spiritual growth from the Word, as well as growth as a church body from the Word.

So two elements. Now, what we have here, right below that, is understanding, applying, and appropriating God's Word, and keeping with God's intent for Scripture. We have observation, and then interpretation, application, and appropriation. So this part of the sequence is objective. That's the observation and interpretation. So 2 Peter 1, 20 and 21, a key passage for that.

But notice, first of all, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one's own, King James has private interpretation. For no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but by men moved by the Holy Spirit and spoke from God. And then we have the next part is application and appropriation. But let's first ask a question here.

This observation part of it, what I see is The observation is something that people often miss. And we'll grab a few things and then just run, just go with it. That is the place to look very, very, very carefully and observe it. And one of the things we'll be spending actually months on is equipping you with tools to be able to observe. OK? Probably half of this class is going to be looking at those tools in order to be able to observe them. That's going to be key. And then the interpretation part, we're actually going to have principles of interpretation, which we're going to put at the end, after we kind of load you up with tools of observation, principles of interpretation.

Now, a lot of times people will go to a Bible study or something of that sort, and oftentimes people will just kind of, what do you think? What are your thoughts? And so people, rather than studying things out carefully, will oftentimes just kind of react to it. How does it make you feel is frequently the way the question comes across. as opposed to observing very carefully.

Yes? I've heard that it's necessary to be careful not to just fool your enemies. Somebody has to lead the discussion, and is educated, and be able to lead us into the right path, ask the right questions, and discuss the, understand the verse correctly. It's a matter of observing very carefully and then having good, sound, solid principles to then interpret. And think about this.

For just about every passage, there's three, four, five, six different interpretations that are out there. And you'll see them published in the commentary and all that. Did God intend that many different interpretations? No, no. So God didn't intend that there'd be that many interpretations. Therefore, most of them are wrong, right? So carefully observing and then using good sound principles of interpretation to arrive at what God intended, that's what we're aiming for, right? Because God essentially intended a singular message from each passage.

There's another thing we'll be looking at, at observations regarding language. history, and culture. And those are all key things for us to take a look at. If you just kind of show up at a Bible study or just sit down and read it, you will be lacking some of those key things. And that's important to state. Here's an example.

One word in the New Testament is translated adoption of sons. And what do we think of when we think of adoption in our culture? Yeah, a lot of times we're thinking infants, at least a young person, right? Adoption, as it's referred to in the New Testament, is something that was never done with kids.

It was always done with an adult male. It was always done with an adult male. It was initially started for emperors to have a successor, an emperor to follow. And the first five emperors, Caesars, were all made Caesars by the adoption of sons process.

Then the one who was given adoption of sons, it had to be approved by the Roman Senate. The person who was given adoption of sons was forgiven any and all deaths, no matter how many or how large. The person who was given adoption of sons was forgiven any and all crimes, no matter how many it is. Their history was completely cut off and erased totally, given complete forgiveness. And here's the other thing. In the Roman legal system, a father could kill any one of his sons at any time. but not an adoptive son.

So when Paul wrote, we have the adoption of sons, people were stunned. They said, wow, you mean I have complete forgiveness? I have this great honor and privilege? And was set up for somebody to be an emperor. So this is a very high level honor. And he said, we have it. The history is completely forgotten.

And so that's one of those things where just explaining culturally one word, the decree, just makes a huge difference. Now, it's also interesting because of that legal arrangement, the first five emperors, the first five Caesars, were made Caesars by that process.

Because of that, the Apostle Paul only used that word, which we translate as adoption of sons, he only used that word with those places that had significant Roman influence. For example, the church at Rome. Churches of Galatia, the two of the five cities were Roman colonies. And Ephesians, which had a Roman governor and 3,000 Roman soldiers stationed there.

So he didn't use it in some place where they would go, huh? He used it only with those places where it would be well understood. And he did so after there were five emperors in a row. who were made emperors by that process. It was a procedure not only approved by the Roman Senate. You had to have seven witnesses. And it was typically done in a great open public forum as they went through it.

And so for us to say to here, we have the adoption of sons. Understanding that culturally is critical to understanding why he's saying it. It's not, oh, isn't this a sweet little baby? But it's instead, boy, my past is completely expunged. And I'm a new person and it can't be undone. Can't be undone.

So that's the kind of thing where we want to have a full understanding of each and every word. And it's taken me several minutes to explain adoption of sons. And that's why, as we go through, studying and observing very carefully and looking very carefully at what's there. I've essentially gotten to the place where if I'm not amazed or astounded, I probably don't understand it yet. Okay, so we have observation and there's a lot to be done with that. There's a lot to be done with that.

Interpretation, which is done by specific principles. And sometimes there are particular principles that apply to specific books and authors. One of the things we did as a preface to our study of the book of Revelation is point out 10 key interpretive points with the book of Revelation. And having those 10, you can understand every single verse very clearly in the whole book of Revelation. Yeah? Could you please repeat that last point about there are different principles of interpretation for different books? Yeah, there are different principles of interpretation for different books.

And one of the reasons for that, let's say for example, John in Revelation, to pick that instance, John uses Jewish symbolism. To understand that he uses Jewish symbolism and not Greek symbolism, It's not, what does it look like, but what does it mean? That is a huge difference. Many people read through the book of Revelation, and when they're done, they say, what was that? Whereas understanding the 10 key principles for Revelation, including, he uses Jewish symbolism, makes it all very clear, every single verse.

So we have observation, interpretation, we have then application. Now, let's talk about the application part of it. The primary areas of application for the Bible are one, personal, and two, church body. So personal and church body, those are the primary two areas of application.

One of the points we made last week is that God's Word is always Christ-centered, right? But there are a number of different applications for any particular passage. and on any particular topic. That's something else we'll work on later, is go through some examples of how do I pull together what the Bible teaches on different subjects? And how do I come up with a consistent set of teachings on that? And so when we say there's one interpretation that's correct in many applications, What do we mean by many applications?

Yes. Well, it applies differently to, well, first of all, your mind, your heart, your emotions, and everybody's a little bit different. So, you know, God may be speaking to one person in one way and to another person a lot of different aspects to how scripture teaches each person. Okay. Yeah. And it depends upon where you are in your spiritual growth, too. If you're a baby, something might not apply to you where it would if somebody was more mature. Okay.

Let's take, for instance, Here at Holly Hills, how are things governed at Holly Hills? We have three elders. Lord took Hal home, so we used to have four, but we have three elders, right? We have five deacons. And so we have elders and deacons, and we draw that from scripture as to how the churches operate. When I went to Poland, I taught them on elders. When I went to Uganda, I taught them about elders in both places. That was something that they needed to have some teaching on.

So there's application in terms of how the churches govern. There are churches who do all kinds of other things. A number of the cults will have a president. you know, organization. You'll have among churches, kind of the long-standing tradition, you'll have what's called apostolic succession. The idea is that, you know, the apostles appointed somebody as bishop, supposedly, and then that bishop will appoint the next one, and that one will appoint the next one, etc. And that's great, except that that's not what the Bible describes.

You'll have churches, and this church used to be some decades ago, churches where you vote. And everybody votes, and that's how you get things done. My understanding is that voting was voted out. So how do we apply that? How do we apply what God's word teaches about elders is one of the key areas of application. Personal application.

One of the things that is frequently overlooked is that Galatians 5 and Romans 7 say that you cannot will to do the right thing. And you cannot will to do the right thing. Galatians 5.17 and Romans chapter 7, starting with 7 to the end of the chapter, particularly around verse 12. You cannot simply will to do the right thing, and yet a great many teachers and pastors will teach exactly that, that you need to decide to do the right thing and decide not to do the wrong thing.

But that's, you know, the Bible says that you can't do that, that that's not the way to live the Christian life. How are we to live the Christian life? Why would it say you can't do that? How are we to live the Pardon? Independence, okay? It's dependence upon the Lord. And it's expressed in different ways. Jesus in John 15 would say, abide in me, right? Which is a dependence. It's also a close fellowship, right? Abide in me.

And you would also have, Passages like Galatians 5.16, right before the one I referenced, walk in the spirit. Behold the Lord through his work. Those kinds of things, fellowship with him. So you get that kind of communication. That is the primary spiritual decision for the Christian, is walking in fellowship with the Lord, depending upon him. and walking in the spirit, that's the primary spiritual decision.

And our wills are given not to go about making the right decision about things. Our wills are given primarily to believe. And so this is an important tool to application. And frankly, a great many teachers and pastors don't get that. And so people are misdirected to try to will to do the right thing and will not to do the wrong thing.

Instead of seeing the primary purpose of God's giving me a will is for me to believe. So Ben, are you saying then that the decision is to believe, so therefore you will abide in him? Because at first it sounded like those two things were disconnected, then you connected him, and I'm kind of not seeing the transition.

Okay, let's take it for instance, let's just take abide in me. Okay. And Jesus uses what picture when he talks about the vine and the branches. Now, you and I both know that branches don't have any trouble, you know, going, jumping off of the vine and getting back on and going back and forth, right? And so he says, abide in me.

Is that a suggestion or is it a command? It's a command, okay? So you, it's not like, it would be a good idea, right? But it's a command, abide in me. And is that something that you abide in me now and then? Abide in me occasionally? No, God's intent is that we abide continually, right? That's what Christ meant is abide in me.

And then it's an imperative. An imperative, you just look throughout the New Testament, imperative is a grace-motivated, appeal to the will. So, a command, because I hate that word command, so I'm trying to deal with that all the time. So, a grace motivated appeal to the will.

Yes. Let's take a, yeah. and let you relax and trust that environment to be the best for you. Yeah. If you look at the picture of the vine and the branches, the branches in nature just sit there on the vine and that's the way they are. He says, abide in me, that means for us, however, will, to abide in Him, and so that dependence is we believe Him, right? If you don't believe Him, then the abiding is not going to make any sense.

Yeah? So, as I'm listening to you, I want to make sure that I'm on the right track. Okay. Okay, so going back to we observe. Going back to what? Observe. So we observe scripture because it is the very essence of God's character, his nature, who he is. Correct? Therefore there can only be one interpretation because there's only one God. Yes? Right.

Okay, the applications are of the character, nature, of how it's manifested. And then from that there's the I'm going to say system, but that's not what I mean. There's the physics of the system. There are these general principles that things operate in. And when you understand that, then the commands make sense because of the first point, which is the essence of who God is. Am I following this? Yeah.

Let me give an example of what I mean by grace motivated. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is talking to the Jews who are under law. And he says, you'd better forgive or your heavenly father won't forgive you. That's under law. Ephesians 4.32, under grace, forgive one another as God and Christ has forgiven you. Grace motivated. See the difference? So the law says forgive or you won't be forgiven. You want to be forgiven? You'd better forgive. Grace says, forgive because you've already been forgiven.

Is it an imperative? Yes, it is. But it's a grace-motivated imperative. Is that parallel with you love because I first loved you? How does that go now? I've lost it. We love because he first loved us, right? So it's a grace-motivated response. a response to His love for us, of His forgiveness of us, rather than, boy, you'd better forgive or God's not going to forgive you.

Which is what Jesus actually said in the Sermon on the Mount, because the Jews were under the principle of law. So understanding this is a key thing. Lots of applications then. for this grace-motivated imperative. I think it's important to note at that point that God first loved us. He acted upon that love by sending his son to die on the cross for us. When we believe at which point we are empowered to love ourselves. This is not a debtor-denny sort of relationship where he loves and now it's our obligation to turn around and do it. It's all brought about by the originating love, by that grace. We are now standing in Christ, and therefore we are empowered to do these things logically. We would do so. Could you also say we're empowered to respond? Because whereas we couldn't before, I always let that word respond. Let's think about this.

Does the Holy Spirit have a set of ministries with the believer? Does the Holy Spirit have a set of ministries with the unbeliever? Is it the same ministry? No, it's a different ministry. So for the unbeliever, what is the ministry of the Holy Spirit? wrong to Christ? Yes, it's conviction, okay? Conviction regarding sin and righteousness and judgment, okay? And so this is the ministry of the Holy Spirit to the unbeliever to bring the person to the point of belief, right? And then an entire new set of ministries are then initiated.

And so what you find is Galatians 5 has in brief what Romans 6 through 8 is telling you. He'll say, walk by the Spirit in Galatians 5. And then he'll talk from Galatians, excuse me, Romans 7, verse 7 to the end of the chapter about you can't do it. But then, which is the last half of Galatians 5.17, right? But then chapter 8 is about the ministry of the Holy Spirit, right? In Galatians 5, it's walked by the Spirit. And the Spirit has, you know, these fruits, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness. But in Romans 8, it's most of the chapter. So you'll find, as you look at these things, yeah, it's not a, hey, this is all on you. The Lord has empowered, enabled, and energized, those three words are used in the New Testament, via the Holy Spirit for you to be able to carry these things out.

So that's why Paul would write in brief the last half of Galatians 5.17, And at length, in Romans 7, verse 7 through the end of the chapter, that it's not up to us to do it. It's not up to us to simply will to do the right thing. If we try to do that, we bypass all the provisions that God has made for our walk.

And so now that has applications in my relationships with other people. with marriages, with parenting, lots of different applications. Lots of different applications. In parallel to what you just said, in parenting, if we're at home in the Lord, that's the ministry of the Holy Spirit being manifest, that He has made us to trust the Lord to lift us up that He wants produced. Isn't that a wonderful comfort in the process of not just knowing and then applying, but also appropriating for yourself that every man, woman in this room right now is a part of that process.

We pointed out earlier that there's individual spiritual growth from the Word, as well as church body growth from the Word. In Galatians 5, I made several references here, there's individual walking with the Lord. That's Galatians 5.16, right? There's individual walking with the Lord that's walking in the spirit. Later at the end of the chapter, he talks about walking and it's a different word. That word is Roman soldiers marching in unison, right? So the individual walk is where it starts, but as believers. Individually, together, they march in unison.

That's what that word is saying. And understanding it again, it's culturally understanding that. And why would he use that term with them? Because of the five major cities in Galatia, two of them were Roman colonies. And they would have Roman soldiers marching in unison. So he'd use that word with them, and they would understand it very clearly.

So it's that kind of thing. that we want to, again, observe for the sake of applying it here in the church bodies and their families. Yeah. When you spoke just now, it reminded me of conversations I've had with people in the military who have had to see combat and that sort of thing. The first thing is boot camp, and it's miserable, but they have to get on the same page. Once they're out in the field, what's very dear is there such a unity and a bond and a dearness that when they get back, if they've lost somebody, they will grieve for the rest of their days. So it's not just, I mean, and they're under commands when they're in the military. So it's just a sweet, very sweet illustration. I've never been in the military.

I love hearing people speak of their experiences, though, so I can understand God's word. Yeah, the problem earlier with the Galatians is that they were, you know, just eating away at each other and tearing each other up verbally. And so he says, okay, this is how we're going to deal with this. Individually, each of you walk in the Spirit, and as you do so, then you together will march in unison as opposed to just biting and devouring one another, right? So that's the kind of sweep of what the chapter is. But understanding it comes by looking very carefully at language, history, and culture. And then we see what he's aiming for spiritually.

OK, let's take a look. Let's talk about the appropriation part of it. The applications we can talk about objectively. The appropriation is where it comes from objective down to the personal level. And even appropriation as a church body. We can talk objectively about it, but it's not intended to be left there.

And that's why you'll hear us talk about, for example, intimacy with Christ. It's great to learn about we're in Christ, and Christ is in us, and we're in the Spirit, and the Spirit's in us, and all that. But in the end, a personal, intimate walk with the Lord is what's intended. That's what God has in mind. So that's where we talk about appropriation. It's not just, okay, here's this academic thing, a walk in the Spirit. but it's personally walking in the Spirit, and then corporately, together, we walk in the Spirit.

Okay, the last couple of things on that chart, 1 Corinthians 4.1, let a man regard us in this manner, and by the way, the word let doesn't mean let, like allow, but a man must regard us in this manner, And that word, we'll look at it later, is logitimai.

It's the same one in Romans 6.11. A man must consider, must reckon in this manner as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.

Realizing that what's a mystery in the biblical sense? Unrevealed truth. Pardon? And unrevealed. Yeah, previously unrevealed, but now revealed. So that's one thing, is we oftentimes use the word mystery with something that remains mysterious. The Bible doesn't use the word that way. The Bible talks about something that previously was mysterious because it wasn't revealed. It now has been revealed. So a different use, and the Bible is consistent in its use of that word mystery. you were talking about?

For regard, that's the word Legitimine, it's of course here, it's also in Romans 6.11, it's the exact same form, even imperative middle voice, and also Philippians 4.8 has the exact same word, the exact So here's 2nd Timothy 2 15 be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed Accurately handling the word of truth.

So let's ask this question Can we accurately handle the word of truth? Yes, so so one of the things that he's saying there is that we can accurately handle the word of truth What's the implication here? Is it possible that I'm not accurately handling it? Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. So one, it is possible to know with certainty what God intended. But there's a diligence required. There's a diligence required.

And so that's why you'll have, you know, here's one passage or one topic and several different teachings. One of the things, for example, I came to Holly Hills, I wasn't quite sure, I didn't swallow what they taught at my seminary about what the Bible teaches about the New Covenant. And that didn't sound right. It turns out there are four different teachings on what the New Covenant is. Four primary teachings. So I studied, you know, what does the Bible teach on the New Covenant for about nine years before I decided. Okay, now we've got this one.

Back to what you said earlier, not only is it diligence in handling of the Word, but it's time and maturation. Because the more time you spend, just like you said, how many years did you spend obtaining that truth? And then along during that time is maturation. So this isn't something that's just going to happen because you're diligent. Diligence also has to do with extended time, right? And it is possible to accurately handle the Word of Truth. Accuracy, not just, well, gee, there's about four different teachings. Pick one, you know. Or I like this. You know, it's what did God intend?

You know, all three elders are really from different backgrounds. They're all from real different backgrounds. Mike and Roger became believers as adults. I became a believer at age four and a half. I was, with the exception of my high school years, raised in a Bible church and that kind of thing. So Mike and Roger came at things differently. So when we sit down, we don't necessarily automatically have the exact same opinion about everything. And some of us will have to take a while to talk things through and whatnot. And the reality is, we're all convinced that God's right. It's not, this guy's right, that guy, God's right. And we need to arrive at God's conclusion about things.

I think it's also, I don't know, for me it's important to note that we need, we also need humility and understanding that there are, you know, there's these psychological tests all the time that show how much influences are And so kind of the modern mantra is question everything but never doubt yourself. I think the biblical approach is question everything because you doubt yourself. The truth is there. God speaks clearly, but there are often times things in our own life, in our own mind that we may be convinced of something, oh this is exactly right, but it's, that's why we need the Holy Spirit. There are so many factors that we can have complete confidence in God and His Word, but we should be cautious about having so much confidence in our... Well, I understand it perfectly. Well, the truth is there for us to know, but we also have to realize that there are so many factors that can influence our thinking to where our confidence is not in ourself, it's in the Word.

And that's a tough distinction to make sometimes. But you bring up a very important point. You know a lot of times you'll get people debating over different things and boy that's when it's real easy to turn into an eye problem. People have an eye problem. Let's ask this, how about church splits? Ever hear of that?

Unfortunately that pair of words everybody knows you get people approaching God's Word typically with something else that's standing out, and you have personalities and yeah. Well, I like Jeremy's point because it takes a great deal of humility because we don't even realize individually what lenses we bring to the table. Okay, so what I'm seeing in my life is that it takes a lot of convincing through life experience for the Holy Spirit to get rid of your lenses, to be able to even understand the Word of God, because there are things in the Word of God that I only now am starting to understand, just because it took that long for the lenses to be taken off.

Yeah, patience is a very important thing. Humility. And it's funny, you just think patience, humility. Yeah, those are things that the Lord works in us. Self-control. Pardon? Self-control. These are things that the Lord works in us. These are things that come as a result of our abiding. walking in the Spirit. This is the fruit of the Spirit. These are the kinds of things that the Lord is working in us.

And so arriving at the right understanding and interpretation and application isn't simply a matter of going through some kind of academic process. Yeah, you can study things academically, but it also is a matter of the Lord's very character. being applied to this observation, interpretation, and application. Because you're looking for God's intended message, and so depending upon the God who wrote the message, while you're interpreting, is going to be critical. And what's interesting, we've talked about, you talked about the three elders, that you're helping each other.

And anyone who has spent any time on social media knows that this is true. We are really apt at pointing out other people's blind spots and biases. We're terrible, we meaning humans, are terrible at noticing our own blind spots and biases. So that's why we need other people. To be able to say, you're not looking at this clearly. Or, not that you're not looking at clearly, but you have this bias that you don't see but I can see. If we have that humility that says, well, look at how biased all these other people are. Well, we are too. And that's why we need that interaction. That's why we need the community interaction that says, that helps us overcome those blind spots.

This is the log and the speck that Jesus referred to in the Sermon on the Mount. Okay, so let's look at color sheet here. We got God's message through scripture and the Holy Spirit inspired it, preserved it, and guided in the recognition of it as scripture.

So we have scripture in Hebrew, the Old Testament, and the Greek in the New Testament that conveys God's message precisely as he intended for us to receive it. We will also be looking at kind of a tie between the two in the Greek Old Testament, but that'll be like in March or something like that before we get to that. We will in here learn some things particularly aimed towards the Greek starting this next Sunday. And we will give you some tools for studying the Greek as well as some tools for studying the Hebrew. Now we have objective observations.

And this is one thing is, whereas coming up to a passage and just reading it and just talking about what's your first impression when you read it, that tends to pull out subjective and unstudied observations, as opposed to looking at all and having the full set of tools to observe and then being able to look at what did God intend, not just what's my personal impression. So language, history, and culture, and we'll be giving you tools in all three of those categories, because they all matter. We, in the main service, I'll frequently point out, here's this cultural thing and that cultural thing, because our words are used in the context of a culture.

If I said to you, I'm going to go get some food, What kinds of activities and things do you think about if someone says, I'm going to go get some food? Pizza. Pardon? You might think pizza, but how are you going to get the pizza to you? You're going to go down, you're going to get in the car, you're going to drive down and go to a pizza place, or you're going to order it and have it delivered, right? They'll drive it to you. If someone in the New Testament era said, I'm going to go get some food, what would that look like? Or a field walk. Pardon? Go out in the field. Yeah, go out in the field and harvest. And go into this place where I've got it stored up.

Or they would go in one accord. They would go in one accord, yes. So when we say something, all that set of words, we can say the same words on the surface, but it means something entirely different in a different culture. So that's one of the reasons we point out, OK, the cultural background to this is this, right?

Here's Paul. He's writing the book of Philippians. They've sent him a guy to help, and they sent him money. And he is writing a four-chapter, and it wasn't chapters back then, a four-chapter-long book thanking them in a culture in which it was absolutely forbidden to thank somebody. In the Roman Empire.

If you thank somebody, they would be furious with you, because you're supposed to thank the gods. If you thank somebody directly, that's inviting the curse of the gods on them, because you're not giving the gods credit. So that cultural understanding, that's why you don't see Paul in Philippians say, thank you for sending this gift and this guy to come help me. He can't do that. But what you'll see Paul do repeatedly is, I thank my God for you.

OK? So that cultural understanding is huge. You start looking, and every page of scripture has multiple cultural background insights to people. And so that's one of the reasons we'll have language tools, but also paired with that, cultural tools to understand the culture. We teach our kids, and try to anyway, to say thank you and please and all that.

If you did that in the New Testament era, you would have people livid with you. They would be furious. That understanding right there is just, whoa. Behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us. Behold, pause and think about this. What quality, and it's perfect tense, given. It implies permanence.

The Father has given unto us that we would be called the sons of God. In the Roman era, unless a father accepted you or you were his son by adoption of sons, it was completely legal for a father to kill a son at any time. So when I read that, with the cultural understanding, I was going through seminary, finishing up, I translated that, and instantly, I just couldn't see the screen. My eyes just teared up, because I realized John was saying, we have been given this permanent love, and are called the sons of God, we're accepted.

Permanently. Not like the Roman fathers, who could take their sons out at any time. A little more impactful. Yes, very impactful. You think about these people, boy, I sure hope my dad doesn't kill me today. And to say, here is God the Father, and I'm completely accepting, and it's permanent. Wow.

Was it illegal for a Roman father who has adopted a son to kill him? He cannot kill the adopted son. That's illegal. That's capital punishment. So God is bound by his own laws not to... We have the adoption of sons. Wow. We're in. We're there. We're completely, permanently forgiven. Just that one word right there tells us that we can't lose our salvation. We're completely accepted into the living. Yeah.

I've never seen in that passage, well, I mean, the understanding of love, but the sheer protection of God, because in the culture of the day, it would be a very protective act also to say, I am adopting you as my son. I value your life so much that I am going to guarantee you cannot die. And I've never seen that. So in that love, he is just saying, I am going to guarantee, I love you so much, I am going to protect your life, because it's dear to me.

And this is the thing, people argue about, can you or can you not lose your salvation? Ridiculous argument. There's so many places you can look at it, and it's not just language, but it's also cultural background, including that one, behold what quality of permanent love the Father has grace given to us. If we were sons of God not by adoption, though, we could lose our salvation. Yeah, except that we have it by the adoption of sons, and it can't be removed. Wow. And so this is mind-boggling. You can imagine when Paul wrote that, the people who were reading it said, whoa, stop. Wait a minute. Let me soak that up. The gods never blessed you. Never. The gods never blessed you. So here he writes to the church at Ephesus. blessed us with every spiritual blessing.

It's one thing for him to do that. Yeah. It's another thing, because I'm, you know, put it on the page, put it in a book. Yeah. Put it in the culture. Put it in history. Yeah. And make sure that we get it. I just think that's amazing. Yeah. This is key.

You know, here's the gods, the pagan gods never blessed you. They didn't love you. And so he can write, you know, here's God with great love. The great love with which He loved us. And they're mind-blown. Mercy and grace. Grace so phenomenal that in rolling ages to come, He's going to be showing and demonstrating it. On into eternity, we're going to be gasping in awe 10,000 years from now. That's completely different. Yeah, because you're right. All the gods, people were in terror of their gods. Yes. Of their idols. Yes, they were.

Isn't the church the trophy of that, too? Us, the bride, the church? Isn't that His main trophy of that whole thing that you're just talking about? Yes, exactly. Us? Eternity. This stuff, when we understand what the New Testament is saying, it is astounding. It is amazing. Every page. and God can only be saying one thing. It's just absolutely amazing. Just super quick story. I was working with somebody maybe a decade ago, who I believe is now a youth pastor.

And we were going over the security of salvation and handed the So the real question is, what did God intend to say? And how did God intend to motivate me? Did He want to motivate me by dangling this thing over me? Boy, you better keep on your toes because then, you know... So did God intend to motivate me that way? And you look at it, no, He didn't. Grace motivated, enabled, empowered, and energized. That's how God wants to get it done. Not dangling this thing in front of me. You better watch your P's and Q's, or you're going to lose it all.

Isn't that the mistake that the Hebrews, I guess, made when God came to them and said he wanted to give them the law. And they said, yeah, we can do that. And they did it twice. Even after they showed from their own lives that they could not do it. Isn't that the same mistake as what this man has made?

Yes. I just saw this. And the very first thing he says when he gives them the law, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind. That passage there, that's the beginning. That was supposed to be the mindset, and that was impossible because they had no empowerment. That was it. The very first thing is love your God.

I was going to say, there's so much deception in the world, the only way you really understand truth is through discernment, correct? Yeah. And we're always dealing with deception. Discernment from the Word of God. Yes, the Holy Spirit is a part of discernment. There are people who, in this era, put too much on that. I don't believe, for example, that the gift of discernment is in place now, but the discernment is through the Word.

Okay, we're out of time, and we've actually only covered two pages of the five-page handout, but that's okay. We're off to a good start here, I think. Lord, we thank you for your word. The richness of it is really astounding character. The depth of what is in it and we just pray as we proceed that we would accumulate a very valuable set of tools and we would gather together a very clear set of principles that we in the ultimate might not just know the truth But walk with people and walk in intimacy with you and understand how amazing is your grace?