GYC SE 2009: More

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GYC Southeast

Exegetical Nonsense

Eugene Prewitt

Session 1: How to Study the Bible for Yourself

Our Father in heaven, I'm asking a gift from you that you would help us to understand what is right and what is true, that you would teach us, and I ask in the name of Jesus, Amen.

What we're talking about today is how to study the Bible.

Turn with me in your Bibles to Daniel chapter 12.

Daniel chapter 12 and we're looking at verse 10.

The Bible says, many shall be purified and made white and tried, But the wicked shall do wickedly." And notice this next phrase, and none of the, what's it say?

None of the wicked will understand, but the wise shall understand.

If I could say that thought as simply as I know how.

When it comes to the book of Daniel, which was sealed, God said the book of Daniel would be unsealed at the time of the end.

But when it's unsealed so it can be understood, is it unsealed so everyone can understand it?

When it's unsealed, only the class of the righteous understand it.

If my first principle I can lay down is this, there is no method that can be taught to humans that will enable a wicked man to understand the Bible.

I want to show this to you 1 other place.

Turn with me in your Bibles to John chapter 7.

John chapter 7 and we're looking at verse...

No wonder that wasn't working, I was in the wrong chapter.

I'm searching my mind to see where this reference is, because it's not in John chapter 7, not in the verse I was looking at.

John 7 verse 17, if any man will do his will, what does it say?

He shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God or whether I speak of myself.

Let me see if I can say that thought in a practical way for you.

Suppose that you want to know whether or not you should keep the seventh day holy.

If you're not willing to do whatever you find, do you see that John 7, 17 says you're not likely to find it Let me try that thought again if any man will do my will he will know of the Doctrine if we want to set a principle for how to understand the Bible The first principle is we have to be willing to do what God says if we're not willing to do it I teach at a school in Arkansas And I suppose that it happens every year That some student there studies out some issue related to lifestyle.

Pastor Marquis mentioned a number of lifestyle issues today in his sermon.

And just suppose that you want to study out to see whether or not it's legitimate for you to chew on chickens and cows.

Do you see in John 7, 17 that unless you're willing to do what you find, you're not likely to land on the truth?

If any man will do my will, he will know of the doctrine.

I'm gonna paint the big picture and then we're going to start, yeah, just build up this concept of how to understand the Bible.

How many of you here know someone who's gotten into some form of fanaticism that is attached to the Adventist church, whether an offshoot movement or the shepherd's rod or feast day keeping or the God does not destroy or the...

So how many people will say that again, they've known someone that's gotten into 1 of these things, it's more than half.

Now of those of you that raised your hand, how many of you know someone who got into 1 of those movements who seemed like a very spiritual studious Seventh-day Adventist?

You know, it's nearly as many hands as went up the first time.

It really isn't so that it's just non-caring people who never did love the Bible, that those are the ones who get into heresies.

It's often so that it's very intense, studious persons that get into those problems.

I went to school with some triplets, and these triplets were raised up as fundamental Seventh-day Adventists.

All I mean by fundamental Adventists is that they believe the things that Adventists...

I have a lot more you can take the whole pile of them.

These triplets that were raised in this fundamental Adventist way, their mother, with almost her entire congregation in England, left the Adventist church just a couple years ago.

And it was over a doctrinal issue, namely over the issue of the covenants.

And what I'm trying to lay down for you are principles so that you can land on the right side of every issue that ever comes your way.

So you can be fighting on the same side of truth that God is fighting on, So you won't be perplexed when these issues come that are taking people off left and right.

And if 1 of them happens to be the truth, so you can find that out too.

Turn with me in your Bibles to Isaiah chapter 29.

And whom shall he make to understand doctrine?' Isn't that the question we want to answer here?

Who is it that God is going to be teaching?

It says, them that are weaned from the milk and drawn from the breasts.

So I think You have nephews or nieces or maybe you were old enough to remember when your youngest sibling was born You understand by experience how very dependent infants are on their mothers Do you see in this passage that if you want to be taught of God, you can't be dependent that way?

That your dependence on other humans for help is going to have, you're going to have to be weaned from dependence on others.

If I could say that as simply as I know how, if you want to be taught of God, you're going to have to be cut off from dependence on your favorite pastors and teachers and friends and mentors.

Not that you can't talk to them, or that they can't teach you something, or you can't learn from them, But if you're going to be taught of God, you have to stop being dependent on them.

It's those that are drawn from the breast, those who are weaned from the breast, that is those who no longer an infant.

If you don't feed him, he's going to starve.

Does that make sense to you what I'm saying?

But if you don't feed me, I'll get food for myself.

Isaiah 28 doesn't say that we can't learn from each other, but it says we can't be dependent on each other.

If we are going to be taught of God, we're going to have to develop a personal experience of getting food and nutrition from him so that if we're, yeah, I've said this thought too many times, let's move forward.

For precept must be upon precept, line upon line, here a little and there a little.

For those listening to audio verse, I'm about to draw on the board and that won't help you at all.

I'll do my best to help you with what I say.

We could contrast 2 very different ways to understand the Bible, 2 different ideas, 1 of which agrees with Isaiah 28, and the other 1 is popular among Bible-believing, Bible-loving Christians all over.

I don't want to condemn anyone for having this idea, but I will say, when you understand what I'm about to communicate, that it partially answers this question, why is it that beautiful Christian, Bible-loving Baptists remain beautiful Christian Bible-loving Baptists and Bible-loving Pentecostals remain Pentecostals and Bible...

Do you understand what I'm communicating?

Why is it that people can say the Bible earnestly all their life and yet not end up coming to the truth when they're sincere people?

Maybe I should just start here since it's in the verse.

Did you see here that if you wanna be, if the question is who will be taught of God, part of the answer was that you need to be weaned from human dependence.

But the next step of the answer is that You must be willing to compare passages with other passages.

It doesn't seem like a very profound idea, but let me see if I can help you understand where I'm going with this.

The way inspiration works is God would speak to a prophet an idea and the prophet would write that idea with his own vocabulary, his own writing style.

The truth is from heaven but the writing and the words are the ones that were available to the prophet.

Session 2: How to Evaluate Those Studies that Purport to be New Truth

Our Father in heaven, I ask that you would be here as our teacher, that you'd help us understand what is right and what is true.

When I was 18 years old, I was on a field trip and I met a man who gave me a Bible study.

I'd like to share it with you a little bit, just part of it.

Turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Acts.

Acts is where the passage is that helps with the problem I'm about to present to you.

Psalm 2 and we're Psalm 2 and we're looking at verse 7.

It says, I will declare the decree the Lord hath said unto me you are my son this day have I begotten thee.

This passage is the father speaking to the son.

That's what the New Testament teaches in the book of Hebrews.

Do you see when you read this passage that it does not match very well things that you've been taught all your life?

Was there a day when the Father said to the Son, this day have I Begotten thee?

Look in your Bibles at Proverbs chapter 8.

Proverbs chapter 8 and we're looking at verse 25.

I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning or ever the earth was, when there were no depths I was brought forth.

When there were no fountains abounding with water, before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth, while as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world." This is Jesus under the figure of wisdom.

That word brought forth, the Hebrew word is kool.

It's the same 1 used elsewhere in the book of Job for the hinds calving on the mountains.

That study that I heard when I was 18, the man began to share with me that there was the father and there was the son, but there was someone who wanted to be with that group.

These 2 were 1, but there was someone who wanted to join it so that there would be 3.

And he began to share with me a Bible study on the doctrine of the Trinity that Indicated that the doctrine is as pagan as pagan can be How many of you have heard a study on this topic at some point in your life So it's like maybe 8 or 9 of you mostly males that raised their, at least that raised their hands.

Maybe the ladies were shy to raise their hands or something.

What we're talking about during this period is how when you receive a study on something that purports to be new truth, how can you know whether it is truth or not?

I think the way a lot of people have gone at it is they've assumed if it's strange, it's not true.

And that particular method approximates a good 1.

I mean that they end up avoiding every strange idea.

But you see that that can't be the right method Just to avoid it because it seems wrong.

Because if that was a good method, wouldn't that keep everyone outside of the Adventist church too?

There has to be some more, how many of you follow what I'm trying to communicate?

There has to be some more fundamentally useful method than just avoiding the strange things.

But the other method that you've watched people follow is when you receive that strange study, you begin to go through it carefully, reading every quote, every verse, And the more you read, the more it looks like it must be true.

And before you know it, you're convinced that this thing is true.

So I've written a paper on the shepherd's rod.

And in the introduction to that paper, I bring out that if I believed every study that I have personally received that had these qualifications, the author was very knowledgeable, the author advocated helpful reforms, The author used a great volume of scripture and spirit of prophecy and helped explain passages that otherwise did not make much sense.

And I could go on with a list of good things about these studies.

If I believed every study I've received that met these qualifications, I would belong to 8 different fighting groups at 1 time.

Does that make any sense to you what I'm communicating?

That we're going to have to have some hermeneutic that will go deeper, more thorough than just figuring that if good people are teaching good things with lots of evidence, they must be right.

So I set you up and I never fixed anything.

We want to address the question, when was Jesus begotten?

It doesn't really fit in our topic except for that any time you introduce a doubt and you don't settle it, it's your fault if people become doubtful, right?

God has fulfilled the same unto us their children, and that he has raised up Jesus again, as it is also written in the, what's it say?

Second Psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee.

In fact, in the New Testament, Jesus 1 time called the first begotten of the dead.

I just want this idea to make some more sense to you so you can understand why it would say something like this.

If we add the word gospel to the beginning of verse 3, you'll have enough context to read it.

The gospel concerning his son Jesus Christ our Lord which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh.

So if the question is, in what way is Jesus the son of David, the answer is genetically.

And declared to be the son of God with power, According to the Spirit of holiness, how?

Do you remember what Jesus said in John 8?

He said, I know that you are the children of Abraham genetically.

I'm speaking in my own words, the thoughts that I find there.

But if you were really the children of Abraham, you would do the works of Abraham.

Then he said, you're the children of the devil.

Now does the devil have any genetic children?

Jesus was showing that sonship in the Bible is a reference to similarity in character.

In fact, did you ever think this through, that there were sons in the Bible before there were births?

That before women were created for the nobility to have children, that the sons of God shouted for joy.

In other words, before Genesis, before the story of Genesis, sonship in this universe was a reference to similarity in character.

So what was it that showed that Jesus was similar to the Father?

He said, I have power to lay down my life and power to take it up again.

It was the resurrection that showed the relation of Jesus to the Father, His divinity.

And so that's when the Father said, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.

What about that word cool that's used to mean born?

The first time that's used in Scripture is Genesis 8.10, where it says that Noah stayed other days in the ark.

1 of the meanings of the word is to give birth, another 1 is to wait.

Which 1 makes more sense in light of what we know about Jesus?

Do you remember the very first verse we read in Proverbs 8, it said, I was set up from everlasting?

Jesus said that he with the Father that they were together waiting as 1 brought up with him that is of a similar age for the creation of this planet.

The truth is that that teaching that I received at age 18 was a heresy, but it was a persuasive heresy.

It was a documented heresy full of information and quotes.

And I just want you to somehow in this period become immune to that kind of thing.

If you have that handout, look down at 0.4.

Session 3: Are SDA Bible Studies a Form of Proof-texting that Take Many Things Out of Context?

Our Father in heaven, I ask that you would help us as we study.

I'm asking that you would teach us how to arrive at true conclusions regarding your Holy Bible.

And I ask for this gift in the name of Jesus.

So Ellen White wrote some interesting things related to how to know what's true.

She wrote that if you come up with a new interpretation of scripture that you should, yeah, I think I can read it to you here.

How many people are there in this room that were here in the first session so you have the longer handout?

It doesn't have page numbers so I don't know if I can help you find what I'm reading.

If I don't find it, I can just tell you what it says and I'll feel...

So what Ellen White wrote is that when you come up with a new idea, you need to bounce it off brethren of experience.

I'm going to tell you how this goes wrong and how it leads to people thinking that they must be about right.

When you find out, or let's say to make you feel better, let's say It's the doctor in your local church.

Doctors are the origin of more successful heresies than plumbers.

It's not because that they are more heretical than plumbers, But it's because people tend to believe them more than they believe plumbers.

Does that make any sense to you, what I'm saying?

And so the local doctor in your local church discovers, yeah, a doctor wrote to me about this from England recently, discovers that the little horn of Daniel 8 is certainly not Rome.

So the doctor has that, but now he's going to present this to the brethren of experience to see what they think.

And so he presents it to all the elders in his local church and his local pastor.

Do you know there's a fair chance that his local pastor hasn't studied about the Little Horn in over 7 years, right?

And I don't mean to fault any local pastor that way.

The fact is that local pastors have a lot of things they need to study and they might not get to reviewing everything like so often, right?

And the local elders in that church, it may be that none of them have studied the book of Daniel since they were in college.

And now when the doctor presents his idea and they see his evidence, it makes good sense to them.

And they say, I don't see any problem with it.

Well, what he asks is, do you see a problem with it?

And they know if they say yes, don't they have to explain what the problem is?

If they're not ready to explain what the problem is, are they going to tell him they see a problem?

But what I'm trying to illustrate for you is that if you ever come up with a new idea, You can't bounce it off your buddies and then think that you've bounced it off brethren of experience.

Does that make you follow what I'm saying?

There are a thousand temptations in disguise prepared for those who have the light of truth.

And the only safety for any of us is in receiving no new doctrine, no new interpretation of the scriptures without first submitting it to brethren of experience.

Lay it before them in a humble, teachable spirit with earnest prayer, and if they see no light in it, yield to their judgment, for in a multitude of counselors there is safety.

Yeah, so in the fifth line of testimony, as Elmight said, if the brethren of experience see no light in your new idea, even though it seems like it's light to you, drop it.

Isn't that hard, at least for Americans, to bite into?

Doesn't that sound like the very opposite of the principles that built the Reformation?

God never intended that we would be individual atoms.

He never intended that you would be the mouth, the brain, the eye, the nose, the whole thing.

He intended that the church would arrive at truth as a body.

Have you read that in Ephesians 4 last period?

So it wasn't just prophets that had been given to the church.

Evangelist and pastor teachers and in fact apostles, you have a whole system there of a church working together to arrive at the truth.

So if you have your 1 page handout, the 1 that everyone has now, look down at number 6.

We started out by saying that we should not be dependent on humans for our truth.

You can take a lot of, oh, take the single-paged ones because I want to have 1 copy of the whole thing.

When you say faith-based commentaries, you mean people that have commented that they were Christians?

Okay, so Ezekiel's asking, what does the handout mean when it says faith-based commentaries?

I mean that there are many Bible commentaries that do not take God at his word.

The last thing you need is to read comments by someone who isn't sure that this or that verse is really inspired, Or someone who's not sure if really the book of Daniel was written when it claims to be.

Well, I guess it doesn't have any claims in it, but it was claimed to be written by the man who lived at that time, Daniel.

Nerds, if you have textbooks, I'm going to be so plain here, I'm talking to college students mostly.

If your teacher assigned you to read a textbook by someone who doesn't believe in the authority and accuracy of scripture, I don't think that you ought to do your assignments.

But there are some commentaries I have on my computer, online Bible, it's free, right?

Onlinebible.net, you can get this for free.

And it has some commentaries that our pioneers often referred to.

Have any of you read in our pioneer writings where they refer to Adam Clark?

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Series

Exegetical Nonsense

Session 2: How to Evaluate Those Studies that Purport to be New Truth

Transcript

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Parts

Session 1: How to Study the Bible for Yourself

40m

Session 2: How to Evaluate Those Studies that Purport to be New Truth

51m

Session 3: Are SDA Bible Studies a Form of Proof-texting that Take Many Things Out of Context?

52m

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