Secrets Unsealed

ANCHOR School of Theology

Stephen Bohr

1. Principles for the Study of Bible Prophecy- Part 1

2. Principles for the Study of Bible Prophecy- Part 2

3. Principles for the Study of Bible Prophecy- Part 3

4. Notes on Daniel 2

5. The Importance of the Historical Flow Method- Part 1

6. The Importance of the Historical Flow Method- Part 2

7. Christ is the Center of Bible Prophecy Part 1

8. Christ is the Center of Bible Prophecy Part 2

9. A Providential Election

10. The Sabbath and Redemption

11. The Son (God) and the number 666

12. Who’s Hero Is Jesus Christ?

13. What Was Literal & Local is Spiritual & Global

14. The Flood Story As An Illustration of Historical Typology

15. The Year-Day Principle

16. God’s Israel: Understood Globally and Spiritually

17. Israel and the Fig Tree Part 1

18. Israel and the Fig Tree Part 2

19. The Stoning of Steven.. The Last Straw

20. How to Interpret Biblical Symbolism Part 1

21. How to Interpret Biblical Symbolism Part 2

22. The Sanctuary Sequence in the Book of Revelation

23. Daniel’s Little Sealed Book

24. Revelation 10

25. The Importance of Literary Structure in the Study of the Millennium Part 1

26. The Importance of Literary Structure in the Study of the Millennium Part 2

27. Revelation 12-22

28. How All the Books of the Bible Meet and End in Revelation

29. Learn how to use the writings of Ellen G. White- Part 1

30. Learn how to use the writings of Ellen G. White- Part 2

Let's begin our second class by studying principle number 3.

It's on page 4 of your syllabus and hopefully we'll be able to cover most of this principle in this our second class.

Principle number 3 is that we are supposed to remember to study the historical and cultural background, the grammar, the syntax, and the vocabulary of the passage that we are considering.

In other words there is a lot of work that goes into studying the text itself within its context.

Now prayer can never take the place of in-depth, careful, and exhaustive, as well as exhausting sometimes, investigation of the text.

We must do a basic study of the text or passage that we are dealing with.

Here are some principles to remember and I have 12 principles here under this third principle which is talking about dealing with the text itself.

First of all Peter stated that Paul wrote some things that are hard to understand, which the unlearned twist to their own destruction.

This must mean that the Bible, the study of the Bible is not always easy.

Profound Bible study requires time and effort, it is not enough to read the Bible we must search the Bible.

There is a grave danger folks of being hasty and superficial in our study of scripture because we haven't carefully examined and correlated all of the evidence that comes from the text.

Bible study is like detective work, looking for clues here and there and then bringing all the evidence together to solve the case so to speak.

Our study must be meticulous and exhaustive, in other words it's not enough to pray, we must pray and then we must study.

God will not do for us what we can do for ourselves, He has given us resources to do it.

So the first principle is that we need to dedicate time and effort in gathering all of the information.

Second, this is at the top of page 5, we should always pray for the guidance of the Holy Spirit in our study.

The Holy Spirit inspired the Bible and for this reason He is the only 1 who can explain what it means, and we might have to read a text several times before we are able to make any sense of what the text is trying to tell us.

Third, try and discover what the text means before you try to determine what it means to you.

The Bible text has an objective inherent meaning independently of what you think.

Did God inject in the text a meaning that's apart from me?

The danger of Bible study groups where people ask what does this text mean to you is that we will put our own spin on the text instead of allowing the text to speak for itself, as a result we end up with many opinions about the text but not necessarily with the meaning that the writer intended.

Sad to say in many study groups what the people are doing is pooling their ignorance.

How can you give your opinion about what the text means to you if you haven't studied what the text means?

The Apostle Peter assures us that no prophecy is of any private interpretation.

In short, beware of determining what the Bible means to you until you are sure what the text really means.

We are to extract from the Bible what it means rather than putting into the Bible what we think it means or what we wanted to say.

Point number 4, Carefully examine the context, and I'm going to give you examples of most of these in a few moments, but I wanted to go through the principles first.

Carefully examine the context, that is what comes before and after the passage that you're studying.

Many times the context contains the key that unlocks the meaning of the passage that we are struggling with.

So read what comes before and what comes after, it's vitally important because some people simply isolate a text and they say that this text means this when it doesn't mean that at all.

To give you an example Colossians chapter 2, let no 1 judge you about the Sabbath.

Taj is an evangelist, he faces people all the time who use that text to say see, or nobody judge you regarding days, so they take that 1 verse but they don't look at the context, the immediate context, as well as the broader biblical context.

When you read the Bible mark the key words and write your own notes and comments in the margins, any questions, any comments you have write them in the margins, very important.

In this way when you are studying the passage many other related Bible passages will come to mind and help you understand the specific passage that you are studying when you read over and over again.

Number 6, if you are not able to read the original languages, read the passage in as many Bible versions as possible.

It is highly unlikely, although once in a great while it does happen, that all Bible versions are wrong in their translation.

And be very careful with paraphrases and amplified versions because they are not translations, they are interpretations, so we have to be very careful with those.

Seventh, do a careful study of the meaning of key words in the passage.

You can do this by using a Bible concordance such as Strong's, so look for other passages that use the same word.

Frequently the same words are used in other passages of the Bible.

A careful study of these words and other passages of the Bible will help you understand much better the passage or the verse that you are studying or that you are considering.

Number 8, look at the marginal references for any parallel passages to the 1 that you are studying.

Some of these connections are priceless and I'll be giving you some examples in a few moments.

Number 9, study the grammar and syntax of a passage, by syntax we mean word order.

They most certainly are, extremely important.

You don't need to know the original languages to do this.

There are many resources in English which can help you in this regard.

Good Greek English and Hebrew English lexicon would be very valuable and in our free time when we're not in class I'll be glad to share with you the software that I use.

It's a software that anyone can use whether you've studied Greek or Hebrew or not.

You can find out the meanings of words, the tenses, it's amazing, it's an amazing software.

Number 10, learn to ask questions, we already covered this of the passage that you are studying.

Some of you might be too young to remember Lieutenant Columbo, he asked and asked until the guilty party self incriminated himself.

Why does it say things in the way it does?

What special circumstances led to its writing?

Learn to reflect on what you are reading.

It is like looking in a mirror, you look into the mirror and suddenly the mirror starts looking at you.

In other words the mirror talks back to you, we should study the Bible and then the Bible will study us.

After you have done all your personal research, this is very important, many people go to Ellen White first, I always go to Ellen White last because I enjoy the excitement of discovering it for myself, and then I go to Ellen White to see if I missed anything, and many times I've missed quite a bit.

After you've done all your study go to see what Ellen White has to say about that verse or about that passage, Read the Seventh-day Adventist Bible commentary or other commentaries to see what those commentaries have to say about that verse or about that passage because there might be something that you missed in your own personal study.

And finally number 12, when you finished your research put all of the pieces of information together and reach your conclusions and see how the passage can help your spiritual life by enhancing it, protecting it, enriching it, and correcting it.

You must now be willing to obey what you have learned.

The purpose of the Bible study is not to increase our intellectual knowledge.

The final goal of all Bible study is obedience.

So those are some of the principles that we need to apply when we study the text itself.

Now let me give you a few examples of the importance of all of these little nuances that we find within the text.

First of all the importance of the historical background.

Go with me to Philippians chapter 3, Philippians chapter 3 and verses 3 through 11, Philippians chapter 3 and verses 3 through 11.

This is the Apostle Paul speaking and we'll have occasion to come back to this a little later on in our class.

For we are the circumcision who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh, though I also might have confidence in the flesh.

If anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so.

Circumcised the eighth day of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, concerning the law a Pharisee, concerning zeal persecuting the church, concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.

Now would it be helpful to us to go to Paul's conversion story in the book of Acts to understand what he's saying.

Could you understand what he's saying if you didn't understand who Saul of Tarsus was before his conversion?

So you have to go beyond this text to another context that will help you understand where the Apostle Paul is coming from here.

Now notice verse 7, this is the road to Damascus experience.

But what things were gained to me, these I have counted loss for Christ.

Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ, and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith.

Would it be helpful for us to read about who Saul was before and his conversion experience to understand what he's saying here?

And so what I'm saying is we need to know the historical background to passages.

Incidentally when the Apostle Paul says I've lost all things for Christ this is 1 of his prison epistles, he was in prison and he'd lost everything for the cause of Christ.

And so does it help to know where he's writing from?

Of course, where he's writing from, what his frame of reference is, what his experience has been will help us understand a text, you can't isolate a text from the experience of the writer, so the historical background is extremely important.

Now what about verb tenses, is the verb tense important?

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ANCHOR School of Theology

2. Principles for the Study of Bible Prophecy- Part 2

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