1) …Both the Old and New Testaments (in whole) constitute the inspired, infallible, and inerrant Word of God;
2) …Scripture is the sole authority of both faith and practice in the life of the believer in Christ;
3) …The Bible is a collection of books (which tell a unified story) which point to Jesus.
When I read the Bible, my hermeneutical approach or my method of interpretation emphasizes the following five basic principles…
1) …The Lord Jesus Christ is the central focus of God’s plan in redemptive history;
2) …All Scripture either directly refers to Christ, or it prepares the way for Christ by unfolding redemptive history which ultimately points to His person and work;
3) …The Old and New Testaments combine to give us the full revelation of God. In order to develop a well-balanced theology: the clearer and more frequent texts which speak to an issue, the more weight we should give to them as the building blocks of our theology; the more a doctrine can be found in a range of contexts and genres in the Bible, the stronger the biblical evidence; conversely, isolated texts and those falling in more obscure genres should be given less weight as evidence for our theology. In other words… one must be careful to not use later, unclear texts (by default) to circumvent earlier texts which are already clear, just because the later texts came further along in the timeline of the Bible’s drafting;
4) …An accurate analysis of a passage’s context is key and such would include the local, literary, historical, and canonical aspects (scripture interpreting scripture) of the references in view;
5) …The principle of historical-grammatical interpretation (guided by the first four principles), assumes that the Bible was written to common people, meant to be understandable to anyone in history. However, it was written thousands of years ago to different cultures. Therefore, as modern readers, we have to try to recover the general sense of the meaning of words, phrases, concepts, sayings and idioms known by the ancient cultures in view. Such are addressed in scripture primarily to the Hebrew culture from Moses to Malachi (Old Testament), and then later expanded to the Greco-Roman culture of the first century (New Testament), without divorcing itself from a Hebraic perspective. In other words, just because the New Testament was written in Greek, it does not then mean that it ought to be filtered by a Hellenistic, philosophical reading (leaving the Hebraic perspective solely for the Old Testament). Such a change of viewpoint would pit the New Testament against the Old Testament, making the Word of God incoherent. Even though scripture was written in specific historical settings to specific historical people, in this approach the words and expressions in the Bible are seen as having a relatively stable meaning throughout the timeline of history, making it possible for God’s people at all times and locations to be changed by what God has said…
2 Timothy 3:16-17 (NASB)
All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.
This quote sums it all up:
“Here’s the bottom line: The Bible is NOT to be interpreted through the grid of modern culture or our own cultures which are modern. It is to be interpreted in light of the context in which it was given. If anyone has any interest in getting to what the text meant when God inspired its creation, THAT is the proper method — not appealing to 16th century Europeans or anyone else outside the divinely chosen cultural context. The latter is to recreate or filter the Bible in or through our own image.” – Dr. Michael Heiser
Godspeed, to the brethren!
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