Mining the Bible for All It's Riches

In the cold north country of Alaska and Canada there lies millions of pounds of gold just waiting to be uncovered. This gold is laid to rest in gravel deposits from ancient river channels. These channels are now covered with sediment, soil, and vegetation. One would be hard pressed to imagine a river or creek once flowed along in these areas. The miners in this area have to use huge machinery to remove this material to expose the gold rich channel dirt below. The soil on the surface they call “overburden”, and the gold rich soil of the gravely river bottoms they call “paydirt”. Once this overburden is removed, the paydirt is exposed and collected. The paydirt is then processed by a machine called a wash plant. The wash plant uses high pressure water streams, vibrating screens, and gravity to separate the gold from the gravel. After countless hours of hard work and expense, the miner hopefully has a mason jar full of gold flakes for his trouble. And so it is with the Scriptures.

     When the Holy Spirit regenerates us and faith in Christ abounds, our great overburden of sin and guilt is removed from our account with the Father. As we saw in last week's article, our sin is first imputed to Christ so that we are seen guiltless, and then Christ righteousness is imputed onto ourselves through faith that we may be seen righteous to the father. Just as the giant bulldozers and excavators remove the overburden to expose the paydirt, so also Christ scrapes away our unrighteousness to expose his righteousness laid to our account. Here we stand redeemed with unlimited paydirt under our feet.

     This paydirt is the Holy Scriptures or Bible. The vox dei or voice of God spoken through men under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. It is both infallible and inerrant, it is both revealing and obscure, it is both simple and complex. In the paragraphs to follow I will share with you a general overview of the rules I use to study the scriptures. How I mine each and every verse, exposing it to the high pressure showers and vibrating screens of the wash plant, in order to obtain the riches of truth hidden in the rubble. The more you work these principals, the more flakes you will find. Soon the flakes get larger and larger until you uncover great nuggets of truth that change your life, sanctify, draw you nearer to God, and most of all enhance how you bring him Glory. After all according the the Westminster Confession of Faith, the chief end of man is to “Glorify God and enjoy Him Forever”.

     In beginning there are three basic terms we need to discuss. These terms are hermeneutics, exegesis, and eisegesis. Hermeneutics is simply the fancy way of saying the science or art of interrupting the scriptures. It doesn't matter what method you use to study the Scriptures, it is still hermeneutics, whether right or wrong.

Eisegesis is also a complex term given to a simple prospect. Simply put, eisegesis means that you force your philosophy or doctrine on the Scriptures to make them support your cause. For instance if you had a firm belief that the three persons of the trinity were separate independent beings, you might only use Scriptures that speak of each person separately. You would ignore the passages that were in contradiction, and approach each verse separately, so as to remove context and remove the back drop of the rest of Scripture. Eisegesis is common with false biblical doctrine in those that were taught a doctrine without Scriptural support of the Bible as a whole. I like to call this “priming”. If doctrine comes before basic Bible interpretation, it is very easy to try to make verses match your doctrine, instead of the verses making your doctrine. Some concepts of the Bible are so simple that the only requirement to understand are ears or eyes. The very basics of salvation and good vs. evil are prime examples.

     Now we will deal with the primary focus of any true Bible student or theologian. Exegesis is yet another fancy Latin term that is very simple in meaning, but unable to be mastered. Exegesis simple means “to draw out of”. That is, that when we study the Scriptures, we are to draw the meaning out of the text that God intended, not what we intended. If Hermeneutics is the art of studying Scripture, then in fact exegesis is the interpretation that we gain from that study. It is no easy task, yet the rewards are beyond worth. I will lay out the basic rules that I believe help use to draw out the truth. I will only touch briefly on each rule in this article, as I will cover each separately in later articles.

*It is important to note that these principals have been used by theologians for hundreds of years. I will use a format of the rules I learned from Hank Hanegraaff at the Christian Research Institute. The acronyms, or Hankronyms as he likes to call them, are not my work, but those of Mr. Hanegraaff. You can learn more of this ministry at equip.org.

I used Mr. Hanegraaffs system do to his easy to remember acronyms. The basis is found Psalm 119:105. Thy word is a lamp unto thy feet, and a light unto my path. For the rules of Bible interpretation you just need to remember LIGHTS. Literal, Illumination, Grammar, History, Typology, and Synergy. Let's overview these rules.

Literal Principal- We are interpret the Bible in its most obvious and natural sense, or as it has been said “to interpret the Bible literally is to interpret it as literature.” If we use the methods of interpreting literature for the literal principal, we are far less likely to force symbols, metaphor, or allegory (parable) into a wooden literal sense. For instance When Christ says he is a door or a lamb, we are not to force the Scripture to say that he is really an actual door or lamb, but these are metaphors for a spiritual truth. We can define the literal interpretation of a verse through Form(genre), and by the presence, or lack there of , Figurative Language and Fantasy Imagery. Again, we will cover these topics in depth in articles to come.

Illumination Principal- The illumination principal is a Spirit powered principal. It is vital in exegesis to pray for illumination of the Scripture as well to hide the Word in your heart. An easy way to remember the steps to make the most of illumination is the acronym MEALS. Memorize, Examine, Apply, Listen, and Study.

Grammatical Principal- This principal breaks each verse down phrase by phrase, and word by word to draw out what the author is driving at. In order to understand this principal, we need only basic understanding of the rules of grammar. The basic of this principal are syntax, style, and semantics. And of course, a little common sense.

Historical Principal- In this principal, we take a look at what is going on around the author when a passage is written. In order to get a true context of the passage, often times one needs this principal to fully grasp the passage. Here we will use the acronym LEGACY. Location, Essence, Genre, Author, Context, and Years.

Typology Principal- A type is a person, event, or institution in the Old Testament that points forward to a greater reality in the New Testament. A great example of this principal is found in Hebrews 9:23-24. The Old Testament is filled with these types. For example the Holy Land, Holy City, and Holy Temple are all types of the future blessings of God's covenant people. It is said that “the study of prophecy (eschatology) is the thread that weave Scripture into a glorious tapestry, typology is the material out of which the thread is spun.”

Scriptural Synergy- As I have said in past articles this is by far the most important of the principals. Also know as the “Analogy or Faith”, this principal simply states that the whole of Scripture is great than the sum of its individual parts. In other words, to properly execute exegesis, your conclusion must always agree with and never contradict clear truths of the rest of Scripture. You must interpret individual passages of Scripture to understand the Bible as a whole, but these individual passages must all align with its counterparts.

Come back next week as we explore these principals in depth one at a time and apply them to the Scriptures. God Bless.