How do you discern what is bad hermeneutics?

We’re going to start with a story about TBN, the Trinity Broadcasting Network. They had a guest on, and he was telling them, “My ministry is based entirely on my life verse, Matthew 19:26: ‘With God, all things are possible.’” Okay. He said, “God gave me that verse, Matthew 19:26, because I was born in 1926.” I was born in 1973. I guess God didn’t want me to have a life verse. As far as I know, there is no chapter 19 and verse 73 anywhere in the Bible. In any event, the host of that show, I don’t know who he was. He grabbed a Bible and starts flipping through it. He said, “I was born in 1934. “My life verse must Matthew 19:34. What does it say?” Oops. Matthew 19 has only 30 verses. He flipped over to Luke and read Luke 19:34: “And they said, ‘The Lord hath need of him.’” He’s like, “The Lord has need of me! The Lord has need of me! What a wonderful life verse. I’ve never had a life verse before, but now the Lord has given me one! Thank you, Jesus, hallelujah!” The audience went crazy. But then, the host’s wife, sitting next to him, she had been reading Luke 19. She said, “Wait a minute, you can’t use this. That verse is talking about a donkey.”

As funny as that story is, how do you explain that that is bad hermeneutics? First, the bit about the donkey shows the importance of context. This whole idea of “I was born in 19-whatever” and then you look up a Bible verse in a chapter 19 somewhere is absurd. Why? God never inspired the verse numbers. The modern versification scheme we use today was created by French scholar and printer Robert Estienne for his 1551 Greek New Testament. His system quickly spread to other versions, including the Geneva Bible in 1560 and all the others after that, which Bryan talked about at length in his “From This Generation Forever” series.

But there’s another reason. There aren’t any examples of this kind of thinking in the Bible itself. You don’t see Jesus telling some person, “You were born in X year. Go look up your life verse in Genesis or whatever.” He never said that. Why? He doesn’t operate that way. He doesn’t tell you in His Word to look for your life verse based upon the year you were born in the book of Matthew.

If you don’t see a verse or an example of a hermeneutical approach, it’s bad hermeneutics.

Here’s another funny story. There was a man who needed some divine guidance, shall we say, about a major decision he needed to make. So what does he do? He closes his eyes, flips through the Bible, puts his finger down on a verse. And what was the verse his finger landed on? Matt. 27:5, talking about how Judas “departed, and went and hanged himself.” He’s like, “Hmm, this can’t be right.” So he tries again. This time, his finger lands on Luke 10:37, which says, “Go, and do thou likewise.” He’s like, “I’m gonna get this right.” So he tries one more time. This time, his finger lands on John 13:27: “That thou doest, do quickly.”

Let me ask again, how do you explain that that is bad hermeneutics? How would you explain that this is not how you study Scripture?

I’d say the answer is simple.

You don’t see examples of people studying that way IN the Bible, do you? Nobody ever did that. There are no verses in which God advocated that you should randomly pick verses and He’ll speak to you that way. If that’s how God operated, He would have told you to do that in His Word. God never left you on your own to figure out how you are to study His Word. He tells you how to study it. He tells you about rightly dividing His Word, which isn’t simply about understanding distinctions that matter. Rightly dividing also means you’re considering what’s written in its context in order to make those distinctions. You can’t rightly divide unless you’re considering context. You’re considering who is speaking to whom, when it was spoken, and with what intent, etc. Rightly dividing also means that you take literally what you’re reading unless the text gives you reason to think otherwise. You cannot rightly divide unless you’re taking literally what God is saying.

God also tells you that He teaches you by comparing spiritual with spiritual, which would discredit the idea of anyone randomly picking verses out of context, like it’s some mystical process to get a special message from God. You already have a special message from God in which He reveals His will for your life, and it’s found in the epistles of Paul. And God tells you that He teaches you by comparing spiritual with spiritual. He wants you reading that verse in its context so you can learn by comparing those spiritual concepts. So God, in His Word, creates a question in your mind. You’re drawn into those verses to do what? Compare two spiritual concepts to answer that question, and that comparison of spiritual concepts is the very definition of Biblical interpretation. This is how we learn. That process develops our ability to think critically, and the comparison of those spiritual concepts is how we discern spiritual truths we did not understand before. This isn’t about comparing verses. This is about comparing the spiritual concepts that are in those verses. This is about comparisons of concepts in order to learn and gain a greater spiritual understanding. 2 Tim. 3:16 tells us, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine…” And I’d suggest that, in part, the profit comes from the comparison of those spiritual concepts. If you compare the sacrificial system of the OT to all that Paul said about Christ’s sacrifice for our sins, you can’t help but gain a greater understanding of substitutionary atonement, which is profitable for doctrine.

We’re going to look at another example of bad hermeneutics, but it’s IN the Bible. In Mark 12, the Lord gets three questions from religious leaders. We’re going to look at the second question from the Sadducees. You remember the Sadducees? They’re sad, you see, because they don’t believe in resurrection.

Mar 12:18 Then come unto him the Sadducees, which say there is no resurrection; and they asked him, saying, Mar 12:19 Master, Moses wrote unto us, If a man’s brother die, and leave his wife behind him, and leave no children, that his brother should take his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother. Mar 12:20 Now there were seven brethren: and the first took a wife, and dying left no seed. Mar 12:21 And the second took her, and died, neither left he any seed: and the third likewise. Mar 12:22 And the seven had her, and left no seed: last of all the woman died also. Mar 12:23 In the resurrection therefore, when they shall rise, whose wife shall she be of them? for the seven had her to wife. Mar 12:24 And Jesus answering said unto them, Do ye not therefore err, because ye know not the scriptures, neither the power of God? Mar 12:25 For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels which are in heaven. Mar 12:26 And as touching the dead, that they rise: have ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God spake unto him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? Mar 12:27 He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living: ye therefore do greatly err.

I love this story. The Sadducees wanted to trap Jesus. They bring up, without quoting it, Deu 25:5 If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger: her husband’s brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husband’s brother unto her. So the question is, who’s wife is she going to be in the resurrection?

I remember Baker in his book, “Understanding the Gospels,” said, that the Sadducees were just asking Jesus a question that might cause Him to say something whereby they could accuse Him of breaking the Law of Moses. I don’t think that’s the case. I think the Sadducees were trying to prove that Jesus wasn’t the Messiah because Jesus taught resurrection. And now they’re going to prove their point by stumping Jesus with this seeming conundrum about the resurrection – which brother will this woman be the wife? As if that somehow disproved the idea of resurrection, because no one knows how to answer that question.

And how does Jesus respond? Jesus gives them a big ol’ public smackdown. He tells them ye know not the scriptures, neither the power of God.

How is it that they did not know Scriptures? They knew some Scriptures because they were talking about Deut. 25. I’d suggest that they were ignorant of Scriptures because they were so intent on imposing their own view onto the text that there is no resurrection that they were unwilling to ever consider what the text actually said and allow the text to adjust their thinking. They’re so determined, they’re so willful, about imposing their own views onto the text rather than consider what the text actually says, that all their time in Scripture was pretty much wasted. Plus, they were so determined to believe that there is no resurrection regardless of the Scriptural proof, that they made themselves ignorant of the very power of God.

The Lord says in Mar 12:26 And as touching the dead, that they rise: have ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God spake unto him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? Mar 12:27 He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living: ye therefore do greatly err. I read that the Sadducees accepted only the books of Moses and claimed that Moses did not teach resurrection. So they were ignorant because they refused to read ALL of the Scriptures. But even in the books they would read, the books of Moses, they still blew it. Jesus quotes Moses at the burning bush to show them that although these patriarchs had been literally dead for years, and yet, Moses still spoke of them as living. “God is not the God of the dead but God of the living.” So, there must be life beyond the grave. If the patriarchs had become non-existent, then there was no possibility of a resurrection. But they did exist and therefore could be resurrected. This, to me, is a classic example from Scripture of people imposing their views onto the text rather than consider what the text says and be willing to adjust their thinking. They’re also making themselves ignorant because they were unwilling to read ALL the Bible.

This leads us into another example of really bad hermeneutics, and that is subjectivism.

We have many churches today in which people come together, sit in a circle, look at their different translations, read a verse, and then going around the circle and asking everyone, “What does that verse mean to you?” It’s not about what does this verse actually say in the actual Word of God? Where do we find the Word of God today? It’s not about what is the meaning of that verse in its context. This is about you imposing your own personal viewpoints onto a text you don’t even trust. And no one is allowed to call into question your own subjective interpretation of that flawed text. The Word of God has now become secondary to your feelings, and your experiences, and your political viewpoints. This is about you making the text whatever it is you want it to be rather than having a text you can trust as the Word of God and coming to that text with an open heart to receive all the things God wants you to understand, to know God’s will for your life.

This book is about what HIS will is, not what YOU want it to be.

When I was studying hermeneutics, I wrote in my notes that “subjectivism suggests a communication problem on God’s part.” As if God is so ineffective at communicating and preserving his communication that we are now left to our own devices with no resources, to feel our way around in the dark, constantly guessing at God’s will for our lives. Well, if any of that is even remotely true, God isn’t God, and He cannot be trusted.

Another word for this brand of bad hermeneutics is eisegesis. This is the exact opposite of exegesis. Exegesis is to draw out, to explain, to offer the meaning of a text. Eisegesis is “to lead into.” Eisegesis is to interject your own ideas onto a text, making a text mean whatever it is you want it to mean. If the words somehow get in the way of not meaning what you want it to mean, there are ways of subverting a text, which was practically invented by Augustine. He said in his book, De doctrina christiana, that there are four different types of hermeneutics for every verse: literal, moral, allegorical (spiritual), and anagogical or mystical allusions to the afterlife in Heaven. So for every verse, he says you must approach that verse using these four perspectives, which is what many were doing in the medieval period. Theology had taken precedence over careful literal-historical exegesis. For example, the word “Jerusalem” literally referred to the city itself; allegorically, it refers to the church of Christ; morally, it indicates the human soul; and in an anagogical sense, it points to heavenly Jerusalem.

In my opinion, I think Augustine invented that system because that was the only way he could make all the Bible be about us. When you fail to take heed of the Lord’s instructions about rightly dividing His Word of Truth, these kinds of convoluted systems of interpretation are dreamed up in order to make every verse be all about you to the exclusion of everything else. I’d suggest that system was created because Augustine simply refused to rightly divide the word of truth as God had told him to in 2 Tim. 2:15. Not only that, there is now a movement called Marxist Hermeneutics that uses Augustine’s fourfold approach to interpretation because Augustine’s method of interpretation is so effective at subverting a text.

So exegesis is to draw out, to explain, to offer the meaning of a text. Eisegesis is “to lead into.” Eisegesis is to interject your own ideas onto a text, making a text mean whatever it is you want it to mean.

Another note I had left for myself is that “eisegesis leads to narcegesis.” Narcegesis is a term describing the preaching of a mega church pastor by the name of Steven Furtick at Elevation Worship. Narcegesis is a combination of narcissism and eisegesis. In other words, Furtick has, like many pastors today, abandoned all hermeneutics. He imposes whatever he wants onto the text, and he will take every text and every Bible story and twist it around to always be about him.

Here are roughly six more examples of bad hermeneutics.

Over-Contextualizing

One of the books I read was “Interpreting the Bible: an Overview of Hermeneutics” by Ernst Wendland, which was a textbook for Stellenbosch University.

One of the points he made was Over-Contextualizing, which I loved. The idea here is that context can be taken to the other extreme in which you try to define something from one context and one context only to the exclusion of all the other references to that same thing in the Bible.

You take angel of the Lord for example. Someone might try to say, “Well, the first reference to the angel of the Lord is in Gen. 16 when the Lord had clearly come to this Earth in some pre-incarnate form to speak to Hagar at that fountain of water in the wilderness. Therefore, the angel of the Lord can only be a pre-incarnate form of Jesus and nothing else. Well, how can that be when Luke tells us in Luke 2 that the angel of the Lord appeared to those shepherds keeping watch over their flock by night to tell them about the birth of their Savior in the city of David? How can Jesus appear to those shepherds as an angel when He was just born in a manger in Bethlehem? No, the angel of the Lord is a Hal question. Is the angel of the Lord an angel sent by God or a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ? YES. To figure out which one it is, you have to pay attention to the context. You cannot define terms to the exclusion of all the other usages of those same terms. Context can include comparisons with other usages of the same expressions in the Bible. The Bible should be interpreted within the framework of the whole Bible, and as is often said, the Bible interprets itself, in the immediate context or somewhere in the Bible.

Taking Figurative Language Literally & Literal Language Figuratively

Another issue is taking figurative language literally and taking literal language figuratively. Ernst wrote, “The Literal Interpretation Principle does not mean that we woodenly take every word in the Bible literally, but rather that we approach it as we would any other book, taking figurative phrases, hyperbole, poetic personifications, and other figures of speech into account in our interpretation.” I can’t think of a better example than the book of Revelation. Some dismiss that book as impossible to understand because it’s all figurative. No, it’s not. And some try to make the literal verses somehow figurative and all about the church. I found the book of Revelation to be fairly straightforward about what is literal and what is figurative. I never had that question in my mind as to what is literal and what isn’t. When it came to the interpretation of the figurative, it’s true! The Bible interprets itself. The connections, especially between Revelation and Daniel, were all fairly obvious, I thought. The book of Revelation can be hard work for a student at times, but it’s not impossible to understand.

Allowing the Implicit to Explain the Explicit

The example Ernst gave for this principle I thought was kinda weak, but it goes like this: Jesus is called the “firstborn,” like the firstborn of every creature in Col. 1:15. People who don’t believe in the trinity would use “firstborn” to say that He was created when He was born. Well, that’s a contextual issue because “firstborn” is about His resurrection, not His incarnation. He’s the first to be permanently resurrected, the firstborn for all us. The victory of His resurrection has become the victory of our resurrection, too. And there are many verses in Scripture about the Lord having always existed in eternity past with the Father, and He brought creation into existence through His spoken Word. So they’re allowing something they’re trying to imply that’s being said in that one verse to take precedence over what is explicitly stated about the Lord in so many other verses. They’re allowing the implicit to override the explicit. Ernst would write, “John 1:3 and Colossians 1:16, on the other hand, explicitly state that the Son existed before all things, and indeed that all things came into existence through Him. Allowing the implicit to explain the explicit – the possible to explain the certain – is not a sound interpretive principle. Scripture indeed interprets Scripture, so long as clarity explains ambiguity, and not the other way around.”

Harmonization by Denial

Ernst wrote, “The Bible declares that Jesus was a man (John 1:14; 1 Timothy 2:5; etc.). It also calls Him God (John 1:1; 20:28; etc.). God says in Hosea 11:9 that He is not man. Non-Trinitarians that hold to the principle of the harmony of Scripture, believe these verses present an apparent contradiction, and they resolve this contradiction by denying the fully Deity of Christ. They either favor grammatical arguments that remove the attribution of ‘God’ to Jesus, or they argue that He must be a lesser divinity and not true God. It is certainly exegetically valid to deny what Scripture does not explicitly or implicitly affirm. However, to deny what Scripture affirms both explicitly and implicitly is not a sound hermeneutical methodology. If we truly believe in the sufficiency of Scripture (2 Timothy 3:16), we should allow Scripture to shape our theology (or, in this case, our Christology) in such a way that Scripture is harmonized by complete affirmation of its teaching. Thus, when Scripture tells us the Christ is both Man and God, we should allow these truths to shape our view of Christ’s nature, rather than deny one or the other.”

I love that point. You see what He’s saying? Just because you don’t understand that the Lord was fully God and fully man does not mean that what the Bible is telling you is untrue. And that you must deny His humanity or His divinity simply because it’s incomprehensible.

Misunderstanding the Proper Application of Grammar

Words mean things. I love to use Webster’s 1828, although it’s not perfect, and Bryan has me hooked on Etymonline the Lexicons of Early Modern English. We’re just a click away from getting an accurate, Bible-based definitions.

Plus, we can also view the history of the definition of a word going back to the 1400’s and make the case that a certain view has always been the general understanding of a word.

I’m also very much opposed to the idea that you don’t need dictionaries and the Bible has its own built-in dictionary. I appreciate the fact that many dear brethren hold the Bible to such high esteem. The Bible certainly interprets itself, but it doesn’t have its own dictionary. This is taking us down a path in which words will have no meaning at all, because now everyone is going to be dreaming up whatever they think the definition of a word should be based on how it’s used in the Bible.

How are you going to define a word in the Bible that is used only once like Easter (Acts 12:4)?

“Well, we can figure it out from the context.” No, you can’t. If you never heard of the word, you wouldn’t be able to figure that out. And for you to write the definition of Easter based on the context, you’re going to be bringing your own preconceived ideas of what you were taught Easter means. If that’s the case, why not use a dictionary? For years, people didn’t know what to think of Easter in Acts 12:4 until Bryan did the hard work of studying the etymology of that word. Tyndale invented the word passover. Before Tyndale, they called it Easter. That’s good information to know, wouldn’t you say?

Because the whole concept of a built-in dictionary isn’t actually about how the Bible defines a word. It’s about how THEY want to define words according to THEIR own personal subjective interpretation.

But there is a far bigger and important point to be made here.

We do not make up new hermeneutical rules that have no Biblical precedence. We do not make up new hermeneutical rules that have no Biblical precedence. Okay, you want to say that the Bible has a built-in dictionary. Give me a Bible verse. Show me an example IN THE BIBLE of somebody using this built-in dictionary IN the Bible.

God explains to you in His Word how to study His Word. He demonstrates proper exegesis. Where is the Biblical precedence for a built-in dictionary? That doesn’t exist. Where in the Bible does God say that His scriptures have a built-in dictionary? That doesn’t exist. Where do we see in Paul’s epistles, for example, him modeling for us how the whole built-in dictionary works? That doesn’t exist. If God took the time to explain to all of us that we should be rightly dividing His word, that He teaches by comparing spiritual with spiritual and the importance of context and the fallacies of eisegesis as we saw in Mark 12, and that we’re to exegete by giving the sense or the literal-historical context of a passage, if God takes the time to teach us all of THOSE principles, why doesn’t He tell you about a built-in dictionary?

We do not make up new hermeneutical rules that have no Biblical precedence! That is not how hermeneutics works!

Hermeneutics is this: God tells you how to study. He gives you examples of proper study. We learn from that. We go and do likewise. That’s how it works.

Thus, we have no choice but to conclude that this idea of a built-in dictionary is incorrect because there is no Biblical precedence for that.

This isn’t the only time I’ve seen people in grace come up with brand new hermeneutical ideas. This goes back to the Rodney B. controversy that started a few years ago. Before he went full-blown universalist, he began to teach that the judgment seat of Christ wasn’t for us. It was for the Little Flock. And how did he come to that conclusion? Paul talked about, in 1 Cor. 3, that our works shall be tried in the fire to determine what kind of work it is.

So then Rodney spends an hour and a half going through the history of the word “fire” in the Bible. “Fire” was used often in the OT. “Fire” was associated with judgment and always connected with Israel. What a shocker that verses in the OT about fire and judgment were often connected with Israel. And therefore, Rodney argued, the Judgment Seat of Christ is only meant for the Little Flock. So if you study the history of a word, then you can figure out who Paul is writing to in his epistles.

Not one college course or book on hermeneutics would ever teach such nonsense. So from a sheer hermeneutical standpoint, how do we know that that was wrong? Because there’s no Biblical precedence for it. We do not make up new hermeneutical rules that have no Biblical precedence. Where is the Biblical precedence to study the history of words to determine who an apostle is writing to? That doesn’t exist. Where in the Bible does God say that we need to study the history of words to figure if verses are written to you? That doesn’t exist. Where do we find Paul exemplifying this hermeneutical idea in his epistles? That doesn’t exist. Where do we see in Paul’s epistles, for example, him modeling for us how to use the history of words to understand what is applicable to us and what isn’t? That doesn’t exist.

If God took the time to explain to all of us all of these other hermeneutical principles like rightly dividing the word, comparing spiritual with spiritual, context, eisegesis, etc., if God takes the time to teach us all of THOSE principles, why doesn’t He teach you about studying the history of words?

We do not make up new hermeneutical rules that have no Biblical precedence. This is how hermeneutics works. God tells you how to study His Word. He gives examples. We go and do likewise. Thus, we have no choice but to reject Rodney’s dreamed-up notion about hermeneutics. When it comes to Rodney, I love the man, but I hate the universalism heresy he teaches.

Let me share another example from Scotty Clarke. I love the saint, but I hate the universalism heresy. One of Scotty Clarke’s videos was about the Brethren of the Rapture. His argument was that every time you see “brethren,” Paul’s not talking about you. He’s talking about the Little Flock. He went through the history of the word brethren in the OT talking about Israel. What a shocker that you’re going to find “brethren” in the OT about Israelites. He said that “brethren” is a legal term. It’s talking only about family. They all descended from Abraham. They were all family. Blood relatives. Except for the fact that there were many proselytes who were not blood relatives. Ever heard of Ruth?

And there is also the fact that brethren (or brothers), has more than one definition. The first one is a blood relative. The second one is “Any one closely united; an associate; as a band of brothers.”

It’s intellectually dishonest to suggest that there’s only one definition for brethren. This is another trap of the built-in dictionary concept – saints limiting the established definition of words because of one context. In other words, they’re falling into the trap of over-contextualizing when they’re dreaming up a definition of a word out of one context.

We also do not look at the history of words to determine who the audience is that Paul is talking to. How do we know this? There is no Biblical precedence for this anywhere in Scripture. We do not make up new hermeneutical rules that have no Biblical precedence. And brethren is another perfect example of how going down this path of saying the Bible has a built-in dictionary is fraught with endless striving over words.

Historical Fabrication

The last one – historical fabrication. This is important and there’s a lot of this going around right now. Ernst writes, “The reconstruction of Biblical history presents a whole host of opportunities for interpretive fallacies.” Totally agree. I had Noah’s Ark as a possible subject for discussion yesterday. A number of articles came up this week. Biblical Archeology had talked about ancient Babylonian texts that have been translated that they say reshaped how they view the Ark. These ancient texts, like the Epic of Gilgamesh tablets, describe the Ark as a giant, perfectly round bowl. I’m like, “How is a bowl going to float with all this rain coming down into it?” And in Gen. 6:15, the Ark was clearly not a bowl because the Lord gave the dimensions as 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide and 30 cubits high. How is that a bowl? And this goes back to bad hermeneutics and historical fabrication. This is the precedence of ancient texts full of bad information taking precedence over God’s Word, which is true from cover to cover. Just because you have a really old piece of antiquity, that doesn’t mean it’s true and takes precedence over the Word of God.

And I have to mention our Sonship Edification brethren. I love the saints. Not a fan of the doctrine. At the center of Sonship Edification is their reinterpretation of adoption – the idea a father adopting his own natural born son so he could teach him how to run the family practice. That’s why it’s a Sonship Edification, they say. You’re being adopted for the sake of learning how to run the family business. Who has ever adopted their own son to teach him the family business? But most importantly, this concept does not exist in Scripture. Their re-interpretation of adoption falls under the category of historical fabrication, because this idea of a father adopting his own son to teach him the family business doesn’t exist anywhere in the Bible. If it doesn’t exist in the Bible, then it should never be the foundation to your theology.

Conclusion

Let me just recap the big point here, what everyone should take away from our study of hermeneutics. The rules of hermeneutics are laid out for you in the Scriptures. If that hermeneutical principle doesn’t exist in the Scriptures, it doesn’t exist at all. We do not make up new hermeneutical rules that have no Biblical precedence. If you don’t see a verse or an example of a hermeneutical approach, it’s bad hermeneutics. If you can’t provide Biblical precedence for a hermeneutical principle, your hermeneutics is no better than the donkey story.