Page 43 - Bibliology - Textbook w videos short

creating a symbolic thought. Most of the time, it gives a literal command or tells a literal story, so we
take that by face value.

God selected mainly two languages to give us his Word: Hebrew and Greek. Both languages are
extremely precise languages (we will study this more carefully later). The reason He selected these
languages is because He wanted to make sure we thoroughly understand what He penned in Scriptures.
Obviously a knowledge of these languages aids greatly in understanding certain passages of Scripture,
but God has given us scholars who can assist us in this area. The very nature of these Biblical languages
is to clearly communicate thoughts through the words used. A literal, normal understanding of those
words, most of the time, is what the author expects us to comprehend.

There are those who try to make the words of Scripture symbolize things rather than understand the
meaning of the words used. The problem with this practice is that there is no control or objectivity in
Bible interpretation. This allegorical or spiritualizing method of interpretation leads to all kinds of abuse
with one person seeing one kind of hidden meaning and another person seeing something entirely
different. It makes the objective Word of God completely subjective in the mind of the reader. To do
this means the true meaning of the Bible is lost; the Bible is abused; imagination and speculation go wild
as the interpreter assigns his own meaning without any solid historical, grammatical, cultural,
geographical, or lexical foundation for his interpretation.

2. We must interpret the Bible grammatically within the
framework of the original languages. The fact that God inspired
the Word in a verbal way, through placing the exact WORDS, and
in a plenary way, through every portion of the Scriptures, means
that every word has been carefully selected by God. If we
neglect the meanings of words and how they are used, we have
no way of knowing whose interpretations are correct. Let look
at an example of this.

Those who hold a strong Calvinistic position on election believe that man is totally depraved and
spiritually dead. Of course, the Bible teaches that men are depraved, but it is a matter of how depraved
is defined. Their view is that man is so dead that apart from God electing them and making them alive
from the dead, no man can be saved. They state that even if a person wanted to believe, he could not,
apart from a work of God to give him the faith even to believe.

Their proof text is Ephesians 2: 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not
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from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.
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They interpret this verse this way: “You have been saved by grace through faith, and the faith you have
is not of yourselves, but the faith is a gift from God…..”

Remember in our study, nouns have number, gender, and case. So let’s look at the nouns in this verse.

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