Bad Bad Bad Hermeneutics!

I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: Preach the word! 2 Timothy 4

Watch out for Bad Hermeneutics.

Paul told Timothy to “Preach the Word”. Not his opinions or preferences. Boy, some preachers need to heed this warning from Paul. Paul was a man of the Word. He died for his faith and his commitment to God’s inspired inerrant Word. Paul preached the Word and never strayed from it. We preachers need to heed his advice.

Sadly many today search out scriptures to “prove a point” about a certain worship style or whether or not the pulpit should be removed out of the sanctuary. If this is their preference so be it. But to manipulate and obliterate God’s Word, to prove a point, is just wrong. To take a section of scripture and make it say what it was never intended to say is borderline blasphemy. Who gave you the right to do that? God doesn’t’ change and neither does His Word. Pastors just preach the Word.

John MacArthur said this:

“There are silly and foolish ways to approach the study of the Bible. Perhaps you've heard the familiar story of the man who wanted guidance about a major decision. Started to close his eyes and not knowing where to look, wanted God to answer him. In the dilemma, he opened his Bible, put his finger down to get guidance from whatever verse his finger happened to land on. His first try brought him to Matthew 27:5, "Judas went out and hanged himself." Thinking that verse was really not much help, he determined to try again. This time his finger landed on Luke 10:37, "Go thou and do likewise." Still undeterred and not ready to give up, he tried it a third time and his finger landed on John 13:27, "What thou doest, do quickly."

Now, I certainly don't want to vouch for the authenticity of that particular account, but it does make an important point. Looking for meaning in Scripture through some mystical process is a way to get an ill-gotten theology. Looking for meaning in Scripture beyond the historical, grammatical, logical understanding of the context is unwise and dangerous. It's possible, of course, to substantiate almost any idea or any teaching from Scripture if you take it out of its context and twist it around. I remember hearing about the preacher who didn't think women should have their hair up on their head because a woman's hair should be down, so he preached against what used to be called bobbed hair, women having their hair up on their heads. His text was top not come down, taken from Matthew 24 where it says, "Let those on the housetop not come down." So, if you just pull out, if you just pull out exactly what you want, you can probably get it. We laugh at that because it sounds so bizarre, but that is precisely the process that many are using to substantiate their experiences or to invent their theology.

Now the task of hermeneutics is to realize, first of all, that there is a God given meaning in Scripture, apart from you or me or anybody else. Scripture means something if means nothing to me, understood? It means something if it means nothing to you. It means something if it means nothing to anybody. It means something in itself, and that meaning is determined by God, the Author, not by one who is going through some kind of mystical experience. The interpreter's task then is to discern that meaning. To discover the meaning of the text in its proper setting, to draw the meaning out of the Scripture, rather than to read one's meaning into it.

Well, what good does it do to believe that the Bible is God's final and complete word if you misinterpret it? Either way you miss the truth, right? It is equally serious along with disbelieving the Bible to misinterpret it. Interpreting Scripture to make it say what it was never intended to say is a sure road to division, to error, to heresy and to apostasy.” END QUOTE

Did you get that? Hope so. Study the Word in context and preach it. We have too much “strange preaching” going on these days. God help us we are in a mess!

Would love to hear your comments!