Chuck Missler ~ How to Study The Bible ~ Part 1: Getting Started

[Music] well I've been asked to talk about how to study the Bible and this is part one of a two-part series and we sort of regard a prerequisite for this briefing another one we have is how we got our Bible so I'm going to assume that you may have seen that or if not you will take a look at that but how do you study a Bible and a lot of the remarks that I'm going to make are just personal ones taken with a grain of salt but people have asked I've been studying the Bible for over 50 years 60 years I guess the so you develop some prejudices and for what they're worth I thought we'd get into that but so our agenda is going to be to understand our predicament that we're in talk a little bit about the characteristics of the Bible that we're trying to study the basic approach that we might use and all of this is going to hinge on really understanding the identity of Jesus Christ personally and then some thoughts about how to get started in your studies and who your personal tutor really ought to be is not Chuck mister I'll introduce you to who your tutor should be and then we'll do it we'll finish this session with a little sample study with hopefully some surprises let's first of all talk about our predicament the environment that we're in you and I live in a time of substantial in fact shocking biblical illiteracy most people on the street have no idea who Jesus Christ is it's that it's a vague name they have no idea of the identity who is and this biblical illiteracy we're facing tragically fills a lot of pulpits a lot of people go to seminary and learn a lot of things but not they don't learn their Bible and this is about Bible faith what we're dealing with here it also is increasingly politically incorrect to be a biblical believer even in many congregations they're embarrassed by people who take the Bible really seriously there is a cultural apathy to the very existence of truth we're all about truth and right and wrong and that that used to be the ancient dream of a father that their children go off to college and learn right from wrong and now they find out when they go to college they discover well there is no right and you have your truth I have mine and that nonsense the value relativism has had tragic consequences all of this is not just an intellectual trip it's a result of a spiritual warfare there's an unseen warfare going on and you and I are both participants and also the prize we're the pawns in the prize in that sense and there is an impending climax approaching us so the urgency to really study our Bible is one of the hot should be one of the highest priorities in their life so our predicament and the involves this inversion of values Mel Gibson produced a movie a phenomenal movie and there are people who have some quibbles with it but an incredible piece of work but it's interesting to look at the reviews of that movie the New Republic said it's a repulsive masochistic fantasy a sacred snuff film can you believe that they said the New York Times said it was courting bigotry in the name of sanctity and 60 minutes said a real nutcase whose ulterior motive was making money you got to be kidding he did make a fortune he's entitled he wrote the check to make it happen and produce the professionalism that resulted in the product that came out but I want to contrast that whole episode with Dan Brown's popular novel The DaVinci Code the Library Journal said it's a compelling blend of history and page-turning suspense a masterpiece that should be mandatory reading you've got to be kidding it's a shoddy virtually illiterate twisting of history but in any case people don't look at it that way the Publishers Weekly said it's an exhaustively researched page-turner this is a page-turner in a sense but it is not exhaustively researched or if it is it's deliberately deceit and that we need to understand that why is the passion excoriated and The Da Vinci Code extolled let's examine it why are Gibson's motives denounced and brown's dignified you see the inversions going on here why is Christ's passion regarded as a repulsive masochistic fantasy and this supposed marriage with management touted his research material fact that's absurd ridiculous but notice what's going on here we're subject to the attacks of the pagan left we have a thing called the Jesus Seminar in which they substitute subjective speculations to replace serious scholarship and most people don't catch on to that they vote on what was true you got to be kidding Peter Jennings TV special doesn't reveal to you that his wife's a Muslim the History Channel produces banned books of the Bible and Sean fields famous book the Passover plot back in 66 and the Last Temptation of Christ in 60 these these are all examples of the pagan deliberate attempts to confuse the general public even Mel Gibson's passion which is a phenomenal film in many respects fails to identify who Jesus really is you see the reality is is that the crucifixion of Christ was not a tragedy it was an achievement we need to understand that and why so what's really going on here and in this environment that we find ourselves in political correctness is increasingly a secular culture the inversion of values fiction is peddled as fact on the one hand and fact even the deity of Jesus Christ is capriciously passed off as fiction you see the inversions going on this is spiritual warfare the ultimate conspirator is pulling the strings the ultimate code to unravel is the identity of Jesus Christ jesus warned us about this he says if it were possible they shall deceive the very elect they're trying to deceive you and the only remedy here is to do your homework and I want to mention a couple of things as you go through the slides you'll notice that I'll use the scrolls to represent Old Testament passages and I use a little parchment to represent New Testament just a way to highlight as we go when I take a quote which part of the Bible we're dealing with but I also want to highlight a misquote of Ben Franklin everybody speaks of a jack of all trades master of none that's a misquote that was not what Ben Franklin said he said jack of all trades master of one his concept of an educated person is someone that knows a little bit about everything and everything about something that was his concept and we embrace that concept but for the Christian the master of one needs to be your Bible if you're a Christian if you're representing yourself as an ambassador of Jesus Christ it's important that you represent him faithfully and to do that you need to really understand your Bible and it's my premise that you won't understand your Bible by spending 45 minutes once a week hearing a sermon on the subject you really need to be in some kind of a program of serious study we'll talk about that as we go here so a cultured person is one who knows something about everything everything about something and that's something for the Christian of course is his Bible a couple of preconditions and preparations I'm going to suggest first of all are you saved if you haven't received Jesus Christ you won't have the essential prerequisite to really understand your Bible so that's step one that's an essential prerequisite and the scripture points that out in several places being born again is more important than your knowledge of Hebrew or Greek when you study your Bible the other thing you need to do is realize that this is a spiritual issue not just an intellectual one and to all you should always open with prayer so that's you and I do that right now let's bow our hearts father we just pray for this moment in time that you've brought us to we know that there's no accidents in your kingdom that we're all here right now by your divine appointment we pray simply father that your purpose would be accomplished in this time period that you would open our understanding to your word and that we might yield the fruit that you would intend as we commit this time and ourselves into your hands in Jesus Christ amen so we are in his presence we want to be under the tutorship of the author of the book and it is after all the Word of God something else that's in court an important part of preparation is obedience because God will reward our obedience with further insights obedience is a prerequisite and we want to be pre committed and surrendered to Jesus Christ as we embark on this study now love of the Bible requires knowing your Bible so that's really what we're all about and knowing your Bible lead you to a love of him and we're going to be more interested in the sense of the scripture than the techniques we're going to deal with some of those as we go truth obeyed always leads to more truth it's interesting how scientific truth is always changing you know it's fascinating we can learn so much about the Bible from looking at texts that are centuries old they have they have gems tucked away in them how many of you would take a course in physics using 1950 textbooks or even 1980 textbooks or pick a number that scientific truth is always changing but we should understand the pattern a Bible study there's a call then obedience and after that revelation we need to understand that there was a call obedience to that call and then God would reveal himself and the same thing will be true in your life and mine let's talk a little bit before we go further on about characteristics the Bible itself one of the analogies that I have grown very fond of is an analogy with holography now this is a clumsy in a sense because you may not be familiar with holography but it's worth getting a quick glimpse holography is a form of lensless photography it's a way of capturing an image without lenses you take a photographic film you place in front of that a three-dimensional object say you illuminate the film with a laser and you illuminate the object with that same laser and when you do that what gets recorded on the film are the interferences of those of that wavelength and when that film is then processed in a darkroom and you hold it up to natural light it looks like a darkroom mistake it's a cloud piece of film you think something's going wrong until you illuminate that piece of film with the laser that created in the first place and you discover it's a window into a three-dimensional space and this was a discovered or invented if you will in 1963 so it's a relatively recent part of photography what what actually is on the film is a Fourier transform of the image it's the frequency information rather than the spatial information but the real point is it has some very peculiar properties it requires proper illumination it's useless and natural light the information of that three-dimensional space is spread over the entire surface of the film over the tire bandwidth so there's no loss from dropouts if I take that hologram and bore a hole in it you don't lose anything because you can look around the whole into that three-dimensional space and to give you another example if I was holding up a board in front of my drift eye and you took a picture you couldn't tell what Kyle is wearing and if you on the other if you had a hologram your eye you could look around that board and see my tie that's what I mean by a three-dimensional image okay but it also means that it's resilient to interference because the three-dimensional aspect of the image you can drill holes in it cut pieces away and not lose the image you may lose sharpness but you don't lose the image this is also a form of recording that anticipates hostile jamming and that's where this the whole thing gets kind of interesting you see the Bible is in a sense a hologram it has what really is a Fourier transform type of property well have you ever noticed in the Bible that there's no chapter on baptism there's no chapter on salvation the key ideas are diffused through the whole book you can tear out a page and not lose any specific information you may lose some sharpness some resolution of certain issues but all the doctrines are designed to anticipate jamming it has those things it's also transcendent of parallax it says if the light is at infinity there's a number of qualities that hologram that have parallels here if I take the attributes of God as he's in infinity he has infinite power omnipresence on missions these are qualities of God it's interesting that light itself has analogous properties God is located infinity the light we're talking about has no parallax there's constant velocity the vote the photons that make up the light at the Lac locality and there's paradoxes about light that fit the paradoxes of God precisely there's anything parallel here I don't take the time develop all the details but it's interesting that in James chapter 1 verse 17 he says every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the Father of lights with whom is no variableness neither shadow of turning that very word variableness is the word from which we get parallax so with one of the things you can undertake if you're inclined to the more you study holography and the more you study your Bible you'll never there's this astonishing parallelism and it's exactly what the Bible says and I said 28:13 says the word of the Lord was unto them precept upon precept precept upon precept line upon line line upon line here a little very little it is designed the sixty-six books we call the Bible are designed as an elegant message system the holograph has strange properties it requires the proper illumination if you take the Bible in natural light it sounds like a bunch of quaint tribal legends of traditions what have you until it's illuminated by the the light that created in the first place useless unnatural light the information spread over the entire bandwidth there's no loss from dropouts tear out a page you don't lose anything well you know it may not be as sharp its resilient to specific interference it anticipates hostile jamming and so these it's interesting how the Bible also anticipates technologies because its origin is supernatural we speak of weapons of mass destruction as it had described in Matthew 24 there are smart weapons weapons in which the intelligence is in the aeronaut the shooter in Jeremiah 50 verse 9 there's global news coverage implied in Matthew 24 in revelation 11 to mention a couple places global funds transfer in Revelation 13 verse 17 fact it's given birth to libraries of speculate about barcodes and what have you the fact that there's pathways in the C's was not only anticipated in the Bible it became the obsession of a reader of that Bible who noticed in Psalm 8 and Isaiah 43 that there's pathways and seas he devoted his life to finding them it's name is Matthew Fontaine Mari and he's recognized in all cultures not just the US or English cultures as the father of Oceanography and he committed that that the career because of the finding hint in the Bible medical hygiene you could spend a whole a study session on the medical discoveries of relatively recent centuries that were anticipated in the Bible and the meteorological cycle the fact that all rivers run into the sea at the sea doesn't get full and so forth all laid out in terms of the whole water cycle of evaporation distillation and so forth the fact that the earth is round is expressly mentioned in the old and new testaments and the whole fact of hyperspace is the fact that you and I live in not in three dimensions but the current estimate is 10 exactly what NOC commodity is inferred from Genesis his study of Genesis 1 and so on so we just as you start looking at these will discover there's dozens of technologies that we consider contemporaneous to our life that were anticipated in Scripture and no other religious book does that every other religious book talks in three-dimensional space the Bible talks about four that we can experience and ten that we that go beyond that in fact even Scientific American last few months has had articles indicating that the present understanding of reality is that our physical reality is a shadow of a larger one Bible's been saying that all along anyway what's our basic approach to this first of all it's recognized we're dealing with God's own words not opinions about God not speculations these are God breathed the Old Testament presents God's own speech all through it expressly the Old Testament specifies in details a person centuries in advance his genealogy his mission statement all the details of his life in advance Christ fulfills these specifications beyond competent dispute give you some examples that once you understand who Christ is his authentication of the whole package seals it off for us see our principal our ministry is based on two principle discoveries the first is that the 66 books that we typically called the Bible were actually penned by over 40 different authors over virtually 2,000 years and we discover that this package this message system is designed it has properties we have 66 separate books by 40 different guys or more than that over several thousand years yet we discover it has to have had its origin from outside time the discoveries you need to make for yourself is that this package of 66 books has an integrity of design that anticipates things before they happen and I don't mean just Bible prophecy the very structure of the text includes a statements of structure that make no sense until after that till we see it fulfilled after the fact and there dozens of these in the computer field we call those macro codes a set of codes that anticipates data before it arrives in effect and if you have a word processor you may hit one key for a fax another key for a other kind of document or an email what have you you can communicate to the Machine what's coming in terms of structure Bible does the same thing all through the Old Testament there are things we call types structures that are set up that make no sense in and of themselves until when fulfilled they're astonishingly precise we have that the the brazen serpent in numbers 21 that uses the remedy for the local situation there and yet makes no sense until you get to John 3 and realize that it's anticipatory of Jesus on the cross and so forth and there are dozens of these Abraham is told to offer his son on a particular spot on the planet Earth and he understood by the circumstances that two thousand years later another father would offer his son as an offering for sin but it's a type a an anticipation that there's several thousand years in advance of the fact and these kinds of things demonstrate first of all that the Bible is an integrated message system point one and point two it had to have its origin from outside the dimensionalities of time and you and I are beneficiaries of Albert Einstein's insights that time is a physical property we now know today that time itself is a dimension that varies with mass acceleration and gravity well as God subject to gravity hardly God is not somebody who has lots of time he's someone outside the dimensionality of time and he uses that attribute to authenticate his message how by describing things before they happen not to be an instrument of divination to foretell the future for some practical benefit of our part but rather to glorify himself and to authenticate that the message that we have in her hands is literally from him and so we have an integrated design the New Testament is in the Old Testament concealed and the Old Testament is in the New Testament revealed it's one book and this was even recognized as early as the days of Augustine and so see the Old Testament self is incomplete you realize that it's full of unexplained ceremonies sacrificial rituals that make no sense in and of themselves but they take profound significance as as we understand what they're pointing to it's full of unachieved purposes all kinds of covenants and promises and commitments that are yet unfulfilled and yet obviously destined to be fulfilled it also deals with unappeased longings that's what the political books are all about and unfulfilled prophecies and we're gonna give you a list of some of those and Jesus himself said search the Scriptures for in them you think you have eternal life they are they which testify of me the whole book is all about him the Old Testament sets the stage calls a nation into being with certain commitments but for the purpose of presenting the Redeemer the Messiah that the New Testament then profiles for us let's understand that we're not dealing here with man's interpretations not really we're dealing with with God's own words all scripture we're told is given by the inspiration of God you know that word in the Greek actually means God breathed we're dealing with holy in the original the holy package here detail by detail word but letter by letter word by word we now discover with computers there are properties to the text that disappear if you change one letter and we need to understand that and it's the scripture tells it's profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousness this is Paul writing to his protege Timothy for a doctrine that tells us what's right for reproof that tells us what's not right for correction how to get it right and finally how to stay right doctrine reproof correction and instruction and so those the basic elements we usually start when we talk about the Bible we often talk about exegesis that's determining what the text actually said in the Hebrew in the Greek translations are an approximation of convenience but if we were serious we really want to get behind that and understand exigent exegetically what's there what was actually said let's not be clumsy on that point following that we generally deal with exposition okay what now we know what it says what does it mean what's the implication for you and I and the practical side of that was sometimes called homiletics okay that answers the so what question if that's what it says and this what it means how does it impact our lives yours and mine that's homiletics but before all three of these traditional areas there's an area called hermeneutics a theory of interpretation your approach to this and it's going to turn out that your hermeneutics are crucial in determining what you're going to take away from this if you're very serious about your hermeneutics if you're very strict about that you'll come to a whole totally different place than someone who is willing so well that's just allegorical or whatever you will talk a little bit about that and even before each of those there's the issue of pista mala G which raises the question it's the study of knowledge at scope and limits how do we know anything and I don't want to get into philosophical fringe areas here except Jesus told us he gave us commandment be not deceived and that's command that's great how by understanding the tools here so pistol knowledge is where we start as truth its nature its nature and limits pilot asks the famous question rhetorically what is truth and in our colleges today they say truth doesn't exist we feel quite the country Jesus gave us command be not deceived that implies that there is a truth and that truth is what we're seeking so our approach is gonna be very sound I think people say you can't prove the Bible yes you can and here's how you first of all established for yourself the integrity of its design recognize that the sixty-six books are a tapestry of fabric that's designed from end to end detail by detail once you discover that you'll also discover it presents a person in the Old Testament he's coming and the New Testament has arrived the person of Jesus Christ you need out of all of that this establishes identity and then establish who is Jesus Christ it's astonishing to realize how few people really understand that how many people in pulpits fail to really understand who Jesus Christ is his uniqueness and then once you do once you understand who he is he of course the fennec AIT's the whole package for you so you're on solid provable grounds at this point so our approach is they say seeing is believing no believing is seeing be childlike and not full of your own wisdom part of the trick here is to set aside your own presuppositions and be open to what God is saying and so you're not we're not looking to confirm prior beliefs we're trying to understand what God is really saying and what he would have of each of us so being open and searching daily we've used as our trademark for for what four or five decades I guess acts 17:11 that's where Luke tells you don't believe anything chuck Missler tells you but be like the Bereans in that they received the word with all openness of mind but they searched the Scriptures daily to prove whether those things be so the Bible is our guide not your favorite teacher we'll get into that there's another side of hermeneutics or theories of interpretation that many Christians miss because it really has Jewish roots the Hebrew hermeneutics are different they have a they feel they see four levels of meaning in every text there's the Passat that's the direct literal meaning little problem there they have what they call the remiz and that's it's allegorical significance or it's a hint of something deeper something behind the direct meaning and they also have what they call the Dhiraj which is the homolytic or practical application and they also speak of a fourth level they call the sword that's the mystical or hidden meaning now you and I might arrange these in a different order and the Christian the first three are have their analogy and Christian hermeneutics we put him a different order we take the direct meaning and then the practical meeting and then maybe there's a deeper allegorical kind of meaning but the the the Hebrews go further and they remember the stateless significance by a little mnemonic called Pardes two-shot remedy rash and saw it being the four consonants that word in the Hebrew means either a garden or paradise they use that as a mnemonic and that's why they have them in their order odds change the orders of two and three but that's neither here nor there the Greek mind that's the one you and I typically adopt because we're from the West we think of prophecy as prediction and fulfillment a specific prediction of specific full milk fulfillment and we'll deal with some of those but I want to highlight something else that many people miss and that's the Hebrew model is a little different they see prophecy as pattern and they deal in indulgent types they believe that the history of Israel and the examples that are all through the Bible have a level of interpretational and beyond that and as you get into that it's astonishing the illumination that comes from God on some of the things he's doing so and these so all through the Bible we're going to discover there are rhetorical devices Hosea 12:10 specifically says so he says I God says I've also spoken by the prophets and I've multiplied visions and used similitudes by the Ministry of the prophets there are figures of speech in the scripture so the you say I take the Bible literally you're gonna get the skeptics are an equivalent then God has feathers because under his wings we trust and those kinds of things that's nonsense those are rhetorical devices do you know how many different kinds of rhetorical devices there are obviously we have similes that's the form of resemblance there is examples of each one of these allegories metaphors similes and metaphors are slightly different hi polka Tacitus is another kind a type I've listed here just a few I've listed what six of these that each are subtly different do you know how many different kinds have been cataloged in the Bible over 200 different kinds of rhetorical devices with examples and Scripture if you're interested that's an appendix to our books and so forth but let's move on it's interesting that Paul gives us a clue here in first Corinthians 10 he says now all these things he's talking about the history all these strange events that occur throughout the Old Testament he says now all these things happened unto them four examples and they are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are coming so one of the insights we gain in our Bible studies and first Corinthians 10 in other places is that everything in the scripture is for us you go through the Old Testament you find these quaint little rules and strange resolutions to problems hidden in there is an admonition that impacts you and I so we want to be sensitive that the word examples there is the word to post which in the Greek is it's the word from which we get the term type in our vocabulary we more often use the term model at some if we make a mathematical model of an airplane wing or a my oil field or whatever those are models the the traditional term would be type or examples anyway there are type the Ark of the Covenant is a type the sacrifice on the brazen altar is a type of across all these point to Jesus Christ the mercy seat in the sanctuary the water from Iraq twice in fact is is a type of Jesus Christ Paul tells us in 1st Corinthians 10 verse 4 the manna that falls from the sky was the bread of life Jesus makes it each one of these are not only a type each one of these points specifically to Jesus Christ and he in fact claims that and the brazen serpent lifted up I've alluded that already and the past or lamb of course is the ultimate type when John the Baptist introduces Jesus Christ publicly for the first time since we hold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world that's a Jewish title it has all kinds of implications and of course the scapegoat and Yom Kippur word is over with each one of these are types each one of these types point to Jesus Christ and so it's again the New Testament and the Old Testament concealed and the Old Testament is in the New Testament revealed so we have metaphors the Lion of the tribe of Judah the Good Shepherd the lily of the valley the root of the dry ground or the fruitful branch all these are metaphors of course Jesus Christ who has no form or comeliness he and he is like a hologram in natural light you don't see it illuminated by the Holy Spirit he's altogether lovely and so forth so the organization of the Bible we have the Old Testament study of a nation and the New Testaments a story of a man and that's just a quick snapshot but the key to the whole thing is for you to come to your own conclusions as to who Jesus is Jesus challenges cycles these people think that and these people who do you think who do you think I am he says and you need to get ahead before this all over come to an answer for yourself what that's all about the Old Testament has prophecies thousands of them but those that are just limited those that are quoted in the New Testament as being fulfilled the fact that he died was to be of David's families all through the Old Testament that he'd be born of a virgin that he would burn at Bethlehem that he would sojourn for a while in Egypt that he would live in Galilee in fact specifically a man's earth that he would be announced by an Elijah type of Herald and he would occasion the massacre of the Bethlem children he proclaimed a Jubilee to the world his mission would include the Gentiles that's all through Isaiah and elsewhere his ministry would be one of healing he would teach through parables and he would be disbelieved and rejected by his rulers that was all that was predicted throughout the farm Psalms and throughout Isaiah and continued some others let's talk about just the last week of his life on the earth he'd make a triumphal entry in Jerusalem he would be betrayed by a friend for thirty pieces of silver he'd be like a smitten Shepherd they scattered his followers he'd be given vinegar and gall to drink they've cast lots for garments in fact Psalm 22 when you read it it's as if it was dictated first person singular as he hung on the cross it opens and closes with the first and last words and so forth and his side would be pierced not a bone would be broken it's astonishing that in the in the scripture several times that aroma a career Roman soldier violated his orders to make that prophecy come true I don't think he realized that but it's interesting he would die among malefactors that he would be buried among the rich his dying words firfer told he'd be buried by a rich man he would rise from the dead the third day that's throughout the Old Testament and his resurrection would be followed by the destruction of Jerusalem to the air is that this generation will not pass away in that general at thirty-eight years later the same duration of the generation in the wilderness was when the fall of Jerusalem occurred interesting the precision of some of these things is just astonishing and even if you go to the secular record so we have an eyewitness of that time by a non-believer by the name of flavia's Josephus who records is now there was about this time Jesus a wise man we lost the call no man for he was a doer of wonderful works a teacher of such men has received the truth with pleasure he was the Christ and when Pilate at the suggestion of the principal man among us had condemned him to the cross he later he appeared to him alive again the third day as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him this isn't Josephus and his one of his major works called antiquities of the Jews and obviously the skeptics feel that was added later and so forth that we let them quibble over that we'll move on is this a contrived story did he just current contrived the the happenstance of his arrival here no his teaching contradicted the Messianic expect expectation of the times when you go back look at the Old Testament you realize it's all laid out in France but the the Jew he was contriving his stories for doing a poor marketing job because it got him killed huh and official jewelry kusa fired him for blasphemy Christ never said he was God that's why they put him on the cross for that very reason and anyone says Jesus didn't claim to be God hasn't read any of the Bible certainly not the Gospel of John and so forth see declaring a man was God was against the bedrock of Jew of the Jewish faith and yet that's what he came to declare the unity of God the first commandment all these things would seem on the surface to be antagonistic for this but we also have the testimony of the disciples lives these followers of his went to a torture death by torture insisting on the facts that they present not one yielded been caved in Thomas Peter and so forth you know the stories now why Jesus has another dimension here you know teachings and wonderful ideas cannot rescue a person from a burning building many people say well these acknowledge these a great teacher is too great this great that missing the whole point because wonderful philosophies whatever doesn't rescue a person from a burning building the analogy I think is very vivid the incarnation of Jesus Christ is the big division between him and all other religious leaders in the planet Earth it's the division between Christian and Gnosticism a division between him and Islam and the crucifixion was not a tragedy it was an achievement is what he agreed to do before the universe began and the whole panorama of God's redemption was built on the cross in advance and people say well there's lots of paths to God if there are lots of paths to God then Jesus prayers were not answered because Inka cemani three times he prayed sweating blood as the dr. Luke tells us praying there's any other way let's take it nevertheless not my will but thine be done in other words three times she prayed earnestly to be taken off the hook there's any other way to get to God other than through Jesus Christ other than the cross this prayer was not answered think about it the wrecks the resurrection of Jesus Christ was the validation the most documented death on the history in the planet Earth and the resurrection was its validation it's interesting Augustine made an is remark he understands the holiness of God despairs and trying to appease him see the problem isn't how from our point of view how bad our sin is because we compare ourselves with other guys or something no the real problem is not our understanding of sin it's our lack of understanding of holiness how holy God is and what that means once you begin to understand you despair of trying to repair that gulf on any of your own efforts only God can meet his own requirements and didi has and in Christ she did just that the only way to God the right way Cain thought he could come to God by his own way and on his own terms you know the story of that and Jude makes reference to that in his book native and by who tried to improvise and they got their deserts God was very clear that his specifications he means what he says and says what he means and Christianity stands in unbending opposition to any notion that salvation involves our own effort our attempt to add to what God has completed is a form of blasphemy a description of the kind of Christianity you see prevalent across our landscape is a vacuous Christianity a God without wrath who would bring men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross that says it all that's the antithesis of what we're all about jesus warned about false teachers Jude records a feast with you feeding themselves without fear clouds they are without water carried about of winds trees whose fruit withereth without fruit twice dead plucked up by the roots raging waves of the sea foaming at their own shame wandering stars to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever pretty grim description of false teachers and yet that's what we encounter across the landscape how do you recognize one by knowing your Bible by knowing your Bible you know Lenin claimed that under communism there would be bread in every household he did not have the audacity to claim I am the bread of life he that cometh to me shall never hunger and he that believeth on me shall never thirst that's Christ's claim what a contrast Buddha taught enlightened and yet he died seeking more light he never had the audacity to say I am the light of the world he that follows me shall not walk in darkness but shall have the light of Life what an audacious statement Sigmund Freud believed psychotherapy would heal emotional and spiritual pains but he could not say peace I leave with you my peace I give unto you not as the world giveth give I unto you let not your heart be troubled neither let it be afraid and so on Paul highlights if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received let him be anathema cursed into hell that's his plan now we have a call to homework Paul also warns us there must needs be heresies among you that they which are approved may be made manifest among you so don't be surprised if there's false teaching don't be surprised if there are traditions that are an error abandoning about as part of that is to highlight that which is really approved how by doing your own homework God is not on trial you are you're the one at issue here well how do you get started yet to read what you started out to get into here how do you enjoy your Bible you know you'd be fun if it's not fun there's something wrong because I had I've had a life of adventure yeah I'm at six decades of adventures and and the most exciting adventures of all the ones I've had is the discoveries you make in the scripture well you're now okay great what translations best we'll talk a little bit about that and which Study Bible there all kinds of study Bibles and the best Study Bible you can find is the one you've worn out wear it out and get another one and what are the secrets of resolving difficult or controversial passages we'll talk a little bit about that and so now there are tradition if you pick up books in Bible study their traditional suggestions I don't embrace these the I'm not one to sell you these ideas good I don't I don't go down this path but one of the typical approaches topical Study take a topic maybe the Holy Spirit or baptism or some topic and go through the scripture here that there are places for that but I think they're exceptions well take us basic theme and go through the Bible these are all constructive suggestions by many good competent teachers they're just not mine so there are word studies take a word in the Bible and find every place that's used there are places for these but they're not your bed and butter studies some people take dispensations and they divide history and various disciplines and how God dealt and what the predicaments were in each of those and what the resolutions were some people take doctrines and there are important doctrines going through the Bible studying a doctrine there's a place for that there's also biography let's take Peter or Paul and study their life these are all each one of these are worthwhile endeavors but I don't think it's your primary foundation or your Bible study that's what I'm leading up to there's a problem also between analysis and synthesis some people take a verse and shred it and they spend ten hours what that verse really means I think there's more value in putting the whole thing together understanding God's overview but we'll come back to that because of that prejudice one of the things that we push for we have a product we call learn the Bible in 24 hours and that sounds audacious because and we're not obviously we're not talking about in 24 hours journal you learn everything about the Bible obvious net but in 24 one-hour sessions that are accompanied with 1400 computerated diagrams maps and so forth you will learn the package as tall as a whole and how to navigate your way around it we have workbooks in there's University course credit available for this but the main point your main goal whether it's this or some other equivalent approach is to develop a strategic grasp of the whole package of the entire Bible with an emphasis on the integrity of its design and also as you go through highlighting the supportive discoveries so you really understand your ground but the thing we really pursue having done man is expositional study simply going through your Bible verse by verse expositionally and the you eat the elephant one bite at a time and we found I found over six decades of study the thing that produces the lasting results in a person's life are the expositional studies from time to time yes you'll embark on a topical study here at word study there that's fine but your backbone is expositional study verse by verse and your goal should be to do so through the whole Bible and this will lead to what we call the whole Council of God you know a lot of people build a whole set of doctrines on a check verse proof burst proof text here and there those are dangerous because you need the the proof the validation of a viewpoint is does it fit in with what we call the whole Council of God and to measure that you have to be exposed to the whole scripture the first thing Jesus did after mystery after his resurrection was to lead a seven-mile Bible study on the road to Emmaus and he took those two disciples not realizing who he was he took them through the whole Scripture the books of Moses the Psalms and he showed them all about Jesus Christ in that seven miles from the Old Testament the whole Council of God she said okay gee Chuck where do I start I mean that's the first place to start I would encourage you to go through the 24-hour learn about my four strategic overview having done that where do you go from that well people have different favorites a lot of people would think of the good good first book is the Gospel of John and that's hard to argue with because it's so easy that a child can wait in it yet it's deep enough for an elephant to bathe in as they say that's a cute way to get across the idea that's straightforward nothing as a new believer you can go through and learn a great deal no problem and yet if you've been through the Bible a hundred times and you go through the Gospel of John you'll make new discoveries it is and that's what you expect of the book if it's supernatural that you cannot exhaust it but there are other places you can start depending on your moods you can start in the book of Genesis that's the book of beginnings great place to start and I'll challenge you the more you know about modern science the more comfortable Genesis chapter one will read and that's a good place to start the book of Acts practically looked start with look at the Gospel of Matthew great place to start look if Daniel very popular especially among Gentile readers because it's it's a book that focuses on Gentile history and in a way that no other book does but there's another book I love to start new believers in and that's the book of Revelation and many people are shocked by that or even chuckling but the reason I do that is it's the only book of the Bible it has the audacity to say read me I'm special and you a special blessing if you go through book of Revelation now that that blessing comes from several points of view but one of which is that if you go through the book of Revelation it'll take you properly it'll take you into every other book of the Bible because the eighth the 404 verses the book of Revelation include over 800 allusions from the Old Testament alone so it's it's the wrap up book everything started in Genesis repped in Revelation you started either end in fact if you start at if you start at Revelation and go through that study where do you go next that's an easy answer go to Genesis and it'll tie the whole package with a ribbon and but you're unique what worked for me or somebody else may not be the one the Holy Spirit has for you so what I encourage you just pray about it let the spirit lead you because he may have a purpose and you're undertaking a specific book but the main thing to do is take a book and go through it verse by verse and learn how to say well which translation I usually tell people I finally found the version I like best and when they look forward eagerly I usually point out to the grits the giant print version and of course I'm being facetious because I'm you know humility is a humbling thing but I I most of us I think start out with a King James Version I've gone through virtually all of them I've come back to the King James for some very surprising reasons every translation from the Hebrew the Greek into English or any other language has problems because there's issues in translation that are employed how precise you're going to be it figures of speech all those issues raised issues the good news about King James is the issues are well known and well documented in Study Bible and there's less than 10 words that if you learn have had a change in meanings the Old English is not a problem yes there are a few words that you need to pick up on the third change their meaning but they're not many like 9 10 12 at the most so if you're bothered by the Old English there's a new King James Version which attempts to remedy that but even that transition has some subtle problems I am grateful in the late forties when the Revised Standard Version came out that I was well advised to avoid it I'm glad in those days I was in a scripture memory kick and that leads to another issue I'm glad I didn't make all my little memory cards and learn the verses that I want to learn in the RSV because it's been minutes fall into disrepute really and that's also true of any modern translation because there's going to be more modern translations that are more modern than the last modern one and so that's a moving target I'm grateful that the memory work I have done was in an a version that I know will be around 20 years from now none of these have the majesty of the King James none of them have the background for the historical background the rest there is a new international version it's very popular many people's very readable and for a new believer it's a great place to start my prediction will be that you'll eventually outgrow it the new American Standard Bible is terrific it's its treatment of the Greek verbs and the epistles is probably unexcelled so that's why Helens and some other teachers teach from it they they have good reasons for doing so and all these have their advantages the international standard version is coming I'm on the review committee and it has some tremendous advantages that doesn't mean I'd use it for memory work because I know after the International Standard Version which is going to finalize you in the next year or two that you're to later there will be some other super thing and there will always be a newer one that maybe is more it has some features great wonderful because it'll me it'll it'll reach people it might not be reached to any other way but I'll tell you that if you start getting serious about your Bible you're first of all going to discover that you can reach personally into the Greek or Hebrew without knowing Greek or Hebrew with the tools that are around today and as you're able to do that more and more you'll discover more and more people are coming back to the King James because the roots on which it's based are turning out to be the most sound the Textus Receptus and the rest of it there are others like the Living Bible and the message the Living Bible really started when Ken Taylor did the book of Proverbs and did an excellent job on that reach to market got endorsed by Billy Graham and made a big market as a modern readable paraphrase there are people some scholars that are very strict about God they're shocked that you paraphrase God you know but there is a translational issue that books like the message and the Living Bible you can take passage in there that you can regard as blasphemous if you're really perceptive they are really offensive in attempt to be popular they have compromised in many places the precision that others of us have grown to respect so you've got some choices to make they're great aids they're wonderful to read on a trip or something but they're not study Bibles what you really want is a good sound translation and you probably want to study Bible which one doesn't matter pick one and wear it out mark it up and then get another one a different one you get at it from several points of view so Textus Receptus still prevails over codex Vaticanus and codex sinaiticus if you've if you've been through our briefing on how we got our Bible you know I'm talking about here Textus Receptus was went out of 5556 manuscripts available to the King James translators they leaned primarily in Texas Receptus it became unfashionable for several decades over the last few decades to shift to codex these Alexandrian courtesies that are now producing ly proven to be spurious even though they're the oldest they're they've got some problems so Texas it's it's if the the pendulum swinging back to respect towards respective Textus Receptus and but the main point is all translations have their problems the King James problems are best known and best documented it also turns out as you get into this the King James turns out to be the closest to the botha Massa retic texts in the Old Testament and also to the rabbinical helps that are around when you get into some of these controversies as we look at King a Dead Sea scroll fragments under scanning laser microscopes and stuff we discover things about them one of the things we discover is that they are more faithful to the Textus Receptus than the the so-called modern text so and but the memory investment you know psalm 119:11 says thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against you if you're gonna hide God's Word in your heart that implies you're gonna memorize some scripture and I'm glad I spent my energies such as they are on the King James because it's still around compared to these others that come and go and but pick a Study Bible wear it out mark it up get one with wide margins and put your notes in it and then outgrow it is that's that's your that's your challenge and if you haven't seen our briefing pack on how we got our Bible I regard that as essential background for this discussion but I'm going to suggest to you for your Bible study a three phase program the first thing is to have a reading plan that's diff from your study plan you want to read the Bible through on some kind of basis and there's several ways to do that one way is you're not one but maybe three bookmarks and move each one say a chapter a day have one in the Old Testament or New Testament maybe another one in the Proverbs Psalms that's that's a simple way to go at it if you have a Bible mechanical ribbons that's great I travel with eight Bibles a dozen commentaries concordance is in Greek and Hebrew and it's all here in my in my PDA but you know what the best I actually do my more serious study on a laptop anyway what makes this really handy is the fact that I have bookmarks in here and I can have seven bookmarks I happen to have one in the Torah one of the historical books one of the prophets one of the Gospels one of the epistles one in the book of Revelation and then one in the poetical books and what I tried to do imperfectly by the way but what I try to do is move each bookmark one chapter today and when I arrive 15 minutes early for a barber shop appointment or I'm held up in a waiting room for seeing dr. so-and-so or whatever I can take those 15 minutes and knock off one or two of these bookmarks so that before the day is over I've been faithful I try to put them in an order they're not prioritized in this order I haven't another priority order so that if I don't get them all I got the important ones and by doing this by the way I can get through the Old Testament once a year and the New Testament twice a year easily so it's not bad but the bookmarks are handy even do it with a Bible a lot of ribbons if you like my problem is when I travel I don't want to travel to my study Bibles all my notes so I leave at home and I need one that I have to transfer all its that's why this has been a godsend for me because I can do it on the fly so that's the Pete what I call the PDA advantage I'll show you some others in session two or have some surprises we'll talk a little bit about iPod broadcasting or podcasting as they call it in the next session but the real core of your three-phase program is not your reading plan that's just your foundation I encourage you to take on a book study with resources and all to suggest that 2 Timothy 2 also on top of these two things as occasion may suggest itself you do special research projects topical studies word studies they have a they have a place but they're ad-hoc excursions on top of your base plan your base plan is reading it through the on some schedule whatever works for you and secondly to be involved in a serious study verse-by-verse of one of the books of the Bible that's where you got you your study program is different than your reading plan okay that's really what I'm trying to suggest what kind of helps do you have well their course concordance is if you don't want an exhaustive concordance is go blow fifteen bucks at a Christian bookstore and get us Strong's or its equivalent and that this will allow you when you can half remember a verse you can find it right away where it is because it shows you where every word in the Bible shows up what verses they use and it includes lexicons in the Greek and Hebrew and you don't have to know Hebrew a Greek in order to you to find out the Greek or Hebrew word means get an expository dictionary or encyclopedia there around there one volume series there's the one I like is a five volume series but Bible handbooks Bible encyclopedias Bible dictionaries they're roughly equivalent but it gives you a place that if you have a person or a place you want to find out something about what about you know Mount Sinai or what about whatever you can look it up and get a little paragraph or do you get some background or a person you know you know who is this governess annual what do you know about Nathaniel or Mary or how many Mary's were there oh six of them which went in which it gives you a place a refuge a refuge reference place one volumes are easy I happen to like a five volume set because you can get pretty get your arms around almost any topic with it with that kind of work set up a Bible at last your maps in the back of your Bible are near useless on my opinion go get a Bible Atlas and that I won't recommend one goes to page through them in a bookstore pick one and so commentaries now this is the big one the best commentaries the Bible itself if you go through acts seven Steven will tell you more about the Old Testament than you'll find in the Old Testament interestingly enough and there's lots of Polly examples then there are all kinds of commentaries there exegetical commentaries they will really get into what the language really says and that's useful in certain controversial areas but in general most of us would have only specialized need for that there are devotional commentaries they're handy but the ones that I really enjoy are the exposition was there critical ones too if you're gonna do it take a serious study each one of these have a role but the the most useful commentary for most of us would be an expositional commentary not just one but several when i tec tackle a book i decided to get in the book X whatever I'll typically go and get two or three of them and go through them together because different authors have different insights and different gifts and they're not consistent certain I have certain favorites of Genesis that are not my favorites the same guys aren't my favorites in Revelation they're different and so forth and I you can get the sets pulpit commentary you want to spend whatever 24 vines whatever that there are okay I personally get the most fruit from the specialists the guy that's got a commentary on Zechariah or whichever that's that's what I found useful we're gonna talk about computers after the next one there's there's some free things that are available I'll tell you about in the next session and they're also some very fancy ok the pluses and minuses some of the expensive computer software but with the computer software it's available free yeah if you have any computer literacy at all you have enormous resources available to you we'll talk about that in part two but the real key of this whole presentation is to be focused on your personal tutor the Holy Spirit now chuck Missler or your favorite radio commentator the Holy Spirit he was announced in advance Jesus said in the Upper Room discourse if at the comforter which is the Holy Ghost whom the father will send in my name he shall teach you all things not most things all things and bring all things to your members whatsoever I have said unto you a couple chapters later he says howbeit when he the Spirit of Truth has come he will guide you into all truth he shall not speak of himself but whatsoever he shall hear that he shall speak and he will show you things to come so the Holy Spirit clearly Jesus conditioned them to recognize he was leaving the Holy Spirit would come to be more effective for the situation because he's not he's not localized he's dwelt in each one of us and it goes on right there's expedient for you that I go away for if I go not away the comforter will not come unto you but if I depart I will send him unto you so each of us have the opportunity to have spirit in dwell in our lives now it is a warfare Paul warns us he gives us a military assessment in Ephesians chapter 6 he says we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities against powers against the rulers of darkness of this world against spiritual wickedness high places in the Greek it's clear that these four levels are ranks of angels that's what we're up against and so when there are things that would distract you or derail you for your Bible study they may be a supernatural in their origin we haven't imperative Paul went on to say put on the whole armor of God that she may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil the whole armour it has seven pieces and he says he's going to say this twice to put on the whole armour what what's the armor of God what is that all at about notice he means be completely armed you don't put on just your favorite pieces you put them all on and you do this when when did the Romans put on his armor not during the battle before the battle begins well hey I Got News for us but now he's about to be gunning we're on enemy turf it's time we got equipped what is our armor we're supposed to be girded with truth breastplate of righteousness feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace the shield of faith the helmet of salvation sword of the Spirit our heavy artillery is prayer everybody forgets the last one by the way there's seven not six the heavy artillery is last we could fruitfully spent in the rest of this hour a couple hours you know if seven hours probably on each one of these I'll leave it to you to do your homework find out what these things are really about they are not just idioms drawn by a Centurion that Paul was chained to in his writing this the reason Paul was chained to that Center eNOS of the Centurion couldn't get away and so that's why we discovered other letters that many of them came to the faith know the reason where he drew he drew these from the Old Testament and Paul says finally my brethren be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might that's in the imperative mood that means it's a come in the Greek be strong it's in the present tense which means be continually strong it's not once and for all thing it's a continuing requirement and it's in the passive voice you are to receive the action it's not your strength we're talking about its history in the power of his might so okay let's just conclude with the example of a Bible study we talked about how to study the Bible I thought we just throw in a summary one one of the smallest books in the Bible's Book of Ruth four little chapters what can come of that well let's take a little quick macro study here synopsis is that it was in the days of the judges we're talking about its the ultimate love story many colleges teach it and literary literature classes just as an elegant example of a love story that's at the literary level at the personal level and also the prophetic level it has relevance it turns out to be one of the most important books in the Old Testament about the church that may come as a surprise to many I thought the church wasn't in the whole Testament it's hidden there in a very special way it deals with the role of a strange idiom in the Hebrew called a kinsman redeemer what does a kinsman redeemer and how is this relevant it deals with that we all know that Christ was that Christ was born in the City of David that was Bethlehem how to definitely become the City of David and that's from the Book of Ruth it turns out that this book is a essential prerequisite to the book of Revelation which is one reason we stir this up here a little bit it has four chapters Ruth cleaving the David loves resolve scepter two is Ruth cleaning on behalf of her her mother-in-law who had been destitute comes back to Bethlehem she she's gleaning we understand what gleaning is all about when we get into that loves requests where she goes to this rich landowner and asks him to take her as a bride in a very strange scene in chapter 3 and then she gets rewarded as the love story has its great climax in chapter 4 with the redemption of the land back to Naomi that she'd lost and with the kinsman redeemer taking a Gentile bride interestingly enough so we have that as I say that we have the names of the people it turns out when you study the names of the people they all are relevant to the tale Naomi really means Pleasant or Pleasant land it's and she turns out to be an idiom for Israel and we have a bunch of others that die off for various reasons Naomie deters of doctors daughters-in-law from following her but one Ruth insists upon staying with her and that really leads to the whole story the law of gleaning how she's gleaning she happens on this land that happens to be a kinsman and that's where the whole plot gets rather intriguing that was a provision for destitute you couldn't if you were owned land you couldn't harvest it you had to leave what harvesters you you're allowed one pass which you left were for the destitute and that's what they're taking advantage of and it happens on the field of Boaz it's obviously God's handle on all this thing the named Boaz his name of one of the tenth of the pillars of the temple centuries later in him a strength she's entered she's introduced to him by an unnamed servant the holy spirit is always an unnamed servant in his role in these stories and she gets under his protection in the story and so forth but the real point of the story is to get across what a goal is in Hebrew the kinsman redeemer and we have to understand that we understand among other things the law of redemption that it was his opportunity if you had a gals husband died and she had no issue he the next of kin could take her his bride and raise up raise up kin that was part what to call the law of redemption also has to do with the land that the kids my redeemer could redeem the land that had been sold me only had to sell ten years earlier I need so we have a lot of redemption of the land and we also the law of the lever right marriage exemplified and we won't take the time to go through all of that here except to point out that Naomi recognizes and she has a kinsman redeemer there's an opportunity here she instructs Ruth on how to do this and provokes the redemption of her land and also a new life for Ruth even though she's a Moabite us he's a Gentile so she instructs Ruth and what to do Ruth approaches Boaz at the threshing floor scene and there's a strange verse that's misunderstood by most people at midnight the man was afraid he turn himself and discovered that woman lay at his feet and said who art thou is that I am Ruth I am made just spread therefore thy skirt over thy handmaid for thou art a near kinsman most people reading it superficially not with any background I think she's propositioning him no it's worse than that spraying the skirt the skirt was his authority and she's what she's asking him to do is take her to wife and he's flattered and that leads to the the intrigues of chapter three and four and he can do that because he's a near kinsman so that the request here is embedded in the the culture you need to have the background here but in any case so she wants him to fulfill the role of a go L but unfortunately the nearer kinsman in the way that's the cloud on the plotline and I won't get into all that here he said there's a she he sends a code tells the kids were six measures at Bari taped back to Naomi which is a code that Naomi will understand that he will not rest until this whole thing is resolved he's excited about the whole program so he confronts the nearer kinsman who was well redeem the property but he can't redeem the bride so he's not willing to do pursue and that that gives boa his his failure he is Boaz the opportunity so he yields a shoe which was the traditional way to relieve that obligation boa steps up purchased the land for Naomi purchased the roof as a bride and so it's a great finished in this for chapter book but there's a strange verse in chapter four during the ceremonies celebrating the marriage somebody says may your house be like Ferris and if you can understand Genesis thirty-eight you'd say to that person same to you fella because Ferris was the illegitimate offspring of Tamar who had contrived to have a child with her father-in-law and it sounded it's a bizarre sordid tale in Genesis thirty-eight so there's a strange prophecy may your house be like the house of Farrah's whom Tamar barren to Judah of the seed of which the Lord shall give that he of this woman this is the toastin we would regard to serve as a toast no it's a prophecy actually and what you need to know is without by doing some homework here that in Deuteronomy a bastard shall not enter into the congregation Lord even unto his tenth generation so Pharaohs and his descendants could not inherit for ten generations let's take a look at ten generations Faris hezron Ram a minute AB nation Salman Boaz row bed Jesse and daveed so this is a prophecy strangely enough of the house of David and it's because of this that Bethlem becomes the house of David and why Jesus was born in Bethlehem it's amazing how pivotal this little romantic story and the Old Testament becomes it gets better there's even more to this remember I said that hermeneutics for the Hebrew mind is not prediction Mohammed it's pattern let's take a look at some patterns we have the 10th man Adam to know as 10th man then from Shem to Abraham's 10th man and from Isaac to Boas in 10th man that tells you there's a there's a a special significance to Noah and those 10 generations give you the gospel if you've been through our materials you know what I'm talking about we have Abraham of course it was a pivotal Jew in a sense that started the whole issue of Israel was the call of Abraham and now we're here at Boaz who is exemplifying the kinsman redeemer the Messiah that's yet to come but there's even more we have the kinsman redeemer it's a typological analysis he's got to be a kinsman got to be able to perform got to be willing must assume all obligations Jesus Christ plays is the role of our kinsman redeemer he has to be a kinsman he has to be a descendant of Adam to redeem at him he has to be able to perform he has to be sinless in this case is the only one that is he must be willing he didn't have to but he has to be willing but he must also assume all the obligations which he has and so there's a big study behind that if you will Boaz is the lord of the harvest he's the kinsman redeemer so we watch the whole role of Boaz through this book and Naomi is the type of Israel she's exiled from her land couldn't get Ruth into the picture without her being exiled that's kind of interesting and Ruth isn't of course the Gentile bride she's immobilizes in order to bring Ruth to Naomi Naomi had to be exiled from her land think about it what the law could not do grace did Ruth does not replace Naomi Ruth learns of Boaz's ways through Naomi Naomi never meets Boaz until accept her Ruth some bizarre overlays here no matter how much Boaz loved Druze he had to await her move and Boaz not Ruth confronts them it's interesting the procedure required Ruth to confront the near kinsman which is the law presumably but essentially Boaz not only takes Curtis he takes charge and he's the one that confronts that on her behalf interestingly enough there's both there's both some supporting aspects of the rules and there's some interesting violation of those rules that are innocent of themselves illuminated final remarks Book of Ruth has always read at the feast of Pentecost by the Jewish community that's the Feast of Schiavone that's the feast that predicts the birth of the church it's linked to the church where the Jews realized it or not you can tree understand Revelation without the Book of Ruth you and I are also beneficiaries of a love story that was written in blood on a wooden cross erected in Judea some 2,000 years ago one last thing and we'll tie it off here we take this strange chapter of 38 when you get to chapter 34 on you have the story of Joseph it's great story fabulous story but right in the middle of this you have this insertion of chapter 38 which is this tawdry tale of of Judah getting tangled with his daughter-in-law and and so forth in the Hebrew of that chapter we discover something very interesting there are there is an equidistant letter sequence forty nine letters apart seven squared that happened to mention Boaz's name in Krypton in what they call an Els ego doesn't matter sequence okay that could be a statistical accident but we look behind that is the name Ruth again encrypted in 49 letter intervals how curious the statistics of both of us happening start to get pretty absurd but let's go on following that we have Obed in 49 letter intervals and following that we have yishay which is a we could say you'd call it Jesse and then following that we have dahveed now wait a minute in this interesting little chapter in addition to the story that's so critical delay the background for Ruth we also have encrypted Boaz Ruth Abed Jesse David these are 49 liner intervals in chronological order there's no way you'll ever convince me that was statistical acts accident that was designed but wait a minute it was designed in the books of Moses that's before the book of Joshua the book of Judges the book of Samuel and the kings and all and the in David and all that his genealogy is embedded in the text centuries before the fact exciting stuff actually so this is just one way you can take a book and pick it apart look at it exegetically look at it technically and maybe find a surprise hidden under crevice tree in the next session we'll talk about seven pitfalls of Bible study we'll give you a little surprise then we'll talk about the advanced resources that are available and I'll show you an interesting lesson from the Golden Plover and we'll do that next time

Channel: SearchTheScripturesSeven

Views: 17,295

Rating: 4.8666668 out of 5

Keywords: Chuck Missler, How to Study the Bible, Bible, King James Version, Christian, Christianity, Jesus, Jesus Christ, Koinonia House, Commentary, God

Id: T4wD0IDkTeA

Length: 73min 40sec (4420 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 06 2019