HOW TO DO BIBLICAL RESEARCH | SABBATH 1ST MAY 2021 | 10AM | DR. FAZADUDIN HOSEIN

[Music] so [Music] do [Music] do [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Music] so [Music] two [Music] so [Music] good morning and happy star wars everyone it is a privilege to welcome each one of you who are viewing online to our online stream here at the five reverse of the adventist church you know last week we would have had dr father duran who's saying with us last week he would have showed us some skills in interpreting and studying the word of god today he will be in with us again to do the idea of how to do biblical research and indeed it is a it's a feature that we would like to you know internalize and be able to add to our repertoire how we study the bible and enhance our devotional life but before we go into our service for today just bow your heads with me as we pray let's pray heavenly father we do indeed give you thanks for the sabbath day we at this point in time ask your presence to be with us as we do this service and as we minister on your behalf so that all that happens here will be going in smoothly with your will and that all who are watching will be blessed is my prayer for christ's sake amen over to your prayers good morning and a pleasant sabbath to all it is a pleasure being back and here able to worship with you all once again join me as we sing him number 39 lord in the morning [Music] lord in the morning though hear my voice ascending high [Music] to thee will i direct my prayer to thee left of mine up to the hills where christ has gone to plead for all his said presenting on his father's throne all songs and our complaints o may thy spirits glide my feet and ways of [Music] righteousness make every party street i'm playing before my face the men that love and fear thy name shall see their hopes fulfilled the mighty god will compass them with favor as a shield [Music] hem number 442 how sweet are the tidings that create the pilgrim air as he wanders in exile from home [Music] [Music] soon soon [Music] he is coming coming coming soon i know [Music] [Music] [Music] shall be opened as wide as before he is [Music] [Music] sweet songs shall come and [Music] he worship [Music] hem number 476 burdens are lifted at [Music] calvary days are filled with sorrow and care hearts are lowly under [Music] covered [Music] jesus is burying it cast your care on jesus today leave your worry and faith [Music] jesus is [Music] jesus [Music] every heart is [Music] jesus is [Music] okay so now we're going to do some courses for the children our first song will be i am delivered [Music] i am [Music] praise the lord jesus [Music] [Music] and around me [Music] jesus name [Music] [Music] everybody [Music] [Music] i [Music] heaven is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] is [Music] tell him what you want to just call him [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] amen [Music] amen amen [Music] good morning boys and girls and happy sabbath to you to mommies and daddies and to all who are joining us for the first time or we are delighted to have you yes let me introduce to you my friend he is flash he is a land tortoise 15 years old and growing nicely now flash has a hard shell and it protects him from his predators yes those animals that want to get to him god has provided a safe haven for him he protects even the animals you know as usual we have a story for you and today is no exception our storyteller is waiting so listen up hello there um y'all y'all are visiting the temple tonight oh okay well um i work here my name is samuel by the way um um i realized like you all will be sleeping here right okay cool because it's it's kind of late um i'm tired myself you all are probably tired from that long journey y'all we're on to reach here well um i will be going to sleep right now um y'all could either sleep here no you can sleep right where you are make yourselves at home be comfortable um if you need anything you're good always call on me but as of right now i'll be going to bed good night you all heard someone calling me [Music] it's probably preachy life i'm coming you still lie you you're calling me oh no no savior you'll go back to bed okay i'm sure i heard someone calling me but it's okay sorry to bother you okay good night again yes yes pretty long i'm coming i'm coming [Music] you see like christie like you you called me again no no samuel i didn't call you go back to this go after me all right i know you already my god y'all you sure all right well i'll be going back to bed good night [Music] um yes i'm coming i'm coming [Music] i [Music] i believe god wants to speak with you speak to me i believe god wants to speak to you tell you what if you hear his voice again just say speak lord your servant is listening okay i'll do that okay all right good night [Music] all right okay question do i snow i don't think so but anyway good night once again [Music] speak lord your servant is listening [Music] good morning um yo you're slept okay oh sorry to hear that but you all wouldn't believe what happened to me last night well you see remember all those times i woke you all up telling you that priscilla was calling me well two thousand it was good um he actually he had a message for me he had a message for priest eli and he wanted me to be his messenger yes me little me believe it or not i'm tip okay let me tell you a little about my mother hannah you see my mother she was unable to have children and she came to this very temple and she poured out her heart to god telling him that if he would allow her to have children she would give her firstborn to him she would devote her firstborn to do his work and with that i came along yeah and well after that she brought me to this very temple to work for priscilla and in that every year she would visit me and every time she visit me she would tell me she would always tell me that god has a plan for me every time she came to visit she would tell me that and this time i'm seeing that last night i saw that plan god had for me well you see i have to deliver this message to priestly life it's actually a very sad message so i would like you to pray for me okay but oh i forgot you all have a journey ahead of you so safe travels sorry about the snowing by the way um but i hope all is well with you all right goodbye yes boys and girls that was the story of samuel you remember how his mummy dedicated him to the temple and to the service of god yes and samuel did his job dutifully and he did it well and then god called him [Music] samuel answered that call boys and girls it is a wonderful thing to answer god's call you remember how samuel went on to be a judge a prophet and a priest so when you as little boys and little girls even mommies and daddies when we dedicate our service to god god would work wonderfully in our lives he will have us doing mighty jobs and tasks for him so let us remember to dedicate ourselves to to the work and to god let us when god calls us let us decide to do it faithfully and to do it well just as how samuel did his work faithfully and well so let us pray father we thank you that you would call us one day you will call us in service for you help us to be obedient and help us to do our work well this we pray in jesus name amen bye boys and girls [Music] hi boys and girls and happy sabbath to you we are so glad that you joined us at another sabbath you know this week i met a little friend and she was not sure if she should represent christ all through the week so i thought of this memory text just for her and this memory text is taken from first corinthians 10 31 and it says whether therefore ye eat or drink or whatsoever you do all to the glory of god [Music] tells corinthians 10 31 so we are going to learn it now so as usual i will say it and then you all will repeat are you ready let's go [Music] whether there for you eat or drink whether that boy eat or drink or whatsoever he do or whatsoever do do all to the glory of god do all to the glory of god first guarantee on 10 31 first corinthians 10 51 lovely so we are going to say it together [Music] whether therefore eat or drink or whatsoever we do do all to the glory of god so boys and girls we have learned today not only on sabbath but all through the week we should shine our light for jesus so let our light shine take care and be blessed bye over to you uncle brian good morning and happy sabbat again it's always a privilege to stand before you and share the youth class lesson discussion and of course i'm always i'm always the one to make reference to the the wonderful children's story that we would have had this morning done by ishmael a member of the youth class and then auntie v and the children there sharing those wonderful bible verses with us every single sabbath well i'm all here alone this morning usually i would have my assistant teacher iran with us but because of our cove restrictions because we want to make sure that we follow the protocols i'm here all by myself but i know that you're online and you're listening attentively so let us go right into the youth class lesson discussion at this time the theme of our lesson this this week was a tumultuous homecoming a tumultuous homecoming and when you hear about a tumultuous homecoming again it immediately identifies that something didn't go right you know normally you are you're coming home and you're expecting a smooth ceiling but the lesson brought out something very important to us and i want to share this story with us this morning and it's taken from luke luke chapter 4 and i'm reading from verses 16 straight to verse 30 and i want you to really follow this story because it's it's really very very important and it starts off by saying that that jesus went to his hometown nazareth he went to his home to nazareth and as his custom or his boyhood habit was he stood up to read in the synagogue okay he attended the secret synagogue on the sabbath and just like the occur he like he was accustomed doing he went into the synagogue and he was ready and willing to share the word okay now this sabot when he went in there the scheduled reading was taken from the prophet isaiah so they handed jesus the scroll and they told him to read the scripture passage so he opened the scroll and you know he began to read and it says the spirit's power is with me because he has chosen me to preach the good news to those who are poor to heal those who are broken-hearted to deliver those who are prisoners of sin to give sight to those who can't see and to set people free from their burdens that's what he read okay and also to announce that this is the year of the lord now when jesus was finished reading the scripture passage he took the scroll and he ruled the school up and he handed back the school to the priest that was in charge and he sat down now everybody in the synagogue was mesmerized and they started to ask one another the question isn't this the son of joseph the carpenter from in tong and you know why did they ask that question you see they were spellbound with with how well he would have handled the reading of the scripture that morning and then jesus stood up and said this scripture is being fulfilled right before your own eyes and what you have heard is true of course murmuring started all along again after that statement that he made you see the people were true by what he had read and marveled at the great gracious words he spoke then someone said again isn't this the son of joseph the carpenter from right in tongue jesus replied i know that you are ready to quote the proverb to me which says physician demonstrate your skills on yourself and your family fools in other words you'd like me to work some miracle out to prove that indeed what i'm speaking is about me i'm sure that's what you're mumming about you want the physician to demonstrate on himself and his family first and he want me jesus to demonstrate on myself first he paused he pours and with sadness in his voice he uttered and said a prophet is not accepted even in his own country a prophet is not accepted even in his own country and he said this is especially true in israel in the days of elijah when it had rained for three and a half years and the drought had spread throughout the country there were many widows living in israel but god didn't send elisha to any of them because their hearts were too insensitive to the holy spirit so he sent elijah to stay with a non-israelite widow living in zaraphat near sidon in elijah's day there were also numerous lepers in israel but elijah healed none of them except naaman the syrian who believed that elijah would believe what elijah said when the people heard jesus say that non-israelites had more faith than they did they took it as gross insult and instantly turned against him remember the theme of our lesson this week is a tumultuous homecoming so back up a little bit they were happy to see the little boy jesus in the synagogue they were so impressed they were so impressed with what he shared from the scriptural passage that they started to talk among themselves but from the time he identified or he began to identify with what he read things started to turn haywire and that's where the tumultuous whom coming started because they sat there and they they couldn't understand how our carpenter's son suddenly started to talk as if you know he was the one being spoken of in the scripture passage and they got very angry and what they did they dragged him out of the city and they carried him straight on a mountain top and they were there about to turn him and to push him down the cliff and jesus just loosed himself and he walked straight through the crowd and he went about his business the question is asking or listen why do you think his listeners were amazed at the gracious words he spoke you know sometimes in the youth class some of our youths we tend to to pull on ourselves and feel that we are not we are not ready we are not ready to do god's bidding but i want to tell the youths on the line today that even from a boy jesus spent time in the synagogue spend time sharing the word of the lord and you need to stand for principle just as he did people will turn against you as youths but you know why they were spellbound because in their minds jesus was a normal cup into her son how could he be revealing such deep truths you may tend to feel that you are a normal youth in the youth class but once you are filled with the holy spirit you can do mighty works for god continue to give yourselves to the lord another question that came out in the lesson asked why do you think a prophet is not accepted in his own hometown and you know as your classics i often hear some of the youth say they make this statement even some of the adults you know we would have our local pastor here standing up and preaching the word preaching the word with power and authority and you might get some scanty amens in the church some people might be sitting there and you know not really gaining anything but you bring a foreign pastor and put him in the same spot to preach the same message you won't have room in the church something about foreigners seemed to to be easily accepted but it's not about who we put to do god's job but it's to ensure that we are well equipped to understand that it is god leading in that person's life and we allow ourselves to be empowered by god on a daily basis i want to share something with you quickly and it says god the eternal son became incarnate in jesus christ through him all things were created the character of god god rev is revealed the salvation of humanity is accomplished and the world is judged forever truly god he became as truly human jesus christ he was concerned or he was conceived by the holy ghost and born of the virgin mary he lived and experienced temptation as any human being but perfectly exemplified the righteousness and the love of god by his miracles he manifested god's power and was attested as god's promised messiah he suffered and died voluntarily on the cross for all sins and in our place was raised from the dead and ascended to heaven to minister in the heavenly sanctuary in our behalf he will come again in glory for the final deliverance of his people and restoration of all things brethren youth class members online i want to encourage us to give ourselves over to the lord people may accept us from the onset but the more we get deep into the word of the lord and the more we stand up for principle and we are ready to share the word of the lord some of these same people will turn against us they will want to know what you're playing you used to lying with us you used to do something with the same things that that that we are doing today and suddenly you have become holier than dog it's not that you have become holy i don't know it's because you have accepted jesus to govern your life whether your homecoming was perfectly peaceful and turned out differently still stand for principle in closing when jesus spoke to the people in the synagogue his words at first were greeted with amazement yet many thought was this not joseph's son and foster dog concerning him he then brought a message home to each of his listeners that did not go down easy it was as if they were seeing themselves in a mirror and not liking what they saw they became so furious that the people in his home tongue sought to kill him by chewing him off a cliff what is your reaction to jesus today what is your actions to the words that jesus speaks to you on a daily basis my prayer is that you accept jesus's teachings and live it out in your life shall we pray father god we thank you for sharing this youth class discussion this morning and we pray that not just the youth of our church or even the youth online today would recognize that you are willing to lead in their lives but even the adults and may we stand up for principle and may we stand up for you even though the heavens fall continue to bless us and use us mightily in your vineyard in jesus name we pray amen amen thank you so much uncle brian for such an interesting lesson god has been good welcome this morning everyone to our adult lesson study i have here with me pastor our church pastor pastor nichols and as we start our lesson we want to welcome you with these two verses first from samuel sorry from psalms 124 verses 2 and 3 lift up your hands in the sanctuary and bless the lord the lord that made heaven and earth bless thee out of zion so we welcome you this morning and we have a topic that is called children of the promise such a beautiful lesson this morning let us pray as we go into the word father we thank you for being with us and we ask that you be with us as we discuss your words and be maybe understand what you have for us to understand for christ's sake amen so pastor tell us a little bit about this lesson this morning children of the promise well of course so i think the best place to start with this particular lesson is by reciting the memory text okay it's taken from matthew chapter 28 verse 20 it says lo i am with you always even on to the end of the world right you know the lesson study gives a synopsis on our illustration here so that we could understand what the lesson's about it says that there was a father and his daughter who would have went on vacation and this one day in particular they would have gone swimming and as they went swimming you know the the current would have started to pull them out to out further from sure and you know the father realizing this and realizing that he may he could not have physically make it to his daughter said to his daughter look i have to go back to shore to find help for you right but if you get into difficulty swimming or you start to feel tired turn on your back and float you know so the father went back to shore and he got help on you know everything was he was putting things together to go for his daughter and you know ours would have passed and but when the rescuers are going to find his daughter they thought well they're not going to find her but after searching they found her just floating on her back like if she doesn't have a can you will like she was in her swimming pool yes right nothing nothing wrong with her i know these the rescuers were like amazed at what was happening so they when they finally got on the boat they said to her you know how are you so calm look look look you're going food or out from from shore how are you this calm and she said you know father said to me that if you feel tired float on your back and on top of that he promised that he will come for me and i think that's an important point in terms of not just summarizing today's lesson but so far with the quarterly has led us that once we are obedient we can one find calm in midst of anything that would happen but being obedient comes with our promise that god will come for us and i think that's an ideal way to summarize not just this lesson but all that we've been through so tomorrow so you know in reading this and i as we go on to the next day's lesson it talks about you know abraham saying or god saying to abraham rather that god will be a shield to him and you know that kind of that question kind of is had me thinking a bit so i don't know allah if you could help me understand what god was saying when he said to abraham i will be your shield so you know when we hear the word shield we think of a lot of things uh viewers who listening to us could you just type in the chat for me what you think about when you hear the word shield as we discussed it so you just let us know what you think that that that shield means to anyone but but the shield was an important tool for warfare and what was important with the shield is that it did something you see the shield conveys a meaning that is so interesting because the shield really changes the intent of the attack because in warfare they try to kill each other but the shield was used so that the intent of the attack that actually killing the person wouldn't happen but the blow was still felt when the blue was administered but the shield deflected and and changed the intent of the blue so that the person was not killed i think in terms of god and what god was trying to say is that listen god wants to be with us with abraham in an intimate way in a way that he was not just a shield but his shield your shield something personal but it means also that he's saying listen i can protect you physically as well as and not just physically but for me the real protection was against temptation and first corinthians 10 13 says this it says there had no temptation taken you but such is as common to man but god is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able but will with the temptation also make a way of escape that he may be able to bear it so we are saying that if we seek shelter from god's shield then he will always protect us from the circumstances that may lead us away from temptation so it's not saying that things won't happen to us that we won't be affected that the challenges and of life will not happen to us but he's saying listen i'm going to be with you truth and i'm going to protect you in that way that the promise that i've promised you will happen that that that whatever is promised to you by me and you follow my will that you will receive what is guaranteed what is promised to you so for me it's so important also as well a number of bible authors also use that term shield and david said it is sam and they sang so much songs about god being a shield to us so that we can see that it's not just for abraham but for all of us that god promises to be our shield and i think it's a great promise and one that i want to claim knowing that god is so faithful to us yeah i think psalms 46 would have summarized it best in saying god is our refuge and our strength and i think what you are saying is also summarize very very well in the idea of who job was as a person all right because even though he was a righteous person you know you see that there's spaces where the devil said that the only reason he saves you is because you have a hedge around him yes or something what we would call some some level of protection like a shield so you know the devil was saying you know remove that and i bet you he will stop serving you i think what what summarizes in there is that even though that their trials once we stay once we hold on to god right that he will always be faithful and just to come to our rescue yes pastor so so let's continue the next aspect goes to know the question they're asking how will all the families of the earth to be blessed through abraham one of the things that we have to to conceptualize as christians is that we read the story of abraham and we see two points of view you see the beginning where abraham was faithful and we see the end in terms of the conclusion of his life okay right but one of the things that well what we need to conceptualize is that abraham would have also made mistakes right so you when he went into egypt and he told the white lies and you know seen that you know he would have grown over time but through his life he would have continued to be obedient even though he would have made mistakes all right and because of his obedience in the first place god would have made a covenant with him so genesis chapter 28 and verse 14 says in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed right you know the the lesson studied not just in this lesson but all previous it shows that god is a rewarder of those who are obedient so even in a couple lessons ago when it talks about noah you see that noah was saved because of his obedience to god same thing with abraham abraham would have been obedient to god so god reward his rewarded his obedience with a promise that i will make your seed a great nation and that i will multiply it like the grains of of the sun on the sea right so what you see over time is that the same attributes that abraham would have had would have matriculated into israel that they were meant to be the ones that would the vehicles in which god would have moved and acted throughout the earth so they were to be the example right that's the promise or part of the promise that god would have made with abraham that you know because of that nation i will show all the world who i am who yusuf right and as abraham would have grown in life you would realize that he would have been closer to god he would have corrected some of the mistakes and grown right so even when we talk about the generations of adam you see where his genealogy now reaches to one of his descendants called david and in david god made a promise too that the messiah will come through your genealogy yeah and your bloodline right um going back a bit and that that story is taken from second samuel chapter seven but going back a bit you know we go back all the way to the garden where man would sin i in genesis chapter 3 and verse 15 and it says that you know god would have told the sibling that you will crawl on your belly for all of your life and you'll eat dust but there will become there will come a time where one will crush your head and you will bruise his heel and even in david when he gives the promise of the messiah it says the same thing that he will be beaten and bruised for by the hands of men for our transgression and by our stripes right so even in that promise that was given to david it was only really fulfilled at the cross even with abraham that the promise was really fulfilled at the cross yes so in the cross we now find a redeemer we know find someone who is there to save us from our sins not just our sins but the sins of all families that are on the earth yes right so the bible says in galatians chapter three verse 29 and he if he be in christ then ye are abraham's seed and his ears according to the promise yes so then what what the lesson study is trying to get that and what the scriptures are saying is that once we be in the same vein on the same characteristics as abraham and we are obedient to god that we will partake in the same promise of our soon coming savior as well as to partake in the promise of salvation so that we no longer have to deal with the trials and cares of this world so that in christ all of us are blessed and in christ all of us and know i know blessed as families and and we have understood that we have now become heirs of the promise that abraham would have me all right amen with that in mind i i we we had this part of the lesson and we talked about you know how all families would have been blessed through abraham and his obedience but we still live in our world elder where there is so many different things happening we have the coronavirus you know the the things of this world crime and everything is escalating beyond control right but there is still something in the lesson that says that there is the greatest of all promises that will help us circumnavigate all of that so tell us what the greatest of all these promises are so maybe viewers you can help me this morning i want you to type in the chat what are what's the greatest promise what do you think is the greatest promise given to us by god help help me a lot this morning and type for me what you think but for me i think that the greatest promise is this it's it was impossible for us to pay the debt of our sins and psalms 49 it says that however jesus made it possible through his death and resurrection and the fact is he is still interceding for each and every one of us in this heavenly sanctuary as our high priest now i'm saying this boldly but where does this come from i go to hebrews 4 14 to 16 and i read in your hearing that it says seeing then that we have a great high priest that is passed into the heavens jesus the son of god let us hold fast our profession for we have not and high priests which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities but was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need i find that such a great promise that we're talking to a high priest who understands our position who has been there before but you know what he overcame so that we'd be dealing with someone who was where we were but he got the victory and saying that he's there in the same verse so that we will have the victory as well and i thought that that was so profound hebrews 7 25 as well says wherefore he is able also to save them to the ottomans that come unto god by him seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them so it's saying that he's even living now to make intercessions for us what a great promise and this is why we continue to live in that faith and that confidence that god is doing everything in place to save us and we want to claim that that at the end of time whenever this story or this great controversies ended that we got the victory and fulfilled the promise that we are children of that great promise amen so i'm saying pastor as we we continue is this what is the context of this lesson in terms of abraham's context and his time and what was promising and the relationship now with our context in this time that we live in pastor well like i would have said before that um abraham's seed was multiplied into a great nation so what we have to realize in this context then is what was met what was israel meant to do what was abraham's seed meant to be right and abraham seed was meant to be a nation of nations the example of what you know god would have liked humanity to be so by that god would have spent time with them he would have you know interacted with them he would have shown or he'd have worked with all the families within israel he would have worked with israel so that they can be again the vehicle in which god acted and moved upon the so that even to the point where you see people like balaam king balaam who would have been afraid of seeing israel because they weren't he was not afraid of the people themselves but because of the the devotion of israel to a god and hearing all the all the rumors or all the other facts about other cities that these these people would have conquered right following a god that that's you know resided with them by a in a cloud trinity and a pillar fire by night so you know witnessing this himself he was afraid right because of the the testimony that they would have shown so you see throughout israel's history they had a lot of ups and downs because even in that same story with balaam they had to compromise themselves to move to be able to be separated from god right now that god ran away from them they compromised themselves and because of israel's compromising they went up and down throughout the entirety of the history now what am i saying to that when i was when the previous part of the lesson i was talking about is that we now become ears to that same promise that was given to to israel right that we are now as a church to be in the same vein we are to be the ones who in this day and age the vehicle in which gods word is being promoted to the world because with we we are partakers of the gospel so that by party can we become more like god so we are know to be the ones to help carry the gospel we are the ones to be the examples not just by saying this is what the word of god says but also in action this is who god is and everybody who's looking on should see god in us okay again we were created in his image and likeness so when when we go out into the world people should say well you know you're a christian you're a child of god so in this in the same similarities we are to be vehicle but again as a church we follow we fall into the same footsteps and as israel we have our ups and downs so pastor let me ask you this so then we're talking about making your name great and you know in the world the world has a different way of making your name great and famous where you do your own thing but for god's greatness it's a totally opposite from what the world does so so even with abraham abraham left and go tell him leave and go and do this while he had on the opposite side the people believed our people and doing their own thing to make their name great but for me what i understood is that greatness with god meant character fate obedience humbleness and loving others so that you don't seem to make your name great by your own means but following the will of the father and i think that that even in our context today that once we seek to do god's will eventually we will become great in his eyes and not in the eyes of the world which i think is different agreed because abraham became the great father of the nation because of his obedience not because he decided well i just want to be fruitful and multiply right he because of his obedience he would have became the great father of the nation of israel and that's important for us to know that in our obedience and in our humility that we we keep in tune with god and god through us will not just elevate our status because our status being elevated is not necessarily for our own gain but it is for the footage of the gospel it it it is by all means for god for himself to be glorified i think like say for instance i when i read the story of israel in egypt right my my thought process was you know moses was taken out of the river and he grew up in ferris palace so he had some influence so why didn't god just let moses allow thee all alone moses to free israel right and my challenge we're trying to understand that is this if if i had to take it at face value from an earthly perspective it wouldn't make sense why god did what he did was only years after i realized that the rationale is that if moses had set the the israelites free the israelite or moses would have gotten credit yeah but if if the bible puts it in a way that the plagues and everything happen so god can be glorified in this situation so that even the children of israel would know that it is god who freed them and not moses and that's an important point that even though when we go through all of this in our daily lives as christians that we must remember that we must stay in tune with god and learn from the lessons of israel so that when we stay obedient we can float like the little girl in the beginning of the story and overcome the hurdles of this life amen so pastor as we close our time is first spent we thank you and we thank our viewers so listen could you pray for us as we close sure no problem let's pray heavenly father we indeed give you thanks for the lesson and we give we ask that as we continue to study your word that you will indeed bless us and allow us to understand with clarity so that when we live in this world that we could be proper examples for you is my prayer for christ's sake amen and amen have a blessed day everyone a man what a wonderful lesson study and i know that each and every one of you online you have been blessed thus far good morning happy sabbath and welcome again to five rivers sda live stream we are so so happy that we can join you online yet another sabbath we know that we are on lockdown and we can't be out and there is no trade service here at church but we are happy that god has indeed blessed us so that we can bring the service to you at home so what i want you to do right now is share the link quickly help somebody else to be blessed today so i'm waiting on you share it quickly share it now okay i know that you did that god's name is indeed going to be praised today we have an awesome service ahead of you and we thank each and every one of you for joining us here at fiverr sd i know we had a lot of you online waiting and i know we have some more to come but before i get into my shout outs i just want to give you just one sort here that i got for this week we know that the world is seeing so much grief and death and with all that going around god promises to heal all of our grief one day we know that he has promised us that but what do we do in the meantime when pain overwhelms us and i want you to cling to this isaiah 25 8 says he will swallow up death in victory and the lord god will wipe away tears from all of of all our faces and the re and the rebuke of his people shall take away from off all the earth for the lord god had said so and we know if god said something it will happen so good morning again and welcome each and every one of you those of you who are joining us for the first time we are so happy that you are here we we admonish you to continue joining us remember like share and subscribe help us to evangelize merlin patrick it is indeed a pleasure to see you again victoria welcome happy sabbath lee abraham joseph lystra we are happy that you're joining us dasha joya in brooklyn new york always locked on and destroy your family in new york as well cathy ann lewis in delaware veronica edwards in canada wendy horne williams in london newell phillips and alabama david knight barbados helen sukram in florida and of course maria haynes in new york always locked on and maria said this morning you know it's a year the anniversary a year anniversary of her joining us online and we are glad that we are still here with you and we will continue to be here with you as god permits clarence mohammed in delaware ghost truth williams in north carolina junior jackson and family in the uk ingrid anderson in virginia jacqueline campbell smith jamaica and we have a lot of people locked on in the caribbean today janice cochran in toronto and i know toronto is still on lockdown as we are but to god be the glory anyway his word his name shall be praised and his word shall go all over the globe a must order you in nairobi kenya always locked on i haven't seen you for a while so i'm glad you're back with us bruce williams in colorado micah in jamaica alicia payne and barbados and for those of you who i didn't call out by name we are indeed happy that you're here with us at fiverr bus st continue to join us continue sharing the link and may god's name continue to be praised and his word spread near and far i pray that you have a continued bless sitting with us today may you be praised may you be blessed may god's name be praised and pray continually one for another god bless you have a wonderful and heavily sitting with us today over to you uncle brian thank you very much sister cooper for again sharing these shout outs with us and we are happy that that your allergies have subsided and you are back with us to god be the glory we have a few announcements that we like you to listen to at this time last week we would we would have announced at our church that because of covet restrictions and the information coming out of the ministry of health we had to suspend our congregational worship i want to let you know that that continues we will not be having any congregational worship at our church until may the 23rd when we get further instructions however we are thankful that god has prepared us for a time like this and we have gotten all the necessary confirmations and permission from the relevant authority whereby we can still stream so we are happy to be here with you this beautiful support morning i want to let you know that every suburb we will be streaming our program from 10 am shaft from 10 am sharp we are indeed following the protocols so we will not be having more than five individuals at any point in time at our main building and god has really prepared us because ever since the first lockdown we have been operating to specifications so to god be the glory i want to also invite you to join us on our zoom link every sunday and wednesday evening from 6 p.m to 7 p.m for our services and these services have been going really nicely the attendance is really wonderful so look out for the link and join us as we continue to worship and praise god our second quarter series continues today and yet again we have dr faz who signed with us a power pack gentleman a man used of god filled with the holy spirit will be here shortly to share another power pack message with us entitled how to do biblical research and how to find meaning in the bible and we know that god is going to use dr fuzz in a very very special way as he did last sabbath to proclaim the good news of jesus christ we want to encourage you to subscribe to our youtube channel and to visit us at our website www.firereversesda.org so that you can stay tuned for all the programmings of the church also this afternoon from 4 p.m we will be having a zoom presentation by our very own elder linderson lincoln and he would continue where dr fuzz would have left off this morning but he will be giving us more of a practical some practical information as to how to study and to research the bible so be prepared make sure that you make time to be on our zoom link this afternoon at 4 p.m for this very special program with ellen lincoln tomorrow morning from 7 00 a.m to 9 00 a.m it's a two hour two hours of power two hours of power and it's been hosted by the men's ministries department of the fireworks sem dev and this church the theme for our program tomorrow is men go for gold men go for gold you just can't afford to miss this wonderful this wonderful program coming out of the men's ministry department we have two very special presenters with us all the way from the tobago mission we have elder wilfred devines and he's going to be sharing some putin and information with us and we have our very own pastor nicholas nichols part of the presentation also we have a lot of things in store but more than anything else we're going to be doing a lot of praying so men leave that free leave that time free 7 a.m to 9 00 am tomorrow morning at our church ladies we we we love you we love you so that the link is going to be shared on the the church chat and ladies you're welcome to join us it's a men's ministries program but if you feel so inclined to join us tomorrow the invitation has extended to all of you the community services department of the south caribbean conference is inviting all interesting persons to be part of its upcoming agriculture consultation forum on may the 9th and then the annual convention on june the 5th both of these events are virtual events and the agriculture forum requires registration so you can see our website for more details and registry registration information the aruca pine haven is the early childhood care and education center is inviting interesting persons to register their young ones on may the 31st 2021 again please see our website for further information the south caribbean conference education department in collaboration with the education department of the fireworks seventh-day adventist church presents the educational series the hybrid experience the hybrid experience this new and exciting series will highlight the seventh-day adventist education system that comprises of early childhood centers primary school secondary schools and universities and its benefits of its rich environment it's a program that you need to schedule on your calendar you just can't miss it it's coming in the month of june you will hear more about it prepare to be part of this wonderful experience last but not least this morning we want to thank and we want to thank god for sparing the life of one of our youth jaden williams jayden williams he celebrates his body today member for you class we say happy birthday jaden and may god continue to bless you mightily and another matriarch of our church is celebrating her 92nd birthday tomorrow and that is sister clement sister clement to god be the glory we know that god will allow you to see your body your 92nd birthday tomorrow and we pray that god will continue to bless you and keep you strong in the name of jesus brethren i want to encourage us to call a member call a member these are hard times that we're living in and for years now we have been hearing about the time when we would long to be part of this church it's this open door worship service and unfortunately we have our challenges but let us continue to let the love flow let us continue to reach out to our brethren let us continue to call them and encourage them and we trust that these doors will reopen and full sooner than later so that we can feel the love and continue to encourage and pray for each other god bless you enjoy the rest of the sabbath hymn number 434 we speak of the realms please speak of the realms of the blessed [Music] is [Music] is [Music] again [Music] of [Music] what must it be to be there [Music] so holy [Music] is [Music] jesus will be there him number 534 will your anchor hold [Music] when the clouds are [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] in the savior's life [Music] [Music] is [Music] we have another [Music] which [Music] loves him number 469 leaning on the everlasting arms what a fellow said what a joy do you find leaning on [Music] depend on jesus cause he's my friend and he's [Music] he will provide [Music] leaning on [Music] jesus cause he's my friend and he's my god [Music] he will provide [Music] and depends on jesus cause he's my friend and he's my god [Music] we found out that if we trust him he [Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome welcome welcome to our prayer corner this morning it is our prayer that during the sabbath you will spend some quality time with your creator and indeed we know that when we spend quality time with him it's the best place to be and we will be blessed this morning we want to remind you to please send in your prayer request during the week our prayer teams are praying and they would call your name in prayer and even those who have not mentioned or we haven't called your name remember that god knows god sees and god cares so he would take care we are praying for sister ronda bob you are in our prayer brother winston modest we are praying and we are also praying for lulu's friend we have you in our prayers and for all those names that i have not mentioned god cares and he knows our deepest need ellen white tells us in her book steps the christ in the chapter the privilege of prayer she says if we take counsel with our doubts and our affairs or try to to solve everything that we cannot see clearly before we have faith perplexities will only increase and deepen but if we come to god feeling helpless and dependent as we really are and in humble trusting fate make known our wants to him whose knowledge is infinite who sees everything in creation and who governs everything by his will and his word he can and he will attend to our cry and he would let light shine into our hearts true sincere prayer we are brought into connection with the mind of the infinite it's not wonderful we may have no remarkable evidence at the time that the face of our redeemer is bending over us in compassion and love but this is even so we may not feel his visible presence or his visible touch but his hand is upon us in love and pitying tenderness friends this morning i want to tell you god cares he cares and he hears and if he cares and he hears he will answer so at this time i invite you to pray shall we bow our heads eternal father is it it is with grateful hearts this morning we come thanking you for the blessings of the week father you have kept us you have protected us you have defended us you have sustained us you've provided for us and this morning we say thanks thank you our father this morning lord we want to ask your forgiveness our footsteps may have gone us free our thoughts may have gone us free our deeds our actions may not be to your will so we ask you to forgive us cleanse us lord that as we spend this time with you it would not be in vain but it would be a blessing a blessing for us this morning lord we bring before you those prayer requests those names that were called father you know what's happening and we pray lord that you will hear our prayer on behalf of these individuals those who are ill father you are the great physician we pray law that you will pass by and you will touch them those lord who are happy we pray lord that they will remember it is because of you there's joy there's true joy and happiness [Music] and father we pray a special prayer for the twin island of trinidad and tobago father dronair for those who are in sorrow because of this virus in whatever whatever way lord we pray that you draw near to them comfort them at this time lord and remind them that you are still in control father we pray for church churches that are streaming world over may your message continue to go forth may your blessings continue to reach where where it's all needed we pray and father we pray that your presence be with us bless us today this we pray with thanksgiving in jesus name amen [Music] his heart was broken mind was meant dead he became sin now i am free the cross he carried more my burden the nails that held him set me free his life for my [Music] is it ever be that he would die gods would die [Music] he gave his life [Music] his cause of suffering mort me he healing he shed his blood to fill my song his crown of thoughts made me royalty his sorrow gave me joy and told his life on my [Music] die god's son would die to save the wretch [Music] [Music] accepted it ever be [Music] say gave his life [Applause] [Music] all right all right this one okay but he's introducing me morning and happy sabbat again to our viewing audience today we have on and we are elated at the five river seventh day adventist church to have dr faz with us again to break the word of life you know and he will be teaching us how to do that biblical research in an in-depth way that is meaningful to us you know um i'm i must say it is a privilege for him to be here it makes me feel like i'm back in school again because he was a lecturer of mine while i was studying so dr faz is here with us and i just want to you know just start the conversation with him a little bit to to pick his mind in terms of how we should go forward in doing our biblical research so dr fuzz happy sabbath to you thank you sir happy sabbath yes so how was your week so far well i had a tough week this week especially after hearing the announcement by the state for the lockdown but thank god i am covered already during this week i got my vaccination so i'm i think i'm ready to kick kovid and and to conquer that whole enemy all right so i hope that's a testimony of how you're coping with yes yes the lord is good amen amen amen so with that in mind could you could you just give us a recap of what we would have done last week for those of us who would not have seen last week's lecture i i would advise you when we're done here to go back to look at last week's lecture because you indeed missed a blessing but just for those who would have seen it already doc can you give us a recap on what you would have done sure i'm happy to do that we'll take just a few minutes to do a little review of what we discussed last week in terms of how to interpret the bible last week we made mention of the importance of the theological study called hermeneutics hermeneutics has to do with the science and the art of interpreting scripture in a nutshell and so i gave you some basic principles of what you must bearing mind as you study the scripture i spoke about though the bible has universal principles the bible was written within a particular context so there are certain specificities that we must bear in mind as we study the scripture for example one the bible was written at a specific time the bible is not a 21st century document it's a first century document yes it's a first century document and some of the principles of how you interpret a first century document they they they may not be compared with the the approach one would take to interpret a 21st century piece of literature you must bear that in mind then the bible was written within a specific place or space a specific geography and so the bible does not have five rivers the bible does not have a rhema nor sangri grandi and so when you read the bible if you are to interpret it well you must you must be acquainted with the geography of israel then the bible was written in a specific language the bible was not written in spanish or english or or german the bible was written in ancient languages the koine greek of the first century the ancient hebrew and certain parts have aramaic so to be a good bible student it makes sense to study the ancient languages that's why pastors go to theological seminaries so they can study the ancient language because language have certain nuances syntactical connections that are not common to all languages and you must understand these variables then you must understand middle eastern custom the bible was written within a specific culture we have a western culture but the bible was written within the context of a middle eastern culture and i stress the point that when you read the bible as a good bible student you must remove your western lenses or your trini lenses as it were and put on your middle eastern lenses in other words your world view of the bible must be that of a middle eastern man so you need to understand the customs of the first century and in bible times then you need to understand ancient philosophies because these ancient philosophies have their parallels in the writings of the bible you see the bible was not written in a vacuum the bible was written within the context of a particular environment and therefore as a good bible student you must study ancient philosophies that influence the thinking of the bible writers but the biggest gap is the gap of the divine human gap yes my dear friends the bible is a divinely ordained book the divine thoughts of god that is that is written in the thoughts of men the thoughts of god written in the words of men sorry and so in the transmission from the divine to the human god's divine pure thoughts but we are humans and we are imperfect and sinful and the language of men is also imperfect the ancient greek language the hebrew even our english is not is not a complete language it's dynamic it goes through changes and so the bible writers wrote the language of the first century so we must go back to interpret that are you listening to me and so i i demonstrated to you the importance of understanding the particularities of the bible and so in order to be a good bible student what you must first do is to go back to the first century and i quoted ellen white on that where she says you must go back to the mountainside listen as a disciple in other words she's saying take out your western lenses put on a middle eastern lenses sit as a disciple pretend to be a disciple let's not use pretend imagine that you are a disciple and you are sitting at the feet of jesus what is what sense are these words making to me what is his frame of reference what is his worldview you have to study that and in so doing you would have understood what jesus meant what he meant so you must first understand what the bible writers meant so you can now translate it for our contemporary times to determine now what it means today i think in a nutshell pasta i have given a recap of what i discussed last week okay so doc before we go on to anything else could you give us a example of how the geographical context would have impacted a particular scripture and its meaning that's right and last week i made mention of that where if you understand clearly the geography of israel you'll be you'll be able to appreciate the travel that mary had to make from nazareth to bethlehem for 70 miles on a donkey uphill downhill it's not like the kyroni plane where everything is flat the topography of israel is very hilly and so she had to go uphill downhill and when the bible says jesus must go through samaria the jews will climb over all the mountains alongside the river jordan to travel from jericho to jerusalem jerusalem or jericho to galilee and they will avoid going to samaria samaria now is a province on the left if you understand the geography well you'll see jesus made the longer route but even the easier route so you'll appreciate why he goes there to meet the woman at the well when i went some time ago to where david slew goliath it's the first time i've been there and i i realized how important to understand how the plane where he killed is not a plane it's like an undulating hill where the traditional place where he slew goliath then you understand what a city is by understanding geography the city of david that david conquered the against the jebusites in ancient times a city was really a small place the city of david that jesus is not even bigger than your cemetery across the road it's a small place it's actually a fortress so all this helps to to give you a better understanding when the bible speaks a proper frame of reference well of course culture would play a big part as well as you were saying that we need to put on our middle eastern lenses right you know what is an example in from scripture that is that we can use that culture to bring out the meaning of what was said in the bible simply uh like the banquet scene when people went toward banquet what was the cultural tradition that where people will will be located at a certain position around the table my my area of research is in that and they dug up in rome and pompey where it shows the lineup of around the banquet table was a type of social barometer to determine who were the important people in your village and when jesus kept the first supper with his disciples remember he said the one who dips with me is the one who will betray me who was that judas judas right when we did archaeological finding and we realized that what jesus was talking about he had the highest position around the table would you believe that if he is dipping with jesus and jesus is the host of democrat that's cultural that's custom right jesus was dipping with judas and in those days they didn't have a table like how we have tables today for dinners they had couches so they are actually reclining into the breast of each other john is reclining on the breast they are lying down with their right hand taking the food and they left they are lying down and so when john the beloved is reclining on the breast of jesus but judas is talking in a convivial conversation with jesus so he is closest to jesus in the conversation around the communion table he's dipping with jesus which suggests that judas was given the most significant place around the table ironic he's the one who will betray jesus jesus is still trying to work with judas in a conversation before he betrays him now that is important culture customs help us to understand the importance of that amen amen does i for one didn't know that in terms of culture in fact the communion service really had four cups of wine if you read the book of luke you will see that he mentioned the second cup we take one cup because we have a generic understanding of the communion but usually when they had a according to the jewish cedar the process they used to take four cups of wine one main course you have the ordeals and that's if you that's why luke says there is the the second cup well we don't you just you have to read the details of the bible so when you read that you understand that when they had a banquet they will take four cups of wine now i'm not seeing pasta to go and have four cups of wine you wouldn't have enough money to buy grape juice is what it means for us today that was the custom back there right indeed that's that that's a part of the communion service i would have overlooked right you know or not paid attention to what it's fascinating to know that they even with the bibles that it's more perplexed than it seems on the same place and i guess it lends to the idea of having to go deeper into the world that's what i'm going to show you this morning right or i'm going to remind you because you learned that at school i i look forward to the the re-education though all right but with that in mind you know will you would you be showing us the the basic steps of what biblical exegesis is that's right i'm going to show you that now can i go to the pulpit for a little while sit right here and i'll be talking to my people out there in in in a virtual land you remembered my dear friends that we spoke about the need for interpretation there is that historical part where the bible was written for example in the first century the bible writers wrote the new testament as a bible student you have to get back to that first century and understand what it meant for those people back then and you notice that line that arrow which is i call the arrow of the line of analogy i have now to bring relevance to what i have studied about the first century the time of moses 1500 years before that and try to establish what is the relevance of that for me today what it means to me it does not make sense my friends if you are studying the historicity of the bible you're studying what took place then and you cannot bring it to bear on what it means for me 2021 five rivers seventh-day adventist church south caribbean conference of seven-day adventists one of the challenges we have with that pastor nicholas is that there are two corresponding dangers one watch with me on the screen there are some people who don't want to hear anything about studying the historicity of the bible how to interpret the bible from historical times and they say we don't need to study all this greek and language and theology we can just skip the historical but we only i we are only interested in stressing what is relevant for us today well many people are like that today any little thing comes up they use the newspaper and they say aha the bible says so so you use your starting point as the newspaper and you say see kovid kovid is this this is the prophecy in daniel 2 and we jump to conclusions without studying the bible and that's a danger but number two is the problem pastor that some pastors have and exegetes we get stuck at the historical only where we only want to know what is paul saying here what is jesus saying here but we do not know how to apply it when it comes to relevance and today we are going to show you how to do that walter wink a bible scholar has suggested three steps in dealing with the biblical text he calls it fusion distancing and communion what is what what does he mean by fusion he means that the bible has come laminated with different procedures and laws we have to know what these laws and procedures are he's talking about hermeneutics how to interpret the bible you must bear that in mind you must do that if you want to interpret the bible well he calls that fusion where you have an understanding that the bible has come laminated with certain laws and circumstances then he says the second step in studying the bible is what he calls distancing another word for that is objectivity it means you have to distance yourself from the text from the baggage that you have about the text in other words you pretend that you have never seen the text before and i ask my pastors who are who are in training at the university to practice this exercise and it is very difficult so i asked them pretend you're not an adventist pretender to your muslim or an atheist i am doubting there is a god let me read this text remember the sabbath day to keep it holy what does that mean and so we call that distancing you distance yourself from the text you take away your original baggage that you had from with the texts and this is a very good practice for theologians who want to dig deeper into truths because we i i i have discovered and you will acknowledge with me that uh many a times we have the right doctrine but we use the wrong text to prove what is right and i notice that a lot of times it depends on who taught us we don't take the original context of the text which i'm going to share with you today and we we because somebody taught us so one person we believe that that is what that means all right a little example of that is hebrews 4 where we use that to explain that you must keep the sabbath that text is talking about the sabbath yes but is using the sabbath as an analogy to explain the rest that is found in jesus it is not a power punch text to prove the sabbath but adventists use it but the best text about the sabbath is really mark 2 27 and genesis 1 2 1-3 that's the best text for the sabbath but sometimes we use the wrong wrong text to prove the right doctrine distancing helps you with this and this is for good studies in theology you distance you pretend that you don't know anything about the text and you're coming fresh to understand the text now that's difficult to do but i practice that then after you do that you re-convene now with the text you reunite with the text in communion with the holy spirit the holy spirit now teaches you as you have distanced you now reunite for a renewed understanding of the text and that's what i asked my students at school to do pasta to follow these three basic steps and it's something that has to do with your personality you have to be honest with yourself let me see what is the meaning behind this text for example colossians 2 14 which talks about blotting away the handwriting of ordinances as adventists we use that text to show that the ceremonial law is finished with but if you check back in the original of the text and really go deep into the theology that has to do with blotting away of sins that were against us not that the ceremonial law is not finished with the ceremonial law is definitely finished with as you studied the theology but sometimes we use the wrong text in our zeal to defend for the faith and the doctrines of the church sometimes and when you meet a good scholar they could put you on the corner if you don't understand your bible and interpret the text right okay so we move along and so pastor i'm going to start sharing with the students out here today in five rivers university i'm going to share with you three ways of approaching the scripture i'm going to make this as lit as less least technical as possible because this is what we teach the students at the university as you would know how to interpret the bible there are three steps in approaching the scripture one as you will see on the screen it's called exegesis don't be scared about that big word it's a theological term which is used to describe what was the author trying to say it answers that question when you hear people talk about exegesis it really means we are trying to find out what is jesus saying here when he says come holy that labor and a heavy laden and i will give you rest what is what is matthew trying to say jesus said blessed are the pure in heart what does he mean by that i'm going to do exegesis to find out what was the author trying to say what jesus said it comes from the greek word and i can't use my pointer ex a gerumai xa it means to tell or to explain it comes from two greek words ek i have to go forward not yet no it means ek which means out off it is a preposition and argo means to lead so you have an argo it means to lead out off that's how you get the word exegesis to lead out of so what we are doing when we do exegesis as bible scholars is to lead what is in the text to take out one detects what is there now what is the opposite of exegesis right what would be the difference between exegesis and what we affectionately call in theology i see jesus i see jesus is the opposite of exegesis ek means out of a preposition but ice means into preposition also so you have exegesis taken out of the text and i see jesus putting into the text what is not there so whenever the illusion does i see jesus he's saying things that are not in the text and we don't want our students to do i see jesus now so the first thing the first approach in studying the scripture is to ask the question what was the author trying to say what he wants his audience to hear what is the intentionality of the author what are the recipients understanding when he says when he says if your eye offend you cut it off what is the audience understanding so actually exegesis is a historical investigation into the meaning of a text clearly yes if i'm to understand you clearly then exegesis would mean that the scripture is telling me what it means in a pose through i see jesus right where i'm telling the scripture or forcing a narrative that's right or a meaning into the scripture that's right and i suppose that i suppose that's what we know we get the idea and the thing about that is that is a full century exercising you have to go back to the first century you can't use the 21st century mindset to understand what happened in the first time you had to go back to that time in imagination gotcha you see so to do exegesis is a first century you can't change that we can't change what is written in the bible so exceed jesus helps me to understand what was paul saying here when he says it is more blessed to give than to receive okay i'm asking that question what is the audience understanding by this what are they made up of right when he says son of god son of man in the book of mark right when he says the son of god what is the roman on audience understanding when he says that the second step in exegesis now is biblical theology what is the question that we answer when we do biblical theology what did the author believe now that's the first century we can't change what paul believed it's a first century exercise but we want to understand what paul believes so we can know what we should believe so although the bible has certain things that he's saying it doesn't mean the author believes that you know right because there are a lot of wicked things in the bible that people did the authors doesn't want you to build an image of a golden calf but the bible records it isn't that so moses wrote that the children of israel worshipped a golden calf is he saying that we must worship a golden calf no biblical theology will tell you no you cannot worship our golden craft this is just a narrative to detail you from worshiping golden calves so theology approaching the scripture you have to know the difference what is paul saying should a woman never speak in the church what is his biblical theological position on that should they wear covering to come in the church biblical theology answers that exceed jesus explains this but now we have to determine whether a woman should use soup authority over a man in the bible what does he mean when he says you shouldn't get married try to be like me is paul saying that you shouldn't get married and be a celebrate be a liver celebrate life what does paul believe biblical theology answers that question but the final question pastor before you go there doc i think then it is important for us to understand that even though paul is writing the new testament in the greek language he's also speaking from a hebrew mindset that's right that's another that's another challenge we have paul is a hebrew thinker but he has to write in greek right so sometimes he cannot express fully we have that problem when we studying the bible sometime like those difficult books galatians and hebrews paul uses sometimes an expression that we don't know what it means it's called hapax legomenon you must have heard that in school happs meaning once and lego i speak it's only spoken once we cannot find it in extra biblical literature it's used once like baptism of the dead in corinth and that's the only time we don't know the historical background behind that up to now there are 40 positions on that but sometimes our word is used and we say well what does it mean all we can come up with is an approximate meaning because the greek language is so versatile and we don't have enough ancient documents as frames of reference and so we have to give what we might assume it means you see and so we have this challenge sometimes so as we move on systematic theology is the one that comes home to us my dear friends out there listeners in in in virtual land the final question as an approach to scripture is answered by what should i believe and that's the question you are interested in the question you are interested in today is what should i believe 2021 may what was the day today maybe the 1st of may the 1st of may 2021 5 reverse church and around the world what should i believe well systematic theology answers the question what am i to should i believe that women should keep silence in the church should i believe that sabbath must still be kept and how it is to be kept should i should i not light a stove and boil an egg on the sabbath how was it done in ancient times systematic theology brings what we have discovered in exegesis and biblical studies biblical theology the second step to what is present truth for us now systematic theology is usually done by the general conference by pastor ted wilson will determine under his supervision whether we need an additional doctrine in the church remember we had 27 correct now we are 28 because of the need it is what should i believe now they may have to create a new doctrine for kovid i don't know to address the issues of kovid i don't know but you see now systematic theology is present truth what it means for me today and something i don't want to shock the saints but this is reality systematic theology may change because of circumstances the all landmarks of adventist truth will remain the same but sometimes you have changing circumstances and so sometimes the you will have to make adjustments and you will ask me for an example in the bible yes i was going to ask you for an example to marry all three principles right for example in the old testament the ancient israelites were asked to come to the temple to worship god always after a while the temple was broken down isn't that so the temple was broken down and they had no temple so can they still go to the temple no god now has to change his instruction and say now worship where you have 10 people in a congregation perform your little sacrifice and i will accept that by faith that is a classic example of systematic theology in operation where a circumstance change and the people have to make an adjustment to please god another classic example so but i guess our more coveted central perspective is exactly what we're doing now we have to change the church setting right we thought that the mark of the beast will cause people not to go to church but kovid is causing that changing circumstances you are distance from me the bible says we must socially interact we can't do that as we want now changing circumstances everybody has to go virtual so we have to make new laws have to be enacted in the country look there was no law before covered in trinidad it's not so correct there's no law to that the cabinet has to sit down and make an adjustment to the prevailing circumstances so it is with the bible too there are circumstances spiritual and religious circumstances that make it necessary for change watch it now we believe that the lord changes not you know we believe that in his mind as a pure a loving god mercy oh yes the character of god but within a sinful environment there are changing circumstances classic example again when the jerusalem council met in acts 15 to determine the fate of the gentiles whether they will be accepted into the congregation remember that they give them four laws four laws that the gentiles must observe that was decided by the first general conference of seven adventists in jerusalem chaired by the brother of jesus james as the actual brother of jesus you know by joseph he was the first general conference president if i may explain it that way and one of the laws was that they must not eat food sacrificed to idols now that took place that took place about uh 80 49 about that time so there were no allowances for gentiles but you come and you read in first corinthians i think it's about chapter seven there about an eight chapter eight where he's talking about food sacrifice to idols correct yeah and he's telling the corinthian veteran there's nothing in an idol but for your brother's sake don't eat it so he's making an allowance for you to eat it in a way but because of your brother as a stumbling block don't eat it again it's a different circumstance these corinthian people were from a pagan background like they were hindus then they were hindus and they became christians and paul is saying i understand your background right if you're going in a marketplace don't offend your brother all right and if you see your brother don't eat in front of him all right things like that so you see he made an allowance because of the change in circumstances ellen white says we could exegete lny too you know systematic theology ellen white says don't ride don't buy bicycles don't ride bicycles if you read that today you will say shouldn't we ride bicycles i have to go up in my father's estate to pick the cocoa it's not so so changing circumstances you have to understand why she said don't buy bicycles the circum everybody what there was an the new invention of the bicycle like oh you have the new prado and the new different cars and everybody on a rack race to buy these things and the work of god was suffering so the servant of the lord says don't buy bicycles so changing circumstances now we could buy bicycles now right so doc if i understand what you're saying clearly then you are saying that after we gather our exegesis yes right yes then our biblical context will help us to understand not only just what the scripture says but it helps to understand what the original writer meant right so that with the systematic theology it will influence the changing of time in in terms of how we pragmatically you know apply apply what we know about the scripture but not changing the foundation of the exegesis we have to be true to the exegesis which leads me to my next point major reasons for doing exegesis exegesis is an attempt to do a systematic watch it you know systematic not healthy skeletal and today i do it and tomorrow i do it and i violate all the conventions you have to do a systematic investigation into the contents of a certain biblical number two to tackle a problem text or a passage of scripture that's what i do my dear friends when i have to preach a sermon i cannot stand in the pulpit and and and and be confident and in all honesty preach a sermon without look doing some exegesis i must study the scripture in the original language and go through all my 15 steps of exegesis to know what was the author trying to say which i'm going to share with some of them today and then to prepare for the next sabbath sermon or lesson of bible study i'm telling you my dear teachers sabbath school teachers elders and leaders if you want to make a difference start doing preliminary preliminary steps in exegesis which i am going to teach you today a little bit to entice you and to titillate your mind on on how to approach the scripture to get the full benefits of the scripture so here's my ideal concept pasta i have come up with all these diagrams my ideal concept of understanding the scripture you have to do these three look at it here exegesis biblical theology plus systematic theology is what i call an exegetical theology and this is what we should practice as a church i think this is what the general conference does they take the scholars who do the exegesis who go back to the first century they take the biblical the illusion and they come together with the systematic theologian and we decide what should be our doctrinal positions you see so biblical theology has to do with old testament and new testament studies my specialty is in new testament studies so that's one half of biblical theory theology and old testament is the other half and then you have systematic theology which is where you systematize the scripture you try to bring unity to the scripture and this you need a systematic theologian to determine what is the doctrine for today systematic theology has to do with what is the present truth that we should believe as a church in the 21st century now at andrews university when i was there the systematically illusion and the exegete like me will always have little little tensions because we are saying this is what the author is saying that wicked man in thessalonians was an actual wicked man in the thessalonian people he was called cabarrus but it could be applied now we apply that to the to the roman power okay so what the exegete will say what did this mean for the thessalonians what did they understand by this so we go back to the local history and find out so the exegete and the systematic theologian always have to reconcile so we can have the church going forward are you with me now so we move on now so here there's a diagram it's kind of involved and i'm showing the approaches compared watch what's on the screen method unit of study exegesis biblical theology systematic theology the time the unit of study is the text for exegesis the biblical theology is the theme based upon the text so biblicalty illusions try to find out what is the theme behind the text so it's a doctrinal approach gather what you mean by theme right just to simplify a little bit when we look in our bibles and we see these subheadings that divide the scripture that's what you mean by theme like say for instance you know this scripture is about jesus being tempted sure that could be part of the process too sure and then we have systematic theology now systematic theology is philosophical because you have to study how to interpret the doctrine for this time philosophically what is the sociological environment why does the conference have to make only five four three people in church today presenting this because of the circumstances it's philosophical you have to make an adjustment all right what it's philosophical and you have to understand it in the context of socio-psychological variables for this time are you with me now and so um the unit of study is the theme also in systematic journey watch at the time the time is the first century we can't change that the bible was written in the new testament for example in the first century the time in of biblical theology we cannot we cannot change what the apostle paul believe or jesus believed about god when we read the bible that's a first century but systematic theology is 21st what is the advantage he's going to believe in trinidad in india in africa and the general conference constantly makes adjustments for different divisions in the world that is why we have the problem with women's ordination in the west systematic theologians will say there's no problem you go to africa and india and you go to the far east people who are more conservative and so where women are not as educated or as not as as as prominent in society as here they will say no woman's ordination so what the general conference did they're smart the general conference has made the right decision we are not going to handle this now we put that on the shelf because you will divide the church that is a sociological question you see in a trying to apply the theology of the bible the exegesis and the biblical theology so the the agency examined is human because let me tell you pastor anybody could do exegesis you know even a critical bible critic can do exegesis and some of them do it better than us the advantage we have is that when we do systematic theology biblical theology it's human and divine we interpret the bible and formulate doctrines because we believe we have the holy spirit we don't only apply secular conventions of understanding and interpreting literature but we are also influenced by the holy spirit so when the general conference comes together they listen to all the theologians with all their different theological ramifications and they come together back and forth and they present papers then pastor ted wilson calls for the holy spirit and say guide us that's how ellen white came to truth the early pioneers they were confused sometimes they had to come together and say holy ghost give us an understanding here we are lost we are short of human understanding and so divine comes in that is the advantage the church has my thinking is pastor is that a true exegete has to be a christian he has to be led by the holy spirit and if he really wants to interpret the bible well he has to understand the principles of exegesis and the principles of biblical theology and systematic theology and but look i guess that's where we get out in terms of interpreting the bible one of the fundamental principles is spiritual things that's spiritually innocent i'm hoping i could give you a slide on that we are far behind so let's move on here now the agency the significance is descriptive watch it on the screen descriptive when you do exegesis you are trying to find out what it meant we can't change that it's descriptive all you do is describing so when i study my bible as an exegete in the new testament just look my greek bible is here is my greek bible and i'll show you something i'll ask him to give a little close up when i'm explaining something just now and it's descriptive that means we can only describe it we cannot change it and we have to find out what it meant descriptive and normative is biblical theology you have to describe it but you can use that now to decide what was normative for the christians back then but when you come to systematic theology it is what it means exegesis and biblical theology what it meant systematic theology what it means for me today and the nature watch it there now the nature of exegesis and biblical theology is unchanging we can't change that actually the new testament is systematic theology of the old testament well that's what i was not going to ask you if we had to if we had to describe systematic theology existing within the bible i suppose what we can do is we can use the parables of jesus as a way of systematic theology in terms of how it explains what was said in the old testament or reiterate any principles of the prophets so that we that the people in that time will get a clearer picture through the parables of what the old testament meant i will share with you now so actually what jesus was doing is doing systematic theology on the old testament right people had a concept about god an eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth actually matthew five to seven is actually a reinterpretation of the ten commandments that is the giving of the ten commandments by jesus he didn't specifically mention the sabbath right that wasn't an issue for his audience but every single law in the ten principle in the ten commandments is found applied in fact people feel that the ten commandments was a law uh was a a rigorous heavy burden heavy duty heavy laden law when you read jesus into petition of committing adultery and killing your brother not one of us could keep that he said if you lost at a woman you commit adultery how many men have have accomplished that if you hate your brother you're a murderer this is the reinterpretation of the law you know harder than how it was in the old testament because you actually killed somebody then you have sinned jesus said no no no no if you hate your brother so jesus was systematizing the old testament giving it a new context for the new believers right so basically what systematic theology does is not change the foundation of the oh no no no no but sort of repackages in a in a modern context right right well said pastor you can be a professor at the university all right good now so what we are going to do now i don't know if we are taking a two minutes break but i'm going to give you now brother kevon brother i'm say work i'm going to give you the steps that you must follow in doing exegesis perhaps at a layman level as simple as possible are you ready to go do we take a break or do i drink some water and then we move all right now i think we go ahead yes okay when the theology students come at the university we teach them how to do exegesis in details there's a whole semester for that class we we explain what is exegesis in detail and we go through 15 steps and each of them has to write a paper an exegetical paper applying all the techniques all the steps and i go through it step by step with them what i have done i have not given you those 15 steps i've kinda tried to condense it join it here and there to give you something that you could understand so i've come up with 12 simple steps the first step is to survey the historical context in general when us when you have to interpret a bible passage the first step is to go and read general literature about this book of the bible there are several textbooks at the university scores of them which we call introductory introduction to the new testament introduction to the old testament these are introductory books into the books of the bible each book has a number of pages that tell you what date they assume this was written who is the audience what was the problem um what are the themes things like those what is the composition of the audience that he's writing to this is a general historical sylvie so if you're studying the book of first corinthians if you have a text first corinthians 6 19 and 20 and he said your body is the temple of the holy ghost and so that was not in the context of eternal that was in the context of idolatry and so um you go and see what was current like you have to do my students have to write a page or two or three pages on what was the city of current like what was the problem what does it mean to corinthianize what was the what were the challenges what was the composition of the audience gentiles jews romans greeks you have to do a general survey so you read that how do you do a general survey also you have sorry you have to read the whole book where that text is formed and i tell you seven times perfect at least three times if i have a text to preach on let's say i'm going to preach on the parable of the seed growing in secret in the book of mark i'm going to start from verse 1 in mark read the whole book three and four times to see why is he putting in mark chapter four despairable he's going in a certain chronological order why is he doing that and why he has arrived at this place so i do a general historical survey and as i read i'm taking notes that's just one little bible text you know for god so loved the world john 3 16 you have to read the whole book of john with that text in mind as what comes before what comes after so you do a general syllabi of the historical context in general there are textbooks that will help you to do this general survey before you start to look at a text step number two you confirm the limits of the passage how do you confirm the limits of the passage sometimes you say this is a text but who told you that that is the limits the boundaries of the text you because of what you know but sometimes when you do the exegesis you realize that one of the texts that come next the the bible text is part of the unitary passage now parables are easy to find because they are one parable we have a classic example in revelation where the chapter does not end at the end of the chapter in the king james version that is why when i read my bible i use the greek bible the greek bible is more precise to know where the unitary passage ends the the greek bible is is more authentic when it comes to that you see when i read the bible i pretend there is no chapter no verses the original bible had no chapters or verses was one long scroll and if you had to find a text yet to read the whole school till they reached there and they had no punctuation marks in the original greek bible they were all capital letters there were no punctuation language was not developed as we have today are you with me church so how do you confirm the limits of the passage is by doing all these steps and you make a provisional a temporary assessment of where you think the passage ends chapters were introduced in the king james version in 1515 by archbishop canterbury of england robert stephanos introduced the verses of the bible there were no verses in the original bible so when i read the bible i pretend there is no verse because i want to read the contents i only use the verses for reference when i'm preaching in the church but sometime a verse does not end here it continues but the people who put in the verses they were not inspired they were at anglican priests and so so that's why you need to become to confirm the limits of that number three i'm running through quickly become thoroughly acquainted with your text read it over and over when i'm doing a piece a passage of inter a passage for interpretation the number of times i read that passage in the greek i almost memorize it the number of times i when i do my translation i read it i almost memorize everything because you are becoming thoroughly acquainted with your text for those of you who are not theologians people like pastor nicholas he is required to study the bible in the greek language he has to because he will not interpret it properly to the best of his ability with the holy ghost to interpret it well so what i would advise you to do as lay people who don't know greek and english if you want to become thoroughly acquainted with your text you have to read your text in at least seven translations not paraphrases translation there are three types of translations you have word for word which is what i do when i read my bible i translate it word for word literal word for word equivalency then you have dynamic equivalency when you don't understand a word you put an equivalent for it it's dynamic equivalent thoughts it might be something like this and then you have paraphrase paraphrase is where a contemporary running of the text that is not a true translation now all those bibles that you read are good you can get edification from them but if you want to really interpret the bible you have to use a word for word translation let me give you some of them the new american standard bible is the best when i translate that nasb because many scholars come together they use all the best manuscripts to come up with what they think is the best original in the original rendition of the text the niv is good sometimes which is the american bible americans love the niv but it has some dynamic equivalence in it you see the new rsv it is good the rsv the revised standard version the new king james version is somewhat it's a little better than the kjv password and you will ask me a question on the kjv well that's a big question okay but um so what when people ask me pastor what is the best translation i tell him the best translation is my translation because i go back to the original language and find out and then i make my own every sermon i preach i must do my exegesis to find out in the language what it meant move on check the different renditions of the text all right pastor can you zoom up let me show them my bible here this is the greek bible see if you can zoom up to this page here let me share something with you and i don't want to disturb you but faster you will know that there is no original autographs of the bible what we have is copies and copies and through god's through god's uh providence he has preserved the scriptures over the centuries what i have in my hand here is not the original greek bible i have bible scholars who have come together who have gathered all the best manuscripts that are available of the bible in the world there are 28 000 manuscripts of the new testament alone more than any other book in the world praise god five thousand of those manuscripts are greek manuscripts they pull them together and they come up with a bible that they think is the best and the closest to what the original was like i thank god for that and i believe god has used uh men in in determining that so what we do when i read my greek bible do you have it here my friend right these are the greek writings here let me and underneath you see a line and here you have what is called the apparatus every student at the university has to learn to read this apparatus where he compares the different manuscripts what are the more reliable witnesses to the document and they have to make a judgment call on what they think is the best rendition sometimes the bible scholar doesn't know how to rate the bible text sometimes they have a b c or d if it's an a it means that they could rely on it well if it's b it's reasonable if it's c is average if it's the well question mark and sometimes they haven't found all the manuscripts and they are not sure so what we have to do is to check the different renditions of the text now for you now that is a technical study i met a man who took 20 years to study one chapter in the book of peter it's a very involved study at andrews university all right 20 years he took and he wrote four volumes in comparing all the manuscripts available in the world for one chapter in the book of beta could you imagine that so he took a lifetime it was gray here when he got his doctorate i didn't want to go in that area because it's too long and so you need to check the different way now if you have bible translations brother ram say what if you have seven translations that you are using to compare the different versions that you have you will see different writers use different words and they will you now have to kind of study that and try to explain that now we who do the greek we go back to the original manuscripts and we try to come up with what we think might have been the original are you with me it's a very tedious exercise it's very very difficult and it is part of the exegetical exercise that we allow the students to do at the university it's tough all right and so the best way you could do that is when you read the different translation you see this one say all right it may mean this it could have been this word or another word and then now you with the holy spirit and with all the resources that you have and your skills and your art of doing humanity you will make a judgment and say look the text is translated in this way now i'm coming to an interesting part the literary structure of the text and this is my most exciting part in in the bible every text has a structure or every unitary passage especially parables narratives like incidents the woman with the issue of blood the the the the rich young ruler all of these have structures you see in ancient times they use literary devices to create meaning for people to understand you see in ancient times they were not educated like we are today they didn't have laptops they didn't have telephone they didn't have computers so people lived in what we call an oral primitive society most of the people understood only simple things so what what the ancient rhetoricians and ancient writers did was when they write they repeat things and they repeat it with variation that's why you see it in the bible all the time they repeat things and they vary sometimes you will see that all through the bible repetition with variation so they came up with different devices to do that one of the devices what we call inverted parallelisms where they write something they make a few points and then they reverse the order and that's how they make contrasting statements let me give you an example here now what i'm going to show you here brother ramsay is copyrighted material this is what is going in my book i'm writing a book on the parables of jesus and this is what i have discovered about the parable growing in secret all right this is what i have discovered about this parable watch at the literary device he's using a farmer when took sue in in in in 2016 that is in matthew chapter four ma sorry the sower went to sew and then he describes the activity of the farmer he goes and sleep and then the seed grows automatically the middle of the verse is how the seed grows and by the way that's a hapaksa gaming our tomato is the only time that word is used in the in the in the new testament how does the seed grow nobody knows it grows on its own showing how the kingdom of god goes and then he describes the growth of the of of of of the seed again and the farmer wakes up he casts in his sickle and he reaps so i sat down and i studied the structure of this parable and i said this is what it is sowing farmer growth how how good farmer so what is happening here he's giving some themes a b c d d c b a sowing farming growth how and then he puts an excitement how and then he reverses it this is called inverted parallelism they wrote in what we call concentric circles now we who are very greek in thinking brother ramsey we think greek linear one two three so if we have to write an essay we say introduction one two three points conclusion when we preach a sermon for the brethren here one two three four points the fourth point is the strongest point and we close the sermon and we make an appeal that's not how the bible was written most of the literature in the bible they wrote by concentric inverted parallelism the main point is in the center of the writing so you have to find the central point how how the seed grows automatically naturally no matter what you do by your political interventions you disciples of jesus john and james who wanted high positions he said no matter what you do you cannot bring about the kingdom it comes on its own by the power of god the main point is in verse 27 and 28 now by discovering the structure it helps me to interpret the parabola what's a classic example brother john watch it here this is the parable of the lost sheep watch it here how beautiful when i see this elder when i see this in the bible i start to jump i said hallelujah the bible is beautiful look at it look at the parable of the of the of the lord's sheep what man of you having 100 in sheep and having lost one of them does he not leave the 90 and 9 in the wilderness what's the bottom now one two three i say to you that there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99. what's the repetition you 99 you 99 watch now abcdcba and go after the lost one until he finds it and having found it he places it upon his shoulders rejoicing and coming to his home he calls to his friends and neighbors and then he repeats now in the reverse saying to them rejoice with me because i found my sheep which was lost now pastor based upon what i just said what is the main point in that paragraph the center the center which is the these in that parable when the people back then who had middle eastern lenses understood what the what jesus was saying in this parable they understood that the main point in that parable is to come home and rejoice with friends and neighbors and when you preach that sermon pastor don't let me hear you come i come here and you preach that sermon and you don't put the emphasis on that the main point in your sermon for that sabbath will be coming home the lord's sheep and invite neighbors and friends brethren when backsliders come into the church let's celebrate and don't condemn that's the problem of the lord's sheep you see how deep theology is watch the lost coin here now watch the lost coin is based upon the same principle what cc she calls together her friends and neighbors saying rejoice a major theme in the book of luke is joy joy and rejoice because luke is a as a fellow like me he loves to rejoice and have a good time so he's telling the pharisees and the sadducees he says when your brother is lost the woman caught in adultery the prodigal son which he ends up with the parable he says invite your neighbors have a good time bring the backslider in the church and let's rejoice that i have found a coin that was lost literary structure tells me that's the main point in the verb watch at this one now these are all in my book that i'm writing so please don't copy these slides but doc before you go on right just for the member who's at home looking at this now right who may not necessarily have access to the greek manuscripts but only have the english translation how do we find the center or or the mean high points of the scripture so that i could do exactly what you're saying in terms of being able to preach accurately from the bible it's difficult and i will give you a site i will put it on the screen where you could see most of these structures but of course it's a man who came up with that when i do this what you're seeing here is what i do now other people may have discovered it too like this will be in my book i've never seen that in any commentary in all the commentaries on parables and by the ways parables is my thing that's what i did my research on and i came up with the wheat and the tears watch of this sowing growing tending harvesting remember i'm an old coco i love to go in the garden so i love this parable the farmer sews good seeds the anime sews bad wheats growing the wheat sprouts the wheat sprouts too the wheat tending the slaves desire to destroy the weeds the masters desire to let them go harvesting weeds bundled and burned with gathered in the barn you see how my language is to make it look nice and so the bible the wheat and the tears is comparing sowing growing tending and harvesting you could preach a nice sermon with that you see watch at this one casting the net drawing the catch sorting the cut saving the good throw in the bad now i love to fish my father was a fisherman and he used to cast the net so when i looked at this parabola i said wow they cast the net they draw the fish in then they sort them out the good from the bad they save the good and they throw away the bad this is the themes in fact the commentary that i'm writing is based upon themes based upon the literary structures of the parables look at this one this one is in my research in my dissertation for my doctoral degree with the ten virgins i came up with this the ten version this is how the parable is done by contrast look at it here five are foolish virgins go to meet the bridegroom virgin five are foolish five a wife foolish take lumps and no oil why steak lumps and oil bridegroom delays virgin sleep bright room approaches virgins rice foolish requests oil white refuse oil foolish go out to buy oil bright garment rise door opens for the wise door shuts for the foolish foolish return with the oil foolish request from bridegroom bradwin rejects the foolish conclusion this is what is i came up with my structure watch out this one i love this one that i created here watch this a b this one is called step parallelism it's moving like step a abcd vindication of the righteous reasons i was hungry and you fed that's in matthew 24 with the sheep and the goats the righteous are surprised when did we do this you did it for these my brethren and then he comes with the goats now he comes with the wicked first the righteous and then the wicked so he's going a b c d and then he's going a b c d this is another technique it's parallelism but it's step parallelism is like going up a step a staircase a b c d and then he repeats it a b c d that happens when he says uh knock on it shall be open seek for he that knock it find it uh open it and he that's step parallelism all these beautiful devices were used by the ancients to aid memory because they didn't have copy books they didn't only one book in the in the church for centuries it's the only reading from that so they do this in an oral society to encourage the memorization of these concepts so you see all this is going back to the first century and taking out your trinidadian lenses and putting on a middle eastern lens you see and i'm giving you here brother ramsey walk the site that will help you with some literary structures as a lay preacher you will see that they are giving you those now step number six is to analyze the grammar sentence structures and syntactical relationships pastor this is where knowing english alone and not the greek language the member becomes deficient at school you do greek and hebrew for two years and still you don't know enough i am learning that for 25 30 years now and i don't know enough yet but we have to analyze the grammar all you can do is to analyze it in your english way but in the greek it's different sentence structures syntax a good english teacher will be able to do this at least at the preliminary level okay then so that is a big big exercise in fact step number six is the hardest part of the exegesis they have to learn grammar you have to learn all the syntax and there are so many exceptions to the rules the koine greek is a very versatile language and it can be very very tedious that's why people say if that sounds like greek to you that means it's very very difficult but it's not impossible we do it all the time sometimes i am wrestling with a parable for two weeks just to understand the syntactical connections for example let me show you what happens sometime a word is used here in this first sentence in the parable or the narrative and there's another word there about three or four words that are linked to that word you cannot see it in english but when you watch the greek word you can see the root it's connected why there is repetition the ancient writers wanted you to know what they write so they are repeating words with variation so one of the key things of an exegete is to watch for repetition of words when you see a word is repeated several times in a unitary passage or chapter something is happening there it means that there is a constant theme a constant theme in that and that's a big point the writer is making you see so that's very important significant words you have to check the words anytime a word is used many times you have to study that word and by the way not because paul used the word law in the first century in the book of galatians that law always means that no you have to check the meaning of the word since before paul classical greek arctic greek ancient greece coming down to roman times first century seconds you have to study what that word meant in all these different periods and what it could have meant for paul for example the word law in pauline writings could mean five different things you have to know which one to apply you can say it means ten commandments just like that because you say to the law and to the testimony no when that says lord meant the alter it meant the first five books of moses so you have to analyze each word now this is a simple exercise for the for the lay person for the church member if you learn the basics of the greek alphabet let me know if you learn the basics of the greek alphabet you can be able to find a greek word in a greek dictionary and you can read it in english we have those books up at the university just learn the greek alphabet so you can find a greek word in a greek dictionary but if not there are english bible dictionaries like colin brown you have the anchor bible dictionary you go and analyze the word love has so many different meanings check the anchor bible dictionary you'll see so many different meanings so this analysis of significant words is very important for interpreting the bible so many different words sometimes you have one word and you use two different words in english sometimes you have two different words in in greek and you use the same word in translation in english you the only way you can know that is to go back to that original significant words then i'm rushing here now research the historical cultural background now you have to go into the deeper things the customs of the day yeah what it meant the philosophies when when paul makes a statement yeah my offspring where did he get that from here my offspring he's quoting a greek poet 500 years before are you with me he's cooking a greek poet 500 years before and he puts it in a sermon like you take a piece of calypso and put it in a sermon to make a point paul used that technique so you have to go back to the background and see where he is quoting you see that parable of the the parable of the uh richmond and lazarus which some say that has to do with limbo and purgatory and so that parable was told 500 years before it's an egyptian legend and jesus used that parable and re-configured it to contextualize his ministry it was a well-known parable all right then you need to determine step number nine the genre what type of genre is the text there are four genres in new testament literature the gospels which comprise of pericopies which are individual units of narrative or teaching you have epistles most consistent of paragraphs of argument or exhortation you have the book of acts which is a separate genre it makes up a series of connected or shorter narratives that form one entire narrative interspersed with speeches all the pastors who are trained at the university have to study the book of acts i teach that book of acts all the beautiful literate literary structures all the greek important words we go through it in the greek line by line revelation embodies a string of constructed visions woven together to form a complete apocalyptic narrative of course that includes also daniel and revelation but we are talking about four types of literature in the new testament now one thing you have to understand if you are studying the synoptic gospels the gospels matthew mark luke and john they are called the gospels but the synoptic gospels is matthew mark and luke actually pastor what jesus what um john is doing he's doing systematic theology on matthew mark and luke what we believe is that mark was written first and luke and matthew borrowed some material from mark plus what they had of their own and some of the material luke and matthew have they look like they were using one source which we call q now that's difficult stuff that's what the illusions but i'm trying to make the point that if are re preaching let's say the parable of the great supper watch it here on the screen i made up this chart for this purpose if you're preaching the parable of the great supper you cannot read it only from luke you have to read it from matthew it's it's found in two gospels only and then i read it also in the gospel of thomas that's a different book that's as the illusion you have to compare it with that but that's not for the church now what's the difference here when you read that paragraph as a bible student you have to know the difference in the bible the host in the gospel of luke you have a certain man but matthew says it's a king which one did jesus say you could tell me did jesus say a certain kin or a certain man now this is the bible writer saying what jesus said what is the occasion a great banquet much you say is a marriage feast it must be a marriage feast because it's a wedding you have a king notification one matthew two excuses three and luke two only in matthew who is right elaborate passing reference of the explanation of the excuses look at the types of excuses possession and domestic tie matu says possession and business treatment no mention the slaves are murdered in matthew he becomes angry in matthew he becomes angry and kills all those who are first invited the subsequent indication to matu one streets and lanes highways and hedges go and call everybody to come to the banquet much you say streets no mention in response last invitation good and bad bring the good and bad together matthew says and then you have a closing reprimand now as a new testament scholar i have to explain all these things in the last days my dear elders when the muslims start to attack you on the hindus on your scripture they say what did jesus say you have to explain that because it's in the bible the evidence is there who is right and we have to explain all that we can explain it he they can they are editing you see they are editing and they are putting it because they are writing a theological document for an audience matthew is writing to a jewish audience that's why you have to study the exegesis he's not right into adventists he's writing to jewish people who don't want to accept jesus as the messiah so he has to show jesus as a king because they have this concept of kingship and royalty but luke is not writing to jews he's writing to gentiles so he says a certain man and his gender inclusive he calls it a great banquet to include the gentiles there's so much you have to do in exegesis so you don't know when i come and preach for you a sermon here in the next year or so for 20 minutes i do 20 hours of research to preach for 20 minutes to find out all those things i have to explain that what is important i bring it to you in the church what is not i say well that they don't bother with that that is not important that's what i have to do i have to compare the versions matthew says jesus preached the sermon on a mountain among him but luke says he preached it on on a flat piece of land how do i explain that to the church it's in the bible so i will say he preached it on a mountain but on a plateau and that explains it that's one explanation watch it watch something here look watch watch the go home and take your bibles and watch the temptations matthew says the first temptation turned bread into stone luke say uh matthew says the second temptation is where he took him up in the pinnacle in the temple and says fall down and the angels will take care the third temptation in the book of matthew is what baudong before me and i'll give you the world do you know luke reverses it luke says the second temptation is bow down and worship and the third one is to he took him to the temple now which one did jesus say you see in those days chronology is not important we think that is important for those people the important point is that the temptation took place but the bible writers under inspiration is changing the order is not important but the purpose matthew is writing to a jewish audience as i said so he wants to make jesus king of the world so the last temptation has to relate to his kingship the jewish mind will be enticed and encouraged by that but luke is trying to get jesus into jerusalem where he will be crucified because you are reading from luke chapter 10 on to 19 for 10 chapters read the book of luke jesus is go heading towards jerusalem like he's he wants jesus to quickly go to jerusalem to give his life for the human family for sin and sinners the marginalized the samaritans the woman the children oh he loves them all because he's a doctor so what he does he makes the last temptation go faster by the temple where jesus will die so he's making a theological point he's not making a historical point he's making a theological point so when i read that i say hallelujah the gospel writers are on point you see now you have to explain that to a muslim you must be prepared and that's called traditional analysis when you're studying the bible by the way matthew mark and luke and john is the most tedious in studying you know it's simple words of jesus but it takes more time because paul does not have that you have three writers giving the same evidence but you have additions you have minuses one says two p two blind men one say one but there were two actually but one of the writers only saw one and that's okay he is making a point about blind bartimaeus you see so everything has its place watch this i don't have time to read this this is a we compare when we read narratives and parables and teachings to other literature this is something like a parable of the prodigal son that was known to the people back then i don't have time to read it but watch this one a first century greek apocalypse of cedrak this is greek literature tell me what sort of a father would give an inheritance to his son and having received the money the son goes away leaving his father and becomes an alien and in the service of aliens the father then seen that the son has forsaken him and gone away darkens his heart and going away he retrieves his wealth and banishes his son from his glory because he forsook his father how is it that i the wondrous and jealous god have given everything to him but he having received them became an adulterer and a sinner this is a parable that was told in the time of jesus so jesus took that frame of reference reconfigures the parable and tells it in a different way that's what we do when we preach in church we take the context that we are in and we take something that the people already know and fit it in to suit so that they know what i'm talking about amen hallelujah and so now the next step next difficult step past the ramsey work is to determine the original setting of the text the original setting of the text is what we call the zits m11 if you will remember that when jesus spoke to the pharisees and sadducees was this the original context in which he said it you have to find that out and that's a tedious exercise because when you read matthew and you read luke and mark sometimes the chronology is not the same the bible writers are not writing chronology per se they're writing a theological document to make a point about jesus every man has his different theological persuasion so you read the roman centurion what comes before and what comes after and you realize that in luke is not the same order you have to explain that as a theologian i have to explain that the students have to explain that if you come up with a question like that pastor nicholas is competent enough to answer why centurion servant is before peter's mother-in-law here but it's somewhere else in in next story because they have a jigsaw puzzle they are writing a document to suit the audience mark is writing to roman christians in rome who are suffering persecution and they have to accept the sufferings of jesus that's why one third of the book of mark is about suffering be prepared to get your head cut off like john the baptist and suffer like jesus because you're under persecution kovit taking place now so my sermons have to adapt to the covet context that's what the bible writers are doing are you with me and so you have to find out when he spoke to the pharisees who were there the multitude the sinners adventists who were there and you see every now and again the bible writer will take a different context i can't go into all the details of that but that is something that you have to know then this is a very important one that you asked me to handle the narrative context every writer writes his theology his systematic theology about jesus what he said place them in different context and you have to understand how he is moving with his points are you with me there's what we call the when you're doing when you're doing research you have to do what is the immediate context first the text that comes before and goes after that text you are preaching on what comes before what influences what prepares the reader for the next text so you have to research that too to see how he's developing his argument that's that's typical of paul you can't just take a text in paul and say um the one about um god forbid here we establish the law and you use that a text in the crusade now i know what it means but you can't just use that to prove that that you have to keep the law you have to read all what's coming before to understand what he means by that law all what comes before what all what comes after and read it over and over and study it so the immediate context then the larger context then is still larger context and how he's using this text in the largest context of the whole book of the bible of the uh of of of the way your text is located so if i have to study at texan matthew i have to study the whole book in a general way what comes immediately before and after what comes a little farther after and how it fits into the whole jigsaw puzzle of the whole book the whole book of mark for example is an inverted parallelism so you are to see where your text fits in into that parallelism and see how he's connecting his points now i want you to understand in bible times they didn't have paper like us today look i printed something a few scores of pages now for now in those days paper was expensive it was papyrus papyri that they got from egypt those not grass plants and they put them aside but you know how expensive that was only rich people could buy that that's why luke had to depend upon theophilus to help him sponsor the papyri mark could write the book of mark because his mother was well to do and she had money so she could buy the she could buy the papyri from egypt they had no paper my friends they had to import it from egypt and when it gets there there is no eraser to erase when you make a mistake you have to hire a man who is a good writer in caliographics to write your bible that's why paul couldn't write well he's the right crop of foot so what he did he hired sylvanas to write for him they are trained for that so that they wouldn't waste the scroll is all those factors you have to consider as the bible was written again brother ram say what please take off your 21st century five rivers lenses put on your first century and see how they did things then the bible comes alive you have to determine the narrative context let me give you a classic example book of mark you know i like mark mark is my book jesus is a man of action in the book of mark he's behaving like a roman soldier read it he's behaving with gravitas serious he's aloof he's walking on the water and you have to beg him he pretends that he's walking he's walking by the woman caught with the issue of blood and she's touching his garment but he's not paying attention to her he's behaving like a roman soldier hallelujah watch the incidents in the book of mark what's the narrative context jesus talks about leprosy and then he heals the man then he talks about jairus daughter he talks about the woman with the issue of blood he has about four healings going on in in sequence we are not sure is that how it happened but the bible writers are putting it so because the bible writers want to make a theological point everything jesus touches in those few chapters he makes them clean he touches the man with the leprosy the woman with the issue of blood touches him and she becomes clean because she is unclean he touches the the the generous daughter and she is unclean and she becomes clean so everything jesus is touching is making them clean whether it happened in that sequence we don't know but he's making a point a theological point he's systematizing the actions of jesus let me explain to you how it works when jesus first stole let's say those parables pasta he had an audience that was the original setting that's what we call the first zitsim leben the first setting in which jesus told his story now jesus dies and for the next 30 years the early christian believers are telling the story about jesus nobody is writing the bible when jesus told these stories and preached the sermon on the monk there was nobody with a computer typing up and memorizing no the book of mark was written 30 years after in the book of matthew 40 almost the the bible writers are dying and the early church comes and says look we can't afford for you to die let's write so they're trying to remember all those fellows are old now john is old matthew is old luke is a doctor he's getting old he's not going to do some research and say find out what jesus jesus did so he did it and under inspiration he's writing so each man is giving a witness of what jesus said so the first setting is what jesus said to his audience the second setting is the oral transmission the oral transmission in the society for the next generation which is 30 years and the third setting is what the bible writers now are writing about what jesus said so you have to as theologians we have to understand all those steps what he might have said in the first setting what happened in the second setting and then you have the third setting what he now says through the bible now this is a very difficult exercise but it's not impossible you could do it should i close here now i'm coming now then you consider finally the broader biblical and theological now you're coming to the theology after you you have done all that now you're trying to find what's the theology of the text a broader context to come and preach your sermon you see so i've given you 12 simple steps but i know they can be very very rigorous but it's not impossible these are some of the things that we do pastor at the university with our pastors and you went through that kind of training yeah indeed and those are only one or two courses you know that i indeed i mean i still i still doc i still have a hatred for the word luo the because you know how complicated that word can become right but you know having heard all the 12 steps that you would have given us in terms of doing exegesis you know what would be your best advice for the average member who's at home listening to how complicated this process can become what would you be your best advice to help um the average member study the bible and study it well to be able to pull out the same truths that we would pull out because of our insight well i must first say pastor god has given his church the holy spirit and every member can be enlightened by truths in a simple way the basics of salvation the basic teachings of the bible but when you want to do deep bible study you have to access the resources that are available all right so every member can find truth but when it comes to deep profound theology you will have to study one good thing we have internet access a lot of a lot of resources are on the internet but you have to be careful not because something is on the internet it is kosher because you could be misled but the best way pastor to access good details about theology is to come to school at usc start a program it's available for elders elders can come gate it's free for trinidadian elders and you can come and you will study that's just this start that's just the road toward proper exegesis so come to school we have the resources we have the qualified teachers most of them have doctorates and they are all led by the holy spirit you need the balance and pastor don't get me wrong we're not saying only intellectual assent to truth is important you need the holy spirit that's why we have the church to keep the theologians in check what do you say amen amen and so if you are interested you can call me come up to the university write me get my phone number and we can get you in a class where you can go do the actual exercises in doing things like exegesis and so on amen because as we know among the disciples sorry among the disciples not all of them were academically inclined no that's true as as far as we could recall paul was really the scholar paul was the scholar and that's why he wrote so much right peter didn't know much so he wrote two books there but paul was an intelligent guy he was a scholar a rabbi and so he wrote almost 14 books and with that in mind we do fundamentally understand that even in spite of yes all of them would have spoken and written in harmony with each other and the rest of scripture right and i suppose it talks about you know how the the harmony of scripture is pulled together or what we would call total scripture and in its totality right um but even even then self then there is still hope for us as the average member to still be able to you know dissect the the gems in the bible so that we could pull out and study for ourselves and to to unearth what god is really saying one of the things i i appreciate about the adventist church is that like last quarterly the quarterly that we had on isaiah it was written by a professor at andrews he was one of the teachers when i was there dr roy when i read some of the things i said wow adventist local membership are learning things that they teach in the seminary so we have the resourceful people to teach the church do you follow at their level gradually and that's why you are here as the pastor to educate the members slowly bite by now i am here for just one seminar and i try to condense everything quickly but these things take time and practice skills the art and so i thank god that we have christian scholars good adventist conservative scholars i consider myself one of them who who can share these information you know and it will not be done in a week or two it will take time and if you have an elder who is interested in these things he will put himself in place to access this information so then then doc if i have to get you if i have to get and understand what you're saying very well you know everything that you would have talked about exegesis plus know that you know be beyond coming and accessing the the lecturers at usc right that once we are interested in studying the word of god we must take time to gather a library so let's speak okay great to be able to have different varying translations commentaries right um you know even sister white's work and stuff so that we can oh by the way when i'm doing exegesis i don't consult ellen white first i want to see what i could find you understand yeah so when i'm finished doing the exeggs when i check and i say wow ellen white had similar ideas god used her now she was not an exegete in the truest technical sense of the word but god inspired her to see certain things right now she said something in a parable about the interpretation of a problem i researched i research i do every research and i can't find support for it but i believe what ellen white says about the parable is the parable of the of the garment all right what it means in the context of the investigative judgment i am still working on that detail to see if i can find that connection systematically or exegetically but i believe in the servant of the lord and she has written things that are far advanced of her time advanced than us today so we thank god for her so with like with that all that in mind then i suppose when we amass our library then we must then summarize all that you would have said to the principle that isaiah would have shared with us that we must switch to scripture here a little yes they are little precept upon precept with also understanding that all of scripture is is complete and is sufficient for for salvation so that once we keep those things in mind then i suppose everything that we we are adding in terms of extra biblical exegesis would then make sense and then we would devote ourselves to the study of the bible in opposed to just being on the surface of reading i'll tell you what um the adventist church has enough theology that that that support the central themes of the bible that we don't have to worry about you know any other heretical or intrusions into our theology what we have to be concerned about as we study the bible is the central themes that are found in the bible all the peripheral things leave that for the big theologians but the central themes that are there for salvation they are well preserved pastor in the bible they are well preserved and supported by ellen g white amen so pastor just your concluding thoughts in terms of encouraging the irregular members what what words of encouragement would you give to them in terms of searching the scripture well my dear friends the bible says search either scriptures for in them he think he have eternal life yes we have jesus who has given us his word and we must search diligently in the book of acts the apostle paul talked about the bereans they search the scriptures diligently if you search the scriptures not only to find out doctrinal truths but salvific truths that are there to be investigated you will god will crystallize your thoughts you will derive certain theological understandings in the scripture that others have not had so spend time to do this you have to spend time you must have an interest in it do not let people passively teach you about the scripture every time you can dig for yourself when you don't understand something call your pastor call your elder call the head of the theology department at usc give me an explanation give me an idea on this and so my friends as you dig deeper it will affect a greater relationship with god and a closer connection to the bible take my advice study it diligently as you prepare yourself for the coming of the lord god bless you and have a wonderful sabbath amen indeed we had a a good sitting with dr faz where he would have given us a comprehensive study on how to do biblical research um as we continue to go through our series a closer walk with god it just should be reminded that we have our ey session later today where we will be you know explaining some of the tools that we can use a little bit more deeply to help us to understand the bible in more relevance so please join us again this evening where we will have our ay session um and until then we hope that you are blessed and continue to have a blessed sabbath amen [Music] be with us [Music] amen [Music] i just want to thank everyone for joining us today at fiverr sda it was a pleasure having you and sherry lane don't keep this blessing all to yourself and once again a happy sabbath to all [Music] amen [Music] you

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Length: 215min 20sec (12920 seconds)

Published: Sat May 01 2021