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Good exegesis will tell us that bad conclusions do not burst forth de novo<\/em> from bad exegesis. It is valuable, important, even potent for us to have a good grasp of sound hermeneutical principles, to be on our guard against bad hermeneutical principles. We are easily led astray, and sound hermeneutics are like bread crumbs leading us back to the straight and narrow path.<\/p>\n We are, however, reading our Bible with rose-colored glasses if we think that all or even most of our interpretive failures stem from ignorance or misinformation. That is, we are guilty of the modernist conceit when we think that education is always the cure for what ails us. Paul, for instance, in Romans 1 is rather straightforward in highlighting our troubles in our natural state.<\/p>\n It isn\u2019t what we don\u2019t know. It isn\u2019t what we do know that just ain\u2019t so. The problem is what we do know and suppress because of our sin. We know there is a God. We know we fall short. We know we\u2019re in trouble. And we know we don\u2019t like how it feels, knowing we are in trouble. So, we go back to the beginning, and try to unknow that there is a God. The fount of bad theology is our wicked hearts\u2014which is why we had better take our wicked hearts into account when we are about the business of hermeneutics.<\/p>\n Being all too familiar with my own wicked heart, I have over the past decades been on a mission. I have traveled the globe as well as the vast expanses of cyberspace spreading the word about what I have carefully named the R.C. Sproul Jr. Principle of Hermeneutics<\/em>.<\/p>\n I have not only explained the principle, applied the principle, and enjoined the principle, but also, every time I bring it up, I have begged my audience to remember it and to pass it along to their friends. I am sincerely convinced that if we all master this principle, we will be more faithful to the Word, and more faithful to the One the Word calls the Word.<\/p>\n The principle is as simple as its author\u2014 whenever you are reading your Bible, and you come across someone doing something really, really stupid, do not say to yourself, \u201cHow can they be so stupid?\u201d Instead say to yourself, \u201cHow am I stupid just like them?\u201d We, like the people in the Bible, are much better at discerning the sins of others than we are at sniffing out our own. Other people\u2019s sins are clear, immediate, obvious to us, while our own are fuzzy, distant, obscure.<\/p>\n When we see the ten spies expressing their fear that they will not be able to take the Promised Land\u2014 right after the God of heaven and earth had brought Pharaoh, the leader of the most powerful nation in the world, to his knees, and just after this same God had led His people on dry ground across the Red Sea\u2014 we think, \u201cI would have been faithful like Joshua and Caleb, the two spies who were ready to move forward.\u201d Chances are, however, that we would have sinned just like the ten, that we would not have had the faith to believe the promises of God.<\/p>\n The reason for that is simple enough\u2014there is nothing new under the sun. Saints and sinners in the Bible are just like saints and sinners in our day, including you and me. Their frailties and follies are our frailties and follies. So when we see them sin, and how they sin, that ought to clue us in to the ways that we are likely to sin.<\/p>\n The Bible describes itself as a mirror. We look at it, but we turn away and forget who and what we are. We are faithless. We are skeptical. We are stubborn. We, like that fool Peter before us, move through our lives time and again speaking that same oxymoronic phrase he spoke at Caesarea Philippi, when he insisted that Jesus must not go to Jerusalem to be handed over to the Gentiles, \u201cNo, Lord.\u201d “No” I understand. “Lord” I understand. But these two words do not go together.<\/p>\n Do we not, however, speak the same? Our Lord tells us not to worry about what we will eat or what we will wear. We read these words and bow our heads in prayer. We beseech Jesus as the King of kings, bringing our petitions before Him, acknowledging His lordship, and then pray, \u201cLord, please help me because I\u2019m afraid about my job, or my bills. I\u2019m worried about what I will eat, and what I will wear.\u201d That is just another \u201cNo, Lord.\u201d Our problem isn\u2019t that we aren\u2019t sufficiently educated but that we aren\u2019t sufficiently sanctified.<\/p>\n Which means, in turn, that the solution is to repent and to believe. We must repent of our unbelief, and ask that our Lord would help our unbelief. We must learn the wisdom of the lilies of the field. We must learn to speak our amens to all that our Lord promises. This is the righteousness we are to seek. These ayes are the eyes of the kingdom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Good exegesis will tell us that bad conclusions do not burst forth de novo from bad exegesis. It is valuable, important, even potent for us to have a good grasp of sound hermeneutical principles, to be on our guard against … Continue reading