Blogging at capsministry.com

After over a year of virtually no blogging, I have decided to blog again on a limited basis, primarily over at capsministry.com. This is the official website of the Cumberland Area Pulpit Supply, a ministry from which I received training and in which I now teach hermeneutics and serve as the Tri-Cities area representative.

Every month, there should be some "fresh" content (at least a couple of posts), but there will be quite a bit of resource reviews and links. The focus is on issues related to the pulpit supply ministry, training for ministry, and the pastorate, especially in the small rural church. Topics to be covered include hermeneutics, homiletics, spiritual disciplines, practical helps, and study tools (including book reviews). I plan to have about two posts per week. You may subscribe via the email subscription link on the sidebar of capsministry.com, or via our RSS feed.

www.capsministry.com

Resource for Guest Preachers and Churches: Church Information Form

CHURCH INFORMATION FORM (feel free to distribute this form freely)

If you are a guest preacher or a church planning to host a guest speaker, the items on the form below can help make sure the preacher and the church are on the same page. Click here to download the church information form in Word document format.

New CAPS Promo Video

capsministry.com

The new Cumberland Area Pulpit Supply website is up! Check it out for more information on the CAPS ministry, including media files. Thanks to Steve Buchanan, uber-techie fellow and student in the CAPS Phase 1 class at Bristol. Click to visit the new site: capsministry.com.

CAPS videos - session 1 (April 4, 2008)

It is my privilege to serve under director Keith Walsworth in the Cumberland Area Pulpit Supply ministry. We recently began teaching in West Virginia at Jenny's Creek Gospel Church. We are trying to put the video online that Clyde Farley, one of the men from the church, has produced. Here are videos for session one.

Introduction to Hermeneutics - Doug Smith

Click here for a Word .doc of the outline, or check it out via:

Previous posts:

PART 1 - Why We Should Learn How to Study the Bible

PART 2 - Prerequisites for Bible Study

PART 3 - Tools for Bible Study

PART 4 - Approaches

Homiletics: the History of Preaching - Keith Walsworth

Click here for a Word .doc of the handout

Introduction to Hermeneutics, Part 3 of 4: Tools

The following material is adapted from what I am teaching in the Cumberland Area Pulpit Supply ministry.

 

STUDY TOOLS FOR HERMENEUTICS

(I have placed in boldface type the volumes I consider most helpful)

 

I.                    Bibles

a.        Translations (at least one of types 1 & 2 are good to own for comparison)

                                                               i.      Formal equivalence ("literal") – NASB, NKJV, KJV, ESV, HCSB, AMP

                                                              ii.      Dynamic equivalence – NIV, NLT, NRSV, TNIV, NAB

                                                            iii.      Free (paraphrase) – JB, GNB/TEV, NEB, Phillips, Living, The Message

b.       Interlinear

                                                              i.      Jay Green (Hebrew/Greek/English with Strong's #'s)

                                                              ii.      George Ricker Berry (Greek/KJV interlinear)

c.        Study Bibles (Good ones incorporate things from these other tools)

                                                              i.      MacArthur (available in NASB, NKJV) – very comprehensive notes

                                                              ii.      Literary (ESV) – great for understanding genre and the place of a book in the big picture of the Bible – does not spoon feed you interpretations (in-text notes are very limited)

                                                            iii.      Reformation (available in ESV, older editions in NKJV)

                                                            iv.      NIV Study Bible OR Zondervan KJV Study Bible (same notes)

d.       Audio Bible – good for learning pronunciation of Bible names

 

Dictionaries typically give the range of meaning of a word, and concordances are useful in finding the precise meaning in a given usage.  Remember that words do not mean all of their possible definitions in every usage!

 

II.                  Dictionaries

a.        English dictionary can be useful, but use with care

b.       Lexicons

                                                               i.      Brown, Driver, Briggs (Hebrew)

                                                              ii.      Thayer; Bauer, Arndt, and Gingrich (Greek)

c.       Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary

d.       Vine's Expository Dictionary of OT & NT Words (Mounce also has one)

 

III.               Concordances (all Bible computer programs will have this capability built in)

a.        English Bible Concordance

                                                               i.      Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (many things are keyed to this)

                                                            ii.      Young's Analytical Concordance

                                                            iii.      Concordance specific to the translation you prefer

b.       Hebrew/Greek Concordance

                                                              i.      Englishman's Hebrew-English Concordance (by Wigram)

                                                            ii.      Englishman's Greek-English Concordance (by Wigram)

 

IV.               Books on literary elements of the Bible

a.        Gordon Fee/Douglas Stuart, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth

b.      Ryken, How to Read the Bible As Literature … and Get More Out of It

c.         Robert H. Stein, A Basic Guide to Interpreting the Bible

d.       E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech Used in the Bible

 

V.                  Other Bible references

a.       Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

b.       Bible Charts (Charts on OT & NT published by Zondervan)

c.        Bible Handbooks (such as Ryken's)

d.       Bible Encyclopedias, such as the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

e.        Manners & Customs book

f.        Bible Atlas, such as Oxford Bible Atlas

g.       Bible Surveys/Intros

                                                              i.      OT:  Walton/Hill

                                                            ii.      NT:  Carson/Moo; Machen; Elwell/Yarborough

h.       Theological Wordbooks

[After having studied a passage, it is helpful to compare your conclusions with theologies and commentaries.]

VI.               Theologies

a.        Biblical

                                                               i.      Vaughan Roberts, God's Big Picture: Tracing the Storyline of the Bible

                                                              ii.      Graeme Goldsworthy, According to Plan and The Goldsworthy Trilogy

                                                            iii.      Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology

b.       Systematic

                                                               i.      Daniel Akin, ed.  A Theology for the Church

                                                              ii.      James P. Boyce, Abstract of Systematic Theology

                                                            iii.      John L. Dagg, Manual of Theology (very pastoral and edifying)

                                                            iv.      Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology (Great application and even hymns to sing in response to the glorious truths considered)

 

VII.             Commentaries (many available on CD-ROM now and often cheaper)

a.        Types of commentaries

                                                               i.      Classic – John Calvin, Matthew Henry, Matthew Poole, John Gill

                                                              ii.      Modern – John MacArthur, Kent Hughes, Philip Ryken, etc.

                                                            iii.      Whole Bible commentaries

                                                            iv.      Individual books

                                                             v.      Sets

1.       Warren Wiersbe is good as a model of communication

2.       Expositor's Bible Commentary

3.       Hendrickson/Kistemaker's NT Commentary

b.       Resources that evaluate/recommend commentaries

                                                               i.      C. H. Spurgeon, Commenting and Commentaries (reviews older commentaries)

                                                              ii.      D. A. Carson, NT Commentary Survey*

                                                            iii.      Tremper Longman, OT Commentary Survey*

                                                            iv.      www.TheoSource.com (compiles reputable lists of recommendations)

                                                             v.      MacArthur's Recovering Expository Preaching lists recommended books

                                                            vi.      Fee/Stuart, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth*

                                                          vii.      Stuart Custer, Tools for Teaching and Preaching the Bible

                                                         viii.      Rosscup, Commentaries for Biblical Expositors

 

* Use w/caution as some critical scholars are mentioned without warning;

 furthermore, it is best to borrow or browse commentaries before buying or read reviews first if you can.

 

VIII.          Electronic Resources

a.        E-sword.net (includes many resources mentioned above – and it's FREE)

b.       TheoSource.com (recommended booklists, including commentaries, book reviews)

c.        Monergism.com, Crosswalk.com, BibleGateway.com give access to helpful Bible study tools, commentaries, and other resources.

d.       Baker's Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology <http://bible.crosswalk.com/Dictionaries/BakersEvangelicalDictionary>

e.        Online book purchases:  www.addall.com, scripturetruth.com, wtsbooks.com, christianbook.com, cvbbs.com, half.com, and amazon.com are good places to look.

 

DISCLAIMER:  Mention of a resource does not constitute a full endorsement of the contents of the book/website or all the teachings of the author(s) by Bancroft Gospel Ministry, the Cumberland Area Pulpit Supply, or the CAPS director or instructors.

 

 

Previous posts:

PART 1 - Why We Should Learn How to Study the Bible

PART 2 - Prerequisites for Bible Study

 

Upcoming posts:

PART 4 - Approaches to Bible Study

Introduction to Hermeneutics, Part 2 of 4: Prerequisites

The following material is adapted from what I am teaching in the Cumberland Area Pulpit Supply ministry.

 

PREREQUISITES FOR BIBLE STUDY

Conversion

 

First, to truly understand the Bible, we must be regenerated by the Spirit of God.  We must be born again.  Our faith must be in Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord.  The unconverted man – even if he is an accomplished scholar – is at a great disadvantage when it comes to studying the Bible (2 Cor. 2:11-16, especially v. 14).  We need God's Spirit to open our understanding (2 Cor. 3:16, 4:4) as well as our hearts.  Do you know that you have passed from death to life and are a new creature in Christ Jesus?  Apart from knowing the Author, you will never truly understand His Book.

 

Illumination

 

As believers, we continually need God's Spirit to renew our minds (Rom. 12:2) and transform us more into the likeness of Christ (2 Cor. 3:18).  He even sanctifies our hermeneutics!  Psalm 119 is a 22-stanza song about God's Word and the Psalmist's love for it.  (One professor used to have his students memorize this Psalm prior to their theological training – this is not a bad idea!)  Notice the repeated cries for help in understanding.  This is a believer who needs the operations of God's Spirit in order to truly profit from the Scriptures.  Martin Luther studied this Psalm and found a threefold method for studying theology:  prayer, meditation, and trials.  It is through our calling out to Him for help, thinking long and deeply upon the Scriptures, and experiencing their power in our lives, that we truly come to understand them.  Do you pray as you seek to understand God's Word?  Do you seek to think upon it deeply, mining its riches?  Do you experience its power in your trials?

 

B. B. Warfield, in his essay, "The Religious Life of Theological Students," expressed the inappropriateness of separating our prayer lives and Bible study, and encourages us to combine them:

 

Sometimes we hear it said that ten minutes on your knees will give you a truer, deeper, more operative knowledge of God than ten hours over your books.  "What!" is the appropriate response, "than ten hours over your books, on your knees?"

 

Obedience

 

Unless we have application as the goal of our Bible study, we will fail in our efforts, despite any knowledge we gain.  God did not give the Bible simply for us to stock the shelves of our minds with information.  He gave it to change us more and more into the image of His dear Son (2 Cor. 3:18) – the purpose for which He saved us (Rom. 8:29).  We must certainly seek to understand the context and culture in which the various Scriptures were written, but doing so to be a means of faithfully applying it to ourselves so that we may live in obedience to the Word of God.  You are accountable for what you learn (and for what you have the opportunity to learn) and what you do with that learning.  Do you study the Bible simply to impress others with your vast knowledge – or do you learn it so that you may please God with how you live before Him and others?

 

Consider this warning from John Frame's article, "Studying Theology as a Servant of Jesus":

 

Your very immersion in the Word of God can be a blessing, or it can be a curse.  If you hear the Word in unbelief or indifference, and respond to it that way over and over again over several years, you will be much worse off spiritually as a result.

 

 

Previous posts:

PART 1 - Why We Should Learn How to Study the Bible

 

Upcoming posts:

PART 3 - Tools for Bible Study

PART 4 - Approaches to Bible Study

Introduction to Hermeneutics, Part 1 of 4: Reasons

The following material is adapted from what I am teaching in the Cumberland Area Pulpit Supply ministry.

 

WHY WE SHOULD LEARN HOW TO STUDY THE BIBLE

 

The Nature of the Bible

 

God has revealed Himself in creation (general revelation) and in the Bible (special revelation).  The Bible is needed to understand the revelation of God in creation and to understand His character, our identity as people made in His image yet who are sinners deserving eternal punishment, the redemption accomplished by Christ, the duty to repent and believe the Gospel, and how to live as children of God.  God has spoken, and has given us a Book.

 

The Bible is God's Word and it – not man's changing opinion – gives life (1 Pet. 1:23) and gives people the knowledge needed for salvation in Christ Jesus (2 Tim. 3:15).

 

Observe what 2 Timothy 3:16-17 (ESV) teaches about the Bible:

 

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable

            For       teaching,

For       reproof,

For       correction, and

For       training in righteousness

so that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

 

The Bible does not need to be "made" relevant – it is already relevant, and we need to know it. 

 

The Bible contains no errors (Matt. 22:29).  It is trustworthy and reliable.

 

As God's Word, the Bible comes with the authority of God.  What it teaches us to believe, we must believe.  What it teaches us to do, we must obey.  Therefore, we ought to know what it teaches us to believe and do if our faith and practice are to be in submission to the authority of God.

 

The Command of God

 

God commands preachers to preach the Word (2 Tim. 4:1-2), not their opinions or ideas.

 

God calls us to be experts in this Book.  You don't have to be an expert in culture, sports, psychology, or economics – but a preacher is called to know the Bible well so that he can rightly handle God's Word (2 Tim. 2:15).

 

The Need of Preachers and People

 

We need God's Word for our own souls and so that we can share it faithfully and fruitfully with those to whom we minister (1 Tim. 4:16).  Our preaching only has God's authority if it is grounded in a faithful presentation of God's message in the Bible.  Otherwise, we become the authority.  Sound hermeneutics is the foundation for sound preaching.  Like it or not, you are an example to others.  Our sermons and lessons need to model sound hermeneutics for others to learn from and learn by, because they will learn their hermeneutics from the preachers they listen to.

 

Upcoming posts:

PART 2 - Prerequisites for Bible Study

PART 3 - Tools for Bible Study

PART 4 - Approaches to Bible Study