A Message to the Church in Smyrna (A Fragrant Church)

The city of Smyrna was located approximately thirty-five miles north of Ephesus. It was a prosperous city with a population of over one hundred thousand in John’s day (c. A.D. 95). That location had been inhabited for over three thousand years and no one knows for sure who founded Smyrna or exactly when it was established.

The Bible in Its Context

In Josiah’s day, the book of the law was found in the temple, and Josiah’s humble response to its demands changed his generation.  Jesus later confronted religious teachers of His day who, for all their attention to the law, had often buried it beneath their religious traditions. 

Single Meaning or Multiple Meanings of a Biblical Text?

We have grammatical-historical-interpretation and grammatical-critical-historical interpretation. The former preserved objectivity in interpretation, the latter subjectivity. The former preserved the integrity and trustworthiness of the Bible writers and the text; the latter made both the Bible writer and the text untrustworthy. In other words, New Hermeneutics, with its pseudo-scholarship has done nothing more than weaken and demoralize people’s assurance in the Bible being the inspired and fully inerrant Word of God.

Methods of Bible Study

Most people who read the Bible do so without a clearly defined goal. It is better to study the Bible with a more defined purpose in mind, for its subject matter and its intended meaning.

What Is Hermeneutics and Why Is It Important?

What did the Bible authors mean by the words that they used? How can Christians determine this instead of imposing their modern-day opinions into the text? What implications does a text have for Christians today? How can Christians rightly apply the Bible in their lives?

BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION – Keys to Understanding

Recognize the Christocentric focus of the Bible The New Testament writers primarily viewed the Old Testament as Christological documents. They understood the Hebrew Scriptures as ultimately pointing to the person of Christ and the redemptive-historical fulfillment that he would bring: And He took the twelve aside and said to them, “Behold, we are going up... Continue Reading →

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