Summit Lecture Series

Context Relativism
Gregory Koukl (Stand to Reason and Biola University) unashamedly but tactfully addresses a controversial issue within the church today. Asking listeners to make a commitment to consider his argument, he opens by giving three examples of how Christians not only misapply what they read in the Scriptures, but more specifically how they misread the Bible altogether. He then gives copious Biblical support for this claim, showing how the ideas of Post-Modernism have subtly crept their way into the practices of Christians. But he doesn’t end there; he offers listeners tips on how to avoid this error. In order to make sure that the different methods are fully understood, he finishes by walking through multiple passages of Scripture, showing how to read the text the way it was originally intended to be read.

The Journal

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Essays

How to Interpret Your Bible Correctly (Part 2) (via Equip)
Two factors affect how we interpret the Bible. They are our preunderstanding and presuppositions and the principles of communication and understanding. Our preunderstanding includes anything and everything we understand, believe, or assume before we study the Bible. Like a pair of glasses, we see everything through our preunderstanding, which does not mean that it is impossible to be objective. The universal aspects of our preunderstanding make objectivity possible, at least in principle. Because we have these universal aspects in common with the biblical authors, correct interpretation is also possible. We need to be aware of our preunderstandings, however, to guard against incorrect interpretation. We also need to submit our preunderstanding to biblical truth in order to let God’s Word correct any false ideas that are peculiar to us as individuals. n Two principles of communication and understanding that govern the way all people communicate are “the universal nature of truth” and “the unity of human nature.” The fact that truth is objective and the laws of logic are inescapable indicate that truth is the same for everyone — that is, truth is universal. The fact that humanity is one race with one kind of mind means that it is possible to understand universal truths written in biblical times, even though the cultural expressions of those truths may differ.

How to Interpret Your Bible Correctly (Part 1) (via Equip)
As a student of the Bible you have probably encountered someone who disagrees with your interpretation of a passage. That person may be a cultist, a member of another Christian denomination, or even another member of your own church or family. When a debate over the meaning of a passage can’t be settled, often someone says, “That’s just your interpretation,” or, “No one really knows what this means, so let’s just agree to disagree.” It is true that we should hold our interpretations with humility, but we must not settle for anything less than the correct interpretation of the Bible, since it is the very Word of God. In principle, it is possible to have a correct interpretation of the Bible (to argue otherwise is self-defeating), but this doesn’t guarantee that we will discover it. In practice, we must use sound principles of interpretation in order to know what the Bible means. These sound principles of interpretation are known as the grammatical-historical method. This simply means that we understand the meaning of the words and sentences of the Bible according to the way they were normally used by the speakers of the language, and in their historical context. To do this we must interpret the Bible in light of five factors: its original languages, its historical/cultural setting, its kinds of literature, the principles of communication and understanding, and our own preunderstandings and presuppositions. Each of these factors plays a significant role in good Bible study. By learning how to apply the basic principles of interpretation we can understand and interpret the Bible correctly.

Playing with FIre (Part 4) (via Boundless)
I was staring into the open grave of my son Christopher. It was an unspeakably painful moment. The nightmare all parents dread had become my life. Had I been physically able to muster more tears, I would have been weeping uncontrollably. As I watched four men struggle to lower a steel lid over the grave vault holding Christopher’s miniature white casket, I realized I would see his little smiling face no more, and run my fingers through his beautiful blond hair never again. We would never snuggle together or touch one another again. Our time together was over. As I stood there, looking into what felt like an abyss, I realized that I was in the most despairing, skeptical, and faithless state I had ever been in. I felt like cursing God for the rest of my life. I was on the edge of the dark, bottomless pit of hell...

Playing with FIre (Part 3) (via Boundless)
“Never Read a Bible Verse!” That’s the title of a little booklet my friend and Christian radio personality, Gregory Koukl, has written to help people read the Bible well. What great advice. “That’s right, never read a Bible verse. Instead, always read a paragraph — at least.” But the current is flowing the other way in our popular sound-bite culture. Not to be left out (or left behind!), the Church has its own version of sound-bite culture: verse-bite culture. In verse-bite culture we take a sentence or sentence-fragment from a biblical paragraph, memorize it out of context, write it on a little card, put it on a billboard, a plaque, a rock, etc. Somehow we think that just because this little chunk of Scripture has a verse number in front of it, it was meant to be a free-standing unit of thought. Nothing could be further from the truth...

Playing with FIre (Part 2) (via Boundless)
“INDIANS SLAY TIGERS!” — the newspaper headline virtually screams out at you. The thought of something being slain is repulsive. You’re gripped by a mental image of southern India’s Bengal tiger. You imagine its beautiful face, its stripes and piercing eyes. Then your image is shattered by the sudden blast of a high-powered rifle. You see the exquisite creature writhe in pain, fall gracelessly in its tracks and die. Having read no further than the headline, you feel sick, as if you’ve witnessed something tragic. But should you feel this way? The slaughter of an endangered species — especially one as magnificent as the Bengal tiger — is horrifying, no doubt. But suppose you failed to notice that...

Playing with FIre (Part 1) (via Boundless)
As she worked her way toward the front of the room, I could tell the young woman was really angry at me. Her eyes were blazing and her jaw was set. This was surprising because the setting was fairly benign: speaking to a large evangelical church’s singles group on “How to Interpret the Bible.” At the beginning of my two times with them, however, I was already offending the troops! I braced myself...

Truth & Consequences

Grave Lessons about Application
I was staring into the open grave of my son Christopher. It was an unspeakably painful moment. The nightmare all parents dread had become my life. Had I been physically able to muster more tears, I would have been weeping uncontrollably. As I watched four men struggle to lower a steel lid over the grave vault holding Christopher’s miniature white casket, I realized I would see his little smiling face no more, and run my fingers through his beautiful blond hair never again. We would never snuggle together or touch one another again. Our time together was over. As I stood there, looking into what felt like an abyss, I realized that I was in the most despairing, skeptical, and faithless state I had ever been in. I felt like cursing God for the rest of my life. I was on the edge of the dark, bottomless pit of hell...

Overcoming a Verse Bite-Culture
"Never Read a Bible Verse!" That's the title of a little booklet my friend and Christian radio personality, Gregory Koukl, has written to help people read the Bible well. What great advice. "That's right, never read a Bible verse. Instead, always read...

The Hazards of Reading on a Battlefield
As she worked her way toward the front of the room, I could tell the young woman was really angry at me. Her eyes were blazing and her jaw was set. This was surprising because the setting was fairly benign: speaking to a large evangelical church's singles group on "How to Interpret the Bible." At the beginning of my two times with them, however, I was already offending the troops! I braced myself...

‘Indians Slay Tigers’ and Braking for Genres
"INDIANS SLAY TIGERS!" — the newspaper headline virtually screams out at you. The thought of something being slain is repulsive. You're gripped by a mental image of southern India's Bengal tiger. You imagine its beautiful face, its stripes and piercing eyes. Then your image is shattered by the sudden blast of a high-powered rifle. You see the exquisite creature writhe in pain, fall gracelessly in its tracks and die. Having read no further than the headline, you feel sick, as if you've witnessed something tragic. But should you feel this way? The slaughter of an endangered species — especially one as magnificent as the Bengal tiger — is horrifying, no doubt. But suppose you failed to notice...

Fact Sheets

History & Scripture