Bible Study The Gold Standard of Credible Scripture Heremenutics

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Heremenutics:

"the branch of knowledge that deals with interpretation, especially of the Bible or literary texts."

Out of the Mouth of God in Christ He delivered the Gold Standard that must be applied for any credible understanding or interpretation of any position in the scriptures. This standard of Jesus stands as the test to any true/false doctrine, any true/false claim, any erroneous positions, any partialist positions that are fostered in the theological market place. It is a position that any believer must hold, personally.

Matthew 4:
4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

Verified by witness 2 (a common application, the 2 witness verification test found in 2 Cor. 13:1 which stems from O.T. references in Deut. 17 & 19.)

Luke 4:
4 And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.

Any believer can take any understanding they hold, and run it through the above Gold Standard to "test" their understandings for scriptural legitimacy.

Some short tests I've run on myself using the above principle, example:

Anyone who says that the law doesn't apply to believers. Does it pass Jesus Gold Standard? Nay.

I use this as one (of many) of the most commonly deployed erroneous position that is fostered in the theology realm as an example.

Another area where this Gold Standard is violated is in parable understandings. Most parables contain 2 or more "sides" to the account. Believers tend quite naturally to gravitate only to the scriptural statement that suits them, in their minds, while they quickly, again in their minds discount and discard what they don't want to hear and apply to themselves.

Example:

Matthew 13:
24 Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field
25 But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.

The typical methodology with how this particular parable is understood is that it is the other people who are the tares, but the statement of tares doesn't apply to "me." That standard does not meet the Gold Standard that Jesus gives us.

Use Jesus' Own Words to find YOUR understanding. If as you read, you find your mind tossing aside vast segments of scripture as personally inapplicable, you are more than likely being STOLEN from internally. It's quite a common anomaly. If for example, you find yourself saying in your mind: This doesn't happen to me, the Gold Standard that Jesus gave us has fallen from your hands. If you understand that your own MIND does do this to you, it is a CONFIRMATION of the Reality of Faith in Christ.

Mark 4:
15 And these are they by the way side, where the word is sown; but when they have heard, Satan cometh immediately, and taketh away the word that was sown in their hearts.

The goal in truthful Biblical Heremenutics is to find the solutions that make every Word of God apply to you, personally. Just as Jesus showed above in His Gold Standard. Not just listening to what we happen to "like." This ain't a popularity contest. It's hard work.

Genesis 3:19
In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

The above applies in both the natural AND the Spiritual application:

1 Timothy 5:17
Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the word and doctrine.

 

[for_his_glory]

delete

 

[smaller]

How can you teach that of "The Gold Standard" by Gary and Tina Craig who are the founders of "Emotional Freedom Techniques",

I have no clue who you are talking about and why you posted about them here. And I probably have no interest in what they teach based on what you just posted about them. I'm not a shrink in the christian market place fan.

So please don't try to equate anything I posted or understand with some obscure characters that I don't even know about.

Thanks in advance.

What I did post was Jesus' Own Words about the Gold Standard of understanding scriptures, if you care to comment on His Words, not some contrivances.

 

[for_his_glory]

I mean no disrespect for you smaller, but was concerned with what you call the "Gold Standard" that is something taught by Gary and Tina Craig and their affiliation with the Universal Church.

 

[smaller]

I mean no disrespect for you smaller, but was concerned with what you call the "Gold Standard" that is something taught by Gary and Tina Craig and their affiliation with the Universal Church.

No problem. I have no idea what they mean by that because I have no clue who they are or what that might mean.

I do know what Jesus Said and in the end, that's really all I care about.

For the record I am not affiliated nor do I attend any "universalist" sect. I am aware of some remote sects that do hold just as firmly as any other believers to the Nicene creed and in some camps that is close enough for theological horseshoe purposes. I have (you might find this interesting) scoured some of these remote sects understandings and found them WANTING and that's why I don't associate, entirely. But that being said any believer who adheres to the Nicene creed is a believer, saved, by my sights.

 

[for_his_glory]

smaller, BTW, I did try to delete that after I posted it, but I guess I was to late.

 

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smaller, BTW, I did try to delete that after I posted it, but I guess I was to late.

Well, because you brought them up I did hunt down a bit of their information and found their claims to not be in accord with the scriptural Gold Standard that Jesus Instructed.

It took about a 2 minutes of reading to determine that. They teach tapping as a way to program ones self to feel better. I am familiar with that little mental exercise from other reading about it. As stated prior I'm not a fan of psychology masquerading as christianity or more accurately "mind [pseudo] science" masquerading as christianity. I don't necessarily equate "christianity" to "feeling better" either.

Citing Acts 14:2, Romans 8:23, Romans 9:2 and Hebrews 12:7-9 for brief examples by comparisons which would seem to be the exact opposite direction from what they promote.

Everybody "likes" to feel good about themselves. It takes work to go the opposite direction. And that is more often God's Work than not.

 

[for_his_glory]

This is the first time I ever heard of "The Gold Standard" you are presenting as it raised a red flag and I had to research this method.

 

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This is the first time I ever heard of "The Gold Standard" you are presenting as it raised a red flag and I had to research this method.

The Gold Standard of scripture should have a familiar ring:

Psalm 119:127
Therefore I love thy commandments above gold; yea, above fine gold.

The statements from Jesus in the first post were uttered first in the desert:

Deuteronomy 8:3
And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live.

It's the absolute easiest short test for any claim derived from scripture. When believers are insulating, isolating and granting them and theirs "personal exemptions" from every Word of God, they are clearly on a false standard, different than what we have been given.

 

[for_his_glory]

Actually the only standard we need is the word of God and the Holy Spirit teaching us all things, John 14:26. Apart from the Holy Spirit man can not teach us anything if they have not the anointing of the Holy Spirit given to them by God, 1John 2:27. We are also told to test the spirit that is teaching as there are only two who operate as one is truth and the other error, 1John 4:1-6.

I use to study by reading a whole chapter, but that only gave me a jest of things within it. I use to believe everything that came out of the pulpit for after all they are to be our teachers. It was only when I heard certain things from the pulpit that just didn't sound right with the scriptures they gave for support that I really started paying more attention to the word then that of the pulpit. Instead of reading a whole chapter at a time I started out by praying first asking the Holy Spirit to give me understanding. Then I started what is so important to our learning is reading word by word as it is written and not how man interprets it. This is when I saw the wording very different from the way I use to read and believe as one missed word can change the whole context of the verse and cause us to error.

Some agree with what I teach as well as others will always disagree and I have no problem with that, but we should be mature enough to discuss what we disagree on without it being a battlefield that gives no glory to God as there are times we might not see something that another sees that makes you say, hmm then you go look it up. The thing is we must remain humbled before the Lord as our common is that we love the Lord and each other.

 

[th1b.taylor]

Smaller,
May God bless your continued teaching. I have never used your terminology but have since a short period before my fifth year in the faith taught what I term as my first rule of hermeneutics and this and my teaching are, essentially, the same thing. When, as I recall, certain folks bumped their sinful noggens against it, they, strenuously, objected and I have cleared a classroom when I explained that one can never ignore a single word of the Word of God if they ever hope to understand any of the Word of God.

Good teaching and good luck.

 

[smaller]

Smaller,
May God bless your continued teaching. I have never used your terminology but have since a short period before my fifth year in the faith taught what I term as my first rule of hermeneutics and this and my teaching are, essentially, the same thing. When, as I recall, certain folks bumped their sinful noggens against it, they, strenuously, objected and I have cleared a classroom when I explained that one can never ignore a single word of the Word of God if they ever hope to understand any of the Word of God.

I think we all sincerely strive to understand all of Gods Words and even apply them. But theory and practice are much different. It is not easy for example to "take" ALL of Jesus' Words in this dictate personally:

Matthew 12:37
For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.

I'd venture that a very large percentage of believers lean to only the first part and completely ignore the and, part two. But using the Gold Standard of Jesus Word in Matt. 4:4 and Luke 4:4 it would seem that the entire statement is true and applicable to believers, does it not?

So the question becomes, who really listens? And if they do is what they hold able to stand up to both sides of the equation?

Paul reflects the absolutely identical sights here:

Romans 2:9
Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile;

Then moves to his own self (that is, in the flesh), applying that measure:

Romans 7:
19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.

Do believers really believe Jesus' Statement? Do they believe Paul?

Paul tells us this is how Jesus views sin in the flesh:

Romans 8:3
For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:

Did Paul have sin in his own flesh? Yep. He double hammered the point, just to make it perfectly clear:

Romans 7:
17 Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
20 Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

Is it then as Jesus described above? Yes. Is it described as Paul stated in Romans 2? Again, YES.

Are we then under condemnation? According to Paul the Spirit is actually against the flesh and contrary to same, here:

Galatians 5:
17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.

To me there is no escaping the obvious conclusions here, that the entire statement of Jesus and the identical teachings of Paul are in direct and perfect accord in this matter. There are literally hundreds more examples of this kind of TWO EDGED SWORD described in the scriptures. I think we can assure ourselves that both sides of LEDGERS balance and both sides of that Sword DO apply, to believers.

But if you ask a common teacher, they'll show how to dodge the obvious and to not only ignore The Word, but DENY The Word they don't like to hear personally.

As we go along here I hope to get into some very hard places to apply. The above is an easy example.

 

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Actually the only standard we need is the word of God and the Holy Spirit teaching us all things, John 14:26. Apart from the Holy Spirit man can not teach us anything if they have not the anointing of the Holy Spirit given to them by God, 1John 2:27. We are also told to test the spirit that is teaching as there are only two who operate as one is truth and the other error, 1John 4:1-6.

I use to study by reading a whole chapter, but that only gave me a jest of things within it. I use to believe everything that came out of the pulpit for after all they are to be our teachers. It was only when I heard certain things from the pulpit that just didn't sound right with the scriptures they gave for support that I really started paying more attention to the word then that of the pulpit.

That's almost exactly why I departed from the charismatic realms (the bolded part in the drop down box). It was not that 'everything' they teach is false, but a LOT of it IS totally false. But lets also face that believers really only like to hear the things they like and that make them feel good. Nobody pays $$$ or sticks around to hear the hard stuff. So it is quite natural that over time a lot of this stuff tends to be cast aside in favor of the feel good only. That's what builds doctrinal empires, the feel good stuff and the "I am only right AND never wrong stuff"

At some point I realized that it was really only "I" who was wrong and didn't see a thing when it came to the tough stuff and that "I" was only "able" to hear the nice things but I actually feared to take on the tougher stuff personally and quite unconsciously avoided His Words, personally. Jesus said not to be offended:

Luke 7:23
And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me.

I don't know "how" Peter felt, personally, when Jesus spoke to Satan to his own face, but I'm pretty sure it made him sit up and maybe listen better? It would have been quite easy for Peter to have been offended by that and split. Matt. 16:23. Peter did learn some things about Jesus in all of these matters:

John 6:68
Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.

Not that only the good stuff is all bad either, but it's not the "whole" enchilada.

Instead of reading a whole chapter at a time I started out by praying first asking the Holy Spirit to give me understanding. Then I started what is so important to our learning is reading word by word as it is written and not how man interprets it. This is when I saw the wording very different from the way I use to read and believe as one missed word can change the whole context of the verse and cause us to error.

There are some accounts in the scriptures that I prayed about understanding for decades before understanding came. Sometimes when it did it was like it dropped down from above, into my mind, showing me how the structure was put together. I may share a couple of these later. But little by little, piece by piece, line by line, it does get progressively interesting.

AS we are able to hear it and bear it I might add. You may scoff at the quote at the bottom of my posts, but I put it there for a reason, as it is an echo of this scripture set:


Genesis 15:
7 And he said unto him, I am the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it.
8 And he said, Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?
9 And he said unto him, Take me an heifer of three years old, and a she goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon.
10 And he took unto him all these, and divided them in the midst, and laid each piece one against another: but the birds divided he not.
11 And when the fowls came down upon the carcases, Abram drove them away.
12 And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and, lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him.

 

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Every believer does, by our entirely subjective nature, transition through our subjective lives on an individual basis. We go through various "stages." We have more light or less, as God Alone Deems and Dispenses.

Anyone who thinks themselves as only light I would consider to be sorely deceived, and avoid such nonsense anymore masquerading as "Gods [supposed] Truth." Having been "subjectively" raised since childhood to hard working parents who taught me the value of blistering hard and freezing cold work and extreme common sense I've found myself unable to escape the conclusion that God laid upon Adam and every flesh person since:

Genesis 3:
17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;
19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

Even people who've managed to avoid "working" in the physical senses still have guaranteed troubles, no different than weeds growing in the garden are no uncertain fact. If it's not a physical thorn/thistle, then it's guaranteed to be something else equivalent to same. I had the good fortune to hang out with the charismatic crowd early after my "born again" years, in my mid 20's. In typical character they were always and only so utterly optimistic about the fact of GOD'S BLESSINGS. And they would quite naturally extend that to their "working" lives. They also (and still do) think that God automatically extends blessings to anything and everything a believer does. And when that doesn't happen, why of course it is only a failure of faith on our part.

I can't say how badly such people are deceived. Reality eventually MADE ME question that sight. The reality of life, believer or unbeliever, quickly teaches us that life is a 2 way street, with both good and evil. My parents taught me that the pope or the president puts his own pants on just like I do. I thank them for their "levelheadedness" in that sight. My Dad had more respect for the peasant farmers and common carpenters, brick masons and other laborers, having sweated life out with them in the same trenches, than he had for the "civic leaders and religious authorities." I do as well.

The soft life was not my life. Wasn't in the cards for me.

With understanding scriptures for believers life does take some interesting turns, and if we are walking with our Lord, this does cause us to "seek" out our subjective directions from His Word. After a lifetime of seeking, in the Word, to "find my way" in the ways of the world, I can assure myself and anyone else that there are no specific directions in the Bible for those types of activities. If you want to learn about the ways of the world, the world teaches much much better about it's own ways. The rule for all flesh is "survival of the fittest." It is a harsh rule, but anyone who has had their face smashed in by a bully figures it out real fast. And such quickly learn it's better to be a smasher than the smashee. Faster and better than the Bible could ever teach.

But then again, this IS found in the Bible. This rule of the flesh. It is the rule by which all flesh functions.

Fight or die trying. It's not necessarily a good rule for understanding biblical hermeneutics. But it's one we all commonly apply, by our fleshly nature. For example, IF we learned from the doctrine of the Trinity that it is TRUE, I believe it is TRUE, but we end up cutting out the tongues of adversaries or burning them at the stake, did that truth really do us any good?

I don't think so. That is taking a truth and using it to destroy someone else.

In this way the truth has fallen victim to our fleshly nature and is made of no effect by that kind of fleshly dominion. The identical principle, that of taking a truth or any truth from the scriptures in order to destroy, dominate or dispose of another, is in fact not of the Bible, but is of the world, and our fleshly dominating nature. This activity, the quest for understandings is in fact dominated by the flesh in almost every case.

We don't have to cut out tongues or burn people alive physically, we do it in our MINDS and HEARTS. And here, in this kind of activity, the Word drives it's first stake into the captivity of our flesh, causing it to REBEL internally.

I have learned some valuable lessons about myself and YOU from The Word. It is this fact. It is a fact that is above the "survival of the fittest" rules of the flesh and of the world:

Galatians 5:17
For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.

If you have not yet figured out that the Spirit is against our own preciously thin skin, you (or even "I") have yet to learn much, if anything, from Gods Words. There is no elimination of this contrariness, the flesh being against the Spirit, and VICE VERSA, available to anyone, hermeneutically legitimately.

It is from this fact, this truthful sight, that starts to spring from the darkness of this present world that shows us what we are "really" like, and our truthful positions in subjectivity.