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Lord's Prayer

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever.

Prayer for the Day

Lord, may I always remember that no matter the day and whatever hardship I face, you are with me, extending your hand in love. Help me to be open to your guidance, knowing that you want what is best for me, only asking in return sorrow for my sins and my willingness to do good. In Christ's name I pray,

Mason Barge from The Christophers 2/21/2015

Confession and Repentance

Almighty and most merciful Father, I have erred and strayed from Your ways like a lost sheep. I have followed too much the devices and desires of my own heart. I have offended against Your holy laws. I have left undone those things which I ought to have done; and I have done those things which I ought not to have done; and there is nothing good in me. O Lord, have mercy upon me, miserable offender. Spare those, O God, who confess their faults. Restore those who are penitent; according to Your promises declared unto men in Christ Jesus our Lord. And grant that I may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life; to the glory of His name.

~ adapted from the 1789 Book of Common Prayer

Meditation

[I am like a lost sheep, and Christ is my shepherd.]

Dedication to Service

Now, oh heavenly Father, I ask to be called as a witness to your love by the love I extend to others; a precursor of your justice by my unfailing commitment to what is right and good; a lamp set on a hill, reflecting the light of Christ in my forgiveness, mercy and compassion; and a harvester of souls through my humble and dedicated servanthood. In Jesus' name, I pray,

Think of the day ahead in terms of God with you, and visualize health, strength, guidance, purity, calm confidence, and victory as the gifts of His presence.

L’Apparizione (The Apparition) by Henri Martin, ca. 1895.

1 Corinthians 2:5 (KJV)

Galatians 3:2-4 (Daily Prayer Bible)

2-4 I only want you to tell me one thing: Did you receive the Holy Spirit by keeping the Law, or by faith, from hearing and believing the Gospel? Do you really intend to rely on your flesh, which could not begin your salvation, to perfect it? It would be insanity. Would you simply throw away the benefits of the tribulation you have suffered?

Verbatim Bible

Notes on the Scripture

Implied or Inferred? (Galatians #25)

The Curse of Inference

One of the most difficult and most important challenges in reading the Bible is conforming our minds to the Word of God, rather than rewriting the Bible so that it reflects our own thoughts. The temptation to ignore or distort a passage we do not like, read an idea we do like into a passage that does not really support our idea, and extend (“explain” or “interpret”) a passage beyond what God has said by using our own imagination, is a chronic detriment to Christian faith, love, and unity.

The Word of God is immortal, inerrant, timeless truth. The thoughts of human beings are not only inherently faulty, but also distorted by a wide range of factors: self-interest, bias, conformity to culture, emotion, etc. How, then, can we know God’s Word? When we read the Bible, we have thoughts about it; and in fact, human interpretation of some sort is required, or we could not read or understand it at all. How can we read God’s Word as He intended us to read it, distorting it as little as possible?

Today we are going to look at one tool that helps enormously: thoroughly understanding the differenceThis goes way beyond the scope of these notes, but it has to be said: There are several very different definitions of inference. In the stringent academic discipline of logic, “inference” means something entirely different from the way we use it in hermeneutics. In logic, it means a correct and necessary truth that follows from previous statements, i.e., it is identical to what we call “implication”. We are using inference in the sense that cognitive psychology uses it; logisticians would call this “inductive inference”. If this interests you, check out Wikipedia’s article on inference. between “implyImply: to suggest something without saying or showing it plainly.” and “inferInfer: to draw conclusions that are not explicit in what is said.”. It takes some effort to grasp, and even more effort to apply, but the rewards are commensurate to the effort. I promise!

I want to use “imply” and in the narrow sense of a “necessary implication.” That is, when interpreting the Bible, an implication must be intentional and, therefore, must be provable by reference to something in the Bible itself. Here is a valid implication: Jesus says sin leads to death. Jesus says that adultery is a sin. The Bible therefore implies that adultery will lead to death.

If an unstated meaning is supplied by the reader, not the book, the reader infers the unstated meaning; the book does not imply it.

rawing inferences is one of the primary means by which people distort the Bible. When we hear somebody say “this passage implies such and such,” it raises a red flag. Almost invariably what follows is actually an inference the commentator supplies from his own mind: what he wants the Bible to say, or even what he thinks the Bible says, when it does not say that at all.

An inference made by a human being, reading the Bible, is not the Word of God; it is the product of the reader's mind. He usually does not even realize it; most people have great difficultyPost-structural hermeneutics actually teaches that a text has no meaning except the meaning supplied by the reader, and there is some limited truth to it. But, generally, they are wrong. distinguishing what the Bible says and what their mind adds or subtracts to it.

This is a serious matter. In Galatians 1:6-8, for example, Paul calls a gospel that has been distorted by human additions “anathema” — accursed. (And he probably means that the teacher of such a gospel is accursed, as well.) If this is still unclear to you, an example is provided on the Community page.

We can only say, properly speaking, that the Bible implies something if we can prove the implication by reference to another part of the Bible. The Bible, remember, is the Word of God. It is thus, itself, the only source that can be used to interpret it (unless one is convinced that there has been God-inspired prophecy since the last words of Revelation were written).

The technical term for correctly interpreting the Bible, by reference only to itself, is “exegesis”, which literally means “to bring out.” We correctly take meaning out of the Bible. The opposite term, “eisegesis,” means loosely “to read into.” It is a good term, if you can remember the word, because most people understand what “reading something into” a statement means.

The Importance of Genre

Once we have firmly fixed the difference between implied and inferred meaning, and grasp the dangers of the latter, we can back up just a bit and pick out passages where inference is proper. Parables, by their nature, require interpretation. Christ told us that there would be people able to understand His parables correctly (e.g. Matthew 13:1-23.) and others who would not; and I suppose, we will not know the difference until after we die. But He explicitly gave us permission to draw inferences from His parables. Poetry and wisdom literature often admit to some degree of eisegetic interpretation. Prophecy (other than Revelation) is generally not such a genre; because to the degree prophecy contains symbolism we are expected to understand, the New Testament interprets it for us.

But there is a critical distinction between such books and, say, a Gospel or Epistle. Eisegetical passages are personal. They cannot be doctrinal or historical: “For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” (1 Peter 2:1:21) “All Scripture is inspired by God.” (2 Timothy 3:16)

On Thursday, we will take the rules we have learned and apply them to Paul’s great rhetorical introduction to Galatians 3.

Daily Inspiration

“The Holiness of God”

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