What does it take to understand the Bible? What is “Hermeneutics?” Join Celeste as she presents her class final where she will answer these questions!

For more information about Pathway – the school that Celeste did this project for – visit https://pathway.training/

For more information about the Louisiana School of Ministry visit https://www.laaog.org/lasom

Celeste’s Notes:

Today, for Extra Tuesday on Geek Devotions, we will be talking about context, and hopefully, I will pass a class!

Hello and welcome to Geek Devotions a show from devoted geeks devoted to letting people know they are loved. I’m Celeste and we are so glad that you hit play today. If you don’t watch past this point, know that you are loved and cared for, and there is a plan and a purpose for your life.

As I said in the intro, today, we are going to discuss the importance of Context when studying the Bible. Now, let me quickly explain the pass-a-class thing. As some of you know, I am going through the process of getting my credentials to be a minister with the Assemblies of God, and one of my classes is Intro to Hermeneutics.

Ok, so real Quick, let’s talk about what Hermeneutics is. One of the texts that was part of my course explains it like this:

“Biblical hermeneutics is the branch of knowledge that deals with interpretation. The word most often refers to how to interpret the Bible or other sacred texts from other religions. This is not to be confused with exegesis. Where exegesis refers to the interpretation of a specific Biblical text, hermeneutics is deciding which principles we will use in order to interpret the text.”

Now that breaks down to mean that Hermeneutics is the study of the Bible, what it says in context, and how to apply it to ourselves as a whole, whereas the word exegesis means to study portions of biblical passages and determine what it says in context and how to apply it to ourselves.

Now, there are lots of principles that you can use when you study the Bible, but today, we are going to be talking about the importance of understanding the different forms of context. Let’s talk about Some of them.

Historical Context

The Bible is considered by many to be the most historically and archaeologically accurate book, so because of that we need to remember that this is not a book of fantasy, or one that is completely separate from history.

Literary Context

It would be great if the Bible were nothing more than one big narrative; it would make it easy to follow from front to back, track the characters, and understand what is being said. But there are books of Law, narrative, Poetry, Epistles(or Letters), and ProphesyP. If you read poetry and think that the writer is being literal, it would be Very disturbing. A great example of this is Psalms 1:3

“He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. in all things that he does, he prospers.” (ESV)

So if someone read this and did not realize that that the writer is using alliterative wording, then they might think that all Christians are supposed to literally be planted in the ground by a stream. I don’t know about you, but I like to move far too much for that.

Ok, so let’s take these lessons on Context and apply them really quickly.

Since we are on the back end of the Christmas Season, let’s read a bit of Luke and apply all 3 of these types of contexts.

“In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus decreed that all the world should be registered. 2 This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 And all went to be registered, each to his own town. 4 And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, 5 to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. ” Luke 2:1-5 (ESV)

Literary

We can tell by the way this is citing historical points, as well as the general writing style, that this is narrative; it is meant to tell us a story,

Cultural and Historical

Verses 1-3 give us the historical context because we can tell that Rome had occupied Israel, and they were doing a census to count how many Roman citizens there were. We are also given the specific time based on who was governor, Quirinius, and the fact that the Caesar was Caesar Augustus. 

And that’s it, A lot of people use Hermeneutics without knowing what it’s called. This is a practice that is important to all believers, not just those who are taking classes to be credentialed as a minister.