Monthly Archives: December 2010

Who is this Jesus? by Melito of Sardis

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Dan Brown may be a very good and interesting writer (his books have sold in the millions), there’s a reason why he will not engage in public debate (though challenged to do so by many) – he has everything to lose (much credibility) and nothing to gain – but scholars who know the facts are appalled by Dan Brown’s flimsy and unsubstantiated arguments, hid behind a veil of what he calls “historical fiction.” Just one example – he claims Christianity knew nothing of the Divinity of Christ until Constantine and the Council of Nicea and then “the Church” added the concept of Christ’s divinity to the New Testament (under Constantine’s oversight) so that he might unite the people under his rule in the Roman Empire. This is totally ridiculous and any scholar of history knows it.

Firstly, it would have been impossible to do this (even if he wanted to) as not even the Emperor had control over the New Testament manuscripts – they were not in one location but scattered throughout the Empire, both in large texts and small.

Secondly, lets remember the historical context. Continue reading →

Walking with God in heart and mind

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A long time Christian once came to me to confide that his spiritual life was as good as dead; it was so lack lustre that he had abandoned all attempts to get alone with God, to read the Bible or to pray.

He said, “I feel like I am walking alone in a desert, with no sight of water. I am fairly desperate.”

This was a young man who to all outward appearances had it all together. He was active in ministry and showed great enthusiasm in the things of God. Yet I could see in his eyes that he was earnest about his true spiritual condition.

As he was talking to me I was silently asking God for wisdom as to what to say to him. After listening to him for a few minutes, a question popped up in my mind. Continue reading →

Context, Context, Context!

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Pastor John, in your article about rules of interpretation you mention context as being vital in terms of obtaining the correct interpretation of a text or passage. Can you expand on that a little more? What I do is look up a word’s meaning in a dictionary. Isn’t that enough?

Thanks for your excellent question. Actually my short answer is “no, that is not enough.” First of all, we need to make sure we move beyond using an English dictionary to either use a Hebrew dictionary for the Old Testament words or a Greek dictionary for New Testament ones. That might be an obvious thing to say, but it should not be assumed that all people realize this. The words in our Bibles are translations from the original Hebrew and Greek and to be sure of a word’s meaning, we need to go to the source language for an accurate definition.

But even this is not enough. I am all in favor of looking up the meaning of words. Indeed, this should be our starting point. However, what happens when we go through this process is that we find that each word has what we call a “semantic range.” That is simply a technical term to say that each word has a range of uses and meanings. A word can be used in many different ways.

This is true in English as well as the Biblical languages. For instance, lets take the word “fox.” If you go to an English dictionary and look up the word “fox” you will find a number of meanings (not just one). It can mean a four legged animal with a bushy tail; a type of car (made in the 1980’s) or it can be a slang term used for a very pretty woman. So, when you are reading a book and you come across the word “fox”, what is it referring to? Does it mean an animal with four legs, a car, or a fine looking lady?

The answer is found by checking the context in which you find the word. Importantly, you can actually be sure of the answer. It is not mere guess work.

Let me illustrate this by giving you an example. Imagine then that you are reading a magazine article about the British Royal family and come across the following sentence:

“The male members of the Royal family often spend their summer days fox hunting in the English countryside.” Continue reading →