You are invited to a book study Wednesday nights by Fay and Felix! The following information was provided by Felix:
Book: The Language of God - A Commonsense Approach to Understanding and Applying the Bible - by David Crabtree, Ron Julian, Jack Crabtree
When: Wednesday July 13, 2011
Time: 7:00-8:30pm
Where: 363 North Rengstorff Ave. #11, Mountain View, 94043
Fay and I realize people may not have enough time to get the book in time so here is the introduction that we will start the first week.
Introduction: A Call to Commonsense (David Crabtree)
It has often been noted that common sense is not as common as the term would lead us to believe. This has been particularly true in recent decades, it seems. Many have begun to question whether we can know anything about the world with real trustworthiness. That philosophy results in skepticism and despair. Others, to the contrary, argue that our Creator made us to be knowers—that our senses and minds were designed to provide us with reliable information about the world. Theirs is a call to return to common sense. This book is a similar call.
In our time people approach the Bible in a variety of ways. In academic circles the Bible is viewed as a collage of different oral and written sources. In this view, study of the Bible is the exclusive domain of highly trained experts, who are the only ones equipped to deal with it competently and responsibly. Such experts are so focused on their search for different sources within the biblical text that they can see no coherence. Because they are working with a disassembled text, it is not surprising that the results of their academic labors are often meager and sometimes patently nonsensical—hardly something on which to build one’s life.
At the other end of the spectrum (if approaches to the Bible could be so arranged) is the perspective that the Bible ought not to be studied but merely meditated upon. In this view, serious study of the Bible is discounted as intellectualizing and runs the risk of missing the simple meaning within it, whereas one can gain immense benefit from merely meditating on the words of the Bible. But because the message that one finds by meditating is not derived from the meaning of the text itself, many different and even contradictory messages could come from the same text. Using this approach, how can one ever proclaim with confidence, “Thus saith the Lord”?
In the view of the authors of this book, both of these perspectives are wrong but both have something right. In order to make good sense of the Bible, it must be the object of serious study, but one need not be a trained expert. God chose to put His message in a form accessible to virtually every human being. If you can talk and think, you can understand the Bible. Good Bible study is basically just the application of common sense to the words of Scripture. God made the Bible to be understandable to man. God made man to be a knower, capable of understanding His revelation. It takes work (a lot of work!), and some are more gifted at it than others, but in principle anyone can learn to interpret the Bible, even if only to learn to distinguish a correct interpretation from an incorrect one. As you will see, the principles of interpretation are not difficult to grasp—you use them every day. However, the application of those principles to some passages of Scripture can be extremely difficult. By appealing to your common sense, this book is an attempt to cut through much of the confusion about how to interpret the Bible. We hope that what we present strikes a chord and that you will gain a renewed confidence in the ability of the Bible to speak meaningfully and authoritatively.
To demonstrate how this approach to interpretation is applied to a passage of Scripture, we have chosen to use James 5:13-20. We hope that our treatment of this passage is a helpful and instructive example. Space did not allow us to include a fully developed commentary on this section of James that would address all of the interpretive issues. However, such a commentary exists on our Web site. If our discussion of the passage raises further questions regarding our interpretation, please consult our Web site: www.mckenziestudycenter.org.
Every chapter concludes with a list of study questions. The authors of this book have written their own responses to these questions as a way of expanding upon some of the points of this book at greater length. You can find these answers on our Web site as well. We encourage you first to try to answer these questions yourself and then to look at our Web site to see how we would respond to the same questions.
This book is the product of a team effort. The seminal elements of this perspective were developed by J. A. (Jack) Crabtree during his years as a pastor at Peninsula Bible Church in Palo Alto, California. They were further developed as a result of discussions that have taken place over the past twenty years at McKenzie Study Center, where all three authors work and teach. Although Jack did the trailblazing, it is fair to say that every staff member of McKenzie Study Center has played a role in forging the ideas presented here. The authors share common perspective on biblical interpretation, but each articulates that perspective differently—this accounts for the differences in style that can be seen from one chapter to the next. In the pages that follow we hope, if not to persuade you of the soundness of our approach, at least to stimulate your thinking about the important topic of biblical interpretation.
Discussion Questions:
How much effort do you think it takes to study and understand the Bible? Do you agree with the author’s of this book? Why or why not? Or do you totally disagree with the author’s of this book?
What is your perception of other bible studies you’ve been in concerning the study and understanding of the Bible?
These discussion questions are just starter questions. We encourage people to ask questions and to discuss anything pertaining to understanding and applying the Bible. All perspectives concerning this topic are welcome. Just be prepared to discuss about it.
