Lesson 4: Literal Interpretation
Based on R. C. Sproul’s lessons

Facilitator: J. Compton, Jr.

Study the 20 minute lesson at this link: Literal Interpretation

Study These Lesson Points:

  1. Two common perspectives of immature Christians that stunt their spiritual growth sound like this:

  2. The popular secular thought against people who interpret the Bible literally is that they are said to be uneducated and superstitious simpletons who are anti-academic.


  3. Literal interpretation is a the Grammatic-Historical method for interpreting Scripture.


  4. The first rule of sound bible interpretation is to interpret the Bible literally. That means that we first get the plain sense of the meaning of the text. In order to do that we must first know the scriptural literature of which the text is a part (Remember that the Bible is a collection of books of diverse genres... poetry, history, wisdom, prophectic, didactic, revelation, prescriptive). This means, we must follow the normal rules of literally interpretation.


  5. The fact that we read the Bible as we read any other book does not negate the powerful effects inherent in the Word of God itself. No other book impacts us as the Bible does, but one must interpret it grammatically correct (plain meaning) in order for an impact to occur.


  6. There's no mystical code to crack unless the Scripture says a text is coded and must be cracked.


  7. Before we can understand the correct meaning of a Bible verse we must first recognize the literary nature of the text and the book that it's in (which is not easy). Then, we can ask ourselves do I believe it or not. But what we must never do is to alter the meaning of the text to fit within our threshhold of belief.


  8. Beware of others with philisophical prejudice against miracles (both in the church and secular) who advocate against the literal interpretation of the Bible. Also, beware of those (both in the church and secular) who'll supersize the plain meaning by reading prophectic context into the text, thereby suggesting it contains a profound supernatural meaning.


Call Me When You Are Ready For The Exam (and bring answers to the above)

Your exam must be completed within the same month the lesson was assigned.