Our new annual Scripture Reading Schedule for 2020-2021 with daily readings that began on 10/11/20 is now available to download and print. The link to the previous 2019-2020’s Scripture Reading Schedule will still be available on the right sidebar under “Helpful Links” into next year. If you are using a mobile device or tablet, the link may be below, meaning you’ll need to scroll down instead.
Most of this week’s blog discussion points will be on these passages. If you have general comments or questions on the weekly Scripture readings not addressed in a blog post, here’s a place for you to post those. Just use the “leave a reply” link or the “share your thoughts” box below.
The full “Read Through The Scriptures In A Year” schedule, broken down by each day, can be found on the right sidebar under “Helpful Links.” There are 4 sections of scripture to read each day: one each from the Torah, the Prophets, the Writings, and from the Testimony of Yeshua. Each week, the Torah and haftarah readings will follow the traditional one-year reading cycle.
Weekly Blog Scripture Readings for 1/17 through 1/23/2021.
(Author’s note: This is the updated and rewritten version of an article that I wrote in the early 2000s. The information contained therein is based largely on the booklet entitled, Hermeneutics: How to Understand the Scriptures by James Scott Trimm [http://www.nazarene.net or http://www.lulu.com/shop/james-trimm/nazarene-jewish-manifesto/paperback/product-403845.html], although I have added many of my own fresh insights and some new information to the original material.)
In this article, we will cover the concept of peshat, remez, drash and sod or the plain or literal, the hint or suggested, the allegorical, and the hidden or mystical meaning of Scripture.
Five Basic Principles For Understanding the Scriptures
The Literal Principle
This is very similar to a rule of Jewish hermeneutics which states that “no passage loses its simple, plain or literal (in Heb. pashat) meaning.” This principle involves understanding a passage first in its plain, literal sense, according to the normal meaning of the words and phrases used unless there is evidence (within the text itself) to interpret it in an allegorical, symbolic or non-literal (in Heb. drash) sense.
The Cultural or Historical Principle
It is important to understand a biblical passage in its cultural-historical context or in the light of the culture and history of the person who wrote it. The Bible was written by Hebraic people living in the Middle East with an agricultural background and who thought differently and spoke a language with idioms and phrases completely different than ours. To view the Bible through a Greco-Roman, western cultural and linguistic lens, for example, as opposed to understanding it through the Hebraic and eastern culture in which it was written is to miss much of its richness and truth.
The Grammatical Principle
This principle involves understanding the text in accordance with its proper grammar. Just what do the nouns and prepositions refer to? What are the idioms of the original language? What are other peculiarities of the original language in which the text was written?
Anyone who has studied foreign languages, especially non-European ones that are different from English, will immediately understand the significance of this point. Each language is unique to itself, and to properly understand that language, one must have a basic understand of it.
The Bible, for example, was written in three ancient languages. It is, quite frankly, the epitome of ignorance and arrogance to the think that a simple knowledge of English will yield the full richness of these ancient languages to the cursory reader. Sometimes there are no English words or phrases even to convey the intended meaning of some biblical words and phrases. There are, however, a plethora of excellent resources written in English that will aid the serious Bible student in understanding the richness of biblical idioms, Hebraic linguistic and literary genres and devices. A literal treasure trove of revelation awaits the spiritually hungry Bible student!
The Synthesis Principle
This principle tells us that if we understand two biblical passages in a way that they contradict each other, then we are misunderstanding one or both of them. Usually as we dig deeper into Scripture and gain more understanding on a subject, then the confusion will clear up and the ostensible contradictions between scriptures will resolve themselves.
The Rule of First Principle
This rule of biblical interpretation states that the first time a word, phrase or concept appears in Scripture establishes a precedence as to the meaning of that word, phrase or concept in all future usages in Scripture. Moreover, this rule in biblical hermeneutics states that the first place the Scriptures mention a word, subject or idea, then this is to be viewed as a foundational truth upon which all subsequent Bible passages are based. A future principle or truth cannot nullify or abrogate a previous one. If it does, then the fault is with the interpreter and not with Scripture.
Ironically while claiming to adhere to the law of first mention, many Bible teacher in the mainstream church have blatantly and perpetually violated this law by asserting that the truths revealed in the New Testament take precedence over and abrogate those of the Old Testament, especially when it comes to the YHVH’s Torah-law or the law of Moses. Over the millennia, the church has devised many circuitous and circumambulatory philosophical theologies to get around many simple truths. We see this in Christian theologians attempts to explain away the Torah-law, the Sabbath, the biblical feasts and dietary laws, a Hebraic-centric understanding of Scripture and the accompanying lifestyle that goes with it.
Because the church has replaced so many biblical truths with the unbiblical traditions of men, more and more people are realizing that the church has, in many cases, lied to them and as such are returning to the biblical or Hebraic roots of the Christian faith. They are returning to their spiritual foundations, the bedrock or the first principles of their faith.
Of interesting note is the fact that when the apostolic writers penned what became known as “the New Testament,” there was no “New Testament” yet. All Christians of the first century had was “the Old Testament.” When in their writings the apostles referred to Scripture, they were speaking of the Tanakh or Old Testament (e.g. 2 Tim 3:16–17; Acts 17:11). So everything we read in the Testimony of Yeshua (or New Testament) must be understood in the light of the Tanakh (or Old Testament) and can never contradict it. This is how the early first century church would have approached biblical truth, and we would serve ourselves well to follow the example of those who sat at Yeshua’s feet.
Our new annual Scripture Reading Schedule for 2020-2021 with daily readings that began on 10/11/20 is now available to download and print. The link to the previous 2019-2020’s Scripture Reading Schedule will still be available on the right sidebar under “Helpful Links” into next year. If you are using a mobile device or tablet, the link may be below, meaning you’ll need to scroll down instead.
Most of this week’s blog discussion points will be on these passages. If you have general comments or questions on the weekly Scripture readings not addressed in a blog post, here’s a place for you to post those. Just use the “leave a reply” link or the “share your thoughts” box below.
The full “Read Through The Scriptures In A Year” schedule, broken down by each day, can be found on the right sidebar under “Helpful Links.” There are 4 sections of scripture to read each day: one each from the Torah, the Prophets, the Writings, and from the Testimony of Yeshua. Each week, the Torah and haftarah readings will follow the traditional one-year reading cycle.
Weekly Blog Scripture Readings for 1/10 through 1/16/2021.
Presently, Sandi and I are in northern North Dakota visiting our children after a 1,300 mile road trip to get here from Oregon. Neither of us had ever been to this part of our country before, so all the sights and experiences are new.
North Dakota contains lot of flat ground with few trees. The “mountains” are really small hills. Grain silos and derelict windmills are everywhere and often dominate the skyline punctuated by an occasional church steeple and cell phone tower. The vast prairie is littered with many old abandoned buildings indicating that life is hard in this country and not everyone made it.
Usually there is many feet of snow on the ground at this time of the year and the temperatures are in the subzero Fahrenheit range. However, this year has been extremely mild with temps in the teens and 20s at night and 30s to low 40s (Fahrenheit) during the day.
Please enjoy.
Welcome to North DakotaA view from the hills of Northern North Dakota (next to the border with Canada) looking south toward the vast prairies of the US Midwest.Lake Metigoshe in northern North Dakota.Ice fishing huts on Lake Metigoshe near the Canadian border.Nathan and Sandi on a hike at Lake Metigoshe.Nathan and daughter Kaeli hiking through an oak, birch and aspen forest in norther North Dakota.Nathan meets one of his long lost Swedish ancestors at the Scandinavian Cultural Center in Minot. Nathan finally finds out where his big nose came from…An abandoned churchAnother abandoned church that has a congregation of goats. Does this somehow fit in with Yeshua’s sheep and goats teaching in Matthew 25?An abandoned house that is being squeezed out by trees.
We continue to read in the news headlines how a few well-known mainstream Christian leaders are decrying the turn of recent political events in the US with respect to the outcome of the recent elections and America’s decided move toward the Antichrist religion of leftism. Sadly, these Christian leaders, when shooting their verbal guns, are still missing the main target.
In the Word of Elohim, we read,
For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of Elohim; and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of Elohim? Now “IF THE RIGHTEOUS ONE IS SCARCELY SAVED, WHERE WILL THE UNGODLY AND THE SINNER APPEAR?” (1 Pet 4:17–18, emphasis added)
In the previous quoted Scripture passage, I emphasized the words “for the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of Elohim” (i.e. the churches) because the church leaders blindly refuse to lead their sheeple in repentance for their own sins, and instead keep pointing to the sins of the nation as the cause of the present divine judgment against this America and other formerly so-called Christian nations. Well, I see judgment definitely coming on the Christian church right now in several areas. Here are is a list:
A) For many years, YHVH has allowed the lid to the taken of the garbage can of many Christian leaders’ lives to reveal their sexual sins. The leftist mainstream news media continue to gleefully splash their headlines with these salacious reports.
B) For many years, YHVH has allowed the lid to the taken of the garbage can of many Christian leaders’ private lives to reveal their covetous greed when it comes to money and material possessions including their lavish lifestyles and how they have innovatively and habitually conned countless people out of vast sums of money in the name of “God”.
C) Now Covid has been unleashed upon the world, and the political forces of Antichrist are hellbent on keeping churches from meeting along with family gatherings, holiday gatherings, weddings and funerals, while at the same time allowing riots and demonstrations, sex shops, drug shops, homo shops, porn shops and the like to operate largely unhindered.
The closing of churches has had a profound negative impact on the finances of most churches such that many are in danger of closing their doors because people have reduced or stopped their financial giving—the church’s financial gravy train.
Financial issues wouldn’t be a problem to the pastors, churches, denominations and ministries if the leaders of these corporate companies masquerading as churches and religious organizations had regular secular jobs or trades like the rest of us. If they were tent-makers like Paul, they wouldn’t need to always have their hand out begging for donations, and they wouldn’t always be trying to peddle the gospel (in the form of videos, books, speaking honorariums, conferences, religious trinkets etc., etc.) to make a buck. Can’t you see how YHVH is using Covid to dry up the funds of these greedy, sheep-fleecing hierlings (John 10:11–13), who are (to use the exact biblical language for them) dumb and greedy dogs (Isa 56:10–11, also see Ezek 34 where Elohim further denounces them)?
When we talk of greedy pastors, Bible teachers and other religious leaders, we cannot turn a blind eye to the majority of major “Messianic” and “Hebrew roots” teachers who have also learned well the art of money grubbing from their Christians and religious Jewish mentors. Shame on all of them! You cannot give me a single verse of Scripture to justify your shameful behavior. Neither the Levites, prophets nor Yeshua and nor any of his apostles acted as you have acted and are acting. In this, you are worhshipping the god of mammon, not the Elohim of the Bible.
This I can say about myself, as Paul said of himself,
For we are not, as so many, peddling the word of Elohim; but as of sincerity, but as from Elohim, we speak in the sight of Elohim in Messiah. (1 Cor 12:17)
D) In recent times, YHVH has raised up the so-called Messianic or Hebrew roots movement, for all of its flaws and shortcomings, as a judgment against the mainstream Christian church for abandoning its biblical Hebraic roots back in the second century A.D. The Hebraic, biblical foundations, biblical truth movement or whatever label you choose, is shining a giant spotlight exposing many areas of fraud and lies that have existed unchallenged and unexposed in the mainstream church. It it fixing a spotlight on many important biblical truths (including the importance of the Torah) that the church has been overlooking and teaching lies about, as well as the numerous unbiblical traditions and manmade doctrines that have cleverly crept into so-called normative, mainstream Christianity.
So far, most, if not all, current major mainstream church leaders are ignoring this divinely inspired and orchestrated move of the Spirit of Elohim to restore truth in the last days as Peter predicted must occur before Yeshua the Messiah can return (it’s not good for the business of religion to preach the whole Truth, now is it?):
Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send Yeshua the Messiah, who was preached to you before, whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which Elohim has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began. (Acts 3:19–21, emphasis added)
It is high time for the mainstream church leaders to wake up from their spiritual sleep and to repent for the right things instead of pointing fingers at others and conveniently letting themselves off the hook all the way to the bank.
Over a two day period in late March of 1979, the people of Iran held a groundbreaking referendum to turn their country into a theocratic Islamic Republic where the religious leaders ruled supreme.
According to the wholeheartedly honest and incorruptible officials who counted the votes, 99.3% of the ballots were cast in favor of becoming an Islamic Republic.
(This bears a striking resemblance to Kim Jong Un winning a 2014 ‘election’ in North Korea with 100% of the vote, or when Saddam Hussein won re-election in Iraq back in 2002 with 11.4 million votes in favor, and 0 against.)
Within months, a new constitution was drafted, and Iran became a theocracy.
In a theocracy, the rules and rituals of the official state religion become pervasive in everything– politics, education, business, news, entertainment, and even your daily routine– regardless of whether or not you’re a believer… if you’re even allowed to be a non-believer.
In its own way, the United States (and much of the West) is rapidly becoming a theocracy where the woke leftist religion similarly pervades our daily lives.
We can already see it.
Just look at the education system, where schools and universities are indoctrinating young people into the virtues of Marxism, Critical Race Theory, and other woke pseudoscience topics.
Children are taught to view themselves as oppressors or victims, and to judge themselves (and others) not based on the content of their character, but on the color of their skin.
And even basic subjects are being radicalized.
The United States was founded in 1619. Biology is intolerant. 2 + 2 = 4 “reeks of white supremacist patriarchy”.
