Bible Referencing
Cultural Books,
Commentaries, Lexicons, Dictionaries
Bible Notes, References and Division Outlines
Up-Dated -
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Reason
for Referencing
When
teaching verse by verse, reference verses in other books of the Bible to add another point,
but seldom to prove a point. Proving a point in one book by
referencing it to a verse in another book is usually error instead
of proof.
Use the
book that is being taught verse by verse to prove the point
envisioned.
Never jump
all over the Bible to verses containing the same word or words.
If you must leave the current book for proving a point, go to a book
that is proving the same point, not just mentioning it or worse yet,
mentioning the same word.
Stay away from Extra-Biblical books
* Greek and Hebrew dictionaries
* Books relating the culture of the day
* Commentaries
* Bible notes by anyone
Greek and Hebrew Dictionaries
Concordances are fine as long as the dictionary part is left alone. Even the
concordance cannot be trusted, because even the most exhaustive, will not have
incident of a particular word. The most glaring example is love. If you look up
love, you will never find the instances where love is translated as charity. And
love is translated as charity for a very good reason and only a tedious Topical
study will unveil the reason why. If you are wishing that I had mentioned why in
this paragraph, then you are indeed one of those lazy preachers who does not
like to do his own studying.
Books Relating the Culture of the Biblical Times
These cannot be trusted, because they change with every new discovery
archeologists unearth. They sound wonderful and knowledgeable and the folks in
the pew love to hear these new and exciting additions to Scripture. Josephus is
a good example. First and foremost, he is unreliable and it can be proven
because he is often crossing swords with clear Bible statements. If wrong in one
area, in what other areas does he error?
Let the Bible ...
* speak for itself
* define itself
* reveal itself
Bible Commentaries
These are most certainly unreliable, since they do not agree amongst
themselves. Somebody has to be wrong. And, most certainly none of them can be
right all the time. So, much time must be spent, deciding each time if a
particular commentary is right or wrong on any given verse. Forget them. Let the
liberal preachers spend their money and wall their offices with tons of books.
Besides, have you ever noticed that when you come across a passage that is a
little difficult to understand, that these commentaries skip over them or
mention that the verse is obscure?
Bible Notes
These cannot be trusted either. Even the most conservative cast doubt on the
veracity of the King James Bible. Scofield is one that comes to mind. Even the
Thompson Chain Reference Bible is woefully incomplete and can be misleading. The
division outlines in all of them are rough at best, misleading at worst.
Caution
Never refer to an extra-Biblical book when preaching or teaching. This will
inflate that book's stature in the minds of your listeners, which are usually
looking for something else to read instead of the Bible. Encourage them to read
the Bible. Insist on it. Do not be the cause of their buying or borrowing
something by far inferior.
Dictionaries
Also, never define a word from a dictionary. Please notice in
the dictionary that there are alternate definitions depending on how
the word is used in context. Many Bible words are never given
all the alternate meanings in a dictionary. "Liberty" and
"Charity" are such words. There are many, many more.
Let the Bible define the words, but in order to do that, one must
read carefully, life the folks from Berea.
When Paul
wrote his books or letters under the leadership of the Spirit of God, it was
probably the only part of the Bible his readers had. He very seldom
made reference to other books to prove his point. His point
was made clear in the context of that book. Preachers and
teachers should seek out the writers' meaning by staying in that
book as much as possible.
Most Bible
preacher/teachers are too lazy to study the whole
book in context, so they jump from book to book, because they have a
concordance or commentary as guide.
Example
The book of
Galatians teaching on law and grace is often over looked and
misinterpreted because the one studying often scurries off to other
books to explain Galatians. When if fact, that book does a
much better job of explaining itself than any other book in the
Bible.
This is
exactly where new doctrine comes from, when these teachers reference
every mention of a doctrine, or word which seems to represent the
doctrine, in the Scriptures. Nothing can be
proven from a reference to a verse where the point of the context of
the referenced verse is very different.
This will
also not allow for uniformity
Scriptures will likely appear
to contradict other Scriptures.
* To preach Topically, one must find every instance in the Bible for
that single Topic, to know all that the Bible says about that Topic.
Otherwise there will be a lot of guessing and assuming and
taking other preachers' word for it.
* To preach Verse by Verse, one must stay in the single book of
choice. Understand that book, as it is written. It a particular
Topic surfaces, then to preach on that Topic, one must find what the
entire Bible says about it. Otherwise the sense of the passage and
ultimately the whole book will be guessed. Howbeit well meaning, but
guessed.
Jumping
around also is job insurance
Most people in the pew will not
attempt to keep up with this type of presentation and assume the
instructor is correct. This being the case, the instructor
or preacher must be retained, so the folks in the pew do not have to know how to
make these complicated explanations. Also, the person leading
in the referencing appears to be very smart. This is an appealing
aspect to a few pastors, evangelists and preachers.
A few
churches have a congregation full of people who can keep up with the
references. Some will say this is good. But in fact it
is not, because the reason why everyone is able to keep up is
because the ones who could not, have left.
Churches
should be made up of all kinds of people. So preaching should
be fashioned to fit all kinds in the pews. This is especially
true in areas where there may be only one Bible preaching church, or
a few Bible preaching churches in a large metropolitan area.
Churches
should reach the community
In so doing, they have to present
Jesus Christ truly from the Bible, but also in a simple,
understandable manner. Of course we do not mean churches are
to dumb down to street level, but they should make Jesus reachable,
comprehendible.
Jesus in
His preaching and teaching was simple, understandable and referenced
the Old Testament sparingly and nothing in the New, because it had
not been written.
Referencing
New Testament books
of the Bible should be referenced profusely, if the area of work is
Topical (where the speaker is trying to nail down every instance of
the Topic in the entire Bible). If the area of work is Verse by
Verse Bible study, the work should attempt to stay in that book as
much as possible. "Verse by verse" gives the connotation that
the "book" is being studied. Stay in the book. The
book will ...
* define its on words
* explain its own passages
* and taken as a whole will have a its own theme
If the area
of work is a sermon, then it depends if the sermon is Topical or
Verse by Verse. Some cases may be made for other areas, but
they all fall into one of the two fore mentioned.
Of course
there is no Biblical example in the Bible to preach Verse by Verse.
There is not a sermon in the Scriptures that is preached Verse by
Verse. All are Topical or have several topics. Even
Stephen's sermon, which told a story in a verse by verse fashion.
But, his sermon was Topical and the topic was "Guilt". All the
forefathers were guilty and the ones who sat before Stephen as
judges were guilty, too.
The Bible does command all to study it and show ourselves approved.
This being the case, we should study Verse by Verse. But the object
of the study is to not make a sermon on each verse, gathering
references from all over the Bible. The object is to find the sense
of the passage and how it fits in the theme of the whole book.
Referencing single verses all over the Bible will almost always lead
to error, because the sermonizer is not studying his references in
their context. He almost always takes them as he finds them to prove
the point he is trying to make in the original Verse by Verse sermon
he has homed in on for that particular service.
Ever
Learning
"Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of
the truth." II Timothy 3:7
Preachers and teachers should study and
teach what the Lord has revealed to them. But, since
there is no latter-day revelations, he must compare what he has found to the
rest of the scriptures and at the same time remember that there is nothing new
under the sun.
While we
are on this, every book of the Bible falls into 1 of 2 areas ...
* Relating true historical events or lives
* Teaching doctrine
If vocal
effort is being expended to dissect a book on doctrine then the
effort is teaching. If effort is expended to apply what the book
says, then the effort is preaching. There are 3 most important areas
of preaching ...
* Application
* Application
* Application
Preaching
is Topical
When a sermonizer relates a subject, he touches that subject (not
all the sub-areas) through out the Bible or he did a poor job in
preparation. He does not have to teach all he has found at one
time, but should know all that the Bible says on a subject before
trying to teach it. This takes much time.
But if a preacher will take one point out of many in a single topic,
briefly state the doctrinal part of it, then spend the rest of his
time applying it to everyday life, he will always have people ...
* who want to listen
* who will know how to apply what they learn
* who will grow in the Lord
Preaching
is simple.
Simple in
scope.
Stephen, in his witness-preaching to his executioners, had one thought in mind, "Everyone Has Been Guilty".
He proved it with example after example. He also made
application by laying guilt on his listeners.
Simple in
style.
There are no notes to be taken. Students take notes when
being taught by teachers. Preaching is simply relating the
topic to the people, making it apply to their lives. Some will
demand that preaching relate doctrine. It does not hurt to
mention doctrinal issues as you go, but preaching is application.
Many have complicated preaching by refusing to confront sinners
(saved and lost) with their sin and attempting to use sermon
time to teach doctrine. This causes way too much study time and does
little good causing much toil for some knowledge, but nothing
practical for everyday living.
Simple in
purpose.
The purpose of preaching is making application for today's
listeners about what God has said in His Word. Everything else
is teaching.
Simple in
presentation.
Do not confuse with sub-topics and extenuating topics
with a list of sub-points.
Do not take a lot of time to find a list of words that all start
with the same letter.
Bible preachers had a point
(usually just one) and
made the application of that point.
Top
G. Steven Andres
Psalms 45:17
Missionary Evangelist
Copyright - 1996 to 2010 |
