Monday, March 17, 2008
Explore the Bible for Yourself, Part 14 of 52
IDEA: Interpretation is asking questions beyond the questions we asked in observation.
PURPOSE: To help listeners think of how they would ask questions of the biblical text.
Have you ever seen a cow chewing its cud? What is it actually doing? When the Hebrews talked about meditation, that was the word they used.
How does this picture relate to meditation?
I. Interpretation, the second step in Bible study, is really a form of meditation. You turn the passage over in your mind.
Having seen what is there, you have to ask what it is there for: what do you make of it?
Look at Psalm 23.
In the first line, we've observed that Jehovah is likened to a shepherd. So the interpretive questions would be:
What are the characteristics or attitudes or functions of a shepherd? Why would Jehovah be called a shepherd?
What are the implications, then, of David saying, The Lord is my shepherd?
In observation we noted the personal pronoun my. What is implied in that relationship? Is it important that the emphasis be personal?
The psalmist implied in verse 1 that he was a sheep. What is the nature of a sheep? Why does a sheep need a shepherd? What's the relationship between the two of them?
Who is it who makes this statement about God and about himself? When do you think he wrote this psalm?
How do the two statements of verse 1 relate?
There is no express connection, so we have to decide what that relationship is.
I shall not want is in the future, in contrast to the first statement in the present tense. Does the future include the present?
Why not use the present in the second clause?
Why want? What is important in this? Is it synonymous with desire?
Does it include all my wants, physical and spiritual? Why not use another term like need?
David goes from the positive (first clause) to the negative (second clause). Is there a reason for this?
What is the relationship between this verse and all that follows?
Is what follows a cause for this statement, or the effect of this statement? On what basis would you decide that?
When you read, He makes me to lie down in green pastures, etc., what does that refer to?
Why does the author shift from third to second-person pronouns in verse 4, shifting from talking about the shepherd and talking to the shepherd?
What is the relationship between "paths of righteousness" and "yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death"?
He restores my soul?
What was that for a sheep?
What might that have looked like for David?
