In this message, Wayne McDill speaks of getting back to the basic. He says that we must remember that scripture is the words of GOD and we must understand that without it we are "deep trouble." Where would we be without Scripture? How would our theology have evolved over the generations? Because we have scripture, each generation can rediscover biblical the theology and the worldview. He goes on to argue that both churches and families need to direct more focus to the scriptures and he says that when the scripture is read, it should be read expositionally not casually. 

Lombardi and the Packers years ago, they had a bad first half in a conference game. And when when they went into the locker room for halftime, Lombardi stood up in the midst of the group. They were all quiet. They knew we were in big trouble. He held up a football and he said, gentlemen, this is a football.

We have to get back to basics. So he started trying to tell them they were doing all the basics wrong, the simple stuff, the stuff you don't forget, things that you take for granted. I would say to most of us as fathers and pastors and whatever who believe in the word of God. Gentlemen, this is a Bible. It's the word of God written.

And we, in so many ways, need to go back to the basics of understanding that without it, we are in deep trouble. Because think how our theology would have evolved if we had not had a Bible in generation after generation after generation to turn to in these 2, 000 years and in the years before that for the Old Testament. Just think, if we had not been able to open it up, and every generation of young people coming along can rediscover biblical theology. They can rediscover the biblical worldview because it's here. And we don't have to play gossip.

You know what gossip is? The kids game where you sit in a circle and one has a message, you whispers in another ear and it goes around the circle and when you get to the end, the young person on the end announces what he heard. And it's nothing like what we started out with. Why? In passing from mouth to ear to mouth to ear, it gets lost.

And we get confused. And the subject is lost and the basic truth is lost. And if all we had, now I know there is something to passing the word along through oral communication, but God intended us not to play the gossip game and come out with something different on the end these many generations later, so he gave his word written. It was that important. Now, the problem about it is, is that it has not, in evangelical churches, do you all consider yourselves basically evangelicals?

These are people who believe in the inherent word of God, believe people are lost, need to be saved, believe in missions, that's what an evangelical is. If you believe in that kind of stuff, then in a lot of evangelical churches today, the word of God has taken a backseat to singing, in worship, to preaching, to drama, to media, to skits. And in homes, where in some generations in the past and different times in different generations, fathers sat down and read the word to their families. The word of God's taken a backseat. To television, the internet, and a lot of other entertainment things.

And he's even taking a backseat to a lot of, I would say benign activities, soccer and ball and everything that families do together, vacations that we do together, so that we and some families actually have dinner together, which is a wonderful thing. I mean, even the psychologists, the secular psychologists will tell you that families that have dinner together, their children grow up with some sense. And so, but instead of, instead of reading the word, and then what happens when we do read the word? When we read the word aloud, very often, it sounds like we don't really take it very seriously. It sounds like we're in a hurry to get through it.

I've heard a sermon just recently in which the pastor was preaching along and he read some pretty extensive little passage, five or six, seven verses, and he read through real fast. Why would he do that? To read the text really fast. It was on the screen too. Everything has to be on the screen.

It wasn't as important as getting to what he wanted to say. I mean the really important stuff is the preaching, isn't it? And so how many of you are preachers? We got three, four, five preachers here, six preachers. Okay, take your lumps.

The important stuff is the preaching. And sometimes at homes with fathers, the important stuff is what? The preaching. And what we wanna do today in this session is we wanna talk about something you may have never heard of before till you looked on the program, and that's expository Bible reading. Now, how many of you already heard that term before you read the program.

Well, good, it's not a bad, I mean, it's obvious term, isn't it? Expository Bible reading. Expository preaching means what? What does expository preaching mean? It means to take the words from the text and to tell the audience what it means and what it's saying.

Okay, right, The words from the text are a basis, right? For expository preaching. Many of you in your churches would not like your pastor to just cut up and give a few religious thoughts of a very nice clergyman and think that that was preaching, would you? We wanna hear something explained from scripture. Now you may be in a church where you get a few religious thoughts from a very nice clergyman, unfortunately, but to tell you the truth, we don't think that's a good idea.

Now I have an idea though that what we want to learn is this, interpreting scripture, whether you interpret it for your, I have to excuse my allergies today, I've got to figure out how to solve that, but what we want to do is think about giving the text a voice. One preaching prof said one time, think of the Bible text as a sermon that once was preached and wants to be preached again. Now I like that for preachers. I would say think of the text as a message that once was given and wants to be given again. Otherwise, why was it written down?

Now, in the church where you go to church right now, how many of you, and I hope that the nature of this group and your interest that we have a better ratio than usually I get. How many of you would say that in the worship service where you are in church, a significant portion of scripture is read, not the sermon text, but a significant portion of scripture is read effectively as part of the worship. Hold up your hand. Okay, there's what, 35% of us? Now is it kind of an odd, Think about it.

Is it kind of odd that 2 1 3rds maybe of us go to church where the Bible isn't read aloud except for the sermon text and the pastor usually reads that Or maybe someone reads it and then he gets up to preach. And then, let me ask you this. How many of you would say that the scripture that is read, those of you who raised your hands on what is read, interpretively in such a way that the real meaning comes through, or is it read rather perfunctorily by whoever reads it, whose assignment is to get through it? Is it read well? Okay, our numbers go way down.

Now, for pastors, how many pastors do you think actually have a reading group, get them together and train them how to read? We just get Deacon Schmell Fungus to get up there. You're not familiar with Melvin Schmelfungus? And get him to get up there and read. He never even looks at it before he gets up there.

Or some sister, you know, that's got a nice voice. Get up there and read, she never looks at it before she gets up there, stumbles over a few things. Hopes there's no names in there. I hope there ain't no names in there. And so what happens is, what are we saying about the holy word of God in that.

What are we saying about that? It's not important? And I can open you any, let me just open anywhere here. I like to just let it fall open. Here's a great text, John 13.

You know the text where it washes the feet. And here's what the reading usually sounds like. Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come and that he should depart from this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. And supper being ended, the devil having already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him. Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands and that he had come from God and was going to God, rose from supper and laid aside his garments and took a towel and girded himself.

Now doesn't that grab you? What am I doing when I do this? What does that sound like? A monologue, I mean, monotone, get through it. No, but does that sound normal?

Is that not the way you hear it read? Oh, it is? So it is normal. It's not what's supposed to happen, but let's say, Is it customary? Is this customary the way we, what is that about?

Now when I read this text this way, which is the customary reading style, it sounds fake. Okay, what does it say about my attitude toward the text? Okay, so it's about me, not about the text. I'm nervous. I'm what?

Not connected to it. I don't have any, I got no dog in this fight, right? No investment here. Right, what else does it say? Okay.

It doesn't. It's old. It doesn't tell any story. There's no passion in it? So here's the point.

Let me ask you this. Is it possible for you to read a text aloud, any text, and not interpret it. What does interpreting it mean? Okay, interpreting it, there's several ways we use the word interpret. We use the word interpret to understand.

That is to say, I have to understand, I have to interpret it for myself before I can read it to you, right? Interpret means understand. Interpret also, we use that word to be translate. You ever preach through an interpreter or a? Okay, so you're translating, I have to translate it into what?

Ultimately, I translate it into theology, theological ideas. And then Another way we use interpret is to explain. If I interpret something to somebody, I explain it to that person. Now, so I'm gonna have to interpret it means I'm understanding it and translating it into language, I mean sounds, and I'm explaining it, can I do that just by reading it? I wanna suggest to you something.

Expository preaching is a wonderful thing. That's what I spend my time teaching, along with some other things. The more immediate and direct interpretation of a text is reading it. Because when I step one step away from actually reading the text into commenting on it in a sermon, expounding on it, exhorting, all the other things I would do in a sermon, then I have moved away one notch from the text, right? And I'm now giving you my views rather than letting the text speak directly for itself.

Now I try really hard as an expository preacher to let the text speak through my sermon so that when you go away you say, that's a great word from God, rather than that's a really clever preacher. Now I try to do that, but I'm telling you, I'm still not tightly tied to the text in preaching like I am in reading. Know what I'm saying? So I am, every reading is an interpretation. It may say, this is boring to me.

That reading may say, isn't this boring to me? I don't understand half of it. I'm not even sure it actually ever happened. You with me? And so my interpretation, when the text is read in a worship or around the table at home before the kids go to bed, in the morning, whenever, if I read in that kind of fashion, what I'm doing is I'm saying this is what I think of scripture.

When you say, well, oh, I don't mean that. Really? See, we don't intend that, do we? We don't intend that. It's like nonverbal communication.

Communication is my field, so I think nonverbal's very important. Nonverbal, facial expressions, tone of voice, melodic, the melody of your voice, the rate, the pitch, all the other things, loudness and softness, and all the other things are nonverbals. Gestures, physical, body language, all of that. And so what I'm doing is I have a tremendous capability with a human vocal mechanism to read words in such a way that they, the meaning comes through, right? Let me just say it this way.

The basic thing we're looking for here is to read the meaning and not the sound of the words. Let me say that again. What we want to do is read the meaning of the word. We have three hours to do this. Hold on to your seatbelt, because we're gonna have a good time with it, and some of you are gonna get to be the guinea pigs.

Three, we have to try to say, I want to read the meaning of the text, the meaning of the words of the text. The words have meaning. Yes, and in English they have meaning and it's not hard to understand it. I don't think that the Bible, I mean I have a lot of books I use to understand better what the Bible words mean. And I have to study Greek and Hebrew and all this stuff, my students do.

But a person can open an English Bible. I like this new King James Bible. A person can open this Bible and read it, right? And understand what it says. But what happens instead of reading the meaning of the text, we're reading the sound of the words.

If I read only the sound of the words, It's almost like I'm reading in some other language and assuming that you're gonna pick up on what the sound says. How many of you speak Spanish? Okay, what if I, you speak Spanish too? I'll tell you a story in Spanish, are you ready? In a house in Ibosco, there were three bears, one big bear, one small bear, and one small bear.

What's this story about? The three bears! Right! Now, I can say that, how many of you already figured out that might be about the three bears? You see, why?

Because, and you don't know the language. Because something about the way you tell it gives you a way, Right? So what is happening is, how many of you would be, would you be comfortable if your Bible teacher did what we call eisegesis? Anybody know what that word means? Explain that word.

Eisegesis is when you read meaning into the text. Okay. Exegesis, ex, out of? Coming out of the text. Coming out of the text with its meaning.

Eis egesis, eis means in Greek into. Putting into the text. Do you know that there are people today who believe that the meaning of the text is what you bring to it. Right? The meaning of the text is in the interaction of the person with the text.

The meaning of the text was in the mind of the writer. By the way, he's dead. We don't know what he's got in his mind. But the meaning of the text, I'm biased about this, the meaning of the text is in the words of the text. Words mean things.

Now here's what happens. You would not like your Bible teacher to function in terms of eisegesis, that is reading into the text in his preaching or teaching what he thinks he likes to see there instead of what is there and the writer intended to say in the first place, right? You wouldn't like that, would you like that? What would you like then for a scripture reader to impose on the text his vocal patterns instead of letting the text set the agenda for how his voice sounds. You read me?

There's several ways you can read the Bible. Let's say you can read it silently or aloud, right? You can read it dramatically or simply. Have you heard people who do dramatic reading? And every word is pronounced with such enthusiasm, with such special articulation that you know you're listening to.

What's that guy that reads the Bible on the radio? Yeah, Alexander Scorby, who's an actor, you know, when he recorded, I'm glad he recorded the whole Bible, and it's beautiful if you hear it on the radio sometime. But dramatic Bible reading is not, That's bringing to the Bible an intentionality and a plan for reading it, instead of letting the Bible set the agenda. See? Now, so what happens is we impose our own vocal patterns.

I hear people read all the time in which they read, they do the same rhythm over and over, same thing over and over. Da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da. It doesn't do that. There's nothing in the text that calls for that, Is there? Like if I were to read this 12.

Then Jesus cried aloud and said, he who believes in me, not in me, but in him who sent me, and he who sees me, sees him who sent me. I've come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in me should not abide in the darkness. Da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da. Now what is that? That's an eisegesis of interpretation.

I am bringing into the text a rhythm pattern, a vocal pattern that has nothing to do with the words of the text, and I'm cramming it down on it, and making the sounds of the words, and paying no attention to what it means. I could be reading this in Czech, if I could read Czech, which I can't, or some other language and pronouncing it. It wouldn't make any difference. What I wanna do is challenge you this way. The text was written to be read.

Much of The Bible was written to be read aloud, wasn't it? Do you think? All the epistles of Paul, when he sent them out, do you think they probably passed them around from congregation to congregation? Read this, here's a new letter from Paul. They wrote it to the Laodiceans.

We don't have that one, do we? But let's read it. And then of course, if you go to a Jewish synagogue today, they get the big scrolls down and read from the Torah. It's written to be read aloud. And so, Jesus sat down in the synagogue, remember?

And they opened the scroll to the place where it says what? Spirit of God is upon me, for he's anointed me to preach the good news to the poor and so forth. And he says, today, is this fulfilled in your sight? It's the way they do, they read it aloud, everybody's sitting and listening. Now what I wanna suggest to you is, we have one big problem.

All speech patterns are habit. We have a habit of talking the way we talk. We bring those habits to the reading of the text. We do not let the text say what it says. We read in our way.

Well, that's just the way I am, that's the way I read. Is that okay? That's just the way I read. I got a kind of dull voice and so, or I got a loud voice, or whatever kind of voice you have, you just read the way, no, we don't wanna do that because I want to be, as a reader, a servant of the word. Do you wanna be a servant of the word, to give it a voice, or do you wanna say, that's just me, I'm the key to this whole thing here?

No, I want to say, this is the Word of God. Everywhere I open this book it is rich literature. It is amazing revelation. Everywhere. Listen to this passage from John 13 we read a moment ago.

Now before the feast of Passover when Jesus knew that his hour had come, that he should depart from this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. And supper being ended, the devil having already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him, Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, rose from supper and laid aside his garments, took a towel and girded himself. After that he poured water into the basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with a towel with which he is girded. And he came to Simon Peter and Peter said to him, Lord, are you washing my feet? Jesus answered and said to him What I am doing you do not understand But you will know after this Peter said to him you shall never wash my feet Jesus answered him if I do not wash your feet, you have no part with me.

Now, I'm not the greatest at this, but I'm telling you, I'm trying to think about what's it saying and let the words come through and listen to it. Now, this means I have to work at this, right? Now, some of us probably could sight read. What do you musicians, what does sight reading mean? Just put a piece of music on the thing and play it.

Sight reading is a wonderful gift. A lot of musicians have it, but they have to be good. Sight reading of scripture is something you have to work at and develop as a skill. But when you hear the story read like a story and you hear it like this really happened, wow, I can see it, It's just unfolding before me. It's a whole different story.

It's a different experience. And what I wanna do is, I want us in these, today and in the sessions in the morning, we're gonna practice. Some of you who do not mind being stopped by the coach in mid-word and saying, hold it, let's do that over again, then we will get you to stand and read. And we will practice together how to plan a reading. And we will get hold of the principles for how to do this so that we can give the word a voice and let it be heard.

I feel like a voice crying in the wilderness, frankly, because I don't know anybody's talking about this but me. I'm sure if there's another brother out there somewhere talking about this, I would love to meet him so we can embrace and weep on each other's shoulders at the fact that we're not getting anywhere with it. But I do, I feel like that if we could restore effective reading of scripture to worship and evangelical churches, any kind of church, wouldn't it be wonderful? Wouldn't it be something so that people come and say, wow, listen to that, that's the word of God. And what he's reading about really happened.

Sometimes we read in such a way that it sounds like it's black and white and dull and mythical and fictional and not real because of the way we do it. So what's it gonna take for us to do this? In the first place, the difficult part, the really hard part, is to get out of our rut of the way we usually read. And that's hard because some of you have been in the habit of talking the way you talk for a number of years, decades even. And for you to change that, it's gonna make you feel like your mouth has gone out of whack on you.

It's going to make you feel like your comfort zone is being threatened. And it's going to be it's going to be an odd experience. Now, that's why in the comfort of a very supportive group right here, we can practice and work at this and get an idea of how we can read in such a way as to give the text a voice. Now, let me suggest to you, there's a fellow up at Princeton in the speech department up there who's written a book called Just Say the Word. If you would like to get hold of a book like this in order to teach your congregation, some of the people in your church or whatever else about reading, I would recommend that you consider this book.

It's by Robert Jacks, J-A-C-K-S. It's a very fun book to read because he writes it in a really odd kind of way like he's sitting down talking to you. And he has a lot of examples in there of scripture texts. And he says, his conviction is this, the reading of scripture should be the gem of the service, and the worship service is the setting, and the gem is the word of God. Everybody ought to come and hear the word of God.

Hear it sung, you know, hear it singing, of the Bible ideas and so forth, hear it preached. Now let me suggest this to you. Robert Jacks says, and I think he's got a good idea here, that there are three basic kinds of texts in terms of style in the Bible, and that each one requires a different kind of reading. There are narrative texts. This is a narrative that we just read a little bit of.

A narrative means a story. And it's a story being told. And if you read anywhere in the Gospels, there's a lot of dialogue and teaching, but there's basically, it's a story. In the Old Testament, a lot of narrative. How much do you think of the Bible as a narrative?

Most of it. I mean, you got the Gospels and Acts, right? You got Genesis, and you've got a whole lot of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy that are telling the story even though there's a lot of other stuff in there. You got all the historical books, judges, Joshua judges, Ruth, and even in some of the prophetic books you've got the narrative. So there's a lot of narrative in here.

Now God must have loved a story because he put the Bible in story form. Now if we just open up anywhere in here, I'm looking at, I love to just let it flop open because then I don't have to search. Luke 3. Here is a narrative. Here's what happens when you read a narrative.

What drives the narrative? What moves it along? What do you think? Huh? Okay, action.

The storyline. Introducing characters. It's driven along by the story, the story has to unfold. I like to call this, in order to understand, this is the Once Upon a Time style. Because we, have you ever been to the public library for story time?

And the little kids all gather around on the carpet and somebody is there to read a story. Now I don't think all stories start off with once upon a time, but the ones that do, it's just like there's a great delight when the reader says once upon a time and then goes from there because here is a story. Here's something happening that we wanna follow. People love a story. People have been gathering around campfires and gathering around home fires, and people have been telling stories of the elders of communities and people in churches have been telling stories to one another to explain their life for generations.

Ever since man was created, he started telling his children stories and telling stories to each other, because that's how we explain where we came from and where we're going. So when we open up and when we have a narrative, we've got movement of, we've got events and places and people, and we have to keep those in mind, and it's the once upon a time way of doing it. Here's, I just opened to Luke chapter three. Now in the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, Herod being Tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip Tetrarch of Iteraea, and the region of Traconitis and Licinius Tetrarch of Abilene, while Annas and Caiaphas were high priests, the Word of God came to John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness. And he went into all the region around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.

As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet saying, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make straight paths. Every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill brought low. The crooked places shall be made straight and the rough places made smooth, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God. Then he said to the multitudes that came out to be baptized by him, Brute of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come. Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance and do not begin to say to yourselves, we have Abraham as our father, for I say to you that God is able to raise up children of Abraham from these stones." I love that story.

You think that really happened? I think it did. Wow, I mean, you can open up anywhere and you just find great stuff to read. I mean, back here, talking about narrative, I'm really risking something with these names, I'm telling you. Chapter nine of I Kings, verse 10.

Now when you come to a now it happened, or then, or now, what is that telling you? That's a shift in the scene of the story, isn't it? Now it happened at the end of 20 years when Solomon had built the two houses, the house of the Lord and the king's house. Hyrum, the king of Tyre, had supplied Solomon with cedar and cypress and gold, as much as he desired. That Solomon then gave Hiram 20 cities in the land of Galilee.

Then Hiram went from Tyre to see the cities which Solomon had given him, but they did not please him. So he says, what kind of cities are these which you have given me, my brother? And he called them the land of Cabal, and they are to this day. Then Harim sent the king 120 talents of gold. Now I'd like to know what's behind all that, wouldn't you?

He gave him the cities and the guy didn't like them. These pitiful little towns for all that stuff I sent you. What a story, I mean it's all the way through here, you can open it any. Now when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord, she came to test him with hard questions. She came to Jerusalem with a very great retinue, with camels that bore spices, very much gold and precious stones.

And when she came to Solomon, she spoke with him about all that was in her heart. So Solomon answered all her questions. There was nothing so difficult for the king that he could not explain it to her. Great story. A narrative is the once upon a time style.

We're talking about characters, we're talking about movement, we're talking about letting the text shape it. Now, is that gonna be, is that in my comfort zone? Am I happy with this? I have to say, I'm gonna set aside what my normal speaking patterns are, and I'm gonna try to give this text a voice. That means I've gotta work at it.

Now, the second kind of text that Robert Jacks described in his book that I think is appropriate also is what we would call a didactic text. A narrative first, a didactic. What is a didactic text? A teaching text. Now there's a few of those in the Bible, aren't there?

Where would you find teaching texts? Where the writer's intention was to teach? The epistles is the primary thing in the New Testament. And in the Old Testament you've got some of the law texts that are teaching texts. I mean when I think about the teaching texts and I think about over here in Deuteronomy or Leviticus, I'm thinking about...

Yeah, you got all this stuff you're supposed to do in these texts. I was reading recently because I do this, what do you call it, one year Bible? You read through the whole Bible in one year and you got it all in one little fat book. Like for instance, I'm opening this up. This is a teaching text in Deuteronomy chapter 23.

I wanna make sure I don't get into anything here X-rated. When a man has taken a new wife, he shall not go to war or be charged with any business. He shall be free at home one year and bring happiness to his wife whom he's taken. No man shall take the lore and upper millstones in pledge, for he takes one's living in pledge. If a man is found kidnapping any of his brethren or the children of Israel and mistreats him or sells him, then that kidnapper shall die, and you shall put away the evil from among you.

Take heed in an outbreak of leprosy that you carefully observe and do according to all the priests that Levites shall teach you, just as I commanded you, so you shall be careful to do. Remember what the Lord your God did to Miriam on the way when you came out of Egypt." That's a teaching text, right? Here's what you do, here's what you do, here's what you do. Now I like, really, to go over here into the New Testament and look at the epistles which are teaching texts and just let it come open here and see what it's teaching. Here's chapter four of Ephesians.

Now notice the difference. This is not once upon a time, is it? It doesn't work for once upon a time. This is the teacher wanting you to get what? A storyline, a character, an action, a movement, or what?

None of that. He wants you to get what this time? The ideas, right, the points. He wants you to understand something. So the reading is driven by the ideas.

Chapter 4, Ephesians. I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with long-suffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is above all and through all and in you all. Isn't that great stuff? Wow, I get chill bumps reading it.

Because it is, I love that song that has all that in it. You sing that song at your church, it's got all that stuff in it, this passage. That is a great, that's a great, rich set of ideas. And if you can read it, if you can interpret it and understand it, first you're gonna have to be able to read it. I have an idea that those of you who preach will find out that your interpretation of text for sermons is waiting on your interpretation for reading.

Because If you can't read it with meaning, I doubt you can preach it. Just ahead of that, the paragraph above that. For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might through his spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, That you being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all the Saints What is the width and length and depth and height? To know the love of Christ which passes knowledge that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us, to him be glory in the church by Jesus Christ to all generations forever and ever.

Amen. If you know the Lord, you can't read his word without it affecting you. Because you know the author. You know the one who inspired this word, who it's about. See, a teaching text is about communicating ideas.

And I have an idea that the teacher is passionate about those ideas and wants you to get them. Sometimes the ideas are hard to grasp. I'm thinking about, well, let's see. I'm thinking about Hebrews. This is tough.

This is really hard. And the reading is not easy. I'm just opening up in Hebrews chapter nine verse 16. For where there is a testament, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator. For a testament is in force after men are dead, since it has no power at all when the testator lives.

Therefore, not even the first covenant was dedicated without blood. For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and goats with water, scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, this is the blood of the covenant which God has commanded you. Then, likewise, he sprinkled with the blood both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry. And according to the law, almost all things are purified with blood. And without shedding of blood, there is no remission.

Therefore, it was necessary that the copies of things in heaven should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us." Wow. I tell you what, a teaching text is powerful, driven by ideas. It's like you have a passion to say, I want you to get this. This is too important for you not to get.

And so you keep on, you press and you hope to try to explain it. This is hard stuff. Can you, I mean, you just imagine what happens if we read this in our normal way. Wow. Therefore it was necessary that the copies of things in heaven should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves are better sacrifices than these, for Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, not to appear to us in the presence of God for us.

Not that he should offer himself often, but as the high priest enters the holy place every year with the blood of another, he should... I don't wanna hear that. Really, do you? No, I don't wanna hear that. I'll go, that's a snoozer, yawn.

Now, the third kind of material, I bet you can guess. We have narrative, a story. We have teaching. And then we have a poetic, or he calls it in this book I'm referring to that I recommend to you, empathic, which means it's empathetic, which means it's feeling with. So poetic is good or empathic.

There are some aspects, there are some passages that are empathic that are not in the poetry. Know what I'm saying? I can find you one, I think. I can, huh? I can go over here to...

Well, I probably stuck my head out to say that. There's some, well, it's empathic all right. Chapter four of 2 Timothy. Has this got passion to it, or is it just a teaching? I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who will judge the living and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom, Preach the word.

Be ready in season and out of season. Can you sense Paul's relationship with Timothy, his son? Do you have a son? Do you have a son in the ministry? Do you have those you're mentoring?

Can you sense how important it is that he gets us across? Convince, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and teaching, for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, But according to their own desires because they have itching ears they will heap up for themselves teachers And they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned again to fables But you be watchful in all things Endure afflictions do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. Listen to this next part. Have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me on that day, and not to me only, but also to all who have loved His appearing.

Be diligent to come to me quickly. For Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world and has departed for Thessalonica, Crescents for Galatia, Titus for Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he's useful to me in the ministry. See, this is a letter and it's personal, but it has got so much passion built into it.

So much built in. But we're really ordinarily talking about what when we say poetic or passionate material? Psalms. So we look in Psalms and we think, well here's a great one. I love the way this Bible just opens.

I would say Don't recommend to your young people, here's a way to find the will of God, you know. Put your finger down on a verse, now see if I'd have done that, it would have been bad. Trying to find God's calling for my ministry, trying to see where God's leading me, trying to see who I'm gonna marry, all that kind of stuff, young people are interested in. So I read this verse, it is God who avenges me and subdues the people under me. That won't work, better try another one.

You heard about the guy that was doing this? He opened his Bible and Judas went out and hanged himself. Oh no. He opened it another place, go thou and do likewise. Yeah, what thou doest do quickly.

It's not good to do that, to take things out of context. The number one interpretive principle is what? Context, context, context. Look at the surrounding material. If we go to Psalm 19, which is where I happen to arrive, and we think about empathic material, which means this is filled with something.

I want you to look at Psalm 19, and I want you to tell me two or three things about this. What in the first place is the nature of this material? What's it about? There's a lot of different kind of Psalms, aren't there? Okay, praise.

Glorifying God? Has it got some instruction to it? Maybe so? It is a, is it a poem, part of it is a poem to the word of God? To the law?

It's beautiful stuff. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows His handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge. There's no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line has gone out through all the earth and their words to the end of the world.

In them he has set a tabernacle for the sun, which is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber and rejoices like a strong man to run a race. Its rising is from one end of the heaven and its circuit to the other end, and there is nothing hidden from its heat. The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.

The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether, more to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. Moreover, by them your servant is warned, and in keeping with them there is great reward. Who can understand his errors?

Cleanse me from secret faults. Keep back your servant also from presumptual sins. Let them not have dominion over me, for I shall be blameless, and I shall be innocent of great transgression. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, oh Lord, my strength and my Redeemer. I'll tell you what, you find any book in the world and open it up and find this kind of literature everywhere we just put our finger.

Do you see what I'm saying? I mean this is a miracle book. And it's so rich, and you know what? In just the reading of it, our hearts respond, do they not? They respond.

It's like there is an echo, there is a reception of what God is saying. Now what drives the poetic? We said that the action drives the narrative, the introduction of new characters and new places drives the narrative. We said that the didactic is driven by What? Ideas, truths, teachings.

We are looking at the poetic now and we're saying that it's driven by what? Emotion. Isn't that something? I thought emotion was bad. Frivolous.

No, no, no, not in this book. Not in this book. I listened, see that was a great one of, am I out of time here? I got another. That was a great one, but I want to show you, talk about emotion.

When you go over to Psalm 42, this is filled with emotion. Psalm 42. I want to ask you first, because this is what we're going to talk about tomorrow, and we're going to learn a little bit about how to do this, but I want to ask you, what is the attitude, mood of the writer, emotion of the writer in Psalm 42. What did you say? Sadness?

Longing? Huh? Desperation? Now that's, when you say okay, well if that's his attitude then I have to read this? Here I am all chipper, you know, and Mr.

Happy, and praising God, and that psalm I was just in, and now I come to this one. Do I give it a voice or do I read it my way, huh? An intense yearning, that's a good description, isn't it? It's kind of hard to know, depressed, that's right. Right.

As the deer pants for the water brooks so pants my soul for you. Oh God My soul thirsts for God for the living God When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food, day and night. While they continue to say to me, where is your God? When I remember these things, I pour out my soul within me, for I used to go up with a multitude.

I went with them to the house of God, with a voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept pilgrim feast, why are you cast down? Oh, my soul. And why are you disquieted within me? Hoping God, for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance. Oh my God, my soul is cast down within me.

Therefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan and from the heights of Hermon, from the hill Mizar. Deep calls unto deep at the sound of your waterfalls. All your waves and billows have gone over me. The Lord will command his loving kindness in the daytime and in the night. His song shall be with me.

A prayer to God of my life. I shall say to God my rock, why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy as with a breaking of my bones, my enemies reproach me, while they say to me all day long, where is your God? Why are you cast down, oh my soul? And Why are you disquieted within me?

Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him, the help of my countenance and my God. I have a problem with reading, because I feel that guy. I mean, that believer there, I mean, he gets into me. And I have a hard time reading it. I can't even read Isaiah 53 at all.

I've tried it. It won't work. Now I'm not telling you that's what you should do. I'm a bad demonstration of what you should do here because I'm telling you it gets in, it affects me too much, but I'm saying I would rather be affected by it and not be able to read it than to go through the da da da da da da da business. Because this is a person who loves God, who is depressed, have you ever been depressed?

And in the midst of your depression, have you said, I remember going up to church, praising God and singing songs of joy, I remember that, and then follow immediately, but why are you cast down today, soul? Hope in God. He keeps telling himself, put your hope in God, you will yet rejoice. Reminds me of Michael Card's song about drinking down that dark water and refusing to come close to the point where you take your own life, make a covenant with God. I don't care how depressed I get or how bad things go, I'm never going to do anything like that.

But anyway, what I'm saying is this, there are ways to read the scripture to let it speak. And we have to set our own speech patterns aside. And we have to say, I want to let this writer speak again. And it can happen. And I hope you can do it better than I so that you don't get bogged down in it.

But it is something to release the word and the power of it is just amazing. So I hope that we have a couple of hours tomorrow, and we're going to work on it. And I want to show you what we will do is I will give you these. I'm going to ask you to take these. I know you don't have any time overnight, maybe you do, but I'm gonna ask you to take this little instruction sheet, one of these, and then take some of these texts right here that I have printed out on a big sheet, because this is what I recommend you do.

Print it out, big letters, and go through it and read this instruction. Read this over, because here it says, ask yourself What kind of literature is it? What is the writer's purpose? What's his attitude? What are the verbs in the passage, the action words?

And then go through and mark where pauses ought to be. Underline or double underline the important words that you're gonna hit, you're gonna emphasize, because that's interpretation. And what you're doing is interpreting the text. Because if you underline one word in a sentence, that's an interpretation. You could underline a different one and you'd have a different interpretation.

So what I would like to do is get all the clips off of these things and take some of these off for me, if you will, quickly, and don't mix up the pages though. And we will Find a place, can we spread those out somewhere, maybe out there or somewhere? And you take six texts, I got enough for everybody, six texts and one instruction sheet, and if you get a chance tonight, look it over, read it, and start marking and say, how would I read this? Go over it aloud, try to practice it, work together with your roommates or whatever you're doing. And then let's come back tomorrow and we will do some practicing in here.

And You can read, if anybody's willing to be the guinea pig that can read and get stopped in the middle and say, hold it, hold it, hold it, go back and let's ask this question, then we'll do that kind of stuff and have a good time getting a feel for it, okay? All right, yes, good. So we'll, Scott'll put those out there on the table and you can get them. I don't know what's supposed to happen right now. What's happening?