About hermeneutics

Openline Moody Radio October 8, 2022 hour 1

Micheal Rydelnik:

I want to talk about something with you, Tricia, I looked over the questions that we are hopefully getting to today and I have been noticing about the pattern also, not just with questions I got sent in but frequently, I have ideas of about why people have questions, and part of it is, I think that people don't realize that the bible is written in the way that we speak. It's written with figures of speech, and so although we believe that the bible is literally true, I like to say it is realistically true. Because it is real, it is not always literal. I mean when the Lord Jesus call Herod that old fox, right? Do you think he has a bushy tail?

Tricia Mcmillan:

No

Michael Rydelnik:

No, What does it mean, do you think?

Tricia Mcmillan:

He was sly and cunning

Michael Rydelnik:

There you go ....

Tricia Mcmillan:

Like a fox ...

Michael Rydelnik:

Yeah, anymore than you say it's raining cats and dogs, I mean it's a figure of speech

Tricia Mcmillan:

Right

Michael Rydelnik:

An idiom and in any case, what people do? They will take a figure of speech and say that's not literally true. Now, there's another thing that I noticed people do, again in terms of realistic language is that they want all numbers to be exactly precise and sometimes the bible uses round it off numbers. The bible speaks in general terms. Now, sometimes they are very precise, if you look at the prophecy of Daniel 9, I think the prophecy goes right down to the day and sometimes it will give precise amount of time for something happening, but sometimes the bible speaks in round numbers and then when it does have a precise number, people start shouting "Contradiction, contradiction!" Now, I suppose sometimes that happens in real life too. Don't you think?

Tricia Mcmillan:

I think so. It happens to my husband and I. He's a big picture guy, he can summarize things very well and I get stuck in the minutiae. He might say "There might be around 10 people" and I say no, there were twelve ...

Michael Rydelnik:

Yeah

Tricia Mcmillan:

As if he is wrong but he's not, there were about ten ...

Michael Rydelnik:

Exactly. It's just that ...

Tricia Mcmillan:

But there were twelve. They were accurate stories... as we were telling them...

Michael Rydelnik:

I always say that as best as I can tell, the birth of the Messiah was in 4 or 5 BC, now that we calculated and the death and resurrection happens in the year 33 and that would make the beginning of Jesus's ministry about the year 29, 30 somewhere around there...but Luke says when the Lord Jesus begins his public ministry, he was around 30. Now, if you were born in 4 BC and this is 29, He was about 33, 32, you know zero year, so he goes from -1 to +1 BC, the next year is 1 AD, so he's about 32 or 33 when he began his earthly ministry, which I feel totally comfortable that he is around thirty. Other people will say that can't be because he has to be 30, exactly. And so they take the year 30 as an alternate date for the year of the crucifixion.

Tricia Mcmillan,

Yes, yes.

Michael Rydelnik:

I want to tell everyone. Everyone take a deep breath, when you see these things, many of the alleged contradictions that you see in scripture or many of the confusing aspects of it are from being overly wooden literal. Not allowing round it off number, not allowing figures of speech, and if we would just do that, we wouldn't have trouble. Now, that does not mean that it's not true, I mean that's what were talking about before. When Nate, you mentioned would be more general and you would be more specific but you were both telling the truth. We are not saying that the bible has an error or a figure of speech is an error or that a rounded number is an error, it's just an alternative way of talking. I think it's just important that as a general rule, when you read the bible, don't read it in a wooden literal fashion and I think it will serve answering some of the questions that people have. So, that's a little 'hermeneutical', that's a big word, interpretive, that's what hermeneutics means, interpretive guidelines to recognize that the bible speaks of real speech that we use all the time.

Tricia Mcmillan:

Where's the place to know if this is a specific number that have meaning or to know in Daniel that this is the specific number versus say 'Exodus'?

Michael Rydelnik:

When you calculate it, when it seems it is very precise, it is very precise. Well, you know what, if you have 2 numbers and they are close to each other and one is a rounded number and one is a little bit more precise with more details, then you would know, one is rounded and the other is more precise. I guess that's how you would do it.

The meaning of the term 'Evangelical'

Open line on moody radio Oct 29, 2022 hour 1

Dr Michael Rydelnik:

Tricia, as you drag in the mailbag, I see you are holding a book -

Tricia Mcmillan:

Yes

Dr Michael Rydelnik:

It's our current resource "The fifty most important theological terms". It's a great help. Here's why. I ask you: what is a good word in that book that most people don't understand and you have picked one that is spoken so often but most people don't understand it.

Tricia Mcmillan:

It is. It is the word 'Evangelical'. It is used a lot in christian circles and a lot in the secular world, even the secular world is starting to use it. And so it gets thrown around a lot and I thought we might know what it means or what it used to mean but what does evangelical mean?

Dr Michael Rydelnik:

I was in seminary 43 years ago and I have a professor explain the word to me. I have never understood it before. I thought it meant someone who is an evangelistic person, someone who want to share the gospel, right? That's not what it means. Does it?

Tricia Mcmillan:

No

Dr Michael Rydelnik:

It refers to someone who believes in certain fundamentals of the faith. That is a simple explanation. Fundamentals of the faith like the doctrine of inspiration of the bible, the inerrancy of the bible, the full deity of the Lord Jesus, the tri-unity of God, the need for personal faith decisions in the Lord Christ Jesus, substitutionary atonement and His resurrection. Right, that's what it's talking about, someone who believes that but also someone who, compared to fundamentalists in the past, who were culturally closed to society, evangelicals want to engage society. That was how the term developed ...Now, I think it's when it gets thrown around, and most people use it to mean, just as I understood it to be evangelistic, don't you think?

Tricia Mcmillan:

Yeah. Or even like right wing fundamentalist...

Dr Michael Rydelnik:

Right, their political perspective ...exactly. So, that's a great term and one that we really should understand ...

Where did the Israelites get their supplies in the desert

Open line on moody radio October 15, 20122, second hour

Question from listener:

I have a question about when the Israelites are in the desert, in Exodus and Leviticus, we have all kinds of talk about the fire on the altar, about the lamps not going out, we have serveral million people cooking food to eat, they are in the desert, I am wondering where they got wood, where they got oil to keep the lamps burning, where they got the grain for the grain offering?

Dr Michael Rydelnik:

They have truck stops along the way

Listener:

Ha ha ha

Dr Michael Rydelnik:

It seems to me, we presume a couple of things, one is that in the wilderness there's no trees, no shrubs, nothing like that and there are little areas of oasis that there are trees and there is shrub. I mean the real question is in the wilderness is where did they get water? And they go places where there is water and sometimes the water is bitter, remember? It has been made sweet and other places Moses have to strike or speak at the rock for the water to come forth, right?

Listener:

But God does that miraculously ...

Dr Michael Rydelnik:

But, my point is that when you have those places that are oasis in the desert, that there is shrub trees all around and so you do have them in the desert and people have access to that. Secondly, with what we know with the story of Joseph, is that there were Ishamaelites who were working as traders going from the north through the fertile crescent down to Egypt and they have to pass through the Sinai peninsular and so it seemed to me that they would likely be encountering people, getting grain, getting oil, things like that, traders, so when I say truck stops, I was only joking but there were traders that were passing through and back then, people believe in free enterprise too and so they saw all those people in the wilderness, the traders would say ah! let's pass through there and we will sell goods to them! So, that's what happened.