Two words we might hear from an educated preacher which we probably don’t understand are exegesis and hermeneutics.
Now I’m 55 my exegesis of any page in my Bible is that it’s simply a blurry piece of paper that’s got lots of random ink marks on it. But when I use the hermeneutics of a pair of reading glasses my exegesis changes completely, and the page has now become an incredible piece of text!! That’s how I remember what those words mean.

The Industrial Chain Analogy.

Imagine a large chain made up of individual links. If we pull any one link, by necessity all the others will eventually follow that same direction. 

Now let’s look at applying this idea to the chain of events that’s involved in forming our personal understanding and application of the Bible.

Please read the opening paragraph on this page again. We should hopefully see that logically, the first and most important link should be our hermeneutic or viewing lens because it goes on to shape our exegesis, ie our understanding, our doctrine. And just like reading glasses bought clarity to my Bible, if the hermeneutic was a set of rose coloured spectacles, then the Bible and our doctrine will appear rose coloured too. We need to look through lenses that bring clear and untainted doctrine.

That’s crucial because doctrine goes on to form our Christian worldview and Christian worldview should then provide the context for our Christian cultural expression of our faith ie the way we live. Logically that should be the correct order. But in reality we can, and people do, take any one of these other links in the chain, make them the leading one and allow all the others to eventually follow that direction. And anyone with a theology degree has studied the results of all those combinations! (Please remember that, and when you see a person with a degree in theology, it doesn’t necessarily mean they have a greater illumination than others, or are qualified to preach, it simply means they’ve studied more of mens often questionable ways to interpret the Bible – and may therefore in reality actually, although invariably unknowingly, be dangerous preachers)!

Back to different links in the chain leading the way and let’s look at one example. If a person gets particularly attached to the idea of the rapture, that person will make doctrine the leading link, rather than it being second in line where it should be, and all the other links will follow suit to conform with, or even form doctrine. Our hermeneutic, which should be the leading link, is now forced to toe the line and must become that of a more literal interpretation of the Bible, at the expense of context, audience relevance or figurative language for example. That doesn’t necessarily mean the persons rapture doctrine is correct however, it could be that this link is simply driving the bus and the other links are forced to come along for the ride – because all these things are inextricably linked and which ever link we start with, all the others move accordingly.

Sadly, so many secular people today make their worldview the first link, very often their own preferred, indoctrinated, or preconceived ideas, and therefore the Bible must be a completely stupid or outdated book – a good part of that due to having had the correct viewing lens taken from us in our schools. Within so-called Christendom too, so often today we see the Christian context lifestyle link driving the bus with our wishy-washy churches. Here, doctrine and hermeneutics are forced to toe the line when we get statements like “God is a God of love” being taken right out of context. How often do we see that nowadays! I do think however that there are still some people around who would agree that the church isn’t exactly in the greatest place at the moment and wouldn’t it be logical to conclude that maybe today’s mainstream churches have got their leading link wrong, their hermeneutic? And I hope you can see that this is important because our hermeneutic directly relates to how we are living our life now. Many Christians appear to be living a carefree existence because ‘God’s in charge and has a rapture lined up for us which will take us out of any coming trouble’, but can we be sure of that? You see, all it needs is a slight change of hermeneutic and all that falls apart. Can you also see how a potential enemy can use this doctrine to neutralise the church? It infuriates me when I hear carefree Christians and even pastors quoting things like “oh God is in charge, everything is okay, all things work for our good”.

In this section I want to introduce what’s most likely a new hermeneutic to you, a different set of lenses to read the Bible with, a set that genuinely cleared up the blurry parts for me, and much of the confusion we all often have. It’s a hermeneutic they don’t teach us nowadays, even though Paul endorsed it, and you’ll see later why I believe it’s not taught today. May I gently now ask you, the reader, to simply listen to what follows without responding to that urge to correct me that I know will well up inside you!
You can rest knowing that I know the scriptures you know, and I’ve still got my old pair of what are today’s standard hermeneutical lenses, and after 20 years listening to preachers in church I know Bible interpretation through these lenses pretty well now without others keeping on telling me! I grew up being taught all about raptures, tribulations, antichrists and beasts!
This here is, generally speaking, just presenting Paul’s hermeneutic to you, one that actually makes instant sense of all these pre trib, post trib or mid trib things that confuse us all, one that they will almost certainly not teach you and me in a UK church today. Then you can think about it for yourself and then I’ll be much more happy to engage in discussions!

That hermeneutic is called….

Typology or Types and Shadows.

I always keep Occam’s Razor in mind and keep things straightforward, and this is Wiki’s definition of typology, and for Wiki it’s a remarkably good one…

“Typology in Christian theology and biblical exegesis is a doctrine or theory (hermeneutic) concerning the relationship of the Old Testament to the New Testament. Events, persons or statements in the Old Testament are seen as types (or shadows) prefiguring or superseded by antitypes, events or aspects of Christ or his revelation described in the New Testament”.

Think of the shadow that a bicycle makes on a sunny day. Depending how we position the light source it is possible to make it very difficult to even identify the real object as a bike from it’s shadow. But, if we observe from a more appropriate angle it should be fairly obvious from the shadow what is making that shadow, even though the finer detail about the bicycle will always be lacking.
So it is with the relationship of those things in the Bible pre Christ and those things post Christ. If we position the Light source correctly it becomes easy to spot the New Testament realities that cast the Old Testament shadow. We must put Jesus, the Light of the World, in His correct place.

If you Google ‘typology Ligonier’ there’s a much better scholarly description on there but personally I think many scholars miss the bigger picture by not being able to see the wood for the trees.

Paul unquestionably validates typology in 1 Cor 10 but Matthew’s gospel, the gospel specifically written to Jews to show them how Jesus is the fulfilment or antitype of Old Testament scripture, also alludes to, if not clearly validates typology as a valid hermeneutic right through the whole book (ditto the book of Hebrews).

One specific example of typology, and a very important one is that of Moses and the brazen serpent which John validates in John 3. The Old Testament account of the type was clearly literal but equally clearly the real truth for this current dispensation is in the typological interpretation, the antitype, looking to Jesus hanging on the pole for our salvation.
This unquestionably shows us that literal interpretation is not always a valid hermeneutic for today, crucifying a snake and looking at it will save nobody today, and hopefully from this example we can see how and why there are so many different teachings and Bible interpretations in the broader Church – because we all have differing levels of illumination.
I have heard this next verse being taught as follows, and although the word referred to is only used once in the Bible so it’s hard to work out a clear meaning, the guy was an ‘expert’ in Greek and in Rom 12:6 he interpreted Paul as telling us “to prophecy (teach) according to this ‘analogia’ (analogical) lens of our faith” ie we teach according to our analogical illumination, not necessarily literal but relative to the current dispensation.

Now a question. Have you heard of typology? You’ve maybe been taught about Adam being a type of Jesus from Romans 5 but they certainly never taught me typology as a hermeneutic in the 20 years that I used to sit in a church every Sunday morning. In fact as I’ve systematically returned to ask most of the influential people in my early days what they really know now I’m a little more clued up, invariably they’ve never even heard of the word typology (incredible isn’t it, preachers, teachers and housegroup leaders, the guys I once trusted)!
Why?
Well, you will see in the next section how typology completely exposes by far and away the biggest deception in this modern era of world history. Typology was so commonly understood in the 1800’s it’s literary style can be seen even in secular poetry and this was a major hurdle this modern deception had to deal with if it was to succeed. The introduction of the Bible College though in the early 1900’s was the answer to this today and today typology is almost unheard of.

I’ll leave it there for this section, but I hope there’s been enough here to encourage you to work your way through the next section which will be much longer and may take many weeks, months or in my case what was years to be granted the grace/illumination to perceive what is written there.

Please don’t give in though, the Bible and its illumination is incredible in that it doesn’t matter which ever level we read it on, to an open hearted reader it makes sense and is a wonderful revelation at the time as well as a stepping stone to the next level.