Lesson 11

Looking for the message the author wanted to transmit to his listeners.

Considering the time and place where they were writing.

Studying the nearest context in the biblical text.

Studying what is taught about that subject in all the prophetic writings.

Making a spiritual application of the message.

We have to discover what original listeners or readers understood when they received the message.

How did Laodiceans understand their message in Revelation?

MESSAGE INTERPRETATION

You are rich… but you have to buy gold.

In 60 b.C.., Laodicea was devastated by an earthquake, but inhabitants rejected Neron’s help, because they were very rich.

Buy white clothes.

Laodicea was famous for its black wool; black clothes were made and exported.

Buy eye salve for your eyes.

Laodicea was famous for its powders for the eyes and a well-known medicine school.

When interpreting a specific text, we have to be aware of the time and circumstances in which the message was delivered.

Is it unpleasant for God if we eat raisin cakes?

“Then the Lord said to me, "Go again, love a woman who is loved by a lover and is committing adultery, just like the love of the Lord for the children of Israel, who look to other gods and love the raisin cakes of the pagans” (Hosea, 3: 1)

In the time of the last kings of the Northern King (Israel), people offered raising cakes to Baal to obtain his blessings when they thought their god had moved away from them. So they were a symbol of worshiping idols.

The problem weren’t the cakes, but worshiping idols.

We have to read the text in the whole message to understand it, reading

before and after the text.

“Jesus said to him, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me."” (Matthew, 19: 21)

According to that text, we have to sell everything and to give to the poor to reach perfection.

Is that what Jesus meant?

Studying the immediate context (Matthew, 19:16-30), we can understand that Jesus told those words to a young man who loved his riches more than loving God.

Jesus made it very clear that we have to love Him more than our possessions and we have to interpret the text in this context.

The interpretation of a specific text has to agree with the entire Bible about that subject.

“And when Jacob had finished commanding his sons, he drew his feet up into the bed and breathed his last, and was gathered to his people” (Genesis, 49: 33)

Some people use texts like this one to say that, once they are dead, saints go to heaven, where they ancestors are.

When we study about the state of dead through all the Bible, we understand that the saints, when they die, don’t go to heaven; and the expression “gathered to his people” is an usual metaphor in Hebrew, that means to die (like we studied last week; see Psalm 146:4; Ecclesiastes, 9: 5-6)

Unlike we do when we study a doctrine or when we prepare a biblical study (exegesis) in the Bible; when we are preparing a preaching (homiletics), we can make a spiritual application of the text and we don’t need to consider specially its original meaning.

A preacher is preparing a sermon about Atonement plan for his church, and he uses this application of Isaac and Rebekah story:

God the Father sends the Holy Spirit to Earth to prepare a Church which will be sent to heaven as the Wife of Jesus Christ.

• Starting with a positive attitude.

Start your study with a prayer, asking for orientation and understanding. Ban your preconceived ideas and all your scepticism from your mind.

• Concentrating on fundamental subjects.

Our work, as Christians, is to keep our approach to the Bible’s central subjects and to the writings of the Spirit of Prophecy, instead of studying only secondary subjects.

• Considering communication problems.

Every study of this kind has to be done remembering the literary and historical context of each declaration. Depending on the receiver of the message, it can be understood in various ways, according to his/her idiosyncrasy.

• Analyzing all the available information about the subject.

To read all the available counsels about certain subject. Our conclusion must be in harmony with all the teachings of her writings.

• Avoiding extreme interpretations.

When we read Spirit of Prophecy, we must avoid extreme interpretations, and we must understand her message in a well-balanced way. We need to read the counsel about any subject starting from both sides of the spectrum.

• Analyzing each declaration in its literary context.

It is important to read her declarations considering the literary structure of the writings.

• Understanding the concept of ideal and real of Ellen White.

She distinguished about God’s ideal plan and the reality of humanity, which sometimes required modifying the ideal part. Therefore, We mustn’t act only according to “the strongest” expressions of her writings, trying to impose them on everyone.

• Using common sense.

She was worried about some people who could act in an inflexible way about her writings, trying to apply her message strictly, and losing the principles which stood behind it.

• Avoiding making the counsels “to prove” things that they weren’t meant to prove.

The Bible and Spirit of Prophecy books weren’t written as divine encyclopaedias for historical and scientific facts. They were made to reveal human condition and to point out the solution through salvation in Christ.

• Making sure she really wrote certain declaration.

The safest way to check the authenticity of an Ellen White’s declaration is to ask for the reference. Once we have the reference, we can check if she said that and we can also study the context and the phraseology to determine whether or not it was correctly interpreted.

“And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He

expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself”

Luke, 24: 27