The Subject of Hermeneutics

 When I was in my early 20's after I had been a Christian for a couple of years I had an experience with the Lord that led me to want to go to bible school. My circumstances prevented me from being able to attend a bible school, and so the other option was to take a correspondence course by mail. And so with all the hopes of being called into the ministry, I enrolled in the P.A.O.C. Pentecostal Assemblies Of Canada, ministerial course. 

I got a list of the courses I would be taking, and did not even recognize the subject names let alone knew what I was going to be learning. I did discuss it with a bible student from the college and he explained that the Pentateuch is the study of the first five books of the Bible, from the term Penta meaning five and Teuch meaning scrolls, or books.  Soteriology is the doctrine of salvation. That Eschatology is the study of end times theology. Of course Christology is the study of  who is Jesus Christ. And then there is Hermeneutics. which deals with how to interpret the biblical texts.

As it turns out, I only got through 10 of the 20 courses and did not complete all of the subjects, but what I did learn was a good launching pad for further study on my own. Many years later, I took another correspondence course with the Florida Theological Seminary, because the president of the school had spent some time learning from Willie Hinn, who was preaching the doctrine of  Universal Reconciliation of all things. Willie Hinn is who I mentioned early in these posts as having a profound effect on my Christianity and beliefs, and who the Holy Spirit used as the catalyst to reveal a greater understanding of what Paul calls, "the height and width and depth of the knowledge of God in Christ Jesus". 

So then, Harold Shindoll, the president of Florida Theological Seminary, began to introduce class subjects that now centered around the teachings of Soteriology (salvation) as including ALL of God's creation. And Christology, with teaching "that Christ is the savior of ALL men, especially of those who believe." (1 Tim 4:10) And an Eschatology that believes it is more about bringing heaven to earth, than it is about getting Christians to leave earth in the hands of the devil while we sit on a cloud playing our harps and watching God's good creation go to hell! And since I was learning to believe these very same teachings of the school, and I wanted to have a disciplined study of these doctrines, and so I enrolled in the correspondence course offered by the FTS and this time completed their Assoc. degree of Theological studies.   

Of course, all of the conflicting doctrines that many different church's teach comes from their method of Hermeneutics. How they interpret what the Scripture teaches.  It is not always easy to know what is true and what is not, which explains why there are so many churches.  Now of course there is more that unites us than divides us, and church history has had a long long "checkered past" to say the least. (All one has to do is a cursory study of church history after the book of Acts, to know some of the regrettable and disturbing actions of people who called themselves Christians, who were some of the worst offenders of atrocities against mankind, even so called brothers in the faith!)

But I also believe that what we believe about God has everything to do with what God has revealed to us by the Holy Spirit, (which belief of course comes as a part of Hermeneutics). along with what we have been taught by the churches we attend, which can help to explain why some people either reject the church they were raised with that doesn't answer their questions, or just quit church altogether thinking they are all the same, or as in my case, where I was overwhelmed with the presence of God unexpectedly while watching a sermon on video in my living room. 

The very first sermon I heard Willie Hinn preach in that video was part of a series called "Mistaken Identity". And indeed if we can't even get the character of God correct, or the plan and purpose for His creation correct from the very beginning, then how can we expect to live our lives in accord with that plan or purpose?

Getting that right all comes down to how you interpret what the Scriptures teach, and how it is applied to your life, and so I feel the urge to write the next several posts about some common verses in Scripture that we often quote out of context to what is actually being said which then change our beliefs into something different than what the bible actually teaches.  All of that comes down to "rightly dividing the Word of Truth" though correctly using  The Subject of Hermeneutics