1. When the Question Comes

A pastor in a small church in Mexico stands before thirty-five people on a Sunday morning. He has worked two jobs all week and slept four hours the night before. A woman raises her hand. Her son is sick. “Pastor,” she asks, “does the Bible say that if I have enough faith, God will heal him right now?”

That question may sound simple. It is not. Behind it stand a thousand sermons the woman has heard on television. Behind it stand the cults that have visited her door. Behind it stand the prosperity teachers who told her that faith is a switch — flip it and God must obey. And in front of that pastor stand thirty-five souls who will believe whatever he says next.

This is why we study hermeneutics. Not to become professors. Not to impress anyone with long Greek words. We study it because a real woman has a real son and she needs a real answer from a real Word of God — and we, the pastors, must be ready to give it.

2. The Word in My Own Heart

A boy was reading his Bible when his father caught him. The father snatched the book and threw it into the fire. The boy was still smiling. “Why are you smiling?” the father asked. The boy pointed to his chest and answered, “Because you cannot burn the Bible in here.”

I was raised in a home like Timothy’s. The Bible was loved and believed. When I was a child I accepted it as the Word of God because that is what my parents taught me. As I grew older my confidence was shaken from time to time — that happens to every honest believer. But I know now that a simple, childlike confidence in the Bible is the goal of every Christian, and especially of every pastor. The Word of God is the well from which we draw water for thirsty people. If the well is poisoned, our people will die.

3. Paul’s Charge to Timothy

In a cold Roman cell, an old apostle wrote to a young pastor. The letter is Second Timothy. The civilization around him was rotting. Paul knew his head was about to roll. And the line he wrote to his son in the faith was this:

Two words sit at the center of that verse: rightly dividing. The Greek word means to cut a straight line — what a carpenter does, what a road-builder does, what a farmer does in plowing a furrow. Paul does not tell Timothy to add to the Word. He does not tell him to subtract from it. He tells him to handle it straight. This is the calling of every pastor. The Word is not ours to remodel. It is ours to deliver.

4. Ezra’s Heart — Study, Do, Teach

Six hundred years before Timothy received his letter, a priest named Ezra came back from Babylon to a ruined Jerusalem. The temple was rebuilt but the people had forgotten the Law. Ezra walked into that mess carrying a scroll. And in chapter seven verse ten the Scripture tells us how he did it:

Mark those three things. Study. Do. Teach. Ezra did not prepare his facts, his logic, or his intellect. He prepared his heart. And the order matters. He studied before he taught. He obeyed before he taught. He did not climb into a pulpit to instruct others in commandments he himself had not obeyed.

This is the pastor’s threefold posture, and it is the trellis on which our whole course hangs. We may be Bible students. But are we Bible doers? And are we teaching what we ourselves have first studied and obeyed? A pastor who studies and does not do becomes a hypocrite. A pastor who does and does not teach becomes a hoarder. A pastor who teaches and has not first studied becomes a danger. All three — study, do, teach — together.

5. What the Scriptures Are

Before we learn how to interpret the Bible, we must know what we are holding. Paul tells Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:15–17 five things about the Scriptures. Each one shapes how a pastor approaches the text.

The Scriptures are teachable. “From childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures.” Timothy learned the Bible at his mother’s knee. The Jews said it was better for a child to forget his own name than to forget the Law of God. Parents and pastors are both teachers. A pastor who cannot make the Bible understandable to a child has not yet understood it himself.

The Scriptures are holy. “Sacred letters,” the Greek says. The word holy means set apart, different. Voltaire said, “One hundred years from now the Bible and Christ will be forgotten.” The very room in which he spoke those words is now used as a Bible storehouse. Henry V of England made Bible-reading a capital crime. His decrees could not shorten its life by one minute or lighten its weight by one ounce. This is not an ordinary book.

The Scriptures lead to salvation. They are “able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.” Notice — we are not saved by the Bible. The Bible is not a magic charm. Satan knows the Bible and is not saved. We are saved by trusting Christ who is revealed in the Bible. The Word points us to the Person.

The Scriptures are inspired by God. “All Scripture is God-breathed.” In Athens, the Parthenon has not one straight line in its whole structure — the Greeks built it crooked because they knew the human eye sees crookedly. We cannot trust our own eyes. We can rest on the Word of God.

The Scriptures are valuable — for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness. William Bieder-Wolf asked, “Did you ever hear a man say, I was a beast as a husband, and then I studied a little geology — and now my brutality is changed to kindness? Did you ever hear that?” No. But the Word of God has transformed millions.

6. How People Respond — The Five C’s

A second sermon, on 2 Peter 1:21, taught me five reactions people have when the Word of God comes among them. Watch for all five in your own church.

Some contend with it. They argue. They divide. Charles Spurgeon said, “Defend the Bible? I would as soon defend a lion.” The Word does not need our protection. Set it loose; it defends itself.

Some confuse it. They twist it. The United States alone has more than three hundred fifty sects and cults, most of them claiming to base their teaching on the Bible. Many use the same words, the same verses, the same services — but preach another gospel. The serpent in Eden was the first to do this: “Has God really said?”

Some condemn it. B. H. Carroll, who later founded Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, was once a bitter young man who rejected the Bible openly. In 1865 his mother begged him to attend one camp meeting. The preacher asked, “You who stand aloof from Christianity — have you found anything worth having where you are?” Carroll’s heart answered, “Nothing under the whole heaven; absolutely nothing.” That night the bitter scholar was broken.

Some conceal it. King Jehoiakim burned Jeremiah’s scroll. God told Jeremiah to write another. In our day Satan no longer burns Bibles. He lets us own them and leave them on shelves.

Some confirm it. Billy Graham, in a crisis of doubt, climbed the Sierra Nevada mountains with his Bible. He knelt and prayed, “Father, I cannot understand many things in this book. I cannot come intellectually all the way, but I accept it by faith to be the authoritative, inspired Word of the living God.” From that hour his ministry was unstoppable.

Five reactions — contend, confuse, condemn, conceal, confirm. Your people will show you all five.

7. The Dangers in Our Day

Three dangers press on the small-church pastor today, and a pastor who cannot interpret his Bible will fall into them.

The prosperity twist. I have known pastors who used Jeremiah 29:11 — “I know the thoughts I think toward you, thoughts of peace and not of evil” — at every funeral and every financial crisis. The verse was written to Jews in Babylonian exile facing seventy more years of captivity. When the pastor learned the context, his ministry deepened. His people stopped expecting magic and started trusting God in suffering.

The cult twist. Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Moonies, and others knock on doors with the same Bible in their hands. They speak the same words but mean different things. Without good interpretation, your people will mistake error for truth — because error speaks fluent Bible.

The modernist twist. Other teachers claim the name of Christian but deny the inspiration of the Word, the virgin birth, the resurrection, the miracles. The greatest decline of churches in the last generation has been in those that lost the Bible’s authority. People will not come to hear the ideas of men. They will come to hear a word from God.

8. Guard the Truth — Soldier, Athlete, Farmer

Paul gave Timothy three pictures of the pastor who handles the Word rightly.

Be a soldier — that is dedication. No sideline. One mission. You cannot follow Christ while pursuing five other aims.

Be an athlete — that is discipline. No shortcuts, no cutting corners, no breaking the rules. An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules.

Be a farmer — that is diligence. The farmer who expects a harvest in October must work the soil in April. Bible study is field labor. The Word does not yield to the lazy.

Dedication, discipline, and diligence. Three pictures, one calling. Combine them with Ezra’s three actions — study, do, teach — and you have the working life of a faithful pastor.

9. The Road Ahead — Seven Principles

In the units to come we will learn seven principles that govern how a pastor reads his Bible faithfully. I introduce them here so you know where we are going.

First, exegesis before application — draw the meaning out of the text before you carry it into the pulpit. Second, Scripture interprets Scripture — let clear passages explain difficult ones. Third, parables are not allegories — most of Christ’s parables make one principal point, not a dozen hidden ones. Fourth, many miracles are also enacted signs — they can preach as well as demonstrate power and compassion. Fifth, genre determines interpretation — read poetry as poetry, narrative as narrative, prophecy as prophecy. Sixth, literal does not always mean literalistic — Jesus called Himself a door without becoming wood. And seventh, the goal of interpretation is transformation — we are not aiming at information but at changed lives.

Each principle will get a unit of its own. Each will rest on the Bible itself, not on a textbook.

10. A Closing Charge

The last words Paul ever wrote to Timothy were four: Preach the Word. Be ready in season and out of season. Convince the doubting. Rebuke the sinning. Encourage the fearful. Do it in the presence of God.

You are not studying this course to earn a credential. You are studying it so the woman in your church with a sick son will hear a Word from God when she asks her question. That is enough reason to study every page that follows.