Curt Harlow [00:00:00]:
Hello, my friend, and welcome to the Bible study podcast with an extra special edition here. Because we have no guest. This topic is so important, so critical. I'm like, why have a guest? We're just going to have the frontal lobe of thrive college, Dena Davidson, and yours truly. You want to tell them this? Kind of my idea. You want to tell them what we're going to do today?
Dena Davidson [00:00:22]:
Yes. Okay. So Curt basically said, what if we give them each our list of the five most common Bible interpretation mistakes and then we'll. We'll not compare and contrast like together before. We'll just give it live and then see how much our lists go together and what is different.
Curt Harlow [00:00:41]:
So I have not seen Dena's list. She has not seen mine. We both have talked in the past a lot about common mistakes. We talk about the Thrive students quite a bit. Common mistakes people make when interpreting the Bible. But the question here is, are my five top Bible interpretation mistakes different than Dena's? Yes.
Dena Davidson [00:01:00]:
I thought you were going to say better, like it was a competition.
Curt Harlow [00:01:02]:
Yeah.
Dena Davidson [00:01:03]:
There's a little competitiveness.
Curt Harlow [00:01:04]:
Yeah.
Dena Davidson [00:01:05]:
Who's more accurate?
Curt Harlow [00:01:06]:
Who's more. Who knows what's wrong the most? This is. Welcome to the fault finding episode where we criticize everyone else's scholarship on the Bible. Okay, let's just get into it because the. Some of these are really pretty innocent traps. People that really want to study and interpret the Bible correctly fall into them all the time. So we're going to be helpful here and try to help you avoid some hermeneutical, exegetical, wrong interpretation traps. You want to read your list first? Okay, sure.
Curt Harlow [00:01:40]:
What are your five?
Dena Davidson [00:01:41]:
Okay. All right. Number one is reading it out of context.
Curt Harlow [00:01:44]:
Okay.
Dena Davidson [00:01:45]:
But what I specifically mean is the whole Bible context. So a lot of times we talk about context, like the verses around it. That's one of. One of my later mistakes. But out of context, meaning the whole Bible. So, like, I think of the story of Ananias and Sapphira where they agree to keep back some of the money and they. God kills them. So if we read that out of the whole Bible context, we're like, I guess God kills people for holding back some money and lying about it.
Dena Davidson [00:02:10]:
So that's the first mistake. The second.
Curt Harlow [00:02:12]:
So. So can I comment? So let me see if I understand that one. You're saying that old saying that we say a lot, which is the Bible was written for you, but it was not written to you, so you have to understand who wrote it. And. Okay, good. Whole Bible.
Dena Davidson [00:02:25]:
And also, like, not Genesis to Revelation. If you don't understand the big story that's going on, you're going to, like, misunderstand certain chapters. It's like if you were to watch your favorite movie, but you only watched your favorite scenes and you didn't know the rest of the story, you would have no idea what those scenes meant.
Curt Harlow [00:02:42]:
It's like if you try to interpret who Jar Jar Binks is and you only saw the. The. The snippets of the one movie where Jar Jar Binks first appears. You didn't watch the holy Star wars universe.
Dena Davidson [00:02:54]:
Exactly.
Curt Harlow [00:02:55]:
True confession, old Bible, not a contest.
Dena Davidson [00:02:58]:
Unpopular opinion. I loved Jar Jar Binks. Oh, I know. I'm the only human that, like, love that character. Can't be trusted.
Curt Harlow [00:03:05]:
Okay, number one, whole Bible context. I like it.
Dena Davidson [00:03:08]:
Two, misinterpreting the genre. Like, taking the hermeneutical principles of how to interpret one genre and importing them into another.
Curt Harlow [00:03:17]:
Gotcha.
Dena Davidson [00:03:18]:
Gonna be on yours too. I know it. Okay, number three, another way to say context, but specifically ignoring the verses around it. Right? So, like, people get so fixated on verse six, they're like, guess what verse six means for me in my life? And you're like, well, verse 5 and 4 and 3 and also 7 says.
Curt Harlow [00:03:35]:
Something the whole chapter before and the whole chapter after.
Dena Davidson [00:03:38]:
Exactly. So. So ignoring the verses around it. Okay, the fourth mistake, not reading carefully so we can unpack this one in more depth later. But Romans 8:28, I talk about, why does God allow evil all the time? And oftentimes I will say, hey, can you quote me Romans 8:28, we know that in all things God works. And then people say, for good.
Curt Harlow [00:04:00]:
Right?
Dena Davidson [00:04:01]:
And I'm like, that's not the verse. You're literally just forgetting the whole verse. You're not reading it carefully. And the fifth one, maybe my favorite one to talk about, is reading human motivations into God's actions.
Curt Harlow [00:04:17]:
Oh, I like that one.
Dena Davidson [00:04:19]:
Yes.
Curt Harlow [00:04:20]:
So anthropomorphizing God.
Dena Davidson [00:04:22]:
Yes. Basically, like, I know how. What God is thinking. I know why he is doing this. I know what he's passionate about. And really, God is like me. If I was in this story, this is what I would be doing and thinking, and this is his motivation for taking this action.
Curt Harlow [00:04:36]:
That's a great one. Very big problem. Because a lot of accusation at God is us anthropomorphizing God.
Dena Davidson [00:04:44]:
Yes. This is fresh on my memory because I'm. I'm thinking, I'm reading through Job right now. And just the whole. The. All of Job Before God speaks is people saying, this is what God is doing and this is what God is thinking and this is what God is feeling. And then God at the end is like, you fools. None of that is accurate.
Dena Davidson [00:05:02]:
You have no. He doesn't even tell them what's going on. He's just like, you do not know me.
Curt Harlow [00:05:06]:
By the way. That's the perfect example for that one. Because Job is a book we read and go, why is God doing this to Job? And so we anthropomorphize God's motives.
Dena Davidson [00:05:17]:
Yep.
Curt Harlow [00:05:17]:
And in the story of Job, his friends are also doing the same mistake.
Dena Davidson [00:05:22]:
Exactly. And even sometimes Job in his low moments does the same thing. He's like, God is despising me and God is rejecting me. And it's like none of that is true.
Curt Harlow [00:05:32]:
Okay, so I think we have two and a half in common.
Dena Davidson [00:05:34]:
Oh, two and a half.
Curt Harlow [00:05:35]:
Two and a half, I would say. But you see, if you think it's three or maybe less. Okay, okay. So the first one I have is selective editing. This is where this is kind of the half one. It's kind of like you're not reading the verse carefully. It could be a little bit. And you're not reading the context around the verse, but it's where we take a phrase, and that phrase is the definition of the whole passage.
Curt Harlow [00:05:59]:
Of course, the classic example of this is Matthew 7. One, judge not that you may not be judged, which has nothing to do with prohibiting judgment.
Dena Davidson [00:06:07]:
Right.
Curt Harlow [00:06:08]:
It has. How do you judge correctly? So if you keep reading, it says, you're going to have the same measure used with you. Basically it says, use self examination before you judge someone else. That's the point. But don't judge me. Bible says, don't judge me.
Dena Davidson [00:06:23]:
That's good.
Curt Harlow [00:06:25]:
Even though when you say, don't judge me, it's judging people that judge wrong. In this verse, okay. Wives, submit to your husband is another example. That one. So that's Ephesians 5:22. And we ignore the verse before, which is submit one to another. So it's not just wives, submit to your husbands, it's all of us submit. I.
Curt Harlow [00:06:46]:
This is one we definitely have in common, ignoring genre. So Psalm 91:4 says that God has feathers. He's a chicken and no God. The Bible doesn't teach that God is a mother hen. God has the emotive qualities of the protective nature of a mother hen. It's symbolic. It's. It's poetry.
Curt Harlow [00:07:10]:
Yeah. So the equal opposite one is if I were to say when Jesus said I'm the way. The truth and the life. And I would go, I am the way. I am the way. I. It's something about the proteins and milk and. No, I'm just the way.
Curt Harlow [00:07:29]:
W a y. Okay. Lack of intertextuality.
Dena Davidson [00:07:33]:
Wow.
Curt Harlow [00:07:35]:
This is a fancy way of saying. I'm not comparing one book, one truth, one doctrine, with all. All of the witness of the whole Bible. It's a. Not really the same as your context of the whole Bible. Specifically, the. The big one that gets here is if I read Ecclesiastes, I believe that if I do good, still bad things will happen to me, and that's just life. But if I read Proverbs, I learned that if I do good, good will happen to me.
Curt Harlow [00:08:07]:
And what is the truth? That those two truths are intention. We're supposed to understand both of them. It. We're supposed to look at proverbs and go, you know what? It's better to do good. And we're supposed to look at Ecclesiastes and say, you know what? If bad things happen, I'm not surprised. Yes, they. They.
Dena Davidson [00:08:23]:
The world does not judge.
Curt Harlow [00:08:25]:
Yes, Right. So the problem is people usually on the proverbs side, tend to think about it without intertextuality. Let the whole Bible interpret itself. Okay. Insertion of allegory. So this is a problem that I don't know if it's as common today as it is. But. But the classic example would be the parable, the Good Samaritan.
Curt Harlow [00:08:51]:
I think it was trying to remember if it was who is the Italian priest who loved nature and he was a clothing merchant. Oh, this is horrible. Right.
Dena Davidson [00:09:05]:
So sorry. Like from this century, from many centuries, many centuries ago.
Curt Harlow [00:09:12]:
Okay, this is horrible. I can't remember this. Did I tell you?
Dena Davidson [00:09:14]:
I will. I will Google it.
Curt Harlow [00:09:15]:
Record this in the afternoon when my brain's at its worst. All right, I'm.
Dena Davidson [00:09:19]:
I'm gonna Google it. It's a Catholic priest. Yes, Catholic priest. What about the clothing?
Curt Harlow [00:09:26]:
Francis of Assisi. Thank you, brain. Thank you, brain.
Dena Davidson [00:09:29]:
I'm now gonna.
Curt Harlow [00:09:30]:
There's a lot of. There's a lot of example in early church interpretation. I think Francis of Assisi is one of these where they look at the parables and they say, oh, this means this, and this means this, and this means this. When looking at the Jewish genre of parables, it is like a joke. There's a setup and a point set up and a point. There is not all of these layers of allegory set up. A point, point, simple point. And the last one is A fat word that you know, I like so much.
Curt Harlow [00:10:01]:
Isegesis. Exegesis is the attitude that we bring to Scripture to get the correct interpretation. In other words, I come to the Bible and I say, teach me the truth. I don't come to the Bible and say affirm the truth I already believe. ISO Jesus is that secondary one. I come and say, I need to know where the Bible tells me about the thing I already believe.
Dena Davidson [00:10:23]:
Yeah.
Curt Harlow [00:10:24]:
And so this one is very common. Philippians 4, 13. I could do all things through Christ who gives me strength. Does not mean you can reach your weightlifting goals. It doesn't mean that you can't do all things through. I cannot become a professional athlete through Christ. What it means is Paul and the Philippians both are going through very difficult circumstances. It means Christ can get me through difficulties.
Dena Davidson [00:10:52]:
Yeah.
Curt Harlow [00:10:53]:
He can strengthen me through difficulties. It is not inspirational poster. It's a promise of endurance. So. But I want it to be an inspirational poster. I want it to be on my coffee cup every morning so I can look at it and go, today when I go out there to train for the Olympics, I will get better at the Olympics. It's not that. So those are my five selective editing.
Curt Harlow [00:11:16]:
That's when we take just one phrase. Ignoring genre. That's when we have the rules of one type of literature and we don't apply that to that literature. Lack of intertextuality. We don't let the Bible interpret the Bible. Insertion of allegory. We see meaning and layers of meaning that don't exist. And isa Jesus, we bring our bias of what we already believe and we try to get it proved by the Bible instead of letting the Bible tell us what the truth is.
Dena Davidson [00:11:44]:
Okay, I have some follow up questions.
Curt Harlow [00:11:46]:
Okay, let's go.
Dena Davidson [00:11:46]:
Let's talk about genre. That was on both of our lists.
Curt Harlow [00:11:49]:
Yes.
Dena Davidson [00:11:49]:
No surprise. So outside of listening to the Bible study, where we hopefully are always unpacking genre, where does someone go to learn about the different genres of Scripture?
Curt Harlow [00:12:00]:
Why I'm so glad you asked this. That my favorite book. I recommend this to our students every single year. How to Read the Bible for all it's worth. Fee and Stewart Gordon. Fee and I can't remember Stuart's first name now, but the. But this, this is all this book is. It's about that thick and basically every type of genre in the Bible.
Curt Harlow [00:12:21]:
They explain the origins of that genre, the challenges of interpreting that genre. They give examples. So they do an incredible job on parables. For instance, so they explain the Jewish category of which also you know what's related to parables in Jewish literature? Riddles. So they explained when Jesus said, when the Bible says he told a parable, all of his Jewish audience knew what category that was in. It was like, if I were to say to you, you know, my mom told me bedtime stories, you understand what that means culturally? Yes, this is what a parable is. And so it's how we know that the right way to interpret the parable is the way the original readers heard word it. Not with all sorts of symbolic and hidden meaning.
Curt Harlow [00:13:10]:
Sort of a, you know, later on. There's Gnosticism. It's all based on hidden meaning. We can't Gnosticize the parables.
Dena Davidson [00:13:17]:
Yeah.
Curt Harlow [00:13:18]:
So that's the best book, how to Read the Bible for all it's worth.
Dena Davidson [00:13:21]:
Do you know, I have never read that book and you've talked about it so many times. Literally this morning I started listening to it. Yeah, yeah. That's part of my morning routine. Like, thank God because you're teaching on the Bible study.
Curt Harlow [00:13:31]:
15 years I've been encouraging to read this book.
Dena Davidson [00:13:34]:
I was like, it's on the bucket list.
Curt Harlow [00:13:35]:
We almost lost our friendship right there, Dena.
Dena Davidson [00:13:38]:
Well, I feel like I kind of have read it because I've heard you teach so often on it and so, so many of the principles. I was like, I thought Curt was brilliant, but, you know, you were just paraphrasing.
Curt Harlow [00:13:47]:
No, I'm just par. Plagiarizing is the word you're looking for. You know, and here's the other thing about this genre piece. It's pretty common sense.
Dena Davidson [00:13:55]:
Yeah.
Curt Harlow [00:13:55]:
It's not like this is not the opposite. High level scholar to realize that the imagery of apocalyptic literature, this is some of the prophets and all of Revelation is very, very symbolic in the best way. Not symbolic in the, you know, we can make it mean whatever we want it to mean, but it is not meant to be the account of Jesus conversation with Nicodemus. You don't have to be a big scholar to understand the account of Nicodemus and Jesus Talking about. Yes. Is a. Is a report on a conversation. And John saying, there are this many bowls of wrath and this many trumpets is meant to evoke.
Curt Harlow [00:14:41]:
So one of the things Fe and Stewart say about the apocalyptic genre, by the way, is if you read the book of Revelation, for instance, and at the end of it, you don't feel fear for the power and judgment of God and, and hope for the redemption of God. If you don't feel those two feelings, you're not interpreting the Genre correctly.
Dena Davidson [00:15:03]:
So good.
Curt Harlow [00:15:03]:
Yeah.
Dena Davidson [00:15:04]:
So I feel like what understanding genre does is it takes what is mystery. And it makes you feel like, oh, I can, I can understand this. Like, the reason my pastors are getting up and giving these great sermons about things that I'm like, I don't know how you got that out of the text is because they've done the work of understanding genre. And you can do that. It's a really simple work. You can do that work yourself and. And become a great biblical interpreter.
Curt Harlow [00:15:28]:
One of my pet peeves when I hear people teach the Bible is when they have really good and profound insights to what a parable is, what a what what a proverb is, what a psalm is, what a. What a. What Genesis is in its history. And they don't tell people how they came to those conclusions. So the idea there is a modeling of I am a really incredible person who gets really incredible stuff out of this Bible and you can't. As opposed to. I love it when I hear a Bible teacher go, let me tell you about this context. And the next time you read this, would you keep in mind.
Curt Harlow [00:16:08]:
And then all of a sudden, the Bible starts coming alive for me. And my teacher has helped me become a better student. Not just told me that they're a great teacher.
Dena Davidson [00:16:19]:
So good, so helpful.
Curt Harlow [00:16:20]:
Okay, I got, I got one for you. So the. Let the whole Bible be in context. Talk a little bit more about that because what, you know, I live in Roseville, California in 2026.
Dena Davidson [00:16:34]:
Yeah.
Curt Harlow [00:16:35]:
How do I let the whole Bible be in context when it's basically a Bronze Age, an older, even some Stone Age, and all the way the first century document.
Dena Davidson [00:16:46]:
Yes. Okay, first, let me just give you the motivation. I brought up Ananas and Sapphira, right? Like if. If all you had was the New Testament and you're reading the New Testament, you're like, I'm a little afraid of God. God might kill me. What is going on here? If you've been reading the whole Bible, then you understand, ah, this, this story is a call back to something that happened in Joshua 7, where literally the Israelites were on the cusp of going in and conquering the promised land and fighting, finally stepping into the promise that God had given Abraham all those years ago. And he was very clear with them about the rules. Everything that you get as a conquest of war has to be devoted to destruction.
Dena Davidson [00:17:27]:
I don't want the new chapter of your life built on the sin in this area, the sin of the Canaanites. And so there's this figure, Achan, who ends up stealing some of the treasures and the things that were devoted to God, he keeps for himself. So fast forward in the story, what ends up happening is that Achan and his family, they are put to death. And if you know that story, then you see. Oh. What God is signaling is just like the Israelites are at the beginning of a new chapter in which God is going to redefine his relationship with humanity and let them enter into the promised land. That's what God's doing in the Book of Acts. This is not the way that God operates with humanity always, but it is the way that he operates at the beginning of the chapter of a new chapter.
Dena Davidson [00:18:13]:
And so if you don't understand that, then you're, like, really confused and you have all these questions about God that the Old Testament was written in part to answer those questions.
Curt Harlow [00:18:22]:
So good. So, for instance, when I teach Ananias and Sapphira, I bring up that exact example. This, your Jewish mind would have known.
Dena Davidson [00:18:30]:
Yes.
Curt Harlow [00:18:31]:
That at the beginning of this, God demanded purity because he knows that there will be degradation.
Dena Davidson [00:18:37]:
Yes.
Curt Harlow [00:18:38]:
And so think about the amount of power struggles that are in churches.
Dena Davidson [00:18:44]:
Yes.
Curt Harlow [00:18:44]:
The amount of boards that have split over budgets, the amount of fighting over secondary theological issues.
Dena Davidson [00:18:50]:
Yes.
Curt Harlow [00:18:51]:
The amount of not being great stewards of the money that God has brought into the church. So what if at the beginning, God was not serious with Ananias and Sapphira about one little lie?
Dena Davidson [00:19:04]:
Yeah.
Curt Harlow [00:19:05]:
One little manipulation. And why did they lie? Why did they lie? They lied to look more significant, to get significance. It's. It's the problem of power in the church.
Dena Davidson [00:19:15]:
Yes. It is that problem.
Curt Harlow [00:19:17]:
And like, if you, once you see it in context, you go, God, maybe you should killed a few more people.
Dena Davidson [00:19:23]:
Yeah, right.
Curt Harlow [00:19:25]:
Maybe. Because maybe we didn't learn that lesson enough.
Dena Davidson [00:19:28]:
Yes.
Curt Harlow [00:19:28]:
But it is God really saying this? This. You cannot let human significance, human hierarchy, enter into the body of Christ.
Dena Davidson [00:19:39]:
And if you know the story of Ananias and Sapphira and the story of Achan, you just, all you have to do pretty much wind every story in the Bible back to Genesis and you say, okay, why is God doing this? Because over and over again, we were talking about this before we hit record. The whole Old Testament is written to help people understand a very simple idea. Sin leads to death. Always Achan, sin led to death. Ananias and Sapphira. Sin leads to death. It's the whole story. And also in response to that story, another big idea which I won't go into.
Dena Davidson [00:20:14]:
But God has certain ways that he responds to sin from Genesis to Revelation. And if you don't understand the way that God responds to sin, then you're gonna just take out a chapter and say, God, I don't think I can believe in you because of this isolated way that you actually acted and responded. You have to put that chapter in the whole story. Understand that he's trying to help humanity know beyond doubt that sin leads to death always and tell them what kind of God he is in response to that sin.
Curt Harlow [00:20:43]:
Another way to understand your have the context of the whole Bible is we have to do a better job of understanding the Old Testament. How he treated them is how he treats us. There's, you know, the misconception is he's mean in the Old Testament and nice in the New Testament. Even though he puts down an acid fire to death in the New Testament.
Dena Davidson [00:21:06]:
Yes.
Curt Harlow [00:21:06]:
And even though he shows incredible grace multiple times in the Old Testament, same God. One of the ways I say this is one of the ways to understand your Old Testament is to look at it as the promise making and keeping God. And so the promises that God makes to Adam and Eve, your offspring will crush the serpent's head. To Abraham you will be, you will multiply into billions and billions like the sand and the stars. To David, your throne will never come over. To Ruth and Esther you'll rescue In a moment's, In a critical moment, you will be rescued. And in a, in a dark and deep problem, you will be redeemed. Every one of those promises the same promise.
Curt Harlow [00:21:57]:
God will respond to sin by bringing a Savior.
Dena Davidson [00:22:02]:
That's right.
Curt Harlow [00:22:03]:
And so once you, once you see all that, this is why the Book of Acts can get boring if you read it in one setting. Because there's 19 sermons in the Book of Acts and they're all about the Old Testament promises.
Dena Davidson [00:22:14]:
Yeah, yeah.
Curt Harlow [00:22:15]:
Over and over again, same sermon.
Dena Davidson [00:22:17]:
Yes.
Curt Harlow [00:22:17]:
So, all right, crazy. What's another one that we've, we don't have in common?
Dena Davidson [00:22:22]:
The reading human motivations into God's actions.
Curt Harlow [00:22:25]:
Okay, talk to me.
Dena Davidson [00:22:26]:
My favorite story to help explain this is the story of the Tower of Babel. Okay, so you're reading about. If you haven't read it, it's an Old Testament story. It's early in Genesis. So basically this is post the flood where God literally, he looks out at humanity and it says he saw that the only inclination of the human heart was evil all the time. Which by the way is pretty important context for why God sent a flood to destroy humanity. He saw the trajectory of humanity. It was only evil all the time.
Dena Davidson [00:22:56]:
So he wipes them out. And then a couple chapters later, we get this Tower of Babel story. Seems like humanity is doing great. They're building this tower. They're working together, they're cooperating. They're building this tower to the heavens. And then we read this verse, but the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. The Lord said, if as one people speaking the same language, they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.
Dena Davidson [00:23:22]:
Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other. So the way, like, even, even the best Bible scholars I love, I think we completely misread this story because what we're doing is we're putting human concerns and motivations into God's actions.
Curt Harlow [00:23:39]:
Right.
Dena Davidson [00:23:39]:
So we're like, I think God's feeling a little insecure right here.
Curt Harlow [00:23:42]:
Right.
Dena Davidson [00:23:43]:
I think he's a little worried.
Curt Harlow [00:23:45]:
Jealousy.
Dena Davidson [00:23:46]:
A little, yeah. Worried that, you know, maybe humanity is not going to need him, maybe that they're going to build something to compete with him. And so, you know, God. God knows that would be bad for them to. And so we completely take our human concerns. God is not insecure and he's not worried about what humanity can produce in terms of what it will do to compete with him.
Curt Harlow [00:24:08]:
Yes.
Dena Davidson [00:24:09]:
What is God concerned with? The whole story up into this point is about God concerned is concerned with sin leading to death always. And, and when he's thinking about nothing will be impossible for them. He's thinking about all of the human evils that we are capable of. He's fast forwarding the story and seeing if I don't step in.
Curt Harlow [00:24:31]:
Not that they can make computers in a couple months.
Dena Davidson [00:24:33]:
Exactly.
Curt Harlow [00:24:34]:
He's stepping atrocities.
Dena Davidson [00:24:36]:
He's stepping in to limit atrocities, to limit human evil and say, no, I'm scattering them, I'm confusing them because I as God, this is one of the ways he responds to sin is he says, I will limit your freedom to limit your evil.
Curt Harlow [00:24:50]:
That's so good. So the anthropomorphizing of God. God thinks and reasons the way I do, and he has the abilities and decision making that I do.
Dena Davidson [00:25:03]:
Yes.
Curt Harlow [00:25:04]:
Is. Is. Is a really arrogant thing for us to do.
Dena Davidson [00:25:09]:
Yes. And we have to say, God, you be God and help me understand what you were thinking and feeling at this point in the story.
Curt Harlow [00:25:17]:
Yes. So the, the analogy I sometimes use is when God limits mankind in the Old Testament, even by violent means, the Noah Tower of Babel, Canaanites, this sort of thing. It's like, here's another way to think of your Old Testament and make sense. There is one big lie that finds its way throughout the entire Old Testament, and that is this false God or gods usually are worthy of my worship. So idolatry, this idea that I'm going to abandon the true God and I'm going to worship something that's wood and stone and is not alive and can do nothing for me. And so it's a constant battle when God calls Abraham out of Ur. I don't think there's a monotheist left in the earth, at least not that we're told of. And even Abraham, it's not clear what his position is.
Curt Harlow [00:26:14]:
It's more clear that God's like, listen, I need to. For the sake of mankind and for the promise I've made to them, I need someone to come into the truth, which is all of these false idols will always lead to death. To your point. And only believing in the promise and the reality of the one true God actually works.
Dena Davidson [00:26:37]:
Yes. When he takes down idols, he's taking down false saviors, preparing our heart that there is none but God who can save.
Curt Harlow [00:26:44]:
He's doing surgery on the cancer of our soul. Exactly so. And no cancer victim. So I had a friend went through leukemia. I went through leukemia. And she said when she took the radiation and chemotherapy, she would think to herself, this is not a poison killing cells in my body. This is strong medicine killing cells that will eventually kill me if I don't kill them. She said that thought helped me go through the suffering.
Curt Harlow [00:27:14]:
And this is what God's doing. He's taking cancerous, destructive tumors.
Dena Davidson [00:27:19]:
Yes.
Curt Harlow [00:27:20]:
Out of mankind.
Dena Davidson [00:27:21]:
Yes.
Curt Harlow [00:27:22]:
And. And then we look at it and go, yeah, why would he do that? Well, he would do that because he sees the big picture. Okay, I got another question for you on the careful. The not careful reading. How did you put that one?
Dena Davidson [00:27:37]:
And not not reading it carefully.
Curt Harlow [00:27:38]:
Why do we do that? It seems like such an easy mistake to avoid. Why are there so many examples of verses, judge not, lest you not be judged? Being another one of those. We just read four more words. We get the whole thing. Why is it that we so often misread?
Dena Davidson [00:28:00]:
Yeah, I think there's a lot of factors. I think one is a lot of times preachers don't do the work of really sitting with the context of the passage and making sure they're preaching it well. But I also think. I think the enemy's behind it. I think there's a way that he takes what we read in God's word and he twists it just so slightly. He did that in the garden, you know, did God really say. And Eve ends up misquoting what God said to the serpent. And so I just think it's one of the ways the enemy works.
Dena Davidson [00:28:29]:
But I also think I know my own heart is that oftentimes, instead of letting scripture shape me, I shape scripture. I make it say what I need it to say. I let it confirm what I already believe. That passage from Romans 8:28. And we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him. Is the verse.
Curt Harlow [00:28:52]:
Right?
Dena Davidson [00:28:53]:
And the way I've seen it twisted over and over again is people have sacrificial lamb theology. They forget that Jesus is in fact the sacrificial lamb who died for us. And they think God's just using me to produce good in the world. So my suffering is to produce some unknown good. That's not the verse, though. But I think it. It's. It's sneakily confirming what we already suspect about God and letting.
Dena Davidson [00:29:17]:
Instead of letting scripture correct us.
Curt Harlow [00:29:19]:
Okay, so you're confirming a theory I have. And by the way, I like the spiritual war warfare aspect of that. I think that's. I think that's something you see repeatedly happens in the Bible.
Dena Davidson [00:29:30]:
Yeah.
Curt Harlow [00:29:30]:
Is the truth of God is not opposed by the opposite. It's opposed by the perversion of the truth.
Dena Davidson [00:29:36]:
Yeah.
Curt Harlow [00:29:37]:
But I like this. And what you're really saying is that you're agreeing with me. We do have one agreement. It's is Jesus. I'm bringing my bias. I'm bringing my bias to the passage.
Dena Davidson [00:29:47]:
Yes.
Curt Harlow [00:29:48]:
And my bias. My brain literally doesn't see words because my bias is so strong. So one of the best examples over the years I've used of this. Yours is a very good example. But is Gideon's. Gideon is in Judges, his lands being occupied. The enemy's coming in and taking all the crops. Everyone's starving to death.
Curt Harlow [00:30:13]:
It's ever Gideon's dad who is compromised and worshiping the foreign false idols. And so he's doing okay. And the angel of the Lord comes to Gideon and says, mighty warrior, which he's not. You need to go out there and first of all, kill your dad's second calf. And then I want you to attack that army with just a few guys. And Gideon says, okay, if this is really God, make the floor wet and my bath mat dry. And so he wakes up the next morning, the floor is all Wet bath mat's dry. And then he says, well, I'm still afraid.
Curt Harlow [00:30:49]:
So this time make the bath mat wet and the floor dry. So we call this a fleece because it's not a bad mat. It's a fleece. So people read that and they go, oh, that's a thing you can do to find the will of God. Right. Because the angel did it for him.
Dena Davidson [00:31:06]:
Yeah.
Curt Harlow [00:31:07]:
Therefore, God, if you want Susan, who's in my chemistry class, to be my future wife, make this tea hot. Yes, it's hot. Susan. I'm going to go tell her today that she, God, has told me she's my wife. And what is ridiculous about that, this also goes to your whole Bible context thing, is God spends the entire Old Testament conquering sin, delivering the Messiah so that the presence of the Holy Spirit can live inside of us and literally bring the words of Jesus to our mind to guide us. And we want to kick the Holy Spirit out and say, please speak to me through hot tea or a bath mat.
Dena Davidson [00:31:55]:
Yes.
Curt Harlow [00:31:56]:
Because I don't want to.
Dena Davidson [00:31:57]:
Do I need a little more clarity?
Curt Harlow [00:31:58]:
Yes. I don't want to do this thing where I listen to the Holy Spirit. I just want to. I want to make the bath mat wet like Gideon.
Dena Davidson [00:32:04]:
Yes.
Curt Harlow [00:32:04]:
So we like that version better because we want it. And. And then. Then. Then we do another thing that's even worse than that. Even if we'd say to ourselves, well, let's say that God actually does use fleeces. I'm gonna fleece whether I should sell my house or take this job or date this girl. Let's say God does use fleeces.
Curt Harlow [00:32:23]:
Well, the fleece we give God is not accurate to the text. So we go, God, if my phone rings in the next five minutes, that means I should sell this house. God, if Bill asks me if I'm going to the game, that means I should spend money on those super bowl tickets. Go Seahawks. Instead, we should say, if we're going to use a fleece, we should say, God, if you want me to go on a diet, make my refrigerator levitate, spin four times, destroying all of the food inside of it, and then go back in its place without harming the floor. Yeah, that's the analogous. That's the similar thing. But we don't do that because actually, the odds of the phone ringing are really high.
Curt Harlow [00:33:08]:
And we just actually want to date Susan or go to the buys the super bowl tickets. So again, if I were to put one of these as the worst one, it is this idea that we are really tempted to bring our bias to the passage and not read it carefully and apply it in a way that is never meant to be applied.
Dena Davidson [00:33:32]:
Yeah. You know, it's the best safeguard against eisegesis.
Curt Harlow [00:33:35]:
Yes.
Dena Davidson [00:33:35]:
What, reading your Bible regularly.
Curt Harlow [00:33:37]:
Yeah.
Dena Davidson [00:33:38]:
Because there is a boredom to reading your Bible regularly that safeguards you against Eisen Jesus. You just kind of get used to settling in and being like, all right, maybe this is not about me and what I need to hear and what's going on in my life. Maybe this is me getting communication from God about what he cares about what he values, what's going on in his story. And I find, like the. The times that God most consistently actually breaks through and speaks a direct word because his Word is alive to me, is in those boring, routine moments of God, you knew exactly what I needed to hear. It's not when you're like, God, I need you to speak.
Curt Harlow [00:34:15]:
Right, right, right. I think. I think Jesus taught that he. God rewards persistence too.
Dena Davidson [00:34:22]:
Yes.
Curt Harlow [00:34:22]:
So that's a great application thought. I have an application thought. Yeah. The best way to avoid isegesis, bringing your bias to the text is to train yourself to ask difficult questions. So when I read the Bible, if something bothers me, I stop and I say, why is that bothering me? I don't just go, oh, this could be an embarrassing moment where I get convicted, or I learn something about the Bible I don't want to learn, and just keep going if I don't understand it or it bothers me if I see that God is behaving in a way I don't like. That's my key to go. I'm going to dive deeper into context. I'm going to be brave and ask the most difficult questions of the passage I can ask.
Curt Harlow [00:35:09]:
And when you do that, there's a little part of you that doesn't want to do that because you're afraid you might learn something you don't want to learn. But when you do that every time, I have not just learned things I needed to learn, I've learned things I needed to learn. I never knew I needed to learn. The Bible then comes alive. So good, good episode. All right, my friends, now you know everything there is to know about correctly interpreting.
Dena Davidson [00:35:38]:
You'll never be.
Curt Harlow [00:35:41]:
Because of Dena and I. No. All kidding aside, rightly handling the word of God is so, so important. So thank you for listening today. As always, we want you to share this. You know, pass it around, get it out there. And next week, we're going to have one of my favorite Bible scholars on the Bible podcast. Mark Clark is going to be with us.
Curt Harlow [00:36:02]:
So don't. Don't miss next week's episode. And again, thanks for listening.