Your Personal Adventure
As you undertake the serious study of the Bible, you are embarking on the most exciting adventure, the adventure of ideas. It should be your personal journey of discovery in this odyssey between the miracle of your origin and the mystery of your destiny.
Why an “adventure”? Because it isn’t a spectator sport; it involves participation! The most exciting “codes” will be the ones you discover for yourself. This is too important to be left to others. It’s the mystery of your personal destiny, after all. But there are some tools you may need to include for your journey.
Heretical Hermeneutics
Hermeneutics is the art of interpreting literature, especially the Sacred Scriptures, and it includes the recognition of the principles upon which a true analysis must proceed. It is to be distinguished from exegesis, which focuses on what the text actually expresses or intends to express.
(Many commentators tend to be like Humpty Dumpty in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, who maintained that, “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”)
The classical approach to conservative Biblical hermeneutics usually emphasizes the following considerations....
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The Vanishing Standard
The headlines during the summer months of 2021 cover the full range of human experiences – from natural disasters to man-made horrors. Tracking each story line proves both a daunting and discouraging task. Headlines that might have flown under your radar these past months relate to the passage in the state of Oregon of Senate Bill 744 which “suspends the requirement of showing proficiency in Essential Learning Skills as a condition of earning a diploma during 2021-2022 or 2022-2023 school year.” The Nine Essential Skills are cross-disciplinary skills that students should be developing across grades K- 12. For students first enrolled in Grade 9 in 2010 – 2011 or later, three of the Essential Skills are graduation requirements:
- Read and comprehend a variety of text
- Write clearly and accurately
- Apply mathematics in a variety of settings.
The headlines read:
- “New Oregon Law Suspends Graduation Testing Requirement”
- Oregon governor signs bill ending reading and math proficiency requirements for graduation
- “Oregon Gov Kate Brown scraps need for high school students to prove proficiency in math, reading and writing to get diploma in bid to bolster minority students who ‘don’t test well’”
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