Interpreting the Bible: Part 1

You should have a three-page, well, it's actually six pages. front and back. Over the next couple of weeks, we're going to be looking at an introductory guide, How to Interpret the Bible. You also have a handout that shows you what's coming up during 2005. After we do How to Interpret the Bible, we're going to Lessons for Life in Seven Dramatic Moments, Seven Dramatic Scenes in Scripture that teach us. Then we're going to look at Lessons for Life, the radical, liberating, demanding, transforming power of God's amazing grace. Then we're going to look at Lessons for Life from Three Great Hymns, and then Lessons for Life from the life of Joseph. But as we begin today, let me ask you this question. Why do we preach, teach, and study God's Word? Why do we do that? Well, we might give a lot of answers to this question. But if you heard the story about the old wise man who traveled from his village with the young boy, they got to the river. The young boy goes down to the river. As he begins to drink, he sees a baby floating down the river, drowning. He dives into the river, pulls the baby out, deposits the baby at the feet of the wise old man who's on the bank.

The young boy turns back around, finds another baby drowning in the river, pulls the baby out, puts the baby at the old wise man's feet. He does this seven times. And as he turns to go back the eighth time, there's another baby in the river. But he sees the old man turning and starting to walk upriver. And the young boy is incensed, saying, we've got babies drowning in the river.

What are you doing? Why are you going upriver? And the old man says, I'm going up river to stop whoever is throwing the babies in the river.

So often in church life, we're just pulling babies out of the river. In other words, we're dealing with all the problems that people have in life. And it's like we're fighting fires all the time. Somebody has this problem in their life, this difficulty in their life, and we're just trying to drag the drowning babies out of the river. And we need people to pull the drowning babies from the river, don't we?

But I think one of the most important things we do at church is we go upriver. We go upriver to try to prevent the problems and difficulties from arising in the first place. Some of the best counseling we get in church is not in the pastor's study after the problems have arisen. The best counseling we get is from the pulpit, from the Sunday school lesson, where we learn lessons for life about how we should live and hopefully avoid the problems and difficulties. Why do we preach, teach, and study God's Word?

We preach, teach, and study for transformation. information. We want people to be different at the end of the day. We don't just preach, teach, and study to fill people with head knowledge. Yes, we want to be knowledgeable about scripture. We want to be knowledgeable about God and his word, but we don't come here just for head knowledge.

We come here to have our hearts and our lives changed. How do you know if the sermon was a good sermon? How do you know if the lesson was a good lesson in the Sunday school class? You don't know it because people afterwards say, oh, that was a great sermon. Oh, that was a good lesson.

As one writer said, the way you know it was a great sermon, the way you know it was a great lesson is that when people leave, they're saying, I am going to do something. I am going to be different. I am going to make a difference. We're after transformation. When the Apostle Paul preached, when he finished preaching, there was usually either a revival or a riot. Things did not stay the same. And I'm going to press us that when we come to church, we come to meet the living God through His Word so that we can be changed.

I'm after transformation. I've already talked with the deacons this year, and I said, we're going upriver this year. I hope we'll go upriver this year

and look for transformation. When we talk about transformation, we've got to talk about God's will. In the Scriptures, the will of God is used in three different senses. his moral will, and his individual will. Here's my picture that illustrates this.

His sovereign will is illustrated by the big box. There's a sense in which everything that happens in the universe is God's will, his sovereign will. In other words, it's part of the big plan. Matthew 10 29 says not a sparrow falls to the ground apart from the will of God. Not even the tiniest little bird falls to the ground apart from the sovereign will of God.

Proverbs 16 33 says this the lot is cast into the lap. The lot's like the dice right? Like the dice is rolled into the lap, but it's every decision is from the Lord. Now that's a deep thought. Every time the dice are rolled, it's every decision is from the Lord.

I submit to you, the scriptures teach that God is in control. God is in control. And in a certain sense, everything that happens is part of the plan. why but god is leading things toward an ultimate conclusion with his sovereign will the second sense is his moral will his moral will is the his will by which we are to live his moral will is his commands are his commands to us um the ten commandments god's moral will his moral will are the principles by which we are to live our lives. We are to do certain things that He commands us to do.

We're not to do certain things that He prohibits from us. And His moral will is most clearly revealed to us in this book right here. This is how we're to live. The third type of will is His individual will. His individual will means, you know, there are a lot of very specific decisions we make in life that are not explicitly given to us in Scripture.

[Personal prayer concern omitted.]

Well, it wasn't in the book explicitly to marry her. And there's some principles. God's moral will gave me some principles about the type of person I should marry, right? But that very specific who it should be, you arrive at that through prayer, godly counsel, and so forth. But sometimes the scriptures do speak about God's individual will for our lives, okay?

When we come and study God's Word, most of the time what we're after is a better understanding of this, God's moral will for our lives. In the Scriptures, we get glimpses of what His sovereign plan is, but much of that is hidden from us. We don't know all the turns in the road that this life is going to take as part of God's sovereign plan. sometimes knowing his individual will for our lives is not that easy it's not that clearly revealed in the scripture sometimes so what we're usually after is god's moral will you notice his individual will for our lives is within his moral will in other words as christians god will not call us to do something that is outside his moral will as christians You know the story of the pastor who had the deacon, the married deacon who came to see the pastor. And the married deacon said, you know, I met this other woman.

Not my wife. This other woman. And oh, it was just, it was miraculous how we met. It had to be God. We couldn't have met otherwise.

And you know, we had this bond. And we've really hit it off. And I just think God's in this thing. And I really think it's God's will that I take up with this other woman. The pastor says, wait a minute.

Is that within God's moral will? The answer is no. Well, then it is not God's individual will for your life. You see the point? Was Judas' betrayal of Jesus God's will?

Was Judas' betrayal of Jesus God's will?

Okay, I'm getting, yeah, and I'm getting.

Yes? Okay, now you're getting it. It was his sovereign will, right? It's part of the plan. But was it God's moral will that Judas betrayed?

Well, of course not. So on our chart here, where would the Judas betrayal fall? It would fall outside the moral will but within the sovereign will. You follow me? Okay.

I talk about all that to lead us to this. God's moral will most clearly revealed to us. It's most clearly revealed to us in the Bible. And what I want us to talk about today and next week is how do we better understand this book. We are here to understand this book and apply it to our lives.

How do we best interpret the Bible? Okay? And as we go on this journey today to understand how to interpret the Bible, let me begin by praying for us. Lord I just pray that today As we come to your living word And to think about how we should live in accordance with its teachings Help us to be people Number one who are willing to submit to your authority As revealed in your word Number two by your spirit change us Help us to be different people People who are passionate about serving you Who are not half-hearted or lukewarm serve you with an intense focus. May everything we do and say bring honor and glory to your name.

And Lord, let it begin today as we learn better how to understand and interpret your word. For it is in Christ's name we pray. Amen.

Hannah Whitehall Smith said this when we talk about God's will for our lives. She said, no special guidance will ever be given about a point on which the scriptures are explicit. Nor could any guidance ever be given that is contrary to the scriptures. In other words, Hannah Whitehall Smith is saying, God is never going to give us instructions contrary to this word. And if he's already spoken clearly to the issue in this word, we need not be looking for more guidance.

But she also says, if we want to know God's individual will for our lives, God, what do you want me to do in this specific situation? She argues God's not going to help us understand his individual will for our lives until we submit to his clearly revealed moral will. Until you're willing to submit to what God has clearly revealed, his moral will, his commands on our lives, don't expect God to give you any further special guidance. When he's already spoken, he expects us to obey. But if we're not willing to obey what's already been revealed, don't expect him to help you understand better these very specific decisions.

Do you see the point she's making? I think it's a good point. Well, here we go on interpretation. Hang on to your seats. What is hermeneutics?

It's a big word that means something very simple. The definition of hermeneutics is this. or art of biblical interpretation and application. And that's what we're talking about today and next week, how to interpret the Bible. And now you can use a big $10 word and tell people you're doing hermeneutics.

But all it means is the art or science of biblical interpretation and application. Here's some important objectives of interpreting the Bible. Number one, we want to understand what the original author meant. the most important question we ask when we come to Scripture is not, what does this mean to me? That's not the most important question.

The most important first question is, what did Paul mean when he wrote it? What did Matthew mean when he wrote it? We want to begin our interpretation by understanding what the author meant. And then we can talk about what it means to me. But so often, is it not true, people come and say, of this is this well is that what paul meant for you to get out of it is the question or matthew does everybody follow what i'm saying there the second point is no twisting of the text when we're interpreting the bible we want to be sure we're taking its truth straight up we want to know what it says hard truth straight truth but no twisting you know how we are we want to make it soften it up a little bit take away those straight lines make them a little curvy to fit us that's when we interpret we want to know the straight truth thirdly we want to be sure we're properly applying today what was said a long long time ago you know this book is an old book in many senses written to people who lived at a different time at a different place often in very different cultural situations. So we want to be sure that once we interpret it, we're applying it to our situation today in an appropriate way, in a biblical way. Now, here's some foundational convictions I bring to our discussion about hermeneutics, about interpretation. The first is this. This book is God's inspired word. This is not just an ordinary book, but God worked human authors to pen his words. He guided them in what they said, but this is God's word. The second conviction I have is that this book is true in everything it affirms. In other words, it is inerrant. I think, you know, you don't have to be around theological circles long to know that this word inerrancy is a hot button word. And a lot of people, there would be some settings where people would not want to talk about this book being inerrant.

To me, inspiration and inerrancy are two sides of the same coin. If this is indeed God's inspired word, then God spoke the truth, folks. He does not lie. I would submit if we hold to the view that this is God's inspired word, we must hold to some view that it is inerrant. And lastly, the authority of the text.

It is my conviction that we live like this. We live under God's word. It is over us. It is our ultimate authority. If we understand, if this book speaks clearly to an issue, properly interpreted, that is the end of the debate.

We live under this book. So I bring those convictions to our discussion today. You know, God gives us several ways to make decisions or several tools to help us in making decisions in life. He gives us our reason. He gave us minds we should think clearly when we approach issues and have to make decisions.

He gives us experiences. The older we get, the more experiences we have. And sometimes those experiences teach us lessons, right? Sometimes we learn the hard way, but experience helps us to make better decisions often. Some people don't learn from experience.

Hopefully we do learn from experience. Thirdly is scripture, and I'm going to come back to that. And fourthly is tradition. And when I mean tradition, I mean that the church has often dealt with issues in certain ways throughout its history. And by seeing how the church has dealt with issues, that can help us make decisions.

You know, for about 2,000 years, the church has dealt with the issue of homosexual behavior in a certain way. And I think that tradition can help us understand how to deal with it today, too. But you see what I say about Scripture. Scripture is the trump. If Scripture, properly interpreted, speaks clearly to an issue, even if my reason, my experience, and church tradition leads in a different direction, Scripture trumps.

It is the final word. Now, understand me. I did not say we should not use our reason or experience and tradition. We should. I'm just saying this stands above all others as the final authority.

Does everybody follow me on that? Okay. Now, here's the picture from inspiration to application.

Can you see that? Now, this is a whole semester of study, and I'm going to give it to you in two minutes. Okay? Here we go. Here's the conceptual diagram.

God inspires the writing of the original text by the original author. There was a point in time when the Apostle Paul took a pen, or his secretary took a pen, and wrote down the words to the letter to the Philippians. There was an original point, and that was done. God inspired that original writing. Now, the reality is, to the best of our knowledge, we do not have the original pieces of paper on which Paul wrote anywhere in the world.

If they exist, we don't know where they are. They probably were lost during time. They may have been destroyed in persecutions. The Roman Empire at points made great efforts to destroy the Scriptures.

writings were lost in the persecution when writings were destroyed. But at some point, there was an original writing. Well, if that original writing no longer exists, the original piece of paper on which Paul wrote or Matthew wrote or so forth, how do we know what it said? You know, if I went to Washington, D.C. today and went to the National Archives where we have the original Constitution written for this country and the original Declaration of Independence,

ripped out the Constitution, ripped out the Declaration, tore them up, burned them, would we not have to just shut down our democracy because we wouldn't have a clue what the Constitution said or what the Declaration said? We'd just have to close our doors, would we not? Well, of course not, right? Why not? We got copies. We know what it said.

Well, the same is true with the Scriptures. While we may not have that original piece of paper, Because we've got copies. And it's a complicated process. But the second stage was there was copying of the text. Praise God, there were people who took as their life's vocation to copy God's Word.

Literally, some people spent their whole lives doing nothing day in and day out other than taking a document from Scripture, a passage of Scripture, and copying it by hand. The only way we got a copy was somebody had to do it by hand. How would you like to be told that your job for the rest of your life is to take your copy of the Bible and make handwritten copies? And if you don't mind, after you finish making your handwritten copy of the book of Isaiah, please count all the words in the copy you have made because we've already counted the words in the document from which you're copying. and if your words in your copy are one number off from the number of words in the document from which you copied, if you would tear up your Isaiah copy and start over, we'd appreciate it.

And after you've counted the words, if you would count the letters, every letter, and see if that number of letters compares to the document from which you were copying, we'd appreciate it. And if you're off by even one letter, would you tear up the copy and please start over? Now, not all scribes were that careful, but many were. They actually counted the words and the letters and made sure when the copy was finished, there was no difference. So praise God for those copies.

But these copies I'm talking about were Hebrew copies, Greek copies. You know, the Old Testament was mainly Hebrew, the New Testament mainly Greek. That's good, but most of us need something more, don't we? We need a translation. in a language we can understand.

So we've got a lot of translations in a lot of languages, including English. But then, even when we have a good translation, we know we can read the words in a good translation, we then have to talk about, well, what does it mean? We've got to interpret the text. And once we've interpreted it, we then have to apply it. What does this mean for how I live today?

today. Hermeneutics, the science of interpretation, is particularly concerned about the last two blocks, interpretation and application. Now, to complete this diagram, there should really be one more block right out here. What's the one more block? Just because you understand what it means, you have a good interpretation, you know how it should be applied to your life. There's one more step. What's the one more step? Action. You got to do it, right? The last block is obedience. The last block is obedience. Now, folks, there's a lot of scholarship that goes into these five blocks here. But I'm going to tell you the hardest block is the block that we don't see on the chart. It's obedience.

The reality is, the reality is, the problem at the end of the day is usually not understanding what this book says. The reality is we usually understand very well. Most of the time it's very clear what this book says. You know what the problem is? We don't want to follow it.

do not like living under the authority of the book. But I'm going to press this. That's what we're after. That's how transformation comes when we listen to the living God and say, yes, I'll be different. I will live under your authority as revealed in your word.

Everybody understand the chart? Okay, here's some guidelines for interpreting the Bible. And I highly recommend a book. It's this book that you see on the screen. How to Read the Bible for All It's Worth by Gordon Fee and Doug Stewart.

If you really have some interest in this issue of interpretation, I recommend that you get this book and read it. And some of what you hear today will come from this book, How to Read the Bible for All It's Worth. But here's some guidelines that I want us to think about for interpreting God's word. Some basic principles. Here's basic principle number one.

Pray for the Holy Spirit's illumination and guidance. When we begin to study this book, as Christians, we have a power within us. The Holy Spirit fills us. And we need to ask that Holy Spirit to help us better understand this book. Now, there's a difference between the Holy Spirit's illumination and the Holy Spirit's revelation.

the Holy Spirit revealed to the original writers of scripture the word of God that was authoritative for all people at all times when the Holy Spirit illumines us that is his guidance as we study but I don't want you to think that what you think is on the same level of scripture I'm simply saying that the Holy Spirit does help us better understand scripture as we go through the process of study Second basic principle, look for the author's intended meaning. That's what we're after, at least initially. What did Matthew mean? What did Paul mean? What did Isaiah mean when he wrote the text?

Thirdly, let Scripture interpret Scripture. In other words, when you come to a passage of Scripture and you're having some difficulty understanding a particular passage, ask this question. is there someplace else in scripture that talks about this issue or this idea? And if so, go and look at those other places and let that other scripture help you better understand the particular passage you're dealing with. Or another way to state the principle, principle number four, is interpret an unclear passage in light of a clear passage.

sometimes some passages are just not that clear to us but there will be another passage that speaks to the same issue that is clear go to it fifth principle interpret specific passages in light of their immediate context and in light of scripture as a whole in other words don't just rip a verse out of the bible and just think about that verse by itself if you're going to understand that verse best you've got to understand it in the context of what you're reading something came before that verse something came after that verse the writer often is making an argument or is putting forth thoughts in an order and we need to understand how that verse fits into the scheme of what he's saying and we need to be sure that when we interpret any particular verse that we don't give a particular verse a meaning that is different from the broad teaching of scripture as a whole in other words if a verse is capable of two possible interpretations you give it the interpretation that is in harmony with the teaching of scripture as a whole does everybody understand this point is that clear next six sin lists are never cultural and i've given you two lists here look at these sin lists will say things like homosexual behavior is sinful murder is sinful lying is sinful those sin lists are sins from genesis 1 to revelation 22 and if it is sin from genesis 1 to revelation 22 it is still sin today the sin lists are never cultural Do you hear me? Some are wanting to say, oh, well, that's just the way it was back then. That's the way they thought about that behavior back then. If it's sin from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22, it's still sin today. And lastly, use your common sense.

If somebody is giving you an interpretation of Scripture that just seems bizarre, you know what? There may be a reason you think it's bizarre. Because it is. So God gave us minds. Use them.

Don't just swallow what anybody says to you at first blush necessarily. Think. Think. These principles, I think, are common sense principles, right? You just had a whole course in hermeneutics in those seven principles.

You'll spend a whole course fleshing out what all that stuff means, but I think those basic principles can be helpful. Okay. Now, here are words. Words are important. This book is full of all sorts of words, right?

Words are very important. And here's some things I want us to remember about words in Scripture. Words have meaning. And as we study a passage of Scripture, there will often be key words. We need to be sure we understand what they mean.

Most of the time, they mean what they would ordinarily mean. You look for the natural meaning of the text. Okay?

But commentaries can also help us understand what particular words mean. And always read particular words in their context. In the context of the sentence or the paragraph. There's usually a flow of thought. Now here, let me give you some examples of what I mean why words are important.

Everybody see these words?

Does everybody understand them? You know what? Sometimes words mean exactly what they say. There's not a problem with interpretation. There's not a problem with application.

The question is obedience. And this is an example. When God said you shall not commit adultery, he meant you shall not commit adultery. Right? the King James translators published an edition of the King James Bible.

They made a mistake in the printing. They left out an important word in this command. The 1631 edition of the King James Version omitted the word not and said, thou shalt commit adultery. I think some still have that edition. The king's printers were fined a significant sum for that error in the printing.

important, but they often mean exactly what they say. Here's another example, love. The Apostle Paul says something about love in 1 Corinthians 13, and the New International Version says, love always protects. And translating the same Greek words, the New American Standard says, love bears all things, a little different sense. Well, here's a basic principle for when you're studying the Bible or teaching the Bible. I highly recommend when you're studying the Bible, Study a passage using at least two good English translations.

And you see two I would recommend right there, the New International Version and the New American Standard Bible. Most of the time when you read a passage in those two English translations, there's going to really be no difference. But when you get to a passage like this and you say, hey, this is a little different in the translation, you've got to stop and say, why? Well, what's happening here is that the translators word stego, a Greek word that can have different meanings. But I think the king, excuse me, I believe the New International Version got this right, where it says it always protects.

And here's why I believe that. The stege was the roof on a house. The word stego is the verb that means to put a roof on a house. You know what a roof does, don't you? A roof is the covering.

The roof protects us from the elements. It protects us from things outside. And that's what love is. Love is like putting the roof on. Love is covering.

Love is protecting. For me, this was illustrated so vividly in a news clip that I saw probably a couple of years ago now when Israeli soldiers and caught in the crossfire was a father with his son. And the father takes his son, puts him against the wall of the house, and the father covers his son with his body. That's love. Love always protects.

Do you see how understanding what that word really means can give such deep richness, I think, to our understanding of God's word? Parents, you love your children. love always protects you always cover you're there husbands and wives love always protects

I remember when I was a little boy this always made an impression on me mom probably doesn't even remember telling me this but she told me one time just in talking and I don't know why we were talking about it but I was a very little boy and she said you know if it was necessary, your daddy would die for you. Wow. Love always protects. Power in words. And the scripture gives us that power.

How about this? I looked, I saw a new heaven and a new earth. You know, the word new can have two different senses. I can go buy a piece of real estate that has no house on it and build a house that did not exist there. I have a new house, right?

But I can go buy a piece of real estate with an old dilapidated house. I can go remodel the house, renovate the house, and I have a new house. Right? So in which sense are we going to have one day a new heaven and a new earth? This is talking about at the end of time.

Is it going to be a new heaven and a new earth in the sense that they didn't exist before? Something brand, brand new? or is it going to be the renovated heaven and earth? A little bit of difference. I think if you do your study, you would see that this word, the sense is, one day it's all going to be renovated.

It's not that it didn't exist before. God's going to make it new in the sense that he's going to remodel, renovate it. I think, ultimately, we're going back to Eden. God's going to renovate it and make it like he intended from the beginning. Power in words.

How about this? Old Testament prophecy. Two different translations. The New Revised Standard Version says a young woman will be with child and bear a son, you'll call him Emmanuel. But then the NIV translates the same word, virgin.

Some difference between just being a young woman, right? and being a virgin.

Now, if you were studying and you saw this difference in translation, you've got to stop and say, what's going on here? Well, there's a Hebrew word here that can mean either virgin or young woman. So how do you know which is the correct translation? I'm going to argue this is where you let Scripture interpret Scripture. And when you go to the New Testament in Matthew 1.23, we have Matthew looking back at this Old Testament prophecy, Greek word that even the new revised standard version translates as virgin.

There's no doubt in the Greek text the word is virgin. So I would argue this is where you let Scripture interpret Scripture, where we had a choice between one of two meanings with the Hebrew word. Here in the New Testament they use virgin, so I would argue you should have translated this virgin as well. Does everybody follow what I'm saying there? Words are important.

How about this? 2 Peter 3, 9. God is not willing that any should perish. Wow, I like that, right? Nobody's going to perish.

God's not willing for any to perish. And if God is not willing for any to perish, they're not going to perish because God is all-powerful, right? I'm a universalist. I'm not really. buy into this word willing.

Well, is that right? Are people, some people, going to die and go to hell? Yes. So what's going on here? Well, maybe we need to stop and look and understand the word, and the New American Standard makes it clear what the text is saying is God is not wishing for any to perish.

The real sense of that word is God doesn't desire anybody to perish. In a sense, he is willing for people to perish if they don't put their faith and trust in Christ. Everybody follow that. Words are important is the point I'm making. Secondly is context.

Words need to be understood in context. And when you come to a passage of Scripture, you need to ask, what's the historical and cultural setting? In other words, what's going on at that time? when the Apostle Paul wrote, where was he? What were his circumstances?

To whom was he writing? What were their circumstances? Why did he write? And this is where we need some tools to help us. You need a good study Bible.

A good study Bible is going to answer these questions for you. The NIV Study Bible or the New American Standard Study Bible have introductions to every book of the Bible. for you. So you're going to be able to read that book knowing what's going on with the author, with the recipients, and so forth. And that can help you better understand the book.

You also need to understand the literary context. In other words, what's happening in the flow of thought in the book. And here's an important thing I would highly recommend, and a good study Bible will have this too. Before you study any particular book of the Bible, look at the outline of the book that you can get in any good study Bible. In a page or two they will give you an outline where you can see from the beginning of the book to the end of the book and by looking at the outline you understand the argument that's being made or the flow of thought so that when you study a particular part you can better understand it.

And again this is where you need a few tools to help you. Here are a couple of examples. 4.4. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say rejoice.

Where was Paul when he wrote Philippians?

He was under house arrest,

imprisoned, his first Roman imprisonment, yet he's talking about joy. I think that gives a richness to what he's teaching when you understand his circumstances. What are the prison epistles in the New Testament?

Pepsi. Not Coca-Cola, but Pepsi. P-E-P-C. Philippians, Ephesians, Philemon, and Colossians. The prison epistles.

Pepsi. Pepsi. You should never forget the prison epistles now. How about this? Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.

Why does Paul want us to have the quality of humility? If you read this passage, Philippians 2, you will see that Paul begins chapter 2 by saying, I want you to be of one mind with a common purpose. Paul says, I want unity in the church. And then he goes on to talk about the importance of having humility. Why does Paul want us to have humility?

because Paul knows that in order to have unity in the church, we all need to have some humility. Why is it that there is often discord in the church?

Pride. I want to do it my way. It's the way we've always done it. We've never done it differently, and I'm going to do it this way. and I will not bend.

Paul said, no, that's not the way it works. It's humility. It's not you just getting your way or me just getting my way. And that lack of humility is a major, major problem within the church and causes so much disunity. So see, I think this gives a richness.

Paul is not saying to be humble just to be humble. be humble because it produces something good in the church it produces unity or at least helps to produce the unity does everybody follow me okay i'm going to stop there next week we're going to