We're going to look, we're looking at more passages about the rains, Psalm 26.
And here's the thing, everything in the Bible is not always going to be just super easy
to understand.
And if it were, then the Bible would be a boring book because we'd all master it by
the time we're a teenager and then we would just be done.
But actually we spent our whole lives studying the Bible.
And like I said, there are places we can go for help if we struggle to understand a word.
Obviously we can reach for the dictionary.
The dictionary is not infallible, but like I said, 99% of the time it's going to steer
you right on what these words generally mean.
But not only that, the Bible says that God gave us pastors and teachers also to help
edify the body of Christ.
And so a pastor's job is to take the word of God and make it understandable and break
it down to you.
Now, you can learn it on your own as well and you've got the dictionary and you've
got the Holy Spirit and you're comparing scripture with scripture, but also pastors and teachers
can help that process along too, but what we don't need to do is dumb down the Bible
so that you don't have to learn anything.
And here's what's so ridiculous about saying, well, we have to remove all the archaic language
from the Bible.
We've got to get rid of all the archaic language.
Here's the problem with that.
The Bible's an old book.
The Bible's old.
It's old.
So you can't make it sound new when it's old.
Here's the problem.
Some concepts in the Bible are just concepts that are old and we don't really have a better
modern word for it because it's not really a thing anymore.
Does everybody understand what I'm saying?
Like for example, how would you translate rains?
What would you change rains to?
I'm he that searches the lower back?
You know, I'm he that searches the kidneys?
It doesn't sound right, does it?
See rains is the word that we need and unfortunately we don't use it that much but it's still the
right word.
And there are other concepts in the Bible that we have no clue what they're like in
our everyday lives like the average Joe isn't really going to understand the dowry.
But yet we can't just remove the word dowry from the Bible because that was a thing back
then.
Or you know what's the perfect modern word for concubine?
You don't really have one.
That's why you need that biblical word concubine because that actually gives us what we need
to know.
Now here's the thing, concepts like dowry, concubine and rains might not be things that
we think about in 2021, but that's what they were thinking about back then.
That's what is in the context of scripture.
So if you're going to read a book that's written 2,000 years ago or 3,500 years ago, you're
going to have to obviously open your mind to some concepts of things that were going
on back then.
And all of the answers are found within scripture.
You can study the bible and figure out what a dowry is.
You can study scripture and figure out what a concubine is.
You can look at the dictionary and figure out what the reins are, study scripture and
compare it with words like bowels and heart and all these different things.
And you can come to these conclusions and say, okay, I get it.
That's where you feel things.
That's where you have feelings.
That's where you have emotions in these body parts.
Not physically, not literally, literally a feeling, yes, but it's metaphorical of the
feelings that produce those twinges and so forth in our physical body.
So what I'm saying is, it's a fool's errand to try to make the Bible sound like it was
written in 2021, because it wasn't written in 2021, and it reflects the time in which
it was written.
And so there are going to be some concepts that have to do with the Middle East.
I mean, what, I guess if you're an Eskimo, we should give you a Bible where everybody's
living in an igloo, right, and it's all about ice and snow and everything.
Folks, no, if you're an Eskimo reading the Bible, you're going to have to read about
some hot, dry places, so we can't just make the Bible fit you.
Plus, another thing you need to understand is that the way people talk and the way people
write are two different things.
Sometimes people will transcribe my sermons, and when you read a transcription of my sermons,
it doesn't feel like you're reading a book, does it?
It feels like you're reading a speech because we talk differently.
So a lot of times people, they want the Bible to sound not even the way things are written
today, they want it to sound like the way people talk today, and that's ridiculous.
That's not how literature even works, okay.
So anyway, I just wanted to go off on that because there's a reason why we're King James
Bible only, there's a reason why we're not members of the Bible of the Month Club.
Stick with the King James and you know, you might actually learn something about the culture
in the process.
You might actually learn something about the setting of the Bible and you're going to increase
your vocabulary and you've got the dictionary, you've got Pastor Anderson, you've got other
people to help you, you've got your parents to explain things, you know, just stay with
the stuff.
Okay.
So where did I have you turned?
Jeremiah 17?