Statement by Bro. Steve Pixler

[notofworks]

Originally Posted by Jeffrey

I am too!

Translators have a task at preserving a document as best they can for us to read. From there, as a reader, we are making a gazillion interpretive judgements when reading the "plain and simple" text. Everyone makes judgements. I agree that to gain from Scripture you don't have to always dig deeper. But to fully understand what the scripture means to the original audience, and to hear the words of Jesus as the people who first heard them, it takes some work. I'm guilty so often of reading into to the text, and I admit I do that a lot! So this is why it's important to understand what it meant to the original audience first. That doesn't take being a Greek/Hebrew scholar. Know how to use tools, have some idea of hermeneutics, be open-minded and as objective as is possible approaching the Text, pray and let something mystical happen!

I'm a relentless admirer of Dan Segraves. I must have heard him say, "Context is everything" a million times. I would never hear him talk about a verse without extensively examining the ten before it and the ten after it.