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Often, the biblical text isn’t transformative and doesn’t bring about a “new creation” because we pull it inside of our own security systems and what we call “common sense.” At that point, no divine breakthrough is possible. Frankly speaking, this makes much of Scripture become largely harmless and forgettable. [1]
Discovering the “literal meaning” does not mean that we disregard the figurative, poetic, colloquial, metaphorical, or spiritual ways in which the biblical writers sometimes communicate.
Bryan Chapell • Christ-Centered Preaching
This also means we need to help our congregations grapple with the words themselves. We need to explain words that have unclear meanings. We should draw out nuances from the original languages that may not come through clearly in our English translations. We should not let people import their own meaning onto the words or conveniently skip over
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Later in this book we will see that one way to help keep the Bible’s truths from seeming disconnected from life today is to state main points and subpoints as universal principles rather than simply as descriptions or recitations of the facts in a text (such as “Noah was wise”).
Bryan Chapell • Christ-Centered Preaching
“Again, we cannot impose on a biblical author information that we possess because of our accumulated current knowledge—whether historical, astronomical, or theological—or expect that an ancient writer possessed our knowledge. If we read into the biblical texts information the authors could not have possessed, we distort their meaning. For example,
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