Mining the Word or Filling perceived Potholes?

[Van]

A. Lincoln said all creation is the mine, and we (humanity) are the miners. We extract of creation what we seek. Not just fruit growing on trees, but we dig into the earth, remove ore and refine it such that we obtain Iron, or gold or copper.

We do not just find useful things on the surface, but must repetitively try diverse methods, clinging to what is of utility, such as going to school on our past efforts.

We "mine" God's word for "truth." Many times our efforts to refine what we see results not in truth, but in our misapprehension of truth. Some find in the ambiguous phrase "cannot understand the things of the Spirit of God" the unwarranted expansion of "cannot understand all the things of the Spirit of God.

A. Lincoln strove to mine God's creation for truth, but many of his insights did not mesh with the cultural norms thought to be truth. All men were created equal, yet not all men were equal, was culturally accepted, but did not meet with Mr. Lincoln's Euclidean view that equals were equal.

When we mine God's word, we must not accept ambiguity, but test everything to demonstrate truth with clarity.

See Job 28.

 

[Van]

Filling in the potholes:

1) Spiritually dead added meaning: Total Spiritual Inability

2) Unable to understand the spiritual things added meaning: Unable to understand all spiritual things.

 

[Van]

The shovels:

1) Formal Equivalence Bible Translation such as NASB for our primary study bible.

2) Exhaustive Concordance for our primary study bible

3) Reverse Interlinear with individual word parsing for our primary study bible.

4) Comparison bibles (online) and bible word search (online).

 

[Deacon]

When we mine God's word, we must not accept ambiguity, but test everything to demonstrate truth with clarity.

When believers “mine God’s word for truth” it is helpful to know the soil one is digging in.
When studying the Word, recognizing the various biblical genres helps us determine the potential riches that may be available.
Poetry and law, history and wisdom, are all ‘mined’ differently.

Therefore, (with slight change)
When we mine God's word, we must RECOGNIZE ambiguity AND test everything to demonstrate truth with clarity.

Rob

 

[Van]

When believers “mine God’s word for truth” it is helpful to know the soil one is digging in.
When studying the Word, recognizing the various biblical genres helps us determine the potential riches that may be available.
Poetry and law, history and wisdom, are all ‘mined’ differently.

Therefore, (with slight change)
When we mine God's word, we must RECOGNIZE ambiguity AND test everything to demonstrate truth with clarity.
Rob

Good Point! Failure to recognize alternate possible meanings of words and phrases is like mining on the surface only.
I think the nod to various biblical genres is a tad overblown. I think the same procedure of interpretation works with all scripture.

Someone said exegesis is applied hermeneutics.

Here is an article on how to derive the intended meaning, including discovery of metaphors, allusions, and word play, all part of how words and phrases are being used in the text under study.

What is good biblical exegesis? | GotQuestions.org