Doctrine Of Bible Interpretation 1 by Pastor Dolapo Lawal: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

Why This Series Matters

A strong church is not built on emotions. It is built on doctrine. Spiritual growth does not come from watching sermon snippets or short-form content. Those may carry the wisdom or application side of a message — but they are not doctrine, and doctrine alone is what produces genuine growth.

Growth only happens in the revelation of the knowledge of Christ.

2 Peter 1:2 — Grace and peace are multiplied in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. Grace multiplies. Peace multiplies. And peace is a very powerful sign of maturity. There is a dimension of faith that knows God enough to sleep in the storm. That peace cannot be forced, and power will not flow from anxiety. The demonstration of the life of God requires that peace component to be in place.

John 17:3 — This is eternal life: that they may know the one true God and Jesus whom he sent. Eternal life is defined as knowing God — not merely as a doctrine to confess, but as a relationship to inhabit.

The Crisis of Biblical Illiteracy

The apostles who wrote the letters being studied in Bible schools today were, by the world's standards, uneducated men. Acts 4:13 records that when the religious establishment observed Peter and John's boldness, they perceived they were uneducated and untrained — the Greek word is idiotes, meaning a person without formal intellectual training. They marveled. Yet they could say nothing against the miracle standing before them. Power, when it shows, silences grammar.

The epistles were not written as seminary textbooks. They were letters — written to gathered believers in cities like Rome, Corinth, and Colossae, meant to be read publicly in church to poor, uneducated congregations. Romans 1:7, 1 Corinthians 1:2, Colossians 4:16 all confirm this. These letters were intended to be heard, understood, and applied by ordinary people.

If something so simple has become so difficult, the problem is not the text — it is the architecture of how the church trains people.

Compare the rigor of other religious traditions:

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• Islam: Children begin learning Arabic alphabet, basic supplications, and correct methods of prayer from ages 2 to 5. By ages 6 to 10, they are memorizing Quranic recitation. The religion is not simplified to meet the child — the child is trained to go and meet the religion.
• Judaism: From age 3, children are introduced to the Hebrew alphabet and basic prayers. By age 5 they begin the Torah and the ethics of the fathers. By ages 10 to 13 they are studying oral law, Jewish identity, practical life skills, and conduct. By 13 the transition to full religious responsibility begins — a child has become a son.

This kind of progressive, structured system to bring a person into maturity is precisely what is missing in Christianity. The result is believers who are tossed to and fro — today convinced God can heal, tomorrow in doubt; today believing in the things of the Spirit, tomorrow unsure. That instability is not a faith problem. It is a knowledge problem. Christianity has not been wired into the believer's nature. It remains, for many, just another opinion.

Jesus Trained Teenagers

The disciples Jesus chose were likely teenagers — not established middle-aged men. Several lines of evidence converge on this conclusion:

1. The Temple Tax Evidence

   Matthew 17:24-27 — When the temple tax collectors approached Peter, Jesus provided payment only for himself and Peter. According to Exodus 30:13-14, this tax was required only of Jewish males aged 20 and older. Since the entire group was present and Jesus paid for only two, the strong implication is that the remaining ten disciples were under 20 and legally exempt.

2. The Jewish Educational Timeline

   In first-century Jewish culture, the path to discipleship followed a strict age-based sequence: ages 5 to 12 for basic Torah study; ages 13 to 15 for advanced study for the most gifted students; and from 15 onward, young men would either apply to follow a rabbi or begin learning a trade. When Jesus called the disciples, many were still working alongside their fathers — James and John with Zebedee — placing them precisely in this transitional phase.

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Pastor Dolapo Lawal
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3. Marital Status

   Of the twelve, only Peter is recorded as married. This is consistent with a group of young men who had not yet reached the age for marriage.

4. Post-Resurrection Longevity

   The apostle John lived to approximately 96 to 100 AD, writing Revelation around 90 AD — nearly 60 to 70 years after the crucifixion. If John had been 30 years old during Jesus' ministry, he would have been close to 120 at death. It is far more historically plausible that he was as young as 13 to 15 during those years.

5. Behavioral Evidence

   The gospels frequently show the disciples arguing about who was the greatest — a behavior more characteristic of competitive teenagers than established men. Jesus also referred to them at times as "little children" and "little ones."

The implication is significant. In Luke 10, Jesus sent them out without him to cast out demons and work miracles — these were 13 and 14 year olds going into strangers' homes. In Matthew 28:19-20, when he said "Go and make disciples of all nations," he was placing the destiny of the world in the hands of teenagers. And he did not dumb it down for them. He taught them the word. He made it accessible without watering it down.

The Church Should Be a School of Ministry

Kenneth Hagin observed that if the local church were doing its job, there would be no need for Bible schools. The letters being studied in those schools were written to churches — meant to be understood by the people sitting in the pews. That they now require specialized academic training to interpret reveals how far the church has drifted from its original function.

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The Spirit And The Word

by Archbishop Benson Idahosa

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The average age of a Protestant pastor has risen from 44 in 1992 to 54 to 60 today. Only 1 in 7 pastors — approximately 14 to 15% — are under the age of 40. Approximately half of all active pastors are now over 55. Yet Jesus picked teenagers. And the average Nigerian is 19 years old. A generation is present, and it needs pastors who can reach it.

The objective of learning how to interpret scripture is not academic. It is pastoral. Every believer is called to be a discipler — in a family, in a workplace, in a community. A parent who cannot answer a child's basic questions about the gospel has failed in the most fundamental pastoral assignment. And that failure traces back to a church that taught people what to believe without teaching them how to think biblically.

What Is Bible Interpretation and Why Does It Matter

A letter has one intended meaning — the intention of the person who wrote it. Anything derived outside of that intention is misunderstanding. In biblical studies, importing a meaning into scripture from outside the text is called eisegesis. What God requires is exegesis — drawing meaning out of what is actually there.

The meaning of any passage is bound to its context. Colossians 3 cannot be understood without reading from Colossians 1. The Bible was not written in chapters — it was written in connected thoughts. Reading one chapter per day in isolation guarantees that some meaning will be missed.

Ephesians 2:1 begins with "And you have been made alive..." — a sentence that opens with a conjunction. That means a thought is already in progress. Beginning at chapter 2 without chapter 1 produces half-knowledge, and half-knowledge is more dangerous than ignorance. An ignorant person will stay quiet and listen. A person with half-knowledge thinks they already know something, so they argue and resist correction.

Wrong knowledge, studied with zeal and passion, does not become right. A wrong coach is not better than no coach.

A practical example: 1 Corinthians 2:9 — "Eyes have not seen, nor ear heard, the things which God has prepared for those who love him." Many believers quote this as a promise about their future breakthrough. But verse 10 answers immediately: "But God has revealed them to us through his Spirit." This is not a promise that things are hidden — it is a declaration that they have already been revealed. To quote verse 9 in isolation and declare it as a future hope is to misappropriate truth.

Another example: Ephesians 1:17-23 — Paul prays that the eyes of understanding would be enlightened to know what is the hope of the calling and the riches of the glory in the saints. Believers read this prayer and receive it as an aspiration. But the answer to the prayer is right there in the context: Ephesians 2:4-6 — "But God, who is rich in mercy, even when you were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ." The eyes of understanding are being opened to see that the same Christ seated far above all principality and power has already quickened and raised the believer together with him. The prayer and its answer are in the same letter — but only if the context is read.

The Danger of Borrowed Words

God operates on a law of deposit and withdrawal. The word must be abundant in the heart before it can be released from the mouth with power. Matthew 12:34 — out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. If the word is not first deposited abundantly in the heart, speaking it becomes a check written on an empty account. It bounces. The problem is not that the word does not work — the problem is that it was never sufficiently deposited.

A word given by the Spirit for one person cannot simply be transferred to another situation. A prescription written for a specific patient cannot be handed to someone else and expected to produce the same result. When it does not work, the conclusion is not that healing is unavailable — it is that the word for that moment must be sought specifically.

Joshua 1:8 — "This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do all that is written in it. Then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success."

Christian meditation is not the silencing of the mind — that is yoga. Christian meditation is speaking the word into the mind. It is loud, not quiet. It is the practice of hearing truth and preaching it to oneself until it moves from the head into the heart. The verse links this practice directly to action: that you may observe to do. Without meditation, the doing does not happen — not for lack of trying, but because effort without the implanted word is not recorded by God as doing.

Anything not of faith is not recorded. Effort without faith is not credited as obedience.

Milk Christians and Meat Christians

Hebrews 5:13-14 distinguishes between those who live on milk and those who handle solid food. Milk is for those whose only engagement with the word is through Sunday services. Solid food belongs to those who teach — who eat meat not for themselves alone but so they can produce milk for others.

A mature believer does not look for answers only for their own benefit. They pursue understanding because they know someone else will have the same question. That is eating meat — processing truth deeply enough to be an answer to others, not merely a recipient of ministry.

The course content of this series — the doctrine of Bible interpretation, hermeneutics, the authority of scripture, Bible translations, and how all of these shape life — is not academic enrichment. It is the foundation for becoming the kind of person whose children can ask hard questions and receive real answers. Whose congregation can be led with substance. Whose words carry the weight of something actually in the heart.