Satan asked Eve in the Garden of Eden “God really said not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?” Eve either did not know what God had said or she did not believe God. In either case, Satan achieved his goal. “kill, steal and destroy”.

Satan’s game plan remains the same today. He’s still asking the question, “God really said?” It is amazing the responses one gets when asked a question about a specific Bible verse. Here are some common responses you hear from many professing Christians, including many well-known preachers.

1) The Old Testament was written only for Jews and does not apply to Christians.

2) The “Law” no longer applies to Christians who are under grace.

3) The Bible in the original manuscript does not contain errors, which implies that our current manuscripts contain errors and are the only ones capable of determining which is an error and which is not.

For example, the group calling themselves the “Jesus Seminar” implies that the Bible does not portray the real Jesus, but they are so smart that they can read documents from Jesus’ period and determine the real Jesus.

Common sense tells you that if you were to read material from today, you would not be projecting a true picture of those who truly believe in Jesus, but would be representing a secular faith of those who have both feet in the world.

Before attending Bible Institute and seminary, he had been a Christian for twenty-five years, earning degrees in physics, mathematics, and computer science. All of these fields are pure science and have very rigid rules that apply. However, when I began my studies in theology, I was struck by how much of theology, the study of God and His Word, was subjective rather than objective. How could it be that the creator of science allowed the most important science, the study of Himself, to be like that?

After much study of the Bible and different interpretations of man, I have come to the conclusion that the question Satan asked Eve is the problem, “God really said?”

To answer this question we must approach the subject from the main revelation of God, the Bible. The first verse says “In the beginning God…”.

Hebrews 11:6 says, “So, you see, it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that there is a God and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him.” (NLT). We must first believe that there is a God. The Bible goes on to say in Romans 10:17, “However, faith comes from hearing this good news message: the Good News about Christ”(NLT).

So, we must first settle the problem of whether there is a God and has revealed Himself as stated in Hebrews 1:1-3; “Long ago God spoke many times and in many ways to our ancestors through the prophets. But now, in these last days, he has spoken to us through his Son. God promised everything to the Son as an inheritance, and by through the Son he made the universe and everything in it. The Son reflects God’s own glory, and everything in him exactly represents God. He sustains the universe with the mighty power of his command. After dying to cleanse us from the stain of sin, sat in the place of honor at the right hand of the mighty God of heaven” (NLT).

The first step to understanding the truth is a firm belief (faith) that God exists and that he rewards those who seek him through Christ.

The understanding of the second step is to seek God through Christ. “Jesus said I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father accepted by me” (John 14:16). From this thought derives the hermeneutics of interpreting the Bible through the lens of “Jesus and him crucified”. Hermeneutics are rules of interpretation of the Bible. The interpretation of the Bible through the theological lens of Jesus and Him crucified can be found in Luke chapter 24 when Jesus tells the two on the road to Emmaus that they should have known about the crucifixion because Moses and the Prophets (Old Testament) had explained it.

In the physical sciences you have rules that have been established by observation and then proven by application, like gravity. The same can be true for the science of theology. Just as an object was observed to fall when it was dropped, it was shown that this was consistent and that the rules of gravity could be consistently applied.

However, theologians are slow to apply the same process to the study of God and His Word. Satan is still spewing confusion “God really said?” And if He said something specific, then what did He mean by that statement?

Many Bible teachers today are more motivated by the doctrines of their church or by the subjective theories of man in their process of biblical interpretation than by the objective word of God. For example, I have listed below several of our current schools of theology that have developed rules of biblical interpretation, many of which I believe to be more subjective than objective. I should leave out that I am heavily biased toward Biblical, Covenant, and Systematic theology over the others because I truly believe that each of these is more objectively fashioned from scriptural application than “man’s opinion of scripture” (subjective ).

Below is a list of some of the top schools of theology and my ranking of objectivity vs. subjectivity.

1) Systematic Theology – heavy objectivity (Word of God) – weakness – Scripture out of context

2) Biblical Theology – strong objectivity (Word of God) – must understand the totality of Scripture – interpretation based on the unity of the Word of God

3) Covenant Theology – strong objectivity (Word of God) focuses on God’s covenant relationship with man – must understand His covenant revelations

The following four schools of theology, if they could be said to be truly schools of theology, are in my opinion highly subjective and are more focused on a specific man’s opinion of the Word of God than on the Word of God itself.

4) Calvinism – Developed from five basic doctrines that drive biblical interpretation. It is known by the acronym TULIP. There is a lot of information available on the web about

Calvinism and TULIP (in 1500 AD)

5) Arminianism: Santiago Arminio, who lived after John Calvin and developed a five point theology to counteract the five points of the Calvinist. (in 1600 AD)

6) Wesleyanism: John Wesley developed a theology that is very similar to Arminianism, which led to the formation of the Methodist Church. (in the 1700s)

7) Dispensationalism teaches biblical history as a number of successive economies or administrations, called dispensations, each emphasizing that God deals with the people of that dispensation differently than with other dispensations. (Darby-in the 1800’s)

In fact, that ending (ism) should be a clue to your subjectivity. Most people who focus on these more subjective theologies tend to read Scripture through the lens that is shadowed by their (very subjective) theology.

As mentioned above, hermeneutics defines the rules of biblical interpretation (exegesis). One’s hermeneutic is heavily influenced by his school of theology. I would like to address two current hermeneutics (a) HISTORICAL/GRAMMATICAL (b) HISTORICAL/GRAMMATICAL/THEOLOGICAL.

HISTORICAL/GRAMMATICAL: This method relies on grammatical structure, immediate context, and knowledge of the historical setting. Again, like the common sense approach to the law of gravity, no one is alive today who understands the grammatical and common understanding of the meanings of words of that day. For example, the word “mouse” today means an animal and also the computing device; the word “gay” means to be happy or a “homosexual”. Imagine some of the difficulties of interpreting some of our current written material based on our understanding of words two thousand years from now.

Who today truly understands the historical events of the Biblical story, in many cases we do not even know for sure the year within a hundred years of the event or even the location, or identity of the writer.

HISTORICAL/GRAMMATICAL/THEOLOGICAL: By adding the theological element to the interpretation of the Bible, you add a variable that, from a common sense perspective, gives you a higher probability of correct interpretation and that is to interpret Scripture with respect to Scripture. I would like to suggest two common sense items in using the theological interpretation.

1) Be sure to interpret according to the most common meaning. That is, if Scripture uses one meaning 100 times and another meaning 1 time, the most likely meaning would be the one used 100 times.

2) Let the simpler verses be a key factor in interpreting the more complicated ones.

As my comments indicate, I think you approach theology as you would other sciences created by God, such as physics and mathematics. You lay down rules that can be tested and build a theology block by block.

For example, Joshua 1:8 gives mankind the formula for success; “Continually study this Book of the Law. Meditate on it day and night to be sure to obey everything that is written in it. Only then will you succeed” (NTV).

Approximately 500 years later, the man to whom God bestows wisdom, Solomon claims “There is nothing new under the sun” Y “everything is vanity except”; “Here is my final conclusion: Fear God and obey his commandments, because this is the duty of every person. God will judge us for everything we do, even for everything secret, whether good or bad:” (Eccl 12:13-14).

Then, a thousand years after Solomon, Jesus makes a similar statement when he says: “Not all religious-sounding people are truly pious. They may refer to me as ‘Lord,’ but they still won’t enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The decisive issue is whether they obey my Father in heaven. (MT 7:21 NLT)

There seems to be a common thread in all these three references and that is that obedience to God’s Word brings blessings, and disobedience brings curses.

let us “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a workman who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” (2 Timothy 2:15 KJV)