2009 Chafer Theological Seminary Bible Conference

2009 Chafer Theological Seminary Bible Conference

March 2009

Biblical Hermeneutics

Conference materials for the 2009 Chafer Theological Seminary annual Pastors Conference. The theme for this year’s conference was Biblical Hermeneutics and was hosted by West Houston Bible Church from March 9-11, 2009. The Keynote speaker was Dr. Ron Merryman. Other speakers included special guest speaker Dr. Robert Thomas, as well as Rev. Charles Clough, Dr. J.B. Hixson, Dr. Tommy Ice, Dr. George Meisinger, Pastor Clay Ward, and Prof. Andy Woods.

To view all video Bible studies in the 2009 Chafer Theological Seminary Bible Conference series, click here (Vimeo) or here (YouTube).

Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Series: 2009 Chafer Theological Seminary Bible Conference
Midrash/Pesher is a principle in Rabbinic hermeneutics that often seems to go against the plain meaning of the text, which seems to contradict the historical/grammatical interpretation of a text. Based upon a faulty definition as to what it meant by the midrash and pesher principal, has led to two negative scenarios. In liberalism, this has tended to lead to a denial of biblical authority and a denial that the New Testament is the inspired Word of God. Among some evangelicals, such as Robert Gundry in his commentary on the Book of Matthew, claims that the visit of the wise men is a midrash and should not be taken as a real historical event. The implication here is that when rabbis practice midrashic interpretation, they deny the actual literal intent of the passage itself. These issues will be dealt with in this paper. ...

Dr. Arnold Fruchtenbaum was unable to attend at the last moment. His paper is included in the notes link below.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Passage: 2 Timothy 3:10-4:8
Series: 2009 Chafer Theological Seminary Bible Conference
Duration: 1 hr 7 mins 59 secs
Evening Keynote address
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Series: 2009 Chafer Theological Seminary Bible Conference
Duration: 1 hr 18 mins 1 sec

This paper presents the position that 1 Corinthians 15 contains an adequate gospel message enabling one to be born again.

From biblical theology, we learn that the saving gospel message is a unit, a single whole. Like a cut-diamond, it is an entity possessing multiple facets. One apostle presents one facet, while another presents a different facet. Of course, the divine Author superintended every word that flowed from their quills. ...

You can find Dr. Meisinger's Gospel Model from 1 Corinthians 15:1-19 by clicking on the slideshow link below.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Series: 2009 Chafer Theological Seminary Bible Conference
Duration: 1 hr 11 mins 57 secs
Vince Lombardi is widely recognized as one of the greatest football coaches of all time. Legend has it that on one occasion, after a particularly tough loss for his team, he gathered his players in the locker room for the usual postgame speech. In a short but poignant statement, the coach cut right to the heart of the matter. Holding up a football, Lombardi quipped, “Gentlemen, this is a football.” His point was not lost on the players: Their performance in the game that just concluded had evidenced an utter lack of competency in the very basic fundamentals of the game. ...
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Series: 2009 Chafer Theological Seminary Bible Conference
Duration: 1 hr 16 mins 56 secs

Genre Override and Historicity

Craig L.Blomberg

The preunderstanding of most of today’s evangelical scholars who specialize in Gospel study is that the Gospels require special rules of interpretation because they belong to a special literary category. “Genre” is the term they use to speak of such a category. These scholars will usually advocate that theological rather than historical purposes dominated in the writing of the Gospels, and consequently, that a high degree of historical precision in the Gospels is not to be expected. They evaluate the Gospels according to historiographical canons of the day in which they were written and not according to modern standards of historical reliability. Blomberg writes, …

Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Series: 2009 Chafer Theological Seminary Bible Conference
Duration: 1 hr 11 mins 18 secs

Genre Override and Historicity

Craig L.Blomberg

The preunderstanding of most of today’s evangelical scholars who specialize in Gospel study is that the Gospels require special rules of interpretation because they belong to a special literary category. “Genre” is the term they use to speak of such a category. These scholars will usually advocate that theological rather than historical purposes dominated in the writing of the Gospels, and consequently, that a high degree of historical precision in the Gospels is not to be expected. They evaluate the Gospels according to historiographical canons of the day in which they were written and not according to modern standards of historical reliability. Blomberg writes, …

Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Passage: 2 Timothy 3:10-4:8
Series: 2009 Chafer Theological Seminary Bible Conference
Duration: 1 hr 7 mins 45 secs
Evening Keynote address
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Passage: Genesis
Series: 2009 Chafer Theological Seminary Bible Conference
Duration: 59 mins 36 secs
MODERN MAN’S enlightened thinking has failed to provide the answers to life’s great questions: Who are we? Where did we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going? While man has wrestled unsuccessfully with these questions for centuries, the Biblical study of history actually answers them. Sadly, due to the pagan influence of Secular Humanism, history is no longer seen as a witness to Truth but instead has been trivialized into meaningless lists of dates and names without inherent, consistent meaning or purpose. Nothing could be farther from the Truth. A correct understanding of human history inevitably leads to correct Biblical answers to life’s questions. ...
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Series: 2009 Chafer Theological Seminary Bible Conference
Duration: 1 hr 14 mins 13 secs
A couple of years ago Mark Hitchcock and I wrote a book interacting with Hank Hanegraaff of Bible Answer Man fame entitled Breaking The Apocalypse Code. The reason we wrote the book is because Hanegraaff mentioned Tim LaHaye about 350 times in his book. I don’t recall if any of them were in a good light. Hanegraaff’s book Breaking the Apocalypse Code professed to be a book that would lay out the correct method for interpreting the Book of Revelation. Needless to say to this group, I was not impressed. In fact, I believe that if his method were followed, it would set hermeneutics back 500 years. ...
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Series: 2009 Chafer Theological Seminary Bible Conference
Duration: 1 hr 10 mins 21 secs
In our initial presentation, we emphasized the effects when inserting preunderstanding into the exegetical process at Level 1. Today we need to proceed to a particular principle of literal interpretation, the distortion of which has brought tremendous changes to the way evangelicals interpret the Scriptures. Let’s talk about the principle of single meaning.