Hermeneutics before argument

Read what is there. Follow where it leads.

Our method is grammatical-historical, canonical, biblical-theological, Christ-centered, and consciously dependent on the Holy Spirit.

The eight movements

From open Bible to entrusted truth.

Ask the Spirit who inspired the text to make us humble, attentive, obedient, and Christ-exalting.

Read the passage repeatedly in the ESV, compare translations when needed, and note any meaningful textual question.

Mark structure, repetition, contrasts, commands, promises, actors, logic, and literary features.

Move outward: sentence, paragraph, section, book, author, covenant, historical setting, and canon.

Let syntax, usage, and literary form constrain what the author can responsibly be saying.

Place the passage in creation, fall, covenant, promise, Christ, church, mission, and new creation.

State the claim, gather the whole counsel of God, and distinguish clear teaching from theological inference.

Obey the truth, answer a live objection, depend on the Spirit, and teach someone else to do the same.

Interpretive guardrails

Text over tribe

Confessions, teachers, and traditions serve the Word. They never become a second final authority.

Meaning before significance

First ask what the author communicates; then ask how that truth confronts this room today.

Context over concordance

Cross-references confirm meaning only after the controlling passage has been allowed to speak.

Canon over fragment

A precept belongs inside an argument, a covenant, a book, and the Bible’s unfolding story.

Christ without shortcuts

Do not force Jesus into incidental details. Trace legitimate promise, type, office, theme, and fulfillment.

Spirit without subjectivism

Welcome illumination, gifts, and impressions while testing everything under the sufficient canon.

The first laboratory

Exodus 3 and John 8 train the class to join lexical work, narrative context, canonical echo, Christology, and apologetic delivery.