Should we interpret the Scriptures in the light of our personal experiences?

1. Should we interpret the Scriptures in the light of our personal experiences? Or Should we interpret our personal experiences in the light of the Scriptures?

2. There Are Five Categories of Personal Experience • What we think • What we say • What we do • What is said to us • What is done to us

3. There Are Five Categories of Personal Experience • What you say is known to everyone who hears you say it. • What you do is known to everyone who observes you doing it. • What you think is known only by you and God. • What you think is not nearly as important as what God thinks.

4. Jeremiah 10:23 O Lord, I know the way of man is not in himself; It is not in man who walks to direct his own steps.

5. Isaiah 55:8-9 "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways," says the Lord. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts."

6. Matthew 21:23-27 Now when He came into the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people confronted Him as He was teaching, and said, "By what authority are You doing these things? And who gave You this authority?"

7. Matthew 21:23-27 But Jesus answered and said to them, "I also will ask you one thing, which if you tell Me, I likewise will tell you by what authority I do these things:

8. Matthew 21:23-27 "The baptism of John--where was it from? From heaven or from men?" And they reasoned among themselves, saying, "If we say, 'From heaven,' He will say to us, 'Why then did you not believe him?'

9. Matthew 21:23-27 "But if we say, 'From men,' we fear the multitude, for all count John as a prophet." So they answered Jesus and said, "We do not know." And He said to them, "Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.

10. Acts 26:8-11 "Why should it be thought incredible by you that God raises the dead? Indeed, I myself thought I must do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth.

11. Acts 26:8-11 "This I also did in Jerusalem, and many of the saints I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priests; and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them.

12. Acts 26:8-11 "And I punished them often in every synagogue and compelled them to blaspheme; and being exceedingly enraged against them, I persecuted them even to foreign cities."

13. There Are Five Categories of Personal Experience • The only thing said to us that matters is what God says to us.

14. Titus 1:2 in hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began,

15. Matthew 7:15 "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves."

16. 2 Peter 2:1-3 But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction.

17. 2 Peter 2:1-3 And many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed. By covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words; for a long time their judgment has not been idle, and their destruction does not slumber.

18. There Are Five Categories of Personal Experience • The only thing said to us that matters is what God says to us. • The only thing done to us that matters is what God does to us.

19. 2 Timothy 3:8-12 Now as Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, disapproved concerning the faith; but they will progress no further, for their folly will be manifest to all, as theirs also was.

20. 2 Timothy 3:8-12 But you have carefully followed my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, love, perseverance,

21. 2 Timothy 3:8-12 persecutions, afflictions, which happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra--what persecutions I endured. And out of them all the Lord delivered me. Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.

22. 2 Timothy 4:5 But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

23. There Are Five Categories of Personal Experience • The only way we can know what God says and does is by reading and under-standing the Bible.

24. Hebrews 1:1-2 God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds;

25. Matthew 10:40 "He who receives you receives Me, and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me."

26. John 13:20 "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who receives whomever I send receives Me; and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me."

27. John 16:12-15 "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.

28. John 16:12-15 "He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you."

29. 1 Corinthians 2:7-13 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

30. 1 Corinthians 2:7-13 But as it is written: "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,Nor have entered into the heart of manThe things which God has prepared for those who love Him." But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.

31. 1 Corinthians 2:7-13 For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.

32. 1 Corinthians 2:7-13 These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

33. Romans 8:14-17 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, "Abba, Father."

34. Romans 8:14-17 The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs--heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.

35. 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homo-sexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.

36. 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.

37. Galatians 5:19-21 Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies,

38. Galatians 5:19-21 envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

39. Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

40. Romans 10:17 So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

41. Therefore: • We must interpret the Scriptures first, then interpret our personal experiences in the light of the Scriptures. • To do otherwise is to attach greater importance to our thoughts and ways than to the thoughts and ways of God.