How Are You Supposed to Read the Bible – Dr. John Yeo

[00:00:00] 7:19 and now here’s your host Kevin Conover bring your time

[00:00:06] welcome to educate for life radio on podcast I’m your host Kevin Conover my websites educate for life.org and if you

[00:00:12] are concerned about your children having a strong faith or maybe you yourself having a strong faith you can check out

[00:00:18] my website educate for life or gets all about helping you to know why the Bible is true and B being able to communicate

[00:00:24] that effectively to those around you relatives friends conversations you have at Thanksgiving or whatever is happening

[00:00:31] we’ve got we’re coming up on the holidays all kinds of opportunities to have these discussions about eternal

[00:00:37] matters things that are significant why am I here where did I come from where am I going what’s my purpose all that good

[00:00:43] stuff so you can check that out on my website and I would love to have you become a member on our site my guest

[00:00:50] today is dr. John yo he serves at Southern California seminary as the

[00:00:56] professor of Old Testament prior to coming to SES So Cal Sam edu dr. yo was

[00:01:03] assistant professor of Old Testament academic dean dean at Reformed Theological Seminary in Atlanta Georgia

[00:01:10] an associate professor of Old Testament at South Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth Texas

[00:01:17] he’s also a member of the evangelical theological Society and the Society of

[00:01:22] biblical literature and just to brag on him a little bit more here he’s got a PhD from the University of st. Michael’s

[00:01:28] College he’s got a THM from Fuller Theological Seminary an MA from Westminster seminary California so he

[00:01:37] he’s got a good background here to give us some insight on a very very important what I think is a critically important

[00:01:43] subject today that we’re gonna be talking about dr. Yeoh thanks for being here today thanks for having me on yeah

[00:01:49] yeah and this is your first time being on the radio you told me yes it is okay

[00:01:56] so is so very exciting so anyway I’m

[00:02:03] really glad you could be here so dr. Yeoh you know when I’m talking to people about different questions about

[00:02:09] the Bible and everything one of the things that pops up all the time is people will say to me they’ll say you know different people

[00:02:15] interpret the Bible differently so how can you say that your opinion is any better than anybody else’s opinion and

[00:02:21] and so there’s this idea out there that pretty much people can make the Bible say whatever they want it to say and so

[00:02:28] nobody’s got a you know nobody’s got the authority on truth or how you’re

[00:02:35] supposed to interpret the Bible and yet the Bible is so important how can we just let this go you know and so I

[00:02:41] wanted to talk to you about that today and so why don’t we start why don’t we

[00:02:47] go back in time to your upbringing and then your your travels for those of you

[00:02:53] listening dr. Yeoh he has changed his position over time about how you

[00:02:58] interpret the scriptures and that’s what we’re gonna be talking about today because really the fundamental

[00:03:04] difference is in doctrine that we hear all around us have to do with the method of interpretation that is how do you how

[00:03:12] are you supposed to read the Bible would you agree with that dr. Yeoh yes absolutely yeah so so tell us about your upbringing

[00:03:19] what did you grow up in a Christian family what was it like I did my father was a pastor very unique situation he

[00:03:27] was a Presbyterian minister as a missionary in a Baptist Church now that’s really unusual so the the the

[00:03:35] oversight board it didn’t really so you

[00:03:41] know well I guess long story short I was kind of raised a Baptist so to speak I

[00:03:46] was actually baptized by full immersion and then my dad kind of had this

[00:03:52] reawakening of his reform tradition when he went to Germany and so he did the

[00:03:57] whole Luther tour and things like that and he came back really you know fervent

[00:04:02] about the Reformed faith and so there was a call from a church in California which he then took up and so he joined

[00:04:10] the Christian Reformed Church and that’s where I really started to get introduced to reformed theology okay now I wanna

[00:04:17] for our listeners because this is pretty intense stuff the stuff we’re talking about so typically when people think of

[00:04:23] the Reformation right right they think of Martin Luther and everybody thinks hey this is a great

[00:04:29] thing right because this was when we got back to the Bible and we started really

[00:04:34] so can you help our listeners understand when you talked about when you talk about your father and reformed theology

[00:04:41] or has reformed roots how is that different from say the Baptist Southern Baptists right a great question I mean

[00:04:48] the Reformers were very important because of what was going on in the Catholic Church the Roman Catholic Church and so with all the the

[00:04:55] traditions especially somebody for example like like John Tetzel selling indulgences across the river from

[00:05:02] Luther’s church yeah where people were getting drunk and yet you know Luther

[00:05:09] would say well why do you think that’s right and then he says well I bought an indulgence yeah this really angered him

[00:05:16] and so he he hung up the famous ninety-five theses on the door of Wittenberg Church and so he began what

[00:05:23] is known as the Reformation and that was a great thing that was a wonderful

[00:05:28] coming back like you said to the Bible back to the sources of our faith but

[00:05:35] along with that I mean you know then came John Calvin and and some of the other formers John Knox and then it was

[00:05:41] kind of you know codified in the Westminster Confession of faith and so all of these other you know the

[00:05:47] Heidelberg catechism three forms of unity so all these other reformed

[00:05:53] confessions and what that seemed to do was kind of make reformed theology it

[00:06:01] kind of I mean it’s understandable but it kind of fossilized the theology mm-hm and you know and this is where

[00:06:07] Calvinism comes forward like you know the whole controversy would with Jacob

[00:06:12] or James Arminius yes yeah and the remonstrance yes and and this is the battle over a pre day you know the the

[00:06:19] five points of Calvados or we don’t correct yes and this is where we get

[00:06:25] tulip you know total depravity yes unconditional election limited atonement irresistible grace perseverance the five

[00:06:30] points of Calvinism right now along those same lines so when you say that it

[00:06:36] became fossilized are you saying that essentially they were making

[00:06:41] confessions that were in a sense extra biblical fossilized verses going back to

[00:06:47] the Bible again I think so I mean and you see this especially with with

[00:06:52] baptism with with infant baptism yeah and that was something that was continued on from the Roman Catholic

[00:06:59] Church and the irony is that part of the SOLAS of the well it wasn’t really a

[00:07:05] Sola but it was kind of like a slogan of the Reformation yeah was semper ref

[00:07:10] Rwanda which was always reforming and yet I think for certain things they

[00:07:18] really didn’t you know look at scripture very carefully with regard to baptism and so you know I mean you know

[00:07:24] seriously can you can you say that baptism is explicitly taught you know I mean infant that infant baptism of

[00:07:31] course believers baptism is but you know and I think this is where my biblical

[00:07:38] theology started to butt heads with my systematic theology as a reformed

[00:07:45] theologian and so things started to rapidly change in in my hermeneutic yeah

[00:07:52] and so this was part of you know my development in terms of my theology yeah

[00:07:59] so so I want to go back to that real quick when you said again that they did

[00:08:07] that the Reformation happened it was kind of this back to the Bible but it was almost like they didn’t finish the

[00:08:13] job it was almost like they continued to hold on to some of the things the the

[00:08:18] remnants of some things that were taught in Catholicism which were extra biblical they weren’t things that were explicitly

[00:08:24] taught in the scriptures correct and so what happened was they almost repeated the same mistakes that the Catholic

[00:08:30] Church had made in that process and I think this is this is kind of true with

[00:08:35] every movement of God hmm is that subsequent generations for some reason

[00:08:40] they don’t continue what their founders did and so they just kind of pull back

[00:08:46] and they get comfortable and everything starts to fossilize everything starts to

[00:08:51] and and I think these are worth denomination appear yeah and and then you get these

[00:08:59] you know these battles between denominations and doctrinal yeah or the

[00:09:05] group that pops up and says we’re no denomination yeah copy chapel right yeah nondenominational right we just follow

[00:09:11] the Bible right right yeah and and to be honest I think Calvary Chapel is their own denomination yeah I mean they seem

[00:09:18] like it but it seems like it’s human nature to kind of get into a rut and kind of go these are the these are the

[00:09:24] doctrines and traditions we’ve settled on right and we’re done exploring Scripture on this issue we’re just gonna

[00:09:30] continue to stay in that rut and don’t get me wrong I love the cabbage chapels yeah but it just seems like they they

[00:09:36] claim that they’re not denomination yet you have to be in their Bible College I mean it’s kind of like you have to be

[00:09:43] within their church yes yeah that’s kind of denominational yeah sure that’s all I’m saying yes I understand what you’re

[00:09:48] saying okay so this is really interesting so I’m really curious to know because a lot of people you know

[00:09:54] their whole life that are consistently holding to one particular view but you had a pretty massive transformation

[00:09:59] where you completely switched from looking at this through that reformed theology and to the other and so my

[00:10:07] guest today is dr. John yo and he serves at Southern California seminary he’s professor of Old Testament and we’re

[00:10:12] talking about essentially reformed theology and the consequences of that

[00:10:18] theology and the difference so we’re going to touch on things like dispensationalism and covenant theology

[00:10:27] and Israel and the church a millennialism premillennialism all these

[00:10:32] different things that are impacted by our approach to interpreting Scripture so stay with us we’re gonna be right

[00:10:39] back [Music]

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[00:12:38] [Music] hey thanks for listening today this is

[00:12:45] educate for life I’m your host Kevin Conover my websites educate for life org please check it out it’s got all kinds

[00:12:51] of awesome classes on there we just finished just a couple weeks ago the very last class forty classes all on

[00:12:58] helping you understand the truth of God’s Word we cover everything you can imagine from creation and evolution to

[00:13:04] world religions to how do we know the Bible is actually God’s Word how do they put the Bible together how do we know it hasn’t been changed we deal with things

[00:13:10] like homosexuality and abortion all the different stuff that you have questions about or you want to learn about in

[00:13:16] order to be able to have good discussions with those around you and you know October 13th I’m speaking up at

[00:13:21] Calvary Chapel Oceanside and I’m actually speaking specifically on the age of the earth which is a

[00:13:26] controversial issue in the church today you have progressive day creation and things like that and this is actually

[00:13:33] relates to what I’m talking with dr. John Yeo about today it’s hard to

[00:13:38] connect the dots if you don’t study this sort of thing but frequently you’ll you’ll hear people say well how do you

[00:13:43] know that your view of the Bible is right how do you know you’re interpreting the Bible right correctly and this is why it’s so important to

[00:13:49] understand what is the proper method of interpreting the Bible so that I come to the right conclusions because we know

[00:13:56] people have come to the wrong conclusions in the past and we don’t want to make those mistakes either so my guest today dr. John Yeo is an expert on

[00:14:03] this and he has a personal testimony about how he adjusted his perspective on

[00:14:08] how you interpret Scripture and dr. you I wanted to ask you if you could kind of take us back to the moment where you

[00:14:15] began to realize you were shifting your thought process about how to interpret

[00:14:20] Scripture what what was happening there right so kind of to pick up where we left off when I I did attend Biola

[00:14:29] University and then I I took some classes at Talbot but my dad because he had this Reformation ‘el renewal so to

[00:14:37] speak he encouraged me to attend Westminster seminary California and he

[00:14:42] was good friends with dr. Robert Godfrey who was president there at the time and so they were gonna offer me a

[00:14:49] scholarship you know CRC was and I said okay great let’s do it so while I was

[00:14:54] there it was there that I became reformed so they started chipping away

[00:14:59] at my theology and now this is very interesting so Westminster I thought

[00:15:06] they were very conservative but they had they are they are so real quick for our listeners the two main differences in

[00:15:13] the main ways you introvert uu reformed right this is a is this a less literal

[00:15:20] method of interpretation versus a literal what are the main differences between reformed and and what would you

[00:15:28] call it dispensational I don’t know yeah I mean reformed theologians wouldn’t say that it would necessarily be a less literal

[00:15:36] yeah because they would even counter and say what is a literal interpretation of the Bible because what they would say is

[00:15:43] you you have to look at the scriptures from their genre yes and so we would agree with that of course yes but it’s

[00:15:50] it’s then how do you understand the Old Testament in terms of how it was put

[00:15:56] together like what’s the the theological structure of the Old Testament and they

[00:16:01] would say that it’s structured by covenants and so I mean obviously the covenants are part and parcel of the Old

[00:16:08] Testament story sure but then they look at it as out of through a theological

[00:16:13] lens so they would say that atom for example was under a covenant of works and after he fell then something called

[00:16:23] a covenant of grace kicked in where now God was going to deal with humanity

[00:16:29] through this covenant of grace beginning with Abrahamic covenant and then the new covenant with Christ would

[00:16:36] also be a part of that and so it’s called covenant theology yes and and the

[00:16:43] reformed theology is covenant theology correct yeah and it’s all based on this idea of Covenant of works in Adam where

[00:16:50] he fell and he plunged all of humanity into sin and then you had Jesus come and

[00:16:55] do a covenant of works where he then redeems the Fallen he redeems the elect

[00:17:01] man but what about the covenant with Abraham and the covet covenant with the Hebrews and these sorts of things and so

[00:17:07] the for exam like the Mosaic Covenant or the sinaitic covenant would be another covenant of works and so in these works covenants

[00:17:14] you see God giving them a law in in for Adam in the garden it was you know don’t

[00:17:20] eat from this tree in the middle of the garden the knowledge of good and evil yeah for in the day that you eat of it

[00:17:25] you will surely die so the Covenant work says do this and you will live don’t do this and you will die and so we saw that

[00:17:33] in Eden where you know Adam and Eve disobey they get exiled from the Garden

[00:17:38] of Eden you see that with Israel in the land and God gave them you know the Ten

[00:17:44] Commandments and you know the book of the Covenant 613 commandments and they

[00:17:49] they successively break them yeah generation after generation yeah you know God sends his prophets but but yet

[00:17:55] they they disobey and then they to get exiled from the land so in both covenants of works they’re exiled mhm

[00:18:02] and and and so Jesus must come under a covenant of works and then when he

[00:18:07] succeeds that New Covenant is then imputed to us yeah just as Adam’s sin

[00:18:13] was imputed to to us later but the elect the believers Christ imputes his

[00:18:20] righteousness to them and he takes our sin yeah and he pays for our sins so so

[00:18:25] this all seems very biblical and and so but you’re you’re saying that is you left reformed theology and and you moved

[00:18:32] on into a new way of looking at things so well I mean and I think this idea that you know just because one aspect of

[00:18:41] reformed theology is correct I mean it makes it all correct yeah and I think this is where I disputed other aspects

[00:18:48] of it such as infant baptism hmm their position on Israel I mean has the church now replaced you

[00:18:57] know the God’s promises to Israel has now the church taken over those promises yeah I used to believe that yeah but I

[00:19:04] don’t believe that anymore no if you if you are a reformed theologian or you you

[00:19:09] you know you adhere to the this these viewpoints you’re a covenant theologian

[00:19:15] does that mean essentially you must also believe that the church replaced Israel

[00:19:20] that Israel is the promises to Israel are no longer valid well I would say most covenant theologians do believe that yeah some do

[00:19:28] not but other people like Obama Robertson he wrote a book called the Israel of God he clearly states that

[00:19:34] yeah he clearly said states that you know there is no more need for Israel is this if you’re a covenant theologian is

[00:19:41] this the natural byproduct of covenant theology and reformed theology is that

[00:19:47] the natural byproduct like infant baptism and these sorts of things I mean if you if you kind of understand the

[00:19:54] concept of the Covenant mm-hmm then that means that if you have children and I believe they use that passage in first

[00:20:00] Corinthians 7 where it says that Paul says that the children are holy because the the mother one of the parents is a

[00:20:08] believer Oh interesting and so they take that to say they’re not necessarily saved but they’re part of

[00:20:14] the covenant community and therefore you you put the Covenant sign upon them baptism a baptism yeah correct and so

[00:20:21] this was one of the things that dislodged me from reformed theology was the fact that I was teaching a class a

[00:20:29] summer course in the profits at Reformed Theological Seminary Orlando yeah and one of my former professors from

[00:20:36] Westminster dr. Mark foo taught Oh was the Dean there and so he invited me to

[00:20:41] come down and so I taught the class and we were going through the Book of Jeremiah and Jeremiah 31 and I proceeded

[00:20:48] to teach that you know the text says that they will all know me from the least of them to the greatest and so I

[00:20:54] was thinking you know if that’s what the text says and this isn’t this is what the New Covenant says then that means

[00:21:00] that only believers are in the New Covenant you don’t have unbelievers in the New Covenant and so I I didn’t

[00:21:07] realize what I was teaching at the time but in the front row sat David Mathes

[00:21:13] who is uh John Piper’s executive director for the desiring God yeah and he said out loud you’re a Baptist and us

[00:21:23] to really thrown you off yeah and I said well I’m La Presbyterian I’m a reformed Presbyterian and then so he he told me

[00:21:30] that after class what the what the implications were what I just said yeah and so he

[00:21:35] and so he was saying well if only believers are New Covenant then you don’t baptize children yeah cuz they’re

[00:21:42] not believers yeah and so I was thinking okay well I’m gonna have to look into this and in the back of my mind I was

[00:21:50] thinking well I’m gonna stay Presbyterian I would say reformed but but the Lord wouldn’t let me forget it

[00:21:56] he would he would keep bringing this back up into my into my mind and so I did some research and I came to the

[00:22:03] conclusion that infant baptism was not biblical hmm and it was simply a ritual

[00:22:09] so the irony was that my son was almost out of infancy and you know Presbyterian

[00:22:17] ministers in the PCA are not members of our churches were members of our presbyteries so we’re duty-bound by the

[00:22:23] Westminster Confession of faith to baptize our infants and at that point I

[00:22:29] couldn’t baptize my son because I was I became convinced that this was unbiblical Wow and so I knew that I had

[00:22:35] to leave the PCA which I did and then because I was academic dean at RTS

[00:22:42] Atlanta at the time you know it’s Reformed Theological yeah that was gonna throw a wrench into things yeah so so I

[00:22:50] knew that my days were numbered there and I started to send out my resume and you know by God’s grace page Patterson

[00:22:58] and Craig blazing over at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary they entered me interviewed me later that

[00:23:05] spring semester and I began there in fall so I didn’t miss a day of work Wow

[00:23:10] so I left Reformed Theological Seminary in spring and I began southwestern in the fall that’s awesome my guest today

[00:23:16] is dr. John yo and we’re talking about his testimony of how he changed his method of interpretation of scriptures

[00:23:22] how he essentially decided that he could not agree with reformed theology and

[00:23:28] this also plays out today there’s a big battle right now in the church over whether the church should be supporting

[00:23:33] Israel or not are the promises to God in the Old Testament towards Israel are

[00:23:38] they valid for today or are they gone and the church now replaces Israel so

[00:23:45] when we come back we’re going to talk about this and the implications for everything that’s happening in the

[00:23:50] church and all over the news today and how we should respond stay with us we’ll be right back

[00:23:56] [Music]

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[00:26:00] thanks for listening today this is educate for life I’m your host Kevin Conover we are local here in San Diego we’re

[00:26:07] actually on Cape Rays FM 106.1 in North County every Sunday evening at 10 p.m.

[00:26:13] you got to be willing to stay up late to listen to our radio station we’re also on AM 1210 San Diego but

[00:26:20] we’re also podcast we’re on YouTube we’re on Facebook we’re on all kinds of social media and so you can listen to us

[00:26:27] pretty much anywhere anytime you want to and we have all kinds of amazing interviews with people from all over the world testifying to how Jesus Christ has

[00:26:34] impacted their life and how God has continued to work through them and my guest today is dr. John yo and he is

[00:26:41] recently a professor at of Old Testament at Southern California Seminary if you

[00:26:47] want an awesome Bible education check out so cal sam edu so cal sam edu that’s

[00:26:53] SOC al sem edu and you can you can get a really solid biblical education and be

[00:27:02] able to teach the Bible well and really know what you’re talking about dr. yo I was going to ask you you know there’s

[00:27:10] been a movement towards a less literal interpretation of Scripture and you know some people complain about evangelicals

[00:27:16] although they’ll say you guys all interpret the Bible literally and you know there’s poetry in the Bible there’s

[00:27:23] metaphors in the Bible you can’t interpret everything literally and and how do you respond to somebody who says something like that well I think it’s

[00:27:29] pretty clear that when you’re not supposed to take something literal

[00:27:35] it kind of goes into the realm of metaphor or figurative speech and so you

[00:27:42] know I mean all of us read the Bible literally at first because that’s our starting point yeah how do you get to to

[00:27:48] figurative or metaphorical interpretation you got to go through the door of literal interpretation so you

[00:27:56] know I would I would just say that the Bible you know interpret it literally and if it makes sense seek to mother

[00:28:03] since hmm unless it leads to nonsense yes yes and I think the the scary thing

[00:28:10] about what’s happening in today’s evangelical particularly Old Testament interpretation is that people are

[00:28:17] claiming that this text is this genre and therefore we don’t have to interpret

[00:28:23] it literally and so give me an example what what do you mean for example like

[00:28:28] you know somebody like dr. John Walton he’s written many books on Genesis and

[00:28:34] he’ll say that we don’t have to interpret Genesis 1 in a literal fashion

[00:28:40] because you have to read Genesis 1 in light of its ancient Near Eastern milieu

[00:28:47] meaning if you if you don’t know like these Babylonian creation myths like Numa ilish not rowhouses then you are

[00:28:56] misinterpreting the book of Genesis by reading your twenty 21st century

[00:29:02] worldview into that text now there’s some truth to what he’s saying there because we do have to understand the Old

[00:29:10] Testament in its historical setting however when Moses told the Israelites

[00:29:16] when they cross the Jordan you know here I’m referring to the book of Deuteronomy yeah he was telling them stay away from

[00:29:22] their gods you know tear down their altars destroy their Asherah poles so if

[00:29:29] he’s telling them beware of these other gods then why in the world would God be using their creation stories to to write

[00:29:37] you know Genesis 1 yeah so so so I think you know because John Walton he actually

[00:29:46] believes in theistic evolution he says that Adam and Eve were not literal people but they were simply Ark

[00:29:53] types so this is and this is exactly kind of what we’re seeing within

[00:29:59] Evangelic ilysm yeah is that we’re seeing more of an openness towards interpreting the Bible away from a

[00:30:07] literal grammatical historical yeah fashion now so I guess my question is is

[00:30:13] so when you were coming from that reform background right and you were coming from you know more of a covenant

[00:30:19] theology does that tend towards less of a literal interpretation of things like

[00:30:25] that I would say yes because you know for example when I was taking dr. Meredith clients class uh I mean I think

[00:30:33] he was a wonderful scholar wonderful theologian however he was the one that

[00:30:39] brought in what what’s known as the framework view yes framework hypothesis right framework hypothesis your Genesis

[00:30:45] one and so he thought that Genesis one because of the genre here we go again

[00:30:50] genre analysis yeah he thought it was semi poetic and so you know there were frames and he was even in mourning yeah

[00:30:57] day one evening in mourning the second day so on yeah he took that as poetry he took that as a refrain in a poetic text

[00:31:05] and because of that he said he claimed anyway that Genesis one should not be

[00:31:11] read literally chronological yeah so even though it said one day second day

[00:31:17] third day fourth day fifth day so on those really are refrains and because

[00:31:23] it’s poetic don’t worry about you know the chronology of it or the sequence of it because they’re just pictures of

[00:31:30] creation and so days 1 in 4 go together

[00:31:35] because why the Sun a moon a star ruled over the light created on day one yeah days 2 s and 2 and 5 go together you

[00:31:42] have the the birds rolling of the sky which is created on day 2 and the and the fish ruling over the sea created on

[00:31:49] day 2 and then finally days 3 and 6 go together where you have the land animals and man man is the pinnacle of God’s

[00:31:55] creation that rule over the the land itself in the vegetation yeah created on day 3 yeah so

[00:32:03] when Klein saw that he said that these were pictures of creation hmm and so he

[00:32:09] thought that Genesis chapter 2 was really the the literal chronological

[00:32:14] historical sequence but when he compared Genesis 1 and 2 it seems like the atom

[00:32:22] was created first yeah and then the animals and then Eve in Genesis chapter 2 yeah and so when he saw that he said

[00:32:29] oh there’s a there’s a there’s a discrepancy or a discrepancy there’s a contradiction yeah but with the order of

[00:32:35] creation yeah and so that’s why he said my framework interpretation works hmm

[00:32:41] and because of that you don’t have to believe that yom the word the hebrew word for a day is a 24-hour period yeah

[00:32:48] and so i believe that he he held to the Big Bang Theory yeah but Klein and his

[00:32:57] junior scholarly irons were very clear that they didn’t believe in animal ancestry so they didn’t believe in

[00:33:03] evolution hmm interesting yeah so so how would you respond to somebody who says something like that because and would

[00:33:09] you say that in your in the past you would have been more open to that perspective oh yeah okay so you were

[00:33:14] very open to that perspective but something’s changed along the way right and now when you see scripture you go No

[00:33:20] so what what is this big change that’s taken place in how you respond to the text versus how he responds to the text

[00:33:27] well in my in my dissertation which has been published plenty of the Egyptians I

[00:33:32] actually support the framework view mm-hm and Klein’s view there but what

[00:33:39] happened was after I started to really learn Biblical Hebrew and started to look at the text myself yeah and I came

[00:33:46] across a wonderful article by dr. Andrew Steinman in Jets journal evangelical

[00:33:52] theological society and he was trying to explain how the word Yom was used and he

[00:33:59] said that when you look at day one Moses is actually telling us evening plus morning equals one day so that the

[00:34:07] the number there Akkad in the Hebrew is actually a cardinal number not an ordinal number so he’s saying Moses has

[00:34:14] given us the formula for what a day is it’s a period of evening twelve hours of

[00:34:19] darkness plus a period of light 12 hours of day equals one day Cardinal number

[00:34:25] now the days after that one day are ordinal second day third day fourth day

[00:34:31] and so he’s saying here’s another one of these days hmm here’s another one of

[00:34:36] these days and so I mean clearly when when he’s talking about the creation of the Sun Moon and stars on day four he’s

[00:34:43] saying that these are for signs and for seasons to keep track of years month

[00:34:49] months and days Moses knew what what a day was yeah and when you look at how

[00:34:54] the Jews reckon a day they begin at six o’clock at night so it’s a period of evening a period of morning one day oh

[00:35:03] wow so so when I saw that I was thinking you know every time where the word yom

[00:35:09] appears i mean there is about three or four different senses of the use of the word yom in Genesis 1 and 2 yeah but

[00:35:15] it’s very clear as to what the context is dictating yeah it’s kind of like second Samuel 7 where you have the

[00:35:21] Hebrew word bye eat and so david says to god god I want to build you a bye eat I

[00:35:26] want to build you a house because I live in a nice by 8 I live a nice house yeah well then God says no you’re not

[00:35:32] gonna build me a bye eat or a house I’m gonna build you a house so in the first sense David is saying I

[00:35:39] want to build you a temple because I live in a nice palace yeah but then Dave but then God says no no you’re a man and

[00:35:45] bloodshed your son will build it for me but I’m gonna build you David a dynasty a house a house of kings oh wow and so

[00:35:53] in that text we have the word bye eat the word for house and yet it’s using

[00:35:58] three different senses but we don’t say we don’t know what the word by eat means yeah it can mean anything so so you’re

[00:36:04] saying in essence context is is king is king okay okay and so would you say that

[00:36:10] that is the fundamental difference between the way you used to think and the way you think now yeah is that it’s

[00:36:16] now you’re much more focused on context correct and it’s also trying to be as

[00:36:22] trying to take the words as literally as possible mm-hmm and and within its

[00:36:27] context yes not as not guarding metaphor no but only using metaphor when it’s appropriate right I

[00:36:34] mean when Jesus said you know if you have a plank in your own eye yeah I don’t think you’d be a library that’s

[00:36:40] right if you left that plank alone yeah so I mean clearly that’s hyperbole yeah

[00:36:45] it’s metaphorical yeah so but why is it so funny because we were interpreting literally first and we know that this is

[00:36:52] metaphorical we know it’s hyperbole interesting okay my guest today is dr. John yaw we have one more segment left

[00:36:58] this this flew by but we’re going to talk about the impact of a non-literal non literal reading of the text how does

[00:37:05] that apply to our how does that affect our lives practically speaking on a day-to-day basis how does that change

[00:37:12] things about the way we live and how we interpret Scripture we’ll be right back yeah

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[00:39:15] [Music] hey I hope you’ve enjoyed the show so

[00:39:21] far this is educate for life I’m your host Kevin Conover my website to educate for life org I’d love for you to check

[00:39:27] it out all kinds of good stuff on there we’ve got I believe over a hundred different radio programs podcast now and I’ve

[00:39:34] interviewed physicists and geophysicists and people who have come out of Islam

[00:39:40] people have come out of Jehovah’s Witness I’ve had people on the show who

[00:39:46] talk about cosmology and science and the evidence from for God from science all

[00:39:52] kinds of incredible people from all over the world it always amazes me how God works through each one of us in a

[00:39:58] different way in the body of Christ it’s a huge blessing I am going to be speaking October 13th up at Calvary

[00:40:03] Chapel Oceanside if you can make it out we’re gonna be talking about the evidence for the age of the earth both

[00:40:09] from a theological perspective and also from a scientific perspective is there evidence that the the earth is actually

[00:40:15] only around 6,000 years old that’s not something you hear too often but I

[00:40:21] believe there’s pretty compelling evidence that that is the case and if you want to come out and give me a challenge I’d love to have you come out

[00:40:27] and just do some exploring with me and have that discussion my guest today is dr. John yo and we’ve been talking about

[00:40:34] specifically how you interpret Scripture and so dr. yo so we’ve been addressing

[00:40:41] you know the more literal method where you’re taking the text for what it says and this is really this is the really

[00:40:48] the Reformation hermeneutic which is the plain meaning of the text is what you go with right and then then there’s also

[00:40:55] what’s happening today is people are turning the Bible more and more into a metaphorical and would you say that that

[00:41:02] movement is growing seeing the scriptures as more metaphor than literal

[00:41:08] well I don’t know that we would say that it was becoming more metaphorical per se

[00:41:14] but I think when you look at the various systems of interpretation such as dispensationalism versus reformed

[00:41:21] theology I mean I would have to say that when that Domino of infant baptism fell

[00:41:30] was that kind of like started kind of like an investigation on my part as to

[00:41:37] well what else was not biblical that reformed theology taught me at

[00:41:43] Westminster yeah and so you know I started looking at my millennial views

[00:41:49] and I started to say well you know look at revelation 20 I mean is is Jesus the

[00:41:56] angel that came and bound Satan in in the abyss for a thousand years because this is the way that reformed

[00:42:02] theologians take it and so they believe that there’s not going to be a literal millennium in the future we’re in the

[00:42:09] Millennium right now yeah and so Jesus is the angel that binds Satan into the abyss and they use texts

[00:42:16] like where Jesus said you know you’re gonna bind the strongman and then you can plunder his goods so the thinking is

[00:42:22] that Jesus bound Satan on the cross and then from there he could then plunder

[00:42:27] Satan’s Kingdom and rescue the elect from the clutches of the devil and so

[00:42:35] that was kind of like the idea of when they were looking at Revelation 20 but

[00:42:41] the problem though with that is they don’t interpret it literally meaning they don’t take what the words say and

[00:42:48] actually understand for what it means a thousand year period means a thousand year period where Jesus will reign and

[00:42:54] so there are Old Testament texts that that talk about that reign that millennial reign at X and Isaiah and

[00:43:02] other books related to you know like Ezekiel Zechariah all those books have

[00:43:08] millennial text in them yeah and so when you look at revelation 20 what I noticed

[00:43:15] was that there was a clear historical progression in terms of the narrative

[00:43:22] from Revelation 19 to Revelation 20 and so I mean typically when the Reformers

[00:43:28] or the reformed people look at the book of Revelation they see seven recapitulation of Christ’s first coming

[00:43:35] to a second coming and so revelation 20 is the seventh one of those

[00:43:40] recapitulation where they see Jesus’s first and also his second coming in revelation

[00:43:47] 20 all there in Revelation 20 and so when I saw that there was a clear

[00:43:53] historical narrative going from revelation 19 through 20 I said you

[00:43:59] can’t have a recapitulation and still have a continuation of the of the narrative yeah from chapter to chapter

[00:44:05] because what I saw was at the end of Revelation 20 it says that Satan will be

[00:44:11] thrown into the lake of fire at the end of Revelation 19 you have in the beginning of Revelation 19 you have

[00:44:17] Jesus coming on the white horse and you have the host of the heavenly hosts on white horses as well and they come and

[00:44:24] they and Jesus judges the earth at the end of 19 he takes the Antichrist and

[00:44:29] the false prophet and he puts them into the lake of fire yeah but in Revelation 20 it says after

[00:44:35] he then takes Satan remember Satan is allowed to be released from the abyss and he goes to deceive the world yeah

[00:44:41] and then they come against City of Jerusalem and God showers fire and

[00:44:47] brimstone judges them yeah and then it says that he took Satan and he put him into the abyss where the false prophet

[00:44:54] and the Antichrist had been cast yeah so this is clearly a linear a linear thing here it’s a historical narrow its

[00:45:01] historical narrative it and so I mean I mean I have to be careful here because it is a prophetic text in terms of its

[00:45:09] genre yeah well there is clearly a narrative that is being continued from

[00:45:14] 19 to 20 and so 20 does not represent its own little structure where you have the first coming of Christ to the last

[00:45:20] to the second coming of Christ yeah and so this is consistent throughout the text in the sense that

[00:45:27] okay if I’m going to approach this from the reformed theological position I’m constantly having to essentially ignore

[00:45:34] large portions of text and just say that’s not what it means correct yeah right and so as a result of

[00:45:40] that I became a pre millennialist and I became a pre-trib rapture proponent yeah

[00:45:48] and so and it was all because I started

[00:45:54] to re-read the Bible from a literal historical grammatical hermeneutic yeah

[00:46:00] and using that lens to interpret Scripture it’s really opened my eyes and

[00:46:06] it was it was kind of scary at first because I didn’t know what I believed I mean it was like do so okay I’m not an

[00:46:13] infant practiced anymore yeah do I believe in amillennialism do I still

[00:46:19] believe and you know even my Calvinism I was reading that yeah and so all of that

[00:46:25] was kind of you know back on the table for me and whereas I was before that I

[00:46:31] was a clearly committed reformed theologian leaving amillennialism I used to teach Calvin like would you say that

[00:46:37] you believe those things more because this is what you had traditionally been taught in your tradition and not because

[00:46:44] it’s what the Bible actually taught but it was but it just because of what you assumed that’s that’s that’s a very good

[00:46:49] point Kevin because I when I become reformed I swallow that you know that

[00:46:57] theology hook line and sinker hmm and uncritically yeah and I was I was just all in yeah I

[00:47:04] just said you know if I’m gonna be reformed I’m just gonna be reformed yeah and some of my favorite theologians like RC scroll uh you know some of the older

[00:47:13] ones like John Murray Meredith Klein Gerhardt it’s vas these

[00:47:18] were kind of my heroes yeah and so if it was good enough for them it’s good enough for me and that was kind of like my my take on

[00:47:26] things until that day at Reformed Theological Seminary Orlando yeah and that kind of opened my eyes where I was

[00:47:33] thinking you know what if if my systematic theology doesn’t agree with my biblical theology hmm then

[00:47:39] something’s wrong yeah something’s got to change something’s got to change and it can’t be my biblical theology yeah it has to

[00:47:45] be my systematic theology hmm because if I see something that’s biblical

[00:47:51] then I can’t believe in something that goes against that that belief hmm in

[00:47:57] terms of my interpretation of Scripture yeah and we were talking briefly a little while ago how you know Israel’s

[00:48:04] in the news and everything how is this playing out as far as the church and it’s its treatment of Israel as a nation

[00:48:11] right so what’s interesting is that many reformed theologians and I would mention

[00:48:18] Oh Pierson they would say that what happened in 1948 really has no bearing

[00:48:24] on Israel itself meaning the the nation that’s there right now it doesn’t really

[00:48:32] matter it changes nothing because really God rejected the Jews and

[00:48:38] it’s not that they’re not saying that we should you know we shouldn’t evangelize the Jews but what they’re saying is that

[00:48:45] you know it really they really hold no more plan yeah it has no no role in

[00:48:50] prophecy or anything right there’s no bearing of the importance of Israel

[00:48:56] right now in terms of prophetic fulfillment yeah and so you know what I

[00:49:02] had again kind of looked at the situation from a literal vantage point

[00:49:07] and now reinterpreting the prophets from a dispensational literal hermeneutic you

[00:49:17] know I see Israel as not just you know being important now in the land and

[00:49:24] supporting Israel yeah and also being careful I mean because when you see some

[00:49:30] of the churches you know there are a lot of them are Presbyterian churches and and also when you look at the history of

[00:49:35] the church particularly the early church fathers and then even Martin Luther I

[00:49:42] mean this is this is something that really people really don’t bring out

[00:49:47] about Martin Luther Luther’s his anti-semitism yes toward the end of his

[00:49:53] life and I mean he just got really frustrated with the Jewish people yeah and so but what he said was kind of

[00:50:02] a it was almost setting up what would happen at Kristallnacht with with the with the Nazis burning down the Jewish

[00:50:09] businesses and things like that I mean this is this is something that that Luther had fomented Wow and and you you

[00:50:17] read some of early church fathers they were also anti-semitic because they were the Christ killers

[00:50:22] and so in our day when we swim II see you know how we treat Israel how what do

[00:50:30] we think about Israel as a nation and do they have a future in God’s plan yeah and will they receive God’s blessings

[00:50:37] and and the New Covenant Jeremiah 31 yeah this is something that is not just

[00:50:44] peripheral to the Scriptures this is a main issue absolutely and so to say that the church has replaced Israel in my

[00:50:52] opinion that’s that’s heresy yeah that’s that’s not biblical and the real-world implications of that it’s not just an

[00:50:59] ivory tower debate right so what we believe actually makes a difference in in what we do in the world right so dr.

[00:51:08] dr. John yo I just want to thank you so much for being on the program with us today well thank you for having me Kevin

[00:51:13] it’s been a huge blessing so I hope your first time on the radio was good so so

[00:51:19] cal Sam edu if you guys want to get to know him better he’s on there on the

[00:51:24] website there he’s teaching classes that’d be a huge blessing for you and anybody else that gets to sit under him

[00:51:30] and I want to end with this scripture first Timothy 4:16 watch your life and doctrine closely persevere and then

[00:51:36] because if you do you will say both yourself and your here’s what we believe matters and when our doctrine is off

[00:51:43] because we haven’t read the Bible to mean what it means right say what you say and mean what you mean

[00:51:49] then it does have real-world implications so I encourage you get to know the Word of God better and and take

[00:51:55] it for what it says I hope you have a great day and a great weekend and we’ll we’ll see you next time god bless you

[00:52:00] bye-bye did you miss part of today’s program don’t worry work hon mitad to helping

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