Exert from Chapter 1 of When My Ox Gores My Neighbor
Chapter 1: When My Ox Gores My Neighbor: Sinai Thunders
“Secure sinners must hear the thundering of Mount Sinai before we bring them to Mount Zion.” ~George Whitefield
What to Expect
What were you thinking? When you opened this book, you had a lot of expectations on what this book was going to be about. If you are from an agricultural background, you might have thought this book was going to be about oxen. You could be a literal person and might have picked it up and thought this is a book on what to do when an ox gores a neighbor. If you like to reads novels, you might pick up this book and think this is a story of when an ox gored someone’s neighbor and what they did to help their neighbor. If you picked up this book with these expectations, you were wrong. However, for the literal person if you come across a neighbor that has been gored by an ox, call 911. The more studious reader probably read the Title When My Ox Gores My Neighbor: Using Hermeneutics to travel from Mount Sinai to Mount Zion then read the back to see what this book is all about. The studious reader left his expectations at the door so that he would not be seen as a fool and not be disappointed. This book is about two things. The first is how to study a particular passage in the Bible. The second is how to use what we studied and point it to the gospel.
Backgrounds are not bad. They in part make up who we are. We either started up rich or poor under a certain ethnicity in certain circumstances to different people. We all made choices that brought us to where we are today. If you are like me, those choices were most likely bad choices than good choices. We all have different beliefs that drive us to do different things. When we enter in to the book world, we come across someone completely different from us. They are writing down their thoughts, feelings, and research so that someone can understand the author. Today this world has lost sight of what the author is trying to say. The postmodern media’s message is it is all about the individual, the reader. They say, “I know you are writing this but I want it to mean something completely different.” This type of thinking is called the reader response method. If you decide to read this book this way, it will break my heart. This is not how to pass a test in math. The math textbook says two plus two equals four. If a student were to read the textbook with the reader response method, they could decide that two plus two equals eight. Do that and you will get a big fat red F on your test. The right way to read any book is authorial intent. Authorial intent is a fancy term for saying read the book the way the writer of the book wanted you to read it.
I hope that this has blessed you. Please feel free to comment in the comment section. Please no cursing for pornography. Also feel free to share this post to your friends who need it, or like it. If you want to contact me, you can contact me at josiah.rob.nichols@gmail.com with any question you want. Also please feel free to look at the resource page to look at The Using Hermeneutics Series. the book series is designed to teach you biblical interpretation through demonstration. Lord bless you.
Biblical Interpretation Through Demonstration 