Principles of Understanding N.T. Documents

The point: Preachers must take the congregation into a time capsule back 20 centuries to understand the first-century realities of the New Testament documents.

The analogy of a 'time capsule' is used to describe the mental and spiritual journey required to go back 20 centuries into the first-century realities of the New Testament documents.

I must take you into a time capsule with me. And go back 20 centuries. Into the realities of the first century. It's the only way.

10:58 - 11:13 Read in full sermon

Driving home: If we make the journey back. But refuse to come forward. Twenty centuries. What happens? Well it will result in a sterile orthodoxy.

Martin quotes A.W. Tozer on the difference between being 'bible taught' and 'spirit taught' to highlight the danger of sterile orthodoxy without living application, clarifying that the Spirit works with the Word.

Non-scientifying interaction. With the bible. And few things are more tragic. Old Dr. Tozer used to talk about the difference.

19:32 - 19:40 Read in full sermon

The point: Congregants must not be spoiled or mentally lazy, but joyfully engage in the mental effort of going back into the first-century context.

Martin shares his personal pastoral grief when, after hours of diligent study and pouring his life into a sermon, he sees congregants with 'glassy eyes' waiting only for the 'exciting part' or application, indicating mental laziness.

few things grieve me more in preaching than when I've sought to do my homework and been willing to subject myself to the mental agony of hours of plodding, reading, and tracking down the meaning of words and all of the rest, and then have sought to put it in as neat and simple a structure as possible and throw my very life's blood into giving it. I don't stand up here and give a lecture first point one, second point two, third point three, I mean, you'd be welcome to go to sleep when someone does that. But to pour my soul into it, to pour my life's blood into it, to try to make it come alive, ...

30:19 - 31:17 Read in full sermon

The point: Congregants must reach out for the Spirit's enablement to have a sanctified imagination, not dulled by media, to visualize the first-century events.

He contrasts the 'golden days of radio' (e.g., Fibber McGee's closet) which cultivated imagination, with television and video games which tend to destroy the imaginative faculty, arguing that a sanctified imagination is crucial for appreciating the Bible.

But then there must also be, and this is so vital, there must be that reaching out in your own heart for the enablement of the Spirit of God, that crying to God that He would come by His Holy Spirit and enable you to have a sanctified imagination that when the preacher seeks in an animated and living way to take you back into the first century that your mind has not been so dulled by television. That's one of the curses among many of the television. It is destroying the imaginative faculty in the human mind and soul. Some of us who go back to the so-called golden days of radio, how you could u...

32:11 - 33:20 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: He illustrates the value of studying original languages by showing how Jesus' command to the demon, 'Be muzzled and get out,' reveals a more vigorous and authoritative tone than…

Martin uses the example of Jesus' command to the demon in Mark 1:25, explaining that the original Greek 'be muzzled and get out' is far more vigorous than 'hold thy peace,' illustrating how studying original languages brings the text alive and reveals deeper meaning.

How vivid it's come home to me. I'll give you just a little taste. You see when Jesus spoke to that demon this all looked so polite, but it wasn't polite at all. But Jesus said to him literally, this only comes out in studying the original.

40:06 - 40:18 Read in full sermon