Literal Interpretation

Renewing Your Mind

Ligonier Ministries

Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.8 • 4.9K Ratings

🗓️ 30 December 2025

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What does it mean to interpret the Bible literally? Today, R.C. Sproul communicates the importance of seeking after the plain meaning of God's Word.

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Live outside the U.S. and Canada? Request the digital teaching series and study guide with your donation: https://www.renewingyourmind.org/global

Meet Today's Teacher:

R.C. Sproul (1939–2017) was founder of Ligonier Ministries, first minister of preaching and teaching at Saint Andrew's Chapel, first president of Reformation Bible College, and executive editor of Tabletalk magazine.

Meet the Host:

Nathan W. Bingham is vice president of media for Ligonier Ministries, executive producer and host of Renewing Your Mind, and host of the Ask Ligonier podcast.

Renewing Your Mind is a donor-supported outreach of Ligonier Ministries. Explore all of our podcasts: https://www.ligonier.org/podcasts

Transcript

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0:00.0	The Bible is the Word of God and alone the Word of God.
0:02.8	It's inspired.
0:03.7	It's infallible.
0:04.4	It's an errand.
0:05.1	But when I come to read it and to interpret it, the rules for interpreting it are no different
0:11.9	from the rules of interpreting any other book in this regard.
0:15.9	That the Bible is written with sentences and the sentences have individual words, and in the Bible, a noun is a noun,
0:25.8	and a verb is a verb. And if you want to understand how these things fit together, you have to
0:32.2	understand the rules of grammar.
0:42.2	How do you interpret the Bible? It's an important question, because if we get the answer wrong, we'll struggle to know what
0:47.0	God has said.
0:48.6	Is the Bible a magical book?
0:50.8	And should our Bible studies be filled with attempts to find hidden meanings, or perhaps
0:55.7	we're to flip it open, point to a text to find our verse for the day, or a word from God to
1:01.3	help us know who we should marry or whether we should accept a job offer? For the rest of the
1:06.8	week on renewing your mind, as we close out 2025 and begin a new year, often with
1:12.9	a renewed focus by many Christians to read the Bible, R. C. Sprole will address these questions
1:19.3	and more. And today, Dr. Sprawl will bring clarity to what it means to interpret the Bible
1:25.4	literally, avoiding errors made by both theological
1:28.9	liberals and conservatives. Here's Dr. Spurrell.
1:33.7	In this session of our course on understanding scripture, we're going to consider the meaning and the function of the literal interpretation of the Bible.
1:51.8	Sometimes people will say to me, as I think they do to you from time to time, that that's your
	...

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