Paulchen,

I pray that everyone will take this opportunity to study the Bible and learn the methods of interpreting literally. I have learned much even in writing this post.

The Bible is the word of God. That being said, God chose to reveal Himself through written word. As written word, the meaning should be evaluated as written word. The Bible contains many different forms of writing. If you are handed a poem, interpret it as a poem. If you are handed a parable, interpret it as a parable. If you are handed a history, interpret it as a history. If you are handed the weather report, interpret it as a weather report.

1) I can only hope that the speaker at your Bible college was approaching the same point as I am - God is infallible, so is His word. Yes, there are several places where the Bible refers to the sun "revolving" around the Earth. Big deal! I listen to the weather and a highly schooled and scientifically minded weather man tells me the sun is going to "rise" and "set". I know exactly what he means. The sun does not actually rise or set. It is the earth that rotates. The weather man knows that, so does God. How long and ridiculous would the Bible be if God went about explaining things like the movement of the heavenly bodies? Such an explanation may have even proved lethal to Joshua who was trying to fight a battle at the time.

2) The Bible does go into the spherical nature of the earth in some parts (not discussed here). The terms "circle of the earth" (Isaiah 40:22) or "four corners of the earth" (Revelation 20:8) are used in all sorts of literature. Why is it that the Bible is the only one said to "teach" it? That isn’t what the Bible is teaching at all. Rather in teaching the Bible is using common idioms and phrases to speak of the horizon of the earth or the entire earth.

3) Exodus 20:10 says "the seventh day". I am not sure where you got six from though I would be interested in the passage. Either way, the initial command was to worship on Saturday, the seventh day. After Jesus was resurrected on a Sunday, Christians took to worshipping on Sunday, the first day of the week.

4) I would encourage you to research the blood in Acts 15. I did not find any Bible version that mentioned "eating" blood, just abstaining from blood. This may make a good "small" teaching, not to drink or taste the blood of animals. If anything it proves that our culture in not completely subjected to the Bible, no big surprise. It may also prove to be a good exercise for the steps summarized below.

5) The head covering is mentioned in 1 Corinthians 11:1-16. This is a teaching that serves as a good example of discerning culture and principle in the same passage. The principle seems to be contained in verse 3 - "But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ". Some might also contend that the covering is a principle (and others may be drawn out as well). In order to figure out if one, both or neither of these are principles we can go through a few steps. One, either submission and covering are principles or submission and covering are cultural or submission is the only principle. Two, there are similar teachings of submission of the woman to the man elsewhere in the Bible, not true of head coverings. Three, Paul appeals to the creation order to support submission but not so for the covering. Last, if we are still in doubt then Romans 14:23 comes into play "[…] whatever is not from faith is sin". The burden of proof must be on those arguing that a teaching is purely cultural. Otherwise we disregard the mandate of our God and Savior in order to appease our delights.

To discern our steps are then: 1) principlize and divide (set possible principles down in all possible combinations); 2) search out similar mandates in the Bible; 3) pay close attention to principles established at creation; 4) Romans 14:23, if still in doubt then be over-obedient rather than not obedient enough.

R. C. Sproul has a great book and audio called "Knowing Scripture" that expands much more on these and other important techniques (http://www.ligonier.org/).

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