Friday Night Message: What Does It Mean To Watch?

June 9, 2023

Good evening brethren,

 Brethren … We all have a desire to follow God’s word.  But in order to do what is right, we first must understand what God’s word really says.  And it is no different with this matter of “watching” than for any other doctrine or aspect of Christian living.

●       Exegesis = “explain from, interpret” …getting the proper meaning out of the scriptures (extracting)

●       Eisegesis = “reading into, adding” … reading/putting meaning into the scriptures (introducing, injecting into)

We need to do proper exegesis, and avoid doing any eisegesis.

One of the key principles of proper Biblical exegesis is to first focus on the meaning that the scripture had for the immediate audience … the people to whom the passage was originally written for, the people of that time thousands of years ago who actually heard the words of Christ, or read the epistles of James and John, and of Peter and Paul.

Then, with that context, with a proper understanding of what those scriptures really meant to the people of that time, then and only then, can you proceed to try to apply the meaning and the significance it should have for us Christians today.  So first strive to properly understand what the Bible meant back then, before you try to understand what it means for us today.

Luke 21:36 – “Watch and pray always, that you may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man”.

That scripture is a direct instruction of Jesus Christ to His disciples, so we had better follow it.  But what is the Biblical meaning of this word watch?  What did Jesus really want His disciples to do when He told them to watch? 

Does this word watch, when it appears in Scripture, have a significantly different or expanded meaning for us today, just because we have ready access to the news media?  Indeed, communications and technology are certainly very different and much more advanced than two millennia ago.  But even so, the question remains…

 “What Does It Mean To Watch?”  That is what we will be answering in the coming weeks.

Have a wonderful Sabbath,

Fred