Jesus Christ called the scribes and Pharisees of His day hypocrites. He went on to describe their behavior. Matt. 15:8-9 ‘These people draw near to Me with their mouth,
And honor Me with their lips,
But their heart is far from Me.
9 And in vain they worship Me,
Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’

The same scripture from Matthew 15:9 And in vain they worship Me,
“Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men,” is also in Mark 7:6-8 (Notice He reference Isaiah) 6 He answered and said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written:
‘This people honors Me with their lips,
But their heart is far from Me.
7 And in vain they worship Me,
Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’
8 For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men—the washing of pitchers and cups, and many other such things you do.”

The apostle Paul, in his letter to the church at Colossae followed up with Christ’s teaching that we just read in Matthew and Mark. Col. 2:21-23 21 “Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle,” 22 which all concern things which perish with the using—according to the commandments and doctrines of men? 23 These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.
The underlying principle is that we are not to extend the truths of God beyond that which God has intended. We’re not to change by adding or taking from what God has revealed to us through His scriptures.
NASB Deu. 4:2 2 You shall not add to the word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.
NASB Deu. 12:32 32 “Whatever I command you, you shall be careful to do; you shall not add to nor take away from it.
God is consistent. His word, the Holy Scriptures, are also consistent and they will remain consistent.
NASB Ecc. 3:14 I know that everything God does will remain forever; there is nothing to add to it and there is nothing to take from it, for God has so worked that men should fear Him.
We are reminded in the last book of the Bible, as well that we are still to be careful about how we handle the Holy Scriptures… that we’re not to deviate from the word of God.
In Revelation, we have this warning:
Rev. 22:19 and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the Book of Life, from the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.
We’re certainly not to add to or take away. Paul tells Titus what we are to do. NIV Titus 2:1 You, however, must teach what is appropriate to sound doctrine.
1 Timothy 4:16 (NIV) 16 Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.
This is an important concept: teach what is in accordance with sound doctrine.
How does the individual and the Church establish doctrine? We want to do what’s right; we want to comport with the Holy Scriptures. We want to please God; we want to be blessed by keeping God’s laws. We want to do what’s best for ourselves, our families and our relationships with our neighbors.
2 Peter 1:16-20 (KJV)
16 For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
17 For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
18 And this voice which came from heaven we heard when we were with him in the holy mount.
19 We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:
20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.
There’s a little footnote in the NKJV that says ‘interpretation’ means origin; in other words, the interpretations come from God, not from man.
We can’t have a consistent or reliable understanding of the meaning of scripture or anything else unless we have a consistently reliable method to interpret the words.
Today I want to focus on THE EIGHT RULES OF BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION. The following eight rules are the center of all grammatical interpretation that have been accepted and used by scholars from Socrates to the present. These rules help us to be consistent in developing our understanding whether we’re studying the Bible or even other writings.
2 Tim. 2:15 NIV 15 Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.
The King James Version uses the term “rightly divide the word of truth”, making good decisions, the NIV uses the term “handles the word of truth”. We must equip ourselves with the tools to understand truth as truth is then revealed in the Holy Scripture. We know that the Bible teaches that God is not the author of confusion.
1 Corinthians 14:33 For God is not the author of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints. (NKJV)
Yet, we can’t help but wonder that there are many disagreements between and among those that call themselves Christians and then claim to use the Bible as the basis of their doctrines. The false doctrines of men which are taught by those self-described Christians are often traced to distortions or incorrect meanings of Biblical words. An author, Guy Duty, said in his 1967 book “Divorce and Remarriage”: “When two interpretations are claimed for a scripture, the construction most in agreement with all the facts in the case should be adopted. When all the facts of an interpretation are in agreement, they sound together in harmony like notes in a chord. Biblical interpretation is more than knowing a set of rules, but it cannot be done without rules, so learn the rules and rightly apply them.”
I’m going to quote liberally from Mr. Duty’s book as he recites the eight rules of Biblical interpretation.

1)      THE RULE OF DEFINITION

What does the word mean? Any study of scripture must begin with a study of words. Define the terms and then keep to the terms defined. The interpreters should conscientiously abide by the plain meaning of the words. This may quite often require using a Hebrew/English or a Greek/English Lexicon in order to make sure that the sense of the English translation is understood. A couple good examples of the Greek: ‘allos and heteros’ are both usually translated as the word ‘another’ in English… but ‘allos’ literally means ‘another of the same type’, while heteros means ‘another of a different type’. While in English the same word may be ‘another’… when you look at the underlying meaning of that word, you can come up with a different result. When I thought of that first, I thought of another of the same type… like two different colors of horses. They’re different. There’s the black horse and the white horse and the sorrel and the chestnut and the pinto and they’re all different ones of the same type, so that would be ‘allos’, but ‘heteros’ could be ones of a different type like maybe horses and cows and chickens and donkeys and so forth. They would also be different in a different way.
I had a deacon one time in another state who told me that every word in Strong’s Concordance is a sermon. That was a mind-boggler because the Bible is full of words and each one of them has meaning and you can look in Strong’s or at a variety of definitions. Let’s do our research before basing doctrine, and we are to have sound doctrine, on anyone private interpretation.

2)      THE RULE OF USAGE Who was the original scripture written to?

It must be remembered that the Old Testament was written originally by and to and for the Israelites. The words and idioms must have been intelligible to them, just as the words of Christ had to have been to the ones He was talking to. The majority of the New Testament was written in a milieu of Greek, Greco-Roman, and to a lesser extent a Jewish culture. It’s important not to impose our modern usage, our modern culture into our interpretation. It’s not worth much to interpret a great many phrases in histories if your interpretations are shadowed and shaded by preconceived notions and cultural biases making your rendering an inaccurate or ineffectual lesson.

3)      THE RULE OF CONTEXT

The meaning must be gathered from the context. Every word must be understood in the light of the words that come before and after it. Many passages will not be understood at all or will be understood incorrectly without the help of looking at the context. (An example of this is Acts 10:9-16.) People will use that as a proof text that anyone can eat unclean meats, but if we take a look at that same passage… a simple reading of the verses in the context of the whole chapter plainly demonstrates that the Holy Spirit is teaching about taking the gospel to the gentiles and not about eating unclean meats.
Be sure to read the surrounding verses in context.

4)      THE RULE OF HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Do we understand the life and times in which the scripture was written?
The interpreter must have some awareness of the life and society in which the scripture was written. The scriptural principle will be timeless, but can’t properly be appreciated without some knowledge of the background. If the interpreter can have in his mind what the writer had in his mind when he wrote, without adding the excess baggage from the interpreter’s own culture or society, then the true thought of the scripture can be captured… which results in an accurate interpretation.
United States’ Supreme Court Justice, Oliver Wendell Holmes, said, “Our only interest in the past is for the light it throws on the present.” We can use that understanding as we examine the past to help us understand the scriptures’ application in the present.

5)      THE RULE OF LOGIC

Interpretation is merely logical reasoning. When interpreting scripture, the use of reasoning is everywhere to be assumed. Does the interpretation make sense? The Bible was given to us in the form of human language and therefore appeals to human reason. It invites investigation. It’s to be interpreted as we would any other volume… applying the laws of language and grammatical analysis. As the author Bernard Ramm said (quoted by Mr. Duty), “What is the control we use to weed out false theological speculation? Certainly, the control is logic and evidence… interpreters who have not had the sharpening experience of logic...may have improper notions of implication and evidence. Too frequently such a person uses a basis of appeal that is a notorious violation of the laws of logic and evidence.” (Protestant Biblical Interpretation, Boston: W. A. Wilde, 1956) You have simply got to be careful to use good logic and evidence to support that logic.
I don’t have time today, but it would be interesting to go through and look at the forms of logical fallacies. Perhaps we’ll do that sometime… look at the ones people use to prove things. That’s an interesting approach. We see that all the time around us. We hear it on the radio, watch it on television; we hear it at school or at work when people use logical fallacies. We must be careful here in rule five to use the rule of logic and avoid the logical pitfalls and lack of evidence.

6)      THE RULE OF PRECEDENT

We must not violate the known usage of a word and invent another for which there is no precedent… something that came first. Just as a judge’s chief occupation is the study of previous cases (case law), so must the interpreter use precedence in order to determine whether they really support an alleged doctrine.
We can take a look at the Bereans who searched the scriptures to determine if what Paul taught them was true. We see in Act seventeen that Paul and Silas were first kicked out of Thessalonica and then left and then went to Berea. (NET) Acts 17:10-12 10 The brothers sent Paul and Silas off to Berea at once, during the night. When they arrived, they went to the Jewish synagogue. 11 These Jews were more open-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they eagerly received the message, examining the scriptures carefully every day to see if these things were so. 12 Therefore many of them believed, along with quite a few prominent Greek women and men.
The Bereans were not sitting on their hands. They very carefully looked up the scriptures to substantiate what they were hearing because they wanted also to establish sound doctrine. Remember what Paul wrote in the letter in 2 Tim. 2:15 “Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”
If we read what Paul wrote in that same letter… an astounding chapter, chapter three, we’ll see how that applies here.
(NKJV) 2 Tim. 3:1-9 1 But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: 2 For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3 unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, 4 traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away! 6 For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, 7 always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. 8 Now as Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, disapproved concerning the faith; 9 but they will progress no further, for their folly will be manifest to all, as theirs also was.
The essence of verses here we are looking at show we will have difficult times in the end times; people will have a form of godliness, but they will deny the power… meaning the power of God. They are always learning but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth because they resist the truth. It says clearly in verse nine that they will progress no further. Why is that? Is it because they are not practicing or establishing sound doctrine?
(NKJV) 2 Tim. 3:10-17 10 But you have carefully followed my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, love, perseverance, 11 persecutions, afflictions, which happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra—what persecutions I endured. And out of them all the Lord delivered me. 12 Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. 13 But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. 14 But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, 15 and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. (Now note that as Paul is writing what scripture did he have at that time? He didn’t have what we call the New Testament scriptures. He had what we call the Old Testament.)
16 All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Looking over the scriptures carefully looking for precedents, looking for what came before… so we can look at the Bible consistently can only be done if we use the rule of precedence. We must not violate the known usage of a word and invent another for which there is no precedent.

7)      THE RULE OF UNITY

Parts of scripture being interpreted must be construed with reference to the significance of the whole. An interpretation must be consistent with the rest of scripture.
An excellent example is the understanding of the Sabbath throughout the Bible. The Sabbath is consistent with the teaching of the whole scripture… both of the Old Testament and the New Testament. Look for that rule of unity.

8)      THE RULE OF INFERENCE

An inference is a fact reasonably implied from another fact. It is a logical consequence. It derives a conclusion from a given fact or premise. It is the deduction of one proposition from another proposition. Such inferential facts or propositions are sufficiently binding when their truth is established by competent and satisfactory evidence. Competent evidence means such evidence as the nature of the thing to be proved admits. Satisfactory evidence means that amount of proof, which would ordinarily satisfy an unprejudiced mind beyond a reasonable doubt. Jesus used this rule when he proved the resurrection of the dead to the unbelieving Sadducees in Matt. 22:23-33.
The rule of inference is a fact reasonably implied from another fact. It is a logical consequence. Learning these eight rules and applying them properly will help keep any interpreter from making errors and will hopefully alleviate many disagreements that may present themselves.
In summary: The Eight Rules of Biblical Interpretation are: 1) DEFINITION What does the word mean? 2) THE RULE OF USAGE Who was the original scripture written to? 3) THE RULE OF CONTEXT Be sure to read the surrounding verses in context. 4) THE RULE OF HISTORICAL BACKGROUND Do we understand the life and society of the times in which the scripture was written? 5) THE RULE OF LOGIC Avoid logical pitfalls and lack of evidence. 6) THE RULE OF PRECEDENT We must not violate the known usage of a word and invent another for which there is no precedent. 7) THE RULE OF UNITY The parts of scripture being interpreted must be construed as reference to the significance of the whole. 8) THE RULE OF INFERENCE An inference is a fact reasonably implied from another fact. It is a logical consequence.
These eight principles are not a substitute for the Holy Spirit. We were promised and we read this on the evening of Passover: John 14:26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.
We go on to read in Acts that God gives His Spirit freely to those whom He has called.
Acts 2:38 (NKJV) 38 Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
John 6:44 No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day. (NKJV)
We have the gift of the Holy Spirit available to teach us and if we are called, God is very, very willing to give that to us.
King Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived… aside from Jesus Christ, wrote about the importance of wise people who incline their ears toward wisdom:

Proverbs 1:5-6 (NCV)
5 Wise people can also listen and learn;
even they can find good advice in these words.
6 Then anyone can understand wise words and stories,
the words of the wise and their riddles.
Some versions said dark meanings or hidden meanings instead of riddles. In other words that’s where we learn to be wise, to understand the words of the Bible to understand the stories and to understand that which should be revealed through the Holy Spirit.
Is our doctrine based on fables and the teaching of men or does our understanding of the Holy Scripture lead us into sound doctrine? We must be careful not to allow ourselves to fall into the trap of teaching the commandments of men in the place of the doctrines of God.
Matt. 15:9 And in vain they worship Me,
teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.
We’re to use our faith and knowledge of the Son of God that we might be strong and not drawn by false doctrine.

Ephesians 4:11-17 (NKJV) 11 And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, 12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, 13 till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; 14 that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, 15 but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— 16 from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.
We don’t want to be tossed around by every wind of doctrine. The Rules of Biblical Interpretation will help us to understand the Bible, to keep us strong so that we aren’t following the commandments of men. As we read in verse fifteen… that we may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ.
Heb. 6:1-2 Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, 2 of the doctrine of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment.
We need to grow beyond the basic doctrines. Yes, we must understand the basic doctrines and we must continue to preach the basic doctrines… but here is our instruction… we must grow and go beyond those basic doctrines to have a full understanding of what Christ has in mind for us.
Let’s carefully examine the Biblical Rules of Interpretation that we might better be able to establish and practice sound doctrine.