hermeneutics ?

All content tagged with this topic across every database — articles, Mike Winger ideas, and verse entries on one screen.

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Self-assessment recommendation: ask yourself what view you WANT to have, to identify your own biases before studying.

Why We Can't Think Biblically About It： Women In Ministry part 1

Analogy to Trinity denial: some reject the Trinity not from scripture but from a philosophical conviction that 'three in one' is impossible, then read the Bible through that lens.

Why We Can't Think Biblically About It： Women In Ministry part 1

When all scripture is examined in detail, a beautiful balance emerges — like Mike's previous study on alcohol, which showed positive and negative passages creating a nuanced view.

Why We Can't Think Biblically About It： Women In Ministry part 1

Three commitments: (1) Mike will not submit scripture to culture — neither progressive nor conservative cultural pressure.

Why We Can't Think Biblically About It： Women In Ministry part 1

MacArthur's real basis: 1 Corinthians 14:34 (women keep silent) overrides the plain reading of 1 Corinthians 11

Things I Didn't Know as a Complementarian： Women in Ministry part 6

Good vs. bad hermeneutic rules: clear passages on an issue vs. passages about different issues

The Egalitarian ＂Silver Bullet＂ Bible Verse： Women in Ministry part 7

Hermeneutic principle: look at passages that actually teach on the topic

The Egalitarian ＂Silver Bullet＂ Bible Verse： Women in Ministry part 7

Summary of video 1: removing obstacles and presuppositions that cause people to bypass the Bible on this topic.

How Women Could and Couldn’t Lead in the Old Testament： Women in Ministry part 3

Warning: OT data consists mostly of examples, not direct teachings, making it difficult to derive rules.

How Women Could and Couldn’t Lead in the Old Testament： Women in Ministry part 3

The NT has direct teaching; the OT must be harmonized with it for a comprehensive view.

How Women Could and Couldn’t Lead in the Old Testament： Women in Ministry part 3

Recap: Mike rejects the 'helper' argument and the 'serpent subverted leadership pattern' argument, but affirms the cumulative force of Genesis 2 indicators.

How Women Could and Couldn’t Lead in the Old Testament： Women in Ministry part 3

God may use male leaders because it reaches the culture, not because He requires it; but the 'culture card' needs textual support.

How Women Could and Couldn’t Lead in the Old Testament： Women in Ministry part 3

Counter-cultural examples like Deborah are strong evidence; but clear teaching (like on priests) is even better.

How Women Could and Couldn’t Lead in the Old Testament： Women in Ministry part 3

Mike urges listeners to look up passages themselves rather than trusting scholarly summaries uncritically.

How Women Could and Couldn’t Lead in the Old Testament： Women in Ministry part 3

Rebuttal: there is no textual indication they chose Huldah over other prophets; proximity in Jerusalem is a better explanation.

How Women Could and Couldn’t Lead in the Old Testament： Women in Ministry part 3

Another textual explanation: Huldah's husband was 'keeper of the wardrobe' — a court connection that made access easier.

How Women Could and Couldn’t Lead in the Old Testament： Women in Ministry part 3

Don't base a view on an unclear passage — Isaiah 3:12 can be explained in either egalitarian or complementarian ways; Mike rejects the Davidic lineage/genetic argument.

How Women Could and Couldn’t Lead in the Old Testament： Women in Ministry part 3

Three beliefs to honor God: what God says about men and women is true, good, and needful

Everything Women Can and Can't Do According to the Bible： Women in Ministry part 13

Biblical examples help qualify how rules are applied — not just clear teachings

Everything Women Can and Can't Do According to the Bible： Women in Ministry part 13

How to justify being strict in marriage/ministry but less strict elsewhere: examples and clear teachings

Everything Women Can and Can't Do According to the Bible： Women in Ministry part 13

Transition: the passage looks straightforward but massive debate exists

ALL The Debates Over 1 Tim 2_11-15： Women in Ministry part 12 (it took me a year to make this)

Joseph Smith misuses a Jesus quote to argue that the Father 'laid down his body' just as Jesus did — Mike identifies this as 'bad Bible study.'

Why Mormons and Christians Can't Understand Each Other

Joseph Smith's claim that 'bara' means 'organize' is inaccurate; traditional Jewish and Christian scholarship has consistently supported ex nihilo creation.

Why Mormons and Christians Can't Understand Each Other

Using scripture against scripture is bad methodology — it appears to create contradictions and 'the atheist wins'

The Debate Over James 2： Catholic or Protestant View

Proper methodology: verse-by-verse contextual study of the passage being debated rather than countering with other passages

The Debate Over James 2： Catholic or Protestant View

Hermeneutics — the art and science of understanding a text; theological word meanings vs. dictionary word meanings

The Debate Over James 2： Catholic or Protestant View

The key question: does James use 'justified' in the theological sense or the dictionary sense?

The Debate Over James 2： Catholic or Protestant View

Conclusion of hermeneutical argument: 'justified' in James 2 means proven/demonstrated to be right, not salvifically made righteous

The Debate Over James 2： Catholic or Protestant View

James 2 is about how salvation is demonstrated, not how salvation is accomplished — massive hermeneutical distinction

The Debate Over James 2： Catholic or Protestant View

Mike's methodology: no extra-biblical quotes, no analogies to distract, no theological meanings read into plain words, no distorting context

The Debate Over James 2： Catholic or Protestant View

Groups that use James 2 substitute their own list of required works (sacraments, tongues, church membership) for James's actual examples (tongue, helping poor)

The Debate Over James 2： Catholic or Protestant View

Method: read 1 Corinthians 3, present the Catholic interpretation, then do verse-by-verse exegesis

Responding to Catholic Apologists on Purgatory

Transition from planting/watering analogy to building analogy in 1 Corinthians 3:9-10

Responding to Catholic Apologists on Purgatory

'Saved as through fire' is an idiom/analogy, not a description of a purifying fire experience

Responding to Catholic Apologists on Purgatory

Even granting purgatory is true, 1 Corinthians 3 could not be used to teach it — wrong passage entirely

Responding to Catholic Apologists on Purgatory

Pattern of false teaching: take a doctrine, find a Bible passage with similar vocabulary, read the doctrine into the passage

Responding to Catholic Apologists on Purgatory

Eisegesis defined: reading a pre-existing doctrine into a text rather than letting the text speak for itself

Responding to Catholic Apologists on Purgatory

Q&A — Why didn't God make the Bible's message so clear that everyone interprets it the same way?

Responding to Catholic Apologists on Purgatory

Q&A — Why didn't God send each country a Bible in their own language to prevent mistranslation?

Responding to Catholic Apologists on Purgatory

The claim 'all sin is the same' contains a kernel of truth but is ultimately inaccurate and too imprecise to be useful.

Are Some Sins Worse Than Others？ Please don't get this wrong!

Hebrews 2:2 confirms that Old Testament punishments were morally just retributions, not merely symbolic — validating the OT penal code as a genuine moral revelation.

Are Some Sins Worse Than Others？ Please don't get this wrong!

James 2:10 does not teach that all sins are identical; it teaches that breaking any one point of the law makes a person a law-breaker before the same Lawgiver — a relational, not equivalence, statement.

Are Some Sins Worse Than Others？ Please don't get this wrong!

The unforgivable sin (blasphemy against the Holy Spirit) — Mike is not fully settled on the interpretation but identifies the key exegetical questions: is it calling the work of the Holy Spirit the work of Satan, a continuous act of resistance, or any negative speech about the Spirit?

Are Some Sins Worse Than Others？ Please don't get this wrong!

Winger warns against approaching Scripture selectively — taking what fits existing preferences and discarding the rest. Authentic Christian discipleship requires approaching the Bible as authoritative, remaining willing to change beliefs and behavior when the text challenges them, rather than making oneself the final arbiter.

Here's Me Using the Bible to Prove the Bible

Winger affirms that the red-letter convention in printed Bibles is an English editorial addition, not a mark of verbatim quotation. Greek manuscripts have no quotation marks. The Gospel writers sometimes paraphrase Jesus, not always quote him directly — but the text faithfully records what Jesus said and intended. The ambiguous boundary between Jesus's words and John's commentary (e.g., John 3) is offered as an example.

Here's Me Using the Bible to Prove the Bible

Winger addresses the claim that Paul's 'not with words of eloquent wisdom' (1 Cor 1:17) condemns the use of apologetics. He argues this is a misreading: Paul is saying his persuasion was not merely rhetorical — the gospel itself had power in Corinth. Acts shows Paul regularly reasoning and persuading. Apologetics serves as a 'crowbar' to open doors, but the gospel message itself is what saves.

Here's Me Using the Bible to Prove the Bible

Q&A: The Massacre of the Innocents appears in Matthew but not Luke because Luke telescopes events and omits details that don't serve his narrative aims — absence from one Gospel does not imply it didn't happen

Atheists Can Be Gullible Too

Q&A: Genesis 6:5 — 'every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually' — describes mankind as thoroughly corrupted, whether read hyperboliclaly (extreme wickedness) or literally (total moral collapse)

Atheists Can Be Gullible Too

Zahnd deliberately misrepresents Exodus 21 on slavery to children at a youth camp in order to discredit the Bible

Brian Zahnd's False Gospel and Fake Jesus

Shame is Zahnd's primary rhetorical device; his Rorschach accusation is a projection of his own method

Brian Zahnd's False Gospel and Fake Jesus

“I’m some what in agreement with you about interpretation. Thus a good proper solid exegesis is required. It is not simply good enough to say…’well that doesn’t apply ot us anymore’, nor is it excepta...

To all, I’ll have to leave it there for a bit as i have a lot of other stuff to do. At least we can agree on one thing, that 1 Tim 2:12 is either both positive or negetive. It’s good to end on a high...

Kay, We’ve been over this many times before so there is no point going over it again. Distinguish between principle and practice in your hermeneutics and you will see again that in 1 Cor 11 there is ...

“Distinguish between principle and practice in your hermeneutics and you will see again that in 1 Cor 11 there is a principle that is rooted in creation (the husband/man is the head of the wife/woman ...

Thanks for your succinct response Cheryl. 1 Tim 3 is ridiculously ‘obvious’ to me. Just as you say… that if you take the ‘one-woman man’ bit ‘literally’, you have to take the others bits likewise – w...

Especially concerning that first quote from MacArthur, this essentially means that God’s Word is not all sufficient. If a woman speaks God’s Word, it loses it’s potency unless voiced by a man since it...

Ryan, Thanks son for the reminder that dealing with Christians is sometimes akin to skillfully dealing with the cults where you must win them to truth in a loving and non-combative way. I do have to ...

For Joe Montana: I must respectfully submit sir that Cheryl has done admirably with the time honored grammatico-historical method of biblical hermeneutics. If anything, it is the hierarchalists who ha...

Thanks Lynn and Dusman for your comments. I emailed this to an interested friend who sent me this link to a similar topic on another blog. The chief editor of IVP (who publishes Grudem) mention women...

Charis, Thank you for your kind words! It is always good to talk about different interpretations and how they fit in the context. I agree with what you said that women often are guilty of putting th...

This was very well done Cheryl. Not only sticking to Scripture and proper hermeneutics, but using the noggin God gave you as well. I’d like to add some thoughts when I have time. I’d also like your p...

> Cheryl said: Christ needs to be formed in us, but that happens as we grow and mature in him. Women in general do not need anything special for salvation (that isn’t needed by men), nor do they need ...

Charis, Glad to see you back! I have been laying low myself while I finished a PowerPoint presentation. I just got it done so it is a load off my mind. You said: > “The seminary did not allow women...

Hi Donna, “I would encourage people to read what is said at the CBMW, and try to understand where they are coming from as far as the eternal subordination of the Son is concerned. It is an appeal to ...

Cheryl, I am very happy to hear you have sold your home! What a relief for you. The news about using your DVD at DTS is wonderful. There are so few academic settings where the other side is presented ...

“The more they respond with paper after paper, the more they self-repudiate their claim of supposed clarity.” yes, Don, very good point. Years ago these many ‘papers’ were not needed. No one question...

Cheryl wrote in the original post:  *Galatians 3:28 contains a negation of three categories that reflected common ways of distinguishing humanity among the Jews. The Jewish cycle of morning prayers fo...

Hello Cheryl! I just discovered this community and am so thrilled. I wanted to make a comment regarding the first comment to this post: Don wrote: “I do not think authoritarian leadership means ...

Dear Cheryl: I have sat all evening reading through every one of the interviews and found them for the most part very informative, based on careful exposition, and, for the most part, satisfying. I am...

Well, Cheryl, I’m sorry to learn that Chris, when he couldn’t defeat you on the “home field,” had to make a playing field of his own, where he plays against “straw women and straw men,” which are noth...