Focus: True Interpreters

Text: Neh.8:8

"So they read in the book of the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading."

The church is in need of interpreters of the word of God. Motivational speakers are not interpreters of God's word. You can't make the word mean anything you want it to mean. Every word God speaks has its intended meaning. We can have many applications of God's word, but there's only one interpretation or meaning.

One fact we must get straight into our minds is that God cannot confirm what He didn't say or stand by a meaning that He didn't intend. A man asked the Lord Jesus Christ about who a neighbor is, and He asked him, "WHAT is written in the law? HOW readest thou?" (Lk.10:26). To know the 'what' and 'how' of Scripture is very central and vital to a spiritual encounter with the author of Scripture - the Holy Spirit.

Nehemiah invited Ezra for a revival conference in the land. The venue was at the Watergate. I prefer to call the meeting, A Watergate Revival. The people made a pulpit for Ezra to stand on and minister the word to the people. By this time in the history of Israel, the people had lost their native tongue. So Ezra had interpreters who stood with him on the stage, and while he read the Scriptures and ministered to the people in the Hebrew tongue, the interpreters gave them the sense of what was being communicated by Ezra. Nehemiah writes, "So they read in the book of the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading." While Ezra read the word distinctly and clearly, the interpreters gave the people a sense of the word and caused them to understand the Scriptures and what God required of them.

Philip said to the Ethiopian eunuch, "Understandest thou what thou readest?" (Act.8:30). The man responded, "How can I, except some man should GUIDE me? And he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him" (Act.8:31). The word 'guide' means to show or lead the way. It is not about the person who points the way to another, but about the person who takes another by the hand and guides him in the right way.

We need studious interpreters of God's word - people who are possessed by God's Spirit and who give themselves to a critical analysis of God's word; men and women who will download the mind of God to the people of God. We need the Josephs and Daniels. We need those who practice the presence of God and understand what is the heartbeat of God is. We need those who will give us a sense of what God is saying and cause us to understand the mysteries of God's kingdom and of the gospel. Job declares, "If there be a messenger with him, an interpreter, one among a thousand, to shew unto man his uprightness" (Jb.33:23). That's the kind of interpreters we need - those who will show us the divine truth and where we stand in God's scale of things.

I pray God to raise preachers and teachers of God's word who will declare God's mind and word with unbiased clarity and God-imparted authority. Amen!

by Bishop Moses E. Peter