There are several common biblical misinterpretations/misuses that I hear on a regular basis. All of them frustrate me, but some are more dangerous or more harmful than others. So I wanted to write a series of posts about the most common ones I hear so we can see how dangerous it is to misuse the Bible. Then, we can also see how easy it is to correct the problem. Anyone can do it.
Misquoting, misusing, or misinterpreting God’s Word can be a really big deal. If we’re not careful, we can unintentionally think about God in a way that He does not present Himself, or we can misrepresent Him to others. We could unintentionally believe promises or make promises to other people, on God’s behalf, that He did not make and therefore has no obligation to keep. This could lead us or others to be wrongfully disappointed in God, or possibly lead people to turn their backs on Christianity. It could even lead people to believe in a false god, or trust a false gospel; which could have eternal consequences.
Biblical interpretation sounds difficult or overwhelming, and we think it’s only done by scholars, theologians, and pastors, but that’s not the truth. All of us are always interpreting everything we read, including the Bible. The question is are we interpreting it accurately?
I’ve wanted to write this series for a while now. My goal in writing these posts is threefold.
1. To show how damaging it can be in our lives and in the lives of others around us to misuse God’s Word.
2. To increase our hunger and desire for God’s rich, powerful Word.
3. To show that rightly handling God’s Word is not overwhelming or difficult; and shouldn’t be left only to scholars, theologians, and pastors.
The Bible is a supernatural book. It is alive and active. It has the power to shape and transform our thinking and our lives, making us more and more like Christ. No other book or set of books or documents has this power. So, no, it shouldn’t be read in the same way that you would read a newspaper; merely informational. And at the same time, God inspired normal men, with normal language and syntax to write it. So, in this way, to find its meaning, we read the Bible and translate and interpret it the same as we would any other document.
There are just a few simple questions that we need to ask ourselves when reading anything, especially the Bible, if we want to rightly interpret the author’s meaning. There are lots of great questions we could ask if we really want to dig in and find the depths of what is going on. And there is great reward for that! But just for our casual reading and understanding, there really are only a couple of questions we should ask that will help us get the correct meaning.
1. Who is the immediate audience? Who is being addressed? If it is a New Testament letter, to whom was it written? If it is one of the gospels and Jesus is speaking to a group of people, which group is it? Is it His disciples? Is He speaking to the larger crowds in general? Is He speaking directly to the Pharisees? Is He speaking to a specific person? If it is an Old Testament book, is it a profit addressing the nation of Israel or is he addressing a pagan nation? Is it God speaking directly to his people or a specific person? Or is it more of a history section, a record of what happened? Knowing who is being spoken to and who is being spoken about goes a long way in helping us understand what was meant.
2. What is going on in the surrounding verses of the passing question? What is the actual subject being discussed or talked about? We can usually easily find this by reading a few verses before and after the passage we are thinking about.
In other words, what is the context? As one of my favorite Bible teachers says “Three rules for sound biblical interpretation are context, context, and context.” Understanding the context in which something was said is crucial for understanding the meaning of what was said.
It’s always a good thing to ask what the Bible says. The very next question we need to ask is what does that mean? What is the Holy Spirit actually communicating? A Passage has one meaning. It doesn’t mean multiple things to multiple different people or people groups. We don’t get to pick and choose the verses we like, rip them out of their context, and make them mean whatever we want them to mean. There may be multiple ways we can apply the Truth being communicated… but it has one meaning. What does God mean by what he said?
Correct biblical interpretation is extremely important because what we think about God – who He is, is the most important thing in our lives. And while there are a few passages in the Bible that are difficult to work out, the vast majority of it is easily understood if we will take some time and care. Most of the commonly misused passages out there can be easily understood and corrected, simply by putting them back into context.
Over the next few posts I’ll be looking at some commonly misinterpreted and misused texts, and show how easy it is to correctly understand them when they are put back in context.