The following quotes taken from Tim Challies’ blog convey a reverence for the Bible that is the hallmark of biblical Christianity.  Of particular importance is the first quote by J.I. Packer, highlighting the problem we all have when we read Scripture, namely, approaching the text with our preconceived ideas and mistakenly finding biblical support for them.  Yet, like Alan Cole observes in the second quote, occasionally God blesses our bad interpretations regardless.  These fortunate accidents aside, it should be every Christian’s desire to divorce their biases from the reading of Scripture, employing careful hermeneutic principles while seeking the wisdom of God’s revealed Word.  As Challies observed, “The Bible is an awesome revelation and it behooves us to treat it with the utmost care and respect.”

“We approach Scripture with minds already formed by the mass of accepted opinions and viewpoints with which we have come into contact, in both the Church and the world. It is easy to be unaware that it has happened; it is hard even to begin to realize how profoundly tradition in this sense has moulded us.” –J.I. Packer

“God sometimes blesses a poor exegesis of a bad translation of a doubtful reading of an obscure verse of a minor prophet.” –Alan Cole

“One of the many divine qualities of the Bible is that it does not yield its secrets to the irreverent and the censorious.” –J.I. Packer

“The Word of God well understood and religiously obeyed is the shortest route to spiritual perfection. And we must not select a few favorite passages to the exclusion of others. Nothing less than a whole Bible can make a whole Christian.” –A.W. Tozer

“I hold that the words of Scripture were intended to have one definite sense, and adhere rigidly to it–to say the words do mean a thing merely because they can be tortured into meaning it is a most dishonorable and dangerous way of handling Scripture.” –J.C. Ryle

“Inasmuch as all Scripture is the product of a single divine mind, interpretation must stay within the bounds of the analogy of Scripture and eschew hypotheses that would correct one Biblical passage by another, whether in the name of progressive revelation or of the imperfect enlightenment of the inspired writer’s mind.” –The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy

Greg,

With all the activity on the sanctuary thread, I don’t want the importance of what you have posted here to be lost. If we don’t have scripture as an inerrant, infallible authority, that we can trust that we are reading the very words of God (2 Timothy 3:16), then our faith will be blown about by every wind of doctrine. If we keep grounded in Christ and His inspired word, we can have absolute faith and assurance.

Stan

Greg,

I really appreciated that you posted these quotes. I think it is imperative that we allow the Scriptures to speak to us and that we lay aside our preconceived ideas as we study.

I do believe that God can, and does use our feeble efforts to lead us to Him.

Thanks again to this article,

Randy

I don’t know if anyone read the link I posted above to an article on biblical hermeneutics.  Some of the points made by the author deserve special mention here, because they show us how far off the track we can go when we are not diligent in our attempt to understand Scripture.

For example, the books of the Bible were written thousands of years ago, in a different language, to a people who were culturally very different than most of us.  Yet the meaning of the entire Bible has spiritual application for Christians to this day.  With the potential barriers of time, tradition, culture and language, we can easily miss the point of Scripture if we read it without employing the science of solid biblical interpretation or hermeneutics.

Often the point is made that if we just sit down with our Bible and pray for the right understanding of Scripture, it will be revealed to us.  Certainly this is possible, however, we’ve all seen examples in history where the opposite occurred.  For instance, William Miller employed such an approach and fell into the error of date-setting.  Others have found “evidence” that Jesus is not God or that all Christian denominations are apostate or that God is punishing America for the war in Iraq (and on and on) by taking such an introspective approach to Scripture.

The author of the linked article on biblical hermeneutics makes some interesting observations in this regard:

We believe the Holy Spirit will reveal all truth to us, particularly with regard to the Bible.  Many in the New Testament churches did not understand the Hebrew of the Old Testament, yet the Apostles expected them to understand the truth of the Old Testament scriptures when translated into Greek.  Does this mean that we may safely ignore the cultural, historical, and language differences between us and the Biblical writer?  I don’t believe it does, any more than we may rely on the Holy Spirit to teach us to speak or read or use logic.  The Holy Spirit inspired the Biblical authors and illuminates God’s Word to those who earnestly seek its truth, but interpretation is properly the responsibility of individual Christians.

The Bible is not always easy to understand, and we must use our minds–aided and influenced by the Holy Spirit–to understand it.  Just like any document, we must understand something about context, the literary genre, the author, and the intended audience, to gain understanding of what God is communicating in the text.  The science of biblical hermeneutics is critical in this regard, guarding us from a self-confident belief in our own private and “God-blessed” interpretation of Scripture.  As the apostle Peter said, “For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty...knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” (2 Peter 1:16-21 ESV)

Getting back to the article, the author makes an important observation:

The view that all one must do is pray and read the Bible, and the Holy Spirit will provide the proper interpretation, or the view that one’s own, idiosyncratic interpretation of Scripture is just as valid as that any other ("what this text means to me...") renders the interpretation non-falsifiable.  That is, if I say that the Holy Spirit provided me with the interpretation, or my interpretation, it is impossible for anyone to demonstrate that I have wrongly divided the Word.  The “truth” I have arrived at is self-contained and ultimately incommunicable to you.  You will have to “experience” the same personal revelation, and even then, we will may wonder if our two experiences really were identical, or if there were subtle differences that may affect our interpretation.  This hermeneutic methodology (or really lack of methodology) provides ample opportunity for me to twist Scripture to my own destruction, and to that of any others who would follow my interpretation (2 Peter 3:16).

There’s a lot to unpack from these words, but surely we can all think of examples from our own experience where the private interpretation approach has not only established falsehood, but has given it “divine” authority.

Greg

...interpretation is properly the responsibility of individual Christians.

The view that all one must do is pray and read the Bible, and the Holy Spirit will provide the proper interpretation, or the view that one’s own, idiosyncratic interpretation of Scripture is just as valid as that any other ("what this text means to me...") renders the interpretation non-falsifiable. That is, if I say that the Holy Spirit provided me with the interpretation, or my interpretation, it is impossible for anyone to demonstrate that I have wrongly divided the Word. The “truth” I have arrived at is self-contained and ultimately incommunicable to you. You will have to “experience” the same personal revelation, and even then, we will may wonder if our two experiences really were identical, or if there were subtle differences that may affect our interpretation.

Aren’t these two quotations inconsistent? One says Biblical interpretation is “properly the responsibility of individual Christians” and the other one says the view that “one’s own, idiosyncratic interpretation of Scripture is just as valid as that any other ("what this text means to me...") renders the interpretation non-falsifiable.”

Glenn, I don’t think they are inconsistent.  I think the point is that each individual is called to “rightly divide the Word” with diligence (2 Timothy 2:15).  When we are not aware of or refuse to employ even the simplest hermeneutical principles, we can get into a situation where we’re always asking “What does the Bible mean to me?” while ignoring the question “What does the Bible mean? [period]”

So following our gut instinct or personal insights when reading the Bible is not being faithful to our charge to diligently read it for God’s intended meaning.  Worse, those who follow the private interpretation approach can convince themselves that their unique insights are God-ordained, opening the door to all manner of erroneous consequences.

For instance, the Westboro Baptist Church teaches that “God hates America” on the basis of Matthew 23:37-38.  This translation, while sounding perfectly reasonable to the folks who attend this church, is absolutely absurd and leads them to picket the funerals of Iraq war veterens, proclaiming God’s judgment as the cause of the tragedy.

Greg