Interpretation

This idea of interpreting scripture has been an issue heavy on my heart of late. This idea of hermeneutics is not something new. People have been interpreting (read: or often misinterpreting) scripture for 2000 years. Jesus himself accuses the Pharisees on multiple occasions of misinterpreting, or flatly not understanding scripture. Jesus, similarly when Nicodemus comes to him by night, is quite plain when he says:

John 3:9–10 “Nicodemus said to Him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered and said to him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things?”

Translation: Nicodemus, don’t you know what is taught in scripture?

Notice, Jesus never rebukes the teachers of the law, scribes or Nicodemus himself by saying, “Well I can see why you’re confused but let me reveal something new.” No. He says, shame on you, you should know this from existing scripture. He quite expected people to be able to know the word of God. And so, we should too. The word of God not only can be understood, but Jesus expects that we know and study His word.

I have two people in my life that seem to think that by invoking the word “interpretation” they can settle an argument. Almost as if they think that if I can just claim there are lots of interpretations, that will mean I can interpret it however I want. This comes up over and over again when someone points to a teaching in scripture, a verse, a chapter, a theology or really ANYTHING whatsoever. These two individuals rather than confronting the text, seem to just use as a kind of canned comment like,

“Well, that’s just your interpretation.” Or,

“According to who, YOUR interpretation?” Or,

“Well everyone has different interpretations.”

Let’s think of this using a simple example. Many have claimed one of the following four things:

Jesus is a prophet, but not God.

Jesus is God.

Jesus is neither a prophet nor God, but a good man.

Jesus never existed in history.

Can Jesus be both God and not God? Did Jesus both exist and not exist? Did He both claim to be God and not claim to be God? Of course note. These things all contradict. It can be one or the other, but not both.

What about this one?

Many claim Jesus was a created being, but not eternal.

Most Christians claim Jesus is uncreated, and eternal.

Can both be true? He was both created/not eternal and not created/eternal? Of course not.

Why does this matter? Well, for one, it is simply pointing out that scripture teaches real truths. In the above examples, one of those answers is true, one not. But what we do know factually is that they can’t both be true. We need to keep this in mind when someone wants to say, “Well, we can all have our own interpretations.” The law of non-contradiction would argue otherwise.

Here’s what weighs heavily on me. This is being used primarily as a wall to not proceed. It seems to me that when this is said it is to END a conversation rather than to START a conversation on scripture. This seems to be a claim to almost say that no one can really know anything about what scripture has to say. The problem here is that scripture itself teaches us that it can be understood clearly.

2 Timothy 3:16 “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;”

Mark 16:15 “And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.”

Colossians 3:16 “Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.”

1 Timothy 6:3 “If anyone advocates a different doctrine and does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness,”

Matthew 24:14 ““This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.”

Matthew 28:20 “teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

1 Timothy 4:16 “Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching; persevere in these things, for as you do this you will ensure salvation both for yourself and for those who hear you.”

Ephesians 4:11–16 “And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.”

Hebrews 5:12 “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food.”

I could list 50 of these types of verses. I’ve included the sampling above to ask these two questions:

Whether it is Jesus, an apostle, the author of Hebrews, OT writers etc… Why would they all implore us as followers to go out and teach scripture, teach the gospel, teach the oracles of God, teach doctrine, if scripture could not be understood? The Bible repeatedly asks us as followers to study, teach and preach His word. If scripture could not be interpreted, none of that would be possible.

Why would scripture point out individuals as “noble” people (Bereans are one example in Acts 11) when they go to Scripture to determine if something is true or not? If scripture could not be understood, this would be a silly thing to say.

Now, here’s what that does not mean: That every single little thing in scripture is readily apparent and obvious. Quite the opposite, scripture is incredibly complicated in places and needs to be unpacked. In the verses above, the scripture writers even implore their hearers to learn from learned men in the Lord’s word. I’d venture to say that 90% of scripture is plain in its meaning. But it takes work. Hard work sometimes. This isn’t because God made it hard, most of the time it has everything to do with US. It generally hinges on either not reading the context, or not understanding the nuances of the audience and cultures these teachings were passed on to. I’ll say one more thing. The people in my life that don’t understand huge swaths of the NT are guilty of one thing: They do not have a firm grasp of the OT. I would argue that one cannot even remotely understand most of the quotes, references and teachings of the NT without knowing the OT. Jesus himself quotes or alludes to the OT in almost 25% of his recorded words. I know this well, because this used to be me. Unlearned in the God’s word and preparation of doctrine in the OT. The NT became a beacon of life for me once I had studies and understood the OT. If we are going to build our lives around Jesus, we should commit to that work. It could involve resources to unpack archaeology, languages, genre, conjugation, cross-referencing verses, theological ideas, philosophy. All of it.

My favorite saying is that scripture interprets scripture. This is not a cop-out. I cannot think of one teaching that is not made clearer or entirely clear by other sections of scripture.

But in our internet age, I think folks think that by just saying, well that’s your interpretation, that they’ve proven some point or solved something. If I told someone that we’re saved by grace through faith and they responded that we are saved by doing a certain number of push-ups… what ought we to do? Just say, well, that’s a reasonable interpretation? No! One must understand that truth exists. Jesus Himself says that He IS THE TRUTH. Work for it. Strive for it. Back it up. But don’t back up a claim by dead-air. Prepare your argument from the text, and let’s all roll up our sleeves in love and work through it. What could be more important than understanding God’s messages to us?

I recently heard Gavin Ortlund speaking on the Nicene Creed. When referencing Peter’s sermon in Acts (as follows), he said something quite profound.

Acts 2:38–39 “Peter said to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. “For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself.”

He referenced what I am speaking to here when he makes mention of the often over-utilized claim when someone says, “Yes, but that is misinterpreted!” Gavin says something very simple, but incredibly important:

“Biblical language can always be misinterpreted. The solution to that is not to avoid Biblical language, the solution to that is to oppose bad interpretations.”

This is quite profound for two reasons:

He touches on the whole issue at play here. If someone claims that some part of the biblical teaching or language is misinterpreted, what should be the solution? Not going to the text to figure it out? That makes literally no sense. There is no doctrine or book in the world where if someone claimed that they did not understand something in it, that the solution would be to try to solve for the answer by not using that book. Makes no sense.

Notice what he doesn’t say in the second part. He does not say that the solution is to just take lock-stock-and-barrel “my” interpretation. No, he says we ought to oppose “bad” interpretation. Bad interpretation almost always comes from bad hermeneutics. And good hermeneutics takes work. And guess what, good hermeneutics is not a matter of “my” way of doing things. It actually has quite a simple but effective formula for understanding God’s word. More on that later.