Because God Meant Something

Authorial Intent and the Authority of Scripture

The phrase, “The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it,” has been repeated in churches for generations. It sounds faithful. It sounds decisive. But it assumes something that we cannot afford to assume. It assumes that we actually know what the Bible says. More specifically, it assumes that we understand what it means. Because if meaning is unclear, or if meaning is something we reshape rather than receive, then saying “I believe it” loses its substance. The issue facing the church today is not simply whether people affirm the Bible. The issue is whether we are interpreting it faithfully.

To answer that, we must begin where Scripture itself begins—with what the Bible actually is. Scripture does not present itself as a collection of human reflections about God, but as the very word of God communicated through human authors. Paul writes that “all Scripture is breathed out by God” (2 Tim. 3:16), and just before that he calls it the “sacred writings” that make one wise for salvation (2 Tim. 3:15). That phrase “sacred writings” is significant because it distinguishes Scripture from every other kind of writing. It is not merely insightful or inspiring—it is holy, set apart, and uniquely authoritative. As I argued in my research, Scripture is not simply writings about God, but the very “word of truth,” a message that originates from God Himself and must be handled with care (Morrison, Authorial Intent, p. 5) .

This is reinforced by Peter in 2 Peter 1:21, where he explains that “men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” Scripture is not the product of human initiative; it is divine communication delivered through human language. This is why I described the Bible as a “theanthropic book,” where God is the primary author and humans are the secondary authors (Morrison, Authorial Intent, p. 9) . That concept matters because it establishes that Scripture is not divided in its meaning. There is not a human meaning and a divine meaning competing with one another. There is one unified meaning.

That leads us to a foundational principle for interpretation: what the human author meant is what God meant. As I stated in my research, “what the human author meant is what God meant,” and separating those two creates confusion rather than clarity (Morrison, Authorial Intent, p. 9) . If that is true, then interpretation is not about discovering hidden meanings or creating new ones. It is about understanding what has already been communicated.

This is why Paul commands Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:15 to “rightly handle the word of truth.” That command assumes that Scripture can be handled correctly or incorrectly. It assumes that meaning is not subjective, but something that must be carefully discerned. Jesus makes the same point in Matthew 22:29 when He rebukes the Sadducees, saying, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.” Their error was not a lack of access to Scripture—it was a failure to understand it correctly. That failure led to theological error. This shows us that sincerity is not enough. Belief must be grounded in correct interpretation.

At this point, we must address a critical distinction that often gets confused, and this is where Geisler’s insight becomes incredibly helpful. Geisler argues that meaning and application must be carefully distinguished. Meaning is what the text says—it is fixed, grounded in the author’s intent. Application, however, is how that meaning is lived out in different contexts. As Geisler explains, “the what (meaning) is absolute, but the how (application) is relative” (Geisler, cited in Morrison, Authorial Intent, p. 24) .

This distinction is essential because many interpretive errors occur when people allow application to redefine meaning. Instead of asking, “What did the author mean?” they begin with, “How does this apply today?” and then work backward. But when application determines meaning, the meaning itself becomes unstable. Geisler warns that if application is allowed to control meaning, then “there is no way to preach…much of the Bible to most believers,” because the text becomes locked into its original situation (Geisler, cited in Morrison, Authorial Intent, p. 24) . In other words, if meaning is tied to purpose in a way that changes it, then Scripture loses its ability to speak universally.

This is why interpretation must begin with meaning, not application. As I argued in my research, “interpretation involves discovering the author’s meaning without forcing a belief onto the text” (Morrison, Authorial Intent, p. 1) . That means we must first ask, “What did God intend to communicate?” before we ask, “How does this apply to us?” When that order is reversed, interpretation becomes subjective.

The reason this distinction matters is because interpretation must be careful before it becomes personal. We do not begin with, “What does this mean to me?” We begin with, “What did God mean when He gave this text?” One way I have summarized this is with the reminder to STOP before applying a passage. We ask about the Situation: what is happening historically and contextually? We ask about the Type: what kind of literature is this—law, poetry, prophecy, Gospel, epistle, or apocalyptic? We ask about the Object: who is being addressed? And we ask about the Prescription: is this passage prescribing something for us today, or describing something that happened in redemptive history?

That matters because all Scripture is inspired, but not every passage is applied in the exact same way. We can study the law of Moses and see the holiness of God, but that does not mean the church is under the Mosaic covenant in the same way Israel was. We observe, interpret, and then apply. We do not begin with application and force meaning backward into the text. Context is king, genre matters, audience matters, and Scripture must be allowed to interpret Scripture. If our interpretation contradicts the rest of Scripture, then the problem is not Scripture—the problem is our interpretation.

We see the danger of this clearly even within Scripture itself. In Matthew 4, Satan quotes Scripture to Jesus during the temptation in the wilderness. He uses Psalm 91, but he uses it incorrectly. He takes it out of context and applies it in a way that distorts its meaning. Jesus responds not by rejecting Scripture, but by interpreting it correctly, saying, “Again it is written…” (Matt. 4:7). The issue was not whether Scripture was used, but whether it was understood properly. This demonstrates that Scripture can be quoted and still be misinterpreted. Authority is not found in simply using the Bible, but in rightly understanding it.

This brings us back to the connection between meaning and authority. Scripture has authority because it communicates the intentional word of God. But that authority is experienced only when its meaning is rightly understood. As I argued, “Scripture loses its authority and power…when the original author’s intended meaning is not discovered or rejected for a new and better meaning” (Morrison, Authorial Intent, p. 28) . Authority is not usually denied outright—it is undermined by redefining meaning.

Many modern approaches to Scripture move in this direction by shifting focus away from authorial intent and toward the reader, the community, or contemporary relevance. Some argue that the meaning of the text is not as important as what it means today. Others suggest that meaning cannot truly be known. But as I noted in my research, approaches like reader-response and certain forms of theological interpretation often result in meaning being determined by “people and tradition” rather than the text itself (Morrison, Authorial Intent, p. 13–14) . Once meaning is detached from the author, it becomes fluid. And when meaning becomes fluid, authority becomes negotiable.

This is why the issue of authorial intent is not a minor academic debate. It determines whether Scripture functions as revelation or reflection. If meaning is fixed, then Scripture stands over us, confronting and shaping us. If meaning is flexible, then we stand over Scripture, deciding what it means.

So when we say, “The Bible says it, I believe it,” we must recognize that something is missing. Before belief comes understanding. Before affirmation comes interpretation. The real question is not simply whether the Bible says something, but what it actually means when it says it. Only when that meaning is rightly understood can belief be rightly grounded.

Because in the end, if we separate meaning from the author, we do not just lose clarity—we lose truth.