KEYS TO INTERPRETATION

KEY #1: CONTEXT! CONTEXT! CONTEXT!

Perhaps the most common mistake I see people make when reading the Bible is to take a verse of scripture out of its original context. In doing so, they form a theology, or a belief system, that is not consistent with what the rest of the Bible teaches. The most important key to proper Bible interpretation is to study each verse within the context of that passage; each passage within the context of the chapter; each chapter within the context of that book; each book within the context of the entire Bible.

KEY #2: LET THE PURE OR CLEAR INTERPRET THE OBSCURE

Sometimes there can be an obscure verse in the Bible that is very difficult to understand. Coming to an exact and perfect understanding of the verse can be quite tricky. Usually scholars are divided on such verses. It would be quite dangerous to form your theological belief on such a verse. Instead, think about what else the Bible says about that topic. Seek out PURE scriptures on the topic that are clear and easy to understand. Use these to interpret the more difficult obscure verses.

KEY #3: DISTINGUISH BETWEEN PRESCRIPTIVE AND DESCRIPTIVE EVENTS

Sometimes there can be an obscure verse in the Bible that is very difficult to understand. Coming to an exact and perfect understanding of the verse can be quite tricky. Usually scholars are divided on such verses. It would be quite dangerous to form your theological belief on such a verse. Instead, think about what else the Bible says about that topic. Seek out PURE scriptures on the topic that are clear and easy to understand. Use these to interpret the more difficult obscure verses.

KEY #4: DON’T LET YOUR EXPERIENCE INFLUENCE YOUR INTERPRETATION

As you attend church you will undoubtedly have a variety of experiences with God. Be careful not to allow your personal experience to dictate or influence how you interpret scripture. Remember, you should always interpret the validity of your experience in light of whether or not it is consistent with the Bible; not the other way around.

KEY #5: BE CAREFUL NOT TO MISREAD THE TEXT

One very common mistake is to simply misread the verse of scripture thus never really being able to get to the proper meaning. This typically happens when a person is simply quoting something they may have heard someone else say without really reading the verse/passage for themselves. Read the entire verse/passage rather than parts of it.

KEY #6: INTERPRET DIFFERENT GENRES DIFFERENTLY

The Bible includes poetry, wisdom, narratives, parables, history, and prophecy. Each of these different genres must be interpreted differently.

KEY #7: READ THE TEXT FOR ITS PLAIN OBVIOUS MEANING

Don’t read into the text something that is not there. Don’t look for some strange meaning to the text that has been hidden from every other commentator and biblical scholar. Remember that God can show you many different ways to APPLY the Bible to your life but there is only one correct interpretation. Don’t look for deep symbolism unless the text suggests you do so.

KEY #8: DON’T BASE YOUR THEOLOGY ON ONE VERSE

This is perhaps the biggest mistake people make in Bible interpretation. People can make the Bible say just about anything they want it to say if we simply pick one verse from here and one from there. Instead, you want to compare scripture with scripture as much as possible. The best commentary on the bible is the Bible. Remember, you rarely have to go outside of the Bible to understand anything inside of the Bible

Understand the Question

1.Knowing a phrase/verse/passage exists in the Bible.

2.Understanding its meaning.

3.Understanding it with respect to the context of the paragraph, section, book and Biblical period in which we find it.

4.Seeing to it that the understanding we glean from it does not contradict the understanding we glean from another phrase/verse somewhere else in the Bible. This would hold one “word of God” at the expense of another “word of God”. (This means we also have to work on any passage that might challenge the meanings we see in the first passage. We can’t do this without #1)

5.Summarizing a passage the same way Biblical Authors do.

6.Responding to a thought process or a situation the same way Biblical Authors do.

“God didn’t create hell for humans, He made it for satan and his angels.”

This breaks #4. This forces us to conclude that God will do forever something He never planned on doing in the first place.

“Gen 1 needs to be understood in XYZ fashion so that we can say the earth took b/millions of years to create.”

This breaks #5. The authors of the Bible consistently summarize creation as saying it took 6 days, and acting as if it was a short span of time.“You should become a Christian because God loves you and sent His son to die for you.” This breaks #6. Oddly enough, not once in the Bible is this preached as an appeal for salvation. Judgment and certain doom from a wrathful God is always the appeal for repentance and faith in Christ. (Whether it’s factually true or not is a separate question (and in light of the Biblical example, a necessary question). But right now, I’m focusing on “Biblical thinking”)“The savage in the ‘deepest darkest jungles of Africa’ won’t go to hell because he never had a chance to know God; ‘God soooo loved the world’; ‘God knows the heart’; ‘God is not willing that any should perish’; etc” This breaks #4. The wages of sin is death, period, and the soul that sins will die, and if we do not believe that Jesus is the Messiah, we will die in our sins. In other words, the single qualifier for hell is sin in one’s life. Whether the savage knows or doesn’t know about Jesus is irrelevant to the question of whether he has sin in his life.“The worst part about hell is being separated from God!!” This breaks #4 and #5. Nowhere in the Bible is hell described this way. The mildest description of hell is “eternal blackness”. More vivid examples are weeping and wailing and nashing of teeth, festering worms, intense fire, breath of God burning people to an unending crisp, unending pain and torment, being stomped on by His children, being seen by God’s people as a disgusting corpse forever, etc.“Once saved, always saved.” This breaks #4 and #5. Not only do the Biblical authors not summarize salvation this way, but there are a number of passages (particularly in Hebrew) that sound quite the opposite of this phrase. At the very least, we can say that God saves His people and saves them for eternity (Rom 8:29-39), but because ‘belief’ has many nuances, some of which do not entail salvation (John 8:31-59), we would be unwise to let “once saved, always saved” be the way we summarize salvation.

Two main categories of Scripture: Prescriptive and Descriptive

​Matthew 22:39

NKJV39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’

​Genesis 27:41

NKJV41 So Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father blessed him, and Esau said in his heart, “The days of mourning for my father are at hand; then I will kill my brother Jacob.”

GREATER (FIRST) AND LESSER (SECOND) COMMAND

​Matthew 22:37–39

NKJV37 Jesus said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’