Bias
Everyone has an implicit bias concerning what the Bible says, an invisible commentary written with “religious pencils” in the margins of their Bible that tells them what they believe about that passage – even those who say they take the Bible literally for what it says.
The “flavor” of our commentary is largely influenced by our upbringing and the teachers we have had. It’s why Christians can read the same passage and get two different interpretations.
We need to train ourselves to take what the Bible says at face value and not be overly influenced and colored by outside teachings (notice I did not say we are not to be influenced at all – I said “overly” influenced)..
Don’t believe something just because your pastor or favorite preacher says it’s so. Check it out yourself in the Word. Any decent Bible teacher will give ample scripture to back up what they say.
2 Timothy 2:15 Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
The KJV says “study to show thyself approved…” And that’s what it’s going to take – study! We are to present ourselves approved as a workman.
Approved: acceptable to perform a certain function. Inspected, passed the test, certified.
In my field of software engineering, you can receive certifications in various subjects. You take courses and receive training, and then take tests to see if you know what you are supposed to. If you pass, you receive the certification. It’s the same idea as a diploma from a college, but on a smaller scale.
We are already approved and accepted by God as Christians when we accept Jesus, but not every Christian can be used by God in every situation – i.e., approved as a workman in that environment.
What makes you approved as a workman? Handling accurately the Word of truth.
As a teacher, I am responsible and accountable to God for what I teach. I am held to a higher standard
James 3:1 My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment.
But we as individuals are also responsible for what we hear. “But that’s the way I was always taught” is a copout if you’ve never checked it out in the Word yourself.
Mark 4:23-25 23 If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.”
24 Then He said to them, “Take heed what you hear. With the same measure you use, it will be measured to you; and to you who hear, more will be given.
25 For whoever has, to him more will be given; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.”
One reaction we may have to “watch what you listen to” might be to only listen to people from our own little group that believes the same way we do. But that has its own inherent dangers in that you can build an “echo chamber” where you only hear one side of a thing.
Different moves of God throughout the centuries have brought to light different truths. But human tendency is to camp around those truths, and you only belong to “our group” if you believe those truths. And frequently God has had to go outside of the established groups to bring forth new truth. And almost always the old groups don’t like what the new groups are doing.
On a personal note, my roots are in Word of Faith. I went to Kenneth Hagin’s Rhema Bible Training Center, and when I was a pastor, I was a Word of Faith pastor. And for a number of years I stuck to our circles. But then in the mid 2000’s we started branching out into other circles, and attended a church that was not Word of Faith – and discovered a whole new world. It’s not that we abandoned our Word of Faith roots and beliefs, but they were augmented and I will use the word “tempered” by new things that we learned.
Another interesting note is that the truths that come out of the different movements cross pollinate – if people are not rigid and will accept it. It is amazing to me how many of the teachings that were coming out of Word of Faith in the 70’s and 80’s that were not widely accepted, have become the norm now – even in people that would say they don’t buy into that “name it and claim it” stuff or that “prosperity gospel”.
When you start listening to people outside of your group, you might hear things you don’t agree with along with new insights that you gain. Just do what Kenneth E. Hagin used to tell us – “you need to have enough sense as an old cow, and eat the hay and spit out the sticks.”
Handling Accurately the Word of Truth
So how do you handle accurately the Word of Truth? As a teacher of the Word for many years, I’ve picked up some pointers that I’d like to share. So here are some Rules for Biblical Interpretation.
Get the whole story / context
You can make isolated scriptures say almost anything you want. It takes the teaching of the whole Bible to determine a truth or doctrine.
Civil law under the Old Testament Mosaic Law says “Out of the mouth of two or three witnesses let everything be established” (Deuteronomy 17:6, 19:15). This is a good rule for Biblical interpretation also. You cannot establish something as a doctrine based on one scripture. You have to have at least two, and the more you have, the more established it becomes.
But even if you have two scriptures that seem to say one thing (with your religious pencil commentary), if you have a dozen that say the opposite, which do you think you should believe?
To handle accurately the Word of Truth, you need to be familiar with the whole Bible – Old Testament and New, with an emphasis on the new.
As for context, who is doing the speaking, and who are they addressing? Is it an Old testament scripture that has been superseded or fulfilled by the New Testament? God’s moral laws (such as the Ten Commandments) have not passed away and apply in the New Testament also, but many of the ceremonial laws and things like animal sacrifice have.
Let scripture interpret scripture
Find other scriptures where a phrase or word is used. This really yielded fruit when I was studying out Paul’s thorn in the flesh. I looked up all the instances of the word “thorn” in a concordance. Other than references to literal thorns and sticker bushes, I found four references in the Old Testament where it said if Israel did not drive out the inhabitants of the land, they would become pricks in their eyes and thorns in their sides. That is, a source of constant annoyance and harassment. Today we might say , “a pain in the neck”.
Look up meanings of Greek and Hebrew words, use multiple translations
With apps like YouVersion, we have access to dozens of Bible translations and paraphrases in our phones. It’s not like when I was going to Bible school and we had to buy all those different translations. In my daily Bible reading, I’ll read through the Bible in different translations. Often it will bring out something new.
Other tools I used as a Bible student was Strong’s Concordance, Vine’s Expository Dictionary, and an Analytical Greek Lexicon. I still have my hard copies, but there are digital equivalents of these online. You can dig into the meanings of words.
For example, again in studying out Paul’s thorn (click here to see full article), we read
2 Corinthians 12:7 And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure.
So I looked up the word messenger, and I found it was the Greek word angelos – which is translated 7 times as “messenger” and over a hundred times as “angel”.
What is an “angel of Satan”? That’s a demon. So my conclusion was that Paul’s thorn in the flesh was a demon that was assigned to constantly harass him (I also looked up buffet which means to rain blow after repeated blow). Looking at Paul’s life, you see that is borne out that everywhere he went and preached the gospel there were people stirred up against him.
An exercise in rightly dividing a (hypothetical) promise
Since taking a real verse from the Bible might carry some baggage with our religious pencils, let’s take a hypothetical example and see how we can “rightly divide” (i.e., accurately interpret) it.
The promise (hypothetical) of Scott:
Anytime you want money for an ice cream, just come to me and ask and I’ll give it to you.
Anytime. “Well, today is Tuesday, and this promise isn’t good on Tuesdays”. Or, the that-was-only-for-the-early-church attitude. Suppose the promise was made to a child. 20 years later he says, “Oh, that isn’t in effect any more. It was only for when I was a kid”. But it didn’t say that. It said “anytime”.
There are sometimes for me when “anytime” wouldn’t be convenient – the middle of the night, for example. But God never slumbers or sleeps.
Want. The desire for ice cream must first come to you, then you must act on what the promise says to reap the results.
Come. I said you must come to me and ask. If I’m in Antioch and you’re in Brentwood, you have to come to my presence to get what I promised. You could phone and say, “I want money for an ice cream”. I’d reply, “Sure, come and get it”. Then you have to come to me and get it – that was a stipulation of the promise. I won’t come to you, or leave the money at Baskin Robbins for you.
With God, we don’t have to go to a certain physical location, for He is everywhere, always. But to come to Him, you have to tune out the natural and focus on the spiritual.
Hebrews 11:6 But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
Coming to God is something we do with our hearts and attitudes.
Ask. You could want an ice cream, and come to my house, and start talking about what your favorite flavor is, and how much it costs, but until you ask, you get nothing.
James 4:2 You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask.
Matthew 6:8 Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him.
Matthew 7:7-8 7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
8 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.
What was promised? What was the promise for? Ice cream? No, it was for money to buy ice cream. I don’t always have access to ice cream (when I was a pastor, there were four people that worked for Dreyer’s in my congregation – they had access. And sometimes they would bring extras and fill up the freezer at the church. And I got to announce, “Hey everybody, we’ve got ice cream!” Everybody loved those days!). So I have a lot easier access to money than I do to ice cream. And to always be able to keep my word, I’m going to make sure I carry cash around with me, because I said “anytime”. Furthermore, it would have to be enough cash to buy an ice cream, whatever the price was (now Thrifty/Rite Aid is a lot cheaper than Baskin Robbins or Cold Stone…)
But God’s income is not fixed! He has promised to supply all our needs according to His riches in glory (Phillipians 4:19).
Do your part. Notice that this promise requires some action on your part, even after I’ve done my part. I could press money into your hand, but until you go somewhere and buy it, you won’t eat ice cream.
Many of God’s promises are like that – He’ll give you the ability to do something, like I gave you the ability to buy ice cream – but then you have to act on it by buying it. Some people pray for more power and more faith, without acting on what they’ve already been given.
Presumption. If you misuse the promise, it stops working. If you spend the money for something besides ice cream, I may be more restrictive about giving it to you next time.
I made the promise to a specific individual, you. You can’t gather a half dozen of your friends and say “Scott’s gonna give us all money for ice cream”. That’s not what I promised, you are being presumptuous. You cannot expect me to do that for your friends.
However, you could call me up, tell me about your friends, and ask. But it’s up to me whether I say yes or no. If I say no, I have not violated my promise. And, generous person that I am, I would probably say yes.
Praise God, He is not partial to any particular individual. Most all His promises are to “Whosoever will believe”. My promises were limited to one individual because my resources are limited. But God isn’t limited! He can take care of us all, every day, all at the same time.
Conclusion
I hope this silly little exercise was beneficial. And now I’m going to give you a homework assignment, from my Word of Faith roots.
Take Mark 11:22-24, and break it down like we did this hypothetical example. Read the whole chapter so you get the context. You might be amazed what you see there.
