Christians are called to be people of the Word, growing in faith through Scripture. Yet many believers either don’t read the Bible regularly or struggle to understand it. Some rely on others for interpretation, unsure of how to study it on their own. With so many misuses of Scripture today, it’s crucial to approach the Bible carefully and faithfully. Like the Bereans in Acts 17:11, we’re called to search the Scriptures with eagerness and discernment. This video will introduce you to the principles of biblical interpretation—known as hermeneutics—to help you read and understand God’s Word for yourself.
I want to describe three scenarios.
Scenario #1
During a church Bible study, the leader reads a passage of Scripture and asks the question: “what do these verses mean to you?” For the next thirty minutes, the conversation goes around the room, each person offering their own opinion. “I think the passage is about this…,” “To me these verses are saying that…” After everyone has shared their own idea, the leader closes the meeting by saying, “I think everyone is right, the Bible might mean something different for all of us.”
Scenario #2
A believer has a Bible on sitting his bookshelf. It looks brand new, even though he has owned it for more than 20 years. He carries it with him to church every Sunday but very seldom does he open his Bible at home during the week. He has always felt like he shouldn’t try to read it for himself. The Bible seems like a mysterious and confusing book. He wouldn’t know where to start. No one has taught him, so he relies on others to tell him what it means. But he has no way of measuring whether or not their explanation is correct.
Scenario #3
A pastor stands at the pulpit on Sunday morning and reads from the blessings and curses of Deuteronomy. After reading the text, he goes on to talk about God’s desire to bless his people. He says that as long as we have enough faith, and live obedient lives, God will bless us with prosperity and good health and shield us from opposition. The pastor doesn’t explain the background of the passage or what it meant to its original audience. Instead, he tells his people that this is God’s promise to us.
How should we approach the Bible?
All three of these scenarios have something in common. They raise the question: how should we interpret the Bible? It’s one thing to read the Bible, but how do we understand what we are reading?
In the first story, there were no principles to guide the group who had gathered for Bible study. They never stopped to ask, “what is the message God is conveying to us in this passage?” They assumed there was no fixed meaning, and they were free to take away whatever intpretation they wanted. Now we can certainly find many applications from the same passage of Scripture, but they fail to realize there is only one correct interpretation: the meaning God intended.
In the second story, the man wrongly believes that the Bible isn’t meant for the average Christian, but only the clergy or religious scholars can understand it. He has no way of knowing whether or not a sermon he hears is true, because he isn’t reading the Bible on his own.
In the third story, the prosperity preacher wants the congregation to know that the Bible is relevant to our lives today. This is a good and noble desire. However, his problem is taking verses of Scripture out of context. He completely ignores the background of the passage, and doesn’t bother to ask what about the circumstances that prompted the writing of these words. Instead of drawing from the passage what is there, he reads into the passage what he wants to see. That leads to confusion and wrong conclusions.
Striving to Imitate the Bereans
If we are honest, I’m sure that all of us have misunderstood a passage of Scripture at one time or another. Our desire as Christians is to study the Word of God carefully, so that we can arrive at conclusions that are biblically sound. We are called to imitate the Bereans, in Acts 17:11, who “…received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the Scriptures daily, [to determine] whether those things were so.” But how can we make sure that we are accurately handling the Word of truth? That’s the goal of this study.
Definitions
The Dictionary of Theological Terms gives the following definition: “[Hermeneutics is] the science of Bible interpretation. Paul stated the aim of all true hermeneutics in 2 Tim. 2:15 as “rightly dividing the word of truth.” That means correctly or accurately teaching the word of truth. The apostle boasted that he did not corrupt, or adulterate, the Scriptures (2 Cor. 2:17). A proper hermeneutical approach will enable us to say the same. (Cairns, A. (2002). In Dictionary of Theological Terms (p. 207). Ambassador Emerald International.)”
Do You Understand?
It’s possible to read the words of Scripture without understanding what we read. Consider the example of the man, in Acts chapter 8, who was reading from the scroll of Isaiah. Acts 8:26-30 tells us,
“But an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip saying, ‘Get up and go south to the road that descends from Jerusalem to Gaza.’ (This is a desert road.) 27 So he got up and went; and there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure; and he had come to Jerusalem to worship, 28 and he was returning and sitting in his chariot, and was reading the prophet Isaiah. 29 Then the Spirit said to Philip, ‘Go up and join this chariot.’ 30 Philip ran up and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet, and said, ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’
The Holy Spirit arranged a divine appointment that day, bringing the evangelist to the right place at the right time to meet someone who was struggling to understand the meaning of the biblical text. The specific verses spoke of someone being led as a sheep to the slaughter. The man wondered, who is this person? Is it the prophet who wrote these words? Is it somebody else? He was frustrated because it didn’t make sense to him. Philip was able to explain the meaning, by showing him how this passage points to Jesus.
We encounter the same question, as we approach God’s Word. Do you understand what you are reading? It’s one thing to read the words on the page. But it’s enough to simply skim a paragraph and then put our Bible back on the shelf. Have we understood the meaning of text and applied its truth to our lives? Have we heard the message God intends for us to receive? We don’t have to remain frustrated or confused, like the man Philip met along the road. With proper guidance, we can open the Bible and understand what we are reading with confidence.
Interpretative Options
There are different approaches to interpreting the Bible one might choose. These options will lead us to very different conclusions about the meaning of a passage, so we need to choose carefully. While there are many theories that have been suggesting, for the sake of brevity we will break them into three broad categories.
Allegory
We could interpret Scripture by allegorizing the passage we’re reading. According to this approach, the key is to search for a deeper meaning hidden beneath the surface of the text. The obvious meaning is not what’s important. There is always some mystical or spiritualized truth that must be unlocked. For instance, the passage in 1 Samuel 17 where David slays Goliath isn’t really about the young shepherd boy who trusted God to give victory in battle against the mighty Philistine warrior. No, the allegorist tells us that’s only the vehicle that is used to communicate the real meaning of the text: i.e. the Messiah will ultimately conquer Satan. All Christians can agree Messiah will conquer Satan, and we find this clearly taught in other parts of the Bible. But is that really the intended meaning of this passage?
We can certainly agree the Bible contains figures of speech, symbols, types and shadows. The question is whether we should discard the plain meaning of a passage in order to search for some deeper or hidden meaning. Allegory, as a hermeneutic, assumes that the details of a text are meant to represent something else, like a code that is waiting to be deciphered. If that is the case, our job as interpreters is to break the code, and take away the more significant and hidden meaning.
There was an influential teacher named Origin who lived in Alexandria, Egypt around 185-254 A.D. He came up with many elaborate allegories, teaching that Noah’s ark in the book of Genesis should be viewed as a picture of the church with Noah representing Christ the deliverer. He saw Rebekah drawing water from the well, in Genesis 24, as a believer coming to Scripture to meet Christ, who is the living water. Even an event like the triumphal entry in the gospels was spiritualized. He suggested the donkey symbolizes the Old Testament while its colt represents the New Testament. The two disciples, who were sent to secure them for Jesus, picture the moral and mystical sense of Scripture.
These examples demonstrate how easily one could get carried away by imagination when using allegory as the basis for interpreting Scripture. This view is problematic for many reasons. We might wonder who gets to decide what is the deeper, spiritual meaning of a passage? There would be no objective standard to guide us in the process of studying our Bible. If our interpretation is not grounded in the features of the text, how do we determine a valid understanding from error? Rather than drawing from the passage what was intended by the biblical author, we end up reading into the text any conclusion that suits our agenda. There has to be a better way to read the Bible than this.
The Moral Hermeneutic
Another option could be described as the moral interpretation. The driving force of this approach is identifying an ethical lesson the passage is meant to convey. That is the true meaning of the text, according to the moral hermeneutic. Events described in a passage are only the container that can be cast aside once you remove the contents, or the moral that is taught. Those who take this view may or may not hold to the doctrines of inspiration and inerrancy. It doesn’t matter from this perspective whether or not Jonah was a real, historical person who was actually swallowed by a whale. They would argue his story is just as relevant, even if only a myth, because there is a spiritual lesson the passage conveys. In one breath the preacher might tell his congregation, “we don’t really believe that a man could live for three days inside a fish.” And in the next breath he tells them, “Jonah is meant to teach us about God’s mercy to those who have run from him.”
When we study the Bible, we should seek to apply its message to our lives. All Scripture is given by God for teaching, correcting, and training in righteousness so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. That’s not the debate. The question is whether the moral lesson is the meaning of the text? Is that the entire point, so that everything else is irrelevant?
I’m not at all comfortable dismissing the doctrines of inspiration or inerrancy. The Bible is not a collection of myths and legends from which we glean wisdom. We believe the Bible is the Word of God, without error in everything it affirms. That means Jonah was a real person who lived at a particular moment of history and he truly was swallowed by a great fish after running from the Lord. In the end, he found his way to Nineveh where he delivered the message from God. These details are important as we seek to interpret the message of the book. If we dismiss the events of the Bible as fiction, then we will fail to understand it properly. There are a number of lessons we can take away from his story. But before we can reach these moral lessons, we must first come to an accurate interpretation, otherwise, we might draw the wrong conclusions.
The moral hermeneutic is also subjective in nature. Some would suggest that the interpretation is relative, with no fixed meaning other than what resonates with the reader. But this cannot be the case. Why would Scripture constantly urge us to correctly handle the Word of truth (2 Tim. 2:15), if there is no wrong way to understand the biblical text?
If all that matters is the ethical teaching of the passage, what would that do to our understanding of events like the cross and the empty tomb? Those who apply the moral hermeneutic might reject these historic events claiming that the real meaning is in the lesson of love and self-sacrifice that is expressed. We would argue the ultimate meaning of the cross and empty tomb is that Jesus died for our sins and rose again to offer life everlasting, just as Scriptures tells us. There are spiritual lessons that we can apply from every passage of Scripture, but the moral approach falls short as a method for interpreting the Bible.
Literal Interpretation
That leaves us with a third approach we might call the literal hermeneutic. This view seeks to identify the plain, or normal meaning of a biblical text. This does not mean that figures of speech are ignored, but they are understood in light of the context of a passage. Factors such as the author’s intent, historical context, vocabulary, grammar, and genres of literature are all considered. This is sometimes referred to as the historical-grammatical method. When the reader approaches the Bible in this way, our desire is to look for the natural meaning, allowing the passage to mean what it actually says. Instead of imposing some other meaning onto the text, the literal hermeneutic seeks to draw from the text what is actually there.
Charles Ryrie makes the point that “If God is the originator of language and if the chief purpose of originating it was to convey His message to humanity, then it must follow that He, being all-wise and all-loving, originated sufficient language to convey all that was in His heart to tell mankind. Furthermore, it must also follow that He would use language and expect people to understand it in its literal, normal, and plain sense.”[i]
When the Bible speaks of a shepherd boy slaying a massive Philistine warrior, the reader would naturally understand these were real events that actually took place in the land of Israel thousands of years ago. There are certainly moral lessons that can be gleaned from the passage. For example, we might learn to stand courageous against opposition by placing our trust in the Lord. No enemy is too great for the giant slayer, then or today. But this is an application of the text, rather than an interpretation of the text. There are many possible applications, but only one correct interpretation. The passage means what God intended it to mean. The literal interpretation understands David’s battle with Goliath as a real historic event.
At the same time, we’re not always searching for some deeper, hidden meaning beneath the surface. When we read about Jesus riding into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, we don’t need to find some spiritual meaning of the donkey and its colt. The point of the text is that Jesus rode into Jerusalem, in fulfillment of OT prophecy. It is certainly true that there are many passages where a person or event from the Old Testament foreshadows the ministry of Christ. But that doesn’t mean we should automatically inject this idea into every chapter and verse that we read. Let the text speak for itself, and draw from the passage what is there. Follow the lead of Scripture. Even where we see shadows of Christ in the Old Testament, that doesn’t erase the normal meaning of the passage in its original context.
We recognize there are many metaphors, idioms, parables, analogies, and other figures of speech used throughout the Bible. But this is also true of our normal, everyday conversations. We recognize them, and interpret them accordingly.
Bryan Chapell explains, “Literal meaning does not mean wooden meaning. It doesn’t mean that we have ignored the rules of grammar and analogy. The discourse meaning is what we’re looking for… what the author intended to convey. If we, in our language, say, ‘It’s raining cats and dogs,’ we don’t literally mean cats and dogs are falling out of the sky. What we mean is, it’s raining really hard. The literal meaning… the sense that we are trying to convey, is it’s raining very hard. When we come to Scripture, we are seeking to do the same thing—to say, ‘What was the sense that was being conveyed in the discourse of that time… [by] the original author.”[ii]
The literal approach has a long tradition with many notable advocates throughout the course of church history. This is the standard approach practiced in most churches today.
We have already alluded to the benefits of this hermeneutical approach. It is consistent with God’s design of human language. If he is the one who gave us the capacity to communicate, it only makes sense that he would use language consistently with how it is ordinary understood. It allows the text to speak for itself. We’re not reading into Scripture what isn’t there, but drawing from each passage what it intends to convey. And this interpretative approach takes the Bible seriously, valuing the doctrines of inspiration and inerrancy.
Our Interpretive Lens
When a person comes to Scripture, we will inevitably read it through a certain lens. That is to say, we come with certain convictions and presuppositions. It is helpful to list some of these and to acknowledge them from the outset.
First, we believe the God of the Bible exists, and that he has made himself known to us through His Word. This is the lens of faith.
We believe that the Bible is the Word of God. The message contained on the pages of Scripture are not merely the opinions of man, “…but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God” (2 Pet. 1:21). This is the lens of inspiration.
We believe the Bible is without error in everything it affirms, and its teaching will never lead us astray. “The words of the LORD are pure words; As silver tried in a furnace on the earth, refined seven times,” (Psalm 12:6). This is the lens of inerrancy.
We believe that Jesus Christ is the Word made flesh, the Son of the Living God, who died for our sins and who rose from the dead to offer life everlasting to all who believe. We are convinced this is the central message of the Bible (Luke 24:44; 1 Cor. 15:1-6). This is the lens of the gospel.
We could certainly include other convictions that shape our understanding of the Biblical text, but these are foundational. We embrace these beliefs because we believe they are clearly presented in Scripture. To reject any of these convictions would severely undermine our understanding of the Bible.
[i] Ryrie, Charles C. Dispensationalism Today, Chicago, IL: Moody Bible Publishers p.92
[ii] Chapell, B. (2015). CM151 Preparing and Delivering Christ-Centered Sermons I: Foundations and Structures. Lexham Press