Tried With Fire

For 11 weeks, the women in our church have been studying hermeneutics, guidelines for interpreting Scripture. This was almost a mini-seminary course as Pastor Ryan had taught the same material at Gaba Bible Institute in Uganda this summer. It was very challenging but also very helpful.  After we walked through the final exam, Pastor Ryan said he would consider the class a success if the women in the church are ever so slightly less intimidated by the Word and ever so slightly more faithful in our interpretation. I pray and hope in faith that this will be the case.  I came away with a greater conviction that the Word is the sole authoritative way God reveals Himself. If I profess to love and follow Him, how can I do that unless I know who He is? And how will I know who He is unless I learn through the means He has chosen to reveal Himself? I will still read plenty of books, but they can't be primary. There is no substitute for digging in the Bible. Much is way bey...

Subjectivism not only produces error and distortion, but it breeds arrogance as well. To believe what I believe simply because I believe it or to argue that my opinion is true simply because it is my opinion is the epitome of arrogance. If my views cannot stand the test of objective analysis and verification, humility demands that I abandon them. But the subjectivist has the arrogance to maintain his position with no objective support or corroboration. To say to someone "If you like to believe what you want to believe, that's fine. I'll believe what I want to believe," only sounds humble on the surface. Private views must be evaluated in the light of outside evidence and opinion because we bring excess baggage to the Bible. No one on the face of this Earth has a perfectly pure understanding of Scripture. We all hold some views that  entertain some ideas that are not of God. Perhaps if we knew precisely which of our views were contrary to God, we would abandon them. Bu...

"That's your interpretation, and that's fine for you. I don't agree with it, but my interpretation is equally valid. Though our interpretations are contrary and contradictory, they can both be true. Whatever you like is true for you and whatever I like is true for me." This is subjectivism. Subjectivism takes place when the truth of a statement is not merely expanded or applied to the subject, but when it is absolutely determined by the subject. If we are to avoid distortion of Scripture, we must avoid subjectivism from the beginning. In seeking an objective understanding of Scripture, we do not thereby reduce Scripture to something cold, abstract, and lifeless. What we are doing is seeking to understand what the word says in its context before we go about the equally necessary task of applying it to ourselves. A particular statement may have numerous possible personal applications, but it can only have one correct meaning . Alternate interpretations which are c...

Subjectivism takes place when the truth of a statement is not merely expanded or applied to the subject, but when it is absolutely determined by the subject. If we are to avoid distortion of Scripture, we must avoid subjectivism from the beginning. In seeking an objective understanding of Scripture, we do not thereby reduce Scripture to something cold, abstract, and lifeless. What we are doing is seeking to understand what the word says in its context before we go about the equally necessary task of applying it to ourselves. A particular statement may have numerous possible personal applications, but it can only have one correct meaning. Alternate interpretations which are contradictory and mutually exclusive cannot both be true unless God speaks with a forked tongue. Knowing Scripture by R.C. Sproul, InterVarsity Press, 1979, page 39.

This is one of the books I brought home. (I was surprised to find my name in the front cover. I must have bought the book during my undergraduate years when I was briefly exposed to reformed theology.) I'm terrible about picking up books and not finishing the ones I've started, but I think this book will clarify some issues about rightly understanding and interpreting scripture. On Sunday, we went to the church where my parents meet. It is the same group that started out as a house church, only it's larger now and they no longer meet in a home. A visiting missionary pilot was asked to speak. Without going into the gory details, he used some verses from one of the gospels and then launched into his personal interpretation of it in relation to his experience. To give him the benefit of the doubt, I don't think this brother was deliberately trying to deceive, but it sounded like it was out in left field and in contradiction to other scripture. Sadly, there were choruses of...