I'm sure this one will grow as there is so much ground to cover.
Lack in this area has caused some of the major problems with divisions, skepticism, and confusion than anything else. Of course some people can make a charge that because of those things God didn't do a good job of communicating. That or it shows it had to have been written by men only and God had nothing to do with it. Those are different topics. Here I want to concentrate on interpreting scripture and it's problems and challenges.
So why is a book that's so important be so hard to understand at many points? There are many reasons for that. For one how many books have you read in your life that were written to people that lived in some cases many thousands of years ago, in a different land with a different culture? Most people would have to admit to saying "NONE". So does that make it impossible? Not at all. Does it make it very challenging? YES.
Another point to make is the Bible being inspired by God would naturally convey a huge amount of teaching in a lot of areas that you're just simply not going to grasp it all immediately. Many of the teachings too build on previous teachings and after learning some of the precepts you recognize new teachings that appear. Being God's word sometimes you're just not mature enough in your walk to understand some things and you would probably be overwhelmed by it. Believe me there is plenty that are very plain to understand. I keep thinking of a quote by Mark Twain - "It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.".
But so is any truth. What does knowing any truth mean? It means that if you hold to one view and the truth comes along you have to either deny the truth or accept the truth. If you accept the truth it may mean you have to change what you believe and hold very dear. Unless you're willing to seek, find, and make whatever changes are necessary when you find the truth you're wasting your time. What if you do find truth? It could mean family members disown you, people laugh and mock at you, and possibly death. But really, how valuable is knowing the truth? Well in this case and many others it's a matter of knowing who you are, your destiny, but also how to live confidently under many circumstances knowing what the truth is. At the same time feeling bad for those that don't know the truth.
Back to interpretation itself. What makes it so difficult? I mentioned some of the points like time. The time of when some of the scripture was written may separate us by thousands of years. With that comes things like words, phrases, lifestyle and a host of other things. So reading the Bible in the context of who it was written to originally, the history and culture in that time, what those people were going through, and what God was trying to convey to them and to us come into play.
The process of interpretation is a process called Observation, Interpretation, and Application. In that order specifically. But many readers today mix it up. Usually by reading a passage, reading into it our culture and interpreting it in light of our culture. You can imagine how well that works. For instance someone reading the book of Revelations and then reading the newspaper today and saying that that's what Revelations was talking about. This could end you up reading all sorts of things into the Bible that just aren't there. That or may or may not be but the approach is all wrong.
So the first step is Observation. Not just meaning reading it but reading it and trying to get a sense of the time when it was written, the history and culture surrounding what was going on and the people themselves. In many cases reading large sections and even re-reading many sections do you get a sense of what the people were dealing with in their own lives daily. At this point how it relates to you is totally irrelevant because you didn't exist at that time. Asking yourself things like who, what, where, when, how, and why? If you're looking at the scripture looking to find fault then you're missing the point. By the same token if you're looking at it to support what you're believe already is just as dangerous. The point should be getting at the truth. What is being said at that point and time to those people? There's nothing wrong either about studying the people and culture of that time from other books to get an idea what the people were like, some of their customs, etc. Study their history, the history of their country, history and culture of countries surrounding them at the time can be helpful too. Even studying words and sayings can shed some light in some areas. It depends on what you do or don't understand of what is going on in a particular section.
Interpretation is more "what does it mean?". By that I don't mean what does it mean to me or you. This is not at that point yet. Of course having a very solid foundation of just observation itself makes interpretation easier. You have to ask yourself what did this mean to the writers and what they were conveying? What was God trying to communicate through the writers to the readers and hearers? How did the readers or hearers respond? Pretty much what was going on? Again if you notice you and me are not involved in the story itself. Interjecting yourself into the story would again cause confusion as we're still talking about a remote situation. You may even look into the original language at words or phrases to find out more detail as to what something means.
The first two steps of Observation and Interpretation and the order are paramount if you even plan on getting anywhere toward understanding what to do with what you learned. This is actually where you come into the picture. Application. How does what I've learned apply to me, right here and right now? It means applying the truth to your life.
As you observe and interpret scripture you find out that certain lessons can be learned. This is getting into Application. How do I apply these principals to my life? For instance God told Abraham he would have a son with his wife. He believed God but then decided he needed to help God and instead of waiting for what God had planned he had a child through Hagar which was an Egyptian handmaiden. That was not God's plan and causes all sorts of problems from that point on. One lesson is to wait on God's plan and God's timing. Learning patience is critical. But also while God still used Abraham even in that situation it still haunted him and paid for it in various ways. So we need to learn to be patient that while God has something in store for us it comes in His time, not ours. Also any attempt on our part to get there quicker we an end up paying for in the long run. So looking at how people reacted to God, and how God reacted to what they did is key to understanding how God works within the lives of people. But also interesting that for the most part people act in many cases the same way they did then.
When I was first rethinking what God was all about, if He did exist, and how He would have communicated with us I knew that interpretation of scripture had to be at least one key. Knowing whether it was God's word was first. That was another adventure. But in any case I had seen where people had all sorts of crazy ideas of what the same scripture meant. So I was first wanting to know how I would go about this. One of the first books I got and was very instrumental to me was "How To Read The Bible For All It's Worth" by Gordon D. Fee. It's a small but very easy to read and extremely helpful in pointing out some of these methods at getting to the truth and shows some of the pitfalls that many people fall into when reading and interpreting the Bible.
Through all this I realized the church itself is not doing it's duty of making disciples. Many are making converts, handing them a Bible and sending them on their way. But there is a huge part missing. That is helping them with how to get the most from God's word. Now, a HUGE warning here. I am NOT saying they're are supposed to just tell you what it means FIRST and then you go read it. That's tainting the process. Many cults follow this method. They don't want you to read the Bible for yourself. They want to tell you what it means, then read and interpret it in the light of their rose glasses that they put on your basically. That is simple WRONG. If the Bible means what is says and says what it means there is no reason any serious study should not arrive at the same conclusions. But of course cults know that you would not arrive at their conclusion because it's been distorted and Satan loves mixing truth with lies. But a church should do it's best to give you the means with which to use the processes mentioned above to observe, interpret and apply the scriptures yourselves. Now, that's not to say that discussions with your church group isn't important as there are some that are more mature and studied a lot longer than you have that you can go to. Does it mean take every word they say as truth? Not necessarily. I challenge you to take what they say and compare it to what the Bible says and see if it makes sense. It's possible that what they told you was wrong. But my challenge has always been that if someone disagrees with me they too must make a logical defense of what they believe and why on a topic, not just state that it's true. I've had discussions with a pastor before on some very hard teachings. We went back and forth on various topics. We ended up both changing our views, realizing we both had our preconceptions and were off a bit. But we become the best of friends and knew we could talk to each other about some of the hardest things we were dealing with and we would be open and honest with each other and challenge each others thinking enough to get each other on track. I still miss those conversations with him.
As a final note scripture interprets scripture. What I mean is in many cases the same principals are taught in many places in the Bible. So if you're not sure if you're interpreting a particular section or principal right you can do word searches, phrase searches, or look up various discussions on the same topic. Usually then you get enough of an overall view that you hone in better what you were looking for. I recommend reading through the whole Bible at least once. This gives you a quick big picture. Plus as you go back and study pieces sometimes you will recall similar situations or even phrases that are similar. The more you read and study the better understanding you get. Believe me people spend a lifetime studying and always find more to learn so it's not like you will run out of things to learn from reading and studying the Bible.
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