“Speaking for God!”

“Knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. (1 Peter 1:20 ESV)

 I don’t like the phrase, “Well, that’s your interpretation.” When it comes to what the Bible says about how we are to be saved and how we are to live our lives, it implies that what is being said or taught is just a personal opinion, which in and of itself is no better than anyone else’s personal opinion. This is one reason we need to be very careful about understanding and teaching God’s holy word.

One reason we have so many different Christian denominations is that many denominations “interpret” the Bible differently and, therefore, justify their doctrinal positions. In fact, I cannot think of anything more important than the process of interpreting the Bible. There are many schools of thought on how to best understand what the original authors intended for their readers to understand.

The spectrum of Biblical Interpretation goes from “Literal Interpretation,” where each word or phrase of the original text is to be taken literally, and the normal usage of the words is to be understood whenever possible. This method allows different writing genres like poetry, parables, and hyperbole to be taken for their intent and not forced to be taken literally. On the other end of the spectrum, we have “Allegorical Interpretation,” which holds that the words and phrases of the Bible are only meant to give us pictures of some hidden truth and that we cannot take what is written literally. This method of Biblical Interpretation calls for “special knowledge” of Scripture and that only the “educated” can really understand what the Scriptures tell us.

If you read verses 16-21, you will see that Peter is telling his readers that what they have heard from Old Testament authors, which he refers to as the “prophetic word,” his and the other Apostles' writing isn’t something they made up but is factual and true, they were eyewitnesses to the majesty of Jesus. Peter did not create clever stories about Jesus, like some of the false teachers that were bothering these believers were doing (Chapter 2). Peter is saying what He told them about Jesus is true and was inspired by the Holy Spirit and, therefore, should be believed.

These writings, which he calls the prophetic word or Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, were not privately interpreted or by only human knowledge written by the authors, but it was the Holy Spirit who gave these words that contain lifesaving truths about our Savior. In the same way, these writings were not merely opinions of the writers; neither should the readers try to interpret these words to mean something that is not there. That is what false teachers do; they try to twist the Scriptures to support their false doctrine. They have their own interpretations of these holy writings, which is wrong. Peter then starts Chapter 2, talking about some of these false doctrines that were being propagated among the believing churches.

So, my friends, we all need to be careful in reading and interpreting Scripture, remembering it is sacred and holy and should be treated as the very Word of God, which it is. Because God indeed inspires it, we need to understand and live by what God has given us, not trying to make it mean what we want it to say.

"Living in Grace is not about what I can do, but about what Jesus has already done!"