How to Interpret the Bible
by Caleb Poston
December 11, 2021
“When we open the Bible and read it, we are eavesdropping on an ancient spiritual journey.” — Pete Enns, from The Bible Tells Me So
When you approach the Scriptures with the goal of interpreting it, the most important step to take is, as I explained in a previous post, to remove yourself from Scripture. Approach it with the understanding that what you are about to read was not written to you. Therefore, it must be interpreted within its context and with the original author and audience in mind. Their assumptions and knowledge must drive interpretation. Remember exegesis — reading truth out of Scripture — and eisegesis — reading your ideas into Scripture. We will first handle one prominent, yet flawed assumption that is often read into the Scriptures, and it touches on what I talked about in a previous post on biblical inspiration: the Holy Spirit is not going to help you interpret the Bible.
Step One: Mindset
So the first step to accurate biblical interpretation: Approach it with the proper mindset. Understand that the Holy Spirit “guiding understanding” is not a biblical concept. I know you’ve heard it; I have heard it too many times to count. “Lord, guide me in my understanding as I read your Word.” Pastors who say it from the pulpit are immediately kicking off a conflict of spirituality between themselves and their congregations, for if the Holy Spirit is guiding understanding, he isn’t going to lead people in different ways, is he? There is only one true interpretation.
If someone says the Holy Spirit guided them to understanding about a particular interpretation, I’m not listening — you shouldn’t either. If I am listening, it’s for entertainment, not enlightenment. Here’s the deal: The Bible never says that the Holy Spirit is an interpreter for you as you read the Bible. I know there are some passages often used to teach that concept, but, once again, those conclusions are reached only when modern assumptions and ideas are read into the passages. Let’s run through these passages quickly:
Hebrews 4:12: “For the word of God is alive and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (ESV). Do some quick research on the meaning of this verse; you will likely find some solid spiritual truths, but you will also find some assumptions we have already covered: Many interpret “word of God” in this passage to refer to the Bible. Hebrews was written at a time in which the completed Bible was not in existence. This passage has also been used to argue that the Bible — again with the assumption that “word of God’ refers to the Bible — is alive and can change from one person to another based on the Holy Spirit’s guidance. Fortunately, this interpretation is not that common anymore because there is nothing in this passage that would imply that, but it has to be mentioned. Any interpretation in which the “word of God” in this passage refers to the physical Bible is an example of reading into the passage a modern assumption and understanding of the “word of God.”
Look at the very next verse: “And no creature is hidden from his sight but all are naked and exposed before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account” (Hebrews 4:13, ESV). If “word of God” refers to the Bible, now it’s a dude. Also, it has eyes — images of Evil Dead and the Necronomicon come to mind. This is evidently a reference to Jesus Christ, who is definitely alive and is often referred to as the “Word” (John 1:1). And his presence in our lives cuts so deep as to reveal our deepest and most hidden imperfections. His worthiness displays our unworthiness — we can’t hide from him. We can hide from the Bible all day.
Next, John 16:13: “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come” (NRSV). This is a big one. Let me solve it quickly. First, if you think Jesus is talking to you, you did that one thing you cannot do: You placed yourself where Jesus used the word “you.” Second, if we go back several verses, we will learn that Jesus is speaking to his disciples and his disciples alone: He is promising them the coming of the Holy Spirit and the guidance it will give them. Third, Jesus never mentions the writing of any New Testament text. He never says, “He will guide you when you write to churches and Christians.” Therefore, although this passage contains the phrase you need — “he will guide you into all the truth” — it lacks the context, content, and audience you need.
As you can see, none of these passages defend this idea that the Holy Spirit helps people discern truth while reading the Bible. Neither talks about the Bible; neither is even talking to modern Christians. This idea can’t be defended because the idea is completely absent from Scripture.
So when you approach the Bible with an interpretive intent, don’t expect an answer to fall from the sky. Don’t even ask — it’s lazy.
Though the New Testament never says the Holy Spirit will help you interpret the Bible, there are plenty of passages that promote diligence and hard work, including 2 Timothy 2:15: “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth” (ESV). This passage was written to Timothy, but its message is also for us; we can apply this idea of hard work and diligence regarding the Word of God to our lives as Christians.
Also, 1 Peter 3:15: “Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you” (NRSV). People will demand from you reasons why you believe what you believe. Answering with “because I have faith,” “because the Bible says so,” or “just read the Bible and let the Spirit guide you to the truth” will not work — you will be laughed at. I have no doubts that the Holy Spirit can move you to seek truth, and that is, in a way, guiding you to truth; he can also both comfort and convict you as you read — guiding you to truth about your own condition. But it in no way takes away our responsibility from the pursuit of truth.
Step Two: Tools
The second step to accurate biblical interpretation: Approach it with the proper tools. When archaeologists dig for ancient artifacts, they use specific tools: transits (used to map the area where the dig will take place), shovels (removing surface material), trowels (taking away individual layers of soil), clippers and saws (removing obstacles, like roots), brushes (wiping off dust and dirt to slowly reveal the artifact), and screens (for separating remaining soil and rocks from the artifact), among other tools. Without these tools, archaeologists could not safely dig an artifact and accurately examine it. Since archaeologists utilize specific tools to dig up and examine ancient artifacts, should we not also utilize specific tools to “dig up” and “examine’’ ancient literature? American Christians, especially evangelicals, have a habit of saying, “This is what the Bible says; I just go with what the Bible says.” If that’s your interpretive approach, your conclusions are going to be jacked up. You must do some digging.
The good news: we live in the best time in the history of biblical scholarship regarding the tools at our disposal. There is absolutely no need to be a Greek or Hebrew scholar. It wouldn’t hurt, but so much information is available today — we just have to know what to use and where to find it. I am about to list some tools that will help unearth the facts from this ancient literature.
First, you need to map out the spot where you will be digging. Instead of closing your eyes, turning the pages, and putting your finger somewhere, be intentional in your search for truth. Find a book, and start at the beginning. Find a section of the Bible (books of the Law in the Old Testament, writings of Paul, etc.) and start there; examine a discourse or poem — be intentional.
Second, you need a shovel to remove some surface area. Find out who the author and audience were. Knowing who wrote the book or section and who first received it will be instrumental in moving forward. This part is simple: Build a personal library of Bible handbooks; buy some Bible software; do a web search. However, don’t pick one resource and stick to it. Acquire several handbooks and some Bible history books to compare. Examine the evidence each book presents for their conclusions to determine which resource has a more honest approach and whose conclusions are more in line with the scholarly consensus.
Third, it’s time to go a little deeper: get yourself a trowel to slowly remove the layers. It takes more than the author and audience; you also need to know the context and culture: when it was written, what was going on when it was written, what the culture of the day was like, what their beliefs were, etc. The dating of a book often determines interpretation, and the context surrounding the book can confirm that interpretation. You can use the same handbooks and online programs here that you used for the second step. However, do a close comparison of each. Also, read other material: history books and books dedicated to different cultures. We all know the phrase, “Put yourself in my shoes.” If you want to properly interpret the Bible — or any ancient text — you must put yourself in their shoes. If you don’t, you’ll be interpreting it in your shoes, and …
you can’t walk the ancient Jordan in Air Jordans.
Fourth, you’re going to have to get out a saw or some clippers and remove some obstacles. The Bible was written a long time ago, so we have some language and literature barriers to get over. Literary genres that were common then are not common now. For example, the apocalypse genre (Revelation) is often misunderstood today; it uses images and symbols that are completely missed by modern readers. Imagine someone in the year 4,130 reading a news story from 2021 that says “it was raining cats and dogs” and taking it literally — we do that with many biblical figures of speech that were never meant to be taken literally (looking at you, John Hagee). The literary styles common in Ancient Near Eastern creation myths can help us interpret Genesis, and Jewish judgment literature really comes in handy when we are examining New Testament prophetic texts. The list goes on and on.
Immerse yourself in literature that can help you accurately identify and interpret literary genres and styles in both Testaments. Fortunately, men like Leland Ryken and discoveries of other ancient texts from the same time period and region have provided us with tools sufficient for getting over the literature obstacle.
Language is the most difficult barrier: the Old Testament was written in Hebrew and Aramaic; the New Testament was written in Greek. Like I said before, you don’t need to know these languages. You just need to know what resources to access in order to unlock this door to deeper understanding. I don’t know Hebrew and know enough Greek only to identify several words on a page. However, I immerse myself in resources that enable me to bypass this barrier: I use the Apostolic Bible Polyglot — a Greek-English interlinear Bible based on the Greek Septuagint and New Testament manuscripts in the Critical Text tradition, complete with lexicons, dictionaries, and concordances; alongside this amazing tool, I use The Interlinear Bible, a Hebrew-Greek-English interlinear Bible based on the Hebrew Masoretic Old Testament and New Testament manuscripts in the Textus Receptus tradition, also with lexicons, etc. With these tools, I have access to quality scholarship on the Old Testament and New Testament texts in their original languages, and they represent each of the major textual families. Keyword studies are imperative in understanding what biblical authors meant when they wrote their books and letters. Without original word meanings, we can be tempted to read into the text our modern word meanings that could not have existed then.
Fifth, once you have the truth unearthed, you’ll have to figure out why it exists in the first place: Brush it off to get the point and purpose of the text. Why did the author write it? What point did he want to get across to his audience? What was their purpose for the text when they received it? Did the book or letter contain information relevant to their — not your — situation? Remember: it wasn’t written to you. Therefore, it had to have a specific purpose and relevance for the original audience, or it wouldn’t have been addressed and sent to them. Read the greater context of the passage you are examining; read history; look for keywords that hint at reasons as to why the author wrote it; if applicable, compare it with other texts written by the author. What encouragement from the author to the audience is present?
Sixth, use a screen to filter out what belongs in the past and what can apply to the present. And you thought I didn’t care about application! I actually do. In my opinion, if you aren’t going to implement, in some way, the truths you discover, then there is no reason to interpret it. Ask yourself this question: what timeless spiritual truths are present in the midst of this ancient literary text? Like I’ve said before, not everything — and, in some cases, most things — will not be directly relevant today. That stuff should stay in the past: You can’t reinterpret it in light of your modern context (eisegesis). However, there is always a timeless truth that you can apply to your personal Christian life.
Seventh, rest.
Now that you’ve rested a moment, let’s talk about it a little more. This can be very time consuming and difficult. There is no easy way to fully understand Scripture. But, as I tell my high school English students, nothing worth doing is easy — to which they often reply with, “breathing is pretty easy.” Yes, but this isn’t breathing. This is intense and intricate stuff. But it’s also important stuff, and you can do it. Like I said, you don’t need to be a Greek or Hebrew scholar; you don’t need to memorize hundreds of verses — you just have to know what to do and what tools to utilize when you get there.
Step Three: Goal
The third step to accurate biblical interpretation: Approach it with the proper goal. Is your goal to discover truth by letting the Bible speak for itself? Or is your goal to defend what you already believe by using the Bible as a box of ammo? This is an important step. If you aren’t approaching the Bible with the intent of discovering truth, you shouldn’t waste your time. I now want to talk about an influence on my life in my own pursuit of truth: René Descartes, a 17th-century French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist.
In his philosophical treatise, The Discourse on Method, Rene Descartes chronicles the process he used in his quest for the discovery of truth. Descartes, being the skeptic he was, could not accept “any of the opinions which had formerly been able to slip into [his] belief without being introduced there by reason.” Since he could not accept knowledge he gained from the disciplines of logic, philosophy, and geometry, Descartes was led to “think that some other method must be sought.”
Therefore, he developed a four-step process for finding truth:
- “never to accept anything as true when I did not recognize it clearly to be so”
- “divide each of the difficulties which I should examine into as many portions as were possible”
- “conduct my thoughts in order, by beginning with the simplest objects, and those most easy to know, so as to mount little by little, as if by steps, to the most complex knowledge”
- “to make everywhere enumerations so complete, and surveys so wide, that I should be sure of omitting nothing”
I believe we can apply his method of discovering truth to our own methods of discovering biblical truth. Let’s talk about each step as it applies to biblical interpretation:
- Don’t accept any biblical interpretation that you did not discover, on your own, through a process based on reason and inquiry. This is the same thing I’ve talked about in this post and previous posts: wipe the fog off your windows; erase those assumptions that block the light of truth from coming in. And above all else, remove yourself from Scripture.
- Look at Step Two above. Several factors must be considered in biblical interpretation: author/audience, context/culture, language/literature, and point/purpose. Deal with each of these individually and …
- in the proper order: Start simple and move slowly to the more complex. As you dig deeper and deeper, the process becomes more involved, and the tools become more intricate.
- Leave no stone unturned as you dig for truth. You might think you have one artifact figured out until you discover that there is another just-as-important artifact behind that language barrier you didn’t want to cut out. Dig everywhere, and keep digging until every stone is unturned.
Descartes began his pursuit by removing his assumptions: he did not accept preconceived notions and understood the damage they could do.
Remember this maxim before you pursue biblical truth:
Never underestimate the power of a preconceived notion.
If you approach the Bible with your assumptions, you will fail in your quest to interpret it. That is a 100% guarantee. Yes, you can find the saving power of the Gospel (that spiritual truth has been conveniently placed close to the surface), but you can’t begin to truly appreciate our great God and his written revelation to us until you wipe your window, pack your bag with the essential tools, step out of the box you were born in, start digging, and keep digging until you find truth.
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