There is a common phrase among some religious people: “the
Bible says.” But our scriptures without
exception cannot speak unless they are interpreted. When someone says, “the Bible says”, what
they are saying is, “This is what I hear or think the Bible is saying.” And it seems so clear to that person that
they shorten the sentence to “the Bible says.”
This is important because I have had people say to me, “Dr.
Haar, you interpret the Bible, I read it.”
As soon as you have a text, and someone reads that text, you
have interpretation. Interpretation asks,
“What does what I just read mean? And
as soon as you’ve decided what the text means, you have interpreted the text.
I suppose what bothers some people is they want to believe the
Bible comes directly from, God, word for word. They want to believe they have
in their hands the literal word of God and they can therefore interpret that
word literally. They may also think the word, interpretation, weakens
the power and authority of that word.
But, our Bibles were made to be interpreted.
At best, our Bibles were written by human beings and
inspired by God. That means we are not
only compelled to interpret the text; we can argue and disagree with the text. The Bible is not God and we ought not worship
it. Whenever the Bible points us to
faith in God and teaches us to be people of character, we respect it. Whenever it does not, we may dispute with the
text.
Whenever we wrestle with and study the scriptures;
whenever we interpret the text we can be assured we are taking the Bible
seriously and staying sane.
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