Why Do We Need Rules For Bible Interpretation

This lesson is a continuation of the objection of learning proper Bible interpretation.

First, I want it to be clear that I believe any Christian who doesn't know the rules of Bible Interpretation will still benefit on reading the Bible.  Many Bible verses are so simple and clear that our bigger problem today is not interpreting the difficult verses but  obeying those parts of the Bible that we clearly understand.

Careful reading and common sense would have been enough for us to get the message of 1John 4:11 "Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another." (NIV)  But for many of us, we will have various interpretations to understand the exact meaning of 1 John 3:9 "No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God's seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God." (NIV) It is at this point that we will need to learn various rules and guidelines on Bible interpretation.

We should also understand that what separates the Bible from the rest of literature is the fact that it is God's Word.  God is the ultimate author of the Bible. But He has chosen to reveal his message to us in human ways, by written words of a certain language in a certain culture.  Because of this, we need to use rules of interpreting ancient literature on the Bible so we can understand its original message. (see Nature of the Bible)

Without common rules or principles of interpretation, it is difficult to evaluate various interpretation, even those that are between two respected Christians who have opposing interpretations of a passages in the Bible (e.g. Calvinism and Armenianism).  We cannot depend on feelings since that would be subjective.  We cannot say that both is right since the Bible has only the meaning that the original author intended it to mean.  We cannot say that the Bible can mean something to you and then can mean something different to me.  This would be saying that the Bible doesn't really mean anything at all. What we need is a standard to evaluate everybody's interpretation of the Bible.

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