The last post gave my 7 overarching principles to help frame personal biblical study and interpretation. In this post, I’d like to recommend several rules to help you extract intended meaning from the text. All this means is letting the Bible text speak for itself. The simple rules provided here are the mechanics of that process.

The assumption in applying these rules is that the overarching principles in the last post are applied. If not, then it’s difficult to get the intended meaning because, frankly, you may get to a place where your confidence in the scriptures is undermined by the culture.

Exegesis

“Extract” meaning is the key strategy to get correct understanding of the Bible. Often people approach the scriptures with predetermined perspectives shaped by our religious background and cultural influence about what the Bible should say to fit those perspectives. When we approach the Bible with a prefabricated lens of interpretation or worldview, we force meanings on the text that are not intended. The technical term for this is “Eisegesis”, which simply means we conform the text of the Bible to our preconceived notions about what it should mean, or worse, ignore the meaning of the text when it conflicts with our cultural and/or religious perspective. Instead, the process we want to use is “exegesis” which means letting the text speak for itself so that we may draw meaning from it.

The process of exegesis is not that much different than how we would approach any other scientific or philosophical text. If I read a physics book, then I must let the text speak that I may understand the physical laws that govern the universe. I have to work hard because understanding doesn’t come easy sometimes. But if I trust that the physics text is truthful, then I can learn. If I don’t trust it, then I will never learn. Learning based on trust is the basic goal of exegesis.

Hermeneutics

Big word, simple meaning. It means the process used to interpret philosophical, scientific, or religious information – in our context for this post, it means how we will interpret the Bible. Exegesis is a subset of a hermeneutic. The rest of it is a basic belief about the Bible itself. What a person believes about the Bible will frame the interpretation.

I am not going to go into evidence that the Bible is the word of God in this post. I have done that already on a page dedicated to that purpose (I will continue to add more information over time). Please go there (see the menu above) to see what evidence is there. Then you can decide, but the evidence clearly indicates the Bible is from God. Over 30 years ago, I did not have really any belief about the Bible one way or the other. I didn’t know much about it. But over time, as I have investigated and studied it, I have no other conclusion than that the Bible is what it claims to be. Here is what I now believe about the Bible, based on my own investigation of the evidence over many years:

1. I believe the Bible is the most supernatural set of writings in existence. That’s because the God of the Bible is a supernatural God and the people to whom it was originally written lived in a supernatural world (as we do today). People often think that mankind has a superior grasp of science that refutes the Bible. But science is a journey into the unknown with the goal of observing and explaining phenomena through hypothesis, observation, and the language of mathematics. Scientific discovery is never finished otherwise science ceases to be science. The bottom line is this: we don’t fully comprehend how the universe operates. We think we do but we don’t. The realm of the supernatural is beyond our science so we should not use our tiny knowledge of the universe to refute things we do not understand. That’s why we call it “supernatural”.
2. I take the Bible seriously. I believe in a literal interpretation, factoring in literary devices used such as: simile, metaphor, hyperbole, etc. The Bible employs many such devices.

So a literalist, supernatural understanding of scripture frames my own understanding and interpretation of the Bible.

12 Rules to Govern Understanding the Bible

1. Accept the Bible as God breathed, and without error as written in the original manuscripts. While we do not have the original manuscripts, there are many very old copies. When they are compared by scholars, there is excellent agreement across the many different manuscripts.
2. The Bible was given by God and that revelation was progressive through the apostles and the prophets of the Bible. There are 66 books considered inspired by God and these 66 books were written by about 40 authors, many separated in a 1500 year history in different cultures, using different languages.
3. The canon of scripture is closed. Other claims of additional scriptures that came after the Bible was completed in the first century (such as the Book of Mormon) are false. While there may be some debate about canonicity of some Old Testament books, no additional scripture was given after the 12 Apostles died. This understanding will protect you from cults, self anointed prophets, and false apostles out there who may claim they have an update to the Bible. They don’t.
4. The overarching context of the Bible, its central theme, is the coming Kingdom of God and the central person of the Bible is the promised messiah, Jesus Christ. He is the King and it is He that permits entry into his kingdom on his terms, not ours. If you don’t know Jesus as your savior and follow him as your King, you shall not enter into his kingdom.
5. I recommend using several translations as well as other resources to facilitate study such as, concordances, bible dictionaries, maps, etc. Many useful resources are out there to help get better understanding. The translation process to get a bible in English or any other language does require some level of interpretation. The job of a translator is challenging and takes years. But across the many faithful translations available, the message is the same. If you compare them you will find differences in wording and syntax, but the meaning is unchanged.
6. Scripture interprets scripture. The Bible is entirely internally consistent. It does not refute itself. As such, scripture is its own best interpreter. Always interpret the more difficult passages using clearer passages.
7. Context determines meaning. Verses are in context of passages, passages are in context of chapters, chapters are in context of books, etc. Often individual verses are clear and can stand on their own. Often it’s not possible to extract a verse out of its context without distorting its meaning.
8. The main things are the plain things and the plain things are the main things. The most important message of the Bible regarding the gospel and basic godly living is easy enough for a (born again) child to understand.
9. God says what he means and means what he says. Esoteric and allegorical interpretations will not lead to properly understanding God’s Word.
10. Let the text speak for itself. Ask yourself “what is the plain meaning of the text”? If it’s hard to understand, it’s ok. Dr Missler had a good suggestion: keep notes about what you don’t understand, ask God to help you understand, and see what happens over time. If you are diligent and patient, you’ll get it.
11. Don’t bring a bunch of preconceived religious and cultural baggage to the text. The goal is to draw out meaning from the text, not force fit teachings of men into the text.
12. Formulate understanding based on what the Bible says, not on what it does not say. A lot of false doctrines out there came from silence. The logic (heavily flawed) is that “because the Bible doesn’t prohibit it or specifically address it, then it must be true”.

Others may have a different list but this is the one I use and it has helped. I believe if you follow the principles of the earlier post and the rules in this post, you will acquire a deeper and more accurate understanding of the Bible.

God’s will bless you as you prayerfully consider his Word.