andrew dodson

I’ve wanted to blog about this for a while, but I’ve taken my time to make sure I have “good theology” in what I’m about to say. To some of you, this may be a no-brainer. To others, this may be a huge deal. Still to others, you might not care. From my perspective, I consider this issue drastically serious in our walks with God.

I’ve come to learn that interpretation of Scripture is a huge issue in Christianity. What sounds the alarm for me is when I hear someone say, “this is what this Scripture means to me.” Once I hear this statement, I pray and hope that everyone gets the same meaning from that Scripture.

Here’s my reasoning: God is not a god of contradiction. He would never intend to cause confusion among His believers. Our confusion arises because of our human nature, and not fully understanding God. If we all understood God perfectly, that would put us on the same level as Him. When people have different interpretations of the same Scripture passages, it’s simply because one or both parties are not fully understanding the text.

Luckily, in my waiting period of gathering information for this post, I came across a quote from Dr. R.C. Sproul’s The Agony of Deceit (pp. 34, 35):

Although tradition does not rule our interpretation, it does guide it. If, upon reading a particular passage, you have come up with an interpretation that has escaped the notice of every other Christian for two thousand years, or has been championed universally by heretics, chances are pretty good that you had better abandon your interpretation.

Amen, brother.