Selective Interpretation of Bible Verses

[Ray_Marshall]

It’s positively scary how many threads in these forums are started by folks who grab one verse from the Bible or other Church document and consider that either the only way to live their life, or the invalidation of everything else.

When you figure that the 14,000+ of us who read and post here are pretty darned knowledgeable about scripture, liturgy and other aspects of Catholicism, what does that say about the other 60,000,000 of us who don’t frequent these sites?

The times ahead of us may become very rough.

 

[Mysty101]

In the past, Private interpretation was not allowed by Catholics.
I suppose the pendulum has swung too far the other way. Hopefully people will recognize the need for responsible interpretation, and use some form of direction by competant Catholic means, especially if they persist in an interpretation refuted by good Catholic sourses.

Many Priests are following the guidelines of preaching on the scriptures, and thus helping us with the interpretation of more difficult or unclear passages. We need to listen well and ask questions, if something is confuaing or not clear to us.

 

[Steve_Andersen]

People are capable of infinite self deception

History is unfortunately filled with instances of individuals reading what they want to in the Bible with terrible consequences.

All the more reason to need an authority as a reality check.

 

[Malachi4U]

Mysty101:

In the past, Private interpretation was not allowed by Catholics…

This may not be true. Everything I have studied has shown Catholics have now, as always, a right to read and self-interpret (or Miss-interpret) Sacred Scripture. What Catholics are forbidden to do is teach unapproved interpretations. Once the Church approves an interpretation it is allowed to be taught. If found wrong the interpretation is not allowed to be taught (unlike the protestants who allow it anyway).

Some of the greatest teachings of the His Church come from self-interpretation. They were submitted and found correct and now taught. Some interpretations are still neither confirmed or denied by His Church like whether ‘the angel of the Lord’ is Jesus in the OT (BSF Internationl Bible study and my old Baptist preacher man declares it is Jesus, too bad Luke Chapter 1 proves them wrong?).

The only time I am aware that Catholics were ever forbidden from Scripture was limited to one horrible version written by heritics in Southern France. That Bible was bad even by protestant standards today. The Catholics here were only forbidden from the book and not ‘real’ Scripture. The bad so called Bible was burned in accordance with Scripture commands (The Bible tells us to burn bad books!).

Anyway, I would love to see any documented evidence you have on the banning of Catholics from self-interpretation vs. teaching of it.

OK, I may be splitting hairs here and perhaps I took your verse out of context? If I did - sorry. I have never finished researching this topic so I too could be wrong here and freely admit it. Any help by anyone would be great.

Back to the origional topic. If the 60,000,000 practicing Catholics today along with the 30,000,000 or so EX-Catholics today in the US read and new Scripture perhaps we would have 180,000,000 Catholics in the US? Instead of fallinfg for false interpretations Catholics could spread the correct interpretations and evangelise more?