…the devil misinterpreted and quoted scripture in his temptation of our Lord. He had no authority to interpret and was rebuked.
Satan is not a Christian, doesn’t worship Christ as His LORD & Savior, nor does he have the Holy Spirit. It is egregiously invidious (not to mention laughable) to compare a Bible-believing Christian to God’s (and man’s) arch foe. Furthermore, by that line of reasoning, nobody can quote Scripture at all, not even here @ a forum the way we are.
How easy or difficult is it to misinterpret the Bible?
(This subject could take up volumes of writing, so I’ll just put out a couple of ideas, which are in no way exhaustive. I hope they will not repeat whatever was written @ the earlier thread, which I am unfamiliar with, having just “arrived” @ this site recently.)
To start with, recall the passage in John’s Gospel chapter 9 where the Pharisees end up condemning the young man blind from birth whom Jesus healed: “You were born in utter sin; and you would teach
us?!?” (You can just hear them snarling and baring their fangs.) Here was this really lowly, probably not educated, young man who recognized Jesus as coming from God, whereas the Pharisees, august keepers & defenders of God’s Law, totally missed the truth. That passage can serve as a parable of the believer and the Holy Spirit’s work in giving him insight.
Even with non-Bible reading, interpretational accuracy depends on the integrity and intellectual maturity of the reader (iow, if for example you are a rabid man-hating Feminist, chances are, you’ll view male writings thru a misandristic lens; but even something as light as “The Sound of Music” can be construed as a “subtle attack on the traditional family and the husband as the head of the household” [yes, I actually read an essay that argued this!]). How much more when it comes to Scripture, where you’re dealing with weighty issues like God; His authority over us; our obligations to Him and to others; salvation, etc.—all topics that potentially “touch nerves,” unlike, say, a medical textbook or the weather report in the newspaper.
Now, if you’re a Biblical Protestant, you believe that because the believer has the Holy Spirit, he also has the mind of Christ, so he has the privilege (indeed the duty) of familiarizing himself with God’s Word, saturating himself with it so that it becomes the filter (or the paradigm, if you will) for his view of ultimate truth/reality. That doesn’t mean the believer never resorts to any sort of aids (commentaries, concordances, dictionaries, encyclopedias, or just plain another believer) to sort out the sticky passages. “Iron sharpens iron.” (Not to forget the 2 principles of context—paragraph, chapter, book, and finally the whole Bible—and clear passages illuminating the murkier ones). An alive Christian is ever “increasing in the knowledge of the LORD,” ever learning and striving for greater wisdom and insight. Sola Scriptura doesn’t mean “jiss me’n my Bible” (which is in effect Sol
o Scriptura), but only that the Christian is not spiritually bound by anything not clearly taught in (or inferable from) the Bible (and yes, I’m aware that RCers and Protestants in many ways disagree on what is “clearly inferable”).
The more knotty and complex the Biblical passage or concept, the greater the likelihood of misinterpretation, of course, but seriously, how many (mis)interpretations will men of goodwill and even average intelligence come up with for verses such as these (merely as simple examples—and they could be multiplied by the thousands)?
Jesus wept.
Thou shalt not steal.
Thou shalt not lie.
Of the fruit of that tree thou shalt not eat.
“One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”
Do I really need some ECF to “interpret” these for me? Or a priest? (Do you?!?:bigyikes
You could gather together a Jansenist, a Jesuit, a Molinist, a Maryknoller, Hans Küng, Teilhard, a Calvinist, a Baptist, a Methodist, a Lutheran, an Anglican, an Episcopalian, a Pentecostal, a Charismatic, an Emergent, & an LDS, and assuming these people were all of sound mind and overall decent character, as well as possessing goodwill and average intelligence, they’d all be able to agree on the basic meaning of these verses (iow, they’re not going to say something like “Jesus wept” = “Jesus guffawed” or “Thou shalt not steal” = “You can go ahead and take whatever you want, whenever you want, where ever you want”).
