2 PETER 3:16-17
"[Paul's] letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort,
as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.
Therefore, dear friends, since you already know this, be on your guard so that you may not be carried
away by the error of lawless men and fall from your secure position."
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Interpreting the Bible:
Tips 6, 7, and 8
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SERIES—Part 3
Here are the next 3 tips of the series "How to interpret the Bible accurately: 12 critical tips."
For the previous tips, please see
part 1 or
part 2.
Tip #6: Beware of teachings that sound 'strange'
The Bible delivers a sobering warning to Christians who are introduced to new teaching:
"Do not be carried away by various kinds of strange teachings..."
(Hebrews 13:9)
Of course, if you follow Tip #1 above ("Don't be ignorant")
in part 1 of this series,
you should be able to quickly identify new teachings that sound a bit
strange—that is to say, teachings that don't seem to be harmonizing with the rest of the Holy Spirit's message.
Since God's Holy Spirit is all about truth (meaning, He won't contradict Himself),
this presents a logical problem for the "new" doctrine.
So, when you hear a "strange sounding" teaching, what should you do?
Tread very carefully, because it could be false doctrine.
But I want to be careful here. As you and I probably both know, anything that doesn't match our "traditional
way of thinking" will, of course, sound a little strange—if not more than a little.
In other words, members of false Christian religions would probably find the actual truth a bit strange.
So, how do we know if something sounds "Biblically strange?"
Again, by making sure you have a good
foundational knowledge of the Bible, and then compare that accurate knowledge with the new teaching.
Another thing to be careful about is...If the Bible is clearly teaching one thing, and the "new teaching"
is really sounding strange, don't keep delving into it. If you start "buying in" to a lie, God may eventually
send you a strong delusion so that you will actually believe more lies (see 2 Thess 2:11). Remember, salvation is reserved
for those who love truth, not falsehood. Only truth will set you free.
And, as mentioned previously, the Bible also warns us about "giving ear" to every ridiculous message
promoted by a seemingly
religious person. Paul warned his readers not to be "blown here and there by every wind of teaching"
(Eph 4:14).
As you can see, while God certainly requires us to be open-minded (otherwise we would never find the
truth)—He also requires that we be wise enough to understand when things aren't adding up.
Tip #7: Be wary of fanciful explanations to simple verses
I've long believed that truth is typically the easiest position to defend.
Let the false teacher be the one who spends his time trying to get his
elephant of error to tap-dance to the tunes of truth.
Generally, I believe it takes a lot more intelligence and skill to "prove" a position
that has no basis in truth.
It's much easier to demonstrate that 2 + 2 = 4, than it is to "prove" 2 + 2 = 5.
So, just because a person is intelligent and knowledgeable by no means makes him right.
History contains numerous examples of intelligent fools—intelligent people who failed to be wise.
It's much easier to take the simple truth and simply accept it.
But if you want to distort the truth, it's probably going to take some "pretty sophisticated" explaining.
False teachers often have honed their "debating skills" to a fine art.
But Bible discussions with false or potentially false prophets are not high school debates, designed to see
who can twist logic the best. They should be treated with absolute honesty, logic, and truth—regardless of
who the superior debater is. It's not about debating, it's about honestly understanding the truth.
Remember, only truth will "set you free."
Don't put yourself under willing bondage to erroneous thinking by buying in to fanciful explanations.
Tip #8: Never forget the "simple to complex" rule of Bible interpretation
How do many false teachers convince people to believe them?
In too many cases, by violating, indeed REVERSING, the so-called "simple to complex" rule.
This vital rule of Bible interpretation suggests that, to find truth, you must
establish what is relatively easy to understand, and use those facts as building blocks to help
you understand the more complex scriptures.
In other words, one must first learn to count, then add/subtract, then learn algebra, etc—before advancing to calculus. It's
preposterous to think a person could be placed into a Calculus 3 course and have any hope of passing, if he
hadn't learned how to count to 10 yet.
Similarly, in the Bible, we should always start with the plain and simple, and use that to help us explain
the more complex. For example, never use your opinions about Revelation to explain simple teachings in Matthew;
it should be the other way around. Perhaps that's why the Holy Spirit chose to reveal Revelation
last of all the New Testament books.
The "simple-to-complex" rule is important because, as mentioned, false teachers often do the opposite: they start with obscure,
difficult-to-understand verses, draw assumptions from those verses (usually wrong assumptions), consider their
assumptions to be "facts"—and then use those
"facts" to "prove" that plain and simple verses really don't mean what they appear to say.
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