Article: How to Interpret the Bible Yourself, #2
There are a great many ways to interpret the Bible, but where should one start? Are there even any wrong ways of interpreting the Bible? According to the Bible, there are incorrect ways of interpreting the Bible. Did you know that Satan interprets the Bible as well? He interpreted the Bible right in front of Jesus, in Matthew 4. When tempting Jesus, Satan quotes from Psalm 91 to tempt Jesus into testing God beyond God’s appointment, saying “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’”
There are two fatal flaws in Satan’s interpretation of this passage – first, Psalm 91:11-12 is taken out of its context. After this declaration of God’s protection for the man of God, Psalm 91:13 says “You will tread on the lion and the adder; the young lion and the serpent you will trample underfoot.” Satan, of course, came in the form of a serpent in Genesis 3, and is called “that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan” in Revelation 12:9. So that as Satan tempts Jesus Christ, he has taken this verse out, which tells Jesus that he is not to bow down to Satan and to his own whims, but to crush Satan. (…) Unlike Satan, we ought to interpret with the context, and not simply give verses without the context, which interprets the meaning of each verse for us.
The second fatal flaw in Satan’s interpretation of this passage is the he has taken out or ignored a very important aspect of his quotation. Let us compare Satan’s quotation with Psalm 91
| Satan’s quotation in Matthew 4 | Psalm 91:11-12 |
| He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone. | For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone. |
Satan’s interpretation intentionally omitted the bolded part of verse 11, which was omitted because Satan’s way of interpreting is to only include what he things supports his ideas. This is really the same trick as taking God’s word out of context – it omits what God calls important for what we call important. Satan omits this part of the verse because he is attempting to show Jesus that God ought to be put to the test by this extraordinary manner of throwing himself off of the Temple, that he might be caught by angels. However, God has promised to command his angels in a specific manner, “to guard you in all your ways.” God’s provision here is to care for the Son of God all of his days and in all of his ways
However, not only Satan interprets God’s word incorrectly, humans interpret God’s word incorrectly as well. Jesus famously corrects the false interpretations of the Pharisees in his Matthew 5 sermon on the mount, saying, “You have heard that it was said” six times to introduce the commonly held interpretation of a passage, and then says six times “But I say to you” to introduce the correct interpretation. This is very significant – Jesus simply will not accept some interpretations. That is to say, Jesus believes some interpretations of Scripture to be wrong.
Now, this does not prove that there is only one way of interpretation, nor that there is only one interpretation of every passage, but it does establish that some ways of interpretation are simply wrong, according to Jesus, “the founder and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2). To disagree with him, is to disagree with God himself.
So, is there a wrong way of interpreting Scripture? According to Jesus, Yes.
We’ll take up Jesus’s method of interpretation up next in the third article, and bring out the assumptions we ought to have according to Jesus as we interpret.