3. Let Scripture interpret Scripture.
The Bible is a collection of divinely inspired writings written by a number of authors, living in different geographical areas in some cases, and written over a long span of history, yet it retains an amazing unity.
Because the many voices of Scripture make up God’s unified revelation, we want to let Scripture interpret Scripture. This involves examining what the Bible has to say on a topic as a whole rather than just picking stray verses here and there and coming to a conclusion.
Scripture often interprets itself. For example in John 1:1), showing us that the Word is Christ.
Another example is the parable of the sower in Luke 8). In the verses that follow (vv. 10-14), Scripture interprets itself by telling us what Jesus meant.
4. Read from the text, not into it.
Too often, we come to the Bible with our own preconceived ideas. If we do that, we’ll eventually fall into the trap of trying to make the Scriptures say what we want them to say instead of drawing out from them what the author—and God—intended.
The technical word for this error is eisegesis—reading into the text. What we want to do is the opposite, called exegesis, which means drawing out from the text what the author intended to communicate.
5. Trust the clarity of Scripture.
We can expect that Scripture will be clear.
Since theologians love coming up with obscure names for things, they call this principle the perspicuity of Scripture. This means that the Bible is clear when it comes to letting us know about essential, important teachings. It doesn’t contain secret messages that only the elite can understand (though Greek and Hebrew scholars can give us insights).
It’s not that there aren’t parts of Scripture that are difficult to understand, but on the whole, its key points are clearly presented and are meant to be understood.
