"Hermeneutics is the science and art of Biblical interpretation. It is a science because it is guided by rules within a system; and it is an art because the application of the rules is by skill, and not by mechanical imitation" (Bernard Ramm, Protestant Biblical Interpretation, page 1).
This series on hermeneutics is designed to help you study your Bible with more confidence and enthusiasm. The short lessons will help you to learn principles to apply throughout the five steps of Bible interpretation.
Note: section titles are linked to PDF copies suitable for printing or sharing.
There are five steps to Bible study, which you must be aware of at all times:
OBSERVATION (You and your eyes) Begin your study of any passage of the Bible with open eyes, open mind and an open Bible. If possible, read it carefully in several translations. Jot down your observations of things like: Is there a command here? Who is the author? What is the subject of the paragraph? Who is speaking? To whom was this book written? Make notes of everything you don't understand or problems you hope to resolve.
INTERPRETATION (You and your brain) Ask "What does this passage mean? Check out the meanings of words and phrases. Observe the flow of thought and the main ideas by noting the sentence structure. Seek to discover what the author wanted the original readers to know. Continue noting questions you need to answer.
EVALUATION (You and your books) Do research to evaluate your interpretation and answer your questions. Check commentaries, word study books, Bible dictionaries and encyclopedias. Ask for help from someone who knows more than you. If you discover different points of view, decide which has the best support and why.
APPLICATION (You and your life) Now that you know what the passage means, ask "How does this affect me? What must I do with what I now know?" or "What does this tell me about God and His nature?"
CORRELATION (You and your beliefs) Ask how this relates to the rest of Scripture. Fit this in with all you know from other passages. Gradually you will build up your knowledge of all the doctrines of the Bible.
Theologians love to use big words, and they have a great one for this concept. They call this the perspicuity of Scripture. What it means is that everything in the Bible is knowable to you as a Christian.
Perspicuity does not mean that you automatically understand everything in the Bible, but it certainly means that you can understand what is there.
Believing in the perspicuity of the Bible is something that sets us apart from cults and groups like the Roman Catholic church. Those are groups that believe that only an elite group or individual can truly understand the Bible, or that there are "deep insights" reserved only for those who have had special experiences or special training.
There is no doubt that the writers of the New Testament meant for all believers to know and understand the Bible:
2 Timothy 3:16-17: All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.
2 Timothy 2:15: Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, handling accurately the word of truth.
2 Peter 1:2-3: Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.
Revelation 1:3: Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy, and heed the things which are written in it; for the time is near.
Expect the Bible to make sense. Treat it like other literature, by paying attention to grammar and structure, words and expressions. Relying on the Holy Spirit to help you understand, expect it to make sense. Be willing to spend time to learn what you don't know.
Every parent has had the experience of trying to communicate to a wide-eyed four year-old who asks a question like "Where do babies come from?" or "How does a spider make its web?" You know the child can't understand a scientific explanation. So you use words he can understand, and you give the best answer you can. You tell the truth (I hope!), but you accommodate the answer to the child.
That's like the "problem" God has in communicating to us. He is infinite and eternal; we are finite and mortal. He is perfect in holiness; we're cursed by sin. But in His love, God has accommodated His word–the Bible–to our minds and our ability to understand.
Therefore the Bible uses many analogies to explain things we otherwise couldn't grasp. Jesus said many times "The kingdom of heaven is like . . ." and then told a story about farming, or about a wedding ceremony, or about relationships between people. He used things we know to explain things we don't know. That's an analogy. There's no way we can fully understand all the glory and perfection of Who God is, so He revealed Himself in terms we can understand. He tells us He is one God, eternally existing as three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
(Here's another wonderful big word you can use on your friends.) God also reveals Himself in anthropomorphic terms. That means "in the form of man." "For the eyes of the Lord move to and fro throughout the earth" (2 Chronicles 16:9) doesn't mean God sends little eyeballs running around the world. But it sends the clear message that God sees all that goes on. He used human terminology to accommodate His revelation to humans. Check out the majestic description of the glorified Jesus in Revelation 1:12-16 or Ezekiel's visions of God in Ezekiel 1:4-28 for examples of the writers of Scripture grabbing every word picture they could think of to describe a heavenly vision.
While your friends are still reeling from "anthropomorphic" rolling off your tongue, explain to them that God also uses anthropopathic expressions in His word. That means He reveals Himself to us in terms of human emotions. Genesis 6:6 says "And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart." That doesn't mean God realized what a mistake He had made in creation–it is His way of telling us that our sin "breaks His heart."
Be glad (to use an anthropomorphism) God "stoops to our level."
This is an important concept when it comes to interpreting the Bible. It means is that within the Bible, there is progress from incomplete to complete revelation.
If you had only the book of Genesis, it would still be the word of God but it would not be the complete word of God. All the writings of Moses (Genesis through Deuteronomy) are inspired, inerrant and God's word, but they are still not the complete word of God.
The progression in the Bible is not a progression from wrong to right, or from error to truth: it is progress from incomplete to complete. The writer of Hebrews put it this way:
Hebrews 1:1-2: God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son . . .
"The Law" or the Old Testament reveals God's character, but it contains many things relevant to Israel which are not applicable to us today. What Jesus said, did, and accomplished by His death and resurrection superseded the law, but did not annul it. He said:
Matthew 5:17-18: "Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass away from the Law, until all is accomplished."
Pay attention to the progress within the Bible. Don't force New Testament ideas into Old Testament passages. An idea the original readers could not have understood is an idea God did not put in the passage. Abraham never heard of the law of Moses. Isaiah didn't have and didn't understand the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
The church began in Acts 2 with the coming of the Holy Spirit. There was no church in the Old Testament, so don't read church concepts into passages addressing Israel. The New Testament reveals that Israel has been "set aside" until "the fullness of the Gentiles has come in" (Romans 11). Then "all Israel will be saved" (Romans 11:26)-revelation never known to anyone until it was revealed to Paul.
Scripture Interprets scripture
Hermeneutics is about how to proceed when you need to figure out what a passage is saying, and this principle is one of the first ones to apply when you encounter a difficult passage.
Scripture in general helps you interpret any obscure passage. Most passages are not obscure. As you increase your knowledge of the Bible, you build understanding to help you sort out difficult passages. Passages obscure to us in modern times are often interpreted by clear passages in the broader context of all of the Bible. If you understand something clearly taught in a passage not hard to understand, you can be sure that no other passage teaches something contradictory.
For example, 1 John 1:8-10 clearly says that a mark of a Christian is that he does not deny that he sins and he continues to confess his sin (agree with God about it). Therefore, a more obscure passage (1 John 3:9) cannot mean that a Christian never sins. It says: "No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God." Doing a little bit of homework will help you understand that the Greek verb tenses make it clear that 3:9 says that a Christian cannot continue in sin–he confesses and repents.
Essential truth is not tucked away in some incidental remark in Scripture, nor is it found in some passage that remains ambiguous even after very thorough research. God has made His revelation knowable to us; He doesn't keep us in the dark by hiding important truth in obscure places.
Mark Twain is known for saying something like "It isn't the parts of the Bible I can't understand that give me problems–it's the parts I can understand that worry me." While he was no theologian, Twain inadvertently proclaimed the significance of this principle of hermeneutics.
Another example of the usefulness of this principle is the interpretation of 1 Corinthians 15:29: Otherwise, what will those do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why then are they baptized for them? Your Mormon friends use this to justify baptizing by proxy for those who have died. But other scriptures rule out that possibility. In its own context (sound teaching about resurrection), this verse is merely one of several illustrations Paul used of people who believe in resurrection. Without approving the practice and without commanding it, Paul mentions it as an example of some people who obviously believed in life after death–so much that they foolishly baptized for them.
This principle is the recognition that there is complete harmony of Scripture on all points. The doctrines of the Bible are deduced from the passages in which they are discussed in clear, plain and intelligible language. God is consistent; therefore His word is consistent.
The significance of this principle of hermeneutics is that no passage of the Bible will contradict the total teaching of the Bible on any subject. All doctrines "fit together" with all other doctrines. No two human authors of Scripture disagree with one another. No two passages disagree or contradict each another.
People who do not respect the Bible as the word of God quickly assume there are errors or contradictions in the Bible. As soon as they see what appears to contradict something else, they conclude it is in fact a contradiction.
But if you recognize that God cannot err, and therefore His word cannot err, you take a different approach. You keep studying until you understand how different passages harmonize with each other. Consider an example of an apparent contradiction in four passages describing the same thing–the inscription over the cross of Jesus.
Matthew 27:37: THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS.
Mark 15:26: THE KING OF THE JEWS.
Luke 23:38: THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.
John 19:19: JESUS THE NAZARENE, THE KING OF THE JEWS.
A skeptic immediately says "This is clearly a contradiction. All four gospels disagree on the inscription." But who says all four must have recorded the exact same words or it is an error? None are errors, and none contradict. If you harmonize them, you can deduce what the inscription was and that none of the four recorded every word:
THIS IS (Mt/Lk) JESUS (Mt/Jn) THE NAZARENE (Jn) THE KING OF THE JEWS (Mt/Mk/Lk/Jn)
If one said "This is Bob of Boise, The King of the Road," it would be a problem. It is actually four independent true reports of the same thing.
THE UNITY OF THE MEANING OF SCRIPTURE
Each passage of the Bible has one and only one correct interpretation. The interpretation of a passage is what the original writer (inspired by the Holy Spirit) expected the original readers to understand. No interpretation is correct if the original recipients would not have understood it that way. It's foolish to ask "What does this mean to me?" until you have answered the basic question "What does this mean?"
To discover what a passage means, you must pay attention to the grammatical context and the historical context. The grammatical context deals with the meaning of words and the structure of the language. The historical context deals with the cultural frame of reference in which the communication took place.
When you write something down, you don't intend for people who read it to assign a variety of meanings. You know what the words signify and how you intend for them to be accepted, even if you use technical language or figures of speech. You have specific people in mind, and you write so as to be sure they understand your thoughts. Scripture should be interpreted with this same understanding of God's intent to communicate specific thoughts to specific people.
Here are two common abuses of this concept you're likely to encounter:
Allegorizing is the faulty system of interpreting the Bible which discards the literal meaning as irrelevant and searches for the "spiritual" meaning. For example, a preacher once said the city of Jerusalem represents the human heart. Its broken walls represent the ravages of sin on the heart. Nehemiah represents the Holy Spirit, and his coming to Jerusalem to repair the walls represents the coming of the Holy Spirit into the heart to bind up hurts of the heart. If you had heard that sermon, you would have wondered why you couldn't understand that "deep" meaning. The reason is that it isn't there!
"Pious Personalizing" is my term for the practice of people who open their Bibles and expect direct, specific, personal guidance tailor-made to their situation. Contemplating a trip, someone might read "Then, when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away" (Acts 13:3) and decide "God gave me this verse" to tell me to go. When someone says "God gave me such-and-such a verse," it is an admission that he or she doesn't understand interpreting the Bible. God gave us all the Scriptures, understood in context, for our guidance.
INTERPRETATIONS, PRINCIPLES AND APPLICATIONS
The previous section dealt with the unity of the meaning of Scripture. Each passage has one and only one correct interpretation, rooted in its grammatical and historical context. To avoid abuses of the Bible and to make wise application of its truth, it's helpful to understand the difference between interpretation, principles and applications.
A passage has ONE interpretation–what the Holy Spirit inspired the original author to write to the original readers. Rooted in the interpretation may be ONE OR MORE principles–timeless truths which can be applied by anyone. Those principles may have SEVERAL applications–specific guidance for your life.
Example: "But let your statement be, 'Yes, yes' or 'No, no'; and anything beyond these is of evil" (Matthew 5:37). Interpretation in context: Avoid making casual vows and looking for loopholes to avoid keeping them (contrary to the practice of the Pharisees). Principles: God blesses truthfulness; say what you mean and mean what you say; don't spice up your conversation with big promises; avoid pretense; don't try to look spiritual by taking special vows. Possible applications: Always think before you speak; be sure you can deliver before you make a promise; don't sign anything you aren't sure you all willing to live up to.
Researching some history is crucial to understanding the Bible. The concept of Progressive Revelation (#4 in this series) tells us that the Bible was revealed "long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways" (Hebrews 1:1). Each part is inspired and inerrant, but each part was given to specific people in specific situations.
It's our task to interpret the Bible in light of the people and the times in which it was written, because the interpretation of any passage is what the original readers were meant to understand. If we read in a meaning they couldn't have understood, we abuse the Scriptures. Examples:
Cain and Abel married their own sisters. When you explain that, people protest that God prohibits marrying any close relative (Leviticus 18:6-18). But Leviticus was revealed by God well over 2000 years after the time of Cain and Abel. When Cain and Abel married their sisters, God had not prevented it and the cumulative genetic consequences of the curse had not made intermarriage with close relatives dangerous.
2 Chronicles 7:14 says "If . . . My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray, and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." Thousands of preachers use this verse to teach that if the Christians in America will pray more fervently and humbly, God will solve our national problems. That's a false application unrelated to the meaning in its historical context. "My people" is Israel–a theocracy, a nation unlike any other nation in history. The passage records the dedication of Solomon's temple, with God telling Solomon that if Israel sinned and He chastened them, the chastening could be ended by repentance. We are not "My people" in the sense of that verse, and America is not "their land" in any way whatsoever. Repentance is always appropriate, but to "claim this promise" for America is to misuse the Bible.
Revelation 2-3 records letters from Jesus to "angels" of seven churches in the late first century. Some have said the "angels" were bishops who presided over the regions of those cities. But the concept of "bishops" over a region is a heresy that came along nearly 100 years later. Many say each church represents a period of history between then and the Second Coming. But nothing in the context tells us those letters are prophecy, and the original readers couldn't have thought so. They are simply letters to churches, like Romans or Ephesians. Each church received the message through a messenger ("angel") who delivered it. Historical context is crucial!
TAKE THE CLEAREST INTERPRETATION
Two basic principles of hermeneutics are that the Bible is understandable and that each passage has only one correct interpretation (what the original writer meant the original readers to understand). But it isn't necessarily easy for us to understand the interpretation of a passage.
As you study your Bible (See #1 in this series, "How To Study Your Bible") your observations of the text often will suggest more than one possible interpretation. You should note each possibility and then study them carefully to refine your understanding. One basis for discovering the true interpretation is to take the clearest interpretation.
God doesn't "hide" esoteric or obscure messages in His word. If you are deciding between two or more possible interpretations, it's likely the most natural and clearest one is what the original readers would have understood, unless the context suggests something else. Examples:
James 5:14-18 deals with an illness which is God's chastening for sin. The healing comes in response to the prayers of the elders and the confession of the one who is sick. This makes much more sense than using the passage to justify the ministry of so called faith healers, because the whole process is initiated by the one who is sick.
The angels of the seven churches in Revelation 2-3 are messengers those churches sent to visit John during his exile. This is in accord with the basic meaning of the Greek word aggelos, which is "messenger." It makes more sense than saying they were angelic beings with some kind of mystical guardianship over the churches–a concept not in the Bible.
A period of 1000 years is mentioned six times in Revelation 20:1-7. Since nothing in the context and nothing in the background of the original readers suggests a non-literal meaning, it's natural to take it as a literal 1000 years. Many interpreters say it is symbolic of a "long time period of undetermined length," but they are reading in a meaning required by a theological system they have adopted, contrary to the clearest interpretation.
Zechariah 12:4 says the Lord's feet will touch down on the Mount of Olives, splitting it in two. Nothing in the context indicates a symbolic or "spiritual" interpretation, so that's why we expect Jesus to return to the Mount of Olives at His second coming. It's the clearest interpretation.
As you study your Bible and begin to formulate your overall understanding, you will encounter many passages with meanings that aren't obvious at first glance. These articles on hermeneutics (principles for interpreting the Bible) are designed to help you deal with that problem. The harder a passage is to understand, the more important careful application of good hermeneutics becomes.
This article is about a principle that reinforces all the others. You should study the Bible on your own, but you should also be humble enough to submit your ideas to the scrutiny of others. Hence we call this the "Checking Principle" because it involves checking your own insights against the insights and research of others.
God has promised the body of Christ in every age that certain members are especially gifted in teaching and exhortation (Romans 12:6-8). Through the writings of people who have had such gifts in the past and through the present ministries of people with such gifts, we have available to us a phenomenal amount of information to help us in our own study and discovery.
If we want to be faithful to God's word, we must take the time to check out the validity of our interpretations. That process involves a concept best described by a four-letter word: WORK. The resources for this work are excellent investments (and they make great gifts). Here are a few:
- Your Bible. You should have a good literal translation (New American Standard is the best) with lots of footnotes and other helpful information.
- Bible Dictionary or Encyclopedia. In these you can look up any person, place, concept, doctrine, or word from the Bible. The best of all of them is The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible (five volumes).
- Commentaries are books that contain teaching on each verse of a Bible book. To do a thorough study of a passage, ask a good Bible teacher for recommendations of the best commentaries on that book.
- Reference Books are basics tools for a Bible student. A Concordance gives basic definitions and all the uses of Bible words. There are many excellent books to help you study key words. A Harmony of the Gospels helps you fit together the overlapping records of the four gospels.
Our pastors will help you with resources and guidance for any Bible questions you have. Each time you deal with a passage is an opportunity to learn more about the process of Bible study.
ORIGINAL LANGUAGES OF THE BIBLE
When you come to the Bible, you need to recognize you are studying a book that was written in different languages. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew, with just a little bit (mostly in Daniel) in a dialect called Aramaic. The New Testament was written in Greek. Both languages use alphabets different from ours, and both have grammatical characteristics quite different from English.
To interpret the Bible as quickly and accurately as possible, you need to learn Hebrew and Greek. But that's not to say that you can't understand God's word unless you learn those languages. With study tools available, you can overcome virtually all the hurdles to understanding everything in the Bible. It isn't necessary to understand the other languages, but it's important to recognize their priority for three reasons:
- Inspiration applies to the original writings of the Bible. We have accurate copies of the originals, and our translations are very reliable, but your translation is still not the inspired original.
- A time gap of 1900 to 2300 years exists between you and the originals. One part of understanding the cultures in which the Bible was revealed is dealing with the languages involved.
- Idioms are expressions unique to a particular language and culture. ("Hot dog" has meanings in our culture which are quite different from "a warm canine.") Part of dealing with Bible languages is understanding idioms which are virtually impossible to translate word-for-word.
Without learning Hebrew and Greek, you can do two very helpful things to cope with the priority of the original languages of the Bible:
Use a good translation for study. The New American Standard Bible and The Legacy Standard are the best current literal translations, and should be your study Bible. The popular New International Version is the best "thought-for-thought" translation. It's good for children and for reading extended passages for an overview, but it's not a good study translation.
Spend some time searching good resources. Commentaries and word study books are God's provision for us to understand His word clearly despite the language barrier.
- Why do I need to study the Bible in a certain way?
- The Bible can be hard to understand.
- Written by 40+ authors over a 1500 year span, by people we don't actually know, to people we also don't know, in a language other than English, and through many different literary styles.
- The Bible needs to be understood.
- These are the words of God and carry all of God's authority.
- When we read the Bible, we should expect to be taught, rebuked, corrected, and trained in righteousness by it (2 Timothy 3:16-17).
- God uses the Bible to make us more like Jesus, so can we be like Jesus without understanding it?
- God's words are perfect and true (Psalm 19).
- The Bible can be misunderstood.
- In order to understand it rightly, I must be a good student of it.
- Many people use the Bible to try to help others without knowing the original intention of the verse they use. Have you done this?
- The Bible can be hard to understand.
How do I apply all 12 articles to my Bible study in a practical way?
Here is an easy-to-understand way to apply the previous 12 articles into your personal Bible study. This is called the "T.A.N. Method."
- BEFORE YOU T.A.N....
- Ask and answer these important questions about the book you're studying:
- WHO: author and audience
- WHAT: summary of what the whole book says and is about
- WHERE: setting
- WHEN: immediate context - fit it into the biblical timeline
- WHY: occasion and purpose for writing it
- Ask and answer these important questions about the book you're studying:
- HOW YOU T.A.N....
- T = THEN
- Write the truth the author was communicating back THEN in your own words.
- This is not just a summary, but an explanation of what was being communicated in the text.
- Use words like He, They, Them, Then.
- A = ALWAYS
- Write the principle (eternal truth) that the text is teaching. Make sure it isn't limited to a particular time or place, and making sure to think of truths about God and His expectations for people.
- Use words like Us, We, Believers, Always.
- N = NOW
- Write what you need to change in your life based on the principle from this passage.
- Be honest and specific.
- Use words like I, Me, My, This Week, Now, Today.
- T = THEN
- AFTER YOU T.A.N....
- Remember: you can only interpret and apply Scripture with the Holy Spirit's help (1 Corinthians 2:12-16), so:
- Pray:
- For God to help you keep T.A.N.-ning with Scripture, and
- For God to help you put into practice your application from the "NOW" section.