There are two different ways of reading scripture, and both are important and mutually enriching. The first way is in-depth Bible Study, what scholars call exegesis. This way of reading seeks to understand the Bible in its original historical and cultural context. It asks questions like: Who is the author of this book? Who was the intended audience? When was it written, and what was going on culturally, politically, and socially? What is the genre of this passage of scripture, and what was the purpose of the writing? After considering these kinds of questions, theologians go on to ask, “What might this passage mean for the church today?” What is the divine message that needs to be preserved and applied in Christian faith and practice.

The second way of reading the Bible is devotionally or meditatively. Instead of focusing on what the Bible meant in its historical-cultural context, you read as a way of listening for God’s message directly to you. Instead of taking the words apart for detailed analysis, you bring them together in your innermost being, letting them penetrate the most hidden corners of your heart. Prayerfully reading scripture will allow you to hear the still small voice of God so that you can discern God’s next step for your life. This might come as a word of inspiration, healing, and comfort, or a word of conviction, correction, or judgment. It all depends on where you are and what you need to heal and grow. When reading the Bible this way, I recommend the ancient practice of lectio divina.

In what follows, I focus on the first way of reading, in depth Bible study.

Whenever we raise the question, “How do we interpret scripture,” we point to a need for wisdom. In contrast to bare intelligence, wisdom reflects on a wide range of experiences and then integrates the insights that emerge into an overall way of life that helps us navigate the challenges of human existence and deepens our sense of meaning, value, and purpose. The experiences on which we reflect include but are not limited to our own. Wisdom knows the value of listening to the experiences and insights of others, especially those who have proven to be wise themselves. Understood in this way, increasing in wisdom is a lifelong endeavor that requires us to join an open, ongoing, multigeneration conversation with many other people, both past and present, who are held together in community by a shared desire to live wisely. 

If good interpretation of the Bible requires growth in wisdom, then we should not expect to become skilled interpreters by simply taking a class or reading a book. While these kinds of learning experiences can be helpful, good interpretation will require much more from you. Subsequently, the purpose of this article is not to answer all conceivable questions about biblical interpretation, or to magically make you an expert interpreter. Rather, my goal is threefold: (1) to begin casting a vision for interpretation that is faithful, fruitful, and wise; (2) to share some guiding principles for good interpretation; and (3) to offer reliable resources that will encourage you to keep learning and growing.

As I work toward this goal, I am going to complicate things, because one of the defining marks of bad interpretation is oversimplification, which we can see in the naïve statement, “God said it, I believe it, and that settles it.” We must always remember that there are no easy answers in the back of the book. So, while you may be reading this article in hopes of getting answers that will make interpretation easier, what you will find is that the answers you receive will lead to more (and hopefully better) questions, questions that will draw you forward on this lifelong pursuit of wisdom. This is one reason why the church is so important as an interpretive community, because as we learn to interpret well over the course of a lifetime, we need wise guides and teachers to fill the gaps in our knowledge and to lead us forward. Good interpretation always happens through open conversation in faithful communities with wise leaders, and this should be an important consideration when you are looking for a church.

Now to the specific question at hand: How do we faithfully and fruitfully interpret the Bible?

First, I highly recommend a good introduction to the Bible. Most people bring all kinds of unquestioned assumptions to the Bible before they ever start reading, and it’s important to examine these assumptions under the light of modern scholarship. A good introduction will ask a series of questions like: What is the Bible? How did it come to be? Who put it together and why? Is it a single book or a library of books? Does it contain more than one type of writing, and if so, what are the best practices for interpreting the different genres? Who wrote the various books of the Bible and why? Does it have an overarching message, and if so, what is it? Is it inspired? If we say yes, what does that mean? How do we distinguish between the humanity of the Bible and divine message that is mediated through that humanity? How does God speak to us through scripture? What’s the role of interpretation?

Whether you realize it or not, your answers (or lack of answers) to these kinds of questions influence how you interpret scripture. In other words, what you already think about the Bible will influence how you interpret the Bible. A good introduction will help you critically reflect on your assumptions and gain some foundational knowledge. One excellent resource is Adam Hamilton’s, Making Sense of the Bible (HarperOne 2014).

Once you gain some foundational knowledge about the Bible, then you can draw on other helpful tools to start reading and interpreting. As you begin, it’s critical that you get a good study Bible. There are two important things to consider when making your selection. First, you need to get a good translation. I recommend either the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) or the New International Version (NIV). Second, make sure that the study Bible has introductions, notes, commentaries, and other helps that are informed by current scholarship in biblical studies. You do not want to get a Bible that uncritically parrots tradition and ignores the last fifty years of scholarly research. Although there are many good Bibles to choose from, my personal recommendation is The New Interpreters Study Bible (Nashville: Abingdon 2003). The Bible that you chose is important because not all study Bibles are equal, and if you purchase one that ignores contemporary scholarship then your learning will be fraught with misinformation.

As you get more serious about Bible study and run into more difficult passages, you can also consult a scholarly commentary that gives more detailed explanations of specific passages. As is the case with a good study Bible, it’s important to select commentaries written by genuine experts in the field. There are several reputable collections, including the New Interpreter’s Bible commentary. The best person to help you distinguish between good and bad commentaries is a pastor or teacher that has been trained at a reputable seminary or divinity school. Remember, that different denominations have different educational requirements to be a pastor, and not all pastors get a Master of Divinity. Some pastors don’t even have an undergraduate degree in religious studies, so be careful to whom you go for help.

Now that you have some important background information about the Bible, as well as a good study Bible, you are in a position to start asking important questions that will help you start to faithfully and fruitfully interpret the Bible within your community of faith. And the first set of questions are aimed at answering, what did this passage mean to its original audience? This is the big question that is answered by asking many other smaller questions. Again, drawing on the best of modern scholarship with the guidance of a well-trained teacher, we ask questions like: Who was the author or authors of this text? What’s the approximate date of the writing? What was going on historically, socially, and politically at this time? What was going on in the religious community to which the passage was written? Why did the author write this book or passage? What was the purpose? What type of writing is it? Is it a letter, a hymn, a wisdom saying, a prophecy, or a gospel? How does this passage fit into the whole book of the Bible under consideration, and how does the book fit into the overarching message of the whole Bible? What parts of this passage uncritically reflect the culture of the time and which parts reveal something timeless about the character and purposes of God, the human condition, and how we can be saved?

This last question is important and signals a shift in interpretation toward discerning what the passage might mean for us today. The way we make this distinction as Christians is by interpreting the passage in the light of God’s revelation in Jesus. We read in John 1:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God . . . . The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 1:1-2, 14

Jesus is also recorded as saying, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). So, when we talk about the Word of God, we are not referring to the Bible but Jesus. Jesus Christ is the true Word of God, and the only reason Christians refer to the Bible as the word of God is because it gives us access to God’s revelation in Jesus. For Christians, Jesus was God the Son incarnate, the second person of the Trinity. In him, God doesn’t just send us another prophet or teacher, but God comes to us in the flesh so that our soul may know it’s savior. In the language of the historical creeds, Jesus was fully human and fully divine. Therefore, Jesus shows us the truth nature of God and how God is at work in human history to save us. Jesus also reveals what it looks like to be fully human, to be the kind of person God created us to be.

In giving us the greatest commandment, Jesus tells us what his entire life and message is about, thereby revealing the heart of God:

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”’

Matthew 22:37-40

This is the heart of Jesus’ teaching, and everything else that he is recorded as saying in the New Testament attempts to explain what this means and looks like in real life. As we develop a personal relationship with Christ through prayer, meditation on scripture, worship, serving the poor, and other spiritual disciplines, we learn his way of life and are transformed into his image. The closer we get to him and the more we mature in our faith, the better we interpret his message.      

All of this leads to an important principle for Christians when interpreting scripture: 

Anything we read in the Bible that contradicts the God we see revealed in Jesus—anything that violates the greatest commandment, the law of love—is part of the humanity of the Bible.

Rather than being part of the divine message, it’s an uncritical reflection of ancient culture that is no longer binding.  

A good example of this is found in all the references to slavery in the Bible. A literal reading can lead one to believe that slavery was part of God’s social order, especially since some of these passages claim to be God’s rules for regulating slavery and even beating slaves. But this is not consistent with the God we see revealed in Jesus, and it is in direct contradiction to the law of love. So, we say that these references to slavery are not part of the enduring divine message of the Bible but an uncritical reflection of ancient culture in which slavery was widely accepted and practiced. We say the same about passages that portray women as inferior to men. And some even say that same about the handful of references in the Bible that condemn homosexual practice. Regardless, the interpretive principle is clear: we read the Bible backwards and forwards in the light of God’s revelation in Jesus, and if we read something that contradicts what we see in Jesus, if we read something that violates the law of love, we let it go as part of the humanity of the authors.

In summary, as we read passages of the Bible in their historical context with the help of scholars and wise teachers, we start to understand what they may have meant to their original audience. Then, we shift gears and start asking what they could mean for us today. The first move in this shift is to distinguish between what parts of the Bible are reflections of ancient culture and what parts mediate the divine message that we need to interpret and apply today. What reveals God’s heart? God’s character and purposes? God’s ways of working in the world to heal and save us? What are the values of the Kingdom of God, and how can these be preserved and applied to daily life? What does love require in this specific situation?

These are the kinds of questions we ask when trying to discern what a passage might mean for us today. These are kinds of questions that keep the multigenerational conversation about the meaning of the Bible going, a conversation with faithful Christians in the past and the present. In other words, when we are trying to interpret the Bible, we take tradition seriously.  

We also take reason seriously. The greatest commandment includes the command to love God with our minds. As Christians, we believe that God is the author of all truth, no matter where we find it. It doesn’t matter if the truth comes to us in religion, history, science, psychology, sociology, philosophy, poetry, music, or art. If it’s true, it comes from God. And this means that when we try to answer the questions related to what a passage might mean today, we interpret it in the light of what we know to be true in these different disciplines. For example, we don’t pit science and religion against each other. Rather we see them as different disciplines articulating truth in different ways, ways that are not oppositional but complementary.

Finally, we take our own experience seriously too. Does this interpretation match what I’ve come to believe is true in my own experience? For example, racist groups have taken certain passages of scripture out of context and interpreted them to justify their belief that people of color are inferior. Now imagine if you grew up in a family that embraced some or all this ideology, but when you moved away to college you became best friends with someone who was African American. As you reflect on this experience of friendship it might call the racist interpretations into question and cause you to explore alternatives that are more consistent with your own experience. This is part of good interpretation.     

We can put all this together by using the metaphor of a telescope.¹ When we read the Bible, we are trying to see God through its stories, and God has given us a tool to help us in this endeavor, an interpretive telescope so to speak. Remember that telescopes are made up of multiple lenses that allow us to see things far away. Reason and experience taken together form the lens closest to us. It’s made up of our own mind, our experience of the world, and all that we have learned about the world through various areas of study. Everything we interpret is filtered through reason and experience. The next lens is the wisdom of our ancestors and the way they interpreted Scripture and lived out its teachings. This is the great, multigenerational conversation through which we have access to the wisdom of the ages that is distilled, preserved, and handed on to us as Christian tradition. The third lens is our examination of the Bible in its historical, social, political, and cultural context. The final lens is God’s revelation in Jesus as recorded in the Gospels and succinctly captured in the greatest commandment, the law of love. While we believe that all scripture was somehow inspired by God, we believe that Jesus is God’s self-revelation. So, the passages that give us access to Jesus become the standard by which we interpret and understand everything else in the Bible.

Again, we do all of this in the community of faith, and when we start interpreting, we take a leap of faith knowing that sometimes we get it right and sometimes we get it wrong. And the way that we make this distinction is by checking the fruit.

A really good question to ask yourself is, what does this interpretation DO to me? Does it make me more like Jesus? Does it make me more loving, compassionate, humble, just, forgiving, grateful, flexible, generous, joyful, and content. Or does it make me more hateful, cruel, prideful, unjust, judgmental, entitled, rigid, stingy, grumpy, and discontent? Does it result in unity, inclusion, reconciliation, cooperation, and friendship, or does it lead to division, exclusion, alienation, competition, and tribalism? Jesus said:

Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.

Matthew 17:15-20

So, check the fruit and compare it to what the Bible calls good fruit, the fruit of the spirit.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. 

Galatians 5:22-23

If your interpretation of the Bible makes you more like Jesus and produces the fruit of the spirit, then you are probably thinking in the right direction. If not, you are probably thinking in the wrong direction.

The final (and perhaps most important) point is that none of this matters unless the whole process of interpretation is illuminated and guided by the power of the Holy Spirit. We interpret scripture to know God and to be transformed into the image of Christ, and the Holy Spirit is the one that moves through our reading to make this possible. Without the Spirit, we are just reading interesting texts.

For a recent sermon on this topic, see “God Said It, I Believe It, and That Settles It!” on my YouTube channel and podcast (search “Pastor Mark Reynolds” on your preferred app).

1. See the excellent article in Earth & Alar written by Jordan Haynie Ware, “What Is the Bible?“