These are serious matters!

Kindly take the brief time it takes to read this short article.

Many religious institutions, denominations, churches, and individuals are mistaken when they:

(10) Approach Scripture deductively with their closed system of belief, rather than inductively to learn its truth.

10A. PRELIMINARY MATTERS: CORRECTLY READING AND INTERPRETING 2 PETER 1:20

2Pe 1:20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. (KJV)

It has long been my observation that those who accuse others of being guilty of “private interpretation” of the Bible are often themselves guilty of that very charge.

This text in Scripture does not address what the readers of the Bible do when they seek to understand and interpret what they read, but what the writers did when they were directed by the Holy Spirit what to write. Anyone who would suggest otherwise is simply not reading very well.

This is what the text says. This is what the text means. To suggest otherwise is clearly error, falsehood, or heresy. The writers did not write their own opinion when they wrote “the more sure word of prophecy” (2Pe 1:19) but wrote what God by divine inspiration moved them to write (2Pe 1:21).

2Pe 1:19 We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts: (KJV)

2Pe 1:21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. (KJV)

Any denomination, church, or religious organization that uses this 2 Peter 1:20 text to forbid so-called “private interpretation” by individual Bible readers does not know how to read Scripture in context and must surely not be trusted as to any claim it makes of teaching authority or any claim to be the “one true church.”

Therefore, this text of Scripture must not be forced into service to deny the right, privilege, and duty of every reader of Scripture to study it for themselves to learn the way of life and salvation that it presents.

“Private” is better translated “its own,” so that we then read “no Scripture is of its own interpretation.” The meaning is that every statement in Scripture must be understood in the light of what the rest of Scripture teaches which bears upon the same theme. Of absolute importance to the correct interpretation of Scripture is to make a full and proper comparison of all related passages and develop from them an interpretation which accounts for and agrees with the whole.

Only after this has been carefully done is it possible to be sure an interpretation is correct.