Given so many perspectives, what is the right one? How do we begin our search for meaning in the Bible? To answer this question, we look first to the Bible itself for instruction. And what do we find? Precious little. There is actually nothing in the Bible that clearly and unquestionably specifies exactly how Scripture should be read and interpreted.
With no specific guidance in the Bible concerning how it should be understood, people throughout the ages have taken a number of approaches.
There is the logical approach of Western thought, highly acclaimed by the Greeks and the Romans. This seems reasonable to many, but it has recently been pointed out that the books of both the Old and New Testament were inspired and written for an audience with a different understanding and approach to reality, and a different way of reading Scripture.
The inspired approach highlights the value of the Holy Spirit or personal revelation (eg. “God spoke to me…”) in helping us understand Scripture. This phenomenon may have some value for the individual, but it lacks any means of external verification, and can easily be diluted or distorted by our personal desires and imaginations.
Closely linked to both of these is the approach that falls back on tradition, the understanding of Scripture that has been passed down to us from our parents or teachers, or what we may have picked up in Sunday School or through outside reading. Rather than working through the deeper questions ourselves, it is often much easier to simply accept the commentaries of others, typically scholars who have taken the logical approach, or possibly charismatic speakers and writers who lean more towards the inspired approach.
One approach that a number of academics and lay people alike have agreed upon is that to understand the Bible we must understand the original intent of the authors. Given that they were inspired by God, we can ask ourselves, how did God inspire them to write what they did? It has been suggested that whatever we can learn about the culture, beliefs, and mindset of the Jewish people at the time the Bible was written, and specifically about the kinds of people who wrote the Scriptures, might be helpful in our quest for meaning.
Valuable as these approaches may be, none of them are clearly spelled out in the Bible as the correct way to understand Scripture. In the final analysis we must agree that only Christ has the authority to correctly interpret the Bible. Upon His return, should we not look to Him to guide us?