Scripture Is One Thing – Your Interpretation of It Is Another
Language has no meaning without interpretation. Scripture can only say what is interpreted. Content and interpretation are not the same.
Most dedicated Christians consider their beliefs and values to be based on biblical principles. Scripture is read or heard, its meaning is comprehended, and reality is interpreted according to what it says about human beings, God, and the relationships between them. We seek to live our lives according to what can be found in scripture.
As a mental exercise, consider that scripture on the one hand, and a person’s understanding or interpretation of it on the other, are two different things. Keeping these separate—scripture itself, and one’s interpreted understanding of scripture—helps us approach scripture in a more mature and intellectually honest way. Scripture becomes ‘part of us’ as we read, mark, learn, and digest it, but the concepts we develop from studying scripture, that is, how we understand scripture and the stories in it, are distinct from the content of scripture itself. The filter of our human limitations stands between scripture and our understanding.
Most English translations of Second Timothy 3:16 say that scripture is “inspired” by God. Two things need to be set aside before discussing this. First, saying “Scripture is inspired by God because scripture says it is inspired by God” is the epitome of circular logic. Second, the original Greek term θεόπνευστος or theopneustos translated as “inspired by God” literally means “God-breathed.” The long-lived and widely repeated consensus is that “God-breathed” and “inspired” are synonymous. This goes back to the very early Christian scholar Origen of Alexandria (c. 185–c. 253). He seems to be the one who innovated the interpretation of θεόπνευστος as “inspired.” He quotes the verse dozens of times in his writing.
There are two problems with this, both of them related to how words were used at the time. First, Christian writers used entirely different words that referred clearly to inspiration, including the mutually translated Latin inspirat and Greek ἔνθεος, or entheos. Second, everywhere else θεόπνευστος is used in Greek writing, it refers to things as being “life-giving,” including objects that make little sense as being “inspired by God.” A better translation would be, “All scripture is life-giving and useful...”[1]
Setting aside the circular logic of inspiration claims, and also problems with the term “inspired” itself, it is still possible to discuss what is not meant by scripture being “inspired.”
Depending on how it is usually translated from Greek into English, Second Timothy 3:16 refers to all scripture as being inspired by God and being useful; or, to every scripture inspired by God as also being useful, for teaching, reproof, correction, and training. Either way, the main points are the inspiration of scripture by God and its usefulness. In addressing this verse, there is no intent to debate or explain the inspiration of scripture by God. The focus here is on what happens to scripture once it is in our own hands, minds, hearts, and mouths.
Note in Second Timothy 3:16 that scripture is inspired by God, not dictated by God. It has human authors, editors, and compilers, very many of them, from many times and places. Scripture was inspired by God and written by human beings. Their writing, editing, and compiling were shaped in part by what they knew and understood, and by the contexts in which their particular interests were formed and expressed. Then as now, God is served by people as they are. The Bible also has human readers and hearers. More on that, below.
We understand God as somehow perfect. To consider scripture as perfect in the same way is to make an idol of it. The Bible can be considered ‘perfect’ in the sense of containing all that is necessary for the spiritual journey, or of being highly suitable, but not in the sense of being a paragon of absolute perfection. Scripture is useful for certain applications, but not perfect in the way God is perfect. Inspired and useful, as the verse says, not dictated, or absolutely perfect.
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Language as Code for Thought
Our only access to meaning in scripture is through the stuff it is made of. That stuff is language. We learn from the beginning of life how to express thoughts, and to be informed of the thoughts of others, through language. Linguists have spent much time arguing about how much language is an outgrowth of learning to think, and how much thinking is shaped by language as we absorb and learn it.
Setting aside the chicken-and-egg question of thinking and language, it does seem clear that there is a connection between thinking and expressing thoughts verbally, one that is very complex. Whichever comes first, it is also clear that language is a code for mental concepts and thought processes.
One person has a thought or word. Connections between Broca’s area in their brain and their vocal system allow them to put that thought or word into a kind of code made of uttered sounds. Another person who knows the code uses their hearing system and connections between the auditory cortex and regions in the frontal lobe to turn those sounds back into a thought or word in their own mind, one more or less consistent with that held by the first person, depending on what might have gotten in the way or otherwise altered it.
That is a basic scheme for verbal communication. One person has a thought. They encode it as a series of sounds. Another person hears the sounds and decodes them back into a thought.
And what about writing? Writing is the graphic, visual representation of the sounds of speech. For the communication of thoughts or words, writing is a graphic code for the sonic code of speech. A code for the code.
What warrants focus for the interpretation of scripture is the point at which someone turns the codes of language back into meaningful concepts, thoughts, or words in their own mind. There is a term for this conversion of language—written or spoken—into meaning in one’s own mind. That term is interpretation.
Without interpretation, no communication takes place. No sounds or symbols are turned back into thoughts. The potential link between the mind of one person and the mind of another is broken. Without interpretation, language cannot convey meaning. Translation on the fly from one language to another—also called interpretation—is a necessary additional step in the process when those involved do not share the same language code, but a listener still has to interpret the code they know into meaningful thought.
When we read or hear scripture, we must convert its linguistic codes into meaning within our own minds. We must interpret it for it to have any meaning. Speech or writing of any kind—including scripture—conveys no meaning without its being interpreted, that is, being converted from code into meaning by the human mind of the listener or reader. Not only is all scripture inspired by God; but also, if it is to have any meaning for anyone, all scripture is interpreted by human beings.
Filtered Through Imperfection
The necessary interpretation of scripture by human minds presents us with a problem: Interpretation of scripture as a vehicle of truth must be filtered through our own human interests, limitations, imperfections, and fallibility. These include what we are conscious of and can name, but also (and perhaps more importantly) those aspects of ourselves put away in the shadow of the unconscious mind, unknowingly motivating thought, speech, and behavior, and often so clearly seen by others. Our ‘filters’ also include the absorbed templates of culture that shape our thinking, speaking, and actions. As a final complication, language and human thought are both imprecise, full of branching associations and related possibilities of meaning.
Because interpretation by our minds is necessary, when anyone says scripture is infallible, what they are necessarily saying is that a particular human interpretation of scripture (typically theirs, or that of their group) is infallible. Often such interpretation comes without awareness of the ways individual characteristics and felt needs, and a group’s material, social, and cultural circumstances and interests filter and shape the understanding of scripture, causing it to be retrofitted through interpretation to those particular circumstances, interests, and assumptions about what is true and real.
Scripture is inspired and useful, not dictated or absolutely perfect. It is made of language, which is a code for mental concepts. For scripture to have meaning, we must interpret it—convert its linguistic code into thoughts or concepts in our minds.
That conversion is filtered through our human limitations and imperfections, and shaped by our social, cultural, material, and internal circumstances. Neither the renewing of our mind through spiritual practice, nor the guidance of the Spirit can remove our natural limitations, imperfections, and circumstances; they exist together. As a result, we must approach the interpretation of scripture carefully and thoughtfully.
The Bible is not a sword with which to cut others to the quick, convict them of their error, or show them the correct viewpoint, neither is it a weapon of sociocultural supremacy. For more on that see my post Why Should We NOT Think of the Bible as a Powerful Sword?
Discerning the difference between the content of scripture and our interpretation of it requires developmental, spiritual, and intellectual maturity, as well as courage and humility. The childlike simplicity of faith notwithstanding,[2] we are called to intellectual and spiritual maturity.[3] If we are to “accurately handle the word of truth,”[4] we need to exercise the maturity to grasp what we read at a level of resolution fine enough to discern what is actually there, distinguished from what might be added from other aspects of our enculturation, from our wishful thinking, or through the lens of immature modes of thought.
As in every age, we are called to the difficult work of interpreting scripture for our own time so we can rightly discern what scripture is, and is not saying. As per Second Timothy 2:15, we must be diligent workers, unashamed because we are accurately handling the words of scripture, teaching, and proclamation.
[1] See, McClellan, Dan. The Bible Says So. St. Martin’s, 2025. Ch. 2.
[2] Mk. 10:15, Lk. 18:17, Mt. 18:3
[3] 1 Pet. 2:2, 1 Cor. 3:1-2, 1 Cor. 13:11, and especially Heb. 5:12-14.
[4] 2 Tim. 2:15