Every student of the Bible needs some important tools to get the gold in the Scriptures. If you read your Bible and without these tools, you may not easily get the gold in the scriptures.
Do you know that there are time tested principles that have been put together to help you understand the Bible better? The study of these guidelines and principles that help you understand the Bible is called Biblical Hermeneutics. Do you apply them in your study of the Bible? (Click here to read a post on “How to study your Bible with better results”)
Every Scripture contains a treasure. Don’t read through the Scripture without getting the treasure!
UNVEILING THE SCRIPTURES
The understanding of Hermeneutics is key because it will help you avoid unnecessary waste of time and energy while studying the Bible. Moreover, it will increase your productivity and efficiency in the knowledge of Scripture.
The current rules of Biblical Hermeneutics are based on several years of study by Bible scholars. You can leverage this to make your study of the Bible more fruitful and rewarding.
In this series, we will consider the various perspectives of Biblical Hermeneutics and every necessary principle you need to uphold to give you the best experience possible in studying your Bible. Let’s get going!
Perspectives of Bible Hermeneutics
Is the Bible a human book or a divine book? If you say the Bible is Human, you’re not wrong. You may also say the Bible is a divine book, you’re correct too. Why?
The Bible is a book from God to men, through men. Even though God inspired the content of the Bible, men had to download this inspiration and write it down to make it available to us all.
The Bible is a divine book and a human book also. This model follows after Jesus the Living word himself, who was fully divine and human at the same time on his stay on earth.
If you ask me, I’ll say the Bible was co-authored. It was written by the inspiration of God, through the hands of men. If God were to write acknowledgements for the Bible, he would most likely mention names like Paul, Moses, John, David and so on, recognizing them for their contribution in penning down the scriptures.
This being the case, all Bible readers should not only consider the God-perspective to understand the Bible but also the human perspective from which it was written. This presents us two important perspectives to understanding the Scriptures- The divine perspective and the Human perspective.
We will consider these two perspectives as we journey along in Bible Hermeneutics.
The Divine Perspective of Biblical Interpretation
This perspective involves God and his contributions to the writing of the Bible. To understand the Bible, you must know the God of the Bible and his primary purpose for inspiring each writer with a portion of Scripture.
This is why it is so important to have a personal relationship with Jesus as a student of the Bible. Turning to God and surrendering to him automatically lifts the veil that prevents you from understanding the Word of God. (2 Corinthians 3:16)
As believers today, God gave us the Holy Spirit to help us understand the God-perspective of the Scriptures. If you’re reading the Bible without the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, you will have a hard time getting God’s direct message from the scriptures hand-written by different men.
The Scriptures were given by inspiration and they can only be understood by the inspiration of God who inspired men of old to write the scriptures.
If all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, it can only be understood by inspiration of God. (2 Timothy 3:16)
UNVEILING THE SCRIPTURES
The primary agent that can help you to understand the Bible is the Holy Spirit. When you read the Bible, always do it in partnership with him. Don’t allow theology, and any other rule of Biblical Hermeneutics to take the place of the Holy Spirit in your study.
Be open to receiving from him always. It is best to always say a word of prayer before you study the Bible to give room for God to inspire you through the Holy Spirit.
Jesus said the Holy Spirit would guide us into all truth (John 16:13). If you allow him, he will hold your hand and reveal the truth of the Scripture to you.
On this note, I present to you the first and the most important rule of Biblical Interpretation: Allow the Holy Spirit to guide you into the truth of the Scriptures.
In the second part of this series, we will begin with the Human perspective of Biblical Interpretation and how to approach it to aid our understanding of the Bible. If you have any questions or comments as we run this series, feel free to use the comment section or send us a mail at unveilingthescriptures@gmail.com. Till then, keep studying your Bible profitably.
Blessings!
Erioluwa Oluwadiran
Hello there! My name is Erioluwa. I love God and I love people too. I am the founder of this blog and I am extremely glad to have you here. I’m a believer who is very passionate about the body of Christ and her well-being. I love to teach God’s word to help people grow in the knowledge of God’s word. In order to do this more productively, I will be releasing edifying posts and teachings on this platform. I am assured that every post will strengthen your roots in God and help you grow even faster. I desire to offer myself in service to you and I’ll be glad to hear feedback on your questions, comments and testimonies. Loads of love to you! Shalom!