So many people are afraid to say that the bible is open to interpretations, I believe it is. It also seems clear to me that there is only one ‘right’ interpretation, but equally clear, that no one has that one interpretation in its entirety. I might be right about one point, but just as wrong about another point.
To me, I believe the bible makes it clear that it’s not about being perfect, it’s about learning, and growing from each other, changing and maturing to be more like Christ would ask us to be (The law and the prophets are summed up in two things, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and Soul, and Love your neighbor as yourself). Lewis, in his book “Mere Christianity” makes the statement that if there are those that have chosen a different ‘denomination’ then you, and you believe they are wrong, then you are to pray for them, and love them, for even our enemy we are told to pray and love all the more!
With all that being said though, I think it’s important to have a set of rules for interpreting it, a correct Hermeneutics as it’s called. If we don’t agree on the rules for interpreting English, how then can we agree on what an English passage says – the same with the bible, unless there is a scholarly agreement on how to interpret the bible, then how can we know for sure, what the passage says, either in the context of when it was written, or in the context of today’s day and age.
And I disagree with some who say that the rules for biblical interpretation are “How it sounds to me”. I think the Spirit’s working is definitely part of it – but God never worked in one individual. Even Christ found himself a party of believers to surround himself with and preach the word. Christ says “Where two or more gather in my name, there I will be”. When Paul talks about the gifts of the Spirit he makes it plain that the gifts were spread out to many believers, so that together, they may work together to display and proclaim the word of God and encourage each other for more noble things.
I think the solo scriptura view is false [That is much different than the Reformed view of Sola Scriptura] (that is, solo scriptura is the view that the bible is the only authority (me the bible and God), solA scriptura is the view that the bible holds the final authority, but that God has revealed himself in many different fashions throughout all of history) – God gave us history, he gave us great thinkers, he gave us revelation about himself spread throughout history, more than just in the bible (Romans said what may be known about God is plain, because God has made it plain).
C.S. Lewis calls it, in his book “Mere Christianity” – “Good Dreams”, that God throughout history has spread himself and the knowledge of himself throughout the entire world, so that those who seek him will find him, although he is not far from them. In Athens on Mars Hill, Paul says, that they are serving the idea of God, but they do not even know the real God, that the Greeks call him Zeus (His reference to the poets citing “In him we move and breath and have our being” is a reference to a poem written to Zeus), but he says that he will declare to them the real God that they are speaking of.
God clearly wants us to rely on his Spirit not just in the here and now (which is another false pretence that many Christians think that our generation is better, smarter and more informed than previous generations) – but he wants us to rely on his workings throughout history. To read, and learn, and understand the decisions and disagreements throughout history, and use them to help build and understand what it is that God wants us to learn.
One thing that Lewis said is that belief is Jesus’ death and resurrection is the pivotal thing of Christianity. That understanding Christianity (more specifically Jesus’ death), is like understanding Vitamins and minerals when we eat. We ate before we understood vitamins and minerals, we eat even now with our understanding of Vitamins and minerals, and if someday we find that our whole view of vitamins and minerals was wrong – we will continue to eat. We can still be nourished by the vitamins and minerals in our food, without understanding exactly how it nourishes us. We can be saved as Christians, without understanding the in-depth technical details of what actually happened when Christ died and was resurrected.
I think this vitamin view can be applied to so many other things in Christianity. True, we don’t intentionally disregard God’s word, if we don’t like it, or want to do something different, but there is no reason that we should fear that if we get something wrong, because we couldn’t understand it that he is going to condemn us to an eternity in hell.
I’m finishing up a book right now, a book by C.S. Lewis called “Mere Christianity” – I would HIGHLY recommend getting a copy and reading it. Lewis was not a theologian, and he speaks in such plain terms about what “mere Christianity” is, apart from all the things that people have tried to make it into. It’s AMAZING!