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Course 2 · Lesson 4.2

The limits of private interpretation

11 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 2 outline

Module 1: What Solitude Is and Is Not

  1. Solitude, isolation, and withdrawal from responsibility
  2. A deliberate approach to Christian life
  3. Solitude without superiority

Module 2: The Long Tradition

  1. Anthony and the first hermits
  2. The Desert Mothers and the sayings of the elders
  3. From the desert to the monastery: Pachomius, Basil and Benedict
  4. Hermits and anchorites in the later church

Module 3: The Church and the Solitary Christian

  1. The church as the body of Christ
  2. What Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant Christians say requires a church
  3. Fellowship without a congregation

Module 4: Independence and Its Limits

  1. Reading Scripture for yourself
  2. The limits of private interpretation
  3. Testing teachers and online voices

Module 5: Accountability and Humility

  1. Spiritual pride
  2. Self-deception and confirmation bias
  3. Finding real accountability

Module 6: Building Your Framework

  1. Private devotion and communal life
  2. Drafting your framework
  3. Review and revision

All courses

Program / Course 2: The Solitary Christian in Depth / Lesson 4.2

What you will learn

  • Explain why reading alone can lead a sincere person to wrong conclusions.
  • Summarize the early church’s response, including Irenaeus on the rule of faith and Tertullian on who may use the Scriptures.
  • Describe how Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant Christians each set limits on private interpretation.
  • Apply simple tests to your own interpretation: the creeds, the history of interpretation and the plain sense.

The big idea

Reading the Bible for yourself is good, and it has limits. Sincere readers have reached opposite conclusions from the same text, and some have been led far astray. The early church answered this by pointing to a shared rule of faith that came from the apostles. Catholic and Orthodox Christians place a living church above the individual reader, and Protestants rely on creeds, confessions and the wider body of readers. None of these traditions says the lone reader is worthless. All say the lone reader needs checks.

Key terms

Private interpretation
Understanding a text on your own judgment, apart from the guidance of the church or earlier readers. The phrase comes from 2 Peter 1:20, whose meaning is debated.
Rule of faith
In the early church, a short summary of the core Christian teaching handed down from the apostles, used as a guide to reading Scripture. The ancient creeds grew from it.
Heresy
A belief that contradicts central Christian teaching as a church defines it. Churches differ about what counts as central.
Magisterium
In Catholic teaching, the church’s teaching authority, exercised by the pope and the bishops.
Creed
A short, formal statement of Christian belief, such as the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed.
Tradition
What the church has handed down. Catholic and Orthodox Christians hold that it includes teaching and practice beyond the written text. Protestants vary in how much weight they give it.

Background

A sincere reader can be wrong. The history of the church contains many sincere persons who read Scripture alone and drew conclusions that nearly all other Christians have rejected, such as that the world is evil and was made by a lesser god, or that Christ was only a man, or that the Bible commands the end of marriage or all property. Some of these ideas were held by large movements. The point is not that readers should never form their own views, but that the experience of the church teaches caution.

The Bible itself contains the warning. Peter writes that “no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation” (2 Peter 1:20). Interpreters disagree on whether this refers to how a prophecy is understood or to where it comes from. He also writes that in Paul’s letters “are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction” (2 Peter 3:16). That is a plain statement that Scripture can be misused by readers who lack learning and stability.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: Why a lone reader goes wrong

Several things cause error. One is bringing a conclusion to the text and finding it there. Another is reading a verse apart from its context. Another is missing the culture and language of the original. Another is trusting a single translation. Another is following a clever argument whose error you cannot see. And another is being flattered by a conclusion that makes you special. Proverbs puts it bluntly: “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death” (Proverbs 14:12).

These dangers apply to scholars as well as lay readers. The difference is that a scholar usually works within a community of other scholars who check the work.

Step 2: The early church’s answer

In the second century, Irenaeus of Lyon argued against teachers who claimed secret meanings in Scripture. He taught that the churches founded by the apostles had preserved the same teaching, which he called the rule of truth, and that this teaching was the key to reading Scripture rightly (Against Heresies, Book 3). He compared those who ignore it to someone who takes the pieces of a mosaic of a king and rearranges them into the picture of a fox.

Tertullian, writing around 200, argued in his Prescription Against the Heretics that those who hold the apostolic faith have the right to the Scriptures, and that heretics who do not hold it cannot rightly claim them. Many scholars treat this as an argument about who owns the interpretation. Others note that Tertullian himself later joined a rigorous movement, Montanism, and left the main church. This history reminds readers that appeals to tradition can themselves be contested.

Step 3: How the three traditions set limits

Catholic teaching holds that the interpretation of Scripture is finally subject to the judgment of the church, which exercises the divine commission of guarding and interpreting the word of God. The individual may and should read, but must not set a private reading against the church’s teaching on faith and morals. Orthodox teaching holds that Scripture is rightly read in the mind of the church, as expressed in the councils, the Fathers and the liturgy, and that the church as a whole, not one office, guards the truth.

Protestants set limits differently. The Reformers held that Scripture interprets Scripture, that the creeds of the early councils (the Apostles’, Nicene and Chalcedonian) are faithful summaries, and that confessions and learned teachers guide the believer. Luther and Calvin both wrote against interpreters they considered wild, and Protestants have long argued over how far individual conscience may depart from the community. The Reformers also warned of what Calvin called fanatical persons who claim the Spirit apart from the Word. Most Protestants would say that a lone reading that contradicts the whole history of Christian interpretation, on a central point, is probably wrong.

Step 4: Practical tests

Use a few simple checks on your own conclusions. Does the reading agree with the ancient creeds? Has anyone in the history of the church held it, and who? Do the best scholars of different traditions find it plausible? Does it rest on a single verse? Does it flatter you or free you from a duty? Would you accept the same kind of argument from someone with whom you disagree?

A conclusion that fails several of these tests is not necessarily false, but it deserves caution and a second opinion.

Step 5: Hold conclusions at the right strength

Not all questions are equal. On the central matters, such as who God is and what Christ did, all three traditions have long agreement, and a lone departure should be very rare and humble. On disputed matters, such as church governance, baptism or the end times, traditions differ, and a reader may reasonably hold a view with modest confidence. On questions where Scripture is silent, it is wise to hold views lightly. Sort your beliefs into these three groups, and speak of each with the confidence it deserves.

  1. Which of my beliefs would few Christians in history have shared?
  2. Where did each of my key interpretations come from, and who checked it?
  3. Do any of my readings flatter me or release me from a duty?
  4. Which of my conclusions rests on a single verse?
  5. Which creed do I accept, and do I read Scripture in line with it?
  6. Whom would I be willing to ask to challenge my reading?

Examples

The lone verse

A reader finds one verse that seems to say something no church teaches and builds a doctrine on it. A more careful reader asks what the verse meant in context, whether other texts speak to the same subject and what earlier Christians made of it. (A constructed example.)

The flattering conclusion

A man decides that Scripture requires him to leave his job and family to study. Everyone who objects, he decides, is spiritually blind. This is the pattern that earlier lessons called withdrawal from responsibility, now clothed in exegesis. (A constructed example.)

A hard saying held lightly

A reader meets 1 Peter 3:19-20 on Christ preaching to the spirits in prison. Scholars and traditions differ about it. A wise reader reports what the passage says, notes the main readings and does not build a major doctrine on one understanding.

Different perspectives

Catholic

The Church teaches that the task of authentically interpreting the word of God has been entrusted to the living teaching office of the church (Dei Verbum, 10). Individual study is encouraged inside that framework.

Orthodox

Orthodox writers speak of reading Scripture within the church’s Tradition, the whole life of the church in worship, councils and holy people. The danger of private interpretation is that it can leave out the church’s mind.

Protestant

Protestants teach that Scripture is the supreme authority and also that it must be interpreted well. They rely on the creeds, confessions, learned teachers and the consensus of faithful readers, while insisting that no human body is infallible. Critics from the Catholic and Orthodox sides ask what final check exists when interpreters disagree. Protestant defenders answer that Scripture itself and the Spirit working through the whole church provide it.

Scholarly

Historians of interpretation note that Protestants have divided into many denominations over interpretation, and that Catholic and Orthodox churches also contain debates. Scholars also observe that many interpretations first thought novel were later found to have earlier roots.

Why it matters

A solitary student who never meets objections can grow more confident while growing less accurate. Knowing the limits of private reading does not remove the freedom to read. It places that freedom inside the experience of the church. This lesson gives tools for testing a conclusion before acting on it.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: 2 Peter 1:20 forbids personal Bible reading.

Correction: It does not. Its meaning is debated, but it is not read by any major tradition as banning private reading. Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant churches all encourage it.

Misunderstanding: Tradition always agrees with itself.

Correction: The traditions disagree with one another, and there are debates within each. Appeals to tradition require work to see what is actually shared.

Misunderstanding: A new interpretation is always wrong.

Correction: Some have proved right. The question is how it is tested. A new reading is not wrong because it is new, but it should expect close examination.

Misunderstanding: If a scholar disagrees with me, the scholar is biased.

Correction: Everyone is biased in some way. The solution is to attend to arguments and evidence, not to guess at motives.

Knowledge check

What does Peter warn about in 2 Peter 3:16?

He says that some things in Paul’s letters are hard to understand and that unlearned and unstable people twist them, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction. It is a plain statement that readers can misuse Scripture.

What was Irenaeus’ answer to teachers who claimed secret meanings?

He pointed to the rule of truth handed down in the churches from the apostles, and said Scripture should be read in line with it. He argued that private schemes rearrange its parts into a different picture.

How does the Protestant answer differ from the Catholic one?

Catholics place final interpretive authority in the church’s teaching office. Protestants place it in Scripture itself, read with the aid of creeds, confessions and teachers, while holding that no human body is infallible.

Name two practical tests of a personal interpretation.

Examples: does it agree with the ancient creeds; has anyone in church history held it; does it rest on a single verse; does it flatter me; would I accept the same argument from a person I disagree with. Any two are correct.

Think it through

  1. Which of your beliefs fall in each of the three groups: central, disputed and silent?
  2. When you disagree with a major tradition, how do you decide that you are the one who is right?
  3. What would it take for you to change your mind about an important interpretation?
  4. Who could you ask to be your outside reader?

Independent assignment

Test an interpretation

Choose one conclusion you hold that comes from your own reading of Scripture. In your own notebook, write 350 to 500 words. State it. Run it through the practical tests in Step 4. Say what a Catholic, an Orthodox and a Protestant reader would each say about it. Then say how confident you now are, and why.

Further study