“Knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation.”
is of any private interpretation [source]
The word “private” means one’s own. A prophet cannot speak his own message. Scripture does not come from the prophet himself. The Bible did not come from human origin. Scripture is not the human author’s “own thing.” The Bible is reliable because of its source. Scripture is trustworthy because God, as its origin, is reliable.
The word “interpretation” means unloosing, solving, or explaining. Metaphorically, it signifies “interpretation.” The term can mean conveying or uttering a divine proclamation and therefore carries the idea of “produce” or “bring forth.” Scripture does not come from the human author’s explanation of things. It is not a concoction of their own thinking. The genitive case in “interpretation” carries the idea of source. The idea is not the explanation of but the source of Scripture.
The word “is” means to become something that it was not previously. This probably means that the prophets did not originate Scriptural truth. The Holy Spirit creates Scripture, not human authors. He gives the Bible by revelation and inspiration. This passage is not talking about the interpretation of the Bible but the origin of the Bible. God used human authors to write the Bible but did not teach their human ideas.
Human authors of Scripture did not put their spin on the writing of Scriptures. The Bible is not man’s ideas about God.
Jn 5:39, “You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me.”
The word “any” means “no” — not even one. Every single Scripture came from God and not men. No Scripture springs from the self-origination of the human author.
No single passage of Scripture stands by itself. It must be understood in its context. The Bible also needs to be understood in the consensus of Scripture as a whole. We must understand doctrine in light of the norm of general Scripture teaching. We call this “theology.” We cannot take passages we do not like and ignore them. We must include God’s entire body of truth to form a proper theology. This will deliver us from error.
Every passage of Scripture has one interpretation but many applications. If we give the idea that an application is an interpretation, we misrepresent what God says.
PRINCIPLE:
The source of Scripture is God.
APPLICATION:
Our senses and biases deceive us at times. “I thought I saw Sue. It looked like her, but it was a lookalike.” “I thought I heard a burglar, but it was a mouse. I could have sworn that it was someone in the kitchen. I came downstairs with my baseball bat.” Our senses can fool us, but the Word of God does not deceive us if we interpret it in its context.
No single church has the right to possess the exclusive right to interpret the Bible. If a single church had this right, no individual would be responsible for understanding Scripture for himself; he would have to depend on what someone told him. We place ourselves at risk if we blindly accept what a given church teaches.
Each of us must take responsibility to understand the Word for ourselves. Every Christian has the Scripture and the Holy Spirit to help him understand the Bible for himself. The issue is not what your church teaches but what the Word teaches. It is not what your preacher teaches but what the Bible teaches. What does the Bible teach?
