Quote:
Originally Posted by Barnpreacher  In Survey of the Bible, Hendrikson states: Quote: |
The question remains: Is the believer who has not enjoyed a theological training able to interpret the Bible? Our answer is, "Yes, to a considerable extent." He, too, is able to grasp the general sense of Scripture and the thrust of most of its chapters. He reads the word of God with much profit for his own soul. It is written in clear and understandable language. It has a message for all men. The way of salvation, revealed in Scripture, is presented in such a lucid manner that those who reject it will be without an excuse. All this, however, does not mean that anyone without specialized training is able to interpret difficult passages of Scripture. Even in the interpretation of the simplest passage, all other things being equal, the person conversant with the original languages and an expert in such sciences as hermeneutics, textual criticism, exegeis, and isagogics has an advantage over others. But the untrained Bible student can acquire a little of the skill of the expert...If he is a man gifted with a logical mind, endowed with a spirit of true humility so that he is willing to learn from others; above all, if his heart is filled with genuine love for the Lord whose glories are revealed in his word, he can accomplish much.
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I must respectfully say I disagree with Hendrikson, at least so far as his comments have to do with the necessity for Christians to learn the original languages in order to understand their bibles.
I would disagree strongly with the idea that a believer without theological training is only able to interpret the bible ‘to a considerable extent’ or only understand the ‘general sense’ of Scripture or only understand ‘the thrust’ of what the bible is saying.
In Acts 17 we see that the Bereans were called noble for searching the scriptures to see if what Paul was teaching them was true.
Acts 17:10-11 And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews. These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.
I do not deny in the slightest that we need God’s ordained teachers to help us understand our bibles. But what this passage from Acts tells me is that the biblical way of teaching is that the hearers can check back with their scriptures to see if what the teacher is teaching is sound. When a preacher starts to tell his hearers that this passage actually means XYZ because of ABC in the original languages, there is no way his hearers can check on what he is saying. And even if the pastor is teaching something true, in the end the listeners are trusting what he is telling them about the original languages, not what the bible says.
So a laymen believer does need ordained teachers to help him understand the scriptures, but such teaching does not, and to my knowledge never did in the bible, involve teaching about original languages – even in the New Testament, where there could have been confusion about the original language of the Old Testament scriptures.
The bible does say that understanding the scriptures requires diligent study. But it is a mistake, in my opinion, to assume that ‘study’ is the sort of academic study that many Christians today are told they need.