Private Interpretation
2 Peter 1:20-21
“Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.”
The Apostle Peter reminds us in 2 Peter 1:20 that “no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation.”
In this context, prophecy refers to God’s words told forth by those who wrote Scripture. In that sense, all of the Bible is prophetic because it is all God’s word, breathed out by Him. This general principle, which applies to the whole Bible, clearly applies to Genesis, which is the focus of most of our studies in this ministry.
So, when we read in the early chapters of Genesis how God made the world and how He destroyed that first world in a worldwide Flood, we must recognize that the interpretation of these verses is not to be a private matter.
Yet, interpreting Genesis has indeed become a private matter for many Christians who refuse to believe that God’s word means what it says at this point.
So, Genesis tells us that God made the world in six literal 24-hour days. But we don’t like that because our scientific textbooks tell us that the universe is billions of years old. So we impose the billion years on Genesis in a private interpretation.
Genesis tells us that God made plants and animals directly. He made plants two days before the flying insects that can pollinate them. But our high-school textbooks tell us that animals evolved from simpler organisms, so we interpret the Creation Week in a figurative sense – another private interpretation.
It is time for Christians to get back to believing that God meant what He said.
Prayer: Help us, Lord God, to be clearer in teaching people to trust Your word and to believe what it says. Amen.
Ref: < https://www.gotquestions.org/interpreting-Scripture.html >, accessed 11/28/2017.
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