If
Questions Lead to Interpretation, Why Ask Any?
“.
. . no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.” 2 Peter
1:20. “One Lord, one faith, one baptism one God and Father of all, who is above
all, and through all, and in you all.” Ephesians 4:5-6. These verses sum up the
oneness available through Jesus. The true
understanding of any passage will be in harmony with other growing Christians.
If
it is dangerous to ask questions because it leads to wrong understanding, then
is it also dangerous to not know how to deal with questions when they arise?
Not dealing with questions is like shoving dirt under the rug. They do not go
away; they just get bigger until you stumble over them.
Ephesians
6:10-18 makes the battle and equipment clear, but omits comments on practice or
learning to use the equipment. That practice is why group Bible studies have so
much potential. If the teacher asks the right questions, those questions can be
used by the student to sniff our areas need settled in his mind.
Bible
study which regularly uses questions have the following advantages:
1. Learn to know Bible better by researching
basis of position
2. Other
Christians’ help
a. Cite
missed passages or other respected authors.
b. Point
out definition or implications from semantics
c. Better
understanding of each person
d. Will
not be pulled farther off track in non-Christian setting
3. If questions are clearly settled, it will not
keep re-surfacing.
4. Questions
imply importance of individual’s opinion, which may remain hidden and
unsettled.
5. Questions
reinforce points by actually going through thought processes rather than just
storing in memory.
Questions are hard to
completely answer at the one person level. To answer correctly, you need a) to
personally search scripture, b) pray for Spirit’s guidance, c) hear fellow
Christians’ understanding. If any of those elements are missing, so will some
of your confidence in the final answer.
