Daily Bible Nugget #152, 2 Peter 1:19-21

The Nugget:

2 Peter 1:19 We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:
2 Peter 1:20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.
2 Peter 1:21 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.

My Comment:

The Scriptures record divine prophecies. No other humanly-written book in the world contains genuine, detailed, unambiguous predictive prophecies which have been exactly fulfilled over time, but the Bible does. Peter declares that in the Bible we have a more sure word of prophecy. More sure than what? More sure than personal, eyewitness testimony, for Peter has just testified to having seen and heard the power and coming of Jesus Christ. Then Peter instructs us that the prophecy found written in Scripture is not of purely human origin, based upon any man’s or any men’s own opinions and ideas. Rather, holy men of God spoke and ultimately wrote what is now conveyed to us through their writings in the Bible, inspired and directed by the Holy Ghost, or Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Trinity.

Many stumble over the expression “private interpretation.” There are some churches and perhaps many individuals who themselves “privately interpret” this very passage in a way to make it say what they want it to say. Some such churches and individuals want to claim that only they have the authority to interpret the Bible. According to them, any individual who interprets the Bible is committing the sin of “private interpretation.”

This, of course, is nonsense. You cannot read so much as one sentence without interpreting it. How else can you understand what you read? As you read, you always automatically determine whether what you read is to be understood literally or figuratively. As you read, you always fit what you read into the total background of your own experience. You may learn something new. That adds to your personal fund of knowledge and experience. You cannot engage in reading something with any degree of understanding without doing these things. But that is not at all what Peter is talking about here.

Peter is not talking about what we all do as readers when we read the Bible. Peter is talking about what the writers of the Bible did when they wrote it. The writers did not base what they wrote upon their own opinion. They wrote what God told them to write. They wrote as they were directed by the Holy Spirit.

The underlying Greek text for the translated English expression “private interpretation,” which is a rather bad, actually misleading translation, actually means “is not of one’s own interpretation,” or “is not of its own interpretation.” Both meanings are possible. The first is the most likely intended meaning: Peter declares that the Bible writers did not merely express their own opinions as they wrote. The second option is equally true, taking “is not of its own interpretation” to mean no single statement of Scripture is to be taken just by itself, but is to be considered in the context of what the rest of the Bible reveals about the same theme. Of course, the best way to do that is to consult the extensive cross references provided in such Bible study resources as The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, The New Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, and Nelson’s Cross Reference Guide to the Bible. These resources have been developed to guide Bible readers to the other passages in the Bible that relate to the verse or word you wish to study deeper. Another helpful resource which I highly and unreservedly commend, though not nearly so complete (in terms of how much directly relevant help it provides tailored for any specific verse) as the three just mentioned, is the Thompson Chain Reference Bible.

For those who desire to DIG DEEPER into this subject:

(1) Consult the cross references given in Nelson’s Cross Reference Guide to the Bible on page 1466 for 1 Peter 1:19-21.

(2) Consult the cross references given in The New Treasury of Scripture Knowledge on pages 1484-1485 or in Logos 5 Bible software for 1 Peter 1:19-21.

(3) Lacking access to those two resources, consult the cross references for this passage as I have developed them as given below:

2 Peter 1:19. We have. 1 P +1:10. a more sure word. T#1022. Ge 15:13. Ps *19:7-9. 119:105. Pr 6:23. Is +*8:20n. *41:21-23, 26. Lk *16:29-31. Jn +*5:39n. Ac +*17:11. of prophecy. T#1019. ver. 11. Lk +*24:27. Ro 16:26. ye do well. Ac 10:33. 15:29. Ja *2:8. 3 J 6. take heed. Ho +*4:10. as. FS137, Ge +13:13. a light. FS22K2, 2 S +22:29. Ps **119:105. Pr +*4:18n. *6:23. Is *9:2. *60:1, 2. Mt *4:16. Lk *1:78, 79. Jn *1:7-9. 5:35. *8:12. Ep *5:7, 8. dark place. Jb 24:16. 1 C *13:12. Ep 6:12. the day dawn. Ps +*49:14. 2 C *4:4-6. 1 J *5:10. Re 2:28. *22:16. the day star. Ml 4:2. Re 2:28. 22:16. arise. 2 C *4:6.
2 Peter 1:20. Knowing. 2 P 3:3. Ro 6:6. 13:11. 1 T 1:9. Ja 1:3. that. Ro 12:6. of the scripture. Ro 9:17. 1 P 2:6. private. Rather, its own, or their own, understanding the text to mean that the writers of Scripture did not merely pen their own opinion, but were divinely inspired by the Holy Spirit. Understanding “its own” fits the immediate context of taking heed to the more sure word of prophecy, and the manner of taking heed is to interpret the individual prophecies of Scripture in the light of every other prophecy which bears upon the same theme.

“Private” is an unfortunate rendering of the Greek word idios (S#2398g), a word which occurs 113 times in the Greek New Testament, most often rendered “his own” (48 times) and “their own” (13 times), but nowhere else rendered “private,” though rendered by the word “privately” 8 times (Mt 24:3. Mk 6:32. 9:28. 13:3. Lk 9:10. 10:23. Ac 23:19. Ga 2:2).

This rendering has been used to attack the Biblical doctrine of the perspicuity of Scripture (Is +*8:20n) and to deny the duty of each individual believer to exercise the right of private judgment to determine for himself the correctness of a proposed interpretation of Scripture (Je +*23:28n. 1 C 14:29). While Scripture elsewhere teaches the individual to maintain fellowship with other believers (He 10:25), to “hear the church” (Mt 18:17), to “hold the traditions which ye have been taught” (2 Th +**2:15n), and to “obey them that have the rule over you” (He 13:17), yet he must do so only insofar as such teachers are faithful to the written Word of God.

This text in Scripture does not address what the readers of the Bible do when they seek to understand and interpret what they read, but what the writers did when they were directed by the Holy Spirit what to write. Anyone who would suggest otherwise is simply not reading very well.

This is what the text says. This is what the text means. To suggest otherwise is clearly error, falsehood, or heresy. The writers did not write their own opinion when they wrote “the more sure word of prophecy” (2 P 1:19), but wrote what God by divine inspiration moved them to write (2 P 1:21). Any denomination, church, or religious organization that uses this text to forbid so-called “private interpretation” by individual Bible readers does not know how to read Scripture in context, and must surely not be trusted as to any claim it makes of teaching authority or any claim to be the “one true church.”

Therefore, this text of Scripture must not be forced into service to deny the right, privilege, and duty of every reader of Scripture to study it for themselves to learn the way of life and salvation that it presents.

The final authority in spiritual matters is never an organization or church, but the written Word of God as found in the Bible, correctly interpreted (2 P 1:20n). The Bible warns that followers of false teachers will share in their reward (Ezk +*14:10n). The final obligation remains for each individual to judge truth for himself (Ac **17:11n. Ro **14:12. 1 C 10:15. **14:29. 1 Th +*5:21n). This, then, is the major justification for the right of private judgment, for God holds each of us individually and directly accountable to Him and His Word. We cannot pass off our responsibility to others by saying “I simply believed what my church taught me” (Is +*8:20n. Ezk 14:10n).

“Private” is better rendered “its own,” so that we then read “no Scripture is of its own interpretation.” The meaning is that every statement in Scripture must be understood in the light of what the rest of Scripture teaches which bears upon the same theme. Of absolute importance to the correct interpretation of Scripture is to make a full and proper induction of all related passages, and develop from them an interpretation which accounts for and agrees with the whole.

This inductive approach is the very opposite of the deductive approach, for those who come to Scripture with the deductive approach come to the Bible with a pre-determined belief (whether a creedal statement, a system of doctrine or philosophy, any “ism”—whether Calvinism, Arminianism, Dispensationalism, Amillennialism, Russellism, liberalism, humanism, scientism, Roman Catholicism, etc.) which already has decided what the Bible can or must teach, then searches its pages for supporting “proof texts” (2 K 22:8n. Pr 24:16n. Ac 2:38n. 1 J 2:19n). Such an approach is grievously in error (Mk **12:24), and can be detected by its tendency to ignore, suppress, explain away, or circumvent those texts which do not “fit” the system. Adherents of deductive systems are in danger of wresting Scripture to their own destruction (2 P 3:16), and handling Scripture deceitfully (2 C 4:2). Those who adhere to a deductive approach to Scripture are marked by an inability to come to the Bible with an open mind, ready to adjust their belief to what is newly learned. In fact, such persons are unable to freely study Scripture and grow in their knowledge, for they have adopted a closed system of belief, which can never admit to anything new to be learned, or admit a former mistake in understanding, the correction of which is based upon additional light received by a fresh study of the Word of God. Certainly such an attitude toward Scripture makes it a closed book, and is the very opposite of that humility required for the reception of spiritual truth (Ps 25:9. 119:18). Jn *16:13. interpretation. Gr. epilusis, *S#1955g, only here, from *S#1956g, epiluo, Mk 4:34 (expounded); Ac 19:39 (determined). Vine defines epilusis to mean “to loose, solve, explain, denotes a solution, explanation, lit., a release. ‘(of private) interpretation;’ i.e., the writers of Scripture did not put their own construction upon the ‘God-breathed’ words they wrote” (Expository Dictionary, vol. 2, p. 268). An understanding of the principles of the correct interpretation of Scripture is of supreme importance. Known formally as the science of Biblical Hermeneutics, the correct application of such principles is essential to arrive at the correct interpretation of Scripture. These principles can be derived from Scripture itself by observing how the Bible writers cited and interpreted Scripture. Most wrong interpretations of Scripture will be found to violate one or more of the following ten general rules of interpretation: (1) Interpret the words and sentences of an author literally unless such an interpretation results in a contradiction, absurdity, or nonsense. Be very careful not to label as nonsense what might merely be strange or contrary to your own personal point of view or frame of reference. Sometimes the immediate context will indicate a non-literal interpretation must be understood (“trees clapped their hands,” Is 55:12). In such cases watch for the literal truth or meaning which is being figuratively expressed. Figurative language is used to emphasize what is literally meant. (2) Do not attribute a meaning to a text that would be foreign to the knowledge or understanding of the author or the original audience, or give a meaning which would be outside the purpose of the original author (Thus there are no trains or flying saucers in the Bible). (3) Do not interpret one statement in the Bible in a way which makes it contradict another part. All the parts must agree without contradictions. Authors write to be understood, not to confuse their audience. Sometimes an author may write an intended ambiguity. Sometimes our own perception of the truth, or our knowledge of the cultural context which produced a document, is incomplete, and our own deficiency of knowledge may lead us to find ambiguity, paradox, and contradiction where there is none. An author, particularly when treating of philosophical and religious subjects, may intentionally introduce paradox (determinism versus free will). (4) A correct interpretation takes account of all the material in the text, and all related material in other texts of the Bible. You cannot legitimately pick and choose separate statements and combine them arbitrarily [The Bible says Judas “went and hanged himself” (Mt 27:5); “go and do thou likewise” (Lk 10:37); “what thou doest, do quickly” (Jn 13:27)]. You must not “cherry pick” the evidence. You cannot leave out material which, if included, would require or necessitate a change in the interpretation. Whenever an interpretation involves the comparison of two or more subjects, the interpretation must take into account not only the similarities but also the differences which may exist. (5) Read what comes before and after the verse you are interpreting. A correct interpretation always fits into the scope, meaning, and purpose of the surrounding passage or context (1 P 1:20n). A text out of context is a pretext. (6) An interpretation must be in harmony with the grammar of the sentences involved, and in harmony with the meanings of the words which make up the sentences. (7) Always interpret obscure, difficult texts in the light of other passages on the same topic which are clear in meaning. (8) A correct and authoritative interpretation must be based upon what the text itself says, not upon what someone else claims it says. (9) All that is required to establish an interpretation as correct is evidence (which is in harmony with these rules) from the text sufficient to convince an adequately informed, neutral, unbiased person. In great literature, Daniel Defoe wrote a work, The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, which places the main character alone on an island with “three good Bibles,” surely plain-text at that. Metaphorically speaking, we must read the Bible ourselves as if stranded on that island, apart from the Siren songs of supposed official “teaching authority,” denominations, religious organizations and cults which claim to teach truth, but which in some matters clearly contradict the Bible, or presume to add to it from Tradition (2 Th 2:15n) and other sources what is not taught in the Bible (1 Th 5:21n). (10) When there are two differing interpretations of a passage, if the interpretations are contradictory, they cannot both be correct. One or the other interpretation must be wrong, or they may both be wrong, but they cannot both be right. A correct interpretation must comply with the rules of interpretation; an incorrect interpretation will always be found not to comply with the rules. By this means, the Bible is a self-correcting Book, for if we misunderstand it on some point, our misunderstanding will be found not to “fit” with connected truth elsewhere expressed in the Bible. When this happens, we are obligated, having learned something new from Scripture, to correct our former position (Acts 18:26).

2 Peter 1:21. the prophecy. Lk *1:70. 2 T +*3:16. 1 P *1:11. in old time. or, at any time. holy. Dt *33:1. Jsh 14:6. 1 K 13:1. *17:18, 24. 2 K 4:7, 9, 22. *6:10, 15. 1 Ch *23:14. 2 Ch 8:14. spake. Nu 16:28. 2 S *23:2. Mi +*3:7. Lk 1:70. 2 T +**3:15-17. 1 P *1:11. Re *19:10. they were. or, being. FS63K, Ge +37:13. by the Holy. Mk 12:36. Ac 1:16. 3:18. 28:25. He 3:7. 9:8. 10:15. Ghost. Gr. pneuma, Mt +1:18.