Yes, I intended to spell the post title as I did as a play on words. The thought came from a post I read of John Piper that had to do with discovering what an author intended to communicate in Scripture…. keeping in mind that THE author of Scripture is God Himself.
When it comes to the Bible I’ve said for years, “The question is NOT ‘What does the Scripture mean to you?’ but rather ‘What does the Scripture mean?'”
I don’t have a problem with the first question unless the second question has not been properly answered. Only when we find out what the Scripture means can we rightly apply it for ourselves.
If someone said to me… “I know you are a husband, dad, and pastor who enjoys golf… but I prefer to think of you as a widowed single parent whose career is law enforcement that enjoys tennis. That fits better what I’d like to thing about you.”
My answer would be, “You CAN’T do that because it isn’t true… it isn’t me… those things are false!”
By the same token we can only think of God in terms that are true… taken from His Word… how He describes Himself. Not only that, we must understand Scripture in terms of how it is intended by The Author and the one who wrote it! Consider 2 Peter 1:20-21…
No prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. 21 For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. (ESV)