Now some people will often argue that they don’t interpret scripture, they just read it and understand what it has to say, or as the simplistic saying is “the Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it.” Except it doesn’t really settle anything, because first of all the Bible is not like the Apple user’s agreement that we just scroll to the bottom and click “I agree.” And second is it’s impossible to read scripture without interpreting it, and that’s not even to deal with the reality that an interpretation itself is already being given to us because it’s being translated, which involves and enormous amount of decisions that have to be made that can convey one idea over another. But, we do the same. I will read scripture differently than you. I read it differently as a married man with children, then I would if I was single without children. I read it differently as a middle-class white American, then if I was poor in the developing world. I also read it differently than I did 20 years ago, and know that in 20 years it will also be different. It’s just natural to do these things, and we have to be cognizant of that so that we can know our default understandings and where we might be blind to some things. And we can also see different things depending on what it is that we are thinking and doing., and let me give you just one example.
