Question about Christianity and interpretation of the Bible
- Locked due to inactivity on Oct 9, '20 3:54am
Thread Topic: Question about Christianity and interpretation of the Bible
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So some background: I go to a Catholic high school where we have religion class. I didn’t know anything about the Bible before this class, so I may not be seeing some things correctly. Sorry if anything I say is wrong or offensive.
In the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30), the master trusts his three servants with his possessions. The first two servants made a profit for him, while the third just gave him back the original money. The master praises the first two and calls them faithful, while he throws out the third servant.
My religion teacher said that though some people believe that the master represents God and the third servant is a sinner, that is not true. In the passage the third servant describes the master as “a demanding person, harvesting where you did not plant and gathering where you did not scatter,” showing that the master is a thief. My teacher says that the third servant represents Jesus because he refuses to support a sinner and suffers for doing good.
So do you think my religion teacher correct in this interpretation (she says that a biblical scholar backs this up)? If there are multiple interpretations of certain passages, and the Bible is not actually written by God but the work of people inspired to write about God, how do we know that we have the correct interpretation? And if the only books in the Bible were the ones accepted in the early church, how do we know that the people before even chose the correct books? How do Christians know they are really following God’s will, not something that has been misinterpreted? -
I went to a Lutheran school, so I may be able to help.
I was always taught that in the parable, the master was God. It's telling us to use our gifts and talents to the very best of our abilities all the time.
I never did understand the “demanding person, harvesting where you did not plant and gathering where you did not scatter" part of it. I should look into that.
Verbal.Inspiration. The Holy Spirit breathed into the writers the words he wanted them to use so that it is the very word of God. It's not like he possessed them and when they snapped out of this they were like, "Whoa! What happened? What's this I wrote?" One way you can tell is because they kept their writing styles.
2 Timothy 3:16-17 — All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Also, there were educated men writing some of the books of the Bible. Luke was a doctor. Paul was educated, I know.
The books that didn't go into the Bible are the ones that didn't really have anything to do with Jesus. Some of the Jewish books of the Bible, for example. I think they have a second book of Ethster. It wasn't included in our Bible because it doesn't really have anything to do with Christ. My teacher last year read us a bit of the Book of Maccabees (i have no idea if I spelt that right). It doesn't have anything to do with Jesus. And while he was reading it to us, everyone in the class was like, "It just doesn't sound like the Bible. It doesn't have that Bible ring to it."
The Old Testament points ahead to Christ, the New Testament points back to Christ. Any book that doesn't point to Christ wasn't included in the Bible. I
I hope that answers some of your questions. If not I probably made you even more confused. -
*Esther
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That makes sense, I understand better now, but I guess religion is just kind of confusing to me
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Probverbs 3:5-6 - Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight.
Faith is a matter of the heart, not the brain. -
To be honest, that parable is pretty confusing, and, as I don't fully remember it, I'll have to go look at it and write more later. ;)
However, it seems to me that this particular story is not as important to you as whether or not we can trust our interpretations of the Bible, which is a very serious and very reasonable question. Here's what I do know—without a doubt: The Bible is God's Word. And while he did use people to physically write the Bible, they were not free to add their own private thoughts to the message.
2 Peter 1:20-21 says "knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. 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."
(And the phrase carried along is used elsewhere in the Bible in reference to transportation of a paralyzed man. Just as a paralyzed person could not walk by his own power, so the writers did not write Scripture at their own inclination, but rather were inspired or carried along by God. The Bible is very clear that this was God's message and His alone.)
But then comes the question: if the Bible is in fact God's Word, how can we be sure that we are understanding it correctly?
Answers in Genesis has a really good article on this (here's the link:
but I'll try to give a quick summary:)
Since the Bible is God's Word and message to us, we can be confident in knowing that He wants us to be able to understand it. He wants you to learn about him and what he has to say and desires to give you greater understanding.
So what should we do if people have opposing views on what a passage means? Well the most basic thing is to study it for yourself. Ask God to help you understand and He will. Christians have the Holy Spirit in them to give them guidance and discernment. However, if a person is not yet saved-as in they haven't accepted Jesus as their Savior and they don't believed that he died and rose again to save you from your sins-then they don't have the Holy Spirit and it will be harder for them to fully understand the Bible.
However, the most basic and important themes of the Bible are made especially clear so that anyone can read it and understand. -
Some of those main themes would be:
-That God truly loves us.
-That we are all sinners (have done wrong things) and deserve to be punished—and that punishment is death and eternal suffering in hell.
-Because God loves us, He sent Jesus to die in our place.
-Jesus came back to Life.
-Anyone who puts their trust/faith in Jesus (by believing that he took the punishment for our sins and rose again) will be saved from their sins and the punishment of hell, and can be certain that when they die they will go to heaven.
-there is nothing you can do to earn salvation and there is nothing you can do to lose it. God offers it as a free gift and it is permanent. You just have to recieve it.
[I know this is a kinda choppy summary and if you have any questions please feel free to ask ;) ]
Just curious, are you catholic or do you just go to a catholic school?
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