God’s Literal Interpretation

As believers, we get our answers from the Bible so whenever we have a situation or question that needs to be answered then we must look to the Bible for the answer as the Bible is the best compliment to the Bible: “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15).

This is a very important verse for Christians because as believers, the Bible is our foundation for whatever we believe or it should be and this can only be said of a book that is literal. Unfortunately, there is still a problem and a debate that comes up about whether or not we should read and interpret the Bible as a literal text which is something that confuses. After all, you’re a Christian but you question whether you can trust what the Bible says.

One problem comes from listening to or relying on so many outside resources. While it’s good to be opened, we cannot allow for others to dictate what we believe about God’s word. This can be extremely dangerous and will not allow for us to rightly divide the Bible. When we break down 2 Timothy 2:15 in an effort to rightly divide, we see different things. First, we see Timothy as a faithful pastor and as such, he needs to rightly divide the word of God.

To do this, he needs to present himself approved unto God. This meant that he could not look at his job as winning approval with people like a popularity contest. Instead, his first concern had to be presenting himself approved unto God and this is true for us today. Just because something was instructed a long time ago does not mean that the teaching is not relevant today and while I understand that so much changes with the turning of a calendar, God never changes.

Because God never changes then we know that His word never changes. Therefore, our motivation in what we do is to work hard and diligently for the Lord and not be shamed when our work is examined. Because the Bible is trying to communicate something to us specifically, it’s extremely dangerous to make it say something that it does not. We saw with Timothy that he was instructed to read the bible properly, not divide it wrongly. This is true today.

When we read about how Timothy was to read the word of God and rightly divide it, we can conclude that because he was specifically instructed to rightly divide it then there is a wrong way of dividing God’s word. This is why we cannot take the Bible lightly and must read and interpret it in the literal sense. If the bible is simply left to individual interpretation rather than a literal interpretation then the Bible can be used to say what someone wants it to.

When an individual does this then the Bible does not say just one thing and if this is the case then the Bible would not be an accurate book. For example, we read a piece of literature to understand what the author is trying to communicate to us and this is true with the Bible but if the Bible is not to be taken literally then its message can change and God clearly says this is a no-mo: “Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you” (Deuteronomy 4:2).