rogerg
I've touched on this above and how our world view affects our understanding of the Bible. However, it seems you've undermined your own argument here. Above you dismissed scholars and posted a few passages about false teachers and here you're telling me you use a concordance, which was likely written by a scholar. Why would you use a concordance when you've associated them with false teachers?
I would also argue that you don't use the Bible and a concordance alone. You're here on this forum. You hear things others have said. I'm sure some of those things have made their way into your theology. Likewise, I assume you attend church. The pastor gives messages each week. Those too, I'm sure, have influenced what you believe. Then there is Sunday School, Bible studies on Wednesday night, etc. All of these influence what we believe to some degree. However, if you only attend Reformed get-togethers then you're just reaffirming the theology you already believe. If on the other hand you meet with Christians of different beliefs you will see that many passages can be understood differently based on one's worldview, and the presuppositions they bring to the table. I've said all of this to say that most if not virtually all Christians learn things about the Bible long before they actually read the Bible. And, often those things are incorrect. Thus many, if not most, new Christians first approach the Bible with a false or partially false set of presuppositions. In other words they come to the Bible with colored glasses. Some never learn that they're wearing colored glasses and as such, never get to a proper understanding of Scriptures.
You asked if anything else is needed. In order to be saved, no, one can read the Bible and be saved. Is anything else needed to properly understand the entirety of the Bible, well that would depend on the presuppositions one brings to the text. If we start off with incorrect presuppositions how can we possible understand the text? For instance, you believe that God chose who would be saved prior to their birth. That's a presupposition you bring to the text. If you're correct, then that leads you toward a correct understand of the Bible. However, if you're incorrect, it's going to lead you to an incorrect understanding of the Bible. It's going to cause problems for you when you see passages like, 'whosoever will, let he come and drink freely of the water of life. Based on your presupposition you can't accept that face value. It's contradictory to your presupposition. Since you believe your presupposition is correct, (most people do) you're forced to try to find another meaning for the passage. I've heard things like, 'only the elect can be the "whosoever will"'. But you see, that's adding an unwarranted imposition on the text. The passage says nothing about the elect. When we have situations like this we shouldn't be questioning the text, we should be questioning our presuppositions. Maybe God didn't choose the elect before they were born.
I might have agreed with you here if you'd have said, two or three passages understood correctly and in context. When you say one can confirm a doctrine with two or three passages, that's only true if one understands them correctly. If one misunderstands the text, they are not confirming a doctrine, they are simply in error. Let's look at an example. How many passages do you have that support the idea that the Christ came only for the elect, 2, 5, 10? The exact number doesn't matter. I would submit that all of those passages that you would put forward, you're misunderstanding. As I've pointed out. John 1:9 shows irrefutably that all people can believe. As I've said there's no way around that. What that shows us is that the presupposition you bring to the text, that only certain people can believe, is wrong. Thus that presupposition is leading you to misinterpret passages of Scripture this then leads to other doctrinal error as doctrines are built one upon the other.
Again, using the Bible to understand the Bible is great, as long as you start with the right presuppositions. If you start with incorrect presuppositions you're likely going to be off base.
How do I know it's correct? The simple answer is harmony. It brings harmony to the Scriptures. When you look at a lot of threads on Christian forums you find each side tossing passages of Scripture back and forth. One side has this set of Scriptures and the other side has another set of Scriptures. I can accept the Scripture passages from both sides, they harmonize. For instance. One side argues that God chose who would be saved and they quote John 6 where Jesus said, 'no one can come to me unless the Father draws him'. The other side quotes Jesus' words in John 12, 'If I am lifted up I will draw all men to me'. Both of those statements are from Jesus, thus they are true. If our theology can't harmonize both passages without changing them, then there is a problem with our theology, not the words of Scripture. We don't need to change what Jesus said, we need to change our theology.
Another point is that it is just common sense. If I tell my kids they can have ice cream, would I expect the neighbor kid to come and say you said I could have ice cream. No, I didn't tell the neighbor kid he could have ice cream, I told my kids. The neighbor kid would be using my words out of context. It's just common sense that I would expect my words to apply to the ones to which they were said.
Another point is context. Does the understanding fit the context of what is going on?
What difference does it make who the audience was? Roger, it makes an immense difference. This is one of the big problems I find among Christians, they don't pay attention to who is being addressed. If we have any hope of correctly understanding of the Bible we had better pay attention to who is the audience is. One of the big problems in Christianity today is people taking passages of Scripture and either using them out of context or applying them universally.
Paul wrote to the Corinthian Christians and said that they weren't spiritual, that they were carnal. Since they were Christians should we say that all Christians aren't spiritual, they're carnal? After all, what difference does it make who the audience is? Jesus said to the Jews that they were of their father the devil. Would that apply to the Apostles, Nicodemus, Paul? They were all Jews. After all what difference does it make who the audience is?
Roger, I say all of this to show that it's not the Scriptures. We can post Scripture all day long. The real issue is the presuppositions we bring to the Scriptures. Unless we have the correct ones we're not going to correctly understand the Bible. Any time we run into passages of Scripture that we can't fit into our theology we shouldn't question the Scriptures. We should question our understanding. We have something wrong. Either it's our presuppositions, the amount of information we have, or we're simply not understanding something correctly.
