Regardless of where you shake out in worldview, hopefully you have noted that you have bias towards one ideology or another. It’s completely normal and we are all guilty. I was raised in a middle class Protestant family, therefore when I viewed things (news, Bible, ethics, etc,), I tend to read things with that bias. Hence when I see what supports what I see as normal/good, I tend to justify it, when I don’t see what supports that idea, I tend to reject it. Understanding that bias required humility and self recognition, which took many years of examining the concept of if everyone operated as I did, would society sustain or be enjoyable.
Hermeneutics is the biblical study where you try to examine the intent of the Bible without that bias. While it will always intrinsically be there, the practice is important if you ever want to understand truth or what the Bible really states. It’s not as easy as simply picking a topic, seeing what the Bible verses related to it says, and then making a conclusion. One has to pull back the onion and recognize the author, his biases, his audience, their biases, and what point was made in the greater context of the chapter, the book, and then the whole Bible. Most cults or cultish beliefs are generated from utilizing a pre-existent bias and enforcing it as a universal truth.
The Bible in a nutshell is summed up in Matthew 22:36-40. That is love God with all your mind and your brother as yourself. Upon this is the law and the prophets built upon. The law was ascribed to codify that principle, the ensuing judgment and our eventual physical death is as well. If you start examine the Scripture with those principles in mind, things do tend to make more sense. It explains how we start in Eden and end in Eden, how men fell at Babylon and will fall at Babylon again. The intrinsic issue is and always has been universal law versus personal goals, everyone’s personal ambition versus your own selfish ambition. Ask yourself what heaven really is, it’s a utopia where all people live in loving harmony (doesn’t happen when self serving behavior runs rampant and why human iterations always fail). Paul defined this in Galatians 5 in the fruit of the Spirit, conduct in which no laws were necessary. Why do we really need laws, why do societies fail? It’s to govern self will run wild…that’s why the law is a curse and justifies no man before God.
When reading Scriptures and the various principles we will address, you’ll realize all systems based on human self absorption fail. They all involve exclusionary principles, typically involving one view of life. But Christ taught forgiveness and humility, principles that support a universal existence. He defined family by good intentions and doing the Will of God. Even at the heart of Buddhist and other forms of enlightenment (the closest peaceful form of living without Christ), the focus is on personal attainment, while Christ always pointed to the Father. These obviously show that gnostic or other forms of personal “secret” enlightenment is misguided as everyone inherently knows what is good, which essentially points to a God based ontology. But we tend to fight against that because we desire something that gives us something more than what someone else has.
All biblical stories need to be read in context. While I mentioned the over arching theme, understanding each passage requires stepping back. As shown below, we have to understand what the author intended, what meanings could be derived, and how we would view it in our current environment. If the three parts of the bubble are uniform, the meaning derived is likely correct. If they are not, there is not likely a good interpretation the further a subjective view is in conflict to the authors original intention or audience. As we begin going into Scripture please keep this in mind. Everything we go into should become evident from your own readings and understanding the authors intent.
