Cheryl

Don,

You said:

But it IS possible for people of faith to make different choices for the meaning of some words and phrases and each has a different understanding in good faith.  Many of the meaning choices made by non-egals are possible, it is just that they are not required.

While I agree that Christians may see a different meaning for some words and phrases, the question is not what a word could possibly mean but what it means in the passage.  I think too often we take a verse out of its context and try to determine the meaning of the words from a limited view.  This is where we run into trouble.  I really appreciate the apologist and author Greg Koukl who says “Never read a bible verse.”  What he means is that we should never try to figure out what the verse means without reading it in its complete context.  If we followed this advise, I think Christians would find themselves in much more agreement.

I did this experiment with a JW elder recently and it worked very well.  I never let him read a proof text without looking at the passage.  I got him to read the chapter before, the chapter the “proof verse” was in and the chapter after and the context disproved his point.  It really frustrated him because even he could see that his text lost all of its weight by looking at the context.  Once we read the context he had to move on to another point.  I would say something like, “Well this verse doesn’t say what you said it means in its context.  We can mark that one off.  Do you actually have a passage that says your point?”  He had already agreed with me that there must be two or three witnesses to prove a point.  An isolated “witness” (pulled out of its context) is not enough to prove any point.

I would also like to add that while scripture has one intended meaning that is put there by the author, scripture also is special in that it is like an onion.  You can peel the layers back to see more and more revelation.  In some respects this is where our differences come in between denominations.  One Christian sees the outer layer of truth and another peels the “onion” back to see further insight inbedded within the text and the inspired words of the text.

On context of verses, I agree with pericope context and Biblical subject context, but another is the cultural context of the time the book was written.  This is one that is missing for many discussions on meaning but can be absolutely critical.

I whole heartedly agree with you!  While understanding the cultural context is very important with each verse, at times it is so absolutely critical that one cannot understand the verse without it.  I think the perfect example of this is 1 Cor. 14:34 where no “law” can be identified in scripture that Paul is referring to.  It isn’t until one knows the tradition of the Jews and the culture of that day that the complete understanding of the passage is unveiled.  This makes the passage a very hard passage.  Paul is one author that has written some very hard to understand passages that require much digging and an understanding of the culture.  These passages are for the mature and they are true meat and not milk passages.

The Bible gets to define and refine the words it uses and when it does we are to use that, but it does not contain a complete dictionary of all the words it uses.  The only way to know what those words meant is the way they were used in the culture of the time.

Yes, this is true.  The most outstanding example of this is Paul’s writing where in several instances he uses a word that is completely unique to the New Testament and at times the word is very rare even in the usage of that day.  We must be extremely careful not to set up our doctrine using one verse in isolation that has one word with limited verification of its meaning.  Without a second or third witness we are treading on dangerous territory.