Proper Biblical Interpretation

"Proof text" verses. I'm not exactly fond of the way people use them to "settle their argument" on a subject. It seems the height of sloppy hermeneutics to cherry pick verses, rip them from their contexts and proceed to build an entire theology on what their presuppostion was in the first place - in other words, they *begin* with a premise, then set out to find verses that seemingly back it up, as opposed to properly taking from the verses that which they actually say.

First, what do I mean by 'context?' Let me explain. Proper hermeneutics requires much more than simply reading a verse or two in the middle of a book of the Bible and assuming you know beyond a doubt what it says. I like this analogy: Suppose you received a 5-page letter from a friend. Would you begin reading it on page three? Of couse not; you'd start from the beginning on page one - in order to gain understanding of the *whole* of the letter. And so it is with any book of the Bible, many of which in the New Testament are letters themselves. You can't be lazy where the Bible is concerned, and you've simply got to invest in the time it takes to study it. To gain a good understanding of verse context, you must start at the beginning of a book to know who wrote it and to whom it was written. And, you'll need to do a little history to understand why it was written and under what circumstances. While I'm on it, a word about verses - while the original Biblical content is divinely inspired, verse and chapter breaks are NOT. Sometimes one sentence of text is divided into 2 or even 3 verses, and there are also times when a chapter break occurs in the middle of a single thought. Do you presume to fully understand one verse that may only be half a sentence?! Also, it would *seem* to go without saying, but apparently not, that you also need to read several verses surrounding the one verse you're examining. Additionally, since one part of Scripture will never contradict another, you have to examine verses in light of other verses, and in light of what the whole of Scripture teaches on any given subject.

We could spend days looking at verses, but for time and space allowance, I'll just examine one very popular verse used by many to *prove* universal salvation, 2 Peter 3:9:

The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.

Now what's interesting about this particular verse is that many times when it's cited, it's truncated even further and emphasized to read, "the Lord is patient toward YOU, not wishing for ANY to perish, but for ALL to come to repentance." Yeah, that's it - the bolding and/or capitalizaton of the words, you, any and all proves THAT. Case closed.

But let's examine the full context. It is believed historically that Peter wrote to the beloved from a prison in Rome, though he doesn't specifically state this. But his purpose in writing was to warn believers in Christ of the false teachers who were infiltrating the Church and about the doctrinal dangers they were facing because of it.

"The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness." What promise? To what is Peter referring? Well, we need to back up to at least the beginning of chapter three for more context. Peter had just been warning the saints that in the last days there will be mockers who will (sarcastically) ask, "Where is He? He promised he would return but He hasn't, so where is He?" Peter answsers them by saying that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like a day, therefore He is not slow about His promise as some might normally count as slowness. But you can count on one thing - He promised to return and He will.

Moving on - who exactly is the "you" in verse 9, (to whom is the letter written)? Going back to chapter one for the broader context, we read in verses 1 and 2: "Simon Peter, a bond-servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have a received a faith of the same kind as ours, by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ:" Peter is addressing 'those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours (all the apostles).' He is writing the letter to the saints, those who are saved - those who are of like faith. These people are the "you" in 3:9, and we know this because the audience hasn't changed throughout the letter, AND we need only look one verse prior, verse 8, to read a futher narrowing down of the context: "But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved,.....". We KNOW that the 'you' in verse 9 are believers in Christ. By extension, the content of the letter applies to all future people of like minded faith, so that later generations of believers can heed Peter's warnings.

Now knowing who the 'you' are, we can determine who the 'any' and 'all' are. Before that, though, a word about the word, "all." Even in our modern day lexicon, we know that 'all' doesn't mean 'all' all the time. It needs a quantifier. "I'm so glad you're all here this afternoon." Does all mean every single person on the face of the earth? Or is it limited to 'all' of the people gathered in a particular place? I think we 'all' know the answer to that. So knowing the audience Peter is addressing, we can - from the context - glean that 'any" means 'any of you' and 'all' means 'all of you.' The Lord is patient toward you, saints; not wishing for any of you, saints to perish but for all of you, saints to come to repentance. And since salvation is of God (that's another post), the saints will not perish, but all of them will come to repentance. Peter isn't addressing the unregenerate and saying that God is patient toward them! In fact, elsewhere in Scripture we know that they are under His wrath.

Whew! That was a lot for just one verse! But I think it serves to show how important it is not to take verses from their contexts and attempt to build a theological statement on them. Unfortunately, 2 Peter 3:9 is one of a handful of proof texts some people are inclined to use in order to somehow "prove" that God has a universal love of 'all' mankind, and He desires 'all' of them to be saved. This is a concept simply not taught in the whole of Scripture.