Understanding the Scriptures

"What does that mean?" he asked me after a certain Scripture reading. With all of my theological knowledge and degrees in the Scriptures, as well as Greek, Hebrew and Latin, I told him with full confidence, "I have no idea!" Yup, the truth of the matter is, there are a number of places in the Bible that we really cannot tell for certain what the meaning of the original author was.

There is a classic critique of the Scriptures that many pagans and heathens will throw at Catholics whenever they get a chance that points out two passages that seem to contradict each other. Theologians and scholars have long ago pointed out that there are numerous ways to understand these two passages that reconcile what it being said, without doing an injustice to the Scriptures or the sense of the passages. Yet, when it comes down to it, we really do not know which resolution is the right one, nor what either author meant for certain.

St. Peter says one time that the Scriptures are hard to understand (and he was an inspired Apostle who became our first Pope!). Who are we to imagine that we can perfectly grasp what God meant by any one word, to say nothing of entire chapters! How then do we grasp anything that God says? Only by the authoritative interpretation of the Church.

We ourselves do not have the ability to interpret on our own (certainly not privately) what God is saying. If the Apostles had to have a special grace to figure out the Resurrection of Christ (which was being taught to them by the resurrected Christ Himself!), then we certainly should not fall into the hubris of imagining that with a Bible and a prayer and our own convictions that we can know the mind of God (though many--very very many--have thought they could). Yes, we can know it, but not by ourselves.

When the Church (meaning, the Popes and the bishops in communion with him) tells us what God reveals to her, then we can know what is truth, and what the subject matter of the Scriptures is. For example, the Church gives us the Nicene Creed, and in the Creed we are told that Jesus is both God and man. Therefore, we know that when we read Scripture, if we come across anything that appears to say that Jesus is not both God and man, then we know that we have interpreted it wrongly.

The only other option we have is everyone interpreting it for themselves and then we would have thousands upon thousands of sectarian groups who cannot agree on what they believe (sort of like protestantism). What we do have, however, is the grace of God, speaking through the Church to help us to know what is good and right. We have God making sure that we will know what is needed for our salvation. He never lies; He never makes mistakes; and He never needs to be corrected. His truth endures forever. How wonderful it is that we are the recipients of it!