Me and My Bible

So many important things that I've never heard before come from my pastor these days. I hope to record a few here in upcoming posts.

He says we properly understand Scripture through three lenses: the text, historical understanding of the text (e.g. creeds, catechisms), and our present community (e.g. our particular church, the era and culture we live in, etc). If we minimize historical understanding, as so many do these days, we're bound to goof up the meaning of the text.

I've been part of churches that strived to be "Sola Scriptura", but in actuality I think were closer to "me and my Bible". There's a big difference between the two. These churches (and I) failed to account for the affect that our cultural presuppositions have on our comprehension of the text. This is why historical understanding is so important. We need 2,000 years worth of Christian thought to properly balance and guide our understanding of Scripture safely through our own time and culture.