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Navigating Assumptions In Interpretation

Navigating Assumptions In Interpretation

Last updated on: December 4, 2025 at 6:34 am by Henry Karlson

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Navigating Assumptions In Interpretation 2025-12-04T06:34:34-05:00 Henry Karlson

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We Take Our Assumptions With Us When We Read Scripture. Photo By: Priscilla Du Preez artographybyp via Wikimedia Commons

When we read a text, we bring with us all kinds of assumptions, assumptions which establish the hermeneutical lens we use to interpret it. This is especially true with Scripture. Our present living situation is quite different from the writers of Scripture; this is why we should know that our engagement of their texts will not be different from theirs. This is not a bad thing. This is how a text is made to be a living text: we must be able to interpret it in new situations and contexts, allowing its principles to be adapted to meet the needs diverse groups of people. However, we must also be cautious when we do so. We can take bad ideas, bad assumptions with us, and create bad interpretations. This is why those who understand the way their culture, their context, influences them will be better equipped to question themselves and their own interpretation of Scripture. They will seek to learn from others and even be corrected by the when such correction is needed. They will know they need to honest with themselves and with others concerning the limits and potential faults contained in their interpretation:

Reading the Bible in multicultural spaces makes (or ought to make) one acutely aware of the intellectual heritage, the political baggage, the social assumptions, and the economic worldview one brings to one’s readings. It forces one to face and to declare explicitly on whose behalf one interprets. [1]

Those ideologies which influence us, therefore, will affect our understanding of Scripture. If we are not self-reflective, if we do not question our own understanding, and our worldview, especially if we are unaware of other worldviews, it will be easy for us to confuse our own ideologically-influenced interpretation of Scripture as the intended (and only possible) meaning which can be had from it. This is why so many Christians, when asked about their beliefs, will simply quote Scripture, offering no interpretation to what they quote, because they not only assume their interpretation, but they think their interpretation is as obvious to others as it is to themselves. The reality is far different, and usually far more nuanced than they think. Every time we read a text, we interpret it. We can see how their mistake causes problems in capitalistic societies; many, taking on the ideologies which surround capitalism, assume wealth is evidence of someone being blessed by God, and they are blessed because of their righteousness, even as they come to believe that poverty is a curse, and it is a curse given to people for their sin. They will find texts they can interpret to suggest this, but in doing so, they end up ignoring other texts, and how in them God is shown to be with and for the poor over the rich who exploit the poor. Thus, it should not be surprising, those with a capitalistic background, who do not question their own ideological beliefs, end up interpreting humanity in light of economics, using economics to show a select few are deemed valuable and worthy of being treated with dignity:

Ideology in the particular sense is telling the biblical story in the light of the economic and social interests of a few It is the interpretation of Scripture as if the poor and their liberation is incidental to the gospel message. Ideology, on the particular level, is especially a serious danger to oppressed people who are afraid of the political consequences of the divine Word in their midst. The risks of fighting against oppression can leave to passive resignation. [2]

Thus, a bad hermeneutic, one which blindly follows the biases of one’s cultural background, can and will lead many to use Scripture only to reify the way things are, to defend oppression, and to promote and glorify those in positions of power and authority. This is why it can be difficult to challenge those who have taken on and accepted the culture as it is, without question, for they end up defending not only the good found in it, but the evil in it, until at last, they call the evil, good, and the good, evil, proving Timothy P. Jackson right when he said, “To enjoin an uncritical self-denial or passivity, utterly insensitive to context, would be a prescription for injustice, as many feminists have pointed out.” [3]

Scripture is not meant to be interpreted privately. It is not meant to be interpreted in such a way as to serve as an apology for the culture we find ourselves living in. It can show us some of the good found in our culture, to be sure, but it should also be used to critically examine it so that we can find the grave evils in it and promote reform. Scripture is meant to be a universal text, meeting the needs of people around the world. It is meant to challenge us all to be better, to transcend our ideological background, especially when it is leading us them away from the basic principles of the Christian faith, principles which, simplified, say we are to love God and our neighbor as ourselves. When Scripture is to justify hate, when it is used to justify dehumanization of groups of people, when it is used to justify war crimes or sins which cry up to heaven, we find ourselves standing against the two-fold law of love. When we see that happening, we should question ourselves and the assumptions we use that led us so far astray. For, as Jesus indicated, love is the foundation of the law; indeed, love can be used to summarize the teaching of the law. If we interpret Scripture in a way that counters the principle of love, if we use it to justify hate and the abuse which flows from that hate, we certainly have lost sight of the message of Christ:

For Christ, to love is to be free. Poured forth from God, love participates in the freedom of God because it seeks the interest of God, which is primarily the good of the community. The daring teaching of the Gospel on divinization, on love, and on freedom, is beyond human expectation and human interpretation.[4]

The teaching of Christ is the teaching of love; the more we let Christ guide us, the more we open ourselves to the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of Love, the more we will act in and with love, following what love will have us do.We will then be able to read Scripture in a way which will have us promote the good of all, to defend the dignity of those whose dignity is being questioned, and to stand up for those who are being unjustly oppressed. For, if we would hate if our own dignity was questioned or undermined, if we would hate to be abused and oppressed, then the law of love says we should realize everyone else would, too, so that we end up showing others the respect and benevolence we would like to have shown to us.

[1] Renita J. Weems, “Re-Reading for Liberation: African American Women and the Bible” in Voices from the Margin. Interpreting the Bible in the Third World. Revised Edition. Ed. R.S. Sugirtharajah (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2006), 29.

[2] James H. Cone, God Of The Oppressed (New York: Seabury Press 1975), 93.

[3] Timothy P. Jackson, “The gospels and Christian ethics” in The Cambridge Companion to Christian Ethics. Ed. Robin Gill (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 47.

[4] Archbishop Joseph Raya, The Abundance of Love: The Incarnation and Byzantine Tradition (Combermere, ON: Madonna House Publications, 1989; 3rd ed.: 2016), 81.

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N.B.: While I read comments to moderate them, I rarely respond to them. If I don’t respond to your comment directly, don’t assume I am unthankful for it. I appreciate it. But I want readers to feel free to ask questions, and hopefully, dialogue with each other. I have shared what I wanted to say, though some responses will get a brief reply by me, or, if I find it interesting and something I can engage fully, as the foundation for another post. I have had many posts inspired or improved upon thanks to my readers.

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