What others can't see may not be there.

Recently reading an excellent book on preaching has helped me see just how easy it is to get the Bible wrong if you aren’t vigilant in the way you study it. I don’t mean merely trying hard to seek what’s really being said. This is obviously necessary. The real vigilance is in knowing our own personal tendencies toward error and not letting them misguide us.

For instance, one historically significant but bad method of interpreting the Bible is called “allegorizing,” an approach which treats a text as if it has two meanings: the obvious literal one and a “deeper,” “spiritual” one hidden from the casual observer. The allegorizer usually takes some superficial detail of the passage and draws from it a conclusion which is clever and fascinating but not reliable. The connection or insight is plausible enough to captivate our imaginations but not sturdy enough to sustain the weight handled by true doctrine. The more creative and imaginative you are, the easier it is to allegorize Bible texts. I know because I’m creative and imaginative.

But this is precisely the problem. In pretending to uncover the “real” meaning of a passage, allegorizing actually jettisons the authority of Scripture in favor of the authority of the preacher’s imagination, which in practice then becomes the only functional constraint for his enticingly unique interpretations. Just like in math and science, if others can’t duplicate your work, it’s not sound exegesis.

Note: The book is “Preaching Christ from the Old Testament” by Sidney Greidanus