Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth

I want to explain an important aspect about the structure and content of the Bible.  You would expect that God, being the creator of language, would be precise in His use of it.  We also need to take in to account that He is the all-knowing, powerful and wise sovereign owner of the creation.  Therefore, it is only natural we should expect He is able to accurately reveal truth to us through human agents even down to in the choice of words and grammar.  That is exactly how the Jesus Christ had explained it to the Apostles.  So, Peter in warning his readers about the danger of false teaching wrote the following.    

2 Peter 1:20-21 knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, 21 for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. (NKJV)

What did Peter mean by private interpretation?  If you read this in other English translations, they generally render the phrase in the sense of either the reader or the prophets personal understanding.  So, we are not free to interpretate the Bible by what it means to us.  While that is true, I don’t believe that is what Peter meant.  The Greek word being translated as ‘private’ is idias.  That is a legitimate rendering, but the author’s intended meaning is drawn from the context. 

idias is used 5 other times in 2 Peter so we can check to see if there is a pattern to how Peter used this word.  What we find is that he consistently used idias to tie the noun it describes to the subject of the sentence.  2 examples are 2 Peter 2:22 “A dog returns to his own vomit,” and 3:3 “scoffers will come…walking according to their own lusts.”  The other 3 uses are 2 Peter 2:16, 3:16 & 17; so, check them out for yourself.

The subject of v. 20 is Scripture so contextually the interpretation of prophecy is owned by the whole of Scripture.  No particular prophecy in the Bible is to be interpreted in isolation from the rest of Scripture.  Because the Bible covers a lot of different topics, we have to interpret what we read in light of the context in which it is found.  By context I mean the “who, what, when and where” that is being discussed.  A common error made today is the assumption that saved (Grk. Sozo) always refers to deliverance from eternal damnation.  Actually, only about 1/3 of the 111 times it occurs in the N.T. is it used that way.  It is also used to mean being healed from a disease, spared from physical death or deliverance from a bad situation or harm.   
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Peter was addressing the danger of false teachers.  They do take things out of context and end up confusing people.  They rob Christians of the peace and rest that comes by faith in God’s promises.  This is why we have 2 Timothy 2:15 Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. Correctly organizing the varies topics of Scripture by their subject matter. That is how we can grow our experience of God’s grace and peace (2 Peter 1:2-4).