The discussion following the last post moved into area of misinterpreted Bible verses. It is interesting to see how so many popular misinterpretations there are out there. How do so many well meaning Christians come up with so many different interpretations of the same Bible verses? It often comes from violation of a key principle for understanding the Scriptures…

Never read a Bible verse.

Always read at least the surrounding paragraph, and probably the chapter, if not the entire book.

In Greg Koukl’s teaching on this concept, he teaches a powerful technique to keep us from making these mistakes in our own Bible study. The nice thing is that it is as easy as it is powerful.

To test your understanding of a verse, simply

1. Paraphrase the verse in your own words.
2. Plug your paraphrase into the paragraph, replacing the verse in question.
3. Read the entire paragraph, and see if the overall paragraph flows smoothly and makes sense.

Greg gives a bunch of example in the articles, and I urge you to take a few minutes to read it, but here is one example to show the technique…

John 12:32 is another case where a phrase can have two widely divergent meanings. It’s not uncommon for worship leaders to quote this statement of Jesus: “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself.”

We “lift up” the Lord when we exalt Him and declare His glory. If we focus on Jesus and ascribe glory to Him, the power of Christ is released to transform the hearts of those listening and they are drawn to Him. This is the meaning the worship leader has in mind, but it isn’t what Jesus is talking about.

When we apply our paraphrase test by adding the very next verse, the results look like this: “‘And I, if I be exalted before the people, will draw all men to Myself.’ But He was saying this to indicate the kind of death by which He was to die” (John 12:32-33).

Oops. Praising Jesus will kill Him? I don’t think so. No ambiguity now. In this instance, being “lifted up” clearly means to be crucified.

Understanding this phrase in context sheds light on another familiar passage, John 3:14-15: “And as Moses lifted up [raised in the air] the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up [raised in the air] that whoever believes may in Him have eternal life.”

Our paraphrase looks like this: “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be crucified that whoever believes may in Him have eternal life.”
This makes perfect sense. Jesus had to be crucified before salvation could be offered, an appropriate lead-in to the verse that comes next, the most famous salvation verse in the world: John 3:16.