Reading Ethically

When reading the Bible, people can and will put there own interpretation on the passages they are reading. They will relate to those passages based on their life experiences. The two examples used in the text: the Czech Jews and the Bible class, shows that if you read the Bible "as if" your life depended on it, you might be a more critical reader of the Bible. As stated in the text, "competent reading has to di with more than the application of knowledge because the stakes can be high - with consequences for life and limb". As much as we try to take into account the time and context in which the Scriptures in the Bible were written, I believe that we must look at 2 Peter 1: 20-21: "Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit" When reading the Bible, we must remember that it is inspired by God and it is through the Holy Spirit that we can truly understand the Scriptures. When we put our own personal "spins" on the Bible, are we truly getting the meaning that God wants us to get from his Words? The woman stated that Matthew 5:38-39, "has killed more women than any of us here would care to count". It wasn't those Scriptures that killed women, it was the interpretation that could have gotten the women killed. So when we ethically read the Bible, we should do it with the help of the Holy Spirit.