Hermeneutics – How to read a book of antiquity/the Bible

Hermeneutics – “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15). These words from the Apostle Paul to his protégé, Timothy, remind us of our responsibility to rightly interpret the Word of God. After all, God has spoken to us through His Word, and it is of utmost importance that we understand what He says. This is why we need sound hermeneutics.

Hermeneutics is the science and the art of biblical interpretation. It is a science because there are rules for interpreting Scripture, just as there are rules for driving a car. If you do not know the rules, you will not know how to drive properly. Beyond knowing the principles, however, you must also know when to apply them. Because of this, hermeneutics can also rightly be called an art. Since Scripture is not monolithic because it contains multiple genres and was written over a vast period of time, by many authors, in different languages, it requires discernment to know which rules of interpretation to apply to any given text to find its intended meaning. That, ultimately, is the goal of hermeneutics: to understand how to interpret the text to find its intended meaning.

The primary concern when interpreting the Bible is finding the author’s intended meaning.