The Lens Through Which We Read
Chapter One: Holding the Whole
The Necessity of Doctrinal Balance
One of the most subtle dangers in Bible interpretation isn’t disbelief. It’s imbalance.
Most false teaching doesn’t begin with someone throwing the Bible away. It begins with someone emphasizing one truth at the expense of others. A person sees that God is love—and forgets He is holy. Another reads about free will—and ignores divine sovereignty. Someone finds a passage about blessing—and overlooks the reality of suffering, judgment, or sanctification.
In almost every case, the text isn’t wrong. The verse is real. The promise is true, but it’s being handled in isolation—untethered from the rest of God’s revelation.
When we separate truth from the whole truth, it often stops being true in the way God intends.
Scripture Interprets Scripture
If the Bible is truly God’s Word—breathed out by a perfect Author—then it cannot contradict itself.That means no interpretation of any verse can be correct if it invalidates another part of God’s revealed Word.
This is more than a principle of literary consistency. It’s an act of reverence.We are not permitted to pit Paul against James, or the God of Exodus against the God of the Gospels. Truth must hold together because God is one.
“The sum of your word is truth, and every one of your righteous rules endures forever.”– Psalm 119:160 (WEB)
The Scriptures form a single revelation, not a buffet line.We cannot pick a doctrine we like and build a theology around it while ignoring everything else that God has said.
Tension Is Not Contradiction
Of course, this doesn’t mean that Scripture is always simple or easy to synthesize.
There are passages that seem, at first glance, to pull in opposite directions:
God’s sovereignty and human responsibility
Grace and obedience
Justice and mercy
Temporal suffering and eternal glory
Tension is not contradiction.It is often the very place where God’s wisdom is most clearly displayed.
Instead of forcing one truth to silence another, we must let each stand in its rightful place, held in harmony with the fullness of God’s nature and purposes.
Heresy Begins with Imbalance
This isn’t just a matter of academic concern. It’s the root of countless theological errors throughout church history.
The early Gnostics emphasized spiritual knowledge—and denied the incarnation.
Marcion praised the love of Jesus—and rejected the God of the Old Testament.
Modern prosperity teachers preach blessing—and ignore the call to take up the cross.
Open theists exalt human freedom—and deny God’s perfect knowledge.
In each case, the issue isn’t that they denied everything Scripture says.It’s that they isolated one truth, exaggerated it, and excluded what they didn’t want to reckon with. They didn’t hold the whole.
Weighing Every Verse with Every Truth
If Scripture is unified and God is perfect, then every interpretation must pass this test:
Does this interpretation contradict anything else that is plainly taught in Scripture? Does it misrepresent the nature of God as He has revealed Himself?
If the answer is yes to either, then we must reject it—no matter how compelling it sounds in isolation.
We don’t get to build a theology that makes one verse right by making another verse wrong.
The Role of Doctrinal Weight
Some truths function as theological load-bearing walls. They carry more interpretive weight because they are:
Taught more clearly
Affirmed more frequently
Central to the character of God and the Gospel of Christ
For example, God’s holiness, justice, and omniscience are affirmed on virtually every page of Scripture.If we interpret one difficult passage in a way that undermines those attributes, we have likely misread the passage—not discovered something new. The clearer truths interpret the harder ones. The weight-bearing walls help us know when we’ve wandered into theological imbalance.
The Call to Humble Integration
This kind of balanced interpretation is hard work.It requires humility, patience, and a willingness to be corrected. It requires us to say things like:
“This passage is challenging. But I know God is not the author of confusion.” “This verse seems to push in one direction, but I can’t forget what God said here, here, and here.” “If my understanding of this verse would require God to contradict Himself, I need to revisit my interpretation.”
This is not theological fence-sitting. It is worshipful submission to the unity of truth and the God who speaks it.
Conclusion: The Harmony of Truth Is the Test of Truth
The best interpretation is not the one that says what we want to hear.It’s the one that honors the harmony of God’s Word and the wholeness of God’s character. When we interpret Scripture faithfully, we are not just handling a text—we are handling the revealed mind of God. That demands that we hold the whole.