Whether you participate or not the fact remains that unless we are willing to carefully examine words and phrases in Scripture we will not really see what is being said. A doctrine can be based on a little as a singular or plural noun.
If you don't mind my two cents, I would like to suggest that in addition to (or even before the above), we should make ourselves familiar with the techniques God employed in writing the Bible; that is, if we just read it the way we would read any other ordinary book would cause us to miss its most important spiritual messages. The Bible, being its own self-contained user manual (so to speak), documents for our edification the techniques that He utilized. God did not just include them in passing, but to be indispensable to us for the understanding of, and for the growing of faith in, God's holy scripture.
Here is a list (in no particular order) that I've compiled so far but do not believe it complete:
[2Ti 2:15 KJV]
15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed,
rightly dividing the word of truth.
Scripture was written by God on two simultaneous levels: the temporal (earthly) and the spiritual - a verse may appear on its surface
complete in that it is for something earthly, yet its real intent may be (and probably is) for the spiritual. When we are directed to rightly divide, we are being directed to find spiritual.
[1Co 2:13 KJV]
13 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; c
omparing spiritual things with spiritual.
The same intent as the above
[2Pe 1:18-21 KJV]
18 And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount.
19 We have also a
more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:
20 Knowing this first,
that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.
21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake [as they were] moved by the Holy Ghost.
Again, all scripture must be compared to other like scripture to arrive at a correct interpretation.
[Gal 4:23-26 KJV]
23 But he [who was] of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman [was] by promise.
24
Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.
25 For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to
Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.
26 But
Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.
God used allegory as a basis of the Bible. In the above, we are informed of that by the depiction of the children as allegory: one of Hagar; one of Sarah. As the direct offspring of Abraham's, they are foundational to the entire Bible and therefore that the remainder of the Bible must, to some extent, be allegorical too - hence the dividing of the spiritual mentioned above.
[Luk 8:10 KJV] 10 And he said, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God:
but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand.
[Heb 9:9 KJV]
9 Which [was]
a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience;
God used parables for the teaching of spiritual truth to some, or for denying of spiritual truth to others.
[Heb 5:12-13 KJV]
12 For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which [be] the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have
need of milk, and not of
strong meat.
13 For every one that useth
milk [is] unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe.
[1Pe 2:2 KJV] 2 As newborn babes, desire the sincere
milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby:
[2Pe 2:12 KJV] 12 But these,
as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption;
God wrote using symbols.
I don't want to drone on too much longer. My point was to say that in order to understand God's writing of the Bible, we must
give due consideration to the way He told us it was written and should be read. Even doing that, we are informed that
unless led by the Holy Spirit, we will never find true spiritual wisdom, however, that would be a wholly different topic.
