Some of the biggest arguments and misunderstandings about crossdressing stem from different views of the Bible and how to interpret some specific Bible passages that may or may not bear on the issue. In my opinion, much of the problem is that the people making arguments, (either for or against crossdressing with different Bible passages), usually don’t have clear guidelines and principles for how to interpret the Bible. I firmly believe that there correct and incorrect ways of interpreting the Bible. Many peaceful dialogues between people on biblical passages break down not because of different opinions on a given controversial issue like gender, but because the two people actually have very different views about what the Bible is and how to read it. In these cases, it makes a lot more sense to take a step back and have a dialogue about the Bible itself. Otherwise the two people can be fighting and arguing and really speaking past one another, all because their presuppositions about the Bible are so completely different.
In this post, I will explain in brief some of my beliefs about the Bible and how to interpret it. I do not have the time to give every rule of interpretation that I adhere to, but I will lay out a general framework and some basic guidelines for how to interpret Scripture. If you have any questions you may ask me.
1. View of the Bible
I believe that the Bible (specifically the Protestant Bible of 66 books) is a collection of writings that are 100% inspired by God. They were written by humans, but the Holy Spirit worked in the people who were writing so that the words they wrote were exactly what God wanted them to write. Therefore, since God is the author of Scripture, all Scripture has to make sense together. It will not contradict itself. Also, since God is the author, Scripture is 100% true. It is without error and won’t lead us astray.
I also believe that the writings of the Bible are 100% written by humans. The Bible is the word of God and words of men at the same time. God, in his sovereignty, allowed the writers to use their own writing styles, vocabulary, education, experiences, and personality. They had freedom in writing, but under God’s sovereignty and the working of the Holy Spirit, the outcome of what they wrote was still what God wanted them to write. (2 Timothy 3:16, 2 Peter 1:21, 1 Thessalonians 2:13, Hebrews 1:1)
I believe that the original writings (which we no longer have) were the texts that were inspired, but that God also preserved the Scriptures through the process of copying them over history, so that we can still today call the Bible, “the Word of God.” I believe that the Bible is necessary for us in order to understand who God is and how to be rescued from our sins. Studying this world also teaches us true things, and also reveals God to us, but that is not enough. We also need Scripture.
The Bible is the rule for my faith and life. It is my highest authority besides God himself. The purpose of the Bible is to reveal God to us. It teaches us about God, ourselves, and the relationship between God and ourselves. It does not tell us everything we want to know, and there are many subjects it does not teach about at all.
The Bible is perspicuous, meaning that it is clear enough for anyone to read and understand. This means that we can read it without being an expert and still come to know about God through it and the way of salvation through Jesus Christ. However, this does not mean that everything in the Bible is easy to understand. Many things are hard and complicated to understand. Even the apostle Peter admitted this (2 Peter 3:16). Therefore we need guidelines and rules to help us properly interpret the Bible.
I accept all of these things ultimately on faith. I could write pages of arguments for why we should believe the Bible is true. But ultimately it still comes down to faith. If you want to know good reasons for believing the Bible is inspired by God, there are good books out there on that subject. For me, not only are there historical reasons and testimony for why we should believe the Bible is true, but subjectively, when I read it I sense God speaking to me through it.
2. Difficulties in interpretation
We all come to Scripture with our own biases from our past experiences, education, background, etc. We also come with our own biases about what we really hope Scripture is saying or not saying.
We are also limited in our understanding of the Bible because of the distance of the writings. They were written about 2000 years ago or more. They were written in other cultures, and in other places than where we live. They were written in other languages – Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic.
Because of this we need to try very hard to do exegesis (to lead out the meaning of the text) rather than eisegesis (to lead meaning into the text). We must figure out the intended meaning of each passage, rather than leading into it the meanings we want to find there. And doing exegesis rather than eisegesis is difficult work. But we can get some help with the guidelines below.
3. Interpretive Guidelines
A. God’s guidance
If we approach the Bible with the standpoint of faith, then we can also trust that God will help us to understand Scripture through the guidance of the Holy Spirit and his people. We should always pray and ask God to help us understand his word. We should assume that even though people without faith can still sometimes interpret Scripture correctly, they will be at a severe disadvantage. Scripture was written by people of faith for people of faith.
We also must remember to go to Scripture in humility and reverence. We must respect it as it is God’s Word. Further, we need to be willing to put in the time to study it. We can’t rely on the Holy Spirit to give us a miracle of understanding. The Holy Spirit also works through our diligent study of the Bible to help us understand.
B. Historical background of the Bible
We must look at biblical passages in their historical and cultural context. This is always tricky to do since we don’t have encyclopedias from back then to look these things up. But we must do the best that we can, and sometime we must make educated guesses. What was the author trying to communicate and to who was he communicating it and why?
The main important guideline to remember is that ALL of the Bible is God’s word and applies to our lives. But not every verse applies to us in exactly the same way. We must discern the principle that a passage teaches us, but then figure out what the relevant cultural application is to our own time. Every passage of scripture teaches us a principle that God wants us to learn, but sometimes the cultural application will be different and sometimes it will be the same.
For example, when it says to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength,” (Deuteronomy 6:5) we can understand that pretty easily without having to figure out much historical or cultural stuff. The principle and application are the same both for us and the Israelites who first heard it.
But there are other passages more tricky like the verse – “Greet one another with a holy kiss” (1 Corinthians 16:30). With passages like these we first need to figure out the intended principle. Why did Paul say this? Well, the Corinthian church was going through many divisions and bad feelings towards each other. In that culture, a kiss was a way to show friendship and reconciliation. So Paul concludes his letter with telling them to greet one another with a holy kiss. It’s a sign of forgiveness and reconciliation in the midst of their church divisions. The principle would still apply to us today, but the cultural application would be different. In our culture, a kiss does not mean that, and you probably would get slapped for trying to kiss someone in church. In our culture, maybe the better application of this verse is to greet each other by shaking hands or sharing a meal for reconciliation and friendship. Every scripture is applicable to our lives, but in different ways.
C. Grammar of the Bible
The Bible was written in Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic. It was inspired in these original languages. To really understand what passages mean we must go back to the original languages. We don’t all need to do this personally, but we need people who can do this and teach us.
No translation anywhere of anything is ever perfect. There is always some interpretation involved in the translation. So when we read out of, say the New International Version, there has already been much interpretation put into the English text that we read. To really understand the original meanings of the text, we must try as hard as we can to read the Bible in its original languages. We have to understand what words originally meant, not just what they mean now in our usage. We need to understand the idioms of that time as well.
Certainly we can still read the Bible fairly accurately without knowing the original languages. We can read the Bible in English and it is still the Word of God for us and we can still get much out of it since the translations are quite good. We should just know that when we are doing so we are somewhat handicapped. Thankfully though, it is not too serious of a handicap, since in our time good commentaries and lexicons are so readily available to help us.
We also need to pay attention to the issue of textual criticism, of examining all the oldest manuscripts that we have, to put together the best and most accurate writings of the Bible in the original languages, but that is a huge different topic that I won’t get into.
D. The Bible as literature
We must remember that the Bible was written as literature just like all of our writing today. The authors were gifted. They wrote in different ways and styles and genres.
When reading a passage of Scripture we must always look to see what kind of literary genre it was written in. Today, we read a newspaper differently than we read a novel than we read a dictionary than we read a poem. Also in the Bible, we need to read letters different from prophecy which are different than the poetic psalms. There are many different literary genres in Scripture. We need to interpret those genres as they were intended to be interpreted rather than treating all the Bible as the same type of literature.
There are different rules for interpreting prophecy than for interpreting law. I could fill up another ten pages talking about the different rules and guidelines for each of these types of biblical genres. I won’t do so now. I may bring up some of these guidelines later on when I look at specific passages in later writings.
Furthermore, we also need to pay attention to the literary devices authors use. Again we can’t read every passage the same. Writers were gifted and used literary techniques like hyperboles, repetition, chiasms, alliteration, euphemisms, metaphors, and many more. We must pay attention to these to interpret passages as they were intended to be interpreted.
Last, we must appreciate the beautiful form of the finished books of the Bible. We must recognize the intention of an author through a whole book. We must appreciate not just what they said, but why they said it, and in what way they said it.
E. God as the main author of Scripture
Since God is the main author of Scripture, Scripture all works and fits together. Because of this one of most important interpretive tools is to interpret Scripture with Scripture. We can compare and contrast and this helps us to figure out what passages really mean.
We also see that God worked in Scripture through “progressive revelation.” Over time God revealed more and more to his people. The Israelites did not have the understanding of God as Trinity that we do today. But God progressively reveals more and more about himself and his plan of salvation throughout Scripture. We interpret the New Testament in light of the Old Testament and the Old Testament in light of the new. I also believe that the whole Bible is ultimately about Jesus, which he himself said on a few occasions. When we read the Old Testament, we should look for Jesus there.
Because God is the author of Scripture, and God is almighty and knows the future, sometimes scripture passages have multiple meanings and multiple fulfillments. For example in the prophets we see some prophecies which were fulfilled immediately during the time they were spoken, and then fulfilled later on when Jesus came as well (Isaiah 7:1-25, virgin will be with child).
F. Don’t interpret alone
We should all have the humility to realize we can’t interpret the Bible correctly on our own. We need the people of God, the community of faith to dialogue with and work together with in order to understand Scripture correctly. We can’t be a church unto ourselves. We need accountability.
When we interpret Scripture we shouldn’t be a lone ranger, but should be in a church body to study with, preferably with a whole collection of churches. If you come up with some new view in Scripture and you are the only one who believes it, chances are you are wrong. We need to be held accountable to our view of Scripture by other Christians.
Further on individual passages of Scripture that we are trying to figure out we should look at how they have been interpreted throughout church history. Some of the smartest leaders in the church are no longer living, people that had a better grasp of the original languages than we do today, and people that had a better grasp of the biblical culture than we do today. People that studied like crazy. We can read their writings from the last 2000 years of church history and learn from their wisdom, and humbly realize they have something to teach us. If we come up with a new teaching that is different from what The Church has always said for the last 2000 years it should give us great pause to proceed with caution. There is great wealth in church tradition. In light of this, creeds and statements of faith written throughout church history are a great tool to keep us guided to proper biblical interpretation.
Conclusion: I could say a lot more, but this is really long already. I hope this helps some of you grow deeper in the knowledge of God’s Word.
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