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These days, truth has become something far different than most of the history of the world. What is "true" these days is based on what a person wants to be true. It's as if truth is a fluid, changing thing that society decides and not transcendent, universal, or eternal.
People will say things like "There is no absolute truth," and absolutely mean it. It's sort of a oxymoron. I mean, how can a person assert there is no absolute truth if he is not asserting something absolute (or he thinks is absolute)?
But let's get real! It is the devil who hates the true truth, the only truth, the eternal truth. He is constantly trying to get us to question God and His truth as revealed in His Word. This is what the devil does! He creates confusion, discord, doubt, fear, and skepticism.
But amidst all this grand confusion and liquidity, our Lord speaks, and He only speaks what is true. After all, God is the creator of truth and He speaks nothing but the truth. And He doesn't hide the truth from us, but reveals it to us plainly. The Holy Bible IS the truth because God says it is. We can most certainly trust that the Bible will not only reveal God's eternal truth to us, but that He gives it fully for our salvation and understanding. This IS the truth!
The word "interpretation" is a word that has come to us from the French, Latin, and ancient Greek. The Greek word is ἑρμηνεύω (hermeneuo) and means "to interpret/translate."
Originally, biblical interpretation wasn't about "what does this mean to me," but more about translation, taking the original languages and translating them accurately into a different language like Latin or German.
However, as time went on and new methods of interpretation came about, the word interpret also found a new meaning. Rather than simply "to translate," it became more eisegetical in nature where the reader began to apply his own personal ideas and thoughts to the Scripture.
This is precisely why we have so many interpretations. It's not because the Scripture can actually be interpreted in many different (has many meanings). Yes, we can interpret in the narrow sense, translating original languages into different languages, but we cannot -- dare I say, God does not give us the permission to read into His Holy Scripture whatever meanings or assertions we wish. There is only one true and right understanding of every word, phrase, passage, and teaching in the Scripture, and that is God's understanding. As Christians, it behooves us to use correct hermeneutics (methods of interpretation) so that we aren't reading our own ideas into the Scripture, intentionally or otherwise.
Historically, the most fundamental hermeneutic has been, "Let the Scripture interpret the Scripture." This is a big way of saying that we should let the Scripture speak for itself. If Jesus says something that is difficult to understand or believe, it matters not because Jesus said it and this makes it true. If Paul wrote something that is contrary to modern cultural positions, then as God's people we are to submit to God's Word, even as He gave it to us through Paul, and reject cultural opinions.
There are many translations of the Scripture, but there are really only three major categories of translation.
By default, we should not pay any attention to Paraphrases such as "The Living Bible" or "God's Word for the Nations" or even "The New World Translation," because they're not really translations. Most of these sort of Bibles aren't based on the original languages (Greek and Hebrew) and the author/editor spends a lot of time inserting his own ideas or convictions into the text. There is little research or critical analysis done. Best to stay away from them.
A Dynamic translation is one where good scholarly work stands behind the translation, and the translation is from original languages, but much care was put into trying to make the Scripture read like a modern language. The New International Version (version 1) is such a translation. The New King James is a type of Dynamic. The Message Bible is a very Dynamic translation. These are not necessarily bad translations, but do keep in mind that some depth of understanding may be lost as the translators choose words that don't always fully convey original intent.
Finally, we have the Literal translations. These translations strive to be as close to original languages as possible. This is great, but it also means such translations are more difficult to read. The English Standard Version is a Literal translation, as is the King James, and the New American Standard Bible.
In the LCMS, we tend to use the ESV or nKJV. Whatever the case, we very much stay away from paraphrase bibles.
This is one of those "gotcha" questions that skeptics like to ask in order to debunk the Bible.
But the simple answer to the question is that there were two different feedings: one with 5000 people and one with 4000 people.
They were in different locations, had different amounts of bread and fish, and even served different purposes.
This concerns the doctrine of "Eschatology" or End Times theology. Sadly, there is a TON of bad information out there regarding eschatology and for whatever reason the American churches just soak up all that bad info like sponges and so few people question any of it.
The number '666' is called "man's number" in the Bible (see Revelation 13:18). To understand this number, one must understand a few things about the Book of Revelation and about the apocalyptic literary style in general.
Many people have tried to "decipher" the number 666 by reading into the number modern-day things like bar codes, microchips, credit card chips or mag-strips, and other such tomfoolery. This is not only bad doctrine, but it is also dangerous because it leads to fear and despair rather that comfort and hope -- the whole point of the Book of Revelation!
Regarding Jewish numbers, many numbers came loaded with symbolic meaning. Consider the number 7, for example. We call this the number of God or completeness because of the 6+1 days of Creation, among other things. If 7 is the number for completion, then it stands to reason that 6 is one less than completion or the imperfect, and 666 is one short of holy, holy, holy.
A great book to consider is "Reading the Book of Revelation: Five Principles for Interpretation" by Rev. Julius Buelow. It will help get the Americanized, John Darby false teachings out and return you to an orthodox, biblical commitment to eschatological issues.
Yes, the Scripture is quite clear about women's roles in the church. Women are not to have authority over men in the church. This preserves God's order of creation, Adam first, then Eve from Adam.
This is how God wants it because it is a perfect symbol of Christ, the bridegroom, and His church, the bride. We subject ourselves, as His church, to Christ who subjected Himself FOR us by death.
God does not create rules such as this for no reason, but He does it in order to teach us great and valuable lessons regarding salvation and eternal life. In heaven, we will have no need for such roles, but while we remain on this earth, women are not to have authority over men, including not serving as clergy, in the church. Period.
We number the commandments as we do more so for convenience than strict dogma. The Scripture never says there are specifically 10 commandments, though even the Jews determined this decalogue to be most appropriate to help with memorizing and teaching.
Ancient Israel numbers the commandments relatively the same way for centuries. It's also the way the Lutherans, Catholics, and Eastern Orthodox churches number the commandments. We don't split the first commandment into two, but we split the last commandment into two.
The Reformed, Calvinist, Armenian churches have chosen to split the first commandment into two and combine the last two commandments into one, likely because of the "Radical Reformation" era where anything that looked, smelled, or remotely resembled the Roman Catholic church was stripped away and burned/destroyed. Splitting the 1st commandment into two simply gives justification for this, since, according to those church bodies, even having a symbol of Christ, the cross, etc. in the church is a sin (an engraven image, as they'd say).
Lutherans, Catholics, and Orthodox churches reject this rather overly zealous abuse of the 1st Commandment and say, instead, that images/icons which symbolize godly realities are fine, just so we don't worship THEM instead of God.
This is another one of those really bad misunderstandings of the Book of Revelation and the eschaton.
As with the number '666' we are not to read Revelation literally but using the same apocalyptic understanding as 1st century Christians. How would THEY have understood John when he wrote about 1,000 years? Who cares what we think today! What matters is author's original intent.
Simply put, we are in the 1,000 years now and we have been since Christ died and rose again and His kingdom was established. His kingdom is the Christian church.
We take the Creation account literally because there is no reason not to.
You must understand that much of the hypothesis of Evolution is based on a whole lot of assumptions and unprovable assertions. Carbon dating, along with its many variations, assumes certain things, assumptions that cannot be proven and have even shown inaccurate. Carbon dating methods rely on the assumption that the half-life of various radio isotopes is consistent over a period of time. But how could this be proven? It can't be! It can only be assumed.
There was a study done years ago by a scientist named Robert Gentry, and in his research, he discovered that in some cases, half-life was not consistent but affected by external forces. His research was essentially thrown out because it didn't support the prevailing theory at the time concerning the age of the earth. But his work is worth considering since it shows how assumptions don't make good cases for facts.
As Christians, we are called to take our Lord's Word seriously and, unless context says otherwise, literally. Nothing in Genesis 1 or anyplace else in the Scripture suggests to us that Genesis 1 is anything but the true account of creation. So, we take it as it is written, even if it flows contrary to the world's "accepted science" and hypotheses.