Christianity is not about my or your opinion, it is about God’s Word.
The problem is, too often we put our opinion into the scriptures as well! People like to filter the Word of God through their own ideas on the subject, and as a result ‘adjust’ what God ACTUALLY said, into what THEY THINK He said, or what fits with ‘their ideas on the subject’ instead of hearing what God is saying.
Why can’t we just take God’s word for what it says, without feeling the need to adjust it?
Why is it that when people read a passage, they feel the need to ‘qualify’ it by adding in their own phrases or words which actually change the meaning of the passage?
For example, when people read 1 Peter 2:24, which says, ‘who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness–by whose stripes you were healed.’ (NKVJ), why do they feel the need to qualify ‘healed’ and read it as ‘spiritual healing’?
This ‘adding in’ a qualifying word (spiritual) actually adjusts the meaning of the passage but it fits nicely into people’s personal theological ideas, because it then ‘excludes’ other ‘healings’
Why can’t we just take the passage for what it says, without trying to add in our own ‘qualifiers’?
(people do similar things to many passages in the Bible)
Surely if God needed to add in the word ‘spiritual’ He is quite capable of doing so when He had it written! Or do we feel that we have to fill in what God left out?
People do this all over the place, often subtly, but in ways that change a passages meaning or ‘slant’ the meaning into our personal theological interpretation!
This ‘filling in my opinion’ is the cause of a lot of confusion and argument in the church. Let’s just take the Word for what it says.
If God said it a particular way, let’s have enough confidence in Him, believing that He knows what He is doing and what He is saying, to take it THE WAY He said it