How silly. That seasoned seminary professors would make you do something as ridiculous as learning the language of the Word of God. How inconsiderate. Of these teachers of faith who have trained generations of pastors before you, how wasteful. Of your precious time to teach you the depth and severity of your publicly spoken word. How dare anyone care how you interpret the Bible.

Because understanding the Bible is pretty simple and straightforward, right? Every man, woman, and child can now read it for himself. I mean, we have the Bible in English and every other popular language. It is common to believe that it is easy for every individual person to interpret the words of God for themselves. And so, dear pastor, you probably think that this means that you are also called to be as careless. 

But you have been made aware that our English Bible translations (or any other modern language) have been built on centuries of language study from those who have gone before. By this point, you have already been introduced to lifetimes of translation work, manuscript evidence, and principles of interpretation that have shaped the very words of the Bible that are too quickly taken for granted.

Ridiculous standards, for sure. That you should have to lower yourself to understand the foundations of a sola scriptura confession, oh sorry, that means “scripture alone” for those of you who don’t need to waste time with other languages. 

And so, dear pastor. If you still confess there is no higher authority than the Word of God. When you are called to preach and teach from this Christocentric authority alone, what exactly do you think you need to have learned?

Your blessed vocation grants both the freedom and responsibility to communicate the Word of God from its raw form. That’s right, you will preach a sermon. And guess what? You can say anything you want. You are called to lead and teach people, young and old, successful and poor, good and bad, the truth of ”God’s Word.”

So, how do you plan to approach this task?

It is a fact. Every faithful confession tries to discern the truth. Yet still, there are a million ways that this can play itself out. Have you ever wondered why every church in your town has a slightly different interpretation of the Bible? Have you ever wondered which one might be true to God’s intention? Did you ever consider that you may be the one who has to discern the truth for your people?

So this begs the question, dear pastor. Why do you want to do this job as overseer of souls? Why? If you have no inclination to do the work of God’s Word? Learning what it says, aware of how you read it, continually preaching eternal truths in every time and place? The work of the Word will end up being your only job. So what, dear pastor, should be consuming of your time to learn? 

What do you want to confess the Word of God says to them? The wallowing and wandering of your own heart?

Our confessional tradition is filled with the spirit of reading the Bible as and truthfully and reflectively as possible. Dr. Martin Luther personally toiled to translate the Word of God from the original languages of Hebrew and Greek. His incredible service offered an educated and corrective insight for his people, for the church he was compelled to serve, and for the Christian Faith. Since then, our same tradition has been rooted in the primary sources to discover the best, most faithful way to read the Word of God.

All of this, just to help your people, your flock, to understand God’s truth.

But I guess it doesn’t have to be this way. I suppose you don’t have to understand all of the original intentions and nuances of the biblical language. You don’t have to be aware of the hermeneutical principles you use every time you read the Bible. You don’t have to think for yourself about communicating truths beyond your heart and soul. Being mindful of these complexities is a much more challenging route to take. But there are a few ways to be authentic in your complex confession of God’s Word. Consider the following.

1. Deny all of the historical and scholarly reflection. Just do your own thing. Speak what you think the Spirit is laying on your heart and mind. Look for God in your dreams and your experience with Creation. If you do not believe in taking time to learn principles of interpretation for the Word of God, then you don’t think it is important enough to communicate what God says outside of what you say. So, just be honest with your personal confession. Plenty of self-proclaimed ministers choose this route. Cutting off academic reflection and challenging questions about the nature of the Word of God. It does make your job easier.

2. Go all in. Give up your independent interpretations of God’s truth. If you admit that God spoke His Word in time, acted with certain people, and was written down amidst a culture and people, then you should immediately recognize you need help to properly interpret God’s holy Word. But, since you don’t have time to study this collection of ancient writings properly, you must defer to others. All the time. Use other people’s translations and insights exclusively – not your own. Get comfy being shackled to their thoughts and scholarship, possibly erroneous foundational principles. Again, this path is nothing new. Many Christian leaders have done this before you. This rigidity in confession, doctrine, and councils who tell you what to say has never achieved the ultimate status of God’s eternal truth. But, it makes your job easier. 

Whichever end of the spectrum you choose, dear pastor, these options will allow you to have time for whatever it is you think is more important than properly reading, preaching, and teaching the Word of God. 

Whatever these other important things turn out to be, I do hope that the people who hear your voice every week agree with you and that you don’t need to learn how to interpret the Word of God for them.