The Bible is the most read book in the world, with an estimated 5 billion copies sold.^[1]Second is either the Qur’an or Mao’s Little Red Book. Scripture has been read and reread, interpreted and reinterpreted countless times. However, reading the same scriptures does not that we understand them the same way.

It is an extremely helpful skill to be able to understand when people think differently than you. Even if you say the same words, those words might have such different meaning to you that you do not understand each other. You should practice being aware of when people are talking past each other. Perhaps this is nowhere more common and more important than in religion.

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Prerequisites: None.

Originally Written: July 2017.

Confidence Level: This is practice for a skill I find useful.

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Once upon a time, a Christian missionary was traveling through the mountains of New Guinea looking for some souls to save. He was surprised to find some people who had met Christians before, and even more surprised to learn that those Christians had been cannibals. He asked if they were sure that the Christians were cannibals. Why yes, they ate flesh and blood. Every Sunday.^[2]I don’t have a good source for this story, so I’m not particularly confident that this actually happened. It does highlight how religion can be miscommunicated across cultural divides.

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… the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible.

– JSH 1:12

Whenever we read something, what we learn from the text is some mix of what the author intended and the paradigms we use to see the world. Only exceptionally clear writing introduces the same ideas to everyone who reads it. Other writing will be misinterpreted unless the author and the reader share a cultural background.

Scripture is especially prone to being interpreted in multiple ways. Here are a few of the many reasons:

• Most scripture was written hundreds or thousands of years ago. Very few of the people who read it today are familiar with the cultural context of the authors.
• Most scripture involves particular stories told about particular people. This style of writing is especially dependent on the cultural context.
• A large number of intelligent people have spent a large amount of time interpreting scripture. Many of them had goals other than just understanding what the authors said. More plausible interpretations of scripture have been written than most texts.
• Scripture is still culturally relevant today. Most people learned scripture starting at a young age. The interpretations that they learned are intermeshed with their cultural identity.
• Scriptures have been culturally relevant continuously since they were written. Through history, both the dominant interpretations of individual passages and the relative importance of passages has changed. It might be important to understand the cultural context of times other than just when the passage was written to fully understand the text.^[3]For example, James 1:5 is significant to the Restored Church because it motivated Joseph Smith to pray about which church to join. The response, now known as the First Vision, was that he should join … Continue reading

This is not to argue that all interpretations are equally right (or wrong). Instead, I hope this to be useful for when you discuss scriptures with people from different religious or cultural backgrounds. Do not think that you are reading the same things just because you are reading the same verses. You will not convince someone who is not of your religion of the error of their ways simply by finding a verse that contradicts them. You will not understand someone else’s religion by reading their scripture without discussing it with someone who observes that religion.

To demonstrate the significance of the paradigms we use when reading scripture, I’ve made a quiz. Each question references a passage of the Bible or a common Christian phrase. Which of these answer choices correctly conveys the meaning of the phrase? Which of the answer choices could you see someone picking?

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In Jeremiah 1:5, God says to Jeremiah: “`Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee: and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.” What does this refer to?

1. Predestination.
2. Even though God doesn’t determine the future, He perfectly knows what is to come.
3. The spirits of men and women exist before we enter this world. We received callings during our pre-Earth existence.
4. Personhood begins at conception, not once the fetus is formed enough to survive on its own.

What is the “firmament”? (See Genesis 1:6, Psalms 19:1, and Daniel 12:3.)

1. A solid crystalline sphere surrounding the earth that rotates once per day. The stars are embedded in this sphere. Heaven is physically located on the outside of the sphere.^[4]Although this paradigm is unthinkable in the space age, it was the dominant model of astronomy in the West through the end of the Middle Ages. Even the heliocentric models of Copernicus and Kepler … Continue reading
2. The atmosphere.
3. A symbolic separation between heaven and earth.

2 Thessalonians 2:3 reads: “Let no man deceive you by any means: for [the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ] shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition.” What is this “falling away”?

1. Judas Iscariot’s betrayal of Christ.
2. During the trials and persecutions of the last days, many formerly stalwart members of the Church will leave it.
3. The Church will grow corrupt and add false practices to the gospel, necessitating a reformation and return to the Bible alone.
4. The Church will fall into apostasy and remove many of the key aspects of the gospel, necessitating a restoration through modern revelation.

What does it mean to be “born again”?

1. I have had a spiritual experience in which I learned that I have been saved. Regardless of my own actions, God has graciously chosen me as one of His elect.
2. My personal relationship with Jesus Christ has made me want to do good works, regardless of whether they are necessary for my salvation.
3. The Atonement of Jesus Christ allows me to change who I am and become a better person through the diligent process of repentance.
4. I have been baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Baptism symbolizes death, burial (in water, not earth), and rebirth.

What do we mean when we say “I am a child of God”?

1. God created man.
2. God’s love for man is similar to a parent’s love for their child.
3. The Atonement of Jesus Christ adopts me into family of God.
4. Man is god in embryo. As God is now, man may become.