Reading the Bible Through Rose-Colored Glasses

Some years ago, my wife and I were at Daytona Beach for our anniversary trip. I do not like the beach, but I love my wife––so, I take her to the beach.

I had brought several books to read and a few to reread. In rereading one of my books that I had previously highlighted, I was shocked to find that the yellow highlights were gone. I thumbed through the whole book. There were no highlights. I did not think I had two copies of that one, but I must have brought one that I had not highlighted. Later that evening, I picked the book up back in our room. The highlighting had returned! I was shocked! I looked around for the other copy that I must have brought without the highlighting. There was only one copy, and it WAS indeed highlighted. While on the beach, my sunglasses totally filtered out the highlights. It did not matter how intently I studied the pages, I could not see the highlights.

Later, it occurred to me that I sometimes read the Bible like that – filtered through the lenses of my personal biases. At times I cannot see what is clearly on the page. It is not intentional. Often, I do not even recognize what is happening. The only solution is to make sure that upon coming to a text in Scripture we ruthlessly rip aside the filters of our presuppositional biases that prevent us from taking a passage at face value. We must grant no quarter to our doctrinal, denominational, and cultural pre-understanding. On the contrary, we must continually examine our presuppositions in light of the text of Scripture.

So let us rip off the shades and read the text as it is, not as we have been taught that it is. This is an essential step to make sure that we are not guilty of unintentional hermeneutical ventriloquism.