Ecclesiastes 8:1: “Who is a wise person? Who knows the solution of a problem? A person’s wisdom brightens his appearance and softens his harsh countenance.”

I want to pick up on that word solution, which can mean “explanation.” A wise person knows the explanation.

This is where I want to explore what is theologically known as hermeneutics (the art of interpreting Bible texts). You have read the text; how are you interpreting it? And how do you judge whether someone else is interpreting it correctly?

Approach it from this angle: Jesus coming and giving instruction to the disciples. They had only the Old Testament, and He said, “Go and make disciples of all nations… teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19–20). Their task was, in one sense, simple: “Jesus said this; this is what He said,” and they passed it on.

But after the revelation of Christ to Paul—and Paul then wrote much of the New Testament—you see Peter saying some of what Paul wrote is “hard to understand” (2 Peter 3:16). Paul also says, “Like a wise master builder, I laid a foundation” (1 Corinthians 3:10). That implies there needs to be some measure of skill developed to interpret Scripture properly, to put things in their proper contexts.

When Apollos started preaching, Priscilla and Aquila “took him aside and explained the way of God to him more accurately” (Acts 18:24–26). He was looking at things from one angle, likely from the perspective of John’s baptism. They wanted him to see things from the angle of Christ.

After His resurrection, Jesus spent time with two disciples on the road to Emmaus, and we are told that “He interpreted for them the things written about Him in all the Scriptures” (Luke 24:27)—that is, in the Old Testament. The point is: there is what you’ve read; how are you interpreting it? That is hermeneutics.

A key way to know you are moving toward a proper hermeneutic is the centrality of Christ in your approach. Jesus said, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is these that testify about Me, but you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life” (John 5:39–40). He is saying there is a way to interpret the Scriptures that makes it about Him.

That means an interpretation that:

You need a coherent understanding, and Christ is that coherence.

Paul puts it this way: “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2). That is his hermeneutic. That is how he is interpreting things—through the centrality of Christ. Not just knowledge for knowledge’s sake, but Christ as knowledge.

Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). So you cannot come to right understanding—cannot come to right hermeneutics—without Christ, without the centrality of Christ.

God bless you. See you later.