When I was a teenager, I bought a new version of scripture called The Living Bible, a highly readable paraphrase that used everyday language. The Gospels enthralled me. Soon I started a Bible study group in my high school. We met daily in the cafeteria during lunch. Each of us brought a copy of The Living Bible and avidly discussed various passages.

We became Bible fanatics, and, with The Living Bible in hand, we thought we understood scripture pretty easily.

But as I studied more deeply, taking Bible courses in college, I discovered scripture can be puzzling and problematic.

Different passages sometimes offer contradictory information and guidance. Some offend my moral sensibilities. More than a few are just plain weird.

Alarmingly, throughout history, Christians have used the Bible to justify disturbing practices: slavery, silencing and subjugating women, racial supremacy, holy war, obedience to despotic kings, congratulating the rich for being rich while blaming the poor for being poor, consigning the vast majority of humanity to everlasting punishment in hell, and — frequently today — condemning and criticizing people who identify as queer.

What you believe about all these things depends on how you interpret the Bible: identifying certain passages as central to the Bible’s meaning, finding ways to relate those passages to other passages with differing perspectives, deciding how the various passages apply (or don’t apply) today.

Some people claim they don’t interpret the Bible. They just read it and obey it. But every time we read the Bible, we interpret it.

As we read each verse, we call upon our traditions, worldview, experiences, reasoning, information, assumptions, biases and prejudices to make sense of it.

Perhaps the most fundamental question the church faces is how to interpret the Bible. Thus it is essential to identify principles to guide our interpretation so that we hear the Bible’s message as God’s Spirit intends it to be heard.

I offer for your consideration what I believe are five wrong ways and five right ways to read the Bible:

Wrong: The Bible speaks with one voice. Many Christians believe God dictated every word of the Bible to its authors. As a result, the Bible has only one perspective and no contradictions. The task of interpretation is to harmonize everything into one viewpoint. But even a cursory reading of scripture reveals different perspectives that can’t all be reconciled.

Right: The Bible is a holy dialogue that evolves over time. I heard a rabbi describe the Bible as the ultimate expression of crowd wisdom — that is, a large group of people collectively will make better judgments than individuals do. Experiments have borne out the validity of this approach within a variety of disciplines.

The Bible is a kind of crowd wisdom — many people over many centuries wrestling with the most profound questions of human meaning and divine purpose. Certain key themes unify the Bible, and the writers explore and develop these themes in a variety of ways. The Spirit of God is involved in the entire process rather than dictating each author’s words.

Wrong: Isolated verses are sufficient to support a position. This is called proof-texting. The problem is, one can find individual verses to support nearly anything.

Right: We should read all verses in their literary, historical, cultural and canonical context. Every verse has a context: the passage and book that contain it, the historical circumstances that produced it, the cultural assumptions and beliefs that shaped it and its location within the canonical dialogue that speaks to it. To understand and apply various verses with integrity, we must understand the context as well as we can.

Wrong: Every story in the Bible is literal and historical. This defines truth too narrowly. When Genesis 1 says everything was made in six days, is that literal or poetic? When Genesis 7 says God flooded the entire Earth to eliminate human evil, is that historical or theological? When the Book of Jonah says the prophet sang a psalm while spending three days and nights in the belly of a fish, is that history or parable?

Right: The Bible speaks its truth through many forms: history, story, poetry, metaphor, parable, legend. Truth doesn’t have to be literal.

Wrong: The books of Ezekiel, Daniel and Revelation foretell current or imminent events. Many Christians believe the purpose of prophecy is to predict the future, so the biblical prophets described events that may be unfolding today. This misunderstands the prophets’ purpose.

Right: The books of Ezekiel, Daniel and Revelation refer to events in their own time but express a message with relevance for every generation. The biblical prophets were principally forth-tellers rather than foretellers. They address injustices and immediate consequences in their own contexts; otherwise, their words would not have been meaningful to the original audience. But their challenges, warnings and ultimate hope remain relevant to every generation, including ours.

Wrong: The Bible’s central purpose is to teach us to believe the right things. Many Christians believe the center of our faith is orthodoxy, which roughly means “right thinking.” Certainly, the biblical writers were concerned that their audience should think about things in the right ways. But when we make right thinking the center of our faith, we miss what is most important about the Christian life.

Right: The Bible’s central purpose is to show us how to trust in God’s love and live out that love with hope. The Bible is centrally concerned not with thinking but with trusting. It seeks to foster a relationship of radical trust between us and God. Through that relationship, we learn to love others empathetically and in a self-giving way. That’s orthopraxy — “right practice” — which is the Bible’s true purpose.

The one who most clearly shows us how to live and love is Jesus. His practice of including both insiders and outcasts, inviting all into transformation from fearful and selfish behavior to courageous sharing and self-giving compassion — and living this out all the way to crucifixion — reveals the heart of God. Jesus’ resurrection is the ultimate sign of hope that love prevails. That’s the center of the Bible.

A true story: A Mennonite went to a revival meeting, and the evangelist asked, “Are you saved?” The Mennonite said yes.

“And what verse,” asked the evangelist, “is the basis of your salvation?” The evangelist expected the Mennonite to say, “John 3:16,” the famous verse about believing in Jesus so that one may have eternal life. Instead, the Mennonite answered, “1 John 3:14.”

The evangelist sputtered, “That’s the wrong verse!” But perhaps it is a better one: “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death” (NIV).

Ryan Ahlgrim is pastor of First Mennonite Church of Richmond, Va., and the author of Spying on Jesus: A Novella (Resource Publications, 2025).