Becky
Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation [2 Pet. 1:20].
“Knowing this first.” Simon Peter says that this is the first thing we are to know. The word knowing is a knowledge that comes, not only from the Word of God, not only from facts that can be ascertained—if you have an honest heart, you can find out whether the facts in the Bible are accurate or not—but these are things which you can know by the Holy Spirit’s making them real to you.
As I have said before, I have long since passed the stage when I wanted the Bible proved to me. When I was young, I did want the Bible proved to me; and if I found that archaeology had dug up a spadeful of dirt somewhere that proved a fact in the Bible, I would clap my hands like a little child and shout, “Wonderful!” I don’t do that anymore. I don’t need a spadeful of turned-up dirt to prove the Bible to me. The Spirit of God Himself has made the Word of God real to my heart. I know there is a transforming power in God’s Word. There is power in the Word of God. This is something that we can know, and the facts, confirmed by the Holy Spirit, make it real to us.
“No prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.” What Peter is saying here is that no portion of the Scripture is to be interpreted apart from other references to the same subject. That is the reason I put up such an objection to the idea of pulling out one little verse of Scripture and building a doctrine on that one verse. If you cannot get the whole body of Scripture to confirm your doctrine, then you had better get a new doctrine, my friend.
I think a good illustration is the difference between riding in a good, solid, four-wheeled wagon and on a unicycle. If you have ever seen a person ride on that one wheel of a unicycle, you have noted that he does a lot of twisting and turning and maneuvering around to stay balanced on that one wheel. In the circus I once saw a man riding way up high on a unicycle, and all of a sudden it went out from under him, and he fell backwards. Believe me, he had a bad fall. And I thought, Oh, how many Christians are like that today. They base what they believe on a single verse.
While it is wonderful to have one marvelous verse of Scripture, if it tells a great truth, there will be at least two or three verses and usually a whole chapter on it somewhere in the Bible. Simon Peter is telling us that no passage of Scripture should be interpreted by itself. We need to confirm it with other Scriptures.
BigMack