Every reader who is married knows that marriage is an adjustment. The honeymoon phase does indeed end. Couples may love each other, but conflict eventually surfaces. One piece of sage advice for handling conflicts that I received sometime after getting married was offered in the form of a question: Do you want to be happy, or do you want to be right? I caught the drift. Winning a debate and making your spouse happy aren’t interchangeable ideas.
While this advice works well for marital bliss, it doesn’t work for Bible study. When it comes to interpreting Scripture, you want to be right. Flawed analysis and poorly formed conclusions about what the Bible says aren’t going to produce Bible study bliss. In the long run of our spiritual lives, getting warm and fuzzy feelings from a misunderstood passage is far less desirable than grasping the text accurately without a wave of emotion sweeping over us.
The same can be said about having your own theological comfort zone as your goal for Bible study. If we believe the text is inspired, we need to be subservient to what it says, even when our efforts produce results that conflict with what we’ve been taught to believe. If we’re teaching others, our goal cannot be keeping people happy with what we discover are flawed beliefs and interpretations. Bible study is meaningless if we aren’t striving to understand God’s Word correctly.
So remember that you aren’t practicing marital diplomacy when you study Scripture. Think critically. Be tenacious. Demand clarity. Giving in isn’t going to make God happy. He wants you to wrestle with his Word and get it right.