Recently, I was in a church meeting where most people spoke another language. Let’s say it was German. The speaker was speaking English, which is my native language. An interpreter was needed. Fortunately, one was available. She was a native German speaker but was able to accurately translate what was being said in English so the German listeners could understand.

During the service, a visitor from another country wanted to make a theological point. He was from Nigeria but said he could also speak English. The translator said she would be glad to translate for him as well.

The man from Nigeria had a very, very heavy accent. As he spoke in English, I was unable to understand what he was saying. I could pick out maybe one of every twenty-five words. I even wondered whether he’d reverted to his native tongue. I was completely in the dark.

As I tried to figure out what he was saying, it occurred to me that the translator was translating every word the guy was saying. I was amazed. How could a woman whose native language wasn’t English, interpret for a guy speaking some version of English that not even I, a native speaker, could understand? She definitely appeared to be understanding what he said in English, then explaining it in German. To say the least, I was quite impressed with her ability.

After the meeting, a few of us went out to lunch. The interpreter came with us. I was so curious that I had to ask: “How were you able to understand what that guy from Nigeria was saying?” I told her that I had no idea what he had said. Based upon the few words I could understand, I told her what I thought he had said. Another English speaker at lunch said she had the same experience. She gave her view of what she thought he had said. It was completely different from mine.

The interpreter admitted that she had not understood, either. She said she just “filled in the blanks” with what she thought he was saying. She had woven a story together that reflected what he might have been saying. I asked her what she had said in German, and she gave a story that was different from both my interpretation and that of the other English speaker at the table. The interpreter had made up a story so as not to embarrass the speaker.

So, the interpreter and the German speakers had one view of what was said. The non-German speaking English speakers had their own individual understandings of what was said. I have to admit, I laughed out loud when I realized what happened. None of us had any idea what the guy from Nigeria had said. My guess is that it was different from all our various interpretations. There were probably twenty mental versions of the little sermon he had given. I’m sure the original speaker would have been very surprised if he had understood what was being said in German!

I would like to make an analogy. That is the way many people treat the Bible. Let’s say the guy from Nigeria was the Word of God. He spoke some words. Let’s say they were profound words. But each person hearing those words attached his or her own meaning to them. In essence, each said, “This is what those words mean to me.”

We hear people say that kind of thing all the time: “What does that passage mean for you? It means this to me.” A postmodern world in which there is no absolute truth supports such a way of looking at the Bible.

Paul told Timothy that he should be diligent in the way he handled God’s Word. Timothy needed to rightly divide it (2 Tim 2:15). In the next chapter, Paul tells him the reason he should look at the Scriptures in that way: All of it is inspired by God (2 Tim 3:16). It is simply unacceptable for us to make the Scriptures say whatever we want them to say. Timothy needed to study the Scriptures in order to determine what they said. He couldn’t just “fill in the blanks” with whatever he wanted.

In my analogy, if we wanted to know what the guy from Nigeria had said, we should have asked him. It would have taken some work. The interpreter could have slowed him down so that she could clearly understand what he was saying. Whatever he meant to say was the true story. There was only one meaning. None of us had been “diligent” enough to find out what he said. It was pretty funny.

Let’s not be guilty of treating the Word of God in this way. If we don’t understand it, let’s be diligent in rightly dividing it until we do.