Hermeneutics.
If you’ve been around the church for a while, you know this word hermeneutics just means how you read and interpret the Bible. One specific thing I’ve found is that you always need to take all the scripture into account. The best way to study it is to read it in whole sections as it was written, not just a few verses at someone’s Bible study. If you read it in whole sections, then in time, after reading thru it a few times (New Testament only at first is okay), the Bible is fairly easy to understand to a person with a sincere heart and conscience, with no allegiance to a particular group, and therefore a truly open mind. God will lead us with our sincere conscience. We’ll eventually naturally obey the clear scriptures and important ideas. And it’s critical to keep this core as the top priority: Love God (which means abhor evil which is clear in the Bible) and love others. Jesus said in Matthew 22:40 that all the scriptures are summed up in these two. And the issues that are the clearest in the Bible also hit the conscience the clearest: lust, immorality, hate, murder, gossip, jealousy, coveting, greed, etc. The Bible also says in Philippians 3:12-16 below that God will keep us safe as we’re on this journey of seeking the truth, even if we believe something in error for a while, if we sincerely seek Him. That’s the important part.
12 Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. 13 Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. 15 Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude; and if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you; 16 however, let us keep living by that same standard to which we have attained. Philippians 3:12-16
God has wisely made sure all the important issues are very well defined in large portions of clear scriptures. But if we start trying to make ridged dogmatic absolute doctrines from isolated individual verses that don’t fit with other verses, then it’ll cause conflict, especially if we feel strongly that we need to convince other Christians. Then it causes detailed examination of these scriptures and balancing them to other scriptures and back and forth debate. Paul actually tells us not to do this after two times (Titus 3:10).
The Bible is unfortunately easy to misunderstand or misuse when you only take a few verses from different places. And all the denominations (good or bad) and cults do this. They all have their “pet verses”. Some churches will simply say they think this is how something is based on these verses, but not be dogmatic on it or make it a salvation issue. Other churches will take it up a notch and feel strongly about a topic and argue their verses with others, saying their church is more correct (trying to win people to their church), but that others are correct if they adhere to the essentials (e.g. Jesus being the only way to God). And then for comparison, on the far extreme, cults will say they are the only true church, and all others are going to hell. They tend to take the most obscure ideas from scriptures that are unique to their group, so they can claim to be the only ones in the right. After all, how can you claim to be the only true church because, for example, you believe that Jesus is the only way to heaven. No, almost all churches believe that, so you need some unique doctrine that the other churches don’t have. And unfortunately, the Bible wasn’t written like a legal document (it would be at least 10x the size) and was meant to be interpreted with common sense. So there are plenty of unclear doctrines for all the churches to pick their own unique ones, to one degree of exclusivity or another. The cults seem to be the most ardent, divisive, and argumentative about theirs. The focus is often more on winning disciples to their church than to God.
I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; 30 and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them. Acts 20:29,30
I started jotting down all the verses that can easily be misunderstood. I found 70 passages where we need to use common sense, or we’ll be confused. In Matthew there are almost 20. And they are serious things like teaching reincarnation, predestination, Gentiles are dogs, and keeping the Old Testament law. That’s almost every chapter on average. This shows why there are so many disagreements within Christianity and why it’s so important to look for clear consistent scripture and to be careful with using a few verses to make a doctrine. Interpret isolated confusing scriptures with a larger number of clearer and agreeing scriptures. We should also focus on the “weightier matters” as this other article talks about.
(Hover over the links on a PC or click them on a phone to reveal the scripture in a pop-up window.)
Matthew 1:17 you wouldn’t have guessed a genealogy could be a source of confusion right off the bat, but genealogies in the Bible are not strict as we would do them now. This is first seen many times in the book of 1st Chronicles. It has many genealogies and many variations can be seen. Scholars can tell they change the order or leave out names based on social status, parents, privileges, obligations, trying to relate people together, military conscription, or removing lesser-known names to get a shorter list of a certain number, as is the case here in Matthew 1:17. He has left out names to get the three sevens. Luke includes more names and has four sets of sevens. He also goes thru the line of Mary instead of Josheph as Matthew does.
Matthew 3:11 says Jesus will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. So do we all get that? Or with common sense can we see that this one-time event is what John was talking about and it was just to those disciples during that first receiving of the Spirit.
Matthew 5:17-20 and Matthew 24:20: These scriptures make it sound like we should keep the Old Testament (OT) down to the very smallest detail. But it just says the smallest detail won’t pass away so it’s unclear. We have to read elsewhere in Acts 15 that the Gentiles clearly don’t have to keep the OT Law, though the law of Christ (Galatians 6:2, 1 Corinthians 9:21) is even more righteous because it deals with inward thoughts. For the Jews it’s less clear. Matthew 5:20 (Matthew is written to the Jews) indicates that they should keep the OT law in that their righteousness should surpass the OT law, and no ceremonial laws are mentioned. In fact they couldn’t keep many of the ceremonial laws after 70 A.D. when their temple was destroyed. So it could be this same Law of Christ applies to them, one that is stronger except ceremonial laws. The examples Jesus then gives are consistent with this. Matthew 24:20 however seems to indicate they should be keeping the Sabbath at His return. Only Matthew mentions this, so maybe the Jews should still keep the sabbath. This is consistent with Exodus 31:16 which clearly says this Sabbath commandment was to the Jews. There are other verses in the New Testament that fit with this also, indicating that the Gentiles don’t need to keep the sabbath (e.g. Colossians 2). But others will point out Old Testament verses that say all peoples will keep sabbaths and certain Holy days during the 1000-year reign of Christ (and this could be true but doesn’t change what the Gentiles were told in Acts 15), ignore this distinction of Matthew applying to the Jews, and (most importantly) ignore this very clear teaching in Acts 15. So they say the Gentiles should keep the Sabbath. So this is still hotly debated by these people.
Matthew 5:37 if you say any additional word to yes or no is it really from Satan or is it the overuse of oaths to show something is true when you should just be speaking the truth all the time
Matthew 6:9-13. Obviously these are not the only things we should pray for as scripture tells us many other things to pray for elsewhere and Jesus himself prayed all night. The idea is not to add extra words to your prayer to make them seem longer or more eloquent.
Matthew 6:19. Taken quite literally, we can’t have a savings account but with common sense you can see that “treasures” is the operative word and we shouldn’t amass wealth on earth but be generous.
Matthew 9:18. This is a perfect example of how Matthew collapses narratives. We know from Luke 8 that the daughter was in the process of dying when the ruler approached Jesus and he only found out while they were on the way to his house that she had died. Matthew says she had already died from the beginning, a summarizing of the event. Luke typically gives more details on events, just like with the cup in Luke 22, he mentions dividing the cup before teaching about and taking the bread. Matthew 23 summarizes the event and doesn’t mention the distribution of the cup before the bread.
Matthew 10:5-23. Vs 10 says not to go to the gentiles and vs 23 can be over interpreted to say this applies until Jesus comes back. This should be understood as talking to the disciples only and they should go only to the Jews at that time (as Jesus also did). Verse 23 does say that His disciples would still be doing this when He comes back, but it doesn’t say they can’t also go into all nations as he clearly states at His ascension (Matthew 28:19).
Matthew 10:42. The “reward” is unclear. It can be mis-interpreted to say if you give a disciple a glass of cold water you can go to heaven, but it probably means some other kind of “reward” since such a simple entrance to heaven is contrary to many scriptures.
Matthew 11:14 and Matthew 17:11-13: This is clearly saying John the Baptist was Elijah. Reincarnation?? No, in John 1:20, 21 John clearly say he is not Elijah. In the Bible the concept of a proxy seems to be really strong. If you send someone on your behalf, then it can be said that you came to them. John seems to be Elijah’s proxy. This can be totally misunderstood if you don’t know all scripture to understand this proxy idea, and that there is no teaching on someone being reincarnated as someone else. However, people are indeed resurrected to live as themselves as Moses and Elijah do come back to visit Jesus, and are probably the ones to come back during the final tribulation in Revelation. This proxy system may also be in play in John 3:22 where it says Jesus baptized, but John 4:2 clarifies that it was actually his disciples. They may have been his proxy, or it could be that Jesus started out baptizing people and then let his disciples take over later as he spent more time preaching.
Matthew 11:25-28 and Matthew 13:13-17: These can be misinterpreted to support predestination, that God only chooses some people, which contradicts 2 Peter 3:9 and even Matthew 11:28 (“ALL who are weary”). The parables of Matthew 13:10-17 and Matthew 25:14-30 teach that if you respond to the truth you’re given then you’ll get more guidance, but if you reject what you get, you’ll have even less understanding, all the way to the point of being hardened. Here in Matthew 11:25-28 Jesus had just rebuked the towns that rejected his truth and clear miracles and how terrible it will be for them. Proud people never respond, and often times, but not always, this is the case with the professional religious people. He then praised God for revealing it in such a simple way that the humble children understood it.
Matthew 15:26: gentiles are dogs? Does God look at the Gentiles as dogs, compared to the children of Israel is His children? Israel does have a special place in His heart, but we know from other scriptures that God loves all people and told his disciples to go into all the world. Colossians 3:11-12 says there is no difference in the races but we’re all one dearly loved people. Revelation talks about people from every tongue tribe and nation being there. So we know from other scripture that this was just a verse to test her humility. She passed! But without looking at other scripture we’d certainly get the wrong idea here.
Matthew 16:5-8: perfect example of Jesus using a symbolic word swap and even the disciples misunderstood it. A little humorous.
Matthew 16:17-19 some people claim this verse means the church will get stronger and stronger and overcome the powers of darkness but of course this is reading too much into the verse. It probably just means the church will survive until Jesus comes back. The gates of hell have been symbolic for death before.
Matthew 16:28: people use this verse to say that Jesus’ second coming happened within the first generation. But in each gospel the powerful transfiguration occurs next so it must be talking about that. There are many things that haven’t been fulfilled yet that must happen before his 2nd coming (though of course this is debated).
Matthew 25:5,19 seem to indicate his 2nd coming would be a long time.
Matthew 23:9: You can’t call anyone father. In context it’s referring to spiritual leaders only.
Matthew 23:23: taken quite literally, this is a command to tithe on your spices. Of course if you tithe on your income that would cover it in a commonsense understanding. But if taken literally without commonsense you have to tithe on spices. Go to your cupboard and give a tenth of them.
Matthew 26:26 “this is my body”. This is the perfect example of why we need to use common sense when reading the Bible. Jesus didn’t give any clarifying explanation on this astounding statement and so some have taken this literally, against all common sense. This account in the Gospel of John does give a quick clarifying statement, “these words are spirit” but Matthew gives nothing like that, and remember for many years, before the Bible was compiled, many people didn’t have both gospels together. They just had to use common sense.
Matthew 26:64 You can’t get too literal with “you will see me …” how could those standing there see him return unless he was coming back soon before their death. Using common sense we can see he was using the term “you” in a generic sense, not literally those exact people he was talking to.
Mark 4:11, 12 These verses would seem to say God doesn’t want people to turn and be forgiven. This is of course so contrary to many other scriptures. But some people have said God only wants certain people to turn and be forgiven (predestination). But when you look at verses 24, 25 or other passages like the parallel passage (this means the same story in a different book of the Bible) in Matthew 13 “whoever has will be given more,” you can see that a sincere person will respond and get more direction, whereas an insincere person will be offended and not seek further.
Luke 6:24. We can’t be rich? That would be almost everyone in America. The Bible repeatedly tells the rich to be generous and willing to share, but doesn’t make being rich a sin that must be corrected. He did tell one young ruler to sell everything and follow him (and he should have, as the other disciples did. What an opportunity to join them!). But we can see elsewhere that the disciples did have houses later, so we can see that it wasn’t meant to be an ongoing command to all Christians. Naturally those who have a large excess should give much greater than others who are harder pressed. If you have two coats and see someone with none you will naturally give him one, and when you see legitimate needs, and have extra, you’ll give it. But you don’t have to become poor to become a Christian.
Luke 6:25. We shouldn’t laugh or be well fed? With commonsense you can see that it’s the idea of only focusing on the temporal continually.
Luke 14:26. This is without question a hyperbole (“exaggerated statements not meant to be taken literally). There are so many verses that we should love and honor our parents and family.
John 6:27 Obviously this verse taken quite literally is directly against 2 Thessalonians 3. It’s a small hyperbole. With commonsense you can see that Jesus is telling us not to labor so much or only for temporal life but to focus more on eternal life. In fact, “work for … eternal life” is against so many verses too. But with commonsense you can see He’s talking about the general seeking of eternal life, as Romans 2:7 says.
John 14:12. The first disciples fulfilled this statement. They even raised the dead, as Jesus did. And they won more disciples and spread the message further than Jesus had. But taken quite literally, it says, “he who believes in Me … will do greater works…”, so if you’re not, you better have some introspection to find out what’s wrong.
Acts 15:21 In this chapter, the council clearly decided that the Gentiles didn’t have to obey the Law of Moses, except four requirements, as it clearly says in verse 28: “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements”. The question they were answering was should the Gentiles keep the Law of Moses so it’s clear these were the only four they wanted them to keep. Many verses in this section agree with this, including Peter’s speech. But people will use this verse 21 to try and totally reverse all this by saying James thought that the other commandments would be taught to the Gentiles to be kept, as they are read every sabbath. But the understanding in context was that James agreed with Peter’s speech but thought these four commandments should be taught since they were especially offensive or enticing to the Jews.
Acts 16:15,33 people have used this “and her household“ as proof that children are baptized. But of course, this is an assumption they have to make without a shred of proof. No one knows how old she or her children were. She was a business woman so it would actually seem more likely that she either didn’t have children or they were older, but we don’t know that either. We’ve also seen several cases where you can’t just assume everybody in a group is included. E.g. we don’t all get baptized with fire. So her “family” could have called for common sense to understand it was those who were able to be baptized. It’s very dangerous to make a doctrine based on assumptions like this.
Acts 19:6 Three times in Acts people get the gift of tongues when they get the Holy Spirit. So some have claimed that tongues are the only way you can tell if you have the Holy Spirit. But if you search that term, you’ll find there are several other verses that don’t have tongues but other things like “spoke the word boldly” or “prophesied” or no specific action. So it’s not a requirement but just one of the gifts. See 1 Corinthians 12:7-11.
Acts 19:11-12. This is where people get the idea of charms or fetishes, or spiritual power from physical things (similar to eastern religions). But this seems to be a special blessing and for a limited time for certain people like Paul since he undoubtedly had a very special calling. In the Old Testament as well, it was a very special occasion and/or calling. Various miracles are throughout the Bible but they are not things we can routinely do and make a doctrine out of. Charms and fetishes practiced in a general manner (not connected to one of these special miracles) are condemned (e.g. Ezekiel 13:20) except for these special callings and occasions.
Romans 8:19-22 I’ve never heard it done but someone could assign deep cognitive thought to creation and its potential for salvation from this verse. It’s clearly symbolic.
Romans 8:26 People have equated these groans with the gift of tongues to make this a case for how we all need the gift of tongues.
Romans 8:29 This “foreknow and predestined” have caused a great deal of confusion with Calvinism. The terms are not defined so it can certainly be a group of unspecific people that God knew would respond. He knew ahead of them many people would respond and He determined ahead of time that they would be conformed to the likeness of His Son. Anybody who choses can be part of the group. Also, the Greek word “foreknow” there can just mean something known sometime in the past, as it’s used in Acts 26:5. So it would be “those that God has known he has predestined”.
Acts 9 is a famous chapter supporting the predestination doctrine. But the chapter is clearly talking about groups, though it uses individuals for examples. And when you read it in context of Romans 10 and 11, you can see that God didn’t even choose or reject the groups entirely on His own will unprovoked, as Romans 9 could indicate, but the people were responsible for it (see Romans 11:20-23). Romans 9 may be one of the most confusing chapters in the Bible so it’s the epitome of the need to use clear scripture to interpret unclear scripture. So you should certainly interpret it along with chapters 10 and 11. Doing that, you can see that Romans 9:30 seems to summarize this confusing chapter and seems to be saying God can choose as He wants to, and thankfully He’s chosen all people. He’s always loved the Gentiles, but it used to be thru Israel (they were supposed to make Him known to us) and now He works directly with us. Chapter 9 has short confusing statements that look like individual predestination, like Romans 9:13, but even this verse, taken from Malachi 1, is in context of people’s obedience. Romans 9 also has statements with “what if,” showing these are hypothetical statements.
Acts 11:5-10. This chapter has some very clear verses that Israel rejected God, but these few verses seem to fit the predestination idea only when taken out of context from the chapter.
Romans 12:1,2 verses like these are probably the core of God‘s message to us. We should offer ourselves as living sacrifices and forsake the world. Then all of these other things will diminish in importance.
Romans 14:23 I’ve seen a prominent preacher use this verse as proof that we all sin all the time so it’s not a big deal. “Everything that does not come from faith is sin” – Sounds like lots of things could be sin. But if you see it in context you can see that it means if a man does something he thinks is wrong then it is sin. The Bible is clear we shouldn’t live unrepentantly in sin (Hebrews 10:26 and others).
Acts 16:7. Who would’ve thought you could find a controversial verse here, but Junius is a female name, and some have used this to support female pastors, directly contradicting Paul’s teaching elsewhere. It could be that these two people are outstanding in the opinion of the apostles, or it could be that Junius was an apostle meaning a “sent one”, which could be a missionary. Missionaries, especially godly women missionaries, often act in a way as being servants to show the truth, and not as though they have authority over a man and therefore don’t contradict Paul’s teaching elsewhere (1 Timothy 2:12, 1 Corinthians 14:34). These two passages that forbid women from speaking, must be instructions for the church, and women missionaries teaching all people, men and women alike, would be more of just a Bible study, not an official church service. They clearly don’t have an authoritative manner.
1 Corinthians 1:8 This verse, if taken strictly literal, can be used for eternal security. As I explained and shown here many times in this list, some verses have built in assumptions. In this case it assumes that you will continue to walk with God and cooperate with him.
1 Corinthians 3:10-15. These verses have been used for two errors. The first, liberal Christian churches use these to justify a foolish life of bad works and still be barely saved. But the context is a minister building on people in his congregation incorrectly. Other churches use these verses to teach Purgatory and that we all go thru flames to get rid of bad works, quite a stretch from the verse. It’s clear to see that it is the works that are tested and burned up, not the person.
1 Corinthians 4:19-21. These verses can be confused as a physical threat, if not read in the context of Paul’s writings where this “power” he mentions is clearly God’s power, which was very strong in Paul (it made people blind who opposed the gospel, Acts 13:11).
1 Corinthians 5:5. This is certainly a confusing verse which is not defined so it gives itself to speculation. A theologian once said, “A good theologian knows when to speak and when not to”. Without any clarifying verses in the whole Bible, this would be a great time not to make a doctrine. Church discipline is sometimes necessary and sometimes brings people to repentance, which seems to be the possible meaning of the verse in some way or another. And this is actually what we see in 2 Corinthians as the man does repent.
1 Corinthians 6:12,13,18. Paul is either quoting skeptics, or is using hypothetical arguments since he counters each one of them, but people could run with these odd statements. Ps, in verse 18 the “other” is not in the Greek so it is possibly one of these as well.
1 Corinthians 7:15. Many have added to this verse to say that since Paul allows them to leave it must mean they are allowed to remarry, but it certainly never says that. And the rest of the chapter seems so strong that you can’t remarry, that this seems unlikely. It’s more likely addressing people who think they should chase their leaving spouse down to the end of the earth, after all that is the heart of a Christian to chase the lost down. But Paul says it’s OK to let them go. At the end of this chapter Paul summarizes the teaching on divorce and again makes it very strong to not remarry.
1 Corinthians 8:5. People misuse Paul’s reference to there being many gods, in context clearly meaning many false gods, but they twist it to say there are many actual gods, which is so clearly not the case from so many scriptures. .
1 Corinthians 8:6 this verse can be confusing to someone who hasn’t been exposed to the early Trinity idea. There is one God the father but he has a divine son.
1 Corinthians 8:9-13. Some have used this to exert their will on others, saying people shouldn’t do so and so because it offends them. But you could get anyone to do anything this way. It’s more reasonable that this applies to doing it in front of them.
1 Corinthians 12:3. This probably means that you can’t truly say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. Some have tried to take it very literal and say that if someone can say that sentence, even clearly wicked people, then they must have the spirit.
1 Corinthians 12:7-10, 28-30. Virtually this whole chapter is saying the Holy Spirit determines who gets what gift and they are all important; none of them are the one and only true gift. But some will go against all this and say that since we all have faith and faith is one of the unique gifts mentioned in v 9, then we all must have tongues too. There’s nothing that says that and it goes completely against the text. The faith in v 9 seems to be an especially strong faith in addition to our normal faith.
1 Corinthians 13:1. Some take this hyperbole of speaking in the tongues of angels, which is in the context of several other hyperboles, to say that we all should get a heavenly language of tongues in addition to our regular earthly languages.
1 Corinthians 13:8 It is not clear when these gifts will cease, now or at the end of time. But many are adamant on both sides.
1 Corinthians 14:18. Some people will use this and Paul’s statement in 1 Corinthians 14:5 to say that all people should speak in tongues and that’s the only way you know you are completely “filled with the Spirit”. It’s interesting that this chapter is actually saying the exact opposite; continuing the thought from 1 Corinthians 12 that God gives various gifts as He chooses (1 Corinthians 12:7-11) and tongues is just one that He could give. In 1 Corinthians 14 he’s saying they should more eagerly desire the gift of prophecy, at least in the church.
1 Corinthians 15:6 “fallen asleep” is probably figurative since we know to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. But some have made this figurative speech a firm doctrine that we sleep.
1 Corinthians 15:29,30. This is obviously an awkward verse. There is no other explanation but it’s just thrown out there. Paul appears to be talking about some other strange religion or sect and using them as an example that at least they believe in the resurrection. V30 contrasts us from them: “as for us”. It’s definitely unclear. For verses like this that stand alone and don’t fit with all other scripture we typically ignore them or assign a meeting that fits with scripture as I’ve done. It’s called interpreting unclear scripture with clear scripture.
1 Corinthians 16:22 This is obviously not the spirit of evangelism found everywhere else in the New Testament. It must be talking about people in the church that don’t love the Lord and/or maybe even those refusing to love God and causing problems for those who do. See 1 Corinthians 5:11
2 Corinthians 12:20 Paul told Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:24 that a servant of God must not quarrel. But here Paul fears that there could be quarreling, showing that he didn’t want it but that it might be necessary. This shows that there may be a time and place for things that are generally taught against. False teachers prominent in the church would certainly be a time to quarrel if needed. In Timothy’s case they may have not been prominent yet and so he could gently instruct people who oppose him.
Galatians 1:15 another verse that could refer to predestination. It’s certainly not a teaching on predestination but a mention that he was called from birth. Elsewhere in
1 Timothy 1:13 he says God had mercy on him because he sinned in ignorance and unbelief. So this is an unclear verse. John also had a special calling from birth like this, but they are the only ones. Certainly certain people could be predestined without it being a doctrine for all people.
Galatians 5:3 nowadays circumcision is routinely done for health reasons so this verse taken simply at face value would clearly say we have to keep the whole law since we’ve been circumcised. But you can tell in context it was because they were actually trying to keep the Old Testament law to please the judaizers. Note that some versions use the word “accept circumcision” or “let yourselves be circumcised”, which would be a voluntary decision made as an adult and so that could be a technicality to fix this problem even for the strict legal-minded person. But the strict Greek, per the concordance, is just “receive circumcision” which would include it being done as a baby. So you just have to use common sense and context.
Ephesians 3:20 and Job 42:2 say “God can do anything” in some way or another (depending on the translation). When so, they are a perfect verse where you have to take the verse in context. We clearly know God cannot lie (Titus 1:2, Hebrews 6:18) so He clearly can’t do “anything”. But in the context of helping us, He can do anything that’s needed.
Ephesians 4:30 “Sealed” can be taken too far for eternal security. It’s one of those verses which have the unstated assumption that you walk with God.
Colossians 1:18 without further explanation “first born from the dead” could be confusing since Jesus wasn’t the first to rise from the dead. But he was the first to rise with the glorified body, not to die again. The others resurrected only temporarily.
2 Thessalonians 2:7 Some people assume this is the Holy Spirit in believers and that he is taken away at the rapture with the believers. But this is a big assumption. All it says is that He is taken out of the way, which can certainly be independent of the rapture.
2 Thessalonians 2:13 This could be interpreted as predestination but it could also mean that God chose a GROUP of people to be His firstfruits. Anybody who chooses could be part of it.
1 Timothy 2:15 Paul obviously didn’t expect us to take this too far and that a woman has to have a child to be saved, but that in general women are saved thru it. It was not meant to be a rigid doctrine.
1 Timothy 5:12 It seems we’ve lost some original document or practice where women, who were put on the list of church supported widows, pledged to not remarry, perhaps out of some special calling to serve God more fervently. In the end, Paul gives the exact advice he should, that younger women should remarry if they can.
Titus 1:6 Since remarriage after the death of a spouse was perfectly godly, common sense would dictate that this is a reference to bigamy, though some take it quite literally and say that widowers can’t remarry and be an elder. Also, you can take it literally the other way and say you have to have a wife to be an elder, which goes against Paul who was single.
Hebrews 8:11. We can’t take this verse literally and say that in the new covenant nobody will teach people to know the Lord. Based on all the other scripture, we can see it means that everybody has a conscience that draws them to the Lord. But people can still help in this process.
James 1:11 this is a general warning to the rich not to be arrogant, not a prophesy that the rich will fall fade away.
James 2:5-7. We know this is a general statement with exceptions, because Joseph of Arimathea was rich and followed Jesus. Others too. But generally speaking the rich did not follow God and it was ironic that the church was giving them special honor.
1 Peter 3:19,20; These quick references are otherwise unexplained leaving plenty of room for additions by various churches. In the absence of other scriptures, it would be best to leave this one right there and let God tell us when we see Him.
1 Peter 4:6 This verse leaves a lot of room for denominational speculation but probably just means that those who are now dead heard the gospel and will be judged by it. Or it could possibly be another reference to this preaching to people who have died, as referenced in 1 Peter 3:19,20. If so we just don’t know enough about it to make a doctrine out of it, and we don’t need to. We just need to be faithful to do what we’ve been told.
1 Peter 4:7 Another verse that can be confused to say there’s a quick rapture.
1 John 1:8-10 Some might use this to say we have to live in sin, in “word thought and deed” everyday. But this goes directly against the previous verses in 1 John 1:5-7 and many others in this very book. It’s just talking about when we do sin we shouldn’t deny it. It could especially refer to those who haven’t come to God for forgiveness yet.
1 John 4:2 All verses have to be taken in context. Obviously we can’t trust every spirit just because it acknowledges Jesus coming in the flesh. This was the context of this verse-those who did not acknowledge Jesus coming in the flesh are not of God. But we know from many other verses that this is just one of the criteria.
1 John 4:15 This is one of the simple verses that make it seem that salvation is easy. But in light of many other verses we know there’s more to just acknowledging Jesus is the son of God. 5:1 is very similar for easy beleifism, but is followed by verses (2,3) that talk of the need for obeying God. John 5:12 is another simple verse. John is emphasizing the need to believe in Jesus to the Gnostics who didn’t believe in him.
Revelation 4:5 This could be “seven fold” but is an unknown mystery. Another verse we need to not embellish on in the absence of clarifying scriptures.
This other article gives larger examples of common denominational doctrines that have caused division in the church.
So this is just a sampling of why it’s important to read thru the whole Bible and let large groups of agreeing scriptures clarify outlying unclear scriptures. This is in work, more to come. Check back later. Ps, another tactic of denominations/cults is to insert new ideas into silent areas that the Bible doesn’t expressly contradict. Then we can’t prove that these things are false. Just to show how this works let me make up an absurd example (I don’t believe this). It’s like me adding a new “interpretation” that when Christians die they go live on the moon for a period of time. I could confidently assert that this is what the Bible meant when it refers to the “great host of witnesses” in the “heavenly realms” that is used several times in the book of Ephesians (1:3, 20; 2:6; 3:10; 6:12). You see how you can’t prove by scripture that I’m wrong – it’s silent on this.