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The Big Idea
How can we understand Scripture if we are not first familiar with it? How will we know if we are indeed inline or not unless we see how scripture speaks as a whole?
the importance of reading scripture for familiarity
letting questions pull you along to read more rather than get hung up
Luther's Works, Volume 10, p. 18 - Commentary on Psalm 1
There are some perverted people (as in the first part of the verse) who in a similar way twist and pervert this word of the Holy Spirit. Their meditation is not on the law of the Lord, but rather, to the contrary, the law of the Lord is in their meditation (which is a horrible situation). They are the ones who twist the Scriptures to their own understanding and by their own fixed meditation compel the Scriptures to enter it and agree with it, when it ought to be the other way around. In this way, then, the law of the Lord is in their meditation, and not their meditation on the law of the Lord. They do not want to agree with their adversary on the way (ct. Matt. 5:25), but they want the adversary to agree with them. They do not want to be holy with the holy, but they want the holy to be profane with them. Such were the heretics. Such are all who seek to approve their own empty opinion by the authority of Scripture, Judaizing with Jewish treachery.
Against these blessed Hilary, De Trinitate, I, 18, says: “The best reader is the one who looks for the understanding of the words from the words themselves, rather than imposing his own understanding, and takes something out, rather than bringing something in, and does not force the words to seem to contain what he had assumed must be understood before reading.”7 Hence the Lord complains through Malachi (cf. Mal, 3:8) that evil and perverse interpreters stab Him and do violence to Him. Indeed, their own sayings are like goads and nails, says Eccl. 12:11, whereby, when the truth is forbidden, the Lord is pierced, so that the truth may not freely move and be seen. 7 Patrologia, Series Latina, X, 38.
seeking answers in the rest of the text and across the bible first and foremost
Commentaries and studies as good but not as good as letting scripture interpret scripture.