...the Bible is correct to the letter but that doesn't mean some verses don't need to be "interpreted" by using OTHER verses to give clarification! Illustrations to follow!
Ok,lets talk/discuss "interpretation!" ONE definition of the word “interpret” is “to conceive in the light of individual belief, judgment, or circumstance.” (Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary) Thus, one’s interpretation of anything is usually influenced by one’s background, education, and upbringing. What, though, about Bible interpretation? Are we free to explain Bible passages according to our own “belief, judgment, or circumstance”? Naturally, most Bible scholars and translators claim that they do not do so but that they are guided by God.
Although the Bible has only one Author......it does have many writers. These some 40 Bible writers never contradict one another, yet no one Bible writer says all there is to say about any particular subject. So to understand what the Author of the Bible says about a subject, it is necessary to gather together all the scriptures
germane to the subject under discussion. Thus, skipping around in the Bible, picking out scriptures is not actually a proof that a person is trying to interpret it to fit his own ideas!
So using verses either from the Greek or the Hebrew Scriptures is right and proper...and generally should be taken literally except where the expressions or settings obviously indicate that they are figurative or symbolic. ("wild beast out of the sea...with 10 heads and 10 horns" Revelation account, obviously symbolic even to the most casual reader!)
Here's just one case in point! According to 2 Peter 3:10 (KJ),
“the earth also and the works that are therein
shall be burned up.” Some
people interpret this to mean that the globe will be destroyed, possibly in a nuclear holocaust. Yet, in view of what the Bible says elsewhere, how can that be? At Psalm 104:5 (KJ) the psalmist, under inspiration, stated that God “laid the foundations of the earth,
that it should not be removed for ever.” Wise King Solomon, also speaking under inspiration, said at Ecclesiastes 1:4 (KJ) that “one generation passeth away, and another generation cometh:
but the earth abideth for ever.”
A contradiction? No, the Bible’s Author, a God of truth, cannot contradict himself. Then how can these two verses be reconciled? Let us
consider the context of 2 Peter 3:10.
In verses 5 and 6 Peter speaks about the Flood of Noah’s day and likens it, in verse 7, to the destruction to come on “the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.”
What was destroyed in the Flood? Verse 6 says “the world that then was ... perished.”
This earthly globe did not perish. Rather,
a wicked worldly system did. And when God promised Noah, at Genesis 9:11 (KJ), that never again would there “be a flood to destroy the earth,” he was obviously not speaking of the planet, for it had not been destroyed. So “the earth” to be destroyed, according to 2 Peter 3:10, is the same kind of “earth” that was destroyed at the Flood—not the planet Earth but
a wicked earthly society of people.
Search as you may, you will find no Bible text that contradicts this interpretation. Of necessity then, it must be the correct one from the Bible’s Author himself!