"Did God really say...". Very early in history, these 4 simple words left the mouth of the most effective deceiver our world has ever known. Of him, Jesus testifies "...He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it." (John 8:44).
As the three dots suggest, this is not the whole verse. The first sentence is actually "You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do...." These harsh words are directed not towards demons, but towards living, breathing human beings. Jews, no less, who claimed "...we have one Father—God." (John 8:41).
Historically, when Jesus rebuked the Jews, He would say things like "have you not read..." (e.g. Matthew 12:3; 19:4; 22:31), or even "...you do not know the Scriptures..." (Mark 12:24). This would result in the Jews, in turn, seeking to kill Him, suggesting He was either a glutton and a winebibber (Matthew 11:19), or even demon possessed (e.g. John 8:48). In the end, the Jews were so confident in their interpretations of scripture that they nailed Jesus to a cross, and left Him hanging there to suffocate and die. And He was so confident in His interpretation that He let them. Though He was notoriously adept at slipping past them (Luke 4:30), though He was capable of summoning 12 legions of angels to defend Him (Matthew 26:53), though He existed in the form of God (Philippians 2:6), He was so confident in His interpretation of scripture that He became obedient to death, even death on a cross (Philippians 2:8).
Had Jesus entered today's world instead, things would be quite different. Rather than attempting to stone Him or push Him off a cliff, the Jews would simply have said "we're not heretics, we just interpret scripture differently." In the modern day, we cherish tolerance for sake of tolerance, and the only thing you can rightly be confident in is that there is nothing you can be rightly confident in. You're arrogant if you believe you're right, especially if that means another man is wrong. The mere existence of an un-Christian belief is proof that such a belief might well be compatible with Christianity after all.
That last part is made all the more sticky when distinction is made between "essential" and "non-essential" issues. Of course, that distinction must be made. Scripture tells us "Receive one who is weak in the faith, but not to disputes over doubtful things." (Romans 14:1), and other similar things. By contrast, it says "But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed." (Galatians 1:8).
It is possible, therefore, to have erroneous beliefs and still be united to the body of Christ, even to the point of salvation. Indeed, the Apostles themselves were not perfect. Peter, of all men, required a direct rebuke from Paul for his hypocrisy (Galatians 2:11-13). So what do we do here?
The good news is, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work." (2 Timothy 3:16-17). That means the scripture gives us everything we need to know about the Christian faith. Furthermore, it does so to such an extent that the simplest among us can, through diligence and prayer, be equal to the greatest. As Psalm 119 tells us, "The entrance of Your words gives light; It gives understanding to the simple." (v130). As a result, "You, through Your commandments, make me wiser than my enemies; For they are ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers, For Your testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the ancients, Because I keep Your precepts." (v98-100). In short, therefore, we may discover the correct interpretation of scripture the same way Jesus expected the Jews of the time to do so: Study it.
Throughout scripture, there are numerous commands to neither add to, nor remove from, the word of God. This automatically discounts a wide range of interpretations of scripture. The Pharisees of Jesus' day are the perfect picture of this. In His words, "Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!" (Matthew 23:24).
This is actually a useful example to us today. What, exactly, is Jesus saying? Of course, on a surface level, we can simply say that Jesus is calling out the Pharisees as blind guides. But what on Earth does it mean that they "strain out a gnat and swallow a camel"? To understand this, we need to connect Jesus' statement to the Old Testament law, as well as have some understanding of who the Pharisees were.
The Old Testament law, which the Pharisees fancied themselves to be teachers of, forbids the consumption of any winged insect that doesn't have jointed legs above their feet, enabling them to jump. Grasshoppers, for example, are "clean", and thus legally edible. Gnats, not so much. This, the Pharisees had no problem obeying. In fact, they were so proudly pious that they would strain their water before drinking it, just so they didn't accidentally consume an unclean insect.
Just as gnats were unclean, so are camels (Leviticus 11:4). It is not clear, nor even likely, that the Pharisees literally ate camels. In fact, Jesus compared straining a gnat with swallowing a camel, which is physically impossible for a man to do. Nevertheless, the Pharisees "...have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone." (Matthew 23:23).
So, what is Jesus saying? His point is that the Pharisees take great pains to obey some aspects of the law, and this is actually a good thing, as He says "without leaving the others undone". Yet, they have neglected the "weightier matters", namely justice, mercy, and faith. Since a camel is far weightier than a gnat, Jesus' analogy makes sense, even if the Pharisees maintain correct conduct with regard to camels.
The same applies to us as Christians. On the one hand, we need to avoid neglecting the weightier matters of scripture; Justice, mercy, and faith. But we need to stick to them without leaving the other things undone.
In the modern world, we face a range of issues that tempt us to fail in this regard. And of course, being sinners, that failure is inevitable. Nevertheless, just because it is inevitable does not mean it is ok. In fact, God Himself promises "No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it." (1 Corinthians 10:13). Therefore, whenever we sin, even if that sin is as common as mishandling the word of God, it is our fault. Thus, God commands us "Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." (2 Timothy 2:15).
To that end, God commands us "You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you." (Deuteronomy 4:2). This was the sin of the Pharisees, and even of Eve herself. Note, when the serpent deceived her, her response to his question was "We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’" (Genesis 3:2-3). But the real command was "Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die." (Genesis 2:16-17).
The difference, while subtle, was also fatal. By adding "nor shall you touch it", Eve practically set herself up for failure. After all, if God had said "nor shall you touch it, lest you die", then Eve would have had grounds to believe the serpent, having touched it without death.
In a similar way, the Church has always been plagued by denominations. These little factions are a double edged sword. On the one hand, even experienced believers are limited in our knowledge, and of course new believers can't be expected to read, much less know the entire Bible on their first day. Thus, denominations enable us to pool our knowledge and decide what we should believe on any given subject. The flip side of this, however, is that it can cause us to switch allegiances from God and His word to man and his word. But unlike God, man is not infallible.
In fact, much like the Jews of Jesus' day, man can be quite devoted to the devil as their father. The devil is alive, but he is certainly not well. "Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time." (Revelation 12:12). Vicious predator that he is, the devil seeks to devour mankind. And he has had 6,000 years to perfect the art! This slimy, venomous reptile has so much power, he can even transform into an angel of light, and his followers can masquerade as servants of righteousness (2 Corinthians 11:14-15).
For this reason, in Acts 20, Paul warns "For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves." Even during his time, many false teachers were running around spreading heresy. These even lead astray many Apostolic churches! "For if he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted—you may well put up with it!" (2 Corinthians 11:4).
So, what does this tell us? Simply that this "interpretations" nonsense is exactly that: Nonsense. The truth is available, preserved inside books too numerous to corrupt. Scripture spread so fast that the Gospel of John reached as far as Egypt no later than 175 A.D.! With the wealth of evidence we have, we can say, with reasonable certainty, that the Bible we read today is the same Bible sent out by God's prophets and Apostles. All we need to do, then, is study it.
When we do our due diligence, we can even protect ourselves against the errors of our denominations. And a good denomination will encourage such things. When we study scripture, we actually see examples of this. My go-to example is the Bereans, who, in 3 short verses, demonstrated both the attitude of diligent students of faith, and the attitude teachers should have in response. "Then the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. When they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so. Therefore many of them believed, and also not a few of the Greeks, prominent women as well as men." (Acts 17:10-12).
This shows us a simple 3 step process:
Step 1: Receive the claim.
Step 2: Search the scriptures daily to see if the claim is true.
Step 3: Accept the claim if it is true, reject it if it is not.
Or, to put it as scripture says: "Test all things; hold fast what is good." (1 Thessalonians 5:21).
The Bereans were not gullible. They didn't hear that Paul is a Christian, and therefore immediately place his views on equal footing with other Christians. Rather, they tested him against the scriptures, and only accepted him when he passed that test. For that, Luke, as the author of Acts, calls them "fair minded".
In the modern day, we fail to imitate the Bereans, sacrificing scripture to our denominations, our favorite teachers, our culture, and even our personal desires. This modern problem is really just a new version of the original problem: Sin. "All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way..." (Isaiah 53:6). Therefore, we have strange beliefs that depart from scripture.
An interesting example is the tradition of going to church on Sunday. Ultimately, there is nothing wrong with this tradition. Scripture does say, after all, "And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching." (Hebrews 10:24-25). But you will never actually find a command to specifically go to church on a specific day. Therefore, it is not a sin to "skip" church. Nor is attending church on a Sunday "the mark of the beast", as some teach.
Furthermore, Romans 14 is a very specific passage that discusses the topic of special days. The long and short of it is there is no compulsion in the Christian faith to observe, or abstain from observing, any particular day. You can regard every day alike, or you can see any day as special. The key is faith.
Note how without even once departing from scripture, we have just analysed a controversial claim, and discovered that two polar opposite interpretations are, in fact, incorrect. On the one hand, some denominations teach that you must attend church on a Sunday. On the other hand, others teach that you must not. But the Bible invalidates both, stating that each person must be convinced in their own mind about days of worship.
This simple principle can, and should be applied to every teaching that calls itself Christian. The simple fact is, it might not be. It may come from a denomination that claims authority, but the Pharisees claimed authority, and even had it legitimised by Jesus (Matthew 23:1-3), yet the majority of them were condemned. It may come from a popular Christian teacher, yet scripture warns that many will heap up teachers who tickle their ears, rather than observing sound doctrine (2 Timothy 4:3). It may come from our culture, but Jesus warns that many will find the path to destruction (Matthew 7:13-14). Our very hearts may testify to a teaching, but Jeremiah warns us that the heart is deceitful, and desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9).
Therefore, lest the devil devour us, we must pay close attention to the only infallible source of truth on our planet: The word of God. Duly studied, we will arrive at the correct interpretation, because that is what it was designed for. And, as it tells us, "So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it." (Isaiah 55:11). Therefore, as the word of God was sent forth "...for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work", then all who diligently study and apply it will be complete in the faith. Thus, you know your interpretation is correct if you have done so.