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First, to read as the writing asks to be read (within its immediate context)...

[And, I would add at least try to understand through whatever methods available to us the original meaning] and,

Second, to read by "comparing Scripture with Scripture (as the Logos also asks us to read itself) granting God His place and that He has given us words of which we may come to a sufficient understanding, in the place He gives us, even if that understanding is grossly deferred to the regenerate's completed understanding.

Good post, Unspun. I suppose we could all just spiritualize all of Scripture and allow each of us his/her own post-modern understanding. Or, we could presuppose that, just as we presuppose there is only one explanation for the phenomenal, that God has one specific universal purpose in his Scripture.

Thank you so much for your post and for sharing your insight!

I suppose we could all just spiritualize all of Scripture and allow each of us his/her own post-modern understanding. Or, we could presuppose that, just as we presuppose there is only one explanation for the phenomenal, that God has one specific universal purpose in his Scripture.

Indeed, because there is one triune God there can only be one Truth.

But God did not make us with a cookie cutter. Each of us has a particular nature and nurture and individual gifts from the Spirit (I Corinthians 12) such that we all fit together harmoniously in the body of Christ. The disciples were quite different individually as were the churches, even in their interpretations (Acts 15) yet Christ received them all (Revelation) albeit with criticisms and commendations for the churches.

Part of our individuality is what we can bear to hear as we grow in our walk with the Lord:

And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, [even] as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able [to bear it], neither yet now are ye able. For ye are yet carnal: for whereas [there is] among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men? For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I [am] of Apollos; are ye not carnal? Who then is Paul, and who [is] Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? - I Corinthians 3:1-5

The important thing is progress in our knowledge of Him:

Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord, According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that [pertain] unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue: Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.

For if these things be in you, and abound, they make [you that ye shall] neither [be] barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. – 2 Peter 1:1-8

Or, we could presuppose that, just as we presuppose there is only one explanation for the phenomenal, that God has one specific universal purpose in his Scripture.

Excellent point, Lockeliberty.

I think God's "one specific, universal purpose" is the clear reason Scripture exists in the first place. He's conveying to us a message about how we are to live and why we live. The fact that God speaks in poetry through Scripture is probably because everything God does is superlative.

Definition of Prose: Words in their best order.

Definition of Poetry: the BEST words in their best order.

But the essence of Scripture is not mystical, unknowable complexity; it is understanding. So while human poetry is dependent on the listener's reaction to it, God's poetry is singular in its intent and manifestation.

He wants us to "get it."