2 Peter 1:20

knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of private interpretation.

Unfortunately, this verse has been made the basis of the Medieval Church's denial of every man's right to interpret the Scriptures, and their claim to the right of interpretation for the church alone (that is, their church alone). Nothing like this could possibly be in this passage. As Kelcy said, "There are many New Testament passages which indicate that the writers expected their readers to understand what they wrote (Ephesians 3:4; 1 Thessalonians 5:27; 1 John 2:12,13)."[58]

Christ himself bore witness of the fact that every man is responsible for studying and reading the word of God for himself, when he demanded of the lawyer, "What is written in the law? How readest thou?" (Luke 10:26). In the light of these Scriptures, therefore, we must reject the notion that would find in this place an excuse for any man's leaving the interpretation of the Scriptures to the religious experts in some church, of whatever name. After all, it was the "religious experts" who crucified Christ in the beginning, demonstrating once and finally that of all the people on earth most likely to miss it, it is the "religious experts."

There is a better translation of this verse, as noted by some of the older scholars generations ago. Macknight rendered it, "No prophecy of Scripture is of the prophet's own invention."[59] This rendition Macknight justified on the basis of the meaning of the subsequent verse, showing that a number of other New Testament passages have been similarly translated with reference to the context and not to the strict technical meaning of a word. Barnes also rendered the passage, "No prophecy was of their own disclosure."[60] The "private interpretation" is therefore a limitation, not upon readers of the prophecies, but upon the prophets who delivered God's message. Barnes further explained:

The truths which the prophets communicated were not originated by themselves; were not of their own suggestion or invention, but were of higher origin and were imparted by God[61]

The ancient prophets of God were not permitted to give their interpretation of prophecies (instead of the prophecies); but they were to deliver the words of the prophecy as the Lord had given them. It is to this limitation that the words of this verse most likely apply. Vine's dictionary of New Testament words confirms this thus: "The writers of Scripture did not put their own construction upon the `God-breathed' words they wrote."[62]

Plummer pointed out that there is almost certainly a reference here to 1 Peter 1:10-12; and this also sheds light on the meaning; for in that passage also, it was the inability of the prophets to go beyond the "words" God had given them that is in view.

[58] Raymond C. Kelcy, op. cit., p. 133.

[59] James Macknight, op. cit., p. 535.

[60] Albert Barnes, op. cit., p. 232.

[61] Ibid.

[62] W. E. Vine, Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, 2(Old Tappan, New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1940), p. 268.