Yes! There are some perils in reading the Bible. However, the most common dangers are also the most elementary, and with a little thought can readily be recognized and guarded against.

1. The peril of coming to the Bible with a mind already made up

No doubt we are all guilty at times of reading into the Bible our own favourite opinions and prejudices, rather than letting God’s word speak for itself. An early edition of the Living Bible (a modern paraphrase) gave Acts 13: 48 as follows: “—as many as wanted eternal life, believed.” Did Kenneth Taylor feel a little uncomfortable with what the text actually says, which is: “…as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.”?

Rather more serious is the attitude of the person who comes to the Bible with the presupposition, “miracles cannot occur.” In this case, the saving acts of God (including the resurrection of Jesus) are ignored, explained, away, or rejected before the evidence for them has been considered.

2. The peril of the ‘Blue Pencil’ approach

When, after three years of preaching and teaching in the city of Ephesus, Paul took his leave of the Christian leaders there, he could say, “I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.” Many modern teachers do not see it this way at all. If anything in the Bible seems to them to be difficult to understand or hard to accept, then it is discarded without ceremony.  The celebrated Methodis preacher, Leslie Weatherhead, recommended taking a blue pencil and striking out great chunks of the Psalms, prophets, and epistles because they appeared to him offensive or incomprehensible.

It would be foolish to deny that there are things in the Bible which are difficult (see 2 Peter 3:15, 16). But we take our stand on the side of Christ and the apostles, and maintain that “all Scripture is inspired by God, and profitable…” (2 Timothy 3:16).

3. The peril of gratuitous interpretation

The danger here is seeing more in the Biblical text than is actually there.

A past minister of City Temple, one Robert Bragg, preached a series of sermons on the individual colours of Joseph’s coat (Genesis 37:3). This prompted one of his congregation to sigh:-

Eternal Bragg, in never-ending^– strains
Unfolds^–the wonders Joseph’s coat contains.
Of every hue describes a different cause
And from each patch a solemn mystery draws.

Enough said

4. The peril of Ignoring the Context

It is a great mistake to regard the Bible merely as a series of isolated texts or a kind of Dictionary of Religious Quotations. A humorous example of now this can turn out is found in a sermon said to have been preached against contemporary hairstyles. The preacher took as his text, “Top Knot Come Down.” (Look it up in the Authorized Version, Mt 24:17.)

These are some of the more important rocks upon which the snip of interpretation sometimes founders. Look out, and take evasive action, and your voyage will be a safe one