What rules must we observe in reading Holy Scripture?
The Holy Scriptures cannot be read as a merely human product: they are the means by which the oracles of God are handed on to us (Rom 3:2; 2Ti 3:16; see Q032, Q018), and they ask of the reader a corresponding disposition. First, we must read them devoutly, as the Word of God, and with prayer to understand them rightly, as the Psalmist prays: “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law” (Psa 119:18). Secondly, we must read them with a pure desire of instruction in faith, and of incitement to good works, not for curiosity, controversy, or self-justification (cf. 2Ti 3:16–17: “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness”; see Q018, Q031). Thirdly, we must take and understand them in such sense as agrees with the consistent interpretation of the holy teachers and Fathers of the Church: for the Scriptures were given to the Church, and are rightly read within her mind, as the Ethiopian eunuch confessed, “How can I, unless someone explains it to me?” (Act 8:30–31; see Q019, Q607).
Since the Holy Spirit inspired the Holy Scriptures, it takes the same Holy Spirit to understand, to ‘decode’, their message: “no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God” (2Pe 1:20–21; see Q607).
In the Orthodox tradition, this Spirit-given understanding of the Scriptures, acquired within the life of the Church through purification and prayer, is called theoria, a Greek word meaning ‘contemplation’ or ‘vision’ (cf. Luk 24:31–32, 45: “then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures”).
