Well, in order to get anything out of the Bible, we have to start somewhere. Question is, who do you rely on to interpret what the Bible means, if it isn’t feasible to know what God means?
There are ambiguities in the Bible. The first Verse in the Book of John starts with, “In the beginning was the Word...” Is it the Word of God or the word of Christ? One would think that the opening phrase “In the beginning,” which is also the opening phrase in the Old Testament which goes on to say “God created the heavens and the earth,” would imply that John 1:1 refers to the Word of God, given to Christ.
The Word in John 1:1
is Christ. The Word that was in the beginning with God and is God is a Person: It's Jesus. John 1:14 says "And the Word became flesh, and we beheld His glory, the glory of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.".
The Word being spoken of here is not the Bible, or a message; this is the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, the Divine Son and Word of the Father, Jesus Christ.
Some may say that the Greek words used to denote “word” in John 1:1 means the word of Christ when translated literally. I don’t know. I wasn’t there when the Bible was translated. My point? Who can we rely on, amongst man, for the truth? Are we going to defer to linguistic professors to tell us what the Bible means?
We can easily look at the original language,
John 1:1
Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος
En arche en ho Logos kai ho Logos en pros ton Theou kai Theos en ho Logos
In [the] beginning was the Word and the Word was toward* the God and the Logos was God**
*the Greek preposition πρὸς (pros) means "toward", "near", "with", the sense of being "face-to-face with".
**a woodenly literal translation of καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος (kai Theos en ho Logos) would be "and God was the Word", however grammatically it is more correct to translate it as "and the Word was God", as ho Logos ("the Word") is being called Theos ("God"). In other words we have God with God in the beginning, aka God the Son with God the Father in the beginning.
This Logos or "Word" who is in the beginning God with God, then became flesh,
John 1:14
Καὶ ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο καὶ ἐσκήνωσεν ἐν ἡμῖν καὶ ἐθεασάμεθα τὴν δόξαν αὐτοῦ δόξαν ὡς μονογενοῦς παρὰ πατρός πλήρης χάριτος καὶ ἀληθείας
Kai ho Logos sarx egeneto kai eskenosen en emin kai etheasametha ten doxan autou doxan hos monogenous para Patros pleres charitos kai aletheias
And the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us and we beheld the glory of Him [the] glory of the only-begotten of [the] Father full of grace and truth
Seems the better idea is to find out as much about the real world as possible, so you can decide whom you may find to be credible. Interesting that, unless something got lost in the translation, 2 Timothy 3:16 doesn’t add, ‘...and should be discussed with someone in order to get an understanding.’ It should be up to people themselves to discern whether something in the Bible needs further understanding beyond what you read. If you automatically defer to someone else, without knowing anything, you risk deferring to a particular individual to your detriment as far as your relation with God goes.
There is two thousand years of clear and unambiguous Christian exegesis and teaching that is available to us. We don't have to defer to a single individual, or simply try and divine the meaning of Scripture through our own self-efforts. The whole Christian Church spanning two millennia has been reading, hearing, believing, and confessing the Scriptures. And the Holy Spirit Himself is in the Church, as our Helper in accordance with the word and promise of our Lord Jesus. He was poured out two thousand years ago, on Pentecost, and He lives in us both individually as believers and corporately as the Church. He keeps us in true faith as we abide in the truth which we have received from the beginning, as we hear and abide in the Scriptures, as we abide in the faith that was "given to the saints once and for all delivered" (Jude 1:3), so we can therefore abide in the teaching we have received from the beginning (2 Thessalonians 2:15), not chasing after the doctrines of others, but in the apostles' teaching which is from Christ and is the inspired word of God by the power of the Holy Spirit (2 Timothy 3:16, 2 Peter 1:20-21).
-CryptoLutheran