Matt O'Reilly

In the past, I would sometimes appeal to the “plain meaning” of various scriptural texts. I’ve stopped doing that. Not because I don’t think the Bible speaks plainly at times. Nor because I’ve given up on the perspicuity of scripture with regard to its teaching on salvation. I haven’t. No, I’ve stopped appealing to the “plain meaning” because that phrase is often used to discourage serious engagement in biblical interpretation. The “plain meaning” claim is frequently deployed to avoid dealing with legitimate challenges to whatever reading is supposed to be so certainly clear. It’s sometimes used rhetorically to suggest that one interpretation of the Bible is so obvious that we don’t need to do the hard work of exegesis and hermeneutics to understand it. If someone insists their view represents the “plain meaning” of some scriptural text, that’s your clue to scrutinize their interpretation all the more rigorously. Maybe it is the plain meaning, but you can’t know until you do the work.