At our community group this week, based on the sermon we heard on Sunday, one of the issues we discussed is about allowing our biases to inform our understanding of the scriptures. It is a difficult issue because we all have biases – personal, cultural, political and others – and it is very hard to see them in ourselves because most of us don’t think we’re being biased when our biases are on show. It is always easier to see the biases of people who are not from our culture because our own culture is just the water we swim in.

But we got to thinking how we might know if we are allowing our biases to inform our reading of scripture. Even when we can’t easily or necessarily see our particular biases at the point we are reading scripture through those lenses, there are some tell-tale signs that our biases might be overtaking more broadly. In no particular order, here are some potential signs of that.

The Bible always agrees with you

If everything Jesus ever says always conforms to exactly what you think already, if the Apostles always seem to affirm your particular views and you never run into anything in scripture that challenges what you already think, it suggests we are not reading the Bible on its own terms. A good test as to whether our biases are driving our scriptural interpretation is whether scripture challenges our thinking and we allow it to actually change what we think.

The Bible always affirms your politics

Everybody likes to think they read the Bible, draw upon its principles and then form their political views in light of it. In reality, whilst I am sure that is true some of the time, it is also true that many of us bring our politics to bear on the text too and let our political biases inform what the text says. A sign that this is happening a lot is when the text always seems to line up with your political views and always happens to support your particular political party every time. If you consistently find support even for quite different manifestos from successive leaders of your particular party, and never find any credit to anything the opposing party say, it is likely your political biases are driving your understanding of scripture.

You cannot fathom why Christians in different contexts do things differently

Very often, our understanding and application of scripture is not illegitimate. It is, however, just an application of the text rather than the application of the text. If we understand this properly, running into Christians across the world who apply that same text in quite different ways should come as no real problem or surprise to us. These things may be culturally and contextually understood. If, however, we are consistently shocked by the majority position of believers across the world when it is different, when we can only see our application and never their application, when we are quick to say ‘that’s wrong’ before we ask ‘why do you do that?’, it is likely our cultural biases may be impacting our understanding of scripture.