When Scripture Confronts What We Have Already Decided Is True
Christian Living
By Eliora Selwyn™
Published September 16, 2026 | Updated October 29, 2026 (presentation)
You open your Bible already knowing what the passage means.
You have heard it preached. You have highlighted it. Perhaps you have quoted it for years. You may even know exactly how you would explain it to someone else.
Then one day, you slow down.
You read the verses before it. You read the verses after it. You notice a word you had passed over before. You follow a cross-reference. You pay attention to the argument being made rather than the single sentence you have always remembered.
And something uncomfortable happens.
The passage does not seem to be saying exactly what you thought it said.
Now what?
That moment can reveal something important about the way we approach Scripture.
Do we allow the text to correct us?
Or do we immediately begin looking for reasons it cannot mean what it appears to mean?
One of the greatest obstacles to understanding Scripture is not always ignorance of the Bible.
Sometimes it is certainty.
We All Bring Something to the Bible
None of us opens Scripture with an entirely blank mind.
We bring years of influence with us—family background, church tradition, denomination, favorite teachers, sermons we remember, books we have read, personal experiences, cultural assumptions, and conclusions from previous study.
That is not necessarily a problem.
God has given teachers to the church. Wise believers can help us understand difficult passages. The accumulated study of Christians who came before us can keep us from imagining that we are the first people ever to open a Bible.
The problem begins when something we have been taught becomes so settled in our minds that we no longer recognize it as an interpretation.
It simply becomes what the Bible says.
Sometimes it is.
Sometimes a teaching faithfully represents the text.
But sometimes we discover that what we thought Scripture said was actually what someone once told us Scripture meant.
That distinction matters.
Teachers can help us understand Scripture. Traditions can preserve valuable truth. Both remain accountable to the Word itself.
Familiarity Can Feel Like Understanding
Some passages are so familiar that we barely read them anymore.
Our eyes move across the words, but our minds jump immediately to the explanation we already know.
We remember the sermon.
We remember the devotional.
We remember how the verse has always been used.
And without realizing it, we can begin reading our interpretation back into the text.
Familiarity with Scripture is a gift. The Word should become familiar to us. It should live in our thoughts, shape our prayers, and become part of the language of our lives.
But familiarity should never make Scripture incapable of surprising us—or correcting us.
Sometimes slowing down reveals something we overlooked.
Sometimes context narrows a meaning we had made too broad.
Sometimes another passage corrects an assumption we built from one verse.
And sometimes, after careful study, we discover that what we believed all along was right.
The goal is not to find a new interpretation. The goal is to find the faithful one.
Conviction Is Not Authority
Christians should have convictions.
Biblical humility does not require us to become perpetually uncertain, afraid to say that anything is true.
But strong conviction does not establish truth.
Neither does longevity.
We can believe something sincerely for decades and still need to examine it.
A respected teacher can be mistaken.
A tradition can preserve truth and still contain assumptions worth testing.
And we ourselves can be wrong.
That is not an argument for theological suspicion. It is simply a recognition of where final authority belongs.
Scripture does not become true because we are convinced of it. Our convictions are trustworthy to the degree that they faithfully reflect Scripture.
Everything else must remain beneath the Word.
Not because everything should constantly be questioned.
Not because novelty is evidence of insight.
Not because every unusual interpretation deserves consideration.
But because our highest loyalty belongs to God—not to our ability to have understood Him correctly the first time.
Pay Attention to the Defensive Moment
There is a particular moment in Bible study worth noticing.
It happens when the text presses against something we believe.
That cannot be what this means.
That reaction does not prove we are wrong. Scripture must be interpreted alongside Scripture, and an interpretation that appears to contradict clear biblical teaching deserves careful examination.
But sometimes our resistance is coming from somewhere else.
The passage has touched something we have already decided.
Instead of immediately defending our conclusion, we can stop long enough to ask:
What does the text actually say?
What am I assuming it means?
Where did I learn that interpretation?
Does the surrounding context support it?
Do related passages support it?
And perhaps the hardest question:
If the text ultimately leads somewhere different from what I have believed, am I willing to follow it there?
Our emotional reaction does not determine whether an interpretation is right or wrong.
But sometimes it reveals what we are protecting.
Being Corrected Is Not Spiritual Failure
There can be something unsettling about realizing we may have misunderstood Scripture.
Especially when we have believed something for a long time.
How did I miss this?
And then another thought can quickly follow:
If I was wrong about this, what else am I wrong about?
But being corrected by Scripture is not evidence that Bible study has failed.
It may be evidence that Bible study is doing exactly what it is supposed to do.
Scripture is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16).
Correction is part of its work.
Over a lifetime of walking with God, there should be places where our understanding becomes clearer.
We recognize an assumption.
We reconsider a conclusion.
We discover that a passage has more context than we gave it.
We let go of something Scripture cannot actually support.
That does not mean everything we previously learned was worthless.
It means we are still learning.
A teachable Christian is not someone without convictions.
A teachable Christian is someone whose convictions remain accountable to the Word of God.
That is biblical humility—not refusing to believe anything firmly, but remaining willing to be corrected by the One who speaks with authority.
Give the Word Room
There is a sobering moment in John 8.
Jesus asks:
“Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you are unable to accept My message.”
— John 8:43 BSB
Earlier in the same conversation, He says:
“…but you are trying to kill Me because My word has no place within you.”
— John 8:37 BSB
The circumstances of that confrontation are serious. We should not casually take Jesus’ words to His opponents and apply them to sincere Christians who misunderstand a passage—or to Christians who disagree with us.
But His words do give us a question worth bringing into our own lives:
Does the Word have room within me?
Not merely room to comfort me.
Not merely room to encourage me.
Not merely room to confirm what I already believe.
Does it have room to correct me?
There is a difference between submitting our beliefs to Scripture and using Scripture to defend beliefs we have already decided cannot be questioned.
That difference may be difficult to see from the outside.
Inside us, however, it often comes down to one simple question:
Am I genuinely willing for the text to change my mind?
When Scripture Corrects Us
When a passage challenges something you believe, resist the urge to settle the question too quickly.
- Read the surrounding passage before reaching for a commentary. Find the argument, setting, audience, and what comes before and after the verse.
- Write down what the text explicitly says. Before explaining it, identify what is actually there.
- Separate the text from what you have been taught about the text. They may ultimately agree, but make sure you know which is which.
- Compare related passages. Scripture provides context for Scripture. A conclusion built on one isolated verse deserves careful testing.
- Investigate language and historical context when genuinely useful. These tools should illuminate the text rather than become a way to escape it.
- Pray for willingness, not merely understanding. Ask God not only to help you see clearly, but to make you willing to accept what you find.
- Hold your conclusions with confidence proportional to the evidence. Scripture speaks with certainty. Our interpretations do not always deserve the same degree of certainty.
This is not an invitation to endless theological uncertainty.
It is an invitation to biblical humility.
Scripture first. Evidence second. Interpretation carefully afterward.
Leave Room to Be Taught
Perhaps one of the healthiest prayers we can bring to an open Bible is not merely:
“Lord, help me understand this.”
Perhaps we should add another:
“Lord, if I am wrong, make me willing to know it.”
That prayer requires humility because sometimes the hardest thing Scripture asks us to surrender is not a possession, a habit, or a plan.
Sometimes it is an opinion we have carried for years.
God’s Word was never given merely to reinforce everything we already believe.
Sometimes the Word comforts us.
Sometimes it confirms us.
Sometimes it strengthens convictions already rooted in truth.
And sometimes, in His mercy, God allows His Word to correct us.
The question is whether we have left it room to do so.
—Eliora Selwyn
Continue Along the Path
From the Biblical Studies Library
To examine the conversation behind this question more closely, read They Heard Him—but Could Not Hear Him, an Eliora Biblical Studies examination of John 8:31–47.
Watch the Cinematic Scripture Short on John 8:43: “Why Couldn’t They Understand Jesus?”
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