Being alone with God’s Word is a dangerous matter. Of course, you can always find ways to defend yourself against it: Take the Bible, lock your door – but then get out ten dictionaries and twenty-five commentaries. Then you can read it just as calmly and coolly as you read newspaper advertising. With this arsenal you can really begin to wonder, ‘Are there not several valid interpretations?’ And what about the prospect of new interpretations? Perhaps there are five interpreters with one opinion and seven with another and two with a strange opinion and three who are wavering or who have no opinion at all. So you calmly conclude, ‘I myself am not absolutely sure about the meaning of this passage. I need more time to form an opinion.’ Good Lord! What a tragic misuse of scholarship that it makes it so easy for people to deceive themselves!”
— Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
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