>>The reality of the Bible is that you can interpret it as you wish if you are a Protestant, according to God, for God has given you the ability to do so. That is the belief of Protestants. That is why there are over 33,000 different Protestant religious groups. Not everyone agrees on the meaning of the Bible. People tend to give the Bible the meaning they want to serve themselves.
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>I don't think that it is exactly correct to say the Protestants believe you can interpret the Bible as you wish. As far as I know, and mostly from reading Luther and other reformer's and Baptist literature, the common idea is that the New Testament is the interpretation of the Old Testament. In fact, if you do read both you see that what was said in the Old Testament books is not necessarily straightforward and most require interpretation, specifically in the prophets. (The Pentateuch does not require much interpretation since they are more historical books). The New Testament differs in that, specifically the Gospels and mostly the Pauline letters give the message straight without much room for interpretation. Except the parables of Christ, some of those which he did not specifically give the interpretation, although he did give the interpretation to many of them. I know, some people try to interpret his interpretation, but I would not take those very seriously.
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>That is also what Paul meant when he wrote in Romans "...and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, But now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith"
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>So the idea is that those things that were kept secret and have not been fully revealed where explained all in the person of Christ at his coming, when he revealed to the Jewish nation (and later to the gentiles) what has been prophesied and written in the old times. So if a Protestant would in fact believe that he can interpret the Bible as he wishes, he would purposely contradict this idea, and that after the Protestant reformers claimed "Sola scriptura!".
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>It is true that there are lots of religious groups, but the main body of the Protestant church has a common way to read the Bible. It's like in politics, you have now and then someone looking for power and trying to bring up some populist ideas, and some of those do get a following, but if you look close there is not really much behind it.

So Luther (and others) are the authority of what the divine meant and means? Blasphemy!!! Which is really just a technical definition of those who would make the divine in their own image. A common enough mistake especially in Western Christianity. Usually defended against by doing more of the same. And then rejecting all appeals to reason (as in, you can't support your theory by assuming the validity of the theory) by doing even more of the same. Impervious to logic, impervious to the mountain of biblical historical, sociological, ethnological (did you know that the aramaic word for "hell" referred to the garbage pit outside Jerusalem that burned 24-hours a day?) and anthropological scholarship (who needs it when your theory proves itself valid?) produced over the past 30 years, impervious to the harm (by their fruits shall ye know them) the exceptionalist theory has led to (measured in number of lives taken, if nothing else).

And no, I'm not writing this to convert you to a non-blasphemous form of spirituality. Or at least I don't have that expectation. There are probably others, however, whose feelings about the matter are strongly opposed to the view you (pretty accurately, I think) expressed. By articulating some things I've learned over the years on the subject, perhaps they will be better able to articulate their experience, to themselves and to others. That's how cultural change happens.

Speaking of cultural change: Lianja presents a big cultural shift for Fox programmers. If you want to learn why you would do well to consider it, sign up for SWFox before 7/1, and you get a free precon -- and with that, you can pick (if you like) a workshop on migrating from Fox to Lianja. Lots of action, and anyone who wants to continue on past the allotted time (it will be in the a.m.) is welcome to do so. There will also be a session on moving a Lianja app to mobile.

Lianja is a big cultural shift; when I wrote my first migration app, it took me quite a while to see how it had to come together. It did, and there were some valuable lessons learned, both about the "how to" but just as importantly, how this new paradigm actually creates a better user experience, one that is self-teaching.

And if things go wrong as I present, you may hear some swearing, but you won't hear any actual blasphemy. <s>

Hank