As far as I’m concerned, interpretations are more or less always up for grabs.

Using “proper” and “rightly” is a kind of rhetoric that attempts to lock down a particular interpretation. What really irks me is when people use extra-biblical rhetoric in an attempt to lock down their biblical interpretation. So, for instance, when Chisham says that you have to believe “rightly,” he’s basically trying to lock down his biblical understanding of what it means to be “born again” by using extra-biblical words and phrases.

Jesus doesn’t say that you have to believe “rightly,” but Chisham does. Jesus doesn’t talk about “homosexuals,” but a lot of angry conservatives do. A lot of folks use words—like “rightly,” “proper,” and “homosexual”—like bludgeons, to impose and enforce their very specific interpretations of the Holy Bible as if those very specific interpretations were The One And Only Possible Interpretations. And then to put some icing on the cake, some might even say they are reading the bible “literally.”

I think that we should stick close to the Word. If Jesus didn’t say we need to have a “proper interpretation,” then why should those who say they follow Jesus insist that there is a “proper interpretation”?