“knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:20-21).
One distinguishing characteristic of a genuine “prophet” is the ability to offer God’s unerring direction, as prompted by the Holy Spirit. We might also define a legitimate prophet as someone who communicates divinely inspired information concerning a specific situation or future event. One commentary builds upon these definitions with the following insight: “The ability to prophesy may involve predicting future events, but its main purpose is to communicate God’s message to people, providing insight, warning, correction, and encouragement.” (1)
These realities led the Apostle Peter to communicate an important message in our passage from 2 Peter 1:20-21: “…no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation” (ESV). We can approach this portion of Scripture in two ways. First, we can view these verses from an external perspective in regard to the Biblical Scriptures. However, we can also view this passage from an internal perspective in regard to ourselves.
To start, it is important to recognize that the central theme of this passage revolves around the origin of God’s Word…
“The Gr. word for ‘interpretation’ has the idea of a ‘loosing,’ as if to say no Scripture is the result of any human being privately, ‘untying’ and ‘loosing’ the truth. Peter’s point is not so much about how to interpret Scripture, but rather how Scripture originated, and what its source was. The false prophets untied and loosed their own ideas. But no part of God’s revelation was unveiled or revealed from a human source or out of the prophet’s unaided understanding (see v. 21).” (2)
This brings us to this reference to “private interpretations.” In Peter’s era, there were those who filtered God’s Word through the lens of their individual preferences or opinions. The same is true today. Because of this, we must be careful to avoid the subtle inclination to manipulate, twist, add, or subtract from the Scriptures to suit our biases.
One source links these two ideas together…
“it is not to other Scriptures nor to other people that Peter would refer us, but to the Holy Spirit. Just as the biblical authors in the first place could not have written what they did but for the Holy Spirit’s activity in and through them, so no reader can properly interpret the OT prophecies without the Holy Spirit’s guidance.” (3)
(1) Life Application Study Bible [1 Corinthians 14:1] Copyright © 1988, 1989, 1991, 1993, 1996, 2004 by Tyndale House Publishers Inc., all rights reserved.
(2) John F. MacArthur Jr., The MacArthur Study Bible: New American Standard Bible. (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2006), 2 Pe 1:20.
(3) New International Bible Commentary general editor G. C. D. Howley, consulting editors F. F. Bruce, H. L. Ellison. Copyright© 1979 by Pickering & Inglis Ltd [pp. 1566].