Judas,
In a lot of ways the bible will interpret itself - but a good bible concordance will help. The way I read the bible is this: if I find something that seems to go against another scripture, or the nature of God, I reasearch it to find out why.
For instance, In Romans chapter 11 - there is a scripture that says that God put the Jewish nation into a spiritual darkness himself. Now, by reading this I know he cannot destroy them all in the future for not accepting his son if HE was the one who blinded them to this fact. How can you make someone blind and then destroy them because they cannot see? Is that Love? Of course not. Well upon further reading a few paragraphs down - Paul shows it was so that the kingdom message could not go out to the Gentiles. Many believe God always intended to save only Jews but his intention was and is to save everyone. Now, the reason he did it this way is open to interpretation but if I had not tried to reconcile the verse I read about God blinding the Jews, I would never have known his true purpose. I may then even conclude that he is a crazy, sadistic God, which he is not.
The firey destruction went against God is Love - so upon further reseach, as I said in the last post I found it just met totally complete. For instance Man made governments will be destroyed by being thrown into the lake of fire - which means they can never be rebuilt and every trace of them will be removed. Not that all the people working in the government will be destoyed, just the systems.
Here is another one that does not mean what churches today teach: Go in thru the narrow gate, or door, which leads to life. This gate and road is symbolic of Jesus. Many churches, including the JWs teach that this means there is only one road (they interpret as right religion) for life and one for destruction. Take it or leave it and it usually means believing their narrow minded message. This is not true. If you go to a site like www.biblegateway.com and search these words, (gate and door) you will also find all the scriptures on this and the ones that where Jesus says " I am the door". It is simply saying go in thru Jesus - to immortal life in heaven. Not that if you are on this road you will have everlasting life on earth like the Witnesses teach. This life is "immortal" only and heavenly and applies only to Christians whose hope is to be in heaven with Jesus.
What is the difference? Well, the hope to live on earth under the kingdom is not even held out yet, that is what it means. I believe it will be an option as God restores everything back to himself but it is not an option yet. Only the Church is being called to be in heavenly as part of the ruling class at this time. Their reward is immortal life, not everlasting life. At the end of it, (the gospel age) no one will go to second death until they are given the opportunity to respond to the kingdom and have every opportunity available to help them. This is why the gospel is good news, not a message of destruction.
Also when it says "end of the world" - the bible is really saying "end of the age", not the literal world being destroyed but that our age, called the gospel age, will end. The gospel age is the time the church is being called out into a relationship with Jesus. The NWT uses the term "end of this system" and that word is better than world. They should realize by their own translation that end of the system does not mean people, but systems of religion, social order and governments only.
It has taken me 25 years to learn just a few of the words I believed as literal to mean totally something else when the bible was written. Greg Albrecht from the Plain Truth Ministries @ www.ptm.org just wrote a book called "Revelation Revolution" that shows how the words in Revelation mean something totally different than most of us believe also. It had meaning for those in bible times and it can have meaning for us too. It was written in a time of writing style popular back then but not to be taken as literal today. Most people today think of destruction and gloom when they think of this book. The proper view according to Albrecht is the book is a revealing of Jesus Christ written in signs and symbols only. And not an apocolyptic message.My hubby is reading it then I am going to read it. I am also reading another book of his, "Bad News Religion", then I hope to raffle these books off here at the forum so someone else can read. Maybe you can put your name down when I do it. I will have my kids draw names out of a hat.
Anyway, keep seeking and you will find the true knowlege of God. And thank you for bringing up this point. Lilly
P.S. other words having different meaning today: judgment, Gehenna, righteous, unrighteous, destruction, world, sea, these are only a few.
