"Unity is not attained by abandoning our interpretations of scripture, for this is an impossibility for honest men, but by a proper sense of values which allows us to maintain our interpretations without placing them as obstacles or stumbling blocks in a brother's way."1
"There is no official interpretation of the scriptures, and there are no official interpreters. There is only a difference in degree between postulating that a group of elders can do the thinking for a congregation, and that a pope can do it for the church universal."2 "In this generation the word is authoritative as it has been digested, collated and officially explained by partisan heroes and editors."3 "If one arrives at an interpretation of a passage after thirty years he cannot demand that others see it in thirty minutes or be ejected from the family and the father's house for his slowness. "4 "If it is true that the sacred scriptures require no interpretation we ought never to hand a person anything except a copy of the Bible. It would be inconsistent to explain to him the bearing of a single passage." "It is generally true that those who insist the scriptures require no interpretation are the most arbitrary in binding their interpretation upon others. They confuse their interpretation with the word of God."5 "Revelation is what God has said. Interpretation is what men think he meant by what he said." "Practically every division among us has occurred when some man placed a certain interpretation upon some portion of revelation, then substituted it for the revelation and sought to bind it as the will of God. Separation comes as the result of interpretation, not revelation. . . Actually, each faction thinks it has an infallible interpretation and all must kneel to it."6 "It is conceded that when deductive reasoning is fairly done the concepts may be called the doctrine of God's word. But it is asserted that those concepts are not formally binding upon the consciences of Christians except as they are grasped and understood to be truth."7 "We must never overlook the fact that the partisan spirit always substitutes the interpretation of God's word for the word itself and demands conformity not just to what God says but to what the party deduces he meant when he said it."8 "Any communication whether divine or human, must be interpreted to be understood."9 "Matters of faith are simply the things the party emphasizes as necessary to be recognized as a party member. Matters of opinion are those things which they have decided are inconsequential in preserving the party image. Hand one of these partisans a list of a hundred issues which have troubled the heirs of the restoration movement and ask him to catalog them in two columns labeled 'Faith' and 'Opinion' and he will not dare do it."10