Faith & Spirit Quote by Troy Perry

"The Bible was written in several languages, embraces many literary forms, and reflects cultures very different from our own. These are important considerations for properly understanding the Bible in its context"

Troy Perry, Clergyman

About this Quote

Perry’s line lands like a quiet correction to the two loudest habits in modern Bible talk: treating scripture as either a magic eight ball of personal affirmations or a blunt instrument for policing other people. By foregrounding languages, genres, and distance in culture, he’s not doing a scholar’s throat-clearing. He’s making an ethical argument about how power should (and shouldn’t) be exercised through interpretation.

The intent is practical but also pointed: if the Bible is plural in voice and form, then cherry-picked certainty is a misreading dressed up as faithfulness. “Several languages” punctures the fantasy of a single, pristine original; it reminds you that translation is already interpretation, and that authority often sneaks in through the choices translators make. “Many literary forms” is the real tripwire. Poetry, law code, origin story, prophecy, parable, polemic, letter: each asks to be read differently. Pretending they’re all courtroom testimony is a way to manufacture clarity where the text is intentionally layered.

The subtext becomes sharper given Perry’s biography as a pioneering gay clergyman. This is contextual reading as self-defense against prooftexting: a method for refusing verses weaponized against LGBTQ people by insisting on historical setting, rhetorical purpose, and genre. He’s also drawing a boundary between devotion and anachronism. The Bible can still be sacred, he implies, without being flattened into a contemporary rulebook. The cultural distance isn’t a threat; it’s the point, and it demands humility.

Quote Details

Topic	Bible

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About the Author

Troy Perry (born July 27, 1940) is a Clergyman from USA.

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