Principle 1: The clearer governs the less clear, the analogy of faith — The principle. When two passages appear to conflict, the plain, didactic, repeated statement interprets the obscure, figurative, or solitary one, never the reverse. "No prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation" (2 Peter 1:20); truth comes "precept upon precept; line upon line" (Isaiah 28:10), "comparing spiritual things with spiritual" (1 Corinthians 2:13).
Principle 2: One word, several referents, why "saved" must be distinguished — The principle. The words "save" and "salvation" demonstrably carry different referents in different contexts, eternal deliverance from sin's penalty, but also temporal deliverance from danger, error, disorder, sickness, and judgment. The distinction between eternal salvation and time salvation is therefore not a theological escape hatch; it is forced on the reader by the data.
Principle 3: Narrative describes; doctrine prescribes — The principle. The book of Acts records what happened, including unique, unrepeatable, transitional events; the epistles teach the churches what always obtains. Doctrine is established from the didactic and confirmed in the narrative, not built on narrative incident and imposed against didactic statement.
Principle 4: Symbol and type, the rules that keep Revelation from becoming a mirror — The principle. Apocalyptic and typological texts are read by four controls. (1) The book's own announced idiom: Revelation opens by saying the message was "signified", sign-ified, communicated in signs (Revelation 1:1), so symbolism is not an evasion but the stated genre. (2) Scripture interprets its own symbols: Revelation's images are drawn from the Old Testament (Zion, Babylon, temple, tribes, Balaam, Jezebel), and their meaning is fixed by their canonical usage, not by the reader's environme
Principle 5: The limit cases are part of the data, the infant test — The principle. Any proposed rule of salvation must be run against the cases at the boundary: the dying infant, the mentally incapable, the thief on the cross, the mute believer, the elect person beyond the sound of preaching. A reading that handles these only by ad hoc exception, "hearing is essential, except for infants; confession is essential, except for the mute", has thereby conceded that the proposed essential is not universally essential. The exception refutes the universality of the rule
Principle 6: The touchstone, no boasting — The principle. Paul supplies an explicit doctrinal touchstone: the true gospel is the one that excludes boasting. "Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith" (Romans 3:27); salvation is "not of works, lest any man should boast" (Ephesians 2:9); "that no flesh should glory in his presence... He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord" (1 Corinthians 1:29-31).