Sensus plenior is Latin for “fuller sense.”  It is the belief that there is at least a partial disconnect between the human author and the divine author of Scripture. In other words, what the human author means in his historical context may not be the full intent of the meaning of Scripture. Those who believe in sensus plenior say that God can have a “fuller” intention behind the words that He inspires, and this “fuller sense” may not be understood until later on. I believe the best understanding of how Scripture is written is best described by what is called confluence. Confluence is the belief that God works through the understanding and the words of the human author so that God’s words and meaning are supernaturally the same words and meaning of the human author. This belief is largely based passages such as 2 Peter 1:20-21 which states:

Everyone loves stories. We like watching movies, reading books, or simply talking to each other about our lives. Stories are a part of us, we cannot escape them. The majority of the Bible is made up of stories. Because we are surrounded by stories all the time, one would think we would understand the Bible better, if for no other reason than the fact that the Bible contains stories. However, we often struggle in narrative passages because we are not sure what the application is for our own life. This often leads to reading Bible stories in the wrong way. A Faulty Approach to Applying Bible Stories The most common approach to Bible stories is to read yourself in the story. We read the story of Goliath and we see ourselves as David overcoming the giants of our own life. We read the story with ourselves as the main focus.…