This is a very good question. As a Lutheran, we don't receive the Bible and make of it what we will as interpretation of the Bible is done by the church and in

This is a very good question. As a Lutheran, we don't receive the Bible and make of it what we will as interpretation of the Bible is done by the church and involves a lot of tradition - we have vast libraries filled with the writings of the early church and other doctors of the church. My own woefully incomplete study materials occupies 12 cubits of shelf space - That's 5.4 meters for you modern types. :) The body of knowledge is so vast for example that at one point economics was considered a small subset of theology.