Hasn’t everyone had the aspiration to read the whole bible at least once in their life and then find it incredibly difficult? It can be frustrating; I think its supposed to be. At least it is if you approach this with an ‘I Can Do This!’ attitude.
Step 1 – You can’t. (The sooner you accept that, the sooner you can get on with the greatest adventure ever.)
Step 2 – This is not a solo endeavor. It is an adventure and it will take you where you don’t want to go and it will take you to places you never knew existed.
Step 3 – You start with other Christians – those you know or those that teach the Bible as their calling. (J. Vernon McGee, Charles Stanley, Alistair Begg, The Bible Project, a good Bible-teaching church… but if you haven’t read the Bible, how will you know if your church is a faithful teacher of Scripture?)
This is my 6th time through the ‘Bible in One Year’ plan with Nicky Gumbel on the YouVersion app. Today, his devotion includes a great summary of how to read and understand the Bible – this is all him.
When reading and trying to understand the Bible, you have three helpers. First you have the Holy Spirit living in you [1 Corinthians 2:10]. Second, you have the help of the church. It would be arrogant to think that the Holy Spirit only speaks to me. He has spoken to others in history and he continues to speak to his people. Paul prays that ‘you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints’ [Ephesians 3:18]. Third, you have the benefit of reason – your mind! Paul encourages each person to be ‘fully convinced in their own minds’ [Romans 14:5].
In interpreting the Bible, there are three main questions you need to ask (1) What does it actually say? (The Old Testament is written in Hebrew and Aramaic and the New Testament in Greek. But you can be confident that most modern translations are trustworthy and accurate.) (2) What does it mean? In order to answer this question, you have to ask: What sort of literature is it? Is it historical writing? Poetry? Prophecy? Apocalyptic? Law? Wisdom? Gospel? We read them in different ways. Next, ask what it meant to the person who first wrote it, and to those who first read or heard it. Then ask, ‘Has anything happened subsequently to alter our understanding?’ [For example, what difference does the coming of Jesus make to our understanding of Old Testament passages?] Ultimately the Bible is all about Jesus. (3) How does this apply to my life? To avoid it becoming a mere intellectual exercise, you must think through how it applies to your daily living.
I grew up in an area where everyone was either Jewish or Roman Catholic. As kids, we just assumed that our ‘faith’ is our parents’ faith; we inherit it like a last name. We went to school together… trick-or-treated together… but sometime over the weekend… some may have learned Hebrew, I don’t know… some of us heard mass in Latin. I guess we all assumed the ‘reverence for a Holy God’ was imparted to us through religious traditions.
But life has a way of knocking out the reverence for a so-called, ‘Creator God Who Loves Us’ yet allows the tragedies of this world to continue. Doubts creep in and we begin to look around for ‘better’ answers. Answers that make more sense. We hear things like ‘Seeing is believing’ and they make sense. We start to sneer at those ‘sheeple’ who walk with ‘blind faith.’ But then those shiny, new answers lose their shine and offer no new hope in a broken world where the tragedies not only continue, but appear to grow worse!
What is a girl to do? My mind engages and just says… there has to be more than what I see around me. I can hold my newborn child and sense a wonder and goodness that cannot be described with words. That same child can break my heart and yet, I would lay down my own life for their well-being.
Yes, life teaches us that there are mysteries and paradoxes that are beyond our understanding. And all the while, God calls out to us… ‘Adam, where are you?’ [Genesis 3:9]
I do not have the words to connect to you soul-deep. I can only testify that God is real and His Word, The Bible, is alive. He will reveal Himself to anyone who approaches humbly and asks Him to make Himself known to you personally. Time is short – do this now.