Reading the Bible (11)

 

This coming Sunday is January 1, the beginning of a new calendar year. I hope you’ve been considering what your Bible reading will look like during 2023. There are many Bible – reading plans available on the internet, perhaps one of them will be a good fit for you.

 

My own Bible reading has varied over the years in terms of a plan, a method; I’m not sure I had a plan in my early days, except to read and read and read some more – and keep reading and pondering…but that has been a long, long time ago. Some characteristics of my Bible reading have been:

 

I am always reading a Gospel. While I recognize that Christ reveals Himself throughout the Bible, there is a center of gravity in meeting Jesus Christ in the Gospels, walking with Him, listening to Him, seeing Him…talking to Him.

 

I want to read the Psalms every day. The Psalms are the voice of the Church and the Voice of God. I also hear my own voice in them, in their highs and lows, in their certainties and their doubts, in their hopes and fears. I have used different patterns in reading them throughout the years, but I strongly encourage folks to read at least one psalm a day and, if reading one a day, to read them in the order they are written. There are patterns in the psalms that we will miss if we read them haphazardly.

 

For the past few years I’ve been reading two psalms a day for two months and one psalm a day for the third month, this takes me through the psalms each quarter. In the third month I’ll also often read Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Lamentations, and Job – or a combination thereof. On January 1 I’ll read Psalm 1 and Psalm 31; on the 2^nd, Psalm 2 and Psalm 32, and so forth. On February 1 I’ll read Psalm 61 and Psalm 91, on February 2 it will be Psalm 62 and Psalm 92; then on March 1 it will be Psalm 121. On April 1 I will begin once again with Psalm 1 and Psalm 31. This method keeps me reading in different sections of the Psalms, I like this because each section of Psalms has its own flavor.  

 

For many years I wanted my reading to include different sections of the Bible simultaneously, this kept me fresh from Genesis to Revelation and helped me see the interconnectedness of the Scriptures. So at any given time I was reading from the Pentateuch (Genesis – Deuteronomy), the books of history (Joshua – Esther), the Major Prophets (Isaiah – Daniel), the Minor Prophets (Hosea – Malachi), the Wisdom or Poetical books (Job – Song of Solomon), the Gospels and Acts, and the Epistles and Revelation.

 

Now I realize that the above is conceptual and that many, if not most, folks would simply prefer a written Bible – reading schedule, which is fine; though I do think that the Psalms and the Gospels ought to anchor our daily reading and meditation. I also think that we ought, at the very least, to read the entire New Testament each year.

 

I want to say something that is subject to misinterpretation, but I want to say it to try to convey how wonderful the Bible is, for in it we meet Jesus Christ and commune with Him. I can’t imagine only reading the New Testament once a year, that is, I can’t imagine only reading Timothy or Titus or Hebrews or Ephesians once a year…because that would be like only going into my home once a year. It would be like only eating ice cream or pizza once a year. The Scriptures are the food of my soul, the atmosphere of my spirit, the joy of my heart, the nurture of my mind. They are where I live in Christ. They are where we, who know Jesus Christ, are called to live with Him and with one another.

 

Yes, yes, yes; God speaks to us in many ways, through Creation, through circumstances (that are often not what they appear to be!), through others (all the time!) – but the Scriptures are the nexus which binds everything together in Christ Jesus and which brings everything into focus…they are also our infallible filter.

 

Most of what we encounter in terms of words is noise, and it is stupid noise at that. This includes religious noise…noise, noise, noise, cacophonic noise. Political noise, civic noise, religious noise, academic noise – words that mean nothing, concepts that are like soap bubbles, bursting after a few moments. We have become stupid from the top to the bottom of society – rejoicing in the ephemeral, chasing after momentary cloud formations…and like two-year-olds we are so very impressed with ourselves.

 

The Scriptures deliver us and protect us from noise, from the ephemeral, from the stupid – including from popular Christian thinking and living which is killing us. Aslan told the taking animals of Narnia that if they learned the way of the speechless animals that they would lose the gift of speech, and that is what is happening with us – words no longer mean anything, sustained thought is seldom possible, we call good evil and evil good. In rejecting the image of God we are now worse than the animals around us…animals which have not denied their nature as we are doing.

 

If we don’t want to live in the Scriptures for our own benefit, we might consider doing so for those we love. Let’s consider Paul’s words to Timothy:

 

“Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching; persevere in these things, for as you do this you will ensure salvation both for yourself and for those who hear you.” 1 Timothy 4:16.

 

How are you planning to read the Bible in 2023?

Reading the Birth Narratives

 

The birth of Jesus Christ, His Incarnation, is found in the following Gospel passages:

 

Matthew chapters 1 and 2; Luke chapters 1 and 2; and John 1:1 – 18.

 

It is also helpful to look at how Mark begins his Gospel, right out of the starting blocks, getting to the action of the ministries of John the Baptist and Jesus Christ. This is a characteristic of Mark’s Gospel – action, action, action – one action happening on top of another.

 

How is John’s approach different from Matthew’s and Luke’s? Where does John “begin”? What perspective does John give us and how does it complement what we see in Luke and Matthew?

 

What do you see in John 1:14? What do you see in John 1:18?

 

We might say that Matthew, Luke, and John provide us with three legs of a stool, on which rests the message of the Incarnation – we need all three legs to have a level perspective of the mystery of God coming to live with us. Of course there are other passages in Scripture that speak of the Incarnation, most notably Philippians 2:1 – 18 and Hebrews Chapter 2. There are others such as Galatians 4:1 – 7, often we read over these passages without stopping to consider how they throw additional light on the birth of Jesus Christ, the Incarnation of the Son of God. Perhaps during the coming year you might be on the lookout for Incarnational passages in your Bible reading.

 

Perhaps you might consider reading the birth narratives aloud with your family and friends? There is nothing quite like hearing the spoken Word of God, spoken in your immediate presence. There is reason that historically people read aloud, even to themselves; I know that I “see” things when I read aloud that I wouldn’t otherwise see; I find it exciting.

 

Look for the Trinity as you are reading.

 

When reading Luke, consider the “songs” the people are singing, the verses they are composing in the midst of their experiences.

 

What is the thrust of the messages from the angels? Do they have a common thread?

 

Contrast the responses of Zechariah and Mary to the messages they received – what is the difference in their responses? What can we learn from them?

 

Enjoy the glory of Christmas! The glory of the Incarnation!

 

Reading the Bible (10)

 This is the conclusion of my introduction to reading the Bible, contained in a handout to my church a few years ago. I hope it has been helpful.

God says, “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts,” Isaiah 55:9.

When we resort to rationalization in response to God’s Word, when we try to explain away what God has said so that it will fit our lives rather than having our lives fit God’s Word, when we try to conform God’s Word to the world and what we think it should mean, when we try to do these things we have clear signs that we are approaching the Scriptures from a human point-of-view. The fact is, as Paul points out in 1 Corinthians Chapter One, that the Gospel is foolishness to the world; part of the world says “prove it,” and the other part says “that’s crazy, it doesn’t make sense.”

That is the nature of the Gospel and that is the nature of the world. Our choice is who we will identify with, Christ or the world?

This passage teaches us that God wants to reveal Himself to us and that He has given those who trust in Christ His Holy Spirit so that we can know Him and know the things He has freely given us. Also, since we are in Christ, that is, since we live in Christ and Christ lives in us, we have the mind of Christ. That is, we have an organic relational union with Christ, and in that union His thoughts, His mind, His way of seeing, lives in us. As we allow His mind to renew our mind (Romans 12:1-2; Ephesians 4:20-24; Colossians 3:1-4) the Scriptures come alive to us and we begin to understand life from a spiritual perspective rather than from an earthly naturalistic point-of-view.

            The Bible is a supernatural book and we look to the Holy Spirit to reveal God and Christ to us through its pages. However, that does not mean that we disengage our minds nor does it mean that we can be lazy when we approach the Bible. Throughout Paul’s letters to Timothy he encourages Timothy to study the Scriptures so that he can clearly understand them (see 2 Timothy 2:15 for an example). In the Old Testament we also see God commanding His people to know His Word (for example see Deuteronomy 6:1 – 9).

            God wants to draw us to Himself through His Word. He wants to teach us to view life from His perspective. He wants to teach us to compare spiritual things with spiritual things, not with earthly things that are passing away. He wants to prepare us to be a people for eternity. He has given us His Holy Spirit; we have the mind of Christ, so that in our dependence on Him our minds can be transformed into His image. The Bible is God’s Holy Book, it is the most powerful book ever written, and when it is illuminated by the Holy Spirit it will change our lives.

            God’s way of thinking will always be foolishness to the world, and it will always be foolishness to our natural way of thinking – but there is a wisdom that God desires to impart to us, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. Will we live our lives with God in this wisdom?

Reading the Bible (9)

 

Bible Study – Part Two

God’s Word – God’s Wisdom

 

            As we continue our exploration of how to study the Bible, the second chapter of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians has a number of points to help us:

1CO 2:1 When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power.

 

    1CO 2:6 We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 7 No, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 However, as it is written:

 

  "No eye has seen,

    no ear has heard,

  no mind has conceived

    what God has prepared for those who love him" --

 

        1CO 2:10 but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit.

    The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11 For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. 14 The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15 The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment:

 

  1CO 2:16 "For who has known the mind of the Lord

    that he may instruct him?"

 

But we have the mind of Christ.

            Corinth was (and is) a city in Greece. In Paul’s time it was an important city, a center of economic and religious power. Being a Greek city meant that the word “wisdom” had two primary meanings to its people, one was religious and the other was philosophical.

            When we think of the wisdom of the Greeks we normally think of philosophical wisdom. Greek philosophers included Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, and Epicurus, to name just some of the better known Greeks. However, in addition to philosophical wisdom many Greeks participated in what we know as “mystery religions” that taught the wisdom of special mysteries to those who were initiated into them. 

            In 1 Corinthians 1:17 – 31 Paul makes it clear that the preaching of the Cross of Christ does not consist in using words of wisdom (1:17), that God has made foolish the wisdom of this world (1:20), and that the Greeks are always seeking after wisdom (1:22), and that therefore Christ crucified is to the Greeks foolishness (1:23). Then in 1:30 we are told that Christ is to be our wisdom.

            Paul continues his contrast between Christ and the Cross versus the wisdom of men in Chapter Two. In verse one he tells us that he didn’t use eloquence or superior wisdom when he taught the Corinthians, in verse four he writes that his preaching was not  with wise and persuasive words, and then in verse five Paul tells us that his goal was that the faith of the Corinthians might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power.

            Up until verse five of Chapter Two of 1 Corinthians we might think that Paul had something against learning and wisdom. It wasn’t, however, that Paul was against learning and wisdom, it was the kind of learning and wisdom that Paul was against when it comes to knowing God, for in verse six Paul focuses our attention on another kind of wisdom:

            We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 7 No, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began.

 

So we are not to “check our minds at the door” when we approach the Bible, because God has given us minds to use, but our minds alone cannot understand the Bible because, once again, it is God’s Book.

In 2:11 Paul points out that man knows about man and that God knows about God and in verse 12 we’re told that those who trust in Christ have been given God’s Spirit in order that we may understand what God has freely given us. Verse 13 teaches us that God’s Spirit teaches us spiritual truths in spiritual words. Another way to translate the thought in verse 13 is, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words.

Then in verse 14 Paul writes that the man without the Spirit (or the natural man/woman) cannot understand and accept the things that come from God, because the things that come from God are things that are spiritually discerned (understood).

While the chapter concludes with the statement that we have the mind of Christ, it is important to note that Paul’s argument carries over into Chapter Three in which he points out that he can’t talk to the Corinthians as spiritual people because they are still acting like babies – but that is beyond our focus in this study.

So what is Paul saying in 1 Corinthians Chapter Two that relates to how to study the Bible and why is it important?

He isn’t saying that we shouldn’t think, he isn’t saying that we shouldn’t use wisdom, he isn’t saying that God doesn’t want us to understand spiritual things.

He is saying that our thinking should be under the influence of the Spirit of God, he is saying that our wisdom must be the wisdom that comes from God, and he is saying that God wants us to know the things that He has freely given to us.

He is also saying that God uses spiritual words and concepts and images, and by extension when we try to pull the things of God down into the natural or human realm that we won’t understand them, that we’ll view them the wrong way, and that they will become foolish to us. We won’t understand why God says the things He does if we look at them according to human understanding.

This is another reason why lay-of-the-land reading is so important. The more we read the Bible the more our thoughts and thought patterns are formed according to Scripture, and the more our thoughts can become like God’s thoughts. The more we read the Bible the better able we are, in partnership with the Holy Spirit, to put the pieces together, to compare spiritual things with spiritual things – and not to compare spiritual things with natural things in our human understanding.

God says, “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts,” Isaiah 55:9.

To be continued...

Reading the Bible (8)

 

The Apostle Peter wrote the following words toward the end of his life in the New Testament book that we call 2 Peter:

2PE 1:19 And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. 20 Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. 21 For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

 

            Peter makes the same point as Paul does regarding the inspiration of the Bible. He tells us that the Scriptures did not originate with man but with God. Peter’s image of men being carried along by the Holy Spirit parallels Paul’s used of the term God-breathed. The Holy Spirit of God acted upon and within men and they wrote what they saw, heard, and thought.

            Peter makes another important point when he writes in verse 20 that the prophet’s own interpretation was not a part of what was written. In other words, the writers of Scripture did not superimpose their own thoughts onto what God was speaking to them in such a way as to change what God was saying. The translation used above is the NIV, let’s look at another translation, the NASB, to get another perspective on verse 20:

But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation.

 

            The NASB translation is the traditional translation of verse 20 (we’ll have a section on translations later on), and we see that the NASB’s point is that not only did the prophets who wrote the Scriptures not pollute it with their own ideas (verse 21) but that when we read the Scriptures we ought to make sure that our interpretation of what we read is not a private matter but that it is in harmony with the rest of Scripture and with apostolic teaching (verse 20).

            While we will explore this in more depth later in our study, the immediate point that I want to make is that the Christian life is not to be lived in isolation, but rather in community, and this community includes the interpretation of the Bible. This is one reason why it is important to be part of a local church that believes the holy Bible is the Word of God and which practices a mature approach to understanding and interpreting the Bible.

            While the Holy Spirit will teach us all things and lead us into truth, the Scriptures make it clear that He does not do this in isolation and I should never be defensive about testing my understanding of the Bible alongside historical Christian teaching and alongside my contemporaries.

            Paul writes to the Ephesians:

EPH 2:19 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. 21 In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22 And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

 

            Notice the description of the foundation upon which we are built; apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus being the chief cornerstone. Without question Christ is the cornerstone, the holy temple of which we are members is all about Jesus and He is the only true light of the City of God, (see Revelation 21:22-23; 22:5). Yet in this passage we are taught that the apostles and prophets are also part of the foundation – what does this mean? (See also Revelation 21:14).

            If we take the term “prophets” to refer to the Old Testament and the term “apostles” to refer to the New Testament, for virtually all of the Old Testament was written by prophets and virtually all of the New Testament was written by apostles (and those portions of the New Testament not written by apostles were written by men who were partners in an apostle’s ministry), then we see that this idea of apostles and prophets means two things:

            Firstly, that our belief and practice should be consistent with what the apostles and prophets wrote, that is, our teaching and lives should be consistent with the Old and New Testaments.

            Secondly, our lives and beliefs should be consistent with the way the apostles and prophets lived.

            I am making this distinction because all too often we think that if we give mental assent to the Bible that that is enough, but it is not enough. Our lives must conform to the holy Scriptures and to the manner of life of the people who God used to write the Scriptures.

            Therefore, important questions when studying the Bible and when evaluating the way we live, and the way in which our local churches function are: Is what I am thinking and the way I am living consistent with apostolic teaching? Can I trace this belief and/or this behavior back to the apostles? Is this thinking or way of life consistent with the apostles and prophets?

                        The Apostle Peter wrote the following words to Christians around 64 A.D.

               2PE 3:14 So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this [a new heaven and a new earth], make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him. 15 Bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. 16 He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.

 

            There are two things I’d like us to see in this passage in which Peter mentions the letters that Paul wrote to Christians. The first is the phrase, the other Scriptures. The Apostle Peter classified Paul’s writings as Scripture, on the same level as the Old Testament. This shows us that even while the Apostles and the other New Testament writers were alive that their writings were viewed as Scripture, as holy and inspired by God. Because they are inspired by God people who misuse them, who distort them, do so to their own destruction.

            The other thing for us to consider is how Peter characterizes Paul’s letters. Peter writes that his [Paul’s] letters contain some things that are hard to understand.

As we get to know the Bible we’ll get to know the human authors that God inspired to write the Bible, and as we get to know the human authors we’ll see that a sense of who they were often comes through what they wrote and the way they wrote.

Peter says that Paul wrote some hard things, things that are so hard to understand that if a person doesn’t submit his understanding to the Holy Spirit that the person is going to get in trouble – this wouldn’t be an issue with any other book, but it is an issue with the Bible – our attitudes are important when we read the Bible.

            God didn’t turn the human writers of the Bible into robots when they wrote; God is a God of relationship who caused the Bible to be written in the context of relationship, of His relationship with men and of their relationship with humanity.

            God likely chose some men for certain ministries and Scripture writing because of the way He had made them. For example, Paul’s education, cultural background, and single-minded temperament suited him to write hard and complex things and also suited him to preach the Gospel and plant churches in the heavily Greek-thinking areas of Asia Minor and Europe.

            Moses’s education at the Egyptian court gave him an understanding of government, legal systems, and the military; while he would have to learn not to depend upon his natural learning but to depend on God, once he learned dependence on God, God could use Moses’s education to lead a nation out of slavery, engage in warfare, and institute a complex system of worship and law.  

            There are those who say that a Coke in a can tastes different than a Coke in a bottle. Those who know wine can taste the difference between wine aged in oak and wine aged in stainless steel. The formula of the Coke is the same, the vintage of the wine is the same, but they taste differently depending on the vessel they come from.  Such is the way of the inspiration of the Bible. God didn’t exclude the characters of the human agents He inspired; John, Peter and Paul all wrote differently. The prophet Jeremiah has a flavor that is distinct from Isaiah or Ezekiel. God did not negate who these men were anymore than He wants to negate who we are – after all, God created each one of us uniquely and He knows us intimately (see Psalm 139).

To be continued....

Reading the Bible (7)

 

Bible Study – Part One

Unlike any other book

 

Now we’re going to consider how to study the Bible. As you might expect, there is a lot that can be said about how to study the Bible, but what we will do is focus on some key principles, some building blocks, which if we always keep them in mind will help us in Bible study.

            The Bible is unlike any other book in existence for a number of reasons. Can you think of any other book that took 1,500 years to write with multiple authors in three languages? (The New Testament is written in Greek, the Old Testament, while written mainly in Hebrew also has some Aramaic in the Book of Daniel). Can you think of any other book that contains prophecies given by multiple men hundreds of years before their fulfillment, which then find their fulfillment in the birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of one man within a period of about 33 years? Can you think of any other book that for 2,000 years men and women have died to preserve, died to translate, and lived to share? 

Can you think of any other book that no one has been able to improve upon? Humanity has made advances in 2,000 years in many areas of learning and knowledge, but no one has been able to improve on the teaching of Jesus Christ. And in terms of the person of Jesus Christ, to quote Napoleon, “I know men, and Jesus Christ was no mere man.” From Genesis to Revelation the story of the Bible is the story of Jesus.

Of all the many things that make the Bible the most unusual book in the world, the primary reason is that it is written by God using human agents. This means that when we read the Bible, whether we do lay-of-the-land, study, devotional or memorization reading that the Author of what we are reading is with us to help our understanding. In fact, if we have come into a relationship with Jesus Christ not only is the Author with us but He is in us.

            The following quotation is from John Chapter 14; Jesus is talking to His disciples on the night that He will be arrested:

   JN 14:15 "If you love me, you will obey what I command. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever-- 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you…JN 14:25 "All this I have spoken while still with you. 26 But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

 

            One of the reasons that Jesus sends the Holy Spirit to be in us is so the Holy Spirit can teach us all things. In other words, the Author of what we are reading, once we come into a relationship with Jesus Christ, is not only with us but is in us and we can expect Him to teach us what He has written. Approaching the Bible as God’s book, as God’s self-disclosure, as God’s communication to us, as the holy book, places us in a posture to learn to hear from God as we read the Scriptures.

            It is good for us to remember Hebrews 11:6 as we approach the Bible:

And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

 

            The Apostle Paul writes the following in his second letter to Timothy:

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

 

            Here we see that the holy Scriptures:

1.      Are able to make us wise for salvation through faith in Christ. The Scriptures will open our understanding and lead us to Christ, for Christ is the focal point of the entire Bible. The Scriptures lead us to Christ through faith. Notice the connection between being wise and faith. When the Bible speaks of faith it does not mean blind faith, it means informed faith, faith that is based on understanding and truth. The Scriptures give us understanding, truth, wisdom and illumination.

2.      All Scripture is God-breathed. Another way to say this is; all Scripture is inspired by God. The idea is that God’s breath filled the men who wrote the Bible. More on this later.

3.      Are useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. The image here is that the Scriptures are to form our life and character. While most of us might be okay with being taught, few of us would volunteer for being rebuked and corrected, and yet that is one of the reasons we are given the Scriptures. In the Old Testament prophets, in the ministry of Jesus, and in the ministries of the apostles, we see the Scriptures being used to not only teach in a positive fashion, but we also see them used in straightforward correction.

4.      Can equip us for every good work. Christians are called to grow into the image of Jesus Christ. The Christian life is to be one of continual growth, learning, and maturing of character. God wants us to be women and men who are mature and who can teach and mentor others; God will use the Scriptures to mature us and to help us mature others.

To be continued....

Reading the Bible (6)

 Continuing from last post...

If you are thinking, “I’ll never learn all there is to know about the Bible. It will take me forever to even get an idea of the Biblical road system,” I’ve got great news for you!

            Firstly, because the Bible is God’s Word, His disclosure of Himself, it is first and foremost a relational book, a letter from God to us. This means that whether we are just getting started on the “road system” or have been on it for years that God will reveal Himself to us through our interaction with His Word.

            Secondly, because the Bible is God’s Word, it is the best book that’s ever been written. Even though it was composed over a period of 1,500 years, and even though it has numerous human agents as authors, because its primary author is God it is tightly written and its themes tightly woven. This means that things come together much more quickly than we might anticipate, which underscores the need to read the entire Bible and to read it consistently.

            Thirdly, we can read the Bible for decades and never stop learning and never stop seeing new dimensions of God and His Word. We shouldn’t be surprised at this because the Bible is the Divine book, it is God’s self-disclosure, and since God is infinite there is no end to our coming to know Him. There are always new depths to plumb in the Scriptures, deeper understandings of things and relationships that we haven’t seen before. We’ll explore more of this later on.

            Reading an average of four chapters a day results in reading the entire Bible within one year; that is very little time invested in the most important thing in life, our relationship with God. Most of us spend more time watching television or reading the newspaper than we do reading God’s Word. When we say that we don’t have time, we are really making an excuse when the truth is that other things are more important to us.

            There are many areas of the world where possessing the Bible is illegal. There are many other areas in which people are allowed to have Bibles but none are available. And yet in our nation and in our homes they lie and gather dust.

            Men and women have been imprisoned and executed throughout the centuries, including in our own time, in order to translate, preserve, and distribute the Bible. And yet in the homes of many professing Christians Bibles are seldom opened.

            Having a million dollars in the bank is no good unless we draw on it. Having the treasure of the ages in our home is no good unless we read it and experience it.

            While elsewhere we’ll discuss Bible translations and study Bibles, here I want to make two points that I’ll expand on later.

            The first is that you should begin your lay-of-the-land reading by using a translation that is easy for you to read. Remember, the object of this type of reading is to familiarize yourself with the Bible, to get to know the terrain, the road system, the main themes and storyline. The important thing is to actually drive the car. Once you learn how to drive then you can be particular about what kind of car you want to drive and what features you want the car to have, but all of those issues are secondary until you actually learn to drive.

            The second thing is really a matter of preference and I’m going to share my preference with you. When I do lay-of-the-land reading, that is, when I do general Bible reading, I don’t want to use a Bible with study notes because they can be distracting. I want to focus on the Biblical text and follow the Biblical line of thought and I don’t want my eyes or curiosity drifting into notes which may lead me to lines of thought that may not be in the Bible’s text. Now when I study the Bible that is different, and we’ll talk about that next, but when I’m reading to keep up my familiarity with it I want to keep focused on the text and only the text.

            There are reading schedules that are available that will lead you through a year of Bible reading. They usually have a daily Old Testament reading and a daily New Testament reading – usually three Old Testament chapters and one New Testament chapter. Of course, you can make your own schedule. I personally like to mix my reading up between the Old and New Testaments, this keeps me exposed to the different parts of the Bible throughout the year. The more familiar you become with your Bible the easier it will be for you to devise your own reading schedule if you should care to do so.

            There is no day like today to begin reading the entire Bible.

To be continued...

Reading the Bible (5)

Continuing from our last post...

 Lay of the Land Reading

Developing and maintaining an overview of the Bible 

            Lay-of-the-land reading is reading to familiarize and expose ourselves to the entire scope of Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation. Because the various sections of the Bible are interrelated thematically and by reference and inference, our appreciation of what we’re reading deepens as we understand these relationships. Here is an example:

            “In the second year of King Darius, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the LORD came by Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, saying, Thus speaks the LORD of hosts, saying, This people says, The time has not come, the time that the LORD’S house should be built.” Haggai 1:1-2.

            Haggai is almost at the end of the Old Testament and to most people it is an obscure book, little read and little understood.

            If we were to read these two verses for the first time, having never read them before, and if these were the first verses of the Old Testament that we ever read, we might ask:

            “Who are these people with the unusual names and what is this all about?”

            However, rather than being intimidated by unfamiliar names, a second look at the verses yields the following:

a.       A king (Darius) has been referred to.

b.      A prophet (Haggai) has been introduced.

c.       A governor of Judah (Zerubbabel) is on the stage.

d.      A priest (Joshua) is also on stage.

e.       The attitude of “the people” is an issue.

f.        The subject of the attitude of the people (the LORD’S house) is another issue.

            If we will get past the unfamiliar names we find that we know a lot more than we think we do. Moreover, when we keep reading a storyline unfolds and we soon see that the people of Judah were more concerned about their own houses than the House of the LORD and that God was not pleased with their selfish way of life. God had a purpose for the people of Judah and they were ignoring that purpose.

            So whether we know anything else at all about the historical setting of the book of Haggai we can learn some important principles about God’s relationship to His people and how we should respond to God by putting His will and purposes above our own.

            If I allow myself to get hung-up on the unfamiliar territory of the very first verse of the book of Haggai I’ll never get to the storyline and if I never get to the storyline I’ll never see the purpose of the book and the principles it contains.

            Lay-of-the-land reading is when I’m reading to cover territory, to familiarize myself with the Scriptures, to learn the storylines, and so when I come to unfamiliar territory, such as Haggai 1:1, I just keep reading. I say to myself, “Those are some strange names. I wonder what this is about. I’ll just keep reading and see what happens.”

            By the time I’ve read the short book of Haggai I can say, “While I still don’t know the entire historical setting of what I’ve read, and still don’t know a whole lot about Darius, Zerubbabel, and Joshua, I know a lot more than when I started to read this and I’ve learned some things about making God first in my life.”

            If I keep doing lay-of-the-land reading eventually I’ll come to the book of Ezra and I’ll read the story of the Jews returning to Judah and Jerusalem from being captives in the land of Babylon. I’ll read that the reason the Persian king let them return was to rebuild the Temple of God. I’ll also read that Zerubbabel was the governor of Judah and that Joshua was the high priest. I’ll learn that the Jews faced opposition from the surrounding peoples and decided to stop restoring the House of God. Then I’ll come to Ezra 5:1:

            “Then the prophet Haggai and Zechariah the son of Iddo, prophets, prophesied to the Jews who were in Judah and Jerusalem, in the name of the God of Israel, who was over them.”

            When I read this I can say, “Oh, this is related to the book of Haggai. This is more of what I was reading about when I read Haggai. I’m getting more of the picture now.”

            Here’s another example:

            “Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us,” 1 Corinthians 5:7.

            The immediate context of this passage is purity and discipline in the Corinthian church. Paul, who wrote this letter that we call 1 Corinthians, uses two images from the Old Testament to encourage his readers to be obedient to God in purity of life. Both of these images find their roots in Exodus Chapters 12 and 13.

            Exodus is the second book of the Bible and was written around 1450 B.C. 1 Corinthians is toward the end of the Bible and was written around 55 A.D. About 1,500 years separate the writing of these two books, and yet Exodus influences 1 Corinthians and 1 Corinthians refers back to Exodus.

            If I read 1 Corinthians without having read Exodus I’ll still get the point of what Paul is saying, but I’ll miss the rich imagery and depth of the point he is making by referring both to the Passover Lamb and to unleavened bread. (You can read Exodus Chapters 12 and 13 to see what I mean).

            Furthermore, since many of the books of the Bible between Exodus and 1 Corinthians refer to the Passover and the exodus from Egypt, if I’ve read them I’ll also see that Paul is using a major theme of the Bible when he invokes the imagery of Passover. In other words, Paul is building on an image, a truth, a teaching, that had its roots 1,450 years before he wrote, and which was referred to constantly by God and the prophets during the intervening centuries.

            In fact, when I read the last book of the Bible, Revelation, and encounter the image of the Lamb (Rev. 5:6; 22:1-5), I know that the image of the Lamb was first introduced in Exodus Chapters 12 and 13. So now I’ve connected the second book of the Bible with the last book of the Bible.

            If I read 1 Peter 1:19 - 20 I see that I’ve been redeemed, “with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you.”

            In 1 Peter I not only have the image of the Passover lamb in Exodus, but now I’m told that before the foundation of the world the sacrifice of the true Lamb, Jesus Christ, was ordained. Now I’ve not just gone from Exodus to Revelation with the image of the Lamb, I’ve gone beyond Exodus to before time began. Furthermore, when I read the first book of the Bible, Genesis, I’ll see images of the Lamb there as well. The more I become familiar with the entire Bible the more I can relate what I read to the big picture of the Bible. There is no substitute for reading the entire Bible.

            Lay-of-the-land reading is like moving into a new area and getting accustomed to the road system. At first I learn to get to the major places I need to drive to; work, shopping, and friends. Then I become curious about where different roads go to and whether or not there are other ways to get around rather than the main highways. Eventually I develop a sense of the road system and it becomes second nature to me, but only after I’ve actually driven the roads. I can look at maps all I want, but until I’ve actually driven the roads they don’t become a part of me. There really is no substitute for reading the Bible. Reading about the Bible, as we’ll see in the next section, can be helpful, but reading about the Bible is not the same as reading the Bible.

To be continued...