Reading the Bible (4)

A few years ago, I wrote my congregation a letter on reading the Bible. In the hope that it will help us think about reading the Bible in the coming year I am going to post the letter, because of its length it will be in sections. I hope there is something helpful for you here. Bob 

Reflections on Reading the Bible for the Rest of Your Life – An Introduction

 

By: Robert L. Withers[1]

 

 

Dear Church Family,

I’ve been reading the Bible for almost 50 years. Sometimes I’ve read it smart, sometimes I’ve read it stupid; sometimes I’ve submitted to the text, often I’ve insisted that the text submit to me. I’ve highlighted passages, color-coded passages, underlined verses, made marginal notes, and inserted cross-references. I’ve never lived in a physical mansion, but I’ve lived in the 66 books of the Bible as if they were all rooms in my home. I don’t visit all the rooms as often as I ought to, but they all have memories for me and they are all interconnected. I can pass from Matthew to Jonah to Genesis to Revelation with relative ease – this is not because I’m intelligent or smart, it’s because the Bible has been my home. Oh yes, I know what it is to run away from home but I also know what it is to come home. I first met Jesus in the Bible, in the pages of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; and while I have learned to live in friendship with Him in all of life’s venues, it is in the Bible that Jesus and I meet for intimate times that transcend the vicissitudes of life. But the Bible is more than about just Jesus and me, for it is also where I meet with many of my friends; we sit, we talk, and we walk the corridors of the Bible, often gliding effortlessly from 1 Corinthians to 1 Peter to 1 Kings to Psalms. It is a delight to have friends who know the mansion’s layout; it is a delight to have friends who have special rooms they particularly enjoy sharing with others.

            And yet, I am conscious of the fact that few people read the Bible, including few professing Christians in the Western world. As someone who has taught the Bible for many years, who has pastored congregations, and who observes and listens to the people around him, I am struck by the reality that most people in the professing church know more about what others say about the Bible than they know what the Bible actually says. The reason for this is simple – they don’t read the Bible. There is only one way to know the Bible and that is to read it – if we don’t read it we won’t know it; if we don’t read it we won’t think in Biblical paradigms, we won’t live in a Biblical worldview. Worse yet, if we don’t read the Bible we won’t have a Biblical picture of Jesus, and since Jesus is the image of God we won’t have a true picture of God either.

            My goal in these pages is to encourage you to actually read the Bible; not read about the Bible (though that has its place); not read snippets of passages in a daily devotional (though that too can have its place); but to read the Bible for yourself, to encounter the Biblical text without a human mediator, and to develop a relationship with the Bible so that a time will come when you too will call the Bible “home”, a place in which you know the layout of the furniture in all 66 rooms, a place to which you can invite others; and most importantly a place where you can know the God who loves you through Jesus Christ.

            There are four ways I want to encourage you to read the Bible, we’ll call them: lay-of-the-land, study, devotional, and memorization. In this pamphlet we’ll explore lay-of-the-land reading and take an introductory look at Bible study.

 To be continued....

 

[1] Copyright 2022, Robert L. Withers, all rights reserved