Learning How to Read the Bible (Part 1)

It has been awhile since I’ve posted anything on this blog…for those of you who have checked in every so often, sorry I’ve wasted your time! Anyhow, I feel like it’s time to get back into the habit, so I’ve (probably overly) ambitiously decided to attempt a series (a la my friend Darren Larson’s blog) of posts on the topic of “Learning How to Read the Bible.” I will be unabashedly following the lead of one of the better books I’ve read for the layperson on the topic, Gordon Fee and Doug Stuart’s How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, though freely interjecting my own thoughts along the way.

But before I officially begin this project, you may be wondering why I feel like this is necessary. After all, isn’t the Bible God’s Word to us? As I’ve heard many devoted brothers and sisters proudly proclaim, “Can’t we just read the Bible and do what it says?” or “When I read the Bible, I’m not interested in different ‘interpretations,’ only its ‘literal’ meaning.” These are notions that I fully understand, because as I learned to read the Bible, they were the issues I myself grappled with…

You see, soon after I embraced the Christian faith early in high school, I became part of a youth group, where some well-meaning leaders decided that it would be a good idea for me to lead a Bible study. So, like many others placed in that position, desiring to serve God and His Church, I agreed. I was given some sort of guide (usually) that picked out a passage or two of scripture (no more than 5 verses) followed by a page or two of the author’s reflections, and concluding with a list of “application” questions for discussion. As a group we would read through these materials and arrive at the discussion questions, at which time, members of the group (hopefully!) would give their input as to what they thought the Bible was saying, and how it should be applied to them. As I was desperate to get other people to participate in the discussion, I was thankful for the five different meanings ascribed to a text (no matter how much “Christian-eze” was offered in their reflections). After all, who was I to judge what someone else thought the Bible was saying to them?!?

I don’t know if the above scenario sounds familiar, but the main problem I discovered with this methodology was that it seemed that anyone could really make the Bible support just about whatever they wanted it to. They could control the text, using it as a tool to prove certain beliefs (a practice often referred to as “proof-texting”). As a result, whenever Scripture seemed to go outside of the boundaries of what it was “supposed” to be saying in a certain passage, I was left with a big problem. In fact, the parts of the Bible which fell outside of the few, favorite “proof-text” verses with which I was familiar were completely confusing. The Old Testament seemed particularly bizarre; like a collection of strange, irrelevant stories that had little bearing on my life…

Sadly, this situation is far too common in the Church today, but it doesn’t have to be. The Old Testament doesn’t need to seem distant and irrelevant, nor does the New Testament need to be viewed as a collection of proof-texts. It’s not necessary to learn Greek or Hebrew (although the more tools at your disposal, the better!), but it does take a commitment to spend time learning how to read the Bible. But this is time well spent. This is God’s revelation of Himself to His people!

As I said at the outset of this post, I’ll be following the lead of Fee & Stuart’s book (which I highly recommend), so in my next post I'll be addressing the question of why “interpretation” is a necessary part of learning how to read the Bible…