Understanding The Bible
How we understand God’s Word matters. God has given us this library of inspired documents to help us live aligned with His purpose and desire for us. As with any document, the reader must understand the context, authorship, and purpose to truly understand the author’s message. Paul writes to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:16 that Scripture is God-breathed. This statement does not establish a final, fixed canon of divinely approved writings (significant parts of what we now call the New testament were not yet written). Rather, Paul is exhorting Timothy to recognize divine inspiration in the written scriptures (Jewish and Christian) and ensure that the consistent message of God is heard, from beginning to end. As Peter writes in 2 Peter 1:21: the prophets “spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”
In other words, Paul is emphasising that Scripture is God-breathed through human instruments in specific circumstances. It is this truth that we must hold as we read.
Think of the sound of a shofar. It’s a rather wild sound! Unlike the sound of our modern, western musical instruments. But when you learn the history and usage of the shofar, the sound makes sense. You understand the instrument and the circumstance as well as the sound itself. We will avoid error when we read scripture in the same manner.
A popular refrain in some circles is “God says it, I believe it, that settles it.” I would like to caution against such an approach. That statement is, at best, a skeleton only. The specific translated words of any passage are just the bones of what God is communicating to His children. God clothes bones in flesh and blood, and breathes life into them (see Genesis 2 and Ezekiel 37). So literal reading risks missing the heart of what God is saying.
For example, in John 15, Jesus tells his followers “I am the vine.” We would all understand Him to mean “we are living in an agricultural community where wine is made, and I want to show you that you live connected to me; I am the source of your fruitfulness” (or something similar). Clearly Jesus is not saying “I am a plant”!
We see throughout scripture, that The Bible was formed in community by the Holy Spirit. Likewise our reading of scripture must be understood in community by the Holy Spirit. This website is my contribution to that process. I have sought to read widely and deeply; to dig into what the Word says, understanding nuance (with the help of those more learned than me), as well as to study those with whom I may disagree (to challenge my understanding and guard against presumption or bias). We need one another, and the whispers of Holy Spirit, for our reading to become feeding.
As you read, don’t have a closed mind. A closed mind makes me a Pharisee: ultimately I’ll reject Jesus because He threatens my self-constructed false security. A mind that discusses and learns with others, while holding to the character and nature of God in Scripture, will benefit from greater revelation of God and relationship with Him. This attitude characterised the Bereans in Acts 17, and we do well to imitate them.
In conclusion, I’m not saying believe anything! Whatever we believe has to be compatible with Jesus. The technical term for this is that Jesus is our hermeneutic. He is the lens through which we read EVERYTHING in our Bibles. He is also the lens through which we must read anything else (from apocryphal scripture to modern Christian writing). If it doesn’t look, sound, or act like Jesus, it’s not a true revelation of God. God speaks through scriptural community immersed in Holy Spirit.
More on all this in future posts! But for now, let’s conclude with Colossians 1:15-20.
“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.”