DO YOU FIND THE BIBLE HARD TO UNDERSTAND OR BORING? How to Understand and Love the Bible (For THE key to unlock the Bible, see #6.) 1) The Bible is shaped as a story. Implication: read the particular parts of the Bible in relation to the unified whole. (GG: The Bible is not just 66 stories. Its 66 little stories that combine into one big story about one hero: Jesus the Messiah.) If the Bible is a narrative, it should be read more like a novel than like the newspaper or a fortune cookie or a collection of Aesop’s fables. The whole thing hangs together, and the concrete parts are most meaningful when viewed in relation to the whole. When you start to see each tree as a part of the forest, a whole world opens up in Bible reading. You start noticing larger patterns and rhythms—thematic lines starting in Genesis and ending in Revelation that guide you through each individual book. All the odd little corners of the Bible—say, the book of Ruth, or the sacrificial system, or that strange bit at the end of Ezekiel about a new temple—suddenly take on a much larger significance and meaning. 2) The Bible comes in two basic installments. Implication: read the entire Bible, not just the New Testament. (GG: In the OT, God promised and pictured the kingdom of heaven. In the NT, Jesus fulfilled the OT promises and pictures by bringing the kingdom of heaven.) The truth is that the New Testament disconnected from the Old Testament is just as impoverished as the Old Testament disconnected from the New. Promise is empty without fulfillment; but fulfillment is meaningless without promise. We need both Testaments; and we need to read both in relation to the other. What Hebrews says about Jesus’ death will be immeasurably more meaningful to you if you’ve struggled with the purity motif in Leviticus; the apostles’ sermons in Acts will start to click more once you’ve been disappointed with and perplexed by the slow decline of the monarchy in Samuel-Kings; and you won’t be able to make heads or tails of the majority of the imagery and language or Revelation until acquaint yourself with books like Ezekiel and Zechariah. 3) The Bible has lots of diverse parts. Implication: read different parts of the Bible differently. The Bible is not just a book. It is a collection of many different books (if “books” is an elastic enough word). The extent of the Bible’s diversity makes it stand out from other sacred texts, and really from all other pieces of literature. The Bible is diverse with respect to genre, ranging from law code to proverb, oracle to parable, poetry to apocalypse. It is diverse with respect to history (spanning roughly a millennium), cultural and political framework (from ancient middle-Eastern theocracy to persecuted minority in the Roman empire) and language (Hebrew + Greek, and a little Aramaic). It has diverse human authors (everything from Kings to fishermen, doctors to shepherds) and diverse means of inspiring those authors. It is even diverse in how it conveys theological truth: Esther and I John are both about God, but they convey truth about him very differently. 4) The Bible was mainly written for ordinary people. Implication: prayer and spiritual desire are just as important as scholarly tools (if not more so). We should never give the impression that our brains are the primary way to get the Bible’s message. Of course, our brains play an important role, and scholarly resources can help with that part of it; but it is always ultimately the state of our hearts that determines whether we understand the Bible in the most important way it needs to be understood. Hence Jesus is always saying, “he who has ears to hear, let him hear;” not, “he who has a brain to understand, let him think.” Don’t think of the Bible’s meaning as some esoteric secret, available to the experts. God has put his truth on the bottom shelf. His target audience is not scholars but peasants and farmers and maids. Scholarly resources can help, but the most important thing is a humble heart and a spiritual appetite. Another implication: preachers should make the meaning of their sermons plain. If a Junior High student with average intelligence cannot understand you in the main point of your sermon, you are probably making the Bible more complicated that it makes itself. That is bad. If the Bible itself determines our level of erudition, our sermons will have both shallows that children can happily splash in as well as deeps that drown the pride of philosophers. 5) The Bible is the Word of God. Implication: Ask God to speak to you every time you read the Bible. Once again, this is obvious; Christians believe that God has spoken to us through this book...Therefore, the shaping impulse of our Bible reading should always be, “Lord, speak to me.” We don’t simply read the Bible to learn, but in a vital spiritual encounter with God. 6) The Bible is about Jesus. Implication: work hard at finding Jesus in every text. (GG: The Bible is not primarily about morality, Israel, or covenants. Its primarily about Jesus the Messiah who was promised, came, died, rose, reigns, and will return.) You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life Jn. 5:39-40. And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself... Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms Lk. 24:27, 44. Jesus is the great subject matter and focal point of the entire Bible. Everything converges on him, and he casts light back on everything else (Luke 24:44, John 5:39). He is the key that unlocks the front door, and he is the garden to enjoy in the back yard. He is the training wheels by which you first learn to ride; and he is the destination toward which you aim. He is the roots that give life and support to the tree; and he is the branches that sprout outwards high in the sky. Jesus is the true and better Adam who passed the test in the garden… Jesus is the true and better Abel who, though innocently slain, has blood now that cries out, not for our condemnation, but for acquittal. Jesus is the true and better Isaac who was not just offered up by his father on the mount but was truly sacrificed for us. And when God said to Abraham, “Now I know you love me because you did not withhold your son, your only son whom you love from me,” now we can look at God taking his son up the mountain and sacrificing him and say, “Now we know that you love us because you did not withhold your son, your only son, whom you love from us.” Jesus is the true and better Moses who stands in the gap between the people and the Lord and who mediates a new covenant. Jesus is the true and better David whose victory becomes his people’s victory, though they never lifted a stone to accomplish it themselves. Jesus is the real Rock of Moses, the real Passover Lamb, innocent, perfect, helpless, slain so the angel of death will pass over us. He’s the true temple, the true prophet, the true priest, the true king, the true sacrifice, the true lamb, the true light, the true bread. May God bless your reading of his unified, two-stage, diverse, clear, divine, and Christ-centered Word in 2015! See more at: gavinortlund/2014/12/26/what-kind-of-a-thing-is-the-bible-6-theses/
Posted on: Sun, 28 Dec 2014 23:16:18 +0000
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