PSALM 19 (NLT)

“1 The heavens proclaim the glory of God. The skies display his craftsmanship. 2 Day after day they continue to speak; night after night they make him known. 3 They speak without a sound or word; their voice is never heard. 4 Yet their message has gone throughout the earth, and their words to all the world. God has made a home in the heavens for the sun. 5 It bursts forth like a radiant bridegroom after his wedding. It rejoices like a great athlete eager to run the race. 6 The sun rises at one end of the heavens and follows its course to the other end. Nothing can hide from its heat.

7 The instructions of the Lord are perfect, reviving the soul. The decrees of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple. 8 The commandments of the Lord are right, bringing joy to the heart. The commands of the Lord are clear, giving insight for living. 9 Reverence for the Lord is pure, lasting forever. The laws of the Lord are true; each one is fair. 10 They are more desirable than gold, even the finest gold. They are sweeter than honey, even honey dripping from the comb. 11 They are a warning to your servant, a great reward for those who obey them.

12 How can I know all the sins lurking in my heart? Cleanse me from these hidden faults. 13 Keep your servant from deliberate sins! Don’t let them control me. Then I will be free of guilt and innocent of great sin. 14 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.”

Beautiful Words!

Tell me, what is this Psalm about?

Perhaps you see it as a celebration of God’s word. We are currently going through a series about the Word of God, addressing how to read the Bible and the way that it shapes us in profound ways as we seek God through His revelation. These are the family stories of Jesus which shaped His life and the world that He lived in. And they’re our family stories as well, shaping us into His image.

You would be correct in your assessment. These are stories about God. He is the Hero – not us. He is the main character – not us. It’s all about Him – not us. The laws of the Lord are true. They are wisdom that gives insight for living. They cut to the depths of the heart and reveal the truth of what’s there.

This revelation of His word goes out and it reaches out to everyone, just as the sun rises every day to shine its light upon all the earth.

But what else is this psalm about?

How about the first six verses?

So, the second half focuses on God’s revelation of Himself through His word. The first half, then, focuses on the way in which God has revealed Himself to the world through His creation.

“The heavens declare the glory of God!”

It’s about creation. It’s about how the details of creation serve as evidence for God’s existence, His power, and His great design. It is all evidence of God’s majesty.

In a fashion, it’s a creation account, is it not? In its own way it’s telling the story of creation.

“God has made a home in the heavens for the sun. 5 It bursts forth like a radiant bridegroom after his wedding. It rejoices like a great athlete eager to run the race.”

How come it looks so different from Genesis chapter one? They are telling the same story, aren’t they?

Genesis 1:14 also says, “14 Then God said, “Let lights appear in the sky to separate the day from the night. Let them be signs to mark the seasons, days, and years. 15 Let these lights in the sky shine down on the earth.” And that is what happened. 16 God made two great lights—the larger one to govern the day, and the smaller one to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set these lights in the sky to light the earth, 18 to govern the day and night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good.”

God created two lights – lamps essentially is what the word literally means. God created two lamps which serve as sign posts. They are signs that point to the majesty of the Creator.

How come Psalm 19 and Genesis 1 look so, so different?

THE IMPORTANCE OF GENRE

What we’re talking about here, today, is the importance of understanding the genres of the Bible.

This is a huge topic and we certainly won’t be able to dive into its depths in the time that we have today, but although it may seem daunting. The reality is that we successfully navigate the complex world of genres every single day.

Brent and I went to watch “Shaun of the Dead” at the App Theatre Tuesday evening. Probably another movie I wouldn’t recommend watching. We went in expecting a dark humor comedy. Imagine if we had gone in expecting it to be a documentary? That would have been a totally different experience. We would have wondered how everyone else could remain so calm and why on earth would they be laughing.

Although, we do experience this deception from time to time. There are a number of beloved movies that performed poorly in the box office all because the movie trailer misrepresented the correct genre. “The Mummy” with Bredan Frasier was presented almost as a horror flick, but if you’ve seen it before, you would be aware that it is a comedy. The same could be said about “The Fifth Element”.

Its preview had people believing it was another serious, high action, drama. But it too is more akin to a comedy than a thriller. Of course, now they are each cult classics in their own right. But genres can confuse us if we aren’t correctly prepared on what to expect.

Still, this is natural to us, we do it all the time, we just have to relearn it a bit to apply it to ancient literature. The genres we use, though similar in some ways, are quite different from the ancient Biblical genres. And so we have to adapt a new set of tools to interpret these ancient Biblical genres.

HOW THE BIBLE IS PACKAGED

Here’s how I want you to think about genre.

As you know by now, the Bible is not a book. It is a collection of books. It is a library.

You may hear people ask for evidence outside of the Bible that points to the reality of Jesus and provides evidence. This is an incorrect way of thinking because it’s not a single source, it’s a collection of sources that span thousands of years, from authors of various backgrounds, that all point to one reality. It’s unfair to treat the Bible as one book with one genre although we do it all the time.

The Bible is a collection of 66 books, 39 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New Testament. It is a library of many types of books expressing truths through different packaging – one story but not one book.

How something is packaged matters.

We all know the feeling of unboxing a product that has exceptional packaging. It is so satisfying. Apple is particularly good at making unboxing their products an experience.

Certainly quality products can come in humble packages. However, if a company invests in the package their product comes in, then it communicates that they have put some effort into making a quality product.

The packaging of something communicates something about what is inside.

A genre is packaging. And the packaging helps determine the meaning of the content.

You may already be thinking to yourself, “this is far too complicated for me”. However, even in that sentence (a genres is packaging), you successfully interpreted the meaning of what was being communicated without falsely believing that a genre is cardboard or styrofoam. You can do this. We just have to learn the cultural contexts of the Biblical genres.

FAITHFUL CAREFUL READERS

Why does this matter? What’s the point?

In September of 1999, after almost 10 months of travel to Mars, the Mars Climate Orbiter burned and broke into pieces. The orbiter was designed to study Mars from orbit and relay communications back to NASA. On a day when NASA engineers were expecting to celebrate, the reality turned out to be completely different.

Ok, Zach has lost his mind. He’s talking about NASA now.

What’s the point?

It was an interpretation error.

An investigation found that the spacecraft burned up in Mars' atmosphere after entering an orbit that was too low. The failure was attributed to a measurement mismatch between the metric units used by NASA and the US customary units used by the spacecraft builder, Lockheed Martin.

All because someone failed to interpret the right units!

We’re talking about interpretation. Genre is fundamental to interpretation.

The fancy word is hermeneutics. Which essentially means how we read the Bible.

2 Timothy 2:15 says, “15 Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.”

We have to be a people who know how to correctly handle God’s word.

The false assumption too often made among Christians and in churches is that the Bible is a collection of ideas, and that the individual texts are a delivery system for an idea. But the reality of the Bible is much more complex than that. It’s not like there are secrets that you have to cleverly unlock. But there is wisdom and treasure to dig for.

And the goal is that we would be faithful and careful readers of the Word of God.

Each of these messages have had goals. I want you to fall in love with the Word of God. I want you to be saturated with the Word of God. And I want you to rightly handle the Word of God. I want you to be a faithful and careful reader.

GENRES OF THE BIBLE

So there are a number of genres you will encounter in the Bible.

How many? It depends on who you ask.

Here is a list of several of them. The reason there’s not a straightforward answer is because there are genres and then each genre has subgenres and some people think subgenres are unique enough to be counted as their own genres.

Generally speaking people like to overcomplicate things.

Here are the seven we’ll focus on. I believe these to be the five root genres with the others falling into the category of subgenre. We have 1. Narrative, 2. Poetry, 3. Wisdom, 4. Prophecy, 5. Epistles/Letters, and will also separate out a sixth 6. Apocalypse.

Generally speaking, each book has a dominant genre but it can often contain multiple genres through the course of a reading. And each genre has rules, not all the rules apply at the same time in the same way, but there are set rules for understanding each genre.

NARRATIVE

As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, narrative makes up the bulk of the Bible. I said nearly two thirds. Some people would say almost half. It really depends on how many genres or subgenres they have. Let’s say around 60% of the Bible is narrative.

The Bible is a story. It is an expansive, epic narrative

This means there is a plot, with characters, in some setting and these form design patterns that repeat over and over again. These are the basic tools of narrative. You can make the statement about these writings, I ____ am writing you this story about ____ to teach you about _____. It’s placed in a context for a purpose. It’s not just history alone but it’s communicating a message.

Narrative tells us what happened, according to the purposes of the author. Sometimes there are spiritual lessons from events, and sometimes we are just gaining the context of the history of God’s people.

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy are narrative. They are stories. The Torah is a story. Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther are narratives. The Gospels are narratives. Acts is a story. The Bible is full of narrative.

Genesis tells the story of God’s creation presented with a beautiful garden full of purpose, living in His presence. But humanity wanted to define blessing and curse on their own terms so they took what seemed good in their own eyes.

This is one story, but this is a repeated story.

Abraham and Sarah wanted the blessing God promised to them so instead of waiting patiently for the promise they took Hagar and did what seemed good in their own eyes. During the time of the judges it says repeatedly that everyone did what seemed good in their own eyes. Even David takes Bathsheba because she was desirable in his eyes. All of this repeats and repeats, builds and builds, until Jesus appears on the scene. And when He’s in the wilderness he is offered every opportunity to see, desire, take, and have. But instead He trusts…

“Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” “‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” “Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.” (Matthew 4:1-11)

The story of the Bible leads us to trust in the one who is trustworthy.

POETRY

There is poetry in the Bible. Poetry that is designed to make you feel something. They communicate ideas, but they especially express emotion. They show life in its fullness.

Poems in the Bible don’t work in the same way as the poetry we’re used to. They don’t follow the same patterns. Most of the time they don’t even rhyme.

What they do is form repetitive groupings of two lines, they use acrostics, they use chiasm to reveal truth as you meditate on the beautiful language of metaphor and symbolism.

Psalm 24 begins, “24 The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein, 2 for he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers. 3 Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place? 4 He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully. 5 He will receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation. 6 Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob. Selah”

There is a repetition, a building. The phrase, “the earth and all it contains” is amplified by the phrase “the world and all who live in it”. The phrase “he sets its foundation upon the seas” is rephrased “established it upon the ocean currents.” The question of who is allowed to ascend to the mountain of the Lord is restated “Who may go up to his Holy Dwelling place?”

This passage leads us to a beautiful truth. He who has clean hands and a pure heart. We can seek to be that person, but ultimately Jesus has become that person for us. And we are identified in Him through faith.

WISDOM

There is wisdom – wonderful wisdom in the Bible.

Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Job, even James in the New Testament has some wisdom leanings to it.

The wisdom literature of the Bible is general truth based on observations. What it is not is absolute truth or promise of what will always happen. Even when I live by God’s wisdom, life can be full of disappointments. These are general truths that are designed to shape the moral and ethical lives of the reader.

The wisdom literature of the Bible presents us with an opportunity. That every day we all stand before the tree of knowing stuff with our own choice to make. Godly wisdom urges us, choose wisdom and life.

They’re about how God designed all of us to rule the world by his wisdom so that we can all find true life – real life.

PROPHECY

Then there’s prophecy. These certainly have the potential to be among the more confusing genres of Scripture. They are filled with strange imagery and often very poetic.

But in reality they are all God’s word to his covenant people, warning them and encouraging them and strengthening them during periods of pronounced spiritual and national danger. The prophets are most concerned with bringing God’s people back to His covenant.

People always think of prophecy as telling the future or a prediction. Certainly there is a bit of foretelling contained within this genre, but usually it is God sharing His heart with His people. It is God speaking His voice to His people for that time. Not for all time necessarily but for that time definitely. That’s what usually gets us in trouble. These are most readily for God’s people in their time and not for God’s people for all time for us to look for their fulfillment.

It is God’s faithfulness and His desire to make things right.

“This is what the LORD says— he who made you, who formed you in the womb, and who will help you: Do not be afraid…” (Isaiah 44:2)

EPISTLES

Then there are epistles or letters.

When you think through the genres of the Bible, poetry and this one are usually the favorites. These letters are typically the favorites because they are a bit more obvious and comfortable to our modern understanding. Since the New Testament epistles are directed to churches and individuals in the church, they most directly apply to us today. Most commands given in the epistles are general enough in nature that we need to obey them, or in the case of promises we can claim them.

Even so, context is the most important interpretive tool for this mail of ancient dead people. Context that fits into the larger story. Context that fits into the Roman Empire.

How often do you think about that?

And context that fits into the occasion and purpose of the writing of the letter. Epistles are “occasioned” texts, and so we need to get at the circumstances that led to them being written.

In the letters we pay attention to logical connections that flow through the texts.

If we add another verse to our passage in Hebrews, “11 Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. 12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” (Hebrews 4:11-13)

“The aim of life is to enter God's rest—to be saved from our sin and spend eternity joyfully in God's restful presence. That's the great goal of life—and to lovingly take as many people there with us as we can.

To enter this great and joyful rest we must trust God. Verse 3 says, "We who have believed enter that rest." We must believe and trust in God.

Verse 2 tells us that what they believed, what we are to believe is the Word of God – the good news that was preached to us. And Verse 6 tells us that we fail to enter into that rest because of disobedience.

“If we didn't have the good news preached to us, then we would not be able to believe the Word of God.”

Hebrews is steeped in Old Testament narrative, so if we cosider the overarching context, “what [Israel] failed to trust was the good news, the Word of God, that was preached to them in the wilderness—the promises of God that he would care for them and give them victory and forgive them and be merciful to them. They didn't believe God.

So we must Hebrews 2:1, "Pay much close attention to what [we] have heard"

Hebrews 3:1, "Consider Jesus.."

Hebrews 3:12, "Take care, lest there should be in any one of [us] an evil, unbelieving heart"

Hebrews 3:15, "Today if [we] hear his voice [his Word], do not harden [our] hearts

APOCALYPSE

Finally apocalypse, which I guess you could argue is a subgenre of prophecy.

The Revelation is apocalypse. The book of Daniel is narrative with a good helping of apocalypse. This is the most confusing genre of Scripture. These are the parts that are the harvest to interpret. Some see most of it as purely historical. Some see most of it as yet future.

Unlike the books of prophecy that have a conditional element; this will happen if you don’t return to God. Apocalypse does have more of a melody of this will happen and cannot be stopped by anyone. These are things that have come to pass and will come to pass that God has ordained to happen.

The difficulty is that it is veiled in extremely heavy symbolic language. Very vibrant language that is not really designed to let us know something but it is very much designed to make us feel something.

Apocalypse does not mean “end of the world” and that’s not what it’s primarily communicating. Apocalypse means to uncover or reveal – when you suddenly see the true nature of something that you couldn’t before.

We all have familiar ways of seeing the world that can limit or blur our vision, we need to see reality a bit more in other words. Apocalyptic literature provides a Heavenly perspective on our Earthly circumstances. And despite its difficulty, it’s designed to bring us encouragement and hope. Because we can trust the future with God.

And that is what is in store for us in the second half of Daniel.

OUTRO

God’s word is packaged beautifully in a library of books all telling one unified story. These are our family stories that shape us. I want you to fall in love with them. I want you to be saturated by them. I want you to read them carefully.

And my prayer is that God would change us through this consistent and faithful pursuit of Him in His word.

Resources (*the views expressed within the following content are solely the author's and may not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Mountainside Church):

https://www.christianity.com/wiki/bible/ways-genre-informed-understanding-of-scripture-can-transform-your-study.html#google_vignette

https://bible.org/seriespage/lesson-6-principles-biblical-interpretation

https://www.crossway.org/articles/10-things-you-should-know-about-the-genres-of-the-bible/

https://research.lifeway.com/2014/03/12/7-principles-of-biblical-interpretation/

https://www.biblegateway.com/blog/2016/03/the-many-genres-of-scripture

https://youtu.be/4x2kg52WXRs?si=W2TICouiL7h59FDW

https://youtu.be/e97O01IBU-E?si=tlye_p1Pc4GLmPTE

https://youtu.be/BYJPMPkY-Ko?si=xPCzvNU9ovhJ2_E-

https://youtu.be/PiHJT7eK-9k?si=5aC8cbIa8q4AwSbK

https://www.youtube.com/live/F2Nx6cjtIck?si=kPlf756jf6FmHCJb

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLH0Szn1yYNedn4FbBMMtOlGN-BPLQ54IH&si=UW7SV98fgkw70UqU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48xhO1bmAss

https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/the-word-of-god-living-active-sharp

INTRO

Hey family.

How are we all today? It is such a blessing to be out here at Sky Ranch once again. It’s such a special place to be. It holds such a special place in our hearts. And I’m glad that I’m here with each of you.

We just began the ever so briefest of studies about the Bible. The name of this series is “What’s the Point?” And so, last week we began by discussing what the Bible is and why we read it. Why are we so set on reading one book for the rest of our lives, over and over again, believing that we are going to see something we never saw before. Why not read more books? What’s the point?

The Bible, just to combine a few of the definitions I mentioned previously, is carefully crafted, ancient, Jewish, meditation literature, with every word intentionally placed to tell one unified story, to bring order out of chaos, and to lead us to an end goal of being rescued – salvation through trusting in the Messiah – Jesus. Written over thousands of years by more than 40 authors, yet all inextricably woven together to tell one story. It is a rescue story about a God who fiercely loves His creation, enduring and suffering greatly in His faithful pursuit of people.

So, we set our hearts to seek Him like buried treasure by digging through His words over the course of our lifetimes. We read to see Him more clearly. To experience the living God. To be changed by Him and shaped into His image. In these words is light and life for the darkness in and around us. And as we read them, we are changed in profound ways by the power of His word. The same word that has gone out from before the beginning of time, creating and initiating life and accomplishing all that God has purposed for them.

Today we’re going to talk about how we should be reading the Bible. I mentioned last week that there is an intended way to read the Bible. It was written at a specific time, to a specific people, for a specific purpose. The implication here being that the Bible was written for us, but the words contained within were not written to us.

It says in Romans 15, “4 For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”

All these things were written in the Scriptures long ago to teach us. And the Scriptures give us hope and encouragement as we wait patiently for God’s promises to be fulfilled.

They were written for us.

Paul also writes in Ephesians chapter 2, “God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, 5 that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. 6 For he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus. 7 So God can point to us in all future ages as examples of the incredible wealth of his grace and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us who are united with Christ Jesus.”

The reason God accomplished this, is that He might demonstrate His grace in the coming ages. God has accomplished what He has to demonstrate His grace, and kindness, and faithfulness through the ages and it produces within us hope.

To extrapolate this even further, what God is doing in your life right now is to demonstrate His faithfulness for even more generations to come.

The Bible is for us. It very much is. At the same time. The Bible wasn’t written to us.

It is essentially the mail of ancient dead people.

But don’t let that lead you to believe it is irrelevant. It is extremely relevant. It is for us.

This story will work on you over time. It will affect the way that you live. It will affect the way that you see yourself. And it will change the world that we live in.

JUST READ IT

So, even though what I am about to say is “you’re reading your Bible wrong”, and then we’re going to talk about what that means and the actual way to read and engage the word of God. What I want you to hear more than that is – just read the Bible.

What is of utmost importance is that you are reading the Bible, even if right intuitions lead you to less than ideal methods. Just read it!

Whatever you do, just read it! Seek God in His word with all your heart. Just read it.

We are verging into trademark territory or copyright infringement, whatever applies in the particular area of intellectual property law – but just do it.

I’m afraid to say that it is as simple as that. And that may be disappointing. You may have expected more or wanted more.

If you have been struggling to understand and connect with the Scriptures over the years it may grieve you to hear the answer is to just read it. But there is no secret sauce. It’s the wisdom gleaned from “Kung Fu Panda” – there is no secret ingredient, just the consistent and faithful pursuit of God through His written word.

I have been contemplating Namaan lately.

Anyone want to guess where Namaan shows up in the Bible? Maybe it’s not a guess, maybe you know. 2 Kings chapter 5. I’ve been reading 2 Kings lately.

What is Naaman known for? Namaan was the commander of the armies of Syria. At this time Syria was the empire. Namaan, I’m sure, led many attacks and raids against Israel, defeating them at every turn. But Namaan had a not very well kept secret. He had leprosy. We don’t know the extent of the disease, or rightly what kind of skin condition it actually was as there were many that were called leprosy.

At some time in his many conquests, Namaan had acquired a girl from Israel that served his wife in their house. One day this little slave girl was brave enough to speak out and say that if only her master would travel to Israel, there was a prophet of God who could heal Namaan of his ailment.

Namaan left with the king's blessing and much riches to seek out Elisha. When he finally found the prophet of God, Elisha didn’t even come out to see him but sent word for Namaan to dip himself in the Jordan river seven times and his flesh would be restored.

Namaan left furious. “I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy. 12 Are not the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?” So [Namaan] turned and went off in a rage.” (2 Kings 5:11-12)

Luckily some of Namaan’s servants/men were a bit more reasonable. They pointed out that if Elisha had asked Namaan to do something great and extravagant he would have gladly obliged, so why not even more so when instructed to do something so simple as washing in a river. Namaan thought it too simple, to easy, to on the nose, and it turned him away disappointed. Yet, when he followed these simple instructions He experienced the healing of the Lord.

Just read the Bible. Whatever you do, just read it.

I know it sounds too simple. But don’t leave disappointed. Don’t let your history of experience deter you. None of us are starting with zero experience of the Scripture. We all have bad habits to break ourselves of.

Would it be any easier if I instead had some extravagant solution for you to experience God? Would you not gladly follow through with it for the chance of experiencing Jesus? Why not through these simple instructions. Read the Bible.

When we fail to engage with God’s word in meaningful and appropriate ways, we let other voices speak more clearly into our lives. And there are so many other voices yelling that will win if we lose vigilance in the faithful pursuit of God through His word.

Let me ask you, how many times do you look at your phone in a day? More or less than you engage with the word of God? I know some of us primarily read the Bible on our phones. But, how many times does that lead to distraction and wandering into other apps, other media, other voices? We are not primarily being informed by the word of God. It’s not the voice we hear the most. We have to change that. We have to stop being distracted.

“The only reason anybody sins [at all] is because at some level they are deceived [distracted by another voice rather than upheld by the voice of truth]. They start believing the lies of sin instead of the promises of God.”

FIGHT THE UNBELIEF

Hebrews 4:12-13 is serving as our home base for the teachings over these weeks. Let me go ahead and read those verses again for you now.

“12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”

There are many voices of deception that are winning the battle for our attention. They are winning the war for our minds. They are taking captive our hearts.

You are much more aware of this in the world around you than you are in your own heart. Every fool you ridicule for believing what seems to you to so obviously be utter rubbish. Are you aware of those deceptive beliefs in your own heart? Would you judge yourself with the same measure?

“God has given you his good news, his promises, his word to protect you from the deep deceptions of sin that try to harden your heart and lure it away from God and lead it to destruction.”

“The word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, it will penetrate deeper than any deception of sin has ever gone and reveal what is truly valuable and what is truly worth trusting and loving.”

But we have to do a little bit of work to get there. We have to dig for the treasure. We have to let it work on us overtime. And to do that, we have to know how.

We have to know how we’re supposed to read these words so that we can know how to properly apply them to our lives.

How do you read the Bible?

MAYBE I DON’T KNOW

We have to defamiliarize ourselves with the Bible a bit. We have to remember that this is ancient literature that is quite literally foreign to us.

There are a series of essays I encountered published under the title “For Us, But Not to Us”. One passage from these essays reads, “[I]f we are to interpret Scripture so as to receive the full impact of God’s authoritative message, we have to set our cultural river aside and try to understand the cultural river of the ancient people to whom the text was addressed. The Bible was written to the people of ancient Israel in the language of ancient Israel; therefore, its message operates according to the logic of ancient Israel.” In other words, “we cannot seek to construe their world in our terms.”

There is often a big difference between what we hear and what the authors intended to say. It’s a communication problem. You all have experienced this in your life, in your marriages, and relationships.

I know for me a particular story stands out that is going to sound ridiculous. As you all know by now, I am not usually wrong. My friends, those closest to me, love to point out the rare times this doesn’t hold to be true. Eric has already taken advantage of this relationship dynamic.

But the story I remember, and perhaps Jenny remembers, is that we were walking in a crowd somewhere in the evening and a man came up to me and asked if I had a light. And I said I did not. That seems pretty normal and appropriate.

Now, what was that man asking for? (He wanted me to help him light his cigarette right?)

What did I think he wanted? (a flashlight because it was getting dark)

I won’t outlive that mistake even though it’s been like twenty years now.

Gosh I’m getting old.

I think there’s a pretty humorous story along this vein in the Delany household as well. Probably many of them. Help me remember, Krissy, you told Emerson repeatedly to not let the chickens out. He went outside, came back in and said okay, I let the chickens out. What he heard and what she said were not the same things.

We have to relearn how to read the Bible.

Because the truth is, we all have experiences that we’re bringing with us. We all have a history, a relationship with these words. We can begin to think we know this book so well. Of course, I know how to read the Bible.

Psssh!

Perhaps we need to stop and think - maybe I don’t know how to read the Bible!

Maybe I don’t know.

Oh no! What if I don’t know?

RIGHT INTUITION WRONG METHOD

What are the ways we read the Bible incorrectly?

We can’t possibly cover all the ways we may read the Bible wrong.

I can’t even imagine all the ways.

So instead, what I want to do is focus on some of the right feelings, the correct intuitions we have with regard to the Bible, what it is, what it does, and what we can get from it. These are intuitions that are right.

We can often have right intuitions that lead us to less than helpful methods that are not what the Bible is designed for but we can make them work pretty well.

I know there have been several times when I was building something and I was using a drill to screw it all together. At some point what I really needed was a hammer to tap a board over or something along those sorts. But instead of putting down the drill and picking up the hammer, it was much more convenient for me to just bash the drill against the board until it was where I wanted it to be. The drill was the wrong tool, but hey I’m kind of lazy.

Oftentimes, when reading the Bible, we might use a tool to do something it wasn’t designed to do thus missing out on the full potential of what it is meant to do.

We have to use the right tools when we read the Bible.

So what are these right intuitions? These right assessments about the Bible?

We rightly assume that Scripture is designed to teach us about what is true. It definitely is. God’s word is the source of truth. Through it you will encounter someone who is not yourself – the living God whose thoughts are not your thoughts and whose ways are not your ways. It’s God’s truth.

We believe that Scripture is meant to give us wisdom of how to live. Absolutely. It is not instruction alone, but it absolutely leads us to God’s wisdom which guides us in life. The word of God will teach you to think in ways you’ve never thought before.

We think that Scripture is the place where we learn to hear God. Of course. It’s His word! In Scripture you learn how to trust in the one who wants to rescue you.

2 Timothy 3:14-16 says, “14 You must remain faithful to the things you have been taught. You know they are true, for you know you can trust those who taught you. 15 You have been taught the holy Scriptures from childhood, and they have given you the wisdom to receive the salvation that comes by trusting in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. 17 God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work.

God’s word teaches us about what is true. It gives us wisdom on how to live. And it is where we learn to listen to the voice of God. They are His words!

So how can we get that wrong?

TRUTH TO STAND ON

Scripture is truth to stand on. This is a right intuition. How can we get that wrong?

Well, how do we treat other sources of truth?

We tend to treat them like textbooks. We treat them like encyclopedias. We treat them like references.

This right intuition can lead us to an incorrect method where we have a question and we ask the Bible like an encyclopedia looking for a page, a paragraph, and a sentence that most directly answers our question.

How many of you do this or have done this?

Hey Jesus, what does the Bible say about money?

Ok Jesus, is it a sin to have sex before you are married?

Thank you Alexa – I mean Jesus.

You can make this tool work in a lot of ways for a lot of things. But what happens when the story doesn’t contain the answer to your question? Do you just skip it?

Last week I picked on the book of Numbers a lot, so I won’t do that. But I honestly can’t tell you why the book of Nahum is in the Bible. It seems so useless. But it’s in there.

When we treat the Bible like a reference book even when we are searching for truth some details will become irrelevant to your questions on life. Some stories wont’ fit your musings because they are answering questions that you never thought were important in the first place.

What you’re doing is missing out on the richness of what God is trying to communicate to His beloved creation. You can make it work, but you’re not really paying attention to the form – the narrative, the poetry, the letters, the apocalyptic literature.

What is that?

I don’t know! It sounds scary.

When you don’t know how the flow of the story works and how the context of every sentence fits into the larger work and the larger story you will come up against what appear to be surface level contradictions all the time.

Proverbs teaches us about prudence and that “a good man leaves his inheritance to his children” (Proverbs 13:22). Honor the Lord with your wealth (Proverbs 3:9).

And Jesus tells us a parable to be faithful in unrighteous wealth (Luke 16:11), but then He also says to give away all your wealth (Mark 10:17-27).

Then Paul says that money is the root of all evil (1 Timothy 6:10). What do you do with all that?

You have to read it all together. Never read a Bible story out of context and never read a verse in isolation.

There is truth and wisdom to be gained when we read the Bible as the story it is, paying attention to why and to whom it is being written. What is the purpose of the words? Then we can begin to decipher their purpose for our lives as well.

WISDOM TO LIVE BY

Speaking of wisdom, Scripture is wisdom to live by. This is a right intuition. How can we get that wrong?

There are so many ways we get this wrong.

What comes to mind first is when we read character stories in the Old Testament.

What we tend to do, and what I hear sermons doing all the time, is we try to turn the Old Testament characters into heroes that we are to modal our life after.

So often we read these stories, we don’t understand them. We are confused by them. We think there must be a nugget of wisdom here for me. What’s the moral of this story? What can I incorporate into my own life?

All of those characters in the Old Testament are messed up. All of the characters in the New Testament are messed up. They are not heroes to be idolized, to modal our lives after – except Jesus. That’s not primarily why they’re there.

David is not someone you should hope to be like.

Esther is not the picture of Biblical womanhood.

You can make that tool work for a while but what happens when the character is too bad?

Do you just turn them into a negative case study? And so, you read about how some of the Kings of Israel whored after Molech and sacrificed their children as burnt offerings and just think, got it, don’t sacrifice children.

That’s not the point. There’s a deeper truth there, a deeper wisdom if you’ll dig for it.

When we too quickly try to find an application we shortcut the role of meditation and miss out on God’s work in our lives.

In our search for wisdom, we can also approach the word of God as a behavior manual or rule book. Basic. Instructions. Before. Leaving. Earth. Right?

If we were to primarily read the Bible in this way, there would be an overwhelming number of situations and scenarios where a variety of behavioral responses would be appropriate depending on any number of various stimuli. Life is too unique for that.

A rule book can only help make one decision in one type of situation.

What are you going to do about tattoos? Does the Bible really even answer that question in the single time something sort of similar to what we would call a tattoo is mentioned in one particular scenario? Is it even trying to?

No, it’s not.

Wisdom is what God wants for you. Wisdom that forms the core of your values, what you care about, shaping you to see the world through His eyes, in the way He sees them.

The Bible is wisdom literature that leads us to listen to the voice of wisdom – the voice of God. It’s not trying to correct our behavior. It’s trying to lead us to God’s heart.

It will correct and train you in ways of living to act rightly toward other people and form new habits and moral thinking and ethical decision making to contribute good into the world all as you seek the heart of God.

GOD’S VOICE TO LISTEN TO

Scripture is God’s voice to listen to. This is a right intuition. How can we get that wrong?

I do this so often. I’m absolutely sure you do as well.

Let’s do it this way. Here’s the end of Psalm 139…

“17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! 18 If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake, and I am still with you.

19 Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God! O men of blood, depart from me! 20 They speak against you with malicious intent; your enemies take your name in vain. 21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? 22 I hate them with complete hatred; I count them my enemies.

23 Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! 24 And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!”

Which part of that do you think I’m going to commit to memory? Which part am I going to conveniently forget about?

So often we treat the Bible as a grab bag of warm spiritual fuzzy lines, fixating on what makes us happy but avoiding the lines that make us uncomfortable.

If you take a mental note of any Bible verses that you fixate on, are they mostly what people might call “life verse” material? Or do they look something like these three verses in Psalm 139?

Should David even be praying these words? Have you ever thought about that in the Psalms? Jesus teaches us to love our enemy and pray for those who persecute you (Matthew 5:44). Does that mean David was wrong? And if we shouldn’t imitate the form of justice prayers David takes can we fully embrace the other lines as well?

Ask questions. If you don’t have questions, you’re probably not reading it right. The Bible is full of strange, unfamiliar things that should cause us to ask questions, to challenge our assumptions.

“It’s a good thing when our reading of Scripture drags up a lot of uncomfortable questions. Times of questioning are almost always opportunities for deep learning and spiritual growth. As Solomon says in the Proverbs, “Cry out for wisdom, and beg for understanding. Search for it like silver, and hunt for it like hidden treasure. Then you will understand respect for the Lord, and you will find that you know God” (Pro 2:3-5). When we approach the difficult questions head-on, we almost always find a blessing there.“

It’s the parts that bother us that could be the most important, that present to us ways to challenge our thinking and our own assumptions we didn’t know we even had.

As we press through the questions, as we dig we discover the treasure.

What are the parts of the Bible you avoid? Those might say more about you than you are willing to admit.

HOW TO READ THE BIBLE?

So, how do we read the Bible then?

Let me just give you four quick instructions.

Read the Bible in context. Resist the urge to flip it open, point at a sentence, and start reading. Read it as a single unified story where what comes before and what comes after has something to say about what you are reading now. It is interconnected and carefully woven together. Don’t pick it apart and don’t consume it piecemeal.

Ask questions. Be curious. Dig for the treasure. We shouldn’t avoid the challenging parts or think that we have them all figured out to solve the tension we are experiencing. Real problems can surface when we try to easily solve the tension. The word of God is meant to be wrestled with in the same manner the Jacob wrestled with God. Only, rather than trying to be the victor, let it master you. Let it stand above your assumptions and presuppositions and be your authority, especially when it doesn't shake out the way you want it to.

Read the Bible with other people. It wasn’t until the last 500 years that it was even possible for an individual to hide in a room themselves and seek God alone. The Bible was never meant to be read in isolation. Read it with other people. Ask each other questions. Challenge each other. That’s the way we fight our history of baggage and cultural influences. Read it together. We grow together. I’ll never stop saying that.

Finally, live it out. Don’t just acquire knowledge. Let this story shape you. Let it change you. As you wade into the depths of its riches, find practical ways for God to change you in all the unimaginable ways He wants to.

“The word of God is our only hope. [God’s word is] sharp enough and living enough and active enough to penetrate to the bottom of my heart, show me that the lies of sin are indeed lies,” fill me with the truth of His promises, and shape me into the image that reflects His glory and goodness into the world.

DIVE IN DEEP

Saturate yourself with these words so that you can discern truth from the cacophony of lies constantly presented to us by our flesh, by the world, and by the false gospel of the enemy.

What would it look like, right now, for you to press into the word of God more?

What is your relationship with the Bible currently? Honestly, what comes to mind when I ask that question? What’s your first inclination? What is your current relationship with the Bible?

How can you grow? How can you take a step deeper?

What would it look like for you to wade a bit further into the depths of the Bible?

I neglected to present a challenge to you last week that I will now set out to correct. Would you put away the phones, the devices, and would you pick up a printed Bible again? The words aren’t going to change, but the experience might just. You might find yourself less distracted. You might build a bit more familiarity with turning these pages and a bit more understanding of the flow of this story. Take notes and ask questions.

“What we need is protection from unbelief. Day in and day out we need to fight unbelief in the promises of God.”

Let it pierce through to the depths of your soul and spirit. Let it penetrate “deep—like a sword through tough, hard layers—and [let it] make judgments about what's there.”

Let God change you through His word.

Resources (*the views expressed within the following content are solely the author's and may not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Mountainside Church):

https://youtu.be/2JcYCHo8600?si=-estt_DN7Y3hj-60

https://instituteforbiblereading.org/none-of-the-bible-was-written-to-you-and-thats-a-good-thing/

https://www.biola.edu/blogs/good-book-blog/2021/scripture-is-for-us-but-not-to-us

https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/the-word-of-god-living-active-sharp

https://www.tmumc.org/stories/posts/praying-the-difficult-psalms