What’s The Point | How to Read the Bible? - Hebrews 4:12-13 | August 25
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