Reading the bible

Key verse

Lamentations 5:19 - You, O Lord, reign forever; your throne endures from generation to generation. 

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 I must admit, after reading some books about the bible, I have found that this current approach to reading the bible (four different snippets a day) is really not that effective for actually gaining anything from the bible study.  In order to get a true sense of the text, it's better to read larger chunks or entire books at a time, rather than select verses here and there.  For getting through the entire bible in 9 months, this is certainly a good way to do it, because you won't get 'bored' with a book, as you're reading four different ones at a time.

However, I will continue with this reading plan and once I am done, I will likely go back through book by book at a slower pace and have more time to study specific passages.

You should read this

You should read this book: "Taking the Guesswork out of Applying the Bible" by Jack Kuhatschek.  It's great!  It talks a lot about what I've been saying in this blog.  God's word is for all people at all times - we just need to make sure we understand it was delivered at a particular point in time so it may not speak to us culturally in our setting, but the basic message is the same for everyone.

How do we read the bible? - part 2

I thought I would revisit this topic briefly, since we've been at this reading plan for a week now.  I just picked up a book by Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart called "How to Read the Bible for all Its Worth".  What a great book!  I've just barely started into the chapter on the prophets, but it is very useful already and I would recommend reading it.

Fee and Stuart say that the prophetic books are so hard to understand for us now because we tend to want to read them in light of the coming of Christ.  However, we must remember to keep these books in context, as I mentioned in an earlier post.  These prophets were speaking God's word to his people at a particular point in history, so for us to fully understand the importance of that message, we have to put ourselves in the shoes of the audience of the prophet.  For them, they had an idea of what the prophet was talking about because the prophet was speaking into their lives about their actions.  Here we are trying to make sense of a message that was delivered to a people we have very little information about.  That's why it is so important to read a bit about the history of the people in the bible, so that we can understand how these words applied to them.

This approach of researching about the text that we are reading can be a lot of work, but in the end, it will be worth it, so that we can get the most out of God's word, which is just as applicable to us now in the 21st century as it was to the people who first heard it so many years ago.

How do we read the bible?

Before we delve into the bible, we should understand how to approach it.  The goal of reading should be spiritual growth, gained by a better understanding of God's message to His people throughout history.  The words contained in the bible can speak to us even though they are thousands of years old.  We just have to have the right mindset.

We should keep in mind that the bible was written at specific points in history, in a specific culture, for specific people.  To get the most out of the message, we need to understand what was going on at that point in time, what the people were thinking and feeling, what the writer was thinking when he was composing his text.  The scriptures were not addressed specifically to us in our time period, but the wonder of God's message is that if we look at it appropriately, we can see what He said and did for those people in their time.  From that, we can understand how He will work for us in our time, because He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.  Our God and His promises do not change.

As we progress through the reading plan, we'll all get some great practice at reading the bible critically.  I look forward to doing this with you!