Consider this when Reading the Bible

Anyone reading the Bible invariably plays the role of an interpreter. We ask questions within ourselves about how this makes sense, how this applies, why is this written and what one should do about it. And while this is an important part of reading scripture, there are times when we may not be able to understand what to do about certain passages.

We all love to read the book of Daniel. But beyond Chapter 7, one doesn't hear much about it, and it's usually a skipped over part of the Bible. The same is true of Revelation after chapter 4, and again Ezekiel. Take Leviticus - one can get lost in the details of which animal for which sacrifice, and the dressing of the priests and the various laws around treatment of temple worship. Even Deuteronomy can get confusing with all of it's obvious patriarchal overtones and also seeming endorsement of slavery. Come to the New Testament, passages on the role of women in the church, dressing, marriage all raise questions and demand answers.

Some say, don't ask too many questions for who can know the mind of God.

Others of us ask questions but get lost looking for answers not knowing who to talk to or how to go about finding the answers. I am concerned that a great majority of Jesus followers silently struggle with the deep questions of life, suffering, death, evil and an active living out of one's faith. While it is true, that the mind of God cannot be fully known, it needn't deter one from asking questions. The way Jesus carried himself, he certainly wasn't afraid of people asking questions and he engaged with them with love, respect and even tact.

My professor, Jacob Cherian, used to always say, "Some scriptures are like apples one can pluck from a tree and eat, others are like bananas that require them to be peeled and still others are like Coconuts that require some hard pounding." He later added another step and said some are like durian (the world's stinkiest fruit)!

One important fact that I found helpful in encouraging me to engage with the Bible is to consider what Gordon Fee in his book, How to read the Bible for all its worth, called Eternal Relevance and Historical Particularity.

The Bible is the Word of God given in human words in history.

The Bible as God's word speaks to it's eternal relevance. It is for all people for all time - "every age and every culture". Quoting Fee again

But because God chose to speak his word through human words in history, every book in the Bible also has historical particularity; each document is conditioned by the language, time, and culture in which it was originally written (and in some cases also by the oral history it had before it was written down). Interpretation of the Bible is demanded by the “tension” that exists between its eternal relevance and its historical particularity. Fee, Gordon D.; Stuart, Douglas. How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth (p. 25). Zondervan Academic. Kindle Edition.

That tension is what every reader of the Bible must struggle with. The danger, as Fee points out, is in tending to one extreme of seeing the Bible as only God's word (taking out the human element and it's historicity) or seeing it as human words only (removing the divine element and thereby the need to allow it to speak to one's life). These two extremes are to be avoided in our desire to truly hear God's voice in scripture.

The Bible is a collection of books with varied literary styles written by over 40 different authors from various walks of life over the course of 10 millennia. That stretch alone is bound to make one think about the world in which these authors lived and what caused them to write the way they did.

This is a book that has taught people from every age about what it means to be truly human and what life with God is all about. These come to us, not in the form of abstract statements about God like some ordered form of theology. But they come to us through imperfect human vessels who are experiencing God and are themselves on the journey of faith. They wrote as they were inspired by the Holy Spirit without taking away their individuality, creativity and their desire to reconcile faith with the world that they lived in.

But as one reads the Bible as it has come to us, one can't help but appreciate the providence of God in protecting this book that has been so widely critiqued, whose message has been resisted and even further the singular message of the book - of a God who created the world good and is working towards the intended end of restoring the world and human beings to the way he has always intended them to be.

So when we read God's word, let's consider the historical nature of the Bible as we work hard to hear God's voice in and through it.

These reflections have been part of our Bible Study that happens every Wednesday night in homes. If you're in Lucknow and would like to be part one, do get in touch today.