A Simple Reading Guide

If you're reading this ... well ... you can read. You know how letters fit together, how punctuation generally works, and what English words mean. You can read. Which also means that you can read the Bible and comprehend much of what it says. Even though intense study of the Bible is rich enough to warrant a legion of men and women to dedicate their careers to the discipline, the plain truth of the Bible is easily understood by anyone who can read. The basic message of the Bible is obvious enough, not hidden behind cryptic clues that only the secret few can decipher.

If this is true, why then do we have so many controversies over what the Bible says?

A short weekly article is never going to be able to resolve this great dilemma, but there are two driving principles: First, if we so determine, we can manipulate the text to say whatever we want it to. Second, even though we know how to read, we don't necessarily know how to read the Bible well.

Let me provide a few helpful practices, even though a short article cannot do justice to a mature discipline. My hope is that we can at least see the kinds of things we need to consider when reading the Bible well.

1. There and Then. What did the author intend to say to the original readers of the book? What the text means is what the author intended it to mean, not "what I got out of it." So, what did the author intend? He was writing to a particular group of people in a particular context of life, living in a particular culture. Perhaps there was a specific occasion or reason for writing that particular book. Every passage of Scripture means one thing. Whether a small passage or a large passage, there is one intended meaning. Before we ever thing about how the Word applies to our lives in our contexts in our culture, we've got to spend a little time understanding what the author intended. Some of this we can do just by observing the text carefully, and some of it we can do just through our accumulation of biblical knowledge over the years. Sometimes, we need to consult other resources, such as Bible dictionaries and commentaries. As you can see, this discipline can be taken to far greater depths than most of us are prepared for, but don't despair - most of the time, we can get a pretty good feel for what the author intended without earning an advanced degree!
   
2. Everywhere and Forever. The second discipline, which can only come after we've worked on the first, is to ask what the eternal truth is behind what the author meant. For example, when Moses writes about "gleaning the fields" in Leviticus, the first discipline tells us we need understand what this particular farming practice was to understand what Moses intended to say to his original readers. But, most people today don't farm for a living, so does that mean that this passage doesn't mean anything for us? Of course not! The eternal principle behind the gleaning practice was to sacrificially provide for the poor in a way that allows them to work (if they can) in order to labor for their food. That's an eternal truth! It's a very particular kind of compassion. The second discipline is to discover what eternal truths are being expressed by what the author intended to say to the original readers. Sometimes, the contextual meaning is the same as the eternal truth ("don't lie"). Sometimes, the eternal truth is bigger than the specific idea expressed by the author to his original readers.
   
3. Here and Now. The third discipline is one we typically jump straight to, ignoring the first two. More often than not, if we skip the first two disciplines, we will be very inaccurate with the third. This discipline is to discover how the eternal truth applies to our context in our culture in our situations. For example, how can we who do not farm for a living specifically employ the gleaning principle today? (Or the bigger question, how does a modern Christian look at Old Testament laws in general?) Scripture means one thing, but it may have many different applications for our lives. The passage in Leviticus means one thing - exercise a particular kind of compassion. How we do that in our lives could take many different flavors, but still retain the eternal truth (that was originally expressed in a particular context). This is not "what it means to me," but "how this can be lived out in my life?" 

We must exercise the first two disciplines, first. If we skip them, then we could end up with nonsense, such as "God is telling me that my job is like a field, and I need to plow my job carefully by studying hard and working late hours, but not to harvest the 'corners' of my job by making sure I don't report all my hours." That's no where near what we should gain from Leviticus, but we can get there easily if we neglect the first two disciplines.

There are far more disciplines and techniques that I advocate to help us understand what we read in the Bible (for example, reading a passage no fewer than three times). These three, however, work together to show a sequence of thought we should go through every time we read. Sometimes, we can go through all three pretty quickly, but other times, it may take a fair bit of effort.

Resources: There are plenty of good books on reading the Bible well, but two that I recommend are: How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, and Playing with Fire. Click on the titles to see more information about each.

I Don't Dance

I don't dance. Not a bit. Not only do I not attempt to dance, but when I have attempted to, I still didn't dance ... because I can't dance. No rhythm, no coordination, no desire, no ability. I don't have a religious objection to dancing, but people of all religions would object if they saw me try.

I don't like it, I'm not good at it, so I don't do it.

That's fine for dancing or hockey or scrapbooking. But what about something like prayer? There have been times in my life, and I hear others express the same, that we don't pray because we feel awkward at it, don't have "rhythm," or don't feel like we know how. So, we don't. Sometimes, we just don't pray out loud in front of others. Sometimes, we just don't pray. We avoid the things that we don't feel that we do well, because we don't like feeling inept.

Rather than combat this with a "how to" article on prayer, which would probably only make us feel even more inept, let's look at it differently. We feel inept because we don't feel we do something well. And we don't feel we do it well because we don't feel we meet the standard. Rather than a "how to" to set a more intimidating standard, I question the standard.

What makes dancing good is based on style, skill, flare, and coordination. But that's not what makes for good praying.

If you look at Jesus' prayers and His teaching on prayer, He never sets a standard of flair. He never clicks a clicker every time you say "um" (like I saw a speech making club do). The most basic lesson on how to pray well is to just PRAY! I don't dance because I don't dance. We don't pray because we don't pray. Jesus says pray honestly, frequently, persistently, and trustingly. Just pray.

Babies are really horrible at talking, aren't they? But if they never talk terribly, they will never learn to talk well. If you never pray terribly, you will never pray well. And "well" has nothing to do with style.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again

I'm partisan. I have particular political preferences. And I'm a little too eager to engage others in political discussions, both with people I agree (politically) with and with people I disagree with. These conversations are with people inside the Church (from both sides of the political aisle) as well as those outside the Church (again, from both angles). So ... full disclosure ... I'm partisan.

But, I've concluded that partisanship is not the best scale for determining my vote. I don't need to abandon my political preferences, but for years, now, I've been gravitating away from deciding my vote based on who is the most partisan for my particular views. I still vote for people even if they have strong views, but I don't regard the strength of their partisanship as the most important factor in casting my vote.

My thinking is this: In the last generation, we've watched this litmus test (who is the most partisan for my view) create a crippled Congress session after session. Why? Because we voted the most partisan people we could find - using that as our criteria. So, of course, we're going to end up with gridlock! We chose the most bull-headed, unbending people as if unbending bull-headedness was going to fix up Washington (or Topeka, or wherever).

Perhaps finding the most belligerently partisan candidate is not the best way to choose. So then, how then should I vote?

I will not tell you who you should vote for in any of the elections. But I would offer this as a general voting consideration: Which candidates (in any election) are more likely to display the kind of wisdom we find in the Bible? There is a wealth of wisdom found in the Bible that is good for everyone to follow, regardless of where they are in their faith. I would rather vote for someone who displays that kind of wisdom than for someone who makes a bunch of noise about his faith but rarely ever displays that wisdom.

Ecclesiastes 10 declares woe to the city that has a fool for a leader. Not someone who fails a political litmus test, not someone who isn't overtly religious, but someone who is a fool. The implication is that there are blessings for the city that has wise leaders.

Think of it this way: Who we want in leadership: the most partisan people we can find or the wisest people we can find? And I can't think of many people who display both qualities.