How to read the Bible.

To some of you, this might sound a little pedantic. You open it up, you start reading. Right? Well, you can certainly do that.

 

If you haven't ever read the entire Bible, there's a lot I could say about where to start (probably not Leviticus or Lamentations).

 

I usually recommend starting with a side-by-side reading of Genesis and the Gospel of John (John actually organizes a good portion of the beginning of his Gospel to reflect/mirror Genesis) then going back to read Matthew, Mark, Luke... Acts... the rest of the New Testament... all the while continuing through the Old Testament from Genesis into Exodus, including a Psalm every day, etc. Not a hard-and-fast rule, but in my opinion, it's better than reading the Bible cover-to-cover.

 

Some people might suggest beginning with Matthew, maybe Luke or Mark, rather than John. There's some merit to that.  John's readers already knew of the other three, so John isn't as focused on chronology or getting all the events detailed right.  I think there's an argument to make that John intended his Gospel to be supplemental, to record some of the things he saw Jesus do and learned from him that weren't reported earlier.  

 

There are certain facts, for example, that the earlier gospels leave out for good reason.  The raising of Lazarus, and Peter cutting off that dude's ear in the garden of Gethsemane, for instance.  The earlier gospels likely didn't include these events out of protective anonymity.  The moment Jesus raised Lazarus, people were trying to kill him (to discredit Jesus), and Peter frankly committed a capital crime... which could have gotten him into hot water later with the Romans (especially when he got to Rome!).  So the earlier gospels leave these gospels out, but when John is writing closer to the end of his life, enough time has passed he feels it important to write down more details that were intentionally excluded before. 

Whatever the case, though, a strategic approach rather than a blast through from cover-to-cover might be more helpful to you.  That way, at the very least, you won't get discouraged when you get into the more difficult sections of the Old Testament since you'll have regular New Testament readings the keep you moving forward..

 
Because the Bible isn't one book. It's a collection of books. A unified collection (there is a single big-picture story they all play a part in telling) but a collection no less. We've arranged them in a particular order, but that order isn't prescriptive. There's a logic to it, but it's not perfect.

 

If you're a "get 'er done" kind of person, feel free to plow through the entire Bible just get a sense of the "big picture." There are a lot of "Bible in a Year" programs out there that can help you with that. But if that's your approach you'll want to do it all over again when you're done. You'll want to take a much slower/deliberate approach later.

 

This is the approach I'm going to outline today. It's probably different than how you've read the Bible in the past. Or, if you haven't read it before, it's probably different than how you'd approach it if you just opened it started reading.

 

In mainline Christianity, a lot of people are trained to read the bible with an eye toward dividing right from wrong, figuring out what is/isn't a sin, figuring out how to be saved, gaining intellectual truth/knowledge about God and His will for our lives. It's an approach that starts with getting knowledge, then applying that knowledge to our lives.

 

Many of us (this is my natural inclination) read the Bible more with our "heads" than our "hearts."

 

This is especially true if you've grown up in the western world where we have a "knowledge-based" rather than a "wisdom-based" culture.

 

But this isn't the way Jesus read the Scriptures (which for Him, was what we call the Old Testament).

 

This knowledge-based approach has a long history. You see, in the first few centuries of Christianity as what was a message couched in semitic/Hebrew/Jewish presuppositions entered into a largely Hellenized (influenced by Greek philosophy/language/thought) world, a lot of controversies erupted. Councils were called to "resolve" those controversies, and the Bible was reduced to a kind of "tool" to decide the issues at hand.

 

But there are two extremes. There are people who leave their heads behind, who don't go deeper into the context of the Bible, who read only with their hearts.

 

People who will discount all "study" or any attempt to really examine context by saying things like, "the Spirit is guiding me and telling me that my interpretation is true."

 

The problem with this approach is that it's not nearly as discerning as those who read the Bible this way think it is.

 

Because it's very easy to say, "the Spirit told me" this is the right way to interpret the text... when someone else can say the Spirit told them exactly the opposite. At that point we are left with two possibilities. (1) it's not the Holy Spirit you're listening to, but your own thoughts; or (2) the Spirit is playing us against each other.

 

Based on what the Bible says, though, #2 isn't possible. We should pray for the Spirit's wisdom when we seek the truth in Scripture, but we also must recognize that the Spirit leads us into a text that comes packaged in particular genres (that have to be read according to different rules... e.g. you shouldn't read poetry the same way you'd read a narrative, and "apocalyptic" texts shouldn't be interpreted the way you might read an article in a newspaper).

 

How do you do this, though, if you don't have the education or the resources necessary to really dig deeper into things like historic context, literary context, grammar of the original languages, etc.

 

Well, there are some awesome resources out there that can help. But these "secondary" resources aren't without error, either. So even that requires discrimination.

 

The point is, though, that insofar as we're reading the Scriptures in order to get "doctrine" or "knowledge" our process is always imperfect. That doesn't mean there's not a valid and devotional approach to reading the Bible that we can't all benefit from regardless of where we're at in terms of our knowledge.

 

There is a long tradition going back to the earliest days of the Church of faithful Christians who connected to the Bible in a totally different way. Sometimes we call these Christians "mystics," but don't get hung up on the term.

 

Mysticism is widely misunderstood. However, it is the way that Jesus engaged the Scriptures. In short, a mystical approach to the Bible means reading the Scriptures as an encounter with God, and toward greater realization of what's already true... that we are "one-in-flesh" (as the bride/church) with our Lord (the bridegroom).

 

Mysticism isn't just about an "experience," as if any "feeling" will do. It's about a deeper awareness with the union/communion we have with God through Christ in the Holy Spirit.

 

Again, this approach isn't about knowledge. But a certain grounding in knowledge is important to keep us grounded lest we get lost in our own ideas and mistake them for God's will.

 

There are a lot of people out there who will condemn "mysticism" because they think it's about elevating experience over Scripture as a source of truth. But that's a knowledge-based question. In terms of Christian knowledge, all experience must be tested against the literal sense of Scripture. Mysticism gets a "bad wrap" by a lot of Protestants who think that mystical devotion in some way contradicts the primacy of Scripture.

 

They make a good point.

 

There are some mystics who've taken things too far. But literalists/fundamentalists often take things too far with how they use/abuse Scripture as well. They often force presuppositions onto the text that aren't there. Presuppositions come from experience. What these fundamentalists do isn't any different than the mystics who wrongly force their experiences on the biblical text.

 

But genuine mysticism isn't primarily about gaining specific knowledge. It's more about allowing the text, the powerful Word of God that confronts us through the text, to have its way with us.

 

A mystical approach to reading the Bible is nothing more than recognizing that the words on the page are more than ink on dead trees.

 

It's about experiencing the Word in a real, powerful, and transformative way. It honors the Bible more than a fundamentalist's approach to Scripture because it realizes that the Scripture is True (not just a collection of truths) in a real way that we can experience through an intimate connection and encounter with God through the text.

 

I should add one more caveat before getting into the approach I'm going to outline for you today. For centuries (the majority of Christian history) most Christians were illiterate. Most people in general didn't know how to read. Still more, until the advent of the printing press in the Sixteenth Century, even those who could read didn't likely have access to a Bible. And if they did, chances were it was in a language they didn't know.

 

I make this point for a couple of reasons. Just because we have easy access to Bibles now doesn't make us "superior" to Christians of the past.

 

In some ways, the people through the centuries had a much simpler faith. They learned the basics of Scripture through catechisms and creeds that they committed to memory.

 

They had no choice but to live out their faith through prayer and meditation. Sometimes art work depicting Biblical scenes functioned as a kind of "visual Bible" for them, leading them into deeper reflection and ultimately an encounter with Christ.

 

That doesn't mean they were better off without the Bible. They were also easily deceived by teachers who had their own agendas. Sometimes, even, they were exploited by "wolves" who'd used the Church as a money-making enterprise.

 

We have the Bible today and (as a result) we not only have the ability to see for ourselves what it teaches... but we can enter into the story in a way more direct and intimate than most Christians could in the past.

 

For the most part, Christians today embrace the first part of that (using it to get knowledge/diagnose truth/error) but have missed the second and more important blessing that comes with easy access to the Bible.

 

This is the method for reading/meditating on the Bible I've followed for the last several years. I recently found someone else who outlined this approach in a very clear way. So, I'm going to direct you to Jon Adams' Holy Mystical Bible Study as a resource if you want to follow this method more deeply.

 

I highly recommend it. You can download this method on his website and print it out on a single page if you'd like. But here are the steps Jon outlines for us. I'm adding my commentary to his method in brackets.

 

1. I self-reflect.

   I assess my emotional state, I confess my biases and pre-understanding, and I prepare my soul to hear something new and unexpected. [We can't know where we're going unless we know where we're coming from. This is an act of humility and awareness.]

2. I pray and set my intention.

   I ask God to speak to me through his Word once again. I ask for God's help to encounter him through the text, to crucify my false self, to recover my true self, to embody Christ, and to reunite with all creatures. [this notion of false self/true self is about the 'face' we tend to wear and show to others, the lies we tell ourselves about ourselves... and the true self is who Jesus says we are. We are God's children. We are loved. We are who He made us to be, not who we usually pretend to be]

3. I read and I listen.

   I take note of the first impressions the text makes on me, and I try to understand my initial response. [This becomes almost like a conversation. I usually realize that something about my bias/presuppositions was off, doesn't quite fit, or that my emotional state is awry. I allow the Scripture to reflect this truth back at me. This process is about ultimately turning the fun-house mirror of the false/warped self we see looking at us into a real mirror that shows a true reflection of the person we actually are in Christ]

4. I ask good questions.

   I research the text: (a) language; (b) context & history; (c) modern scholarship; (d) the ancient Christian mystics. [This might take a lot of practice, especially if you don't have a lot of resources. There are some good study Bibles, Bible Handbooks, and Commentaries out there to help. If you need suggestions for resources to help you go deeper in this step, shoot me a reply along with your basic background in Bible study so I know where you're starting and what resources might be most helpful to you].

5. I face the challenge.

   As I go, there will be something in Scripture that rings my bells. When I stumble upon some truth about myself and God, I stop studying. I respond to God. I meditate on this new truth to try to understand it and its implications. [The STOP sign!!! In the past, I've been tempted to making rolling stops while reading. A thought hits me, I think about it for a few seconds, then keep going. Don't do that! Over the years I realized that when I recognized a new insight, but didn't digest it... and kept reading... the insight didn't really have the impact on me it should have. This means to SLOW DOWN, stop, and let whatever new insights you gleaned really sink in. Remember the goal isn't to get through the Bible... but to hear what God has to say to us through the Bible today.]

6. I reflect and ask for more.

   I continue to meditate on the passage. I sit with it, repeat it throughout the day, think about it, and ask God to reveal more to me. Crucially, I spend time listening in silence. [This builds on the last step. I've had times when a single verse offered multiple insights... and in this step, I often uncovered more truths that I needed to sit with for a while. You can spend several days on one verse/passage if that's what's needed. Let the process work for you, don't try to work the process.]

7. I embody my insight.

   I take my new understanding into the world, try it out, and see what happens - all in a continuing spirit of prayer. [Let God transform you through the Holy Spirit as He changes you through the Scriptures. You'll be surprised how HUGE of an impact this can have on your life if you stick to the process].

 

I'd add to the above to commit to this method for a period of time. At least for three months, because research shows us that any practice that we've done consistently for ninety-days becomes a habit. Before the 90 days are over, you'll be well accustomed to the practice, and you'll probably feel like it has become an essential part of your day. Set a reminder on your phone. Be consistent and do it at the same time every day. You can do the whole thing in 20 minutes, but that's just an average. It may take longer but it doesn't have to.

 

I'd also recommend starting with a single book. Probably one of the Gospels. That way, step 4 will be easier. You can use the same resources/commentary to help each day as you work through the book. In other words, if you have a good commentary on John (or whichever book you choose) and already know the background/context information each day, you won't have to do as much digging to go deeper into the text every day.

 

If you start this practice, let me know! Also keep me posted how it's going. Have you noticed any changes in your life/spirituality as a result? I'm interested to find out!

 

Blessings,

 

Judah