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Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind... Romans 12:2

Reading the Bible

by Rev. John Barach

The Bible is the foundation for our lives as Christians. Paul tells us that the Scriptures "are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus" (2 Tim. 3:15). That's why he says, "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly" (Col. 3:16).

We need to hear the voice of our Shepherd if we're going to walk close to Him. But reading the Bible isn't always easy. Some passages are clear the first time you read them, but then you get bogged down in the details of Leviticus or the names in 1 Chronicles. We're tempted to skip those passages. After all, we're not all going to be preachers or Bible teachers, are we?

Still, even though we're not going to be studying the Bible full-time, we are going to spend our lives getting to know God in His Word. It's important for us to learn to read God's Word well. We don't simply want to get through the Bible reading quickly. We want to understand what God is saying to us so that we can respond to Him with faith and love and loyalty.

Seeing the Big Picture
How can we become better readers of Scripture? Reading the Bible isn't paint-by-numbers. There's no set of rules that will make understanding Scripture easy. There are always going to be passages that you have questions about. But don't let that discourage you. If you're going to be a good reader of Scripture, you need to ask lots of questions. You need to cultivate curiosity about God's Word.

As well, you need to cultivate patience. Understanding Scripture takes more than one superficial reading. It involves reading and re-reading, and it requires you to stop and think through what you're reading. "In other words," James Jordan says, "patient reflective meditation is required for good interpretation. Repeated exposures are needed for good interpretation. There is no formula for this."1

If you read three or four chapters a day, you'll be able to read through the whole Bible in about a year. Some people read straight through from Genesis to Revelation. Others read a couple chapters from the Old Testament and a couple from the New. One approach has you reading different parts of the Bible on different days of the week.

Don't worry if you don't understand everything you read. The point is to familiarize yourself with the whole Bible. You're reading to get the big picture, to get a sense of the flow of the whole Bible and to see how the various parts fit together.

It's also a good idea to read through a whole book of the Bible in one sitting. You may not be able to do that with books like Isaiah or Jeremiah, but most of the books of the Bible are short enough that you could read them in less than an hour. Again, read quickly the first time to get the feel of the book. "You want the wide-angle lens picture," Rob Schouten writes. "Later, there will be ample opportunity for close-up shots."2

Understanding the Historical Setting
The Bible was written in a different language, and so we have to use translations. It was also written in a different time. If we're going to understand what it's saying and how that impacts our lives today, we have to understand the original context in which the passage was written.

The Bible talks about rivers and mountains, about cities and countries. If we're going to understand what the Bible is saying, we ought to know at least something about the places it mentions. There are several good Bible atlases which can help you get a sense of where certain events occurred.

As well, we need to get to know the culture and the political and religious history of Israel and of the nations with which she interacted. There are Philistine rulers and Egyptian Pharaohs and Roman emperors in Scripture. There are three different Herods in the Bible (Luke 1:5; 13:31; Acts 12). Paul appeals to Roman laws about citizenship in Acts. His letters talk about the relationship between slaves and their masters. The gospels present us with Pharisees and Saduccees. The Old Testament talks about various pagan gods: Baal and Ashterah, Milcom and Molech.

It's important to know about the historical circumstances and the social context of the passage we're studying. But it's even more important for us to read each passage in the context of the history of God's covenant. As Doug Jones writes, "We often hear Scripture portrayed as an unconnected mishmash of hero stories, when in fact the Lord has gloriously developed one message, an interlaced and many-faceted outworking of His central promise, 髟 will be your God, and you will be My people.'"3

The Bible isn't a theology textbook telling us a number of truths about God.4 Nor are the stories in the Bible designed to illustrate some moral principles or to show us something of what Jesus is like. If they were just illustrations, they could just as well be fictional. But instead, they are parts of the history of God's covenant, the one story of God's walk with His people from creation to the full fellowship we'll enjoy with God when Christ returns.

That history goes through many stages of development. God didn't reveal Himself and His plans completely right after Adam fell. He continued to expand His revelation and to develop His fellowship with His people through history.

If we're going to understand a passage in the Bible correctly, then, we need to think about where it fits in that history. What had happened in the history of God's covenant prior to the story we're reading now? It matters that an event happened before the Exodus or after the Exile into Babylon, before Christ's coming or after the giving of the Spirit at Pentecost. What did people at this particular stage of history understand about God and His covenant? How did the LORD reveal Himself here? How did His people respond? How should they have responded, given what they knew?

As you get to know that one history, however, you'll also notice that there is some repetition. In fact, Peter Leithart describes the Old Testament's rhythm as "repetition with difference."5 The term typology refers to the way the Old Testament points forward to Christ, but it also refers to the way one story or one person in the Old Testament points forward to another. For instance, several people in the Old Testament die by having their heads crushed (Sisera, Abimelech, Goliath). That isn't an accident. All these are types of the serpent, whose head the Seed of the woman will crush (Genesis 3:15).6

Furthermore, the whole Bible speaks to us about Jesus. He isn't just the goal of covenant history; He's also the content of covenant history. That's what Jesus Himself teaches us. He said to the Jews, "You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me" (John 5:39). When Jesus walked with two disciples on the way to Emmaus after His resurrection, He rebuked them for not believing what the prophets had said. Then He showed them what the Old Testament really said: "And beginning with Moses and the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself" (Luke 24:25-27).

Whether we're reading Judges or Proverbs, the Psalms or Romans, we're reading about Christ and our primary goal as we read should be to see what each passage is saying about Him. How do these stories and proverbs and poems and prophecies and laws show us Christ at work back then and what do they say about His work today? The way we apply a passage to our lives ought to flow out of an understanding of how that passage fits in the history of God's covenant and how it speaks of Christ.

We live after Christ's coming, and Christ's coming has affected the way we read and apply the things God said before Christ came. Paul, for instance, speaks about circumcision, New Moon celebrations, and Sabbath days as "a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ" (Col. 2:11-17). The whole book of Hebrews urges Christians not to turn away from Christ to go back to the shadows of the Old Covenant regulations. Paul often warns against thinking that circumcision is still required for membership in God's covenant as it was before Christ came.

We don't circumcise our children as a sign of God's covenant. We don't keep the food laws from the Old Testament (see Acts 10). We don't bring animal sacrifices to a temple on earth anymore. Those things were shadows, and we have the reality in Christ.

But that doesn't mean that we can ignore the Old Testament. The whole of God's Word is valid for us. The whole of God's Word teaches us to live in a bond of love and faithfulness with God. Paul sometimes uses the Old Covenant law to show how we ought to live today (e.g., 1 Tim. 5:18, 19). He calls us to offer ourselves as sacrifices to God (Rom. 12:1).

James Jordan recommends asking four questions as we read an Old Covenant law: "What did it mean to people living at that stage in covenant history? How did Christ fulfill that law? How does Christ's church, united to Him, manifest the fulfillment of that law? And what possible relevance does this law have for believers in the New Covenant?"7 It's not always easy to answer those questions. Many of the Old Covenant laws are hard to understand. But we ought to think about them and apply them in terms of God's covenant and its fulfillment in Christ.

Adopting the Right Approach
Understanding what God is saying to us in the Bible isn't a matter of following the right set of rules. If you want to read the Bible well, it certainly helps to be a good reader in general and to know what to look for as you read Scripture. But it's also important to come to Scripture with the right attitude and in the right context.

In 1 Corinthians 2:14, Paul says, "The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God." If we want to understand God's Word and respond to it properly, we should approach it with humility, with a desire to hear what God says and to obey it, and with prayer.

Ask the Lord to show you who He is and what He's done for you in Christ. Ask Him for a heart that trusts His promises and trembles at His warnings and keeps His commandments. Ask Him for the wisdom to see how the passage of Scripture you're studying impacts His church and your own life.

As well, study the Bible in the context of Christ's church. The Lord has appointed certain men in His church to teach His Word with authority (e.g., 1 Tim. 3:2; 2 Tim. 4:1-5; Heb. 13:17). These men may make mistakes in their interpretation of Scripture. Sometimes false teachers arise in the church. You aren't required to agree with everything a teacher says, especially if he says something contrary to what God says. But if what he is saying agrees with Scripture, you should learn from him. Some people find it helpful to keep their Bibles open during the sermon and follow along in the text or even to take notes. Above all, however, you should come to church with ears to hear what your God says to you and with a heart that is ready to trust Him and obey.

Footnotes:
1. James B. Jordan, "Apologia on Reading the Bible," Contra Mundum 3 (Spring 1992).

2. R. Schouten, "How to Read the Book," Clarion 20.21 (1992). I am indebted to Schouten's articles for some of what follows.

3. Douglas M. Jones III, "Back to the Future," Back to Basics: Rediscovering the Riches of the Reformed Faith, ed. David G. Hagopian (Phillipsburg: P&R, 1996), p. 75.

4. The following comments owe a lot to Jordan, "Apologia," and to C. Trimp, Preaching and the History of Salvation: Continuing an Unfinished Discussion, trans. Nelson D. Kloosterman (Scarsdale, NY: Westminster Discount Book Service, 1996), pp. 34ff.

5. Peter J. Leithart, A House for My Name: A Survey of the Old Testament (Moscow: Canon, 2000), p. 27. Much of what follows is drawn from Leithart's discussion.

6. Leithart, House, p. 34.

7. Jordan, "Apologia."

Return to Volume 8, Number 2.