“I don’t learn the Bible sufficient. I ought to learn it extra.” This oft-repeated confession by Christians to fellow believers is as ubiquitous an admission as “I’ve not been consuming effectively, and I ought to work out extra.”
That we should always learn the Bible isn’t questioned. Why we should always learn additionally it is pretty well-established.1
What we not often do is study why we, as confessing Christians, don’t learn the Bible regardless of saying that we should always. In my years of lay and vocational ministry, I’ve identified the suitable solutions to this query and what we understand to be “unacceptable” solutions.
Whereas time constraints are probably the most “acceptable” excuse, they don’t maintain up below scrutiny and function the Bible-reading equal of “the canine ate my homework.”2 The Bible is instantly accessible for the 91% of Individuals who personal smartphones, and with simply 12 minutes a day, we will learn it in a yr.3 Making time to learn the Bible is greater than doable for many of us who declare to don’t have any time.
The true causes we don’t learn the Bible go unexamined as a result of we take into account them unacceptable. The Bible feels boring and like a waste of time. I’ve had this confirmed by the school college students to whom I minister. It’s boring for individuals who have grown up in Sunday College and really feel they already know all of the tales and key verses and that there’s nothing new to study. It appears like a waste of time for individuals who discover the Bible obscure.
Most of us wrestle with a mixture of each: we skim acquainted passages, just like the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000, as a result of it’s repeated in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and we keep away from extra obscure elements as a result of they’re too exhausting to understand. In consequence, we fail to be formed by the well-known and the unfamiliar sections of the Bible.
On the center stage, the explanation we wrestle to need to learn the Bible is frequent to all fallen humanity. The impact of sin has brought about a “hardness of coronary heart,” which makes us like sheep which might be vulnerable to stray and switch to our personal means (Ephesians 4:18; Isaiah 53:6). This non secular drawback would require non secular help, and we ought to wish for ourselves and for others the identical prayer that Paul prayed for the Ephesians: that God might grant us to be strengthened with energy by means of his Spirit in our internal being, in order that Christ might dwell in our hearts by means of religion (Ephesians 3:16-17).
Nonetheless, on the pragmatic stage, some obstacles could be cleared away by addressing a few of our frequent misunderstandings relating to the Bible’s objective and type, and the way we must method studying it.
Misunderstanding #1: The Bible is to be utilized.
Correction: The Bible is to be acquired and generally known as an individual.
Most sermons and Bible teachings are likely to method Scripture by means of a medical paradigm. The textual content is seen as providing a prognosis and treatment for a selected drawback inside the congregation, and the sermon concludes with numerous prescriptions or purposes to handle the signs of that drawback. Nonetheless, Jesus encourages us to have interaction with Scripture by means of an agricultural paradigm, the place the Phrase of God is in comparison with a seed that have to be acquired (Matthew 13:1-23; Mark 4:1-20; Luke 8:4-15).
This seed metaphor is a corrective to the over-emphasis on direct utility. Seeds don’t merely “apply” themselves instantly however produce fruit of understanding, knowledge, and obedience over time. A lot of the Bible is utilized to our lives insofar because it shapes us as followers of Christ, and our ideas and behaviors then move out of our remodeled hearts and minds.
The Apostle John provides an extra corrective when he begins his gospel with “At first was the Phrase, and the Phrase was with God, and the Phrase was God” (John 1:1). Right here, the Phrase of God is personified because the Son of God, emphasizing that we should always method the Scriptures relationally. We might by no means meet with our mates or family members solely to determine how you can use them and what directions we would obtain from them. We should always not method Scripture merely to extract sensible classes. Relatively, we should always come to the Bible in search of to know and encounter the individual of Jesus Christ, deepening our relationship with him as we develop in understanding.
Misunderstanding #2: The Bible is a group of remoted teachings.
Correction: The Bible is one unified story.
This misunderstanding is brought on by how we’re skilled to learn the Bible by the overwhelming majority of the books in a Christian bookstore, and in flip it causes larger misunderstanding. Verse-of-the-day devotionals and topical research all method the Bible extra like an anthology or reference guide than a story.
Within the introduction to their guide “The Drama of Scripture,” Craig Bartholomew and Michael Goheen write, “The Bible just isn’t a mere jumble of historical past, poetry, classes in morality and theology, comforting guarantees, guiding ideas, and instructions; as a substitute it’s essentially coherent. Each a part of the Bible—every occasion, guide, character, command, prophecy, and poem—have to be understood within the context of the one storyline.”4
There will definitely be events and seasons that decision for learning the Bible for particular insights or taking in Scripture in bite-size items. However it’s important that we learn the elements in mild of the entire. For that cause, I normally dissuade college students who aren’t but conversant in the Bible from devotionals and topical research. Doing so can be analogous to participating with a sequence like “Harry Potter” and beginning by solely studying all of Voldemort’s speeches or watching random scenes from the flicks.
It makes extra sense to first expertise the whole story after which revisit sure key moments for deeper reflection. Many individuals’s lack of know-how of the entire sweep of Scripture can also be why I’m keen on learning a guide in its entirety over a single semester somewhat than conducting topical research.
Misunderstanding #3: The Bible needs to be immediately comprehensible.
Correction: The Bible as an historical, complicated textual content requiring effort, research, and reliance on the Holy Spirit for understanding.
The doctrine of the perspicuity (readability) of Scripture arose throughout the Reformation to counter the medieval Roman Catholic perception that Scripture may solely be accurately interpreted by popes and church councils. Reformers equivalent to Martin Luther and John Calvin believed that the elemental teachings of the Bible, which information individuals to everlasting life by means of religion in Christ, are clear and comprehensible for everybody. They emphasised that with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, anybody can grasp these teachings with no need an knowledgeable interpreter from the church.
Nonetheless, we’ve got exaggerated the doctrine to anticipate that all of Scripture needs to be straightforward to understand on a primary studying. This expectation has led to readers feeling frustration and disgrace after they inevitably encounter inscrutable elements of the Bible as a result of textual content’s depth and complexity.
An apt metaphor of unsure origin illustrates this twin side of Scripture’s readability: Scripture is like an ocean in that the necessities of salvation are like shallow waters—simply accessible to all who wade in—however the deeper truths are just like the ocean depths– requiring effort, instruments, and steerage to discover absolutely.
Every time that I’ve begun a Bible research or a chat at a convention with the acknowledgment that Scripture is tough to grasp, college students and individuals chill out a bit and turn into extra keen to have interaction with the textual content. Setting their expectations appropriately anticipates their frustration and invitations their questioning and participation.
For college kids new to my Bible research, I usually start by studying them a headline from that week’s information and asking them to inform me what the headline means. For instance, once I first began this train in 2016, there was a headline that learn, “Hillary Hammers Trump on Taxes.” The freshmen stared at me, incredulous that I didn’t perceive the easy headline. I proceeded to ask extra particular questions like: Who’s Hillary? Who’s Trump? What are taxes? As they answered these questions, I continued asking what they meant by their solutions: What’s a presidential candidate? What’s an election? How is it run? What’s america? Did Hillary take a hammer to Trump’s head?
Often midway by means of the train, college students start to grasp what I get at: A lot contextual information is taken with no consideration for us to make that means out of a easy modern headline. Archaeologists who discover our information tales 2,000 years from now must reconstruct a lot in an effort to attain an correct understanding of what the journalist meant. And no, it by no means can imply sooner or later what it by no means may have meant now. If the author of the headline by no means meant that Hillary took a hammer to Trump’s head, then it can not imply that 2,000 years from now both.
Bible studying requires effort for a number of causes. First, there may be the cultural and historic distance between the world of the Bible and our personal. The Bible was written in historical languages and inside high-context cultures vastly completely different from the fashionable world, so understanding the context of the unique viewers is essential. Second, the literary selection discovered inside the Bible presents one other problem. The Bible consists of many genres—equivalent to poetry, prophecy, narrative, and discourse—every requiring a special method to interpretation.
Lastly, the Bible because the self-revelation of the trinitarian God signifies that it addresses profound theological truths, features of which we will solely apprehend, not absolutely comprehend. The Scriptures reveal the character of God, the human situation, and the story of redemption in ways in which stretch our understanding and invite us into deeper reflection. Given these challenges, understanding the Bible takes effort and intentionality.
Be affected person, persistent, and prayerful! Don’t anticipate to grasp every little thing instantly. The Bible is wealthy with layers of that means that require time, research, and endurance. Proceed studying commonly, trusting that God will reveal extra as you develop in your understanding.
Ava Ligh serves as campus employees for Reformed University Fellowship at Columbia College in New York Metropolis.
1 We learn as a result of Scripture is God’s self-revelation, illuminating who He’s, what He requires, and the way He saves. With out it, we stay at nighttime about God’s nature and our personal situation. Common revelation by means of creation confirms our guilt earlier than a holy God (Romans 1:21), however particular revelation in Scripture offers the treatment, providing everlasting life by means of religion in Christ (Psalm 119:105; John 5:24; 2 Timothy 3:16).
2 Based on a survey achieved by Crossway in 2018, the highest barrier to Bible studying for 6000 of its readers was “I don’t really feel like I’ve sufficient time.” Crossway, Infographic: How Do You Learn the Bible?, Crossway, final modified October 4, 2023, https://www.crossway.org/articles/infographic-how-do-you-read-the-bible/
3 Pew Analysis Middle, “Cell Truth Sheet,” Pew Analysis Middle, final modified June 12, 2023, https://www.pewresearch.org/web/fact-sheet/cellular/#:~:textual content=Thepercent20vastpercent20majoritypercent20ofpercent20Americans,sm artphonepercent20ownershippercent20conductedpercent20inpercent202011; Crossway, Infographic: You Can Learn Extra of the Bible Than You Suppose, Crossway, final modified October 4, 2023, https://www.crossway.org/articles/infographic-you-can-read-more-of-the-bible-than-you-think/
4 Craig G. Bartholomew and Michael W. Goheen, The Drama of Scripture (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Educational, 2004), 14.
