Worship While It’s Warm

As my departure to begin seminary draws near, one question frequently asked of me is “so what are you planning to do with this education”. Of course, not always those words verbatim but the theme does prevail in most questions. While I can recite a list of multi ambitions (which I do have), my short answer is very simple. I want christians to undertand how to read their bibles. Yes, it does seem like a simple goal relative to the investment of time and cost to achieve 4 years of education. But, it is so foundational to understand our christian walk that how we approach the bible will make all the difference in the world.

I have heard many a preacher direct their listeners to just read their bible. Just do it! (as the title of post says). Read it and do what it says. The problem with this approach is that it does not give really give believers the tools to adequately understand what the christian life is about. It does not train the learner to adequately understand how all the books fit together. For it is the fitting together that creates the theme of this christian life - 66 books, written by 40 different authors over the span of 1,500 years in different genres of literature, divinely inspired to create a whole picture of what a loving God would want to communicate to us about Himself and about us.

The Just do It approach will encourage eisegesis through promotion of some passages over others. It will generate favored themes, that if left unchecked will deviate into misunderstandings of what the text is really communicating. Has this not been the case of many a cult? Even within evangelical circles, we can gravitate towards what seems appealing about christianity, because maybe that theme is not weighed against the whole counsel of scripture nor considered in its historical, cultural, grammatical context. One of the most egregious errors I have heard is scriptures ripped out of context to support an idea. Recently, I was listening to Joyce Meyer who was using Hebrews 1:9 to indicate that God was us to enjoy everyday life. Many people in the audience clapped. I cried and became a little angry. While she is one of the stronger deviants, it does demonstrate that had folks in the audience received adequate training in bible study methods, they would not have been clapping.

I think it is doing christians a major disservice to not teach proper bible study methods. We teach them to accept Christ and follow Him, to love God and to serve Him. But this necessitates having the foundation of what that means. And without the foundation of good bible study methods, I think we create a false dichotomy of knowing God but not really knowing God. If you were to write a book about yourself so people would understand who you were, would that picture not get distorted unless the book was understood as a whole? Good bible study methods give christians the tools to allow the bible to say what it says to get that whole picture. For in that, we learn about the nature and attributes of God, the necessity of salvation and the cross and life as we should live it. But people have to be trained in how to navigate through the 66 books to get the whole picture. And sometimes, its just training people how to read, how to follow the flow of thought and the theme of what’s being written. In fact, I think every church should have as a requirement for all members, a class in how to understand the bible.

One book that I shamelessly plug all the time is Living by the Book, by Howard Hendricks. If you are reading this post and have not read Hendricks book, I would strongly encourage you to read it. It provides the 3 components of approaching the bible:

1) Observation - what does it say

2) Interpretation - what does it mean

3) Application - what does it mean for me