I find that many people have a hard time getting into Scripture. This is completely justified. My father has been in full-time ministry my entire life and I don't think I understood what Scripture really was until I was 24 years old or so. The challenges are real. When picking up the Bible, you are picking up a book that contains 66 different texts written by about 40 different authors in numerous genres over more than a thousand years. It is quite an anthology. The coolest anthology, of course, considering the compiler is the Creator of the universe. Considering the importance of knowing what God has said, the importance of approaching Scripture well is significant.
When approaching Scripture, I believe the first principle to understand is possibly the most widely known--the Bible is separated into an Old and New Testament. The Old Testament details events that occurred from creation until about 400 BC, while the New Testament primarily testifies about Christ and the happenings of the early Church (about 2 BC to 65 AD or so). I like the word testament when referring to the separation because the word testament means "proof or evidence that something exists or is true". I like this because if there is any one characteristic I would attribute to the Bible the characteristic would be: true. Like mentioned, when approaching the Bible the genre changes, the human author changes, the time period changes, and the interpretation method needed changes, but one characteristic that is universal is the Bible's truth. However, terms I want to introduce alongside Old and New Testament are Old and New Covenant.
The reason Old and New Covenant are important terms to understand is because they illustrate a difference in how God has related to people during history. I have heard people say, "The Old Testament God was angry." This is not entirely incorrect but possibly misleading. Misleading because this statement can lead people to believe God was different during the Old and New Testaments. This is not true. In Malachi 3:6 God says, "I the Lord do not change". The author of Hebrews writes, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever." (13:8) This all makes sense, God is perfect--one cannot become more or less perfect, it is an absolute standard. However, God actually was more angry in the Old Testament. This could be a problem to some, "How can someone be unchanging but have a change in emotions?" one might ask. The answer is that God's standard and His nature never change, but His emotions can. The reason why God was more angry during the Old Testament is fully explained in the concept of the Old and New Covenants.
You see, Jesus coming, living, dying, and resurrecting ushered in a new agreement/relationship between man and God. God has a perfect standard and is angered by behavior that falls short of that standard (sin). Prior to Jesus dying on the cross and therefore defeating sin, there was no satisfactory sacrifice for sin, hence God's greater anger at it. However, under the New Covenant, we are able to approach God freely and righteously because of the payment Jesus paid for our sins. This New Covenant ushered in the church that is open to all people regardless of race or nationality and made the church a "royal priesthood"--a people that could approach God freely. Not understanding this difference in relationship between God and man in the Old and New Testaments is sure to leave you lost.
Another piece of advice I have when approaching Scripture is to do so thoughtfully. "Thoughtfully", this could mean a host of things, but here is what I mean: approaching Scripture very much like you would approach a piece of literature in English or History class. Of course the Bible is very different from other pieces of literature, but it is literature nonetheless, and one must approach it with similar principles as he would approach the Declaration of Independence. This is probably the point I was missing most during my dark ages of Biblical literacy. I unconsciously was using the "open to any place in the Bible and let God speak method". Of course I knew all of the books of the Bible and what not, but I figured God's word all spoke the same way. Approaching the Bible in this way can be quite harmful. If I read, "Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall purge the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear, and fear." (Deuteronomy 21:21) in isolation I would not know what to do with it. It certainly does not sound like a verse that I would hang on my wall. All of the Bible must be read in context. Doing so begins in much the same way reading a piece of literature should.
During a professional development at the high school I teach at, I once heard an experienced English teacher present on using SOAPSTone with her students. SOAPSTone stands for: Speaker, Occasion, Audience, Purpose, Subject, and Tone. Using this approach is quite helpful when reading Scripture. If we are going to read Scripture well, we should know who (human author) is writing (Speaker), when he is writing (Occasion), whom he is writing to (Audience), why he is writing (Purpose), what he is writing about (Subject), and what approach he is using (Tone). The trouble is the novice reader is usually only capable of examining the subject, and the subject often does not make a lot of sense without the other information. It could be difficult for you to gather much from a letter written between Abraham Lincoln and his wife unless you knew who was writing, when he was writing, why he was writing, and what events were surrounding the instance of writing. Answering all of these questions creates a much better interpretation. Doing so will also help you avoid possibly the worst mistake in Bible reading--over applying the text.
One of the worst mistakes people make in reading the Bible is applying texts to themselves that are not necessarily applicable to them. We can call this error: "applying here and now before understanding then and there". It is important that we understand what a Biblical author was saying to the original audience before we start applying the text to ourselves. Using the verse from Deuteronomy quoted before provides an example. That commandment was written to the people of Israel about 3000 years ago. The people of Israel were a theocracy, meaning their government and religion were very much the same thing. This means that the criminal justice system was completely intertwined with their religion and therefore they could be much more strict about crimes that would not necessarily be considered as serious today. The church is no longer supposed to be synonymous with the criminal justice system. This is a change ushered in by the New Covenant. Of course we should advocate for certain rights to be protected, but we cannot expect all of God's laws to be fully implemented in a pluralistic society. If we do not understand that the nation of Israel's original circumstances and mandate are slightly different than the church's we can easily get this mixed up and misapply the text. We must always understand what the text meant then and there, before we cross the bridge to applying it here and now.
Understanding a text then and there can be difficult however. The Biblical authors did not leave us footnotes that explained the cultural conditions of their times. Paul didn't leave us a book of maps that detailed his journeys. This is where Biblical scholars provide us a great service in their creation of resources. My recommendation for the ordinary Bible reader is a Study Bible that has good introductions to each book and footnotes, maps, and diagrams throughout. Here is a link to a page full of study bibles. I think the ESV Study Bible does a great job, but each has its own merits.
All of my advice thus far has been slightly academic; I will close with some very practical advice. The first is an approach to getting at the subject of the text. When reading the Bible I would argue that 2 of the primary goals are: 1) learning about God and 2) learning how man should respond to God. To accomplish this, I find it helpful to create a t-chart with Theology on one side of the chart and Application on the other side of the chart.
The last thing I will share is concerning where to begin. The Bible, of course, is a very large book and picking a place to begin can be daunting. If you were to begin in Leviticus, for instance, I do not think you would make it very far. Of course God can do a miraculous work, but Leviticus is filled with dense instructions directed to the nation of Israel. There is not as much contemporary application to be gleaned from the pages of Leviticus as say Paul's letter to the Ephesians. If I were to begin in Scripture, knowing what I know, I would start with one of the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John). Out of the 4, I would probably recommend Mark. Mark tends to read like a modern documentary. The author bounces from scene to scene quickly to paint a picture of Christ's life, ministry, death, and resurrection. Starting with a Gospel is a good idea because Jesus is the center of Christianity and you are going to find Him most in a Gospel. From there I would possibly read Romans, the Psalms, or the Proverbs. Romans is possibly the most thorough theological explanation of Christian belief and practice in the Bible, while the Psalms demonstrate how to relate to God, and the Proverbs describe living a life of wisdom. With this being said, if using a Study Bible, a literate person with enough motivation should be able to pick up any of the Biblical texts, read them in context, learn about God, and apply the text. Doing so should be an incredibly rich experience.
It is in the pages of Scripture that God most fully reveals Himself. Of course we can see Him in nature, but it is in Scripture that we learn details about His creation, instructions concerning how we should live, accounts of His great redemptive work through Jesus, and the hope that is offered in eternity with Him. It is a shame if someone cannot read God's word for himself, as the lessons, the hope, and the love that His word contains are immense and life-changing.
When approaching Scripture, I believe the first principle to understand is possibly the most widely known--the Bible is separated into an Old and New Testament. The Old Testament details events that occurred from creation until about 400 BC, while the New Testament primarily testifies about Christ and the happenings of the early Church (about 2 BC to 65 AD or so). I like the word testament when referring to the separation because the word testament means "proof or evidence that something exists or is true". I like this because if there is any one characteristic I would attribute to the Bible the characteristic would be: true. Like mentioned, when approaching the Bible the genre changes, the human author changes, the time period changes, and the interpretation method needed changes, but one characteristic that is universal is the Bible's truth. However, terms I want to introduce alongside Old and New Testament are Old and New Covenant.
The reason Old and New Covenant are important terms to understand is because they illustrate a difference in how God has related to people during history. I have heard people say, "The Old Testament God was angry." This is not entirely incorrect but possibly misleading. Misleading because this statement can lead people to believe God was different during the Old and New Testaments. This is not true. In Malachi 3:6 God says, "I the Lord do not change". The author of Hebrews writes, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever." (13:8) This all makes sense, God is perfect--one cannot become more or less perfect, it is an absolute standard. However, God actually was more angry in the Old Testament. This could be a problem to some, "How can someone be unchanging but have a change in emotions?" one might ask. The answer is that God's standard and His nature never change, but His emotions can. The reason why God was more angry during the Old Testament is fully explained in the concept of the Old and New Covenants.
You see, Jesus coming, living, dying, and resurrecting ushered in a new agreement/relationship between man and God. God has a perfect standard and is angered by behavior that falls short of that standard (sin). Prior to Jesus dying on the cross and therefore defeating sin, there was no satisfactory sacrifice for sin, hence God's greater anger at it. However, under the New Covenant, we are able to approach God freely and righteously because of the payment Jesus paid for our sins. This New Covenant ushered in the church that is open to all people regardless of race or nationality and made the church a "royal priesthood"--a people that could approach God freely. Not understanding this difference in relationship between God and man in the Old and New Testaments is sure to leave you lost.
Another piece of advice I have when approaching Scripture is to do so thoughtfully. "Thoughtfully", this could mean a host of things, but here is what I mean: approaching Scripture very much like you would approach a piece of literature in English or History class. Of course the Bible is very different from other pieces of literature, but it is literature nonetheless, and one must approach it with similar principles as he would approach the Declaration of Independence. This is probably the point I was missing most during my dark ages of Biblical literacy. I unconsciously was using the "open to any place in the Bible and let God speak method". Of course I knew all of the books of the Bible and what not, but I figured God's word all spoke the same way. Approaching the Bible in this way can be quite harmful. If I read, "Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall purge the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear, and fear." (Deuteronomy 21:21) in isolation I would not know what to do with it. It certainly does not sound like a verse that I would hang on my wall. All of the Bible must be read in context. Doing so begins in much the same way reading a piece of literature should.
During a professional development at the high school I teach at, I once heard an experienced English teacher present on using SOAPSTone with her students. SOAPSTone stands for: Speaker, Occasion, Audience, Purpose, Subject, and Tone. Using this approach is quite helpful when reading Scripture. If we are going to read Scripture well, we should know who (human author) is writing (Speaker), when he is writing (Occasion), whom he is writing to (Audience), why he is writing (Purpose), what he is writing about (Subject), and what approach he is using (Tone). The trouble is the novice reader is usually only capable of examining the subject, and the subject often does not make a lot of sense without the other information. It could be difficult for you to gather much from a letter written between Abraham Lincoln and his wife unless you knew who was writing, when he was writing, why he was writing, and what events were surrounding the instance of writing. Answering all of these questions creates a much better interpretation. Doing so will also help you avoid possibly the worst mistake in Bible reading--over applying the text.
One of the worst mistakes people make in reading the Bible is applying texts to themselves that are not necessarily applicable to them. We can call this error: "applying here and now before understanding then and there". It is important that we understand what a Biblical author was saying to the original audience before we start applying the text to ourselves. Using the verse from Deuteronomy quoted before provides an example. That commandment was written to the people of Israel about 3000 years ago. The people of Israel were a theocracy, meaning their government and religion were very much the same thing. This means that the criminal justice system was completely intertwined with their religion and therefore they could be much more strict about crimes that would not necessarily be considered as serious today. The church is no longer supposed to be synonymous with the criminal justice system. This is a change ushered in by the New Covenant. Of course we should advocate for certain rights to be protected, but we cannot expect all of God's laws to be fully implemented in a pluralistic society. If we do not understand that the nation of Israel's original circumstances and mandate are slightly different than the church's we can easily get this mixed up and misapply the text. We must always understand what the text meant then and there, before we cross the bridge to applying it here and now.
Understanding a text then and there can be difficult however. The Biblical authors did not leave us footnotes that explained the cultural conditions of their times. Paul didn't leave us a book of maps that detailed his journeys. This is where Biblical scholars provide us a great service in their creation of resources. My recommendation for the ordinary Bible reader is a Study Bible that has good introductions to each book and footnotes, maps, and diagrams throughout. Here is a link to a page full of study bibles. I think the ESV Study Bible does a great job, but each has its own merits.
All of my advice thus far has been slightly academic; I will close with some very practical advice. The first is an approach to getting at the subject of the text. When reading the Bible I would argue that 2 of the primary goals are: 1) learning about God and 2) learning how man should respond to God. To accomplish this, I find it helpful to create a t-chart with Theology on one side of the chart and Application on the other side of the chart.
Doing this will lead you into focusing on these 2 purposes of reading Scripture and particularly focus you on the attributes of God, which are medicine to the soul. This approach is certainly not a perfect approach to Scripture but simply one I have found helpful.
The last thing I will share is concerning where to begin. The Bible, of course, is a very large book and picking a place to begin can be daunting. If you were to begin in Leviticus, for instance, I do not think you would make it very far. Of course God can do a miraculous work, but Leviticus is filled with dense instructions directed to the nation of Israel. There is not as much contemporary application to be gleaned from the pages of Leviticus as say Paul's letter to the Ephesians. If I were to begin in Scripture, knowing what I know, I would start with one of the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John). Out of the 4, I would probably recommend Mark. Mark tends to read like a modern documentary. The author bounces from scene to scene quickly to paint a picture of Christ's life, ministry, death, and resurrection. Starting with a Gospel is a good idea because Jesus is the center of Christianity and you are going to find Him most in a Gospel. From there I would possibly read Romans, the Psalms, or the Proverbs. Romans is possibly the most thorough theological explanation of Christian belief and practice in the Bible, while the Psalms demonstrate how to relate to God, and the Proverbs describe living a life of wisdom. With this being said, if using a Study Bible, a literate person with enough motivation should be able to pick up any of the Biblical texts, read them in context, learn about God, and apply the text. Doing so should be an incredibly rich experience.
It is in the pages of Scripture that God most fully reveals Himself. Of course we can see Him in nature, but it is in Scripture that we learn details about His creation, instructions concerning how we should live, accounts of His great redemptive work through Jesus, and the hope that is offered in eternity with Him. It is a shame if someone cannot read God's word for himself, as the lessons, the hope, and the love that His word contains are immense and life-changing.
For a more thorough explanation of approaching Scripture I have found the following two resources helpful and thoroughly recommended:
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