How Do You Read the Bible?

Have you ever read the Bible and felt like you're not ‘getting it’? This feeling can stem from approaching the Bible with a faulty paradigm - a framework or set of expectations that shapes our understanding of reality. Paradigms operate subconsciously, guiding how we interpret and understand our experiences. We all bring paradigms when we read and study the Bible. So, it's helpful to examine ourselves and consider which paradigms we've adopted and whether they're helping us understand God’s Word.

Here are three common but unhelpful paradigms for studying the Bible. All three share a ‘reference book mentality’. They treat the Bible like Wikipedia or a dictionary – a source only helpful for answering our questions. We flip through reference books to find the information we need rather than reading them cover to cover. While the Bible addresses human needs and answers our questions, if we read it like a reference book, we miss out on the story it’s telling.


The Bible Is Not a Theology Dictionary

The first of these ‘reference book’ paradigms says, “The Bible is a theology dictionary.” This paradigm treats the Bible like an expert resource on theological matters: how to structure a church, how to deal with the problem of evil, how to understand Jesus’ humanity and deity, etc.

Reading the Bible like this can be helpful. However, when this becomes the sole way we engage with it, we miss the grand narrative of the Bible, the greatest story ever told. We forfeit the richness of a passage if we reach for it simply to make a broader theological point. The best theologians first seek to understand passages of Scripture in their original context, as part of this greatest story, and then derive theological principles from that understanding.


The Bible Is Not a Moral Handbook

It’s not uncommon for people to appeal to the Bible as the basis for their moral beliefs. An overemphasis, however, trains others who follow Jesus (and those who don’t) to see it primarily as a rulebook.

Of course, deriving moral principles from the Bible is necessary – otherwise, we would arrive at moral preferences without any authority but our own. The Bible itself begins with the question, “Who gets to define what is good, humans or God?”.

But instead of only answering moral questions with a set of rules, the Bible invites people into a dynamic process of forming and aligning their ethics and character with God. For example, Jesus affirms the rule against murder and also teaches his disciples that there is a greater depth to it, that anger and hatred within a person’s heart are akin to murder (Matthew 5:21-22). A rulebook tells people what to do and leaves it at that. Instead, the Bible is designed to cultivate wisdom and purity in us and form us into people who need fewer rules because our character has been formed by God through his word.


The Bible Is Not a ‘Devotional Grab Bag’

At best, this paradigm professes a (true) belief that the Bible exists to connect us to the presence of the living God. But, it also focuses attention only on the ‘feel-good’ sections of Scripture that leave us with a strong emotional sensation. In the process, the devotional grab bag paradigm ends up doing what the other reference book paradigms do – sidestepping the full story of the Bible.


Perhaps the Bible has become stale for you, like flicking through the pages of a dictionary or rulebook. Exposing these three unhelpful paradigms is not meant to leave you deflated but hopeful. God gave us the Bible. He could have given us a theological dictionary, a moral handbook or a devotional grab bag if that is what he thought we needed but, he gave us the Bible: a divine-human book that speaks God's word to his people, telling the greatest story ever told that ultimately leads us to Jesus, the one who has power to change lives.

A New Years Resolution?

Have you given any thought to New Year's resolutions this year? 

I used to be sceptical of them, but over the past few years, I've become more convinced of the value of making resolutions i.e. commitments to pursue specific personal goals. You may not achieve what you hoped, but if you aim at nothing, that's often what you achieve. 

I wouldn't restrict such commitments just to a new calendar year. Instead, I'd encourage you to regularly take time to step back, and assess each aspect of your life (your spiritual life, your relationships, your work, your responsibilities, and patterns of life), and reflect (with the Lord) on how you might need to make adjustments. 

As you're doing that, let me make one suggestion that might be helpful for your walk with God: establish a triplet with a couple of Christian friends.  

Have you got a couple of friends you could commit to meeting regularly (either weekly or bi-weekly), who you'll commit to being honest with, sharing your struggles, confessing your sin, reminding each other of the gospel, and praying for each other? 

I ask, partly because we're starting a Community Bible Reading plan as a church. You're still able to join the WhatsApp group if you'd like to (where we'll share weekly devotional content). You're welcome to follow along individually, but I think you'd get a lot out of forming a triplet with a couple of other folks. Alongside being honest with each other, you could reflect each week on what you've been reading and how you feel like God has been speaking to you through scripture. 

I know some of us in London feel lonely. We cast about, asking, "who are my friends?". One of my main learnings about friendship as an adult is life is full of potential friends. It's simply a matter of who you commit time to. The more you regularly invest time in another person, the better friends you become. So, the question, for 2024, is who will you commit to?  

Others of us feel like we have lots of relationships, but we haven't experienced deep, spiritual friendship like this. There's something incredibly special about choosing to be radically honest with a couple of people, and engaging with the hardest elements of your lives together. 

So, whether you're doing CBR or not, I'd encourage you to find a couple of people (who you might not know so well to begin with), and commit, perhaps for a few months at first, to meeting regularly. If you're honest, and enter in, asking how can I encourage, pray and serve the other two, I'm pretty confident you'll find it immensely life-giving.