When I first encountered the Bible as a new believer it felt like a foreign object. Though I knew little about it, I had this notion that it could help or guide me through all of life’s challenges. As a young teen that meant offering advice on dating, friendship, knowing right from wrong, how to keep my siblings from pestering me, and how to avoid sin. I remember holding it in my hands wondering how a book filled with tiny writing and a language that felt like it came from Shakespearean times would help me in my present-day life.
I finally joined a decoding class, a.k.a Bible study, as an attempted effort to make heads or tails of this ancient holy book. My early introductions were mixed. Some taught it as a guidebook for life and others started interpreting it’s cryptic meanings and details in what I felt were mystical insights. Both ways intrigued me and fueled my hunger to understand it’s mysteries.
All the Answers to Life
I slowly started getting a grip on the basics: book names, various authors, chapters and verses, Old Testament Law versus New Testament Gospel and Epistles. Then came the God-inspired aspects, Jesus being the way the truth and the life, the gospel of salvation, my salvation, and prophets and revelations. With all I was learning, somewhere in the mix, the message that the Bible had all the answers to life still rattled in the recesses of my mind. I often viewed it as my magic eight ball. When I didn’t know how to approach or read the Bible, I distinctly remember looking at it, asking a question, and then assuming that whatever page I opened it to would magically hold the answer–it was God-inspired, right? He knew what answer I needed… You may be thinking, how foolish, but sadly I treated the Bible this way for years and sadder still, no one told me there was another way.
Bible Illiterate Christian, There is Another Way
Surprisingly, I often come across Christian articles claiming that today’s American Christians are Bible illiterate. I think it must mean there are still many of us who view the Bible and read it as I just described; a magic eightball with quick-inspired answers. The problem that arises when we approach the Bible this way, is that it revolves around us working to affirm what we already desire, what will comfort us, our sin or ‘goodness’, or even worse define God the way we think he should operate or exist. We want what we are looking for, not an encounter with God. We aren’t opening it for understanding or wisdom outside of our own making, we aren’t trying to comprehend God’s true message or the heart of the redemption story, or even strength to embrace suffering, we are looking for justification for our self-contrived ‘truths’ or affirmation to build up our self-propagating efforts for success, power, and control.
When we view the Bible this way, it will inevitably leave us disappointed, blaming God, or fed up with religion. That is because we are trying to fit the Bible into our overly planned lives and not allowing the Bible to transform our lives. Until we walk away from this antiquated way of reading, opening, or interpreting the Bible, we will remain illiterate. So, I am here to be the person to say—there is another way.
Time to Release the Grip
Though America has more translations of the Bible compared with other nations, the average person still struggles with how to approach the Bible (or God) or has no desire to try. The Bible will continue to feel foreign in our hands, to our eyes, and our ears until our intentions toward it change. The Bible is written in our heart language (I shared about this in the story: Once Upon a Time), it is written specifically for us, but if we aren’t laying down pride, selfish gain, or vanity when we read it, then we are essentially blocking our ability to discern the message written directly to us.
At the end of the day, rather than asking the Bible what it can do for you, we should be looking for God in the Bible asking him, what do you want from me?
The Bible may very well offer insight, help, and wisdom for present situations and problems, and it does offer answers to life’s questions, however, if we are hoping it will be a guidebook we may find it may not be as clear cut as we’d hope. It is also not a sin management manual filled with do’s and don’ts and it’s not a plethora of feel-good verses for devotional material because it is more. It is the living, breathing words of God possessing the power to speak to us, inform us, guide us, open our eyes and ears, transform us, give us wisdom and understanding, and engage us in a relationship. It is the gateway to a journey, but we can’t be the driver in this journey. We have to release our grip on the wheel and quiet down as a back seat driver and let it take us where we need to go, not where we think we want to go.
A Place to Steep
Nobody likes a glass, or a cup, of weak tea. It is thin, flavorless, lacks the caffeine kick, and essentially is brown water. When we open the Bible to dabble in verses for self-help we are essentially drinking brown water. It is weak, bland, and comes up lacking. As I wrote in, Once Upon A Time, God’s word is meant to be meditated upon, we are to steep in it daily, absorbing it’s words, even if we don’t understand, and over time the Spirit opens to us and tends to our roots so they grow deep until the word comes alive in our lives thus producing fruit.
but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,
Psalm 1:2-3 (NIV)
and who meditates on his law day and night.
That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
Discerning the Bible is Like Getting to Know a Friend
Steeping in God’s word makes way for a journey toward a life-long friendship. We don’t become experts in understanding God’s Word overnight nor do we know everything about our friends or spouses in a week or lifetime for that matter. The Word, described in John 1, is the living embodiment of the triune God; it is flesh, spirit, and God, and because Jesus calls us friends in John 15:15, we grow in friendship with this complex triune being when we commune in the Word. Therefore, we can not rush the get-to-know time necessary for investing in this relationship, mind you, we are typically slow learners anyway. We must take our time, chew on it like cud, roll it around in our minds, question and dig, tend to it in order to know it. The living Word requires a vibrant, living relationship for health. In order to discern God’s word; meaning knowing it, learning from it, and receiving wisdom for life’s path and decisions, we must open it like sitting down to coffee with an old friend. When is the last time you opened the Bible and said, “Let’s get to know one another.”
In Knowing the Bible, We Begin to Know God and Ourselves
When we view the Bible as a friend then we get to know God; to discover his nature, heart, desires, motives, visions, longings, and his deep love of you. In this process of knowing God, we begin to see our faces reflected in his. The reflection is how God sees us. It is him showing us who he truly created us to be–our true self as he intended, reflected by his glory. In these moments we begin to discern our fundamental needs and how we were made and long to live. We see reflected back at us our truest longings which are not self-propagated or even self-conjured plans, they are God-inspired and Kingdom-focused truths that give our life meaning and purpose.
Periodical moments of turning to the Bible for a quick motivational word or fix for the day won’t foster discernment, literacy, or understanding. A surrendered life to Jesus is a life-long commitment to commune within the living Bible, even when we don’t understand, feel angry, or unmotivated.
Where Discernment Begins
Our new covenant relationship with Christ demands all of our person surrendered and steeping in the goodness of God’s love (John 14: 23-24). Our friendship with God’s word opens our understanding of who God is, who we are in relation to him, and the path before us—this is what it means to discern God’s word. The Bible is the soil in which our roots grow deep in maturity so that our life bears fruit, but we cannot contrive or manipulate it to our will. Being fully God the Father, God the Spirit, and God the Son (flesh) the Bible serves only one purpose—to transform us into someone new, the person we were created to be living the life we were set out to live.
Do you want to be that person, to befriend the Bible, to discover how a discerning life in the Word is lived?
Additional Resources
How to Read the Bible
If you still find yourself wondering how to open the Bible and comprehend it’s content, we live in a time where there are amazing resources that can help us. I have shared before that one of my favorite ministries is The Bible Project. They have informative videos, podcasts, and articles that can help us understand how to read or even approach the Bible in practical ways. I encourage you to view their series on How to Read the Bible.
What Kind of Friend is the Bible?
The Word of God is multi-faceted. Below are verses describing God’s word. As you read these verses, how does God describe himself? What kind of friend might the Word be? Which aspect would you like to know more deeply?
- It existed at the beginning with God. (John 1)
- Through the Word all things were made, the Word became flesh, incarnate word of life. (John 1)
- The Word goes out and does not return empty; it has a purpose to accomplish. (Isaiah 55:11)
- The Word is Law, teaching right and wrong. (Proverbs 2:9)
- The Word is comforting and guides us. (Psalm 119:52, 105)
- God’s words give wisdom, knowledge, and understanding. (Proverbs 2:6)
- God speaks in a covenant relationship. (Exodus 6)
- The Word of God spreads. (Acts 6:7)
- The Word is the breath of God, spoken from his mouth and useful for teaching. (2 Timothy 3:16)
- It is alive and active and concerned with the Heart. (Hebrews 4:12)
- The Word is truth. (John 17:17)
- Hearing and receiving his Word is the Spirit and eternal life. (John 5:24, John 6:63)
Do you have a prayer need?
Like many of you, our state has extended our ‘stay in place’ order. This news left me feeling a bit discouraged and may have done the same for you, so if I could be praying for you in this season, please send me your prayer requests below. It would be an honor to join with you in this way as we journey through a challenging season together. We must remember that even though we may feel alone, we are never alone, we have a vibrant growing family and this is a time we can really connect with each other through Spirit-led ways that we perhaps neglect at times.
What a wonderful reminder of the value of God’s word, especially to a grieved world.