You may have hopes that you can open your Bible and get a quick dose of spiritual wisdom but the Bible wasn’t written to you. You may want to claim a verse like “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth” but that verse isn’t a verse about parenting and its not about your children. “It is appointed to men to die once and then comes the judgment” is not a verse about death
and judgment, it’s a supporting argument of a larger discourse discussing Christ’s atonement. “I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith” is not a verse about evangelism. Sounds like it in isolation but in the larger picture of the book it’s talking about Philemon’s generosity.
The Bible isn’t a fortune cookie that you can crack open and get out a pithy little message that’s going to help you through the day. Instead it is a collection of books, poems, histories, tragedies and more and if you want to “apply it to your life” you’ve first got to consider how that particular message was meant to apply to someone else’s life. That’s right, the Bible wasn’t written to you. It was written to the people of Israel, and Philemon, and Theophilus and the church at Corinth. But that ain’t you. So you’re reading someone else’s mail. Or listening in on one half of a phone conversation. If you want to apply it to your life, first you’ve got to approach the text carefully, even humbly and ask, “What was the original author saying to the original readers and why?” That’s not an easy question. You won’t be able to answer it in just five minutes of Bible reading a day. You won’t be able to answer that question by jumping from one section of the Bible to the next as you go through your Bible reading plan. Imagine reading the Sunday paper like you read your Bible. Monday you read one paragraph of the front page, then you read one paragraph of the sports section, now jump over to the opinion page and read a paragraph there. That’s all for today. On Tuesday you can continue reading the lead story and find out how the game ended and read some more of the op-ed piece. Is that the way you read the paper? Why not? Because chopping up the Sunday paper like that destroys the message.
The Bible isn’t meant to be treated like a bag of “trail mix” where you fish out all the sweet parts that you like and leave the rest. There are treasures in “the Book” but only if you’re willing to receive the message in the way it was intended. In God’s word we have a treasure of literature unsurpassed in the world. It would be worth reading just for that reason. Have you read the book of Nahum? The poetry is so vivid you are transported into a world of clashing swords and careening chariots. Have you walked the streets of Jerusalem with Jeremiah? The Lamentation is moving in the extreme. But the Bible isn’t meant to be just studied. “Meditate on it day and night.” “Your word have I hidden in my heart.” “The man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it-he will be blessed in what he does.”
God has preserved these messages over many centuries and brought it into your language. It is worth the trouble to understand his message on his terms. Its not a grab bag of moralisms, sound bites or bumper-sticker sayings. The Bible means something but not necessarily what you think it does. The truth is there, but truth taken out of context is destroyed or can be turned into a lie. Read it in the original packaging. Usually that means reading an entire letter, or an entire discourse, or a major section of a book. Read it and read it again. Ask questions about the text. Who wrote it to whom? What is the occasion of the letter? Is the message of this text universal or was it addressing a specific person or situation? If it was written to a specific person or situation, is there an indirect application of this truth for your life?
The Bible wasn’t written to you, but it was written for you. Read it the right way and you’ll hear the voice of God.
Scriptures cited: 3 John 4; Hebrews 9:27; Philemon 6; Nahum; Lamentations; Joshua 1:8; Psalm 119:11; James 1:25
Note: This post was originally published on May 24, 2006.
Lingamish Lenses:
Bible Study + Bible Translation + New Testament Greek
The Bible may not have been written to you, but the Torah, which is described in the Talmud as the blueprint of the universe, was certainly given at Sinai for all time. So, the Torah was absolutely written to the Jews — the descendants of those at Sinai and all those who have taken on the yoke of Torah. It is a law book that still applies today — that is why we call it the Tree of Life.
Now, I know it is different with the gentiles, who regard the Torah as important, but not binding on them. But every religious Jew certainly regards the Torah as written to him or her.