Is Scripture Really That Important?
The Bible was written more than 2000 years ago. How can a book that old be relevant to our modern lives? In an age of anxiety and distortion, we're all searching for a truth to ground our reality. So how do we turn to the Bible for more than good advice but a new identity?
Is the Bible Still Relevant?
As our world and culture are in a constant state of turnover, we have become accustomed to the planned obsolesce of our machines and frequent revolutions of our ideas to keep up with the times and stay on the "right" side of history.
Our modern world swirls in consistent flux, where opinions, standards, and perspectives all have their hour and then pass. If we look around, we can see that Heaven and earth do pass away, but as Christians, we believe our Lord when He said, "my words will never pass away.”
Is it actually important for us to live by these words in the 21st century? It's the only thing you can stand on and not be shaken.
Why is Scripture Important?
Scripture is important because it is God's revelation about Himself; it's a way to relate to Him. When we read through the Old and New Testaments, we see revelations of God's will and His heart for His people. We enter into the epic story of God wanting to be with His people.
We live in a post-modern age that has nailed the coffin shut on truth. If the last century proclaimed with Nietzsche that God is dead, our century says truth is dead. It's all relative. What is Truth? Pilate asked our Lord. He did not realize that He was looking at Truth Himself: "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life."
As Christians living in the 21st century—an age of anxiety and distortion—we need a bedrock of foundational truth to ground our view of reality and invite us into a relationship with the One to whom all truth points.
We must believe God is unchanging (though certainly not static or stagnant!). If God is immutable in His love, truth, goodness, and beauty, then we can believe that what was applicable 2000 years ago is still relevant today.
It can be challenging to understand Scripture culturally and contextually. It's easy to assume the dogmas of pop religion that being a good person, going to church, and reading the Bible are ends in themselves.
Question: How many wise men were there at Jesus' birth?
Go to the bottom for the answer!
However, if we stop at those ends, we'll miss the deep joy of what those means and lead to a relationship with the Living God. Scripture is a doorway into intimacy, a signpost to the great destination, God Himself. It is God's Word, meaning that if we want to hear God, converse with Him, and speak with Him, we must posture ourselves before His God-Breathed Word.
Scripture: Good Advice or Good News?
When we open up the Bible, what are we reading? Is it a collection of sayings, history, myth, and poetry? Is it a handbook for moral instruction?
What the Bible certainly IS NOT is merely good advice. The Bible doesn't traffic in making nice people. It's in business is making new people. Before it is anything, the Bible is news—news that the rightful king, who we have been looking for and prophesying about for ages, has finally landed behind enemy lines and is restoring, renewing, and judging all things. When we read the Bible, we are reading a summons to throw down our rebel arms and join the ranks of the rightful king and his kingdom.
If you are opening up a book to hear good advice, you certainly will not want to read:
"For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart." Hebrews 4:12
For when you read the Bible, it is reading you. It knows your heart, desires, needs, guilt, shame, and deep longing to be known. Or, rather, the Word who was in the Beginning and through whom God breathed life into all things (John 1; Genesis 1) is actively present with you and actively pursuing you.
But when we open our Bibles, there is often a disconnect. We see names, references, and chapters, and it can be overwhelming to begin. We want God, but we get Jehosophat, Jethro, or, worse, angels with thousands of eyes and spinning wheels.
Unlike other religious textbooks, which allegedly descended from Heaven and have nothing to do with the likes of men, the Bible is God's Word. Still, like the incarnation where the Word comes to the world through the Virgin, the Word came through historical men at a historical time and place. The Bible, therefore, is incarnational. It is 100 percent God's Word and 100 percent Human word. God not only deigned to speak through men; He delighted in it.
Thus, if we want to commingle with God in His Word, we have to wrestle with the human aspects—and sometimes, it can leave us with a limp! So, learning the context of the books (literary, historical, etc.) and their rhetorical situations (author, audience, and purpose) is a vital struggle if we are to hear the Word correctly. Then, perhaps, like Jacob, we will walk away with more than just a limp but a new name and identity.
When we read the Bible, we can read it with lenses that blind us from seeing what is actually there. We must learn to read the Bible on its terms and not our own. As Paul says, "I am suffering even to the point of being chained like a criminal. But God's word is not chained.” Leave your own presuppositions behind and let the Word be unchained!
But this is hard work. The best place to start is to read books "as wholes." Our chapter and verse system was a medieval invention. For example, John knew nothing about John 3:16, only that God sent his one and only son!
How Do I Read the Bible?
If you've started to read the Bible but cannot make sense of it, you're not alone. Come January 1, most of us take up our New Year's Resolutions, start in Genesis, and breeze through the first half of Exodus and then the waters.
Our Bible reading is often confined to a chapter or a few verses a day. However, if you want to hear the Bible on its terms, you should consider carving out 15 minutes to an hour to read Matthew's whole book or James's epistle before you start studying it. Read it as a story or as a letter. Listen. Be still. Take it all in. Get the complete picture. Look for themes, comparisons, contrasts, climaxes, cause and effect, and repetitions. All Biblical authors used these literary or rhetorical devices to communicate meaning.
Then take it step by step. Remember, the New Testament books were written to churches to be read aloud all at once, and the Old Testament scrolls were read publicly or recited by oral tradition. Moreover, hearing the whole story or argument in one sitting can help us put the smaller units and tricker verses into their broader context and unlock some puzzle pieces that usually leave us mystified.
At first glance, much of Scripture seems to be just a lot of numbers, obscure moral or ceremonial injunctions, bizarre prophetic poetry, and miracles. It can be hard to understand how all/any of it applies.
[READ MORE: How to Read Difficult Scripture]
The first thing to do is to invite the Spirit into your reading. If the Holy Spirit inspired the writing of Scripture (2 Tim 3:16-17; John 14:26), then the Spirit of Truth can also help you read the Scripture.
Approach the Word with a prayerful heart.
Invite God into the process of discovery.
Ask Him to show you what you need to see, where you have darkness that needs light, and where you have weariness that needs rest.
A simple prayer before reading can attune your eyes, mind, and heart to bring you into a new alignment with Christ.
Recommendations:
1) Start with the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke & John)
Everything in the Bible points back to Jesus. English preacher Charles Spurgeon used to say, "All roads lead to London," about Scripture where every verse, chapter, and book points to and is fulfilled in our Lord. The great joy of reading the Scripture Christocentrically (a theological description of focusing on Jesus at the center) is that we see the Old in the New and the New in the Old, with Christ illuminating each and all.
2) Follow a Reading Plan & Use Good Commentaries
Noteworthy Commentaries
How to Read the Bible for all its Worth by Gordon Fee
Essential Bible Study Tools by Dr. David Bauer
People have been reading the Bible for a long time and have trekked its craggy paths and arid deserts and have found places of deep rest and grace, and they have left markers, blazes, and cairns to orient your way. Ask a pastor or a faithful Christian whom you trust to recommend good reading plans and starting points. Tim Keller's Jesus the King (his commentary on Mark), Tim Gombis's book Paul: A Guide for the Perplexed, and N. T. Wright's Simply Jesus are excellent trailheads to begin your journey.
3) Don't Read Alone
"For where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there among them." Matthew 18:20
Gather with other Christians and commune around God's Word. There is power in reading the Word together. If you are a new Bible reader or are reading it seriously for the first time, ask an experienced and faithful reader to join you. If you are young, ask someone older. Inviting others is a way to invite the Lord Himself.
4) Don't Be Afraid of the Old Testament
The Old Testament can feel like a Clint Eastwood movie or a Cormac McCarthy novel. It is violent and grotesque at times. The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly are strewn across every page. But do not let your clean, tidy, and comfortable 21st-century lenses deter you from reading.
Christian author Flannery O'Connor wrote southern gothic stories filled with pain, brokenness, and death, yet they are all full of grace and spiritual power. Both realities are necessary. She said, "You have to make your vision apparent by shock—to the hard of hearing, you shout, and for the almost-blind, you draw large and startling figures."
For the ancient Israelites…AND we are often the deaf and the blind closed off from grace. The Old Testament stories contain a grace that can be hard to stomach but is a medicine we desperately need. If we do not understand the Old, we will cut the Gospel's beauty, truth, and goodness in half. Christ is the New Adam, the New Moses, the New David, the New Temple, the New Sabbath, the true Prophet, Priest, and King.
[READ MORE: How to Understand the Old Testament]
5) The Bible is a Story
Earlier I said that the Bible is a story. It is the great story—the story that all others point to. And it is a story that transcends its pages; it's an epic you are invited to join. From Creation to Fall to Israel to Christ to the Church to New Creation, the Author of Life is writing you in. You become who you were made to be when you become a character in His great, divine drama.
6) Remember the Objective
Remember why you're reading Scripture. If you're reading Scripture to become a better person or seeking more knowledge, you're missing the point: "If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but does not have love, I am nothing.”
Reading God's Word is about communing with God. It is a means of His grace.
It will not be a magic potion where you read the Bible once and are instantly sanctified. It takes work, effort, and patience. However, God promises that if we show up, read, and invite Him into that process, then He will reveal Himself. The end of reading Scripture is love.
[READ MORE: How Do I Read the Bible]
Is the Bible Applicable to Our Lives?
"All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking for directing, and training and righteousness so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." 2 Timothy 3:16-17
The Bible applies not only to your life; it's a lifeline. It's a light to guide you in dark places, a Geiger counter to alert you to invisible and unseen danger, a sword to wield against the Powers of Sin and Death, and a line of communication from the headquarters of Heaven to earth. All of it, as Paul says, is useful and beneficial. It is God's gift to His church and us.
Once we understand Scripture, we can begin to apply it to our daily life through prayer and meditation. Meditation is when you read the Word for what it says, reflect on it, and allow it to abide within your mind and heart.
Blessed is the one "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
and whose leaf does not wither—
whatever they do prospers." Psalm 1:2b-3
Meditation is how the Word of God gets in you, like fresh water gets into the roots and strengthens the tree. Rest in God's Word. Pray through God's Word. If you are struggling to pray, try reading a Psalm a day and echo the Psalmist, line by line, re-contextualizing his words to your life.
Go to the well of the Word daily, and draw forth living water. Then, keep going back; you will begin to see how it connects to your life and makes you come alive.
Answer: It's not three!
We actually do not know how many Wise men there were. The Scripture just says that there were Magi in the plural, but our nativity scenes and elementary school Christmas plays have conditioned us to read the Bible in a certain way and to see certain things. What other things do we see that are not actually there? Or worse, what is there that we do not have eyes to see?!
TL;DR
Scripture is important because it is God's revelation about Himself; it's a means through which we can relate to Him.
The Bible doesn't traffic in making nice people. It's in business is making new people.
Read the Bible as a full story rather than verses, chapters, and books.
The Bible applies not only to your life; it's a lifeline.
Related Reading
How Do I Read the Bible by Grant Caldwell
How to Understand the Old Testament by Grant Caldwell
How to Read Difficult Scripture by Brad Bogue
Why Should I Read the Bible by Bro. Chris Carter