How do you read the Bible

How do you read the Bible?

Do you treat it like a crystal ball that could answer the question on your mind?

Do you see it as a deep book, where you need to look beyond the words to find the mystery beneath?

Do you accept that what it says it how it is, and so you expect to see a big red dragon soon (Rev 12)?

Reading the bible requires exegesis.

The goal of Biblical exegesis is to understand what the author is trying to tell us. So we explore the meaning of the text which then leads to discovering its significance or relevance.

Exegesis sounds like a complicated concept that is best left in the hands of the experts. So let me use a different word- comprehension.

That’s right, exegesis is comprehension (all those years in English at school can now pay off).  The methods you use to read and understand other books are the same methods you employ here (with the help of the Holy Spirit).

Now I could finish the article there, but let me go over some of the basic in comprehending a text.

1.    What’s the form of the passage?

Why wouldn’t you believe that the trees of the field could lead our praise times at our 6.30pm service (Psalm 96:12)?

It’s because you have understood the form of the Psalm to be poetry.

Whenever you open any book, you determine if it is fiction or non-fiction. This shapes your approach to reading the text.

Identifying the form will determine how your reading (and guard against literalism).

2.    What is the meaning of individual words?

“He’s sick”

Now this could be a good or bad characteristic. It all depends on the understanding of the word “sick”. The meaning of the word comes from its’ use by the author. So if you had read earlier, “Did you see the sick move Ken did on his skateboard?”, you’d realise that sick has the meaning of admirable.

Understanding meaning of words from their context is important. For example, we often think the word “church” means “building” or “a Sunday service”. But if you look at the beginning of Paul’s letters, church refers to the people he is writing to. And in Acts 19:23-41 the word for church is translated as “assembly”.

We must make sure we don’t import our ideas into the words we read.

3.    Where does the passage fit in the book?

Are we at the beginning, middle of the end? How does this continue from what came before? How does add to what just read?

4.    Why was the book written?

In John 20:31 we are told “But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”

That’s why He has written. He didn’t right to give a complete account of Jesus life. You may have wondered what happened to Lazarus or the blind man, but John isn’t interested in these details.

His aim is to help you believe that Jesus is the Christ.

That means we must read the Gospel of John to understand why he thinks Jesus is the Christ, what the Christ does and what it means to believe in Him.

This is important. It’s easy to read about the woman at the well and think, “How am I like her?”. WHO CARES HOW YOU ARE LIKE HER? John wants you to realise that the person who stands before her is the Messiah and she should follow Him.

5.    Where does this passage fit in the structure of the book?

Take Genesis and the genealogies (now there is a yawn if ever you needed one). Why are they there? Well, back in Genesis 3:15 God says, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel”

We’re looking for the serpent crusher. Now it could be anyone.

It could come from Lamech’s line in Genesis 4:23-26 (unlikely!), it looks like Noah in Genesis 5. Then there is the table of nations in Genesis 10.

But God makes promises to Abraham (Gen 12:1-3). Now that’s narrowed it down.

But Abraham doesn’t have any children and is 80 years old! When we finally meet his grandchildren, the chosen one Jacob is an absolute jerk! And then the one to whom Jacob’s family will bow (Joseph) is sold into slavery.

Genesis 3 sets the scene for what God will do in history. The rest of Genesis is watching, what appears against the odds, God restoring creation to a blessed situation.

How do you do exegesis? You use comprehension.

The more you read to comprehend, the more you’ll can get the hang of it.