How to Read the Bible
Notes
Transcript
MAYBE SECTION
MAYBE SECTION
{{{MAYBE SECTION}}}
Stand if you think this book is the best book in the world
Stand if you think this book can change your life
Stand if you think there is another book in the world that is better for you
Stand if you think you can learn from the Bible
Stand if you want to learn from the Bible
If you want to be better equipped to share the Bible with others - go to a different row or section
That’s 50% of the work right there - GOING
If you want to be learn how to share the Bible - tell those around you “Let’s learn how to read the Bible.”
Introduction
Introduction
_______________________________________
How do you approach reading the Bible?
Sometimes we think about how old it is, how boring it can be, how long it can be, how irrelevant it can be. I sometimes think how hard it can be to read the Bible. When I say hard, I don’t mean impossible. When I say it’s difficult - it can be achieved by anyone in this room!
USE THIS SENTENCE when reading the Bible: Take in the FULL STORY — a few words at a time.
We are taking a wide lense to look at “How to read the Bible.” I originally planned to look at a specific passage walk through how to read it but that wouldn’t teach you foundational principles to reading the Bible. Let’s look at Matthew 7:24–27 together. ||| 24 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.
26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”
Do you want a house that floats away every time it rains or do you want a house that stands strong? You can have a strong house through hearing the words of Jesus. How we hear the words of Jesus today is by reading the Bible. Preachers, teachers, and Christians share all the time that we are to read our Bible. I have seen in my life and others where it can become boring or vanilla. What has excited me over the years to read the Bible more is understanding the structure of the book. Once I understood the structure, my eyes were opened more to the truths found in the Bible. LET”S FIRST LOOK AT…
Hear the the Words of Jesus (Literary Styles)
Hear the the Words of Jesus (Literary Styles)
Jesus said that we are to “HEAR HIS WORDS.” When we listen to the words of Jesus, we are reading them through the lenses of human writers. These writes wrote with different styles.
I love shows, movies, books that have FBI, CIA, police solving crazy cases. I love the moments of feeling like a detective, trying to solve the case. Another style I love is comedy! If a show or movie makes me laugh - I AM SOLD! Then action - another style I love. If there is a movie out there with mystery, action, and comedy — Ill watch it in theatre, buy the blu-ray, and stream it on the TV.
Just like there are styles in content today, the Bible was written in three different literary styles. When it comes to reading the Bible, it is important to understand what literary style we are reading. Imagine you thought you were going to watch a Mystery, Comedy, Action movie and it starts but it turns out to be a documentary on how paint drys. What if you went to read this really good story but it turns out to be a poem? You don’t approach or read it the same way. The Bible has specific literary styles also. If we want to hear the WORDS OF JESUS and get the FULL STORY, we need to recognize the different literary styles.
NARRATIVE (43%) ||| POETRY (33%) ||| PROSE DISCOURSE (24%)
How many of yall love reading stories? Maybe you favorite passage in the Bible comes from a story. Stories allow us to put specific events into an order and see the meaning behind them. We read about characters that we can relate to and see ourselves in them. This enables us to see our lives from a new perspective. A perspective that shows us our faults and sin.
Next are poems, which often times are not my favorite. But through this study, I have a deeper appreciation for poems. They speak through dense, creative language, linking together images to help us envision the world differently. Poems use lots of metaphor to evoke your emotions and your imagination. In life, we tend to form mental ruts, and we think in these familiar, well-worn paths that are very hard to get out of through logic or reasoning. And what good poetry does is force you off the familiar path into new territory.
The last literary genre involves Prose Discourse. These are speeches, letters, or essays. And the focus here is building a sequence of ideas or thoughts into one linear argument that requires a logical response
How do we read the Bible? We do so by hearing the Words of Jesus through the lenses of different authors. Those authors wrote in different literary styles.
Faith in the Words of Jesus (Full Story)
Faith in the Words of Jesus (Full Story)
How do you read the Bible — by faith that they are the words of Jesus. If you’re going to hear the words of Jesus, you have to have faith in the words of Jesus. We talked last week how there is no way for man to have organized this book. The only possible and logical answer is divine work - JESUS.
How can you have faith that this is the Word of God? How can the wise man have faith that building his house on the rock will withstand the storm? —==— God has proven Himself from the beginning of time. There is a FULL STORY of Jesus through the Bible. We can have faith in the Words of Jesus because we have the FULL STORY before us.
If we don’t read and put our faith in the FULL STORY of Jesus, we can make the same story have a totally different message. The Bible contains stories that have its own internal plot line, but then all together they make up a whole movement of the biblical story. The Bible is such a sophisticated piece of literature, and so all these smaller plot lines keep overlapping, building up the tension. And when you back up, you can see how they’ve all been woven together into the unified story that leads to Jesus.
Build on the Words of Jesus (Repeated Themes)
Build on the Words of Jesus (Repeated Themes)
How do you read the Bible — by building truth on top of truth on top of truth. Jesus talked about building a house on the Words of God. There are a collection of truths throughout the Bible that we are to build on. Building on these collection of truth involves recognizing them through Scripture. Build on repeated themes through the Bible. It took me some time to catch onto repeated themes in the Bible, BUT WHEN I SAW THEM —— my interest grew in reading the Bible.
Let’s look at some repeated themes from the Bible…
SEE __ TAKE __ GOOD IN THEIR OWN EYES
Adam & Eve
Abraham & Sarah
Achan taking the gold from the Canaanites
Aaron in the Wilderness
Israel choosing king Saul
David & Bathsheba
All of these themes show over and over. These stories are all designed to show the temptation pattern. The repetition is intentional to build anticipation! Anticipation for what?
Perhaps someone will come and break the pattern. This is why the stories of Jesus have been designed to carry the patterns forward to their climax. What does Jesus say when he’s faced with his greatest temptation to avoid dying on the cross? “Not my desire but your desire be done.” So the pattern flips. And you have one person resisting temptation, and his suffering provides life for many.
That is not the only repeated theme. Check this one out about water:
GOD LEAD HUMANITY THROUGH WATER INTO A NEW WORLD
Creation: Earth came from the water
Flood: God rescues a remnant from an evil world
Exodus: God parted the Red Sea and led Israel to a new land
Joshua: Leads the people through the Jordan to the Promise Land
Jesus Baptism: That’s when God announces that Jesus is his son who will rescue the world from the chaos of our evil and violence by going into death and out the other side.
How do you read the Bible — by building truth on top of truth on top of truth. Every principle, truth, promise, application you learn in one passage, can be found in another.
Closing
Closing
How do you read the Bible?
Do you just read words on a page?
Do you read it like a fictional book?
Do you read it because Christian are supposed to?
DO YOU READ THE BIBLE —WITH FOCUS ON THE STYLE, —IN THE FULL STORY, —TO APPLY THE REPEATED THEMES
The only way to read the Bible this way, is if you have a relationship with the Author.
There is so much available content for yall to better understand how to read the Bible. A lot of what we covered tonight, you can access on your phone or computer. If you want to be better equipped to read the Bible, visit BibleProject.com or download their app in the App Store. There are short videos, articles, podcasts that are designed for Christians! They are designed for students to read the Bible.
“The Bible is like a rollercoaster - it is so much fun to be on the ride and enjoy the twists and turns. The Bible Project is like a friend your riding with - it makes it so much better.
Right now you are going to go to your small groups. Small group time can be as much or as little as you make it. If its just a group time to you where people talk, that’s all you are going to get out of it. If it’s an intentional time for you to see how LARGE the Bible is and there is no other literature like it - that is what you are going to get out of it. My heart is for you take what we found about the Bible and start looking at the Bible through that lense.