One of the most important principles of reading the Bible is surprisingly simple.
The Bible was written for us, but it was not written to us.
That may sound like a contradiction, but I believe it’s one of the healthiest habits we can develop as followers of Jesus.
Every book of the Bible was written by real people, to real people, living in real places, facing real circumstances. Before we ask, “What does this passage mean to me?” it’s wise to ask, “What did it mean to the people who first heard it?”
That doesn’t make the Bible less relevant. It makes it more relevant.
Of course, there’s a challenge. None of us comes to Scripture with a completely blank slate. We all bring assumptions, experiences, traditions, personalities, questions, and opinions. Those assumptions quietly shape what we notice, what we overlook, and what we think a passage must mean. They are powerful, and most of the time we aren’t even aware they’re there.
Part of Christian maturity is learning to recognize those assumptions and, when necessary, allowing God to reshape them. Sometimes the greatest obstacle to hearing God’s voice isn’t the difficulty of the biblical text. It’s the certainty that we already know what it says.
That’s why our reading of Scripture must be rooted in something beyond ourselves.
We read each passage in light of the whole story of Scripture. We seek to understand its historical setting and its original audience. We listen to the wisdom of the Church that has treasured, studied, debated, and proclaimed these texts through the centuries. And we pray for the guidance of the Holy Spirit, asking God to illuminate our minds and hearts as we read.
Those practices are not competitors. They are companions. Together, they help us hear God’s voice more faithfully.
None of this guarantees that Christians will always agree. Faithful believers have wrestled with Scripture from the very beginning, and they have sometimes reached different conclusions. Yet approaching Scripture with humility, curiosity, and a willingness to learn is itself an act of discipleship.
After all, God’s thoughts are higher than our thoughts, and God’s ways are better than our ways. If that is true, then we should expect Scripture to challenge us from time to time. It should stretch us. It should surprise us. It should call us to grow beyond what we already think we know.
Throughout August, our worship series, Beyond the Surface, will explore what it means to read Scripture well. My hope is that together we’ll become more confident readers of the Bible, more humble students of God’s Word, and, above all, people who are continually being transformed by the God who speaks through it.
