GET THE MOST FROM YOUR BIBLE
In verbal conversations you can ask others for clarification and
elaboration so you can be sure you understand what they're trying
to communicate. Books are more difficult to interpret. You can go
only by what the author has committed to print. The Bible demands
your full interpretive energies if you are to get the meaning
just right.
When you read the Bible you are in a dialogue with a wide variety
of human authors, but more important, with God. It is important
to understand God's full intention.
How to get the real meaning:
- Look for the author's intended meaning. Each Biblical passage
has an objective meaning intended by its author. Know who the
author is and understand the time period and setting for his
writing. The meaning of a text finally resides in the
intention of God, its ultimate author. Don't try to stretch
the text to fit your intent.
- Get a grasp of the whole passage. Don't treat a Biblical book
as a collection of isolated passages. The meaning of the
individual verses can be discovered only in the flow of the
whole literary piece. If you are reading only a small passage
of a particular book, make sure that you have a basic
understanding of how the passage fits into the message of the
whole book. When you read little bits and pieces of
Scripture, you should exercise caution, otherwise, you might
distort God's message. The ultimate context of any particular
passage is the whole Bible. Learn to read in context by
reading whole books of the Bible rather than just snippets.
If you can sit down for two or three hours to read a novel,
try doing the same with Isaiah or Acts.
- Identify the genre. The Bible is a cornucopia of literary
types. There is history, law, poetry, wisdom, prophecy,
gospels, epistles, and apocalyptic literature. When you know
the type of literature you can understand it better and read
it with that style in mind.
- Consider the historical and cultural background of the Bible.
You need to read each book as if you were one of the author's
contemporaries. Commentaries can fill in the blanks in terms
of customs of that time period.
- Pay attention to the grammar and structure within a passage.
Read each passage closely, noting how the thought of the
author progresses. Serious grammatical and syntactical
(structural) study must be based on the original languages.
For this reason, it's helpful to have a copy of a literal
translation, such as the New American Standard Bible, for
serious study.
- Interpret experiences in the light of Scripture, not vice
versa. It's easy to distort the Bible's meaning by allowing
your experiences to shape your understanding of a passage
rather than the other way around.
- Always seek the full counsel of scripture. Even though the
Bible is many books, it is also one book, with one story.
Don't base doctrine or moral teaching on an obscure passage.
If one passage seems to teach something, but another passage
clearly teaches something else, seek to understand the
difficult passage in light of the one that is easier to
understand.
Dr. Tremper Longman III is professor of Old Testament
at Westmont College. For the past seventeen years, he
has been professor of Old Testament at Westminster
Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. He is the
author and co-author of several books, including Bold
Love, Cry of the Soul, and Intimate Allies (with
psychologist Dan Allender). He and his wife, Alice,
live near Philadelphia with their three sons.
From Reading the Bible with Heart & Mind by Tremper
Longman III, copyright (c) 1997. Used by permission
of NavPress, Colorado Springs, Colo., 1-800-366-7788.
This book can be purchased online at www.navpress.com.