It took me just over a year to read the Bible through the first time. I remember clearly the next Sunday at church. After service I went up for prayer to a man I had barely just met.
“How can I pray with you?”, he said.
I was as honest as I could be. “I just finished reading the Bible. I don’t get it. I really just don’t get it. I know it’s important, but I just don’t get it.”
Not only did he pray for me, he encouraged with a few key things:
Take your time. Read it again. Listen to other good Bible teachers. Pray before and after you read. Ask questions whenever you want.
That was the best advice! I’m so glad I have stuck with it.
If you struggle understanding the Bible, don’t be discouraged. There is plenty of help for you along the way. Here are a few concepts I have learned over the years that have helped me, and I hope they are helpful to you as well.
Learning how and when to apply Biblical teaching in your life is truly a life-long process. And, if you are anything like me, you’ll make lots of mistakes along the way.
There may be a difference between the primary point of a passage and how the same passage applies to our life. The key is to accurately interpret the passage first. If any application to your life is made, make sure it is consistent with God’s word overall.
There are some obvious, and not so obvious, passages that have a clear application to our lives. Let’s see how you answer these questions:
- If someone was in a house that we wanted, should we just walk around the house for 7 days and shout? (Joshua 6)
- Does Daniel’s story tell us we should go to the zoo and hang out in a lion’s cage? (Daniel 6)
- Does the story of the three Hebrew boys in the fiery furnace encourage us to climb into a furnace? (Daniel 3)
- Does the story of Moses and the Red Sea teach us that we should just put a stick in the water so we can walk across on dry ground? (Exodus 14)
- Does Jesus tell us that while we are driving from Kansas to California, we should just exercise our faith and move the Rocky Mountains out of the way? (Matthew 17 & 21)
- Didn’t David have an adulterous affair and God honored him? So, I can do that…right? (2 Samuel 11-12)
- Should we question God’s direction and make Him prove it by making a fleece we lay out stay dry or get wet? (Judges 6)
- If I am the youngest of eight brothers, does that mean I will be King? (1 Samuel 16)
- Should we demand eleven hours of pay when we only worked one? (Matthew 20)
Hopefully you got them all right. The answer to all of these questions is, “No!” But, why? The Bible says so…doesn’t it?
The better your interpretation, the better your application.
We first need to read the Bible (Observation), and then spend some time understanding the meaning (Interpretation) before we ask what is means for us (Application).
There may be many Applications from a passage depending on your situation, even though there is really one intended Interpretation.
You might be surprised to hear that the book of Psalms says three times “There is no God.” (Psalms 10:4, 14:1, 53:1) It is actually quite clear. This is a complete sentence with a clear meaning: God does not exist. And, with this knowledge you might wisely ask, “why do so many Bible believing people still believe in God when the Bible says clearly, “There is no God.” (Hint – click on the links above to read the full passages.)
If I can’t just take any story, phrase, or idea from the Bible and apply it directly to my life, what am I supposed to do?
The truth is, you may not have to do anything.
Here are a few helpful concepts when trying to find out what the the Scripture means to your life:
- Universals – Some situations are clearly for “anyone at anytime”. These are “universal” principles that come up frequently while reading the Scripture.
- For example: Love your neighbor. Pray for others. Repent from your sin. Learn wisdom. Be a giver. Trust God. Obedience.
- Particulars – Other situations are clearly unique to a specific person or event. In these cases, you may find a “universal” principle, but it is rare that you would be asked to do “exactly” what the person/people in the passage did.
- For example: From the story in Joshua 6 (walls of Jericho) you might find a “universal” principle of obedience, but you would not say that this passage sets a precedent for walking around your problems/enemies to defeat them.
- Frequency – It is helpful to keep your eyes out for how often something happens. The things that happened just once, to one person, are likely a historical event, and not something you need to apply directly to your life.
- For example: we do not have a record of anyone (even Jesus) moving a mountain by faith. Jesus was a master at hyperbole, which is why you don’t find Christians plucking out their eyes or cutting off their hands (Matthew 5). These exaggerated statements help make the primary point of his teaching, and are not true “orders” (otherwise even the disciples would have been eyeless and handless individuals).
- Result – Always pay attention to the result of an action someone takes. Often, a person may be celebrated in spite of their actions, not because of them.
- For example: David was called a “man after God’s own heart”. Yet, he had an adulterous relationship with Bathsheba that caused a great deal of struggle in his life. He wasn’t called a “man after God’s own heart” because of his sinful lifestyle. (2 Samuel 11-12)
- Identity – this is likely the most difficult, and where I, and most Bible readers, will struggle the most. This refers to understanding “who” was being spoken to.
- For example: Was the message to Israel (only), the disciples (only), or the church universally?
- Culture – In my opinion, this is the hardest to “know”, and will likely take outside resources to get better help. The key here is to understand the cultural significance of a situation, and whether it is something that might apply differently to us today.
- Example: in the new testament the relationship of slave and master is foreign to most “westerners”. However, the concept of employee and employer is not. Often times the lesson could be transferable, even thought that is not the situation the original author was referencing.
- History – I’ll be honest, this is a difficult thing for me to remember as well. Reading a historical passage requires us to ask a pretty specific question. Is this passage explaining a historical event, or is it intending to teach me a moral lesson that I could apply to my life? In most cases, the historical passages are accounts of historical events. The primary intent is not to teach a moral lesson. This does not mean that a lesson cannot be identified from a historical passage. What it does mean is that if a lesson is not specifically identified, then we need to be careful. Any lesson you see should also be identified elsewhere in Scripture in clear form. In most historical parts of the Bible there are lessons to be learned and things we can relate to our lives, but these are not usually the primary intent of the passage.
- Example: David & Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11-12) – While we know that David sleeping was because David stayed back while his team went to war. There are a lot of great lessons that can be derived from this story about the need for accountability, that adultery is bad, and that having one of your military men killed is also bad. These are all true. However, the point of this passage is to tell us about David’s character and heart towards God. The other lessons are all taught specifically elsewhere. That doesn’t mean we cannot use this story as an example. But, if we only look at this as an example of that, we will miss the overall point of the narrative, which is telling us about David’s quick heart of repentance, and God’s hand on David’s life.
Overemphasis on Application (what does it mean for me?) can distract from Interpretation (what does it mean?).
I want to take a second and thank you for staying with me this far. I commend you. These are hard blog posts to read (and write for that matter). I appreciate you sticking with me on this. I pray that in some way this helps you better read the Bible.
Next week, I’ll talk about the last step – Communication.
Until then…
Love and Blessin’s,
David