Skip to main content

Hearing the Bible in its own voice

As I mentioned previously, one of my rewsponsibilities at MEPC is leadng a training group on how to read the Bible foryourself. Here's the introduction to my first seminar. I'd appreciate some thoughts & feedback.
* * * * *
The Bible comes to us as a book, which is itself a collection of books. Each book has its own author, style, and historical situation. It uses a variety of literary techniques to communicate its message in its own unique way. So each book of the Bible – sometimes different parts of one book – has its own unique ‘voice’. So, on the one hand, correctly understanding the Bible is actually quite easy. All we need to do is listen to it, in its own voice.
On the other hand, it takes effort to hear the Bible in its own voice. This is because:
  1. Some passages of the Bible are quite complicated. We need to read them slowly and carefully.
  2. The Bible’s a big book – there’s a lot to get through.
  3. We may not be used to the style of a particular book, or part of a book.
  4. The Bible was written in a time and place very different to ours. It can feel alien, unfamiliar, distant from us.

None of these are problems with the Bible; they’re all problems with us. The Bible’s big & sometimes complicated because God is big, and there’s things about him that are hard to understand. There’s a lot to know about God! Some of its styles are difficult because the humans who God inspired to write it were intelligent and creative. Many modern books are big, complicated and use unfamiliar styles of writing – but we still read them, and recognise them as high literature. And the Bible feels historical because it is historical! The Bible was written by real people in a real place. If we’re only interested in the latest thing, if we only understand our own time, then we’ve been sucked in by the narcissism of our age.
If we work at it, we can rightly hear the Bible in its own voice. In my first training seminar, I teach a general method for Bible reading. It’s a technique that’s based on the Bible’s bible-ness: the Bible is a book, which is a collection of books, each with their author, style, and historical situation. My prayer is that this helps us all to hear the Bible, in its own voice – and by so doing, that we would come face-to-face with Jesus, and trust, love and serve him more.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A better understanding of nonbelief

The Nones Project is an ongoing study into the belief systems of people who call themselves non-religious. A few weeks ago one of the project leaders,  Ryan Burge  of Washington University,  posted some really interesting preliminary results  on his Substack.  1. We've probably heard of people who are spiritual but not religious (SBNRs). SBNRs were "the largest group of nones" in the sample. They believe in the supernatural realm but not necessarily in "a God." They are "deeply skeptical of religion but highly interested in spirituality," therefore individualistic and anti-institutional.  2. But this study differentiated SBNRs from people they called Nones In Name Only, NiNos. They different to SBNRs by being religious about their spiritual. They believe not just in the supernatural but in "God." And they tend to engage in traditional communal religious practices while SBNRs practice individualised eclectic bespoke spiritual practices. The s...
Post a Comment
Read more

The different distractions of secularity and spirituality

There has been a lot of discussion about the recent 'vibe shift' away from radical atheism back towards an openness to the supernatural. I don't think this new spirituality is necessarily an openness to the unique claims of Christ. It will more probably replace one set of commonly-accepted misunderstandings about Jesus with another.  Under radical atheism, people dismissed the Biblical claims about Jesus' resurrection because they 'knew' that it was impossible. Jesus hadn't really died. He just passed out (after being beaten and whipped and crucified) and then woke up in the tomb (and rolled away the stone himself and overcame several guards). Or the disciples hallucinated that they saw him (even though Jewish beliefs of the time didn't expect one person to rise possessing eternal life himself; they expected a general resurrection at the end of time - see John 11:24 ). Or something else.  The so-called 'explanations' of Jesus' non-resurrectio...
Post a Comment
Read more
TGC Australia recently published an analysis by Dr Sarah Quicke of whether we are experiencing a 'quiet revival' of interest in and/or conversion to Christianity  here in Australia. It does it a good job of describing the difficulties involved in both gathering and interpreting data about religious beliefs and behaviours, e.g. the difference between the 44% who (still) call themselves Christian and the 8% of people aged 18-35 who actually "believed and lived out the gospel."  Quicke refers to the very insightful McCrindle report An Undercurrent Of Faith , released in March 2025, which uses an analytical method called cohort analysis to try and work out how a particular group of people tend to behave over time. The purpose of this post is to draw attention to one element of that report which agrees with Quicke's analysis but also adds some detail to it.  Here is what the cohort analysis showed about different age groups' identification with Christianity:  As y...
Post a Comment
Read more