Excerpt from Following Jesus – The Bible
“The Bible is not a history book, nor is it a book of science. The Bible gives us the answers to why we are here and what we are supposed to do about it. As Jesus followers we hold to the faith that the Bible is God’s inspired Word. It is God’s message to humanity to reveal God to us and to show us our purpose. God’s Word gives us answers to how we should relate to God, how we should relate to each other, how we should handle finances, how we should parent, work, and deal with our sexuality. The Bible, although written in a different time and culture, has truths which transcend time and culture. No matter who we are or where we come from, God’s Word speaks truth to us, and it illuminates how we ought to live our lives…
The Bible has uniting themes from beginning to end…Many people think there is a God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament. There is only one God. The reason for this error is because there is a simple misunderstanding of the Bible as a whole. What unites the entire story is God created us out of love in order to love. In order to live out that design for love, we have to freely choose to love. But with that freedom and autonomy, we have chosen sin over and over again. The Bible shows God’s love and covenant to bring us back to Him despite our sin. This is the grand narrative…
The Bible wasn’t given to us for tweetable quotes or simple inspirational plaques on our living room walls. There are significant depths that cannot be understood without context. Never read just one or two verses when you study the Bible. Read a chapter…Look up the history and context of the book of the Bible you are reading. Read about its author. Take a few more minutes in your study to understand what is happening in the book of the Bible you are reading. Never read the Bible out of context!
“God’s Word speaks truth to us.”
A good practice is what is called the inductive method. This simply means you gather information before you come to a conclusion…You should observe the text, understand the people in the story, ask what’s happening around them, and how it fits in the entire Bible. Then, based on what you observed, you should begin to make an interpretation. Ask yourself, why is this happening? Finally, after observing Scripture and interpreting what that means, you then apply it to your life. Application is how we should live this Scripture out in our lives…”
These are excerpts from week 2 of our course called Following Jesus. If you haven’t gone through the whole course yet, you can sign up for it below.