Thursday, May 28, 2020

Letters to My Grandchildren: Some Basics About the Bible

My Dear Grandchildren,

Time for another letter. And this time I would like to help you take a look at the Bible. It makes sense to do this because without the Bible we are completely lost. We would have no hope of understanding the important issues of life. The Bible is critical to our ability to live. So, what I’m going to do is explain a few basic aspects of the Bible. And the way that I’m going to do that is by answering three questions.

First question: What is it?


The Bible is actually not a book. It is collection of books. And these books are quite different from each other. They are different genres, different types of literature. In your Bible you will find history, poetry, personal letters, laws, autobiography, stories, proverbs, prophecies and apocalyptic. (Quite a list, no?) Now, this may seem obvious, but acknowledging it is very important. And I’ll tell you why. How you understand a story is very different from how you understand a history. Get that wrong, and all sorts of problems show up. So, the first step in doing a good job of reading one of the books of the Bible is to answer this question: What type of literature is this? That will give you some idea of what to expect of it. And that will help you understand what that book of the Bible is about. Many mistakes have happened because people have neglected to take this first step.

Second question: Who wrote it?

There are actually two answers to this question. The Bible was written by some men. So, there’s Moses, Paul, Mark, Isaiah and a bunch more. At the same time, God wrote it.

Now, why is this important? Well, on the one hand, we always need to approach these books of the Bible as literature. That means that individual writers had particular themes that they wrote about. They wrote with a particular style. And they wrote from particular points of view which were determined by things like the culture they were born into, the language that they used, the issues that they were dealing with and the people to whom they were writing.

It is a great help in understanding each book of the Bible if you can understand something about the man who wrote it and how he wrote it. So, Mark wrote his Gospel to Christians in Rome, something that affected how he told the story about Jesus. Matthew, on the other hand, wrote to people who were Jewish Christians. This explains some of the large differences that we find between their two Gospels. So, treat the books of the Bible as literature written by men.

And yet, you will need to hold firmly to the fact that the Bible was written by God. That doesn’t mean that He dictated the Bible to the men who wrote it (except for those times when He told a prophet exactly what to say).  But it does mean that whatever any of those men wrote, they wrote because God wanted them to write it. He was behind all that was written. That’s why you can say that the Bible was written by God.

So, for example, along with asking yourself, ‘What is Paul saying here?’, you’ll also need to ask yourself, ‘What is God saying here?’ When you read about Joshua leading the people to conquer the Promised Land, there are themes, and a style and ways of looking at things that come from the man who wrote that history. Notice these. But then, figure out what God is saying in that same history of conquest.

Here’s something that I think is rather important to remember. When those men were writing their books, they were not writing to you. So, when you read one of Paul’s commands to some church he was writing to, he wasn’t thinking about you and how you should obey that command. He was focused on the Corinthians or Galatians or whoever he was writing to. Now, to be sure, what he wrote to the Corinthians or the Galatians or whoever has much to say to you. And that’s because God also wrote it. But before you are able to know what you are supposed to get out of what was written, you need to be clear on what the original audience was supposed to get.

So, Paul wrote to the Christians who were living in first century Corinth that was filled with pagan temples and their idols. (Look at 1 Corinthians 8.) What did he want them to understand and then to do as they were faced with that problem? Once you figure that out you can go to the next question. What does God want you to understand and then do when you are faced with a similar problem?

So, two steps. What was the author of whatever part of the Bible you are reading saying to the original audience? Then, what is God saying to you from this part of the Bible. There are parts of the Bible where this will be easy to do. But there will be other parts of the Bible where this will take some effort to get right.

Third question. What’s it for?

The Bible is God’s gift to you so that you will be able to understand reality. The Bible shows you the difference between what is true and what is false, what is good and what is evil, what is real and what is phony, what is lasting and what is temporary. You might think that telling the difference between these sorts of things is easy. It isn’t. In fact, there will be times when you will find it very difficult to sort these things out. That’s when you will especially thank the Father for the gift of the Bible.

Here is the key fact about reality that you must see clearly. Only God is God. You are but His creatures. This message is at the heart of the Bible. Today, so many believe that life is all about their being satisfied, happy, safe, healthy, comfortable. The motto of oh so many is this: ‘Life is all about me and what I want’. No one actually says this, but it’s what they assume as they make decisions about their lives. That is false and evil. It will lead a person into a phony life that will not last. (And to refer to something in a previous letter, this motto is a vicious lie from Satan.) I don’t want any of you to fall into the trap of thinking anything like that. What is true and good and real and lasting is this: Your life is all about God and what He wants. And from lots of different angles and using all the different genres, that’s what the Bible is about. Life is about God. Pressing that home is what it’s for.

Well, it’s time to bring this letter to a close. These are only some basics about the Bible, but I hope that they will prove helpful to you.

With my love,

Grandpa B

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