***Open the time with all the lights out and the room completely dark. Begin to lightly toss stones up front so that the thud can be heard by the group***
The first five books of the Old Testament are called the Torah which is what the Jews look to as their Bible. The Hebrew word torah meant law, teaching, and instruction and as it taught Jews how to live their lives and, more importantly, how to connect with God and please Him.
What is really interesting about this word Torah is when you translate the word directly into English. When you do this, the word literally means “throw the rock. This idea of “throwing the rock” referenced a practice used by travelers when walking along a road at night.
See, because flashlights and things of that sort hadn’t been invented yet and not everyone always carried a torch with them, sometimes travelers would get caught walking as night began to fall. Having not reached their destination yet, they had to keep going because it wouldn’t have been safe to just lie down on the side of the road. The travelers would push on, down the roads that they were familiar with, until they came to a stretch of road that they hadn’t been down before.
When this happened, again, instead of just stopping and taking their chances, the travelers would look for a rock and throw it ahead of them. As it landed, they would listen closely for its landing. If they heard a splash, they knew that right in front of them was a pool of water. If they heard bushes rustle, they knew that the path probably bends to one side around a wooded area. If they heard no sound, they knew that a cliff or ledge was probably in front of them. If they heard a yell, they knew they should turn and run. In a lot of ways, this was a primitive way of sonar and helped many people navigate through the dark and get to where they needed to be.
This is such an amazing illustration of what the Bible is and the role it plays in our lives. A common theme that we see throughout the Bible, is the idea that the world without God in it is represented by darkness. Jesus, as he talks about the reality of hell calls it a place of darkness, since it will be an eternity without God. Blindness is used over and over again to describe someone who is not following God and doing their own thing. When Jesus died, there was an overwhelming sense of darkness that covered the world that is recorded not only in the Bible but also by historians of the time. In the spiritual realm, evil and Satan are called the “powers of darkness.” Without God, we live in darkness as we try to navigate around it by ourselves – stumbling, grasping for meaning and purpose, looking for answers.
***Light candle during next part***
On the contrast, Jesus is over and over again in the Gospels, and God Himself throughout the Bible, is called the light of the world. When we begin a relationship with Him, we will see the world in a different light and see ourselves for who we really are as He provides answers and guidance to a true and joyful life. A relationship with God shines out of us as Jesus said that we become the light of the world ourselves when we have a relationship with Him. The light spreads from Jesus into us and we bring it throughout the world.
The Bible that we have today serves a similar function of that of the Jewish Torah. It is the Word of God and some people have called it Life for Dummies, meaning that it helps guide us through life as it sheds light onto ourselves and the world. There are two main verses that we have looked at a couple of times already that help shed light onto this idea. 2 Timothy 3:16 says that “all scripture is God breathed.” 2 Peter 1:20-21 says that, “No…Scripture ever came from the prophet’s own understanding, or from human initiative. No, these prophets were moved by the Holy Spirit, and they spoke from God.”
There are other Scriptures that have this view point as well. To combat the evil in the spiritual realm, Paul says that we should take hold of the “sword of the spirit, which is the Word of God.” Still, in Psalm 119, the writer says that God’s “word is a lamp to guide my feet,” which is interesting to think about considering this interpretation of the word Torah. When Joshua, took over for Moses in leading the Israelites, God told him to “Study this Book of Instruction [which would have been the Torah] continually. Meditate on it day and night so you will be sure to obey everything written in it. Only then will you prosper and succeed in all you do.” Over and over again, throughout the Bible, you can read stories of the Word of God being read to the people and a massive and powerful change came over the people, revealing to them the God of the Universe. Reading the Bible is so important to our relationships with Christ and will guide us to truth and to answers that we all are looking for.
All that being said, where do we begin to start reading this ancient book that sometimes makes no sense, whatsoever? For tonight, I want to spend the rest of our time together talking about helpful ways to read the Bible.
Before I dive into that, let me just say this. I know there may be some of you here tonight that have a hard time believing that the Bible is actually the Word of God. You question how old it is, whether it’s accurate, whether it contradicts itself or other things. If that’s the case, I just want to let you know that I would be more than willing to get together and talk about that idea. The other thing I will throw out there is that there are three great books – one called The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel, of which they make a normal version and a student version, another book called Evidence for Christianity by Josh McDowell, and then Cliffe’s book called Give Me An Answer that all address this issue of the Bible being the Word of God and other issues.
That being said, let’s dive into our conversation for the night. I think the majority of the time when a Pastor, Youth Leader, parent, or anyone else tells us that we need to read the Bible, this tiresome, boring image comes into our heads. We think about getting the huge, old, family Bible off the shelf and just opening to the beginning and reading, like we would any book. Things start out sort of interesting with the creation story, the story of Noah and others but eventually, usually towards the end of Exodus or the beginning of Leviticus, we just can’t press on.
Even for those of you here who didn’t start at the beginning but started with a book like Mark or John, so often we read the Bible and everything just goes over our heads. 15 minutes after we have read we can’t even remember a thing. Well, as I talked about last week, there are a lot of different ways to approach God. We are all built differently, having different desires and interests, likes and dislikes, and even intellectual levels (and I’m not calling some of you dumb, I’m just saying, we are all different). So that means that we all don’t approach the Bible in the same way. So, I want to take some time to lay out a bunch of ideas to connecting with God’s Word, so here we go:
The first thing that I want to point out is that the Bible comes in a handful of different translations that fit different people. The most common translations are probably the King James Version and the New International Version (NIV). The New Living Translation is what I use and what the Bible’s we use every week are. Let me just show you the difference between some of them. Some you will like, some you won’t understand, but that’s ok.
“For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. (NLT)”
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (NIV)”
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (KJV)”
“This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. (The Message)”
Part of choosing a Bible is finding one that you can read and understand most of the language in it. (KJV, NIV, NLT, Message, NASB, ESV).
The second thing to point out is that there are a number of different styles of Bibles. There are Devotional Bibles which have stories and guides to reading written in to them. There are Application Bibles which have notes and explanations in them. There are Study Bibles which have even more notes, references, and deeper explanation. Even out of those three main types, they are written for children, teens, men and women. Then there are Bibles that just have the plain text in them. It’s important to pick a Bible that fits who you are and the style you would prefer.
Third, there are a number of books and resources available to help guide your reading and explains things even more. Devotionals are the most common and you can get them in a number of different styles (One Year Through the Bible, One Minute Bible, Devotion, etc.). The other resources you can use are commentaries which go really deep into the background of a text and help explain things. Some of you, not all of you, would enjoy reading your Bible with a commentary next to you to help you understand more. A third resource that I would HIGHLY recommend for all of you is a book called How to Read the Bible for All It’s Worth by Gordon Fee and Doug Stuart. It this book they talk about how the Bible is written in a number of different literary styles: poetry, letters, historical narratives, songs, prophecy, parables or stories, etc. With that, you need to read each style accordingly.
At the same time, they talk about the importance of two big words: exegesis and hermeneutics. Exegesis means to understand what the passage originally intended to say. In other words, what was the original reason for the author writing the passage? Hermeneutics is asking the question of given that original meaning, how does it affect our lives today? The important thing to remember with this is that the meaning for today cannot contradict or change the original meaning of the passage. Make sense?
Fourth, and really lastly, you don’t have to simply just sit and read the Bible. There are a NUMBER of things you can do to help the Bible come alive. Here are a bunch of ideas:
• Put it in your own words
• Put it into a picture
• Write poem or a song about what you just read
• Pretend to be the characters
• Compare and contrast the characters
• Journal about what the passage makes you think about
• Lectio Divina, meditating
• Memorization
• Any other ideas you guys can think of?
The beauty with all of these translations, styles, resources, and ideas is that the way you read the Bible one day doesn’t have to be the same you read the Bible another day. I have a whole handful of different translations, different styles, different devotionals, a whole shelf of different commentaries and I jump around every so often to doing some of the things to make the Bible come alive. God uses all of them in different ways, all for different people.
And let me tell you, the more I read the Bible, the more I study it, the more things I use to make the Scriptures come alive, the more I realize there is to this amazing book that holds in it the very Words of Jesus. You will never get it and have everything figured out, but the mystery and greatness of God will become more and more attractive as your hunger for God will grow and never be completely filled.
