How To Make Sense Of The Bible

A cropped version of yesterdays 365.  

Do you have a hard time reading the bible?  Does it make sense to you?  ... 

Want To Read Through The New Testament With Me?

Last week I asked people to join me in reading the New Testament over the next couple of months.  We're doing 5 chapters a day.  So today we're reading Matt 10-15.  

I'm going to share some of my thoughts and observations that I had while I was reading.  Let me preface this by saying I am in no way an authority on the bible.  I'm not a theologian or a scholar so please don't use me as an authority on the Bible.  If you've got questions, I encourage you to go to your pastor who does has authority in this area and ultimately to God.  

Jess and I have had the honor to sit under some AMAZING bible teachers.  So some of the things I will share I didn't just pick up from reading, but are observations that others have shown me.  

What I don't want this to turn into is a crazy heated debate in the comments.  So share what you're learning, share what God is teaching you and if you're going to write a response to someone else be loving.  

Lets get into it shall we?  

What did I know coming into the book of Matthew?  

1.  I remembered that it was written to a Jewish audience 

2.  The gospels are about Jesus.  

Something I've learned about studying the Bible that is SO important and has made Bible make a lot more sense is reading the Bible in CONTEXT.  

Each book of the bible was written by an author, and written TO a group of people, and just like any author, the author had an intent on why they were writing.  There were things going on that the author was going to address.  

So knowing who the author is, who the intended audience was, and why the writer was writing helps us make better interpretations.  Even better is having an understanding of the culture that the audience is reading from.  We often try to understand what is being said in a letter that was written 2000 years ago and comprehend it with our 2013 minds.  

Imagine taking some of these blog posts and sending them back 2000 years.  Do you think any of them could make much sense about what I'm talking about?  They wouldn't even know what a blog post was.  

Chapter 1 starts out with the genealogy of Jesus.  This genealogy is DIFFERENT than the one in Luke.  And is also not literal because there are more than 14 generations between some of those names.  

WHAT?!  The BIBLE isn't LITERAL?!  Than how can it be true?!  

This goes back to the culture of the times, we are viewing the Bible as a historical account, which it IS, but you can't take a letter that was written in pre-modern times and try to interpret it with a western linear mindset.  Matthew was not writing to give a chronological, literal itinerary of Jesus.  

I struggled with this thought when I first learned it, because I thought that if the Bible was to be TRUE it always to be 100% literal.  

Wow.  We're only into the first verses of chapter one.  Shall I continue?  

I find it interesting that if you're writing history, most people would REMOVE the bad parts, but included in Jesus' lineage and highlighted is David and mentioning that his son Solomon's mother was another man's wife.  And also includes a prostitue Rahab in the lineage.  

LOCATIONS.  When I usually read through the bible, I just blaze past the names of places because I don't know where they are.  Last time I started reading through Matthew I starting looking them up, and it made things come a live a bit more.  I just found this resource it's pretty cool.  It's a google map, that has the locations mapped out by verse reference.  The places Jesus is going has significance, because the original reader would have known where He was talking about.  Like if I mentioned to you oh I'm going into the Bronx... there's a stigma that goes along with that.  So when Jewish people heard that Jesus had to go into Egypt to hide, (chapter 2) I wonder what kind of things that stirred up in the Jewish audience.  Egypt was a place of slavery for them.  (Exodus) 

k... this is getting long already and I'm still on chapter 1.  I'm really going to have to just pick some highlights.  

I like that Joesph in 1:19 is said to be "faithful to the law" so he had a right to divorce Mary, yet he was going to do it quietly as to not shame her.  Even when we are right, or have the right, we can still go about doing things lovingly.  I think as Americans we often think that if we have the RIGHT then we're going to be "unpleasant words" about it.  

I like 3:8 "Produce fruit in keeping with repentance."  Repentance isn't a one time thing... we have to keep repenting and there should be fruit from that repentance.  

In chapter 4 when Jesus is calling the disciples they IMMEDIATELY followed Him.  

Chapter 5.  The beatitudes never made much sense to me... they seem to be one of the most taught on things, maybe I make them to complicated.  I went back and read through some of my notes and I wrote down that the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is expounding on a lot of the law that the Pharisee's would argue about.  

Another good thing to look for is repeated words or themes.  

Kingdom Of Heaven - Other gospels use Kingdom of God, but this was chosen because Jewish people don't use the name of God.  Kingdom is a ruling word.  I don't think that the original readers were thinking of Heaven like we think of Heaven (location we go after we die) when Jesus is speaking about the Kingdom of Heaven.  

Fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies.  - It seems like this is a common theme, pointing to Jesus as the Messiah.  So just from internal evidence maybe this book was written to Jews who did not yet believe in Jesus as the Messiah.  Or Christian Jews who needed reaffirmation that Jesus was the Messiah.  

Miracles - The miracles Jesus is preforming had more significance to the original reader than they do to us.  They seem random to us but the people Jesus was healing were people that were ritually unclean (leporsy, dead body, woman subject to bleeding) and therefore unable to approach God because of the Levitical law.  

Matt 8:21-22 - Lord first let me go bury my father... Let the dead bury their own dead.  

That seems kind of harsh Jesus... but the context here I've learned is that there were no nice cemeteries  so people would bury their dead and wait a year for the body to decay and then put all the bones in a box so it took up less space.  

Alrighty... it's after midnight here, that's enough for now.  Sorry if there are some grammar or spelling mistakes, it's late and I'm not going to spend the time proof reading.  

Next Friday I will write another bible post about the week's readings.  

Engage:  Are you reading along?  Please post a comment and tell me what you're learning and what God is showing you!  Did some verses really stick out?  Or did you have a question about one?  Let us know!