For instance, it is a mistake to go to the Bible hunting for a single verse that perhaps God will use to solve a dilemma we’re in. There are proper methods and deeply flawed methods. So how do we approach Scripture with our questions? But yet there are times when it’s appropriate and wise to go to Scripture with our questions, looking for answers. The best long-term way to build a superstructure of faith is to strengthen our belief system through the first, open-to-discovery approach to the Bible. But if we only come to Scripture with our questions (the second approach) we will never let God have the first word, and we will miss the big ideas of Scripture that our questions would never anticipate. If we only use the first method, we will miss opportunities to go searching for principles on which to make good decisions. Your church gives you the option of having your newborn baptized or waiting until he or she can express faith, and you wonder: what does Scripture actually say about baptism? Your country is about to go to war, and you think there must be a difference between just war and unjust war-but what does Scripture say about it?īoth approaches are valid, and both build us up in different ways. Your friend wants to divorce her husband, and you go to Scripture to see what it says about grounds for divorce. The other way we study the word of God is to come to it with our questions. Say what you will, tear down what you will, build what you will. It is a spiritual attitude that says: God, my mind and heart are open. Reading the Bible in this way is true discovery. This is when we read Exodus and see new things about God’s love and power, or we read a Psalm and get a fresh sense of the main heart issues that come through, or we read 2 Corinthians and understand the angst out of which Paul approaches a church that has given him many headaches. In this approach, we allow the Word of God to set the agenda, form the issues, shape the questions, determine the emphases. The first way is to come to Scripture with an attitude of discovery, letting the words of the biblical authors have their impact.
There are two basic ways we get to know the Word of God.
#BIBLE DISCOVERY GIVE HOW TO#
See Mel Lawrenz’s most recent book is How to Study the Bible: A Practical Guide, from which today’s lesson is adapted. If you know someone or a group who would like to follow along on this journey through Scripture, they can get more info and sign up to receive these essays via email here. This is the sixty-fourth lesson in author and pastor Mel Lawrenz’ How to Live the Bible series.
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