Essays in Understanding the Bible (1): What is the Bible?

In this series of essays, Helen Parry explores some basic principles for understanding the Bible. The essays are posted monthly on the LICC website, normally on the third Monday of the month. Since interpretation is not a dry academic exercise but is essential to a proper use of Scripture, each essay is followed by questions for reflection (and discussion with others, where applicable), and suggestions for action.

As whole-life disciples, we seek to engage with the culture of our society and the people among whom we live and work. For this, our understanding of the Bible is critical. We have no other objectively reliable touchstone by which to evaluate anything. The church has traditionally acknowledged three sources of authority – Scripture, church tradition and human reason. Clearly, in the latter two, the limited and fallen human mind can lead people into all kinds of error.

As Christians, we believe that God inspired the Bible, and most of us would go further, and claim that it is fully trustworthy in all that it teaches. There is, nevertheless, still scope for vast divergences in the way that we interpret it. And of course the fallen human mind comes into play here, too. So we need to establish certain principles of how to approach and understand it.

The very idea of establishing principles of interpretation may seem to some Christians to be a denial of the Holy Spirit’s work in speaking through the Word directly to our hearts. But the Bible didn't come to us complete and intact (as Muslims believe that the Koran did, to Mohammed). It consists of 66 books, written over a period of about 1,000 years, in different historical and cultural contexts. Even within the Bible itself, the later writers quote, interpret and apply the earlier Scriptures.

How many of us studied literature at school? What were we trying to do? To appreciate more deeply the author’s meaning and purpose. It’s the same with the Bible. Why should we pay less attention to understanding the meaning and purpose of the Word of God than to a human text? Because we don't have to pass an exam?

John Stott, who has done so much to demonstrate the relevance of the Bible to every aspect of life, has written: ‘Insofar as the Bible is the word of men, we read it as we read any other book – with our minds. But insofar as it is the Word of God, we read it as we read no other book – on our knees.’

So, we want to look at a few basic principles that are particularly important as we seek to relate Scripture to our contemporary world, and to live as whole-life disciples in that world.

Perhaps the first thing we need to establish is what the Bible is – and what it is not.

Derek Tidball, former Principal of the London School of Theology, has described it as ‘a love letter from God to his people’. Perhaps this is a good place to start. If we read the Bible simply like a book of theology, or a text book, it will be dry and impersonal – interesting and informative but dead. But God is alive, and the Bible is a living text. In it he reveals to us who he is, what he is like, how he relates to his people, what he has done and what he is continuing to do in the world. And, since it is a living word, it speaks into our hearts, our minds and our lives.

But, as many of us know, even a love letter can be open to differences of interpretation. How many of us have puzzled over the meaning of a cryptic phrase or ambiguous sentence in a cherished letter from a lover? (And just think how that simple word ‘lover’ can mean such different things in different cultures!) Is he saying that he misses me or that he is quite glad to be away for a while? Is she trying to tell me tactfully that she has met someone she likes better than me?

As we read the Bible as a love letter from God, all sorts of issues of interpretation arise. How far, for example, can we take promises that were given to the people of Israel nearly 3,000 years ago and apply them to ourselves in the 21st century? And should we seek to obey all the moral and ceremonial commands – commands that were given by the great Lover to those he loved – and if not, why not?

In the Bible, God the great Lover reveals himself to his people, not only in what he says but also in what he has done. For the Bible is set in history, in verifiable human contexts. These contexts differ hugely – from the prehistoric creation narrative through barren deserts inhabited by nomadic cattle herders, the founding of the Israelite nation, Egypt, the Exodus and the promised land, the monarchy and the building of Jerusalem and of the temple, great warring empires, exile and return, to the coming of Christ and the early spread of Christianity in the Roman empire. This gradual revelation came in ways that made sense to the people of the time and reached its climax in the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

‘God, who in the past spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways,’ wrote the author of the letter to the Hebrews, ‘has in these last days spoken to us by his Son’ (Hebrews 1:1).

God’s complete revelation, which culminated in his revelation through Christ to his disciples and by the Holy Spirit to the early church, is the foundation of our faith, giving us, astonishingly, the facts, attitudes and principles that we need in order to live now, 2,000 years after the end of the biblical period. And, although it doesn’t tell us how the world’s history is going to develop, the Bible does tell us that there will be an end (and what we should be doing in the meantime), that history is going somewhere, and that God is in control of the world that he loves.

There is a sense in which the Bible tells us all we need to know about ‘life, the universe and everything’. But it is important that we don’t go to the Scriptures for what they do not claim to be. The Bible is not a book of science – although it speaks of things that science is helping us to understand, or a book of history – although the action is played out in historical settings. That is why we need to emphasise the reliability of the Bible in all that it actually teaches.

In this series of essays, we plan to explore the main issues of reading and understanding the Bible rightly. At the end of each essay, we offer ideas for personal reflection, questions for discussion and suggestions for action, so that the material can be used devotionally, by groups, or as part of a discipleship course.

The purpose of the whole series is to provide tools that will equip Christians in the 21st century, from whatever culture they come, to live out the new life that Jesus offers in all the contexts of their daily lives – not simply in the areas that are traditionally considered to be the business of ‘church’ (worship, prayer, fellowship, evangelism and so on) – but in work, family life, the political arena, social responsibility, and the principles that shape our attitudes to ethical issues, money and possessions, ambition and status.

Challenged by secularism in many parts of the world, Christians tend to retreat from these public issues. Or, where a ‘Christian’ voice is heard, it may be unbalanced, based on a single verse of Scripture, rather than on the multi-faceted revelation of the Bible as a whole. We need to acquire confidence to engage with the culture of the day and the issues that it raises in a way that truly reflects the character and unfolding purposes of God.

For personal reflection:

1. Read Psalm 1, and meditate on it verse by verse.

• What particular danger does the psalmist mention in verse 1? What people in your own situation embody this danger? Do you see traces of it in yourself? How can the Scriptures (‘the law of the Lord’, verse 2)combat this danger? What attitudes to the Bible should we try to cultivate?

• In verse 3 a lovely picture is given of a life that is soaked in the Scriptures. What might that mean in practice for you?

• Verses 4-6 contrast the ‘wicked’ of verse 1 with the ‘righteous’ who live by the Word of God. Apply to your own life the warning and the encouragement of these verses.

• Respond in prayer.

2. If you do not do this already, subscribe to a regular Bible-reading scheme, such as those published by Scripture Union or the Bible Reading Fellowship, and develop the habit of daily Bible reading.

For group discussion:

Read Song of Songs 2:1-15. The poetic form invites a range of possible levels of interpretation. Discuss:

1. The possible identities of the two lovers.

2. The nature of their relationship.

3. Why this book has been included in the Bible.

4. How to understand the meaning of the words ‘lover’, and ‘dark’ (in 1:5-6), and how they are translated in different versions of the Bible. For example:

• The two speakers are named as ‘lover’ and ‘beloved’ (NIV), ‘the man’ and ‘the woman’ (Good News Bible and The Message), ‘bridegroom’ and ‘bride’ (New English Bible), and ‘King Solomon’ and ‘the girl’ (Living Bible); in the Hebrew Scriptures, in fact, the text is continuous, with no speakers identified.

• Verse 10 is rendered ‘My lover spoke and said to me, “Arise, my darling, my beautiful one”’ (NIV), ‘Dear friend and beautiful lover’ (The Message).

• 1:5-6: ‘Dark am I, yet lovely... Do not stare at me because I am dark’ (NIV), ‘I am black but comely...’ (King James Version), ‘weathered and weather-darkened’ (The Message).

Note: Don't expect to agree on ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answers, but simply try to uncover different layers of meaning, and recognise that literal interpretations are not always possible.

For action:

Look around you, at your home, your town, the kinds of things that people do, the things people say, and select a few examples of things that might be hard for a stranger from a totally different culture or century to understand. What conclusions do you draw about people’s perceptions and interpretations of what they read, hear or experience? How is this relevant to our interpretation of the Bible?

Helen Parry

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