The Real Monsters

Though St. John saw many strange monsters in Revelation, he saw no creature so wild as one of his own commentators.

- GK Chesterton

"Don’t Ever Read a Bible Verse"

"Don't Ever Read a Bible Verse" - Now there's a provocative title! See Justin Taylor's blog post Don’t Ever Read a Bible Verse -(Quoting Greg Kouki in a post of the same name.)

If there was one bit of wisdom, one rule of thumb, one single skill I could impart, one useful tip I could leave that would serve you well the rest of your life, what would it be? What is the single most important practical skill I’ve ever learned as a Christian?

Here it is: Never read a Bible verse. That’s right, never read a Bible verse. Instead, always read a paragraph at least.

My Radio Trick

When I’m on the radio, I use this simple rule to help me answer the majority of Bible questions I’m asked, even when I’m totally unfamiliar with the verse. It’s an amazingly effective technique you can use, too.

I read the paragraph, not just the verse. I take stock of the relevant material above and below. Since the context frames the verse and gives it specific meaning, I let it tell me what’s going on.
This works because of a basic rule of all communication: Meaning always flows from the top down, from the larger units to the smaller units, not the other way around. The key to the meaning of any verse comes from the paragraph, not just from the individual words.

Yeah, it's a provocative title - but totally true.  Read the whole thing here.
 

Feeling Scripture

Thinking about this quote I saw last week from Jared Willson at The Gospel-Driven Church: 5 Ways to Feel Scripture.

"My conviction is that evangelicals by and large have lost their ability to feel Scripture. The great irony is that now when the Bible is more available than any time in history, we are perhaps more biblically illiterate than any Christian generation in history.The great opportunity in this, of course, is that our generation is now extra ripe for biblical transformation and a revival in commitment to the deep well of Scripture."

I have always suspected that our problem is not so much feeling Scripture as in thinking Scripture. We are certainly a biblically illiterate generation. However, most people I know seem to relate almost entirely to the Bible through their feelings. What a passage means "to me" is what is important, and that seems to be determined almost entirely by how it makes one feel. What we need is a return to thinking about Scripture, and a reuniting of feelings to be based on what God actually says in His Word, prior to our personal reaction to it.

However, to give Jared credit, he went on in his post to discuss the rules of hermeneutics (the science of Biblical interpretation), and I agreed with what he then said. Therefore, I don't think he was using the word "feel" in the way I would usually use it. I think what he meant is that the objective truth of Scripture that we learn and know in our minds must impact our feelings and imaginations in order for that truth to change behavior. That is truth!

What do you think?

Basics of Biblical Interpretation

Found this great short description of Biblical hermeneutics (the science of interpreting the Bible) in the middle of an article at New Creation Person:

The top three rules of Hermeneutics (the art and science of Biblical interpretation) are: 1) Context; 2) Context; 3) Context. Before we can tell 21st century Christians how the Bible applies to them, we must first come to the best possible understanding of what the Bible meant to its original audience. If we come up with an application that would have been foreign to the original audience, there is a very strong possibility that we did not interpret the passage correctly. Once we are confident that we have come to the best possible understanding of what the text meant to its original hearers, we then need to determine the width of the chasm between us and them. In other words, what are the differences in language, time, culture, geography, setting and situation, etc. All of these must be taken into account before application can be made. Once the width of the chasm has been measured, we can then attempt to build the bridge over the chasm; what commonalities can we find between the original audience and ourselves, between our situation and theirs? Finally we can then find application for us in our time and situation.

Couldn't have said it better myself!