Studying Scriptures (Part 1)
Here are some tools to help you grow in understanding and responding to what God has communicated through his word. It’s our desire to help you Read, Think, Pray, and Live what God’s revealed in the Scriptures.
Read.
Sounds easy, doesn’t it? But this probably takes the most practice. We live in a culture that places significant value on time and convenience, and this first place is anything but speedy. To truly read Scripture, you’ve got to soak yourself in it.(*)
Have you ever been to the ocean? Not just pulling up in a car, taking your shoes off, and sticking your big toe in the water. Have you ever immersed yourself in the ocean? When you do that, it’s almost as if a whole new world opens up to you. You see and feel and taste and hear things that you never could have just walking along the beach – you experience things hidden from the spectators on the beach. It’s the same thing when you come to the Scriptures. When you immerse yourself in them, a whole new world opens up.
As usual, the Scripture really says it best:
Place these words on your hearts. Get them deep inside you. Tie them on your hands and foreheads as a reminder… Talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street; talk about them from the time you get up in the morning until you fall into bed at night. Inscribe them on the doorposts and gates of your cities so that you’ll live a long time.
Deuteronomy 11 (The Message)
How can a young person live a clean life?
By carefully reading the map of your Word.
I’m single-minded in pursuit of you;
don’t let me miss the road signs you’ve posted.Psalm 119 (The Message)
Eugene (Peterson, editor of The Message) describes it this way:
First, it is important simply to read, leisurely and thoughtfully. We need to get a feel for the way these stories and songs, these prayers and conversations, these sermons and visions, invite us into this large, large world in which the invisible God is behind and involved in everything visible, and illuminates what it means to live here – really live, not just get across the street.
As we read, and the longer we read, we begin to ‘get it’ – we are in conversation with God. We find ourselves listening and answering in matters that most concern us: who we are, where we came from, where we’re going, what makes us tick, the texture of the world and the communities we live in, and – most of all – the incredible love of God among us, doing for us what we cannot do for ourselves.
Through reading the Bible, we see that there is far more to the world, more to us, more to what we see and more to what we don’t see – more to everything! – than we had ever dreamed, and that this ‘more’ has to do with God.
This is new for many of us, a different sort of book – a book that reads us even as we read it. We are used to picking up and reading books for what we can get out of them: information we can use, inspiration to energize us, instructions on how to do something or other, entertainment to while away a rainy day, wisdom that will guide us into better living.
These things can and do take place when reading the Bible, but the Bible is given to us in the first place simply to invite us to make ourselves at home in the world of God, God’s word and world, and become familiar with the way God speaks and the ways in which we answer him with our lives.
What’s up with that? "A book that reads us even as we read it"? That’s a pretty strange statement at first glance. What other book can you say that about? What magazine has ever read you as your read it?
The [Scripture] contains our collective stories. Each of us can find little glimpses of ourselves in these pages. The people in the Scriptures are a whole lot like you, and a lot of them were far from perfect. We need to open our eyes and see what God would have each of us understand about ourselves.
So you can see that it’s not the same thing as reading the latest issue of your favorite magazine or a Shakespearian sonnet. There’s something different here – something that the creator of the universe wants to tell you and wants you to understand about him and yourself. By jumping into Scripture, you open your eyes to God’s world and see how he includes you in his story.
Think.
After reading, the next step is to really think about what Scripture is saying. This may seem obvious, but there is a difference between letting your mind over a few verses or chapters and trying to figure out what it means.
Have you ever been to the Grand Canyon? There are some people who drive up to the edge, jump out of their cars, poke around for a few minutes, maybe take a few pictures, and then head off to the gift shop to by T-shirts or snow globes to take to their friends back home.
There are others who spend an entire day seated quietly away from the noisy tourists, simply watching from their own private spot. That may sound boring, but to some, the Grand Canyon is a place of incredible beauty and power – one quick look isn’t enough. They want to soak it in. And those people will often come back year after year, to sit in that same spot – and every time, they see a different show.
You can think about the Scriptures in the same way. You can read a sentence or two, quickly decide what they mean and make a mental check next to them, and then head off to the gift shop.
Or, you can spend days and weeks (or even months) meditating on what a particular passage is really talking about – turning it over in your mind, reflecting on it, soaking it in.
You can consider what those words mean against the changing backdrop of real life – of your life. you can begin to perceive the importance and subtle meanings of each word that’s found its way from God to you. You can learn to identify the sound of God’s voice as you get to know him better. You can think of him from all different viewpoints, even putting yourself in the shoes of the characters you’re reading about. You can certainly ask the Author to help you soak it all in:
With your very own hands you formed me; now breathe your wisdom over me so I can understand you.
Psalm 119 (The Message)
God and his thoughts are so complex, with so many aspects and perspectives, that you can come back to his words again and again.
This way of thinking about Scripture is talked about in a number of places in the Bible. Perhaps the best example can be found in Psalm 1: "You thrill to God’s Word. You chew on it day and night." It’s not like a meal that you gulp down before you head out the door to do what you really want to do.
This is a five-star meal that you savor – with your mind, your heart, and your soul. It’s the main event, and you have the opportunity to spend hours at the table relishing each bite.
I ponder every morsel of wisdom from you,
I attentively watch how you’ve done it.
I relish everything you’ve told me of life,
I won’t forget a word of it…My soul is starved and hungry, ravenous! –
insatiable for your nourishing commands…Your words are so choice, so tasty;
I prefer them to the best home cooking.Psalm 119 (The Message)
Pray.
You’ve read the text. You’ve spent time thinking. Now comes prayer.
The kind of prayer we’re talking about goes beyond merely asking for things – although there’s a time for that, and God even tells us to do that often. But in this process… there’s a time when you need to acknowledge what God is saying to you.
Did God reveal something new about who he is? Did he reveal something about who you are in his eyes? Is he asking you to think about someone in a different light? Talk to God about it. Ask God to show you more about what you’ve just read:
Help me understand these things inside and out
So I can ponder your miracle-wonders.Psalm 119 (The Message)
Don’t just read through Scripture and breeze through the prayer part. Go beyond the usual "thanks for this or that, help me be a better person" routine. Have a conversation with God. He wants to do that with you.
These conversational prayers that flow out of what you read may be less about you and more about God. Your focus may shift away from yourself and toward your Creator.
Don’t be afraid to pray about a passage more than once – in fact, that’s a good thing. You may want to pray with a different focus at different times – talking to God about what you’re learning, thanking him for the truth in the passage, asking God questions, asking him to show you how to make the words real in your life, asking forgiveness for what you see in yourself after reading, just listening… There are a lot of ways to go about prayer.
As you continue on in this process, trying it several times, you may be thinking, Praying over the same part of Scripture seems pretty redundant. I’m doing the same thing over and over and over again – and you’d be right! The point of all of this is not to be doing something new at each step. The point is to focus more intentionally on God and what he’s communicating to you through this process.
Think of it this way: If you have a friend who constantly asks you for things but never really wants to listen to you, how deep will your relationship go? Sometimes we forget that God has a personality and wants to engage us at a deeper level.
Let prayer be a time that you come to savor and look forward to. Allow this to be a time in which God speaks to you and you actively seek him. An audible voice may not come booming out of the clouds, but many things will be revealed to you through this process – about God, about reality, and about you.
Live.
This is where these words begin to shape life. Jesus was the first one to become God’s words in the flesh.
The Word became flesh and blood,
and moved into the neighborhood.
We saw the glory with our own eyes,
the one-of-a-kind glory,
like Father, like Son,
Generous inside and out, true from start to finish.John 1 (The Message)
God’s word by its very nature changes us to make us like Christ:
God means what he says. What he says goes. His powerful Word is sharp as a surgeon’s scalpel, cutting through everything, whether doubt or defense, laying us open to listen and obey.
Hebrews 4 (The Message)
If you read what God has written, think about it, pray through it, but don’t allow it to change you, you’re missing a big point. James puts it this way:
Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you are a listener when you are anything but, letting the Word go in one ear and out the other. Act on what you hear! Those who hear and don’t act are like those who glance in the mirror, walk away, and two minutes later have no idea who they are, what they look like.
But whoever catches a glimpse of the revealed counsel of God – the free life! – even out of the corner of his eye, and sticks with it, is no distracted scatterbrain but a man or woman of action. That person will find delight and affirmation in the action.
James 1 (The Message)
Imagine going on a dream date – the right person, the right clothes, the right food, the right conversation… perfect! You excuse yourself from the table, take a look at the mirror in the restroom, and… uh-oh, not so perfect. Aaah! How long has that been in my teeth? Did my date notice? How could someone not notice? Then, having seen yourself clearly, you walk back out and sit down at the table, with a piece of dinner adorning your teeth in all it’s glory.
The same kind of thing happens when you read the Bible and do nothing. Not only is the sin that you leave in place ugly and damaging, but it also stands in the way of your relationship with God – in a much bigger way than something hanging off your face.
For God to share his mind and his heart with you, only to have you do nothing about it, implies more than a self-destructive choice. Instead of doing what God says, you have chosen yourself as master, as god.
The great part is that God doesn’t leave you alone. He doesn’t show you how lost you are and then leave you high and dry. God helps you live the way he wants. Like Paul told the Philippians,
Be energetic in your life of salvation, reverent and sensitive before God. That energy is God’s energy, an energy deep within you, God himself willing and working at what will give him the most pleasure.
Philippians 2 (The Message)
The amazing thing about reading the Scriptures is that as you spend time with God, this reading becomes part of you. Like the way relationships with other humans change us and shape our lives, our relationship with God changes us on a much larger scale…
The Bible and its message help you leave behind things that seem to offer pleasure (like living for yourself) but fail and leave you empty. God’s word does much more than that. You find true life. Jesus says in John, "I came so they can have a real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of." (John 14) Jesus himself is life (John 14). So don’t miss this: When you live the Word, you truly live.
Do you have questions about studying the Bible? office@seekreallife.com
What about hard to understand passages? How can I grow even more in understanding and responding to God’s word as a self-feeder when what I’m reading doesn’t make sense? Click here and find out!
About the Scriptures…
The following links to articles provided by the Christian Research Institute.
Did the process of copying Scriptures corrupt the Scriptures?
A brief history of the written word of God…
The Bible was written over 1,500 years from Moses (approx. 1400 B.C.) writing the first 5 books of the Bible to the Apostle John. (approx. 90 A.D.)
Around 1400 B.C. God wrote the 10 Commandments in ancient Hebrew on stone.
Around 500 B.C. 39 books that make up the Jewish Scriptures (Old Testament) were completed and preserved in Hebrew and Aramaic on scrolls. All published writings were copied by scribes by hand. These writings, called manuscripts, were the only way to publish until the invention of the movable type in the 15th century!
250-150 B.C. In Alexandria, Egypt, the Hebrew Scriptures were translated for the first time into koine (common) greek. This version was called the Septuagint or LXX. Koine greek was the international trade language for the entire world established by Alexander the Great and continued from about 350 B.C. to 330 A.D. It is absolutely amazing that the New Testament was written in this language because it would be so easily spread throughout the known world without needing to be translated!
70 A.D. The Temple in Jerusalem is destroyed, Jews and Christians are greatly persecuted and scattered.
Around 100 A.D. The last New Testament letter had been completed. These letters as well as the Jewish Bible were preserved on papyrus through the manuscript process. The entire New Testament was written in Greek, the Jewish Bible (our "Old Testament"), was written almost entirely in Hebrew with a few sections written in Aramaic.
Around 100 A.D. Flavius Josephus, a Jewish historian working for Rome listed the 22 books of the Old Testament which equal our own 39 books we have today. (some books that we have separated – I & II Samuel; I & II Kings etc. – were seen as one book at that time).
125 A.D. The date of the oldest New Testament manuscript fragment. Known as the John Rylands fragment, it contains five partial verses from the Gospel of John. (John 18:31-33; John 18:37-38) This Gospel was written in the early 90’s A.D. and so this manuscript would be copied very soon after John’s Gospel was written.
367 A.D. Athanasus, Bishop of Alexandria, published the earliest known list that includes all of the 27 books that we find of the New Testament that we have today.
500 – 900 A.D. A group of Jewish scribes, known as Masoretes, copied the Old Testament. They were very detailed in how they copied and preserved the text.
500 A.D. The Bible had been translated into over 500 languages.
600 A.D. Bible language was restricted to Latin. All other versions were considered illegal.
Early 1200 A.D. Stephen Langton was the first to create chapter divisions in the Scriptures.
1329 – 1384 A.D. John Wycliffe was the first person to translate the Bible into English. He was subsequently pronounced a "heretic" by the established church and burned at the stake.
1450 A.D. Gutenberg invented the movable type and changed the world! He made mass publishing a reality and greatly improved the reliability of copied text. Imagine moving from copying each sentence by hand to what we can do today… incredible!
1488 A.D. The first entire Old Testament is printed in Hebrew.
1516 A.D. Erasmus, a Dutch Reformed Catholic scholar was the first to publish a printed greek New Testament.
1517 A.D. Martin Luther nailed his famous 95 Thesis on the church door at the church in Wittenberg.
1526 A.D. William Tyndale printed the first English Bible.
1536 A.D. Tyndale was incarcerated before he was strangled and burned at the stake. Before dying, Tyndale prayed, “Oh Lord, open the King of England’s eyes".
1539 A.D. King Henry VIII finally allowed (and even funded) the printing of an English Bible.
1611 A.D. The King James version of the English Bible was first published in England.
1947 A.D. The Dead Sea scrolls are discovered in Qumran. At the site, they found every book in the Old Testament except the Book of Esther. This amazing find instantly brought archeologists back over 1,000 years of scribal copying. For example, the Book of Isaiah was found that was dated around 100 B.C. which was over 1,000 years older than any previous manuscript discovered.
The Dead Sea scrolls agreed in almost every respect to the newer ones. The only errors found were ones of slight misspellings, but most are incredibly identical. It really speaks of how meticulous these scribes were in copying the Scriptures.