Scripture Savvy: 5 Tips for Smart Bible Reading
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The Bible is not a book of magic words. It’s a collection of works, including songs, prophecies, historical accounts, letters, and other writings. Each book in its own way reveals the character and actions of God interacting with humanity over time. Savvy Bible readers stay faithful to authors’ intentions and to the heart of the God who inspired them. In this post, I offer five tips for accurate and faithful Bible interpretation.
Tip 1: Consider the context.
Taking bits of Scripture out of its context has spawned cults, doctrinal errors, and atrocities throughout history. In misusing the Bible, Christians have wrongly justified slavery, racism, domestic abuse, narcissism in spiritual leadership, killing in Jesus’ name, and other inhumanities. The Bible—when taken in proper context—condones none of these sins. To avoid lifting a statement from the Bible out of its context, read full paragraphs or sections to see the writer’s flow of thought.
Also, to understand the writer’s intentions, consider what genre (or type of writing) you’re reading—is it poetry, history, prophecy, a personal letter, or something else? Each type of literature reveals truths in different ways.
For some genres, the author intends for us to take the meaning literally. For example, the gospels provide historical accounts of Jesus’ life. When the narrator says that Jesus rose from the dead, the author means us to read that as a historical fact. The historical resurrection of Jesus is the foundation of Christian’s belief that Jesus was the Son of God and not just another wise moral teacher.
On the other hand, the book of Revelation includes sections of apocalyptic literature, a genre popular at the time. Apocalyptic literature uses numbers as symbols. When Revelation 7 mentions 144,000 servants of God, the Apostle John does not expect you to interpret that number literally but symbolically.
I cannot recommend highly enough the classic book on Bible genres, How to Read the Bible for All It’s Worth. The authors demonstrate how to read prophecies, letters, poetry, and other Bible genres in a way that’s faithful to the writer’s literary intentions.
Tip 2: Remember the larger story.
The Bible reveals God’s unfolding plan to redeem humanity over the course of human history. Each book of the Bible adds to that great story. The Old Testament establishes God’s relationship with humanity and reveals our need for God’s intervention. The New Testament recounts Jesus’ life and the beginnings of the Church, the spiritual community that developed after Jesus rose from the dead. The Bible ends with a revelation of events predicted to happen at the end of history. As you read, be mindful of where your text fits into the larger story of redemption.
Furthermore, the Bible captures its essential truths repeatedly, in multiple ways. So, “let Scripture interpret Scripture.” Check your understanding of a passage by searching for other passages on the same topic. If you are interpreting one passage, notice if you find any counter-examples to your first interpretation. God’s Word is consistent—with itself and with God’s character. Where multiple meanings are possible, select the one that aligns with the rest of the Bible, the nature of Jesus as the Son of God, and God’s overall heart.
A tip about reading prophetic passages: Biblical prophecies often apply to multiple situations simultaneously. The same prophetic words can point to an issue in the prophet’s day, a foretelling of Jesus’ life, and end-time events that haven’t happened yet. For this reason, it’s helpful to focus not primarily on what precise events from history or in the future that the prophecy is referring to, but mainly what it reveals about the character of God. With a deeper understanding of God’s character, the Bible will have prepared you to face any situation that may come with confidence in God’s goodness.
Tip 3: Practice historical humility.
The authors of the Bible represented many cultures over time—all of them different from ours. Learning a bit of the Israelite, Greek, or Roman cultures of biblical times can help make sense of confusing passages. Practice historical humility—be careful not to directly apply practices found in the Bible before understanding God’s priorities.
On the other hand, we also don’t just dismiss parts of Scripture as outdated without discovering what we can learn about God from them. All Scripture can teach us something about what matters to God and how that plays out in a real situation, even if it’s different from our own.
To read with historical humility, start by remembering our point of view: we live after Jesus lived, died, and rose from the dead. So we need to look at the Old Testament (before Jesus) through “gospel goggles,” i.e., through the lens of Jesus’ having already completed the work on the cross to open the way for us be forgiven of our sins and reconciled to God.
For example, the Old Testament includes many laws about sacrifices for sin. But remember, Jesus’ sacrificial death has already fulfilled all of the sacrificial law’s requirements. Jesus’ human body was the once-for-all sacrifice for sins that all those animal sacrifices were just a foreshadowing of. Jesus was also the perfect priest to offer that sacrifice, where all the priests who came before him in the sacrificial system were a foreshadowing of his priesthood—his role as a mediator between God and humanity. We honor the law, not by restarting a sacrificial system or appointing more human mediators, but by entrusting our lives to Jesus as our perfect priest. But we can still learn from the sacrificial laws what ways of treating God and one another that God considers right and wrong. We can also see that there are consequences for sin that affect us an individuals and communities.
It’s also helpful think of Jesus when reading the Psalms. Many psalms are prayers to God by a “righteous” person. And Jesus is the only perfectly righteous person to ever live. But as we entrust our lives to Jesus, we can pray alongside the Psalmist as we, through faith in Jesus as Lord, are identified with Jesus’ righteousness, not our own.
Beyond wearing gospel goggles, you can also apply the Bible to your culture by considering:
What was God saying to that culture through this writer?
What was happening in the culture that explains what the writer was addressing?
What, then, does it tell us about God’s character, values, or priorities for people generally?
What might it look like for us to honor what matters to God in our cultures and situations today?
One final cultural tip: To overcome cultural blind spots, you can also consult a Bible commentary from another part of the world. You’ll see the Bible through the eyes of different cultural values. This shifted lens can reveal some assumptions your culture makes about the Bible’s meaning and values. Sometimes after seeing the Bible through a different cultural lens, you’ll find a wiser understanding of what the text is talking about, unclouded by Western or American ideals. Once you see that better interpretation, you can’t unsee it.
Tip 4: Think We, Not Just Me.
In English, we use the same word, “you,” to speak to one person or to many people. But the original lanugages of the Bible (Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek) don’t have this problem. So “you” in our English translations of the Bible may have been the plural “you-all” in the writer’s original language, which at times profoundly shapes its meaning. Westerners tend to think in individualistic ways, sometimes to a fault. English-speakers the West can sometimes misinterpret community-focused Bible passages as for individuals, and the meaning can sometimes be reduced or even misunderstood altogether.
For example, Jeremiah 29:11 says, “For I know the plans I have for you—plans to prosper you, not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Out of context, individuals may hear this verse and think, God has charted a course for my life in terms of career and family, and the next material blessing is right around the corner. But God was speaking to the Israelite nation, God’s chosen people, as a whole.
The passage still applies to us personally, but in a much deeper way than we might think. When we follow Jesus, we join God’s people. Jeremiah’s prophecy foretells that God would give His people hope and a future through Jesus. Then later, Jesus also referred to the hope and future for the people of God as a whole when he declared that “the gates of hell shall not prevail” against the Church.
The promise, “to give you hope and a future,” doesn’t guarantee us the material wealth, career, or family we might want. The truth is much better. Through career or family blessings or setbacks—and even death—the followers of Jesus will always have unshakeable hope and an eternal future with God. As we follow Jesus, we not only have dignity and hope in any life circumstance. We are also part of a vast community to whom God has given eternal life.
We’re part of a bigger story. Of course, we want to connect with the Bible personally. But that doesn’t mean we have to focus on it from an individual lens. We can misread it if we neglect what God is saying to the community. When in doubt, consider first what God is saying to us as God’s people as a whole. Then you’ll better be able to receive any prompting from the Holy Spirit about your life.
Tip 5: Keep it relational.
Why do we read the Bible? What’s the purpose? The most important reason to read the Bible is to pursue a closer relationship with God. We read it to know God better, follow Jesus more closely, and keep in step with the Holy Spirit. As you read the Bible, think relationally. Consider questions like:
What does it show God is like?
How did God relate to people at that time? How does God relate to humanity generally?
How do I feel about God, others, or myself after reading this?
Based on what it shows of God’s character, what does that mean for something happening in my life or community?
What might it look like to live a life that honors God and other people in my/our situation?
Another relational way to read the Scriptures is to read the text back to God. For example, instead of reading, “God spoke to Moses, saying,” or, “Jesus wept,” you can read the Scripture as a prayer, saying, “You spoke to Moses, saying,” or, “You wept.” Following your reading-to-God, notice any thoughts, feelings, insights, and anything else that the Holy Spirit may be bringing to your mind, and share this with God too. This way, Your Bible reading is a real-time, relational experience.
In Sum
We can avoid most pitfalls in Bible reading if we read with the above tips. That said, the Holy Spirit may also speak to us through the Bible in mysterious ways! May God continue to illuminate the Scriptures to us all.
