When reading the Bible, I believe there are three very, very important lens that we must look through
- Jesus
- The Trajectory of the Scriptures
- The Context of the Scriptures
Reading the Bible through Jesus
• In Colossians 1:15 St. Paul tells us that Jesus is the “image of God, the invisible one.”
- John 1:14 tells us that the Word of God (Jesus) became flesh and dwelled among us
- Jesus Himself told us that to see Him was to see God
• As such, I firmly believe that we are to read the Scriptures through the lens of Jesus
- Jesus is God relived to us
- So when we have problems understanding what the Scriptures are saying
- Which, face it, there are some confusing parts in this book – that doesn’t mean that we throw them out (far from it)
- It just means that we read those passages through Jesus
• If our interruption of Scriptures does not match that of the life and character of Jesus, we MUST rethink that passage!
- We ALWAYS default back to Jesus
- For He is God relived to us!!
The Trajectory of the Scriptures
• The second lens is the trajectory of the Scriptures
- What has God been doing throughout history?
- What has been His focus?
- What is the overarching theme of the Scriptures?
• These are questions that we must ask ourselves as the books of the Bible are not standalone documents
• They are documents placed within a greater canon of documents
• The Scriptures did not fall from the sky bound and complete
- They are a collection of God-breathed letters, histories, poems, songs, etc
• Within the pages of Scriptures are people as human as we are
- It records there mistakes
- Successes
- Failures
- Loves and hates
• It tells us that we all are on a journey with God and even when we mess up, God is still with us
• As such, when we find a passage that is confusing, we must ask ourselves
- What is the overall movement of the Scriptures in this area?
The Context of the Scriptures
• The last lens in which we are read the Scriptures is the context of the Scriptures
• The books of the Bible did not happen in isolation
- There were real people writing down what really happened
- There are cultural views and political battles within its pages
• We need to ask
- Who wrote this book/letter?
- Who did they write too?
- What was happening at the time that they wrote it?
• I understand that these can be hard questions
- I know that some folks question every part of this..
- But I also know that this information is readily available to each of you
• There are study Bibles which include introductions to each book that summarizes these questions
- I also know that there are resources that can be found online
- At your local bookstore, etc.
• If we are serious about the Scriptures, we should be looking and reading this stuff
Example of This
• A good example of this is the Old Testament law
- If we are honest, we all have read through Deuteronomy and Leviticus and scratched our heads
- It is confusing and does not make sense to us
• Some folks simply thrown out these books, saying that they do not fit with New Testament
• Others read St. Paul’s letters and then, using St. Paul as their interruptive lens, say that there were two ages
- One of law in which the Israelites received salvation through the obedience to the Mosaic Law
- One of grace through the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus
• However if we look at the Old Testament Law through the three lens we just talked about we see something differently
• Lens One
- Jesus was about God’s grace and love
- We see God’s grace in the life and death of Jesus
- He was against a rule based religion
- He wanted a relationship with His people
• Lens Two
- Looking back we seen God’s grace in how Adam, Eve, Noah and Abraham
- We see grace in how God dealt with the Israelites
- We see a trajectory of grace throughout the Bible
• Lens Three
- In looking at the context of the Old Testament, we can see how radically some of the ‘laws’ were
- Once we understand that the Israelites were slaves for a few hundred years and needed some guidelines to figure out how to run a new country…
- Well things fall into place a lot better
• Instead of a “law vs. grace” thing
- We find out that it is always been about grace!!
- From Genesis to Revelation, its all grace.
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