Beef Up Your Bible Reading 6

Should you take everything you read in the Bible literally? Of course not. Some bits are meant to be taken literally (“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”), other bits clearly are not (“The pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and on them he has set the world.”). But how do you tell the difference?

The Bible writers used different kinds of writing to make the points they wanted to make. Sometimes they used legal language: their words were precise and their sentences left no room for misunderstanding. Sometimes they wrote letters to address specific people in specific situations with the intention of teaching them doctrine giving them unambiguous direction. Sometimes they told factually accurate stories to make their point and sometimes they told made-up stories. Sometimes they used poetry full of picture language. Sometimes they made comparisons, sometimes they exaggerated, sometimes they used humour. They used all the ways we use to express ourselves and, just as it is with modern-day English, different rules apply when you want to make sense of each of them.

You’ve possibly never thought about it but every day you navigate your way through different forms of expression and apply the kinds of rules I have in mind without any difficulty. You know the rules instinctively and you apply them without thinking: you know what’s meant to be taken literally and what’s not. Well, apply that same common sense when you read the Bible and you’ll not go far wrong. It’s usually when people don’t that they get into bother.

But just to be sure, over the next few weeks, I want to get you thinking about some of the different kinds of writing you’ll encounter in the Bible and about some of the rules that apply when you want to understand each of them. As well as that I’ll point out some of the mistakes people commonly make, so you can avoid them.

We’ll start with stories.

Most of the Bible is stories: 40% of the Old Testament and 60% of the New, they say. Most of those stories are true. Yes, some have been made up but don’t worry about that. If a story has been made up in order to make a point that’ll be obvious; God isn’t out to hoodwink you. If it’s not obviously a made-up story assume that it’s a factually accurate account of something that really happened: real people, in real places, in real times.

Every time you read a story in the Bible the key thing you ought to work out is why the writer told it. Imagine you’re the storyteller and try to finish this sentence for him: “I’m telling you this story because…” It’s rarely said in so many words, so you will have to work it out. Your biggest clue will be the context the story comes in (where does it fit in the big story of the Bible, what comes before it; what comes after it?). Also, look out for any comments the storyteller might have thrown in. They can be a big help.

There’s one big mistake that a lot of people — preachers included — make in their Bible reading. They forget that a story describes what happened on one occasion, in order to make a point. What happened on that occasion will not necessarily be repeated on every similar occasion. David had faith and David slew Goliath but that doesn’t mean that if you have faith you will be able to slay every giant you meet. In the early church, “all who believed were together and had all things in common.” (Acts 2:44), but that doesn’t mean we must get back to doing that in every church today. No, what you need to be asking is why are we told the story of David and Goliath when we are; why did Luke tell us about what happened in the first churches?

And it’s a good rule of thumb: you should never base a doctrine or practice on a story.