A pastor search committee interviewed a recent seminary graduate. The candidate was young, and the committee wondered about his level of Bible knowledge. The chairman of the committee asked the student, “Do you know the Bible?”
“Of course,” he replied, “I just graduated from seminary!”
“Then tell us a story of the Bible—how about the ‘Good Samaritan’?” replied the chairman.
“No problem,” said the pastoral candidate.
“There was a man of the Samaritans named Nicodemus. He went down to Jerusalem by night, and he fell among the stony ground, and the thorns choked him half to death. “So he said, ‘What shall I do? I will arise and go to my father’s house.’ So he arose and climbed up into a sycamore tree. The next day the three wise men came and got him and carried him to the ark for Moses to take care of him. But, as he was going into the eastern gate into the ark, he caught his hair in a limb, and he hung there for forty days and forty nights. Afterward he was hungry, and the ravens came and fed him.Alvin Read – The Evangelism Handbook
“The next day he caught a boat and sailed down to Jerusalem. When he got there he saw Delilah sitting on a wall, and he said, ‘Chunk her down, boys!’ They said, ‘How many times shall we chunk her down, until 7 times 7?’ ‘No, not until 7, but 70 times 7.’ So they threw her down 490 times, and she burst asunder in their midst, and they picked up 12 baskets of the fragments that were there. In the resurrection, whose wife will she be?”
The committee sat stunned. They conferred briefly, then the chairman spoke to the seminary graduate. “Well, young man, we are going to recommend you as our next pastor. You may be young, but you sure know your Bible!”
The funny story above was told by Alvin Reid to illustrate a point-
We know many Bible stories but we have a hard time seeing how they fit together to tell God’s main story: the the Creator God interacts in the world to redeem mankind from their fallen status. This is God’s mission and it is why we have a mission. Mission (what we call evangelism) is a proper hermeneutic for reading the entire Bible. It is the story of reality. If we fail to grasp this big picture understanding, then we are likely to misread Scripture and develop faulty theology and practices. In short, we will not follow the Lord with a bad reading.
Our approach to Scripture has much impact on the conclusions we draw. We must give attention to understanding the whole counsel of God’s Word, not just an occasional story here or memory verse there. There’s nothing wrong with meditation on a couple of Scripture verses or memorizing them. This is a helpful practice. But it is not how Scripture is given to us. It has been given to us book by book, not verse by verse. Further, it has been brought together under one canon- one major story across 66 books.
This is why we need to return to a more original practice of Scripture- reading entire books at a time. And reading them aloud. We need to break away from the versification of the Bible. Those numbers, chapters, and heading are all additions to Scripture- they are not Inspired.
My challenge to you is this: in your groups, pick a goal to read through an entire book at one time. Abandon the devotional books, and immerse yourself in vast quantities of Scripture. Get the big picture of the Bible lest we miss the point.
One help in this is to use a readers Bible.
Try the Immerse Readers Bibles or the NIV Sola Scriptura Reader’s Bible Project. Both of these are Bible sets that remove verses and chapter headings and numbers so that you can focus on reading the text as it was given to us.
Our view of Scripture has a large impact on living life to glorify God, enjoying him forever, as we join him on his mission in this life. Our God is a missionary God as revealed in all of Scripture. Will we be people of the book who are his missionary people?
