Reading and understanding the Bible does not come naturally to any of us. There are several factors working against us:
The Devil doesn’t want you reading the Bible, so that means there is a spiritual opposition to reading and understanding the Bible.
The Bible was written between 2000 – 3500 years ago, in a different language, referencing different cultural nuances that are unfamiliar to us. Let’s face facts, the Bible is really old.
Last week we learned that the Bible has 40 different human authors with different writing styles.
The Bible has many different literary styles, some of which we would never read in any other aspect of our life. The apocalyptic writings are very hard, but even the Gospels can be hard if we don’t understand that the Gospel is a particular literary genre from that time period that we don’t have today.
I could go on . . . but you get the idea.
If you can relate, don’t be discouraged. I have a message of hope for you this Sunday: that you can read and understand the Bible. This week our entire church will be introduced to a method of reading the Bible that will help anyone better understand what they are reading in the Bible. It’s called the 7 Arrows of Bible Reading. The 7 Arrows prompts 7 questions to ask as you read a passage of scripture. For my message this week I will preach from Philippians 1:1-11, using the 7 Arrows method to unlock the meaning of the passage. Then, in the Community Group meetings, you will receive some teaching and coaching on how to do this yourself.
I’m going to guess that most of you have never had anyone teach you a simple way to effectively read the Bible. This Sunday, you will have an opportunity to change that. We want to help you be able to Read and Understand the Bible on your own, experiencing the life transforming power of God’s Word.
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