Five reasons why you don’t need to get freaked out by the Bible
April 23rd, 2010 by David Entwistle Posted in Books, Theology, Uncategorized
I always get freaked out by the Bible. It’s so much easier to pick up a novel or a magazine. But whenever I do, the Bible sits there on my shelf, shouting, “Hey! You should be reading ME! What kind of Christian are you?” But I can’t face it – it’s so big and leathery. I just keep reading my novel.
Until this year. This year I agreed to read four chapters of Bible every day. And it turns out it’s not as scary as I thought. It can even be fun. Here’s five things I’ve found about the Bible:
1. It’s not magic. The Bible is a book just like any other book. It isn’t a magic book that answers every question or makes you more Christian. It’s a normal book; it just happens to be the book about God and what he’s done.
2. It’s not big. The Bible isn’t one big book; it’s lots of little books. Actually, most of them aren’t even books. They’re all sorts of different writing, from letters to poetry, from history to fables.
3. You don’t need to get it. The Bible is more like Lord of the Rings than a maths textbook. You don’t have to puzzle over it until you ‘get it’. You can just read it. Immerse yourself in the story and enjoy watching it unfold.
4. Read it like a novel. You can’t just read a few pages of Lord of the Rings and know what’s going on. The Bible isn’t any different. Don’t just read a few verses. Read a whole book, or at least a few chapters at a time. Then you’ll get what’s going on.
5. It’s not boring. This is the most surprising – sometimes the Bible really is unputdownable. When you read the Bible like a normal book, you can really get into the story. Sometimes I find I’ve read more than my four chapters, and I want to keep reading.
The Bible is a normal book. It’s not magic, it’s not big, it’s not hard to understand. Don’t let your Bible sit on the shelf shouting insults at you. You wouldn’t take it from your flatmate, so don’t take it from a book.
3 Responses to “Five reasons why you don’t need to get freaked out by the Bible”
By Kat on Apr 24, 2010
Haha Dave. So very relatable and true. *giggle*
Are you doing the M’Cheyne readings?
It’s kinda encouraging to know that other Christians feel the same way about reading the Bible. That it can somehow feel like this massive task each day. But knowing that other’s feel the same, makes it an easier task to conquer.
By David Entwistle on Apr 25, 2010
I’m glad it’s not just me, too, Kat!
Yeh, I’m doing M’Cheyne, but I got a bit annoyed with reading four chapters from four different books each day, so now I usually read four chapters from one book each day. I have a few books on the go at once, and read whichever one I feel like.
By Mrbonchapeau on Jun 2, 2010
Thanks Dave, just read this blog. Very helpful and again, easy to relate too. I liked you’re playful comment that you don’t need to let a book hurl the same taunts that our mates do about reading it.
It’s interesting about the ‘magic’ point. Perhaps when we read the Bible as Australians we sometimes feel the consumer/results-driven attitude toward what we read, with ideas like ‘what am I going to get out of this?’ Maybe we expect to always get a personal practical application for ourselves in a passage, otherwise it’s not ‘relevant’ for us. I resonated with point3.
To try to further discussion, maybe you could write about how we at unichurch can change how we talk about the Bible in our convos at unichurch and throughout the week? Like, being aware that a lot of our mates feel as you did last year about the Bible, how can we talk about it naturally, without sounding like super Christians? It seems that talking about a passage that you and the ‘other person’ are familiar with makes it easier to start…kinda both of you are on the same page. Comments anyone??