The Big Listen

We’re really excited to be hosting a small group this year at our house – after a few years of missing them completely. But there’s another big reason we’re so excited about it. This year at my church we’re totally changing the way we do ‘small groups’. After decades probably of bible ‘studies’ that follow the preaching program, we’re departing from tradition. No more sitting with our heads buried in a sheet of questions. Rather, we’re trying to get back to properly reading the Bible, or should I say 'listening' to the Bible. We want not only to get back to reading the books of the bible as books, but also listening to the authors as they meant for us to listen.

It’s of course as ancient as it comes; after all the books of the bible were each originally written as a unit to be read, not section by section, but in their entirety. Also they were written to groups of people, to be read to groups of people, out loud. Today, we’ve largely lost the focus on public reading, and much less the art of corporate listening.

But it follows that what may be most needed for us today, is to cultivate a new love of listening direct from the Bible; listening right through the text of God’s word itself.

So this year at my church we’re going to begin the year by just spending a couple of months reading through (one of) Romans, Hebrews, or Mark’s Gospel, every week. We’re just opening it up and read it aloud to one another, in as big-a-slabs as we can manage; then we just see what discussion comes up. We’ve calling it the ‘big read’, after Pete Woodcock’s inspiration from this briefing article, The Big Read:

“I think our practice of reading a minimal bit of the Bible in a service, that the preacher will then preach on, is weird and probably wrong,” he says.

“We’re supposed to read it as books. When Paul wrote a letter and encouraged the people he was writing to read it as a whole church, do you think they said: “We’re going to read verses 1-4 today—come back next week for a bit more”, and that was it? I imagine they read the whole letter. That’s how the Bible’s written to be read—in big chunks, out loud, together.

“And I think we’ve lost that idea. Somewhere, we’ve forgotten about it.”

…

“We’re Bible illiterate. I assume 100 years ago people knew the Scriptures more—but now they just don’t. And the great thing about the Bible is most of it is narrative. People love stories, and the Bible’s got stories. So let’s use them!”

That’s exactly what they’re doing. Based on an idea Pete got from Steve Levy, pastor of Mount Pleasant Baptist Church in Swansea, Cornerstone have embarked on ‘The Big Read’.

“It’s not exactly revolutionary!” Pete says. “It’s just reading big chunks of Scripture, out loud, together. It’s reading the Bible as it was written to be read. So each month, we’ll read a book of the Bible in our midweek small groups. So far we’ve done Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, and then we did Luke and Acts. Then we tackled Hebrews, which just comes alive if you’ve already read the Pentateuch.

The ‘big read’ is a great idea. But only one person does the reading. The focus is really on the listener. It’s actually about practicing the old art of corporate [Bible] listening. We should actually call it the ‘big listen’, I reckon. Because as Christians, we are principally those who listen to God’s word, and listening of course is much more than reading; it’s about ‘hearing’ what God has said, what God is saying.

I hope it catches on; would be great to see a new culture spread around the globe of a return of the large Bible read to our church meetings, big and small.

The Book Light

I've invested in a portable book light, and not just for travel. As a single, my primary spot for daily Bible reading was last thing in bed before lights out. That all went out the window when I got married, as did the audio Bible which was set to go off with the alarm clock in the morning.

I've found that technology used wisely can be hugely beneficial for my 'devotional' discipline. Breakthroughs such as the audio ESV for the iPhone, and e-sword.net, have improved and increased my access to the Bible in day-to-day life no end.

However nothing beats pouring over the pages of the text itself, and that's something that's suffered in my day for sometime.

But Book Light to the rescue. Again technology is helping me out, but this time it's taking me get back to the basics, the book (the Book).

Fyi. Here is a product description, and the website of the an Australian company importing the product from the manufacturer in the US: Arnotts Gadget Man - MightyBright PocketFlex LED Booklight, A compact, multi function booklight with a flex arm that provides great page coverage for the LED light. Perfect for the book reading husband of a TV watcher who likes to dim the lighting.



Btw. For locals, Fullers in Town are re-selling them and for only $18.95 it's cheaper than you could get online.

Is the Bible true?

I’ll never forget Hills Leadership College classes in Evangelism with John Cannone. His ‘Every Believer Evangelism’ seminar manual was entitled ‘The Confidence Builder’, and had a landmark session for me on ‘The Bible as a sound basis for faith’.

While affirming that the Bible speaks for itself, Cannone outlined seven external ‘witnesses’ that together counteract the accusations launched by our contemporary era against the Bible’s reliability as a source of truth. I’ve still got the lecture notes. He moves from the witness of the Bible’s uniqueness to the witness of the Biblical manuscripts themselves. He follows with sections on the witness of archeology, science, prophecy, mathematics and then finally, the witness of the Bible’s survival.

I remembered all this one day late last year when my son Elijah came to me and asked a quite unforgettable question: ‘how do we know the Bible's not tricking us’? And with this question came a whole heap of other questions for my 6 year-old-boy: Who wrote the Bible? Has the story been changed over time?

After my initial surprise [I don’t think I asked too many questions as a 6 year old?] I began recalling to mind a whole heap of stuff I first got from Cannone. But I hadn’t revisited his material since as a 17 year old his lecture first filled me with emboldened evangelical zeal. So going back over the notes, now more than 15 years later, I must say I was quite disappointed. They were brief, lacking key details and didn’t even include references!

I thought I’d better do a bit better than that with my boy. Perhaps a trip to the State Library together might be in order.

Elijah loves ‘research’ [he first got that from Steve Irwin, would you believe it?] So we agreed together to begin looking into where the Bible came from and then work from there. At the Library we found and began reading through some kids' books about the ancient world, which languages they spoke and what they wrote on. Elijah is pretty kinesthetic, so he automatically went to trying to create lookalike ancient writing tablets and that sort of thing. In the end we made a whole heap of fun ‘replicas’ of archeological finds such as our own miniature stone tablet, an ancient parchment scroll, some carved Hebrew script on a clay [wood] tablet, and a ‘rare’ pottery fragment that had the name ‘Jesus’ visible inscribed on it in faint ancient Greek.

We had a lot of fun. But our quest wasn't over. We headed back to the library where Elijah discovered some more great kids' books that helped laying a great foundation for approaching this subject, and I found in the adult's section one book on his very original question.

Jeffery Sheler’s Is the Bible true? describes how modern debates and discoveries affirm the essence of the Scriptures. Sheler is a journalist [religion correspondent] who employs his craft to siphon through the ‘claims and counterclaims’ of contemporary arguments, and manages to separate Bible history from Bible ‘hysteria’. This book, just sitting on the shelf at our own state library, has this to say about it in its extended info:

Description (full):

Can the Bible still be regarded as an authentic and credible historical document? In this "excellent overview" (Booklist), Jeffery L. Sheler separates Bible history from Bible hysteria, shattering myths on both sides of the religious divide. His authoritative investigation touches on hot-button issues including: dramatic archaeological finds that both verify and challenge the Bible's history; ancient texts such as the Dead Sea Scrolls that profoundly influence our understanding of the Bible; and the modern quest to discover the truth about Jesus' life and teachings. This fascinating account of scandal and scholarship, debate and discovery affirms the Bible's reliability as a historical witness and a testimony of timeless faith.

Author info:

Jeffery L. Sheler is an award-winning journalist and has been a religion writer at U.S. News & World Report for some years. He is a correspondent for PBS's Religion & Ethics Newsweekly and lives in Washington, D.C.

Suffice it to say I recommend this as a really good read for anyone who hasn’t yet dug beneath the surface of our assumptions about archeological ‘proof’ of the Bible’s truth. I’m thankful for the confidence I got from Cannone in my late teens, I really am. But interestingly, it wasn’t enough.

I’m glad I knew about the discovery of the Ebla tablets in my early Christian life, and what controversies they finished forever. They had recorded the 5 cities cited in Genesis 14, confirming the Bible’s account as historically reliable, confirming that writing and a judicial system existed before Moses. Archeology had ‘proven’ certain biblical subjects to be correct: Genesis’ ancestry of Israel derived from Mesopotamia; the building of the Tower of Babel; the existence of the Patriarchs; the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah; the fall of the walls of Jericho; King Solomon’s building projects; the geography of the NT, and much more.

But somehow I think I might have subconsciously inferred that archeology had ‘proven the Bible’ itself to be true. Has archeology established proof for the Israelites slavery in Egypt? What about their great Exit from Egypt? What about their desert wandering through the desert? Archeological digs have unearthed no hard proof of any of these pivotal claims of the biblical narrative. And even if they had, what evidence might we find for the cloud that led them by day, or the pillar of fire that accompanied them by night? What can archeology do to ‘prove’ the miracles of Moses or of those of Jesus for that matter?

So is the Bible true, and how can we know either way? Why Jeffery Sheler’s book is helpful for beginning to approach this question, is that it educates us about the role of archeology in establishing the elements of historical record in the first place, while at the same time distinguishing for us what can be known from these sources from what can reliably be trusted as ‘truth’. In the end, we should not expect ‘truth’ to necessarily be ‘provable’ as such. [Can you prove today even what took place yesterday in your life in its entirety? Nonetheless, does this lack of evidence make your best account of yesterday untrue of itself?]

But while clinically balanced, Sheler does convincingly, and remarkably, show that modern debates and discoveries do in fact affirm [give weight, or support] the essence of what the Scriptures say throughout. This is confidence building; this is the encouragement we need as modern [or postmodern?] Christians.

Our quest still isn’t over. Now I’ve got to work out how on earth I summarise what I’ve learned for Elijah. And maybe then I need to dig up some of that old-time Josh MacDowell and see if I can fill in a few of those details that I’ve apparently been missing for some time.

The Bible in 7 points

The story of God's journey in reconciling the world back to Himself has been summarised by Dan Armstrong and others as a 7 stage mission. The narrative of the Bible is complex and rich, but it can be understood on a basic level too. The simplicity of the elemental structure below may be helpful for those who are new to Christianity or struggling to understand the flow of the Old Testament into the New:

1. God ‘with’ People (Genesis 2)
Relationship (between God and his people) which is good: God gives man a lease of the earth with dominion over it, but they need to trust God’s word.

2. God ‘and’ People (Genesis 3-11)
Separation (fall into sin): The relationship of trust is destroyed. God now begins the journey of reconciling the world to himself. And he must do it through ‘man’.

3. God ‘to’ People (Genesis 12 - 50)
God appears to Abraham, and he enters into a covenant with God: he becomes a people under promise by God.

4. God ‘among’ People (Exodus - Deuteronomy)
God reveals Himself in Israel’s midst, through Moses and through the tabernacle, who become a people belonging to God.

5. God ‘through’ People (Joshua - Malachi)
God gives Israel prophets, from Joshua to John the Baptist: He leads them and appeals to them through his chosen anointed ones, to live rightly as his people.

6. God ‘as’ a Person (Gospels)
God gives Jesus who completes God’s work of salvation for people, making them right with God through trust in his death.

7. God ‘within’ People (Acts - Revelation)
Jesus lives in his people: The restored relationship of God with people is fulfilled and perfected through God’s Spirit who Christ gives to his church.

Free Bible study software: e-sword.net

I've been using e-sword happily and without major limitation for years now (though still cringing at the name). After 5 years without upgrade, I've downloaded the latest 2011 version when moving to a new PC. And it's all still working quite seemlessly and effectively. And (dare I say it) it's a 'powerful' little tool when used with wisdom.

As well as Bibles, Dictionaries, Commentaries, Maps and graphics, you can also download other stuff too for free such as Topic Notes like the Fathers or the Institutes.

Interestingly, when I first downloaded e-sword in 2006 I got the NIV for free, but now I notice the ESV is available there for free download but the NIV costs $30 bucks or so.

If you don't have something like this, I'd recommend a look. Although freeware you can make a donation to their cause, which is something I ought to have done by now!

Pitfalls of the Bible reader

Not only is knowledge basic to the Christian life, it follows that error is detrimental to it. Truth leads to godliness; error not only leads to godlessness, but it also comes from it. I've given some positive suggestions for the Bible reader, all of which are common sense, the type of thing we should do without thinking when reading any book. The following article is an excerpt and helpful caution from Paul Barnett and Peter Jensen  (1973) giving some pitfalls that Bible readers would do well to be wary of (1):

1. Flights of fancy.

The man who interprets the Bible must always be asking himself ‘What did the human author mean?’ When he ascertains this he will be close to the meaning which God wants him to have.

Trouble is caused by those who wish to see the plan of salvation (or something else) everywhere in the Bible. Thus Naaman’s seven dips in Jordan have been used to give the seven points of conversion (contrition, confession, conversion, commitment … etc.) or the seven points of sanctification, or any seven points the speaker has in mind. Whatever we end with, it is not God’s word!

Similarly the parable of the good Samaritan has been abused, so that every detail of the story stands for something—the man for Adam, the priest for the law, the Samaritan for Christ, and the inn for the church. Anyone can read any meaning he wishes into the Bible if this is permitted.

Fantasies have been read into the high priest’s garments, Elijah’s robe, and Christ’s seamless robe. Someone recently said that he thought that the institutional churches were represented in the Bible by Saul, for whom God withdrew his Spirit!

There is no end to such examples: but the sad result is the same. The word of God is stolen from the Lord’s sheep and they are not fed. A man’s relationship with God requires true knowledge.

2. Fixation.

This describes the habit of being so engrossed in one doctrine (e.g. predestination) as to read it everywhere in the Bible.

3. Wrong presupposition.

We must come to the Bible very carefully and humbly, knowing that our culture and theology have conditioned us to read it in a certain way.

Thus, a person who has a firm conviction that God’s love is irreconcilable with punishment may well explain away those passages in the Bible which speak of his wrath. Some have even gone so far as to abandon the whole of the Old Testament on these grounds; others omit parts of the Psalms in church; others retain the unpleasant sections by unconsciously re-interpreting the Biblical language to suit the twentieth century.
We are all subject to this. We hear a Biblical word or phrase, read our own meaning into it, and then proceed on the assumption that the Bible is speaking like that.

4. The misuse of narrative.

This is a common evangelical failing, and especially in relation to the book of Acts. We hear that the early church did something and we assume that it is a command from God for us to do it—that is, we turn a description (an ‘is’) into a prescription (an ‘ought’). In this way open-air preaching is justified; or small cell-group meetings; or appeals for commitment at meetings and so on.

Christ has granted freedom in these and many areas; some teachers seek to remove our liberty by turning narrative into commands. No one pretends that we must always ask anyone we meet who is reading the Bible, ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ (Acts 8:30) as Philip did; or that we must pool our resources as the primitive Christians did (Acts 2:45);1 or that we must sing hymns at midnight if we are in gaol as Paul and Silas did (Acts 16:25). That men did these things is wonderful and interesting; that we must do them is nonsense.

A further example will illuminate the point. In 1 Corinthians 15:29 the practice of receiving baptism on behalf of the dead is referred to. This is the only mention of it in the New Testament, and Paul does not condemn it. If anything, he is favourable about it.

The Mormons actually practise the baptism for the dead, basing their activities on this text. Yet no one else does, for it is plain to most people that the description of a happening in apostolic days is not in itself a command for us to do the same. An ‘is’ is not an ‘ought’.

This example illustrates, too, the main problem with unexplained narratives—they cannot give the whole story. The author selects some details to tell us, but does not give us all; thus when we come with our questions, questions which did not trouble him, we find the text silent or ambiguous. One instance of this is in Paul’s conversion which is noted on page 33. The careless reader, too eager to see what is already in his mind, will be led astray.

Naturally, narratives have some use. They can, for example, confirm that a certain practice is not contrary to the gospel. So we may be confident that open-air preaching is not contrary to God’s word, since both Jesus and the disciples did this; but we are not to assume that it is commanded in God’s word. We may gather imperatives or doctrines from narratives where the author himself has given the details a theological significance known to us. This significance may be learned from his writings as a whole, or from the immediate context, or both. But taking a narrative on its own clear terms is rather different from the unfettered inventiveness so typical in much Biblical interpretation.

To take an example, Peter’s dealing with Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5) is not a model for us to follow. But it appears to be in Luke’s terms an illustration of the authority of the apostles (Acts 5:11, 12). Speeches given as part of a narrative are of the same character. We may indeed gather commands, promises, and doctrine from the words of an apostolic speech addressed to the public whether general or Christian.

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(1) Paul Barnett and Peter Jensen (Sydney: Anzea Publishers, 1973, p. 7-16): The Quest for Power. Reproduced here with permission.

Suggestions for the Bible reader

Knowledge is basic to the Christian life, and so if follows that of primary importance is our proper reading of the Scriptures. The following article is an excerpt and helpful advice from Paul Barnett and Peter Jensen  (1973) giving some suggestions on reading the Bible (1):

1. Clarify the words and phrases used.

Most of us use a translated Bible. This means that words or phrases need to be studied for their meaning both in English and Greek. It will not do to assume that the English word is always exactly equivalent to the Greek or Hebrew word that it translates. And example of this is the key word ‘kingdom’. In English this almost always means a place, a geographical location. Although the word can have this meaning in some New Testament passages, yet often it would be better translated ‘rule’ or ‘reign’, a rather different concept. Another example of a word whose meaning is wider in the original than it is in modern English is ‘righteousness’. So it is obvious how important study is, even for a well-known text like Matthew 6:33!

2. Note the ‘terrain’.

That is to say, the Bible has within it many types of literature: prose, poetry, fable, proverb, allegory, parable, etc. One ought not to handle the prose of a Pauline epistle in the same way as the poetry of a Psalm.

In Job we find statements about God and the world which are not meant to be true. The book is a dramatic poem, the speakers disagree and fall into error, and the whole needs to be read before we can get the message. This is quite different from the use to which a Pauline letter may be put.

3. Note the immediate context.

Words plucked from mid-sentence, mid-paragraph, even sometimes mid-book, are in danger of being twisted. Read and understand the whole before separating the parts.

There is the story of the careless preacher whose bishop ironically suggested that he preach a sermon on ‘hang all the law and prophets’ (AV), a text wrenched from Matthew 22:40; or another of the missionary who saw the words ‘flee to Egypt’ (Matt. 2:13) as a command for him to do likewise. These are obvious examples of a practice which is perhaps the most frequent of all lapses in regard to the Bible.

Often a Biblical statement is taken from the context of the conversation being reported. Thus, for example, while no one thinks for a moment that we must all buy linen waistcloths because the Lord told Jeremiah to do so (Jer. 13:1), yet we have been told to ‘go, sell what you have, and give to the poor…’ (Mark 10:21) because Jesus told a rich young man to do this. In this regard a study of Coverdale’s advice is essential: we must ask ‘who is speaking?’ and ‘to whom?’

4. Know the background.

Although the main message of the Bible is available to anyone who will read it by itself, yet the meaning of various parts will be enhanced greatly if the historical and geographical background to the passage is known.

To pick an example, the meaning of Christ’s injunction about swearing oaths is clear enough (Matt. 5:33-37), but it is helpful to know something of the lengths to which the contemporary legalists went in avoiding the implications of the Old Testament teaching.

Psalm 137 benefits from geographical and historical knowledge in the reader. A glance at Babylon and Jerusalem on the map and an acquaintance with the history of Babylonish/Jewish relationships will go far to explain the tone of this song.

For some passages the background information is not only desirable: it is necessary. This is especially true of the prophets.

5. Note the Biblical context.

Because the Bible says so much about God, and our understanding is so limited, there are unresolved tensions in its pages, for example that between the sovereignty of God and man’s responsibility. It can never be right to resolve such tension by ignoring a Biblical doctrine.

6. The consensus of Christian opinion.

Amongst those who believer in the full inspiration and authority of the Bible, there is agreement on a large range of important issues, such as the trinity, the atonement, and the deity of Christ. Sometimes this agreement is expressed in creeds or in confessi0ns. It is wisdom to treat these summaries of Bible teaching as fallible, but with great respect, and to ask ourselves whether we are certain that we have the Bible’s meaning clear when we find that we have stepped beyond the bounds of agreement reached by many different Christians over a long period of time.

It may indeed be that a new Luther or a new Calvin needs to emerge. But the onus is surely on the new interpretation to prove that it is accurate as over against the old, and we are wise to adopt a flexible conservatism.

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(1) Paul Barnett and Peter Jensen (Sydney: Anzea Publishers, 1973, p. 7-16): The Quest for Power. Reproduced here with permission.

Lexicons

You need a good Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament. Wikipedia has a great little article on what is a Lexicon (It's not just a dictionary). I've got a few I've picked up over the years, but today at a garage sale I discovered among the boxes of modern novels one Lexicon that proved to be much more comprehensive than anything I had on the shelf. Needless to say I went ahead and bought it (for 50c). It's Joseph Henry Thayer's, published by T. & T. Clark (4th Ed., 1901).

It's big. With almost two full double-columned pages on aion, I'll control myself and show you just two briefer excerpts from it's section on aionios:

Excerpt 1 -

Excerpt 2 -

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Thayer, J. H., D. D. Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament | Grimm: T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh (4th Ed.), 1901, p. 20-21.

The ultimate system for audio Word junkies

I've been a junkie of the audio Bible since casette tapes. I wore through a couple of sets of NIV audio New Testaments until I invested in excess of $200 on the whole NIV Bible on CD. That was a big investment at age 18 but they've been invaluable to this day, and still going strong, lap after lap, some 13 yrs later.

But my best mate and cousin Jim has just recenly sold me on a set of ESV MP3s that gave me the whole bible on my iPhone for only $20. Now I'm a junkie like never before!

Not only do I have the audio Bible without backgroung music, I've found the ESV translation excellent to listen to even though I've found it hard to get into when reading the text from a hard copy.

But in addition, having the ESV app right there on my iPhone means that wherever I am I can always have the option to follow along with the text while listening. These two working together, the ESV iPhone app combined with the MP3 audios from the iPod, with the absolute portability and ease of use of the iPhone, makes it the ultimate system for junkies of the audio Word. I've always got my phone with me. Now I've also always got my audio and text Word systems with me to pull out within seconds notice.

Now my son Elijah at age 5 can get his hands on all my CDs, not just Matthew or Mark if I'm feeling generous.