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The Bible 101

What It Is, How To Read It

What Is It?

The Bible is a collection of sacred texts that were written by men under the inspiration of God. The very first Bibles had 80 books in them, but over the years these books were pared down to 66 books we use today. The excluded books were ultimately judged less reliable and less provably authentic. It's just a book. It is a block of paper sewn together between two covers. There is nothing mystical about it, nothing magic about it. I use a bible to prop up my synthesizer sometimes when I've set up my keyboard on an uneven surface. I see some people clutch their chests when I do that, but I ask them, what better foundation could there be for my music than God's Word? It isn't the book that is holy but the words in it; the meaning and the eternal power of those words are holy, not the paper and ink. Swearing on this block of paper, as they do in courtrooms all over America, is completely wrongheaded and anti-scriptural (Jesus teaches us not to swear by anything, Matthew 5:34).

In our tradition, we tend to wrongly conflate The Word of God with, literally, the words of God. This is where most of American Christianity goes off of the rails. Typically, when we refer to The Word of God, we mean the Holy Bible. The Holy Bible is not a book, but is a collection of books. The word “bible” means, literally, “many books.” Thus, when we say “God’s Word,” we really are talking about the collected volume of scripture. It does not mean every word in the bible was literally written by God Himself. The Holy Bible indeed contains the words of God, but it also includes words that are clearly not God literally speaking. We believe every word in the bible was inspired by God, which is to say every word—all scripture—is helpful to us in some way. All scripture contains messages God wants us to understand and lessons He wants us to learn. However, by attributing each and every word literally to God Himself, we strip those words of their proper context and, thus, govern our lives along a set of misinterpretations.

For example, Song of Solomon is, by its own testimony, not God’s literal words. Song… is an erotic poem written, presumably, by King Solomon or by one of his flunkies. The biggest problem with most Christian interpretations of Song of Solomon is that they are, in fact, Christian interpretations. We bring our modern-era Christian mindset to a work written more than 900 years before Christianity even existed.

The bible includes commentary, parable, poetry, and, yes, opinion—all of it useful to us for teaching and preaching. To simply pull scriptures out and hurl them at people—as “God said this” and “God said that”—violates their purpose and strips those words of their meaning and power.

The Word Was With God

Where scripture says, in John 1:1: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, John was not referring to Song of Solomon. He was not referring to David’s poetry or The Apocalypse. He was certainly not referring to the Pauline Epistles because they had not yet been written. Where John refers to “The Word,” he is not talking about the bible as we know it. Here John is referring to the Greek word logos, which refers to the personification of God's Truth and Wisdom, not the King James Bible. In our African American tradition, however, we routinely conflate The Word in John 1:1 to mean the literal bible we hold in our hands, and many churches form their doctrine around this preposterous assumption.

The most damaging and wrongheaded thing the Christian church does is conflate Paul’s teaching with the literal words of God. This is the boat anchor keeping the church stuck in the past; our insistence on applying an inappropriate literalism and universality to what are, essentially, a pastor’s emails. This is not to diminish Paul’s words or negate them but to free them from the antiquity the church keeps them stuck in. This Paul-as-God thing routinely overshadows the words and biblical model set by Christ Himself in favor of Paul by heavily weighting church doctrine on Paul’s words rather than those of Christ.

Understanding the difference between God literally speaking to us—unambiguously and universally, for example, as He does in The Ten Commandments—and God teaching us through example, metaphor, commentary, parable, and opinion through the voices of others is critical to forming a sound doctrine (our response to God’s word).

If you are new to the Christian experience, take care not to become drawn into the vacuum of flawed interpretation; of people telling you God said women must learn in silence [I Tim 2:11] or slaves must obey their masters [Ephesians 6:5]. God said no such thing; these were Paul’s words. God’s Holy Word is eternal; Paul’s teaching was given at a specific time to specific people at a specific place where specific behavior was going on. God speaks to us, universally and unambiguously. Paul is always speaking to someone about something specific at a specific time where certain events are transpiring. In order to place Paul’s words into proper context, we need to study what was going on and to whom he was speaking.

Most Church Folk don’t do that. They just grab a phrase or two from Paul and use it universally, usually to oppress women. There are places where I believe Paul was simply wrong. To many Christian conservatives, that sounds like blasphemy. To them, Paul is infallible--even though he himself repeatedly says he is not. Paul says men should remain single and only marry if they can’t control themselves [I Cor 7:9]. Well, that’s just stupid. First: it reduces women to merely a means for men to sexually relieve themselves. Second, it implies all married men are weak and are of less use to God than single men, which is obviously not true. Third: a man who can’t control himself outside of marriage won’t control himself within marriage. He is a sex addict who needs treatment.

Therefore, those cannot be literally God's words but the pastoral advice of His servant. I speak this by permission, Paul said, and not of commandment. For I would that all men were even as I myself. But every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that. [v. 6-7] He is not claiming to be God or even to speaking for God. But Church Folk will tell you disagreeing with Paul is disagreeing with God. It is not.

In 2 Timothy, where Paul says: All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works, he is talking about the Old Testament. The New Testament, as we know it, did not exist until The Muratorian canon, written a minimum of a century after Paul's death. Paul is not referring to his own words. I believe Paul would be outraged to discover men had twisted his words into the literal words of God. I believe Paul would denounce such a practice as outright blasphemy.

What's It About?

The Bible tells us The Story of Jesus. From Genesis, the very first book, to Revelation, the very last book, everything in the Bible fits together, like divine Lego bricks, to tell a larger story: the story of Jesus. Jesus represents mankind's reconciliation with a divine God, and the Bible has but one purpose: to bring us closer to God.

The Bible is set up into sections: Law, Prophecy, The Writings, The Gospels, and Letters, which we call Epistles. 90% of what we do in church on Sundays is based on the Gospels and the Epistles, letters written by early church leaders that form the basis of how we express our faith in God (what we call “doctrine”).

There's a lot of ways to tackle this book. But if you are new to it, the worst way to do this is to try and comb through Genesis to Revelation without being familiar with the book and how it is designed to speak to you.

How Is It Organized?

LeeAnn Bonds, BellaOnline's Bible Basics Editor, put it this way:

The part God wrote begins at Genesis 1:1, and ends at Revelation 22:21. You probably know that the chapter and verse numbers were added by people. They make it easy to find a certain section of Scripture, but the divisions created by the numbers are often arbitrary, and sometimes do the reader a real disservice. So, use them to find your way, but don’t place any importance on how they chunk up the message.

The Bible comprises two main sections: The Old Testament and the New Testament. Testament means a covenant between God and the human race. The Old Testament tells about God’s covenant with the Jews, and the New Testament tells about Jesus, and the new covenant He put in place. That’s an enormous oversimplification, of course, but we have to start somewhere.

The Old Testament contains 39 books. They’re arranged in groups according to type of content: History, Poetry, and Prophecy. These are general descriptions, with types of content overlapping in all the groups. You might like to memorize the books in the order they occur. To make this easier, you can divide them into sets of five and twelve, thus:


History (17 books)

  • 5 Law: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy (Also known as the Torah or the Pentateuch. These present God’s laws, but also contain lots of history.)

  • 12 Historical: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, I & II Samuel, I & II Kings, I & II Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther (These tell the story of the Jews and Israel, mainly.)

Poetry (5 books)

  • Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon (Poems, songs, and wisdom literature.)

Prophecy (17 books)

  • 5 Major Prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel

  • 12 Minor Prophets: Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi.

The New Testament has 27 books. They are organized like this:

Gospels (4)

  • Matthew, Mark, Luke, John (These tell the story of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection)

History (1)

  • Acts (The Acts of the Apostles is the long name, describing the beginning of the Church)

Epistles (21)

  • Romans, I & II Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, I & II Thessalonians, I & II Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews, James, I & II Peter, I, II & III John, Jude (Letters to and from leaders and churches, mostly)

Prophecy (1)

  • Revelation (The Revelation of Jesus Christ, telling about the end of the world as we know it, and then the happily ever after part)

Where Do I Start?

In terms of what we do on Sunday mornings and how we should be living our lives, I suggest you read at least two chapters a night. Two chapters is a cake walk. I could train a monkey to read two chapters a night. I know we can all do that.

Start with the Gospel of Mark. Mark is what we call a Synoptic Gospel, a reliable text that summarizes the story of Jesus. Mark was likely written as a missionary book, what we call a tract, for new converts to Christianity. It is simple and easy to understand, fast paced and straightforward. And, at 16 chapters, you'll get through it in a week.

Then jump over to Philippians. The church at Philippi was one of Paul's favorites, and he wrote this simple and straightforward letter to them while he was in prison. Philippians encourages the new believers to know we can do all things through Christ (Philippians 4:13), and places the responsibility for our salvation squarely on us (2:12).

Then try the Epistle of James. James was Jesus' biological brother, a leader in the Jerusalem church. His epistle is, likely, the most important to (and, often, the most ignored by) the Black church as it deals almost exclusively with Christian conduct, mainly with how we use our tongue and how we treat one another.

Despite the legalistic do's and don'ts you've grown up hearing from here and there, if you actually read the Bible, you will see the main thrust of Jesus' ministry was to get us to become, well, better people than what we are. For us to learn how to love one another the way God loves us. James deals with issues of genuine faith as opposed to a practiced religion, and this book is vital to understanding what church and Christianity is supposed to be about.

After James, swing back to Acts. Acts is like The Gospels Part II. The Disciple Luke, a historian with a great attention to detail, picks up the story of Jesus from where it leaves off in the Gospels, and tells the story of the early Church and, notably, Paul.

Paul

Next to Jesus Himself, Paul is the dominating figure of the New Testament. Much of our understanding of doctrine comes from his letters, what we call The Pauline Epistles. To understand what we do and why we do it, you have to get an idea of who Paul was, both before his conversion and after. He was, in many ways, the first pastor (though the Disciple Peter is, officially, the first pastor, Matthew 16:18).

What makes Paul interesting is how deeply flawed an individual he was. The more you read about him and the more you read his words, a consistent theme emerges: Paul never sets himself up as being better than you. Or better than anybody. He is far from perfect. Even after conversion, Paul is still very legalistic (a guy who enforces The Rules, whatever they are). He and his best bud Barnabas parted ways because Paul didn't like this guy Johnmark that Barnabas was partnering with.

There was a lot of things wrong with Paul, a lot of imperfections. Which is what makes his writing all the more credible because he is not some perfect holy man. He is a human being, just like you. Struggling to make sense of things, just like you. The Book of Acts tells his story and completes the historical tale begun in the Gospel of Mark.

Then, finish up with Paul's letter to the Romans. This was a letter of introduction Paul sent ahead of his visit to the new church in Rome. Romans provides the meat of our doctrinal belief: of how we express our faith in Christ. Romans teaches us how to be saved and how to stay saved and why that's important.

Which Version Do I Read?

As for which version to read: please don't let yourself get caught up in arguments over which version of The Bible is legit. Church people love to squab about things, and this has traditionally been a heated argument. Most Black Church Folk believe the King James Bible is the only reliable version of the Bible. But, if you ask them why they believe that, most couldn't tell you. They know absolutely nothing about the KJV or where it came from or why it is more reliable than, say, the New International Version, The New Living Translation, The New American Standard Version, or many other versions.

I've actually been told the KJV is the most reliable because, “That's the Bible the Disciples carried!” The New Testament did not exist in the days of the Disciples, and the average person was not allowed to carry a copy of the Old Testament, called The Torah, around with them (remember, this was long before printing presses: each copy of the Torah had to be written out by hand). Nobody carried a Bible in those days.

Just find yourself a version you can read. A version that you WILL read. It's a good idea to read an official translation as opposed to a paraphrase. A paraphrase is a version based on the King James and translated into modern language. A reliable translation is a version derived from the original Greek and Hebrew manuscripts.

I strongly recommend The NIV Student Bible by Zondervan. This wonderful, easy-to-read translation contains hundreds of study helps and explanations along the way, written by award-winning Youth Bible Scholars Philip Yancy and Tim Stafford. Years ago these men edited a tremendous youth bible called The Way, and the NIV Student Bible is a successor to that work. Our column, Love, Sex & The Whole Person, is derived from Campus Life Magazine, a teen and young adult Christian life magazine founded by Yancey and Stafford and published by Christianity Today International.

However you do it, just dive in. The Bible is a rich and vibrant record that speaks directly to your heart and brings you closer to God. The more you pick it up, the closer you get to God. Skip a TV show (or even half a TV show) and give yourself two chapters a day. You'll be amazed at the difference it will make.

Christopher J. Priest
7 September 2003
editor@praisenet.org
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Related: Is The Bible Reliable?

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The Basics   The Relevance of Spirituality   On Being Born Again   THE BIBLE 101   About Prayer   Go To Hell   Biblical Prophecy 101