This bible means to me that...????? [Crickets..] That what? Really? I'm not trying to be facetious or mean or anything, but I always thought that the books of the bible had one meaning and one meaning only. I'm pretty sure there was a who, what when, where, and why. The author wrote with some intention, to some audience.
This brings me to the topic of this entry. BIBLE STUDY. So, yesterday I was reading one of the blogs I follow by Be like the Bereans (I think that's the name). It was about how we should study the bible. And when we do, we need to understand the Who, What, When, Where and Why of the particular book. Furthermore we should read 20 verses before and after a particular verse to get some sort of context to get the true and original meaning. So basically this is the point: we we can't take some random scripture, isolate it and superimpose our opinions on it. All jokes aside, it's heresy. Like, period. If you take a scripture and u strip it of it original meaning and then share your opinion of it with someone, you've almost given someone a gospel with holes in it. It's dangerous.
Can you imagine if someone came to you and told you that scriptures about Jesus's life meant to them that Jesus was just a good person, and not God in full? And they thought that good works would get you into heaven??? The scripture is clear; moralism doesn't get you to heaven. (Titus 3:5) Jesus is God in full (Collossians 1:15-18) This "Doctrine of Opinion"--haha-- would send you straight to hell. Do you see where superimposing your opinions and detaching the original meaning becomes dangerous?
And let's not forget how us Christians like to get all mystical and googoo gahgah when it comes to the Word. You know how it go, like when you wanna hear a "word" from God you just open the bible to a RANDOM part of the bible and read ONE scripture and call it your "word" from God. LOL. Don't feel bad, I'm guilty of it too. And I'm also guilty of that "what this scripture means to me is..." too. We can't do that. We've got to look at the verses before and after. This is an important principle that seems so elementary, but yet, is always missed for some reason.
Solution? When you read the bible be sure that u understand the who, what, when, where and why. At the very least, read the 20 preceding and post verses to get some context. A meaning does exist. And it is very much so RELEVENT to today. Culture and traditions may change, but the human heart and condition doesn't. The bible was put together with a purpose. Each book, each author, each verse had an intent, a purpose. It's the original meaning. Now this doesn't mean we can't make it applicable to our specific circumstances, neither does it mean that God's Word speaks to all of in the same way. Of course God's Word has some meaning within our life context, but again the original message is still present. King Solomon says there is nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9) That's pretty straight forward. Whatever you have gone through, seen or are going though has been done or seen already. I think the bible does a pretty good job of covering these general areas. It covers romance, marriage, relationships, money, faith, persecution, Christian Doctrine, end times ummm...anything that is related to the human experience believe me, it's there. Check out The book of Psalsms, The book of Proverbs, Romans, Collossians, Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, ummm...Job, Daniel. They were all written with purpose and inspired by God. (1 Corinthians 2:12-13; 2 Timothy 3:16-17)
So I hope this didn't come out as some random rant with no purpose. I pray that you'll take this info and make some changes if you need to. Below I posted a video that probably explains this topic a lot better than I can. Enjoy!
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