How Do I Read the Bible?

Exploring the lenses through which I read Scripture

Photo by Rod Long on Unsplash

(A twelve-minute read.)

Abraham Lincoln, in his second inaugural address, just six weeks before he was assassinated, perceptively put his finger on the paradox that had become American Christianity. Speaking of the North and South, which were conducting the country’s bloodiest war, he astutely remarked that “both [sides] read the same Bible.”

Ever since I read that line a couple years ago, it has stuck with me. I’ve even quoted it in this newsletter before.

I’m not sure there’s a more perceptive observation, put in such succinct words, that illustrates a critically important idea that we must reckon with: we all interpret the Bible. We can—and many of us do—all read the same words and yet often come to vastly different conclusions

One can read the Bible and conclude that it is diametrically opposed to enslaving people, for example; another can read that same Bible and conclude it condones enslaving people.

What gives?

It’s not enough to try to flex our muscles and insist that our interpretations are the correct ones and everyone else’s are wrong—and perhaps even heretical. That lacks the humility and self-awareness that I think are critically important to the religious life, and closes us to the important possibility of theological and spiritual growth.

It’s for this reason that, over the last few years, I’ve become a lot less zealous about my promotion of the importance of the Bible.

I know that perhaps sounds alarming coming from a Christian pastor. And I don’t want you to misunderstand me.

I have a deep, deep love for the Bible. I believe, in ways I can’t fully explain, it is the Word of God. I also believe it is the primary means by which God expresses his will, character, and story to the world.

And yet I have grown weary of the ways in which it has been used to pursue and promote all manner of toxic and demeaning theologies and religious (and political) agendas—often pushed by those who deny they’re reading it through certain filters, and allegedly taking it just as it reads.

But as I said above, we all interpret the Bible. We all read it through certain filters and lenses. None of us takes it just as it is, reading and applying it literally all the time.

As I tweeted a few months ago:

Shawn Brace @shawnbrace

No one - absolutely no one - takes the Bible just as it reads. Everyone denies the plain meaning of some verses because they seemingly contradict the plain meaning of other verses. We all interpret. We all have a hermeneutic (whether realized or not). The solution? Humility.

This is such an important topic, and one that has been the source of much personal and academic wrestling over the last few years, as I’ve grappled with how to responsibly relate to and apply the Bible—and how I communicate it to others.

I could get into all the jargon about the methods and approaches we use to read Scripture, but I won’t get into all those weeds (if you’d like to have your mind stretched a bit regarding this topic, the best book I’ve read on it is Scripture and the Authority of God: How to Read the Bible Today, by N. T. Wright. Give it a read; it’s actually fairly succinct and short).

Instead, I thought I’d just share with you how I read the Bible—the lenses through which I read Scripture.

I don’t share this as having any sort of authority, as though you have to do it the same way I do. Neither is it exhaustive or all that systematic. Indeed, I’m sure I have many more unidentified lenses that affect my reading of Scripture that I’m not even aware of.

Nevertheless, when I sit down to read the Bible, and try to make sense of it, these are some of the things I think are going on in my head and heart as I process what I’m reading:

1. God’s primary aim in giving Scripture is to reveal his heart of love. I take the words “God is love” seriously (see 1 John 3:8). I believe, in ways that don’t always make sense and I can’t fully explain, that all his actions, as described in Scripture, have love as the foundation, aim, and purpose.

Everything must therefore be interpreted in light of God’s self-giving, self-emptying, other-centered love—and the Bible is supposed to help me understand his love to greater degrees.

Similarly, I don’t read Scripture in a way that’s chiefly concerned with figuring out the historical facts of the Bible, seeking to prove its reliability. Neither am I scouring it to prove my theological points.

Simply put, I’m not trying to satisfy my intellectual curiosity, but seeking to have my heart overwhelmed by God’s love.

In that way, I guess you could say I primarily read it devotionally—that is, I read it as a conversation between me and God, rather than as a doctrinal or intellectual treatise.

2. My reading of Scripture is for me, not for you. By this I mean that I’m not reading the Bible in order to figure out how to fix, inform, or correct you. God can do with you what he wishes. He can also bring you to the interpretations he has for you—which may or may not be the same or similar to the ones I’ve come to.

Of course, if you want to know how I interpret the Bible, you can ask, and I’ll be happy to share. (Also, as a pastor, I also assume that if you show up to hear me speak on a Saturday morning [or subscribe to my newsletter], you must want to hear some of what I’ve found in Scripture—so I feel I have permission to share.)

But I won’t share with you what has not first gone through me—and I won’t invite you to accept from Scripture what I’ve not first accepted or embodied myself (or at least that’s my aim). Neither will I act as though the interpretations I share with you are infallible.

This doesn’t mean, of course, that I think all interpretations are equally valid. As a critical realist, I think some interpretations align more closely with what the text says, but I’m also open-handed about my conclusions and recognize that God leads everyone at a different pace and sometimes to different interpretations based on our varying circumstances and situations.

3. God is not interested in micro-managing my life through Scripture, but is ultimately seeking to bring me into a relationship of love and mutuality with himself. This is big. I’ve come across many people whose primary approach to Scripture seems to be that they scour its pages for instructions on how to obey God and live according to his commands.

I don’t at all deny that God, through Scripture, reveals how to live a well-ordered life that is ultimately safe and loving towards others. But I don’t think his primary goal for me with Scripture—and for my relationship with himself—is that I would relate to the Bible as a user’s manual that I meticulously and legalistically follow, thinking my wellbeing is dependent on my ability to perfectly follow God’s rules.  

To be sure, there were times in Scripture when God seemingly had to micro-manage the lives of his people, mostly because they were very immature in their spiritual development, and needed things clearly and plainly spelled out for them in order to simply survive and not destroy themselves and others.

But, ultimately, God is trying to draw me into a partnership, where we have mutual dialogue, and give-and-take. Indeed, according to Jesus, he doesn’t call his disciples “servants” but “friends” (see John 15:15).

4. God meets me where I am in Scripture. This is also big, and it relates to the previous lens. Scripture, by nature, is contextualized. It’s an infinite and perfect God trying to communicate with finite and imperfect people.

In that sense, Scripture is a long narrative of God meeting people where they are. He therefore had to adjust his ideals to their circumstances, only taking them as fast as they were able to go.

Jesus set out this principle, as Matthew records it, when asked about the divorce that the Hebrew Scriptures allowed for. “Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives,” he explained, “but from the beginning it was not so” (Matthew 19:8).

Thus, there were some things God permitted that were not his ideal—because of the hardness of his people’s hearts. There were also some things he commanded and/or regulated (like divorce or slavery), and didn’t fully prohibit or abolish, simply because his people weren’t yet mature enough to understand and process the ideal.

This has all sorts of implications.

For one, it means I can’t just take the example of any biblical figure and assume their example is normative for all people in all times and places.

Thus, just because David, who was a man after “God’s own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14), committed adultery; or just because Solomon had 700 wives and concubines; or just because Abraham had slaves; it doesn’t follow that these behaviors are ones that are acceptable or worthy of emulation.

I’d say the same applies for any particular command—whether in the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament. Just because God commanded a particular person or group in a particular moment to do something, it doesn’t follow that such a command is applicable to everyone, everywhere—at all times.

Simply put, not everything in the Bible is for all people in all places at all times.

It’s why, among other things, I don’t think every woman today should “keep silent in the churches” (1 Corinthians 14:34), despite Paul telling specific women in Corinth, responding to a specific situation, in a specific historical context, that they must do so.

Simply put, I don’t assume that everything in Scripture is equally normative, equally binding, equally exemplary.

I must therefore do the hard work of drawing out principles, seeking to understand each passage within its own literary and historic context—which is not as easy as simply saying, “The Bible said it! I believe it! That settles it!”

Which leads me to the next two:

5. All Scripture points to and is summed up in Jesus. As a Christian, this is my foundational conviction. Ultimately, the Bible points to Jesus. The Hebrew Scriptures point forward to and anticipate him, I do believe, and the New Testament explains and illuminates him. “These are they which testify of me,” Jesus thus explained about the Bible (see John 5:39).

Jesus is the ultimate and chief exemplar. If I want to know what God is like, I look to him. If I want to know what a human is supposed to look like, I look to him.

If there is a passage of Scripture that confuses me, and I can’t quite make sense of it, I try to interpret it in light of who Jesus is and what he has done and continues to do.

6. Eden and Eden Restored are the bookends, and the greatest commandments are the moral foundation. Though it doesn’t unfold neatly, and there are plenty of other genres in Scripture that break up the flow, I see the Bible as telling a long story that begins with Eden in an idealized state, and ends with that ideal state being restored in the new Eden.

Thus, the original Eden, before sin and selfishness entered the world—with its selflessness, egalitarianism, views on gender and sexuality, promotion of Sabbath rest and health, and intimate communion with God—are foundational and ultimately normative. And this is what God is ultimately seeking to restore throughout Scripture—seeking to get us back to Eden.

In all his efforts God is trying to bring us back into full communion with himself and full communion with one another. He is trying to restore his image in us. That’s the story of Scripture.

At the heart of this is the two greatest commandments: loving him and loving others (see Matthew 22:37-39). These are the ultimate reasons he gave any commands, laws, or rules. They are to help us love him more deeply and lover others more fervently. Love is, according to Paul, the “fulfillment of the law” (Romans 13:10).

I can’t lose sight of that fact.

As I mentioned in the second point, this means my task is not to simply scour the Bible to come up with all the rules God wants me to follow, as though that is my primary task. Yes, he wants me to live a life of love toward others, which will manifest in very practical behaviors that are reflected in his commands throughout Scripture; but I have to keep these two goals in mind—loving God and loving people—when I’m seeking to understand how God wants me to act when reading Scripture.

And sometimes—quite often, in fact—Scripture doesn’t clearly spell out how I’m to act in certain situations because it’s not primarily a codebook, exhaustively anticipating every possible scenario.

And many times, like mentioned above, the rules that were an expression of love in a certain time and place (like, for example, Paul telling specific women in a specific place to wear a head covering when they prayed, as in 1 Corinthians 11, or his instructions for churches to “greet one another with a holy kiss,” as in 2 Corinthians 13), are not necessarily an expression of love today.

Thus, again, the need for Spirit-led wisdom and discernment.

Which can also manifest in the following:

7. I cannot read Scripture in isolation from others. I need the Christian community. We rarely pick up on this in our English versions of the Bible, but Scripture is very rarely written to individuals. It’s almost always written to groups (in English, unlike other languages, including the biblical ones, the word “you” can be both singular or plural, which is why many Greek teachers, for example, will have their students somewhat humorously use the term “ya’ll” when translating the plural Greek of “you,” so we can keep this important reality in mind).

I therefore cannot be a solo reader or interpreter.

Yes, I do read it as an individual, but I also need the community to help me make sense of it.

This is not to say that the community has final and ultimate authority in how I relate to God and his revelation. But I ignore the Christian community, both the contemporary Christian community and the Christian community throughout history, to my great peril. After all, “no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation,” Peter proposed (see 2 Peter 1:20).

In summary

I’ve said a lot here, though I could say much, much more (theology and seminary students take whole classes that discuss these matters, so it’s a huge and important topic that can’t even remotely be explained in 2500 words). And I’m sure I could share a few examples of how I apply these principles to my reading of Scripture—but perhaps that will be for another time.

The bottom line for me is that I primarily view the Bible as a story of the God who loves, pointing to and summed up in Jesus, wherein God is inviting me into that story so I can live in full communion with him and communion with others.

Through its pages, God definitely lays out the principles of love by which I can most effectively reflect his image and participate in his redemptive purposes in the world and universe, but he is not interested in having me stress about how to meticulously follow every jot and tittle in the Bible (which may or may not even apply to me now anyway), as though my wellbeing depends on my perfect obedience.

My task, therefore, when reading Scripture, is to better understand God’s love so I can go deeper and deeper into his heart, which will transform me to greater degrees into a safe and loving person.

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Shawn is a pastor in Maine, whose life, ministry, and writing focus on incarnational expressions of faith. The author of four books and a columnist for Adventist Review, he is also a DPhil student at the University of Oxford (what they call a PhD), focusing on nineteenth-century American Christianity. You can follow him on Instagram and Twitter, and listen to his podcast Mission Lab.