By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
Ever misunderstood something and felt pretty dumb about it afterward?
Sometimes it’s easy to misunderstand something in the Bible and I think that keeps many of us from reading it.
Seminaries teach pastors Greek and Hebrew to help them understand what you’re sitting there scratching your head to understand as you open up the Bible. I know many who decide they are going to read the Bible cover to cover and dig right in. Genesis goes okay until Chapter 5 when you hit the ‘begats’–a long list of genealogy that can be a quitting point for someone already struggling to understand what they’ve been reading.
Try anyway.
There are more parts that ARE easier to understand than others and just like the awkwardness of learning to handle yourself in the bucking chutes or the first time you try to turn a rope over your head, it gets easier. We approach the Bible like any other book from a western to a text book, thinking we have to read it from front to back, chapter by chapter. That isn’t the case at all. While there is a very specific structure to the Bible, sometimes a great starting point is all the way up in the New Testament with the Book of John. Many recommend that as an easier start and a way to learn about Jesus and the plan of Salvation. I often point people to James as it is written in a very straightforward manner.
It gets easier with time and practice, just like any of the sports you compete with or how each branding can run smoother for you than the last.
Having a church helps where there are pastors and leaders that can help you understand it. I sometimes need that before I try to deliver a cowboy church sermon behind the chutes and am fortunate enough to have more than a dozen people I know that understand it better than me that I can run a section of scripture by to be sure I understand it right.
Context is very important. You may randomly point to a verse and read it but without knowing what happened in the verses ahead, and sometimes the books ahead of it, it is very easy to misunderstand it. But again, in time, as you learn more and more, the context is easier to follow and you will be amazed at how much deeper your faith becomes when you see for yourself just how well books of the Bible do fit together despite being written by authors hundreds of years apart. You see on the pages just how real God’s word is to us and why 2 Timothy refers to it as God-breathed (living word).
There are also great study bibles out there with notes that help explain it. Don’t get hung up on feeling dumb for not understanding something. Be encouraged by the work God and the Holy Spirit will do inside you through the parts you do understand and step by step, more and more of it will make sense. Step by step, you will see even more, just how big God really is as you see how the scriptures you just read are played out right in front of you. See what you can learn about the importance of reading your Bible from the two verses below and what else each section is teaching us. There’s a lot in just these two verses. Find at least five facts and truths you can understand from what Paul is saying in this letter to Timothy. The word “righteousness” is an important one that comes up again throughout scripture. Take some time to look up what it means through your Bible’s study notes or the concordance (at the back that helps you find other verses where the same word appears). This is a great way to help you get started understanding your Bible. It isn’t how much you read in a single sitting, it’s just taking your time to understand it piece by piece.
And before you start, pray—ask God for the wisdom to understand.
2 Timothy 3:16-17 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good
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