The Bible does not come to us in bullet points. It can be summarized, but a summary isn’t supposed to be the end, it’s an introduction. If all you can swallow is milk right now, drink up. But get to work to get on to chewing the meat (Hebrews 5:12 14).
It was a striking thing to read Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People where bishops who traveled to catechize their parish were expected to teach the Apostle’s Creed and the Lord’s Prayer. That’s it. The expectations were low because the resources were few. This was before the printing press, before copies of Bibles in vernacular. There were no personal quiet times in Beowulf’s story and yet he still knew that dragons were bad.
We have a different temptation. It’s not that we have too little, but too much. Abundance is better than scarcity, if you grow up to know how to handle it.
Our culture is racing back toward the lowest common denominator. We act as if depth is inefficient. We want the meat, but pulverized into a powder and mixed with water so that it goes down easily. That’s not how it needs to be. That’s not how it should be.
So read the Bible. We’re nearing the end of the school year, not nearing the end of reading. For those who celebrate, Same Page Summer starts today, and tolle lege.
There are complex things to understand that will bless your worship that you will not pick up from TikTok. Courage is necessary for difficult times, and courage comes from working through difficult things. You must repent, and do you know what you must turn from and what you must turn to? Get to the Bible.
I read this book on how to read a book and I’ll be rereading it immediately. I’ll be assigning others to read this book on book reading. I was still reading it when I knew it was necessary to get others to read it.
I have never read Mortimer Adler’s book by the same name, though I have thought about it. I’d even say I wanted to, but apparently not strongly enough. Naselli’s book is shorter, it references Adler’s work and some of Adler’s categories, and it connects to at least a hundred more things I care about.
Reading this book made me want to read more, more better, more broadly, more deeply. Reading this book made me more thankful for words and books and audiobooks and technology and the Kindle system and classical education. Reading this book should help a reader be more relaxed, more at liberty, and more attentive–at least selectively. So it makes readers who are less frustrated, less guilty, and less sloppy.
Again, highly recommended, for probably junior high and up, for book amateurs and accomplished bookies, for preferrers of fiction and non-fiction.
This is THE book for learning how to do Bible study. It is book number ONE, and for many, the only.
I’ve been to Bible college and seminary, been assigned lots of books, taken hermeneutics classes and Greek/Hebrew classes. I’ve loved learning how to read and meditate and apply the Word. And Hendricks is the one I keep coming back to in order to get other people going.
I’m teaching a class at our school called Cornerstone. That’s Jesus, yes, who is the embodied Word. And it’s also a reference to the inspired Word, the Bible. This year I’ve got freshmen and sophomores, and I’ve taken a few other freshmen classes through it at a previous school.
Want to read the Bible but don’t know where to start? Want to study the Bible but need some basic steps to get going? Want some recommended resources to help you study, and would prefer not just Googling or Wikipedia-ing?
How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilization
by Vishal Mangalwadi
This book is like great steak. There aren’t really that many surprises, but, man, it is GOOD.
I first heard about this book around the time Jordan Peterson was ranting about the Bible to Joe Rogan. There was some background on the socials, and it seems like, for as much as Peterson already paid attention to the Bible, Mangalwadi must have sent a copy to Peterson and it was like a shot of nitro into JP’s enthusiasm engine.
I happen to love the Bible. I don’t worship it, but it is the source of revelation from the true God whom I do worship. I started to read the Word for myself in high school, went to three different Bible colleges, and eventually went to the seminary I thought would teach me the most about ministering on the basis of and through the power of the Word.
But all through that time, and through almost my first decade of being a full-time Bible studying and preaching pastor, while I thought the Bible was AWESOME and as I looked to it first for ANSWERS, I kept reading it wrongly. I could say I was reading it partially, narrowly, dualistically. I read and studied it to learn “Bible” things, to glean theological truths, but failed to realize that the theological truths in the Bible provide the basis and the lens for reading and studying all things, as well as for building culture and civilizations.
Had I thought about it for even a second, it shouldn’t have been surprising. But I was giving credit to something “other” (without knowing or being able to name it) than God and God’s Word for creating the categories we share.
TBTMYW shows that secularism has no clothes; all idols likewise are naked. There just isn’t such a thing as neutrality. Ideas have consequences, and every idea comes from somewhere and connects with some kind of conduct. Cultures that haven’t had the Bible have had some good things, of course. Our Father makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. But the big, abundant BLESSINGS belong to those who receive the truth revealed in the divine Text.
Mangalwadi’s book is a who’s who and what’s what of Western Civilization. It has almost ALL the great names you’d expect. What makes it especially interesting is that Mangalwadi is looking into WesternCiv from the outside, from his Eastern culture. He argues that globalization, while certainly perverted and hijacked by some, has more to do with the Lord’s covenant to Abraham to bless all the nations of the earth.
TBTMYW a long book, but like a big steak, that should be the opposite of discouraging. Take it bite by bite. There is confidence in these pages. They obviously aren’t inspired, but they do inform our gratitude and increase our desire for the Word of God. God has been kind to give us a Book. We ought to read the Book, meditate on it day and night, and be careful to obey the Author of it. That would put some soul back into our civilization.
I’ve started teaching a Bible class again, though it’s got a WAY cooler name than “Bible Class.” We’re calling it Cornerstone. Boom. So I’ve been doing some extra reading, and this was my first time for Knowing Scripture by Sproul.
It’s got reasons to read the Bible, including an emphasis on the objectivity or “there-ness” of revelation, reminders on the perspicuity or understandability of revelation, and then some general principles for reading and interpreting.
His three primary rules for hermeneutics:
Sacra Scriptura sui interpres – Sacred Scripture is its own interpreter, similar to analogia Scriptura
sensus literalis – interpret according to the literal sense, meaning to pay attention to the “natural meaning of a passage…according to the normal rules of grammar, speech, syntax, and context”
Grammatical-Historical method – giving attention to the original meaning of the text rather than read in our own ideas
He also provides 11 practical rules for interpretation, and, they are…fine, sort of like guardrails a third of the way down the bank. They’ll stop you from exegetical death, but there’s plenty of off-roading you can do before stopping.
The whole thing is good, and as Sproul was a key player in the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy and the follow up statement on Hermeneutics, he had parchment in the game.
Why the Bible Is Knowable, Necessary, and Enough, and What That Means for You and Me
by Kevin DeYoung
In Taking God at His Word DeYoung shows not only that the Bible is trustworthy, but tasty. As he says, this isn’t a book about hermeneutics and how to interpret Scripture, yet it is a delightful and encouraging book about why we should believe it and believe that we can understand it. Here’s a few questions he asks:
“Is God wise enough to make himself known? Is he good enough to make himself accessible? Is he gracious enough to communicate in ways that are understandable to the meek and lowly? Or does God give us commands we can’t understand and a self-revelation that reveals more questions than answers?”
DeYoung answers these thoroughly and throughout the book. In particular his chapter on “Christ’s Unbreakable Bible” is an excellent demonstration of how the incarnate Word viewed and used the inspired Word.
I was edified by reading this, and would highly recommend it for Christians who are young in age (junior high/high school) and certainly for those who are new in their discipleship to Christ. Get in the Word, and let it get in you (per Colossians 3:16).
The “Golden Rule of Reading” – however you want others to read what you’ve written, so read what they’ve written. At least start by considering their claims to be true. This isn’t immature, it’s loving. Love believes all things, it doesn’t doubt all things.
This applies to all sorts of material, but maybe most to what has been written in Scripture. At least when starting out:
“Lastly, remember that you treat every author, writer, or speaker, just as you yourselves would be willing to be treated by others, who are searching out the meaning of what you write or speak.”
John Wesley wrote “A Clear and Concise Demonstration of the Divine Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures” in 1789. It’s GOOD.
“I beg leave to propose a short, clear, and strong argument to prove the divine inspiration of the holy Scripture.
The Bible must be the invention either of good men or angels, bad men or devils, or of God.
It could not be the invention of good men or angels; for they neither would nor could make a book, and tell lies all the time they were writing it, saying, ‘Thus saith the Lord,’ when it was their own invention.
It could not be the invention of bad men or devils; for they would not make a book which commands all duty, forbids all sin, and condemns their souls to hell to all eternity.
Therefore, I draw this conclusion, that the Bible must be given by divine inspiration.”
Based on what is in the Bible, the Bible is TRUE/right or FALSE/wrong, it can’t be just a “good” book.
Do we eat to live or live to eat? Food is necessary to sustain the body’s health and activity, and active bodies benefit from slowing down to eat, sometimes even to give thanks in an extended feast. So as is often the case, the answer is both. Sitting around the table for dinner as a family is a great blessing, and never getting up from the table to do anything is not.
This is true with spiritual food as well, with the bread and water of God’s Word. It is bread, it is light, it is strength, it is profit, and so we ought to crave it, read it, hear it, meditate on it. This can be done throughout the day, but it is also reasonable to have a set meal time, so to speak, to get a good helping.
As we start these summer months, many will have a different schedule, with at least different work and different schedule if not actually a break from school work. It’s wise to make a plan to eat well. Maybe it’s the #SamePageSummer plan. Maybe it’s just a few verses a day. But the “word of His grace…is able to build you up and give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified” (Acts 20:32). Delighting in and meditating on the law of the Lord makes a man fruitful and blessed.
Redeem the time, receive the implanted word (James 1:21), put away your sin and taste that the Lord is good (1 Peter 2:1-2). Reading the word fixes a lot of things.
And check out this new Substack newsletter by Patrick Moore on being a Christian Bible Reader. Perfect timing.
What are you thinking about? There’s an old saying that a man is what he thinks. It’s not just old, it’s Solomonic, it’s scriptural. The context in Proverbs 23:6-7 counsels the wise to be careful what they consume from the hand of an apparently generous person. Watch out for the stingy man, the one with an “evil eye.” “‘Eat and drink!’ he says to you, but his heart is not with you.” The ESV starts verse 7 with “he is like one who is inwardly calculating,” but the KJV makes it more general, “As he thinketh in his heart, so is he.” Your thoughts are your character, stingy or not, regardless of what you spread on the table.
This exhortation isn’t about stinginess, but about Scripture. We are what we think, what we do and say comes out of the heart (Matthew 15:18-19), at least eventually. What are you thinking about? What mental marinade are you soaking your soul in?
There are so many goads in God’s Word about the profit of consuming God’s Word. Psalm 1 pronounces blessing on the one who delights in and meditates on the law of the LORD. Big tech has an evil eye, “Scroll and scroll,” Elark Zuckermusk says to you, but his heart is not with you. So many free things aren’t free, the price is our attention/minds, our affections/delights.
On New Year’s Day you’re not too late to start a Bible reading plan; a verse a day, a chapter a day; listen, read, both. In addition to another Bible-in-a-year reading plan, I am budgeting minutes for myself to memorize the Pastoral Epistles.
You are what you think about, and you are like a green and fruitful and blessed tree planted by streams of water when you think about whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable (Philippians 4:8). Think on the Word, and the Lord will give you understanding and success (2 Timothy 2:7; Joshua 1:8),
