With more and more topics, we rush to grab Bible verses—often with all the consequences that follow. Searching for God’s word is beautiful, but we must approach that word correctly. Otherwise, it leads to strange conclusions. And strange conclusions can lead to strange ideas and even stranger practices.
My proposal: we need to learn to read the Bible together.
More and more, it affects me. When I see contemporary events or themes carelessly pasted onto biblical texts, it always hurts a little. Especially when that way of reading the Bible (eisegesis) directly influences how we treat one another.
Then I think: “Oof… the Bible was never meant for this.” Not that I hold the patent for the correct approach or interpretation, but we must do our best to treat this beautiful God-and-human work with respect. The Bible, with all its literary forms and striking genres, was written by human beings in a particular time and place. And yet we call those human words, as a finished product, also God’s word. That alone means we must tread very carefully if we want to reach the point where we say, “this or that is God’s thought.” If you ask me, that must always be said with reservation.
“The Bible is not an oracle you can consult at any moment of the day for an answer.”
If we enter the Bible with our own theme, expecting a definitive answer to our questions, we do injustice to that cooperation between God and humans. The Bible is not an oracle you can question at any moment, especially not when dealing with complex themes or developments. That would make many things easier—definitely. But instead, we must walk the heavier road of exegesis and hermeneutics—of learning to understand and learning to explain—in order to reach something meaningful. And that effort is more than worth it.
An Example of Why Reading the Bible Together Matters
A good example of the need to learn to read the Bible together can be seen in the different end-time scenarios circulating today. Somehow, the arrival of the coronavirus sparked a revival of ideas regarding how the final days will unfold. There seems to be a rising awareness that “the end” could be near. If a virus can shut down the entire world, what else could happen? A universal and imminent end of days suddenly becomes very believable.
Globalization has certainly contributed—local events (like someone eating a bat in soup) suddenly have global impact. But how important it is now to read Revelation together—and all the books with apocalyptic traits (Daniel)!
Think also of geopolitical developments with world leaders expanding their power through populist nationalism, and all sorts of socio-cultural events demanding our attention.
We must read the Bible together because no one possesses all wisdom on their own.
What is important in this? I want to offer a few thoughts:
1. Let’s Read the Bible with a Beginner’s Mind
I assume that everyone is sincerely looking for what God wants to say through the Bible. That must be our starting point. But often we are stuck in our own patterns. We suffer from confirmation bias, a way of learning in which we look for confirmation of what we already think. That makes it hard to truly learn new things.
The Japanese have a solution: soshin, the beginner’s mind. It means entering a conversation intentionally to learn and listen, instead of placing your own ideas on others. That is difficult, because we tend to create routine and structure, a kind of base camp to fall back on. Not wrong in itself—but this often leads to repeating our familiar activities, and everything outside of that suddenly “doesn’t belong.”
I notice that in myself too. I have to make many calls and online meetings. I love talking to people every day, but when suddenly something entirely different is required of me, I can become stressed.
Maybe it’s fear of the unknown. But it is something new—something you haven’t done before. And without new experiences, I remain the same. I stop growing.
So for people who have read the Bible from a young age, it is extra difficult to read those same old stories with new eyes. For people who learned that “the Bible is your personal handbook,” it is hard to hear that not everything is personal. And for theologians, the challenge is to take off the academic glasses and let the text hit your heart again.
We need one another. And we need the willingness to seek not only personal confirmation, but shared truth.
2. Let’s Read the Bible with a Diversified Group
When I studied theology, I heard about a course in Intercultural Bible Reading. I found it fascinating.
My field of study was already a beautifully mixed group—that’s typical for Pentecostalism (the global Pentecostal movement).
I came to faith at sixteen in a church that originally had Indonesian roots. Over time it had become a multi-ethnic group. And what a richness it is to read the Bible with people from different backgrounds.
The Iranian reads Scripture differently than the Kenyan, the Dutch differently than the Surinamese.
And honestly, we need a more non-Western perspective on the Bible—a view shaped by cultures in which, just like in Jesus’ time, family, honor, shame, and group identity play a far greater role than in Dutch culture.
“We actually need a more non-Western view of the Bible.”
Think, for example, of the text in which Jesus, in the presence of his own family, says:
“Who is my family? Those who hear God’s word and do it.” (Luke 12:21)
A rejection of family is always painful, but even more so in family-oriented cultures where your well-being depends on your family ties.
We really must read the Bible together.
And I haven’t even mentioned age, gender, or socio-economic status. Read the Bible as a middle-class person together with someone who has almost nothing—those stories about the widow who gave more than anyone else suddenly hit differently. And have you ever read Old Testament stories from a Jewish perspective? There are even Jewish scholars who study Jesus and his time (Schalom Ben Chorin).
3. Let’s Talk About How the Bible Came Into Being
We don’t have to read the Bible in the same way. That’s impossible anyway. But when our views on what the Bible is differ so much, conversations become circular and unproductive.
Such conversations often turn into debates in which one tries to convince the other, repeating arguments in the hope that repetition will cause the other to give in. It doesn’t work.
Some read the Bible as a completely closed whole in which every letter counts and every verse has equal weight. That is often called a fundamentalist reading—the final product is given full divine authority, so every word must be taken equally seriously, whether from a psalm or the Gospel of Mark.
Often, all stories are taken as historically literal.
Others read everything symbolically. The stories are not historical at all but convey a message, like films often convey an idea.
What is the moral of the story?
That is an allegorical reading.
“They remain human beings who wrote these books in a specific time and place.”
Either way, we cannot escape the fact that the Bible has a history—a history of formation.
These books were written in particular times.
Even if you acknowledge the divine side of this beautiful history, the words still came to paper (animal skins, papyrus) through human hands.
And they were shaped in particular literary forms.
One book is a songbook (Psalms), another a wisdom book (Job, Ecclesiastes), another a letter to a specific audience (Paul’s letters). I know this does not make Bible reading easier. But fortunately or unfortunately, we cannot escape these fixed realities.
Yes, you can say the Spirit inspired these people, and even that the canonization process was initiated by God, but still—humans wrote and edited these books in a real time and place. And it is worth everything to discuss this together.
Weighing Biblical Words: a Circle
A well-known German theologian, Karl Barth, once said that God’s Word can be found in the Bible. In other words: through all the words in Scripture, God’s Word resounds. But that is different from saying that every word is itself God’s Word.
Even Paul sometimes writes in his letters that what he just wrote is his own opinion, not that of Christ.
Yes, he believes he has the Spirit—so his words have authority—but he still speaks with reservation.
There are also words from Christ, which he likely heard through Jesus’ direct followers.
If Paul is careful, how much more should we be?
In short: even though the Bible is this beautiful God-and-human work, not every word or verse carries equal weight. We must resist drawing hasty conclusions. We must love Scripture enough to read and study it with care—especially when dealing with sensitive topics involving other people.
A Final Thought
I want to ask you to reflect on the following with others: What if you drew a circle, and within it smaller circles, based on what is most important in the Bible? What would be in the core? And what in the second and third circles? Then you will discover what lies at the heart of our faith, and which words give sustenance to the others.
If I may share my view: the words and actions of Jesus belong in the core.
Without him, the entire New Testament would not even exist.
Even within his words, we can make distinctions. Did he not summarize the entire law and the prophets in that one great commandment? That we are to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love our neighbor as ourselves?
Let that be our starting point.
And if we acknowledge that he is not merely the villager from Nazareth, but the one who, through his way of being in the world, showed us who God is—then we must begin all our speech about the Bible with him. In other words: everything in the Bible stands in his shadow.
In my view, you must always weigh everything in the light of his words and deeds. He qualifies everything else. So when you read something, alongside all the beautiful methods of Bible reading (read the whole book first, read in context, find the purpose of the book, etc.), you must always ask:
Is this in line with what Jesus said and did?
Granted, that is only the beginning of a journey of discovery. But we must row with the oars we have. He brought the doing of God’s will back to the heart of the Torah by bringing the law back into our hearts. Not the outside, not any social identity we carry, but the inside.
If that’s not revolutionary, I don’t know what is.
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