Hopefully, by now you’ve incorporated more enjoyment of the Bible into your Sabbath. Few things are so beautifully aligned with the purpose of the Sabbath as enjoying the Bible. It’s a great time to remember all of God’s good works in history and to enjoy the crazy stories the Bible tells. Once you have started to enjoy reading the Bible on your own, you might find yourself wanting to get more out of your time reading it. I’m not talking about the academic study of the Bible, important as that is. While that may be an enjoyable hobby for you to pursue on the Sabbath, for me it’s a part of my paid work and I avoid doing it on Sabbath. Commentaries, philosophy, histories of interpretation, and the original languages of the Bible all have their useful place, but I’m talking about how to get more out of staring at just the text in a comfortable translation without calling on such aids. The next few Fridays, we will discuss how to get the most enjoyment out of the time you spend with the Bible. For starters, find a translation that’s comfortable for you to read. The King James Version is an excellent translation—into Middle English, which we don’t speak anymore. English vocabulary and usage have changed a good deal since then, so when you read it, you’re not just dealing with the language barrier of reading a translation but with your own understanding of archaic English. This lovely translation has its uses in formal, ceremonial contexts, but if you’re trying to enjoy the Bible on your own, try going with a more comfortable translation, like NASB (which Ellen White used in her original manuscripts), NIV, NKJV, CEB, NLT, or even a paraphrase like the Message or the Living Bible. While the latter two aren’t great for serious academic study, they’re fine for devotional reading. Next, pick out where in the Bible you want to read. There are many different ways of choosing, but for someone who’s just starting out I would recommend taking note of texts you hear used in the real world and looking them up for yourself. For example, if your pastor preaches on a passage, check it out for yourself. If there’s a small group meeting virtually who’s going through a book, try out that book. Your personal study will enrich what you get out of these sources. For example, my church is currently going through the book of Acts at a rate of 19-21 verses each Thursday on Facebook. I wrote study guides for it and my senior pastor is giving the actual study, but you’ll get even more out of it if you look at it for yourself. The Sabbath School quarterlies for all ages are based on the Bible. It’s good to look up the texts mentioned in them on your own to evaluate whether you agree with what’s being said about those passages. What’s good about going in that direction is that it gives you more of a chance to evaluate what you hear. I’m not saying you should judge your local pastor’s every sentence; preaching is hard enough without facing word-by-word scrutiny. However, pastors are human and make mistakes. Reading on your own gives you a buffer for that. Also, everyone gets something different from the same passage. When you hear a sermon, you hear the preacher’s perspective, which generally has more study and preparation involved, but you may need to hear something different from that very passage than what the preacher has to say about it that particular week. Once you’re more comfortable reading the Bible on your own, you can tackle specific books or even go the whole hog and try to read the entire Bible in order. I do not recommend trying the latter on your own until you’ve gained some small victories in the form of reading a few books that interest you. Some great starter books are the four Gospels; the short but colorful books of Esther, Ruth, or Jonah; or Genesis with its familiar stories. One fun thing to try is to read a short book—perhaps one of the shorter letters from the New Testament or one of the Minor Prophets from the Old—every day for a month. You will notice new and different things each time. I spent a month in Nahum once and while I didn’t understand it very well until I got into commentaries, I found its imagery very striking. Another approach that’s worth doing once is to find a chronological Bible reading plan on YouVersion or elsewhere. As you may be aware, the Bible is not exactly arranged in the order in which events occurred. Genesis through 2 Chronicles is relatively straightforward that way, but after that things get strange. Jeremiah, for example, is nowhere near the sections of Kings and Chronicles that happen at the same time, and there is a wealth of material in Psalms and the other poetry books that make more sense if considered alongside the events of King David’s reign. Some of these reading plans are based on guesswork, but any plan that gets the poetry books closer to the events they’re written about can help clarify their meaning. Wherever you decide to begin, the main point is that you start and keep reading. You may have to move to something different if you discover that it’s not your speed, but what matters is consistent time with the Word of God. As you grow in your familiarity with the Bible, you will eventually get to the point where you can open the Bible up to any page and find something to enjoy. Until then, master what’s in your comfort zone until you can branch out. The beauty of the Bible is that a single chapter of it contains more than a lifetime’s worth of truth to learn. How do you dig for that stuff? We’ll talk more about it next week.
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AuthorJillian Lutes is the youth pastor at West Covina Hills Seventh-day Adventist Church. Archives
May 2020
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