When we read the Bible, we’re reading something written to us, and about us.

When I first learned this principle, it changed the way I read the Bible.

I’ve heard preachers and scholars say, “The Bible was not written to us; but it was written for us.” I understand what they‘re saying. But, in my opinion, their assertion is incomplete. And at least one scholar agrees with me, wonderfully articulating what I consider a more meaningful approach to reading our Bible.

Here’s an excerpt…

“It has become commonplace to hear that the Bible ‘is written for us, but not to us.’ [The reasoning goes like this:] The apostle Paul, like every other biblical author, is too historically and culturally distant (not to mention dead) to address me personally i.e. reading Paul’s letters today is quite literally reading someone else’s two-thousand-year-old mail…” 

Allow me to interject: we already begin to see the fallacy in this approach to studying the Bible: Yes, Paul, is dead. But, God, is very much alive, meaning His Word is very much alive (“The Word of God is alive and active…” Heb 4:12)

 Back to the excerpt…

“Jane Austen’s letters to her sister Cassandra afford fascinating glimpses into the personality of one of my favorite authors, yet they are not directed *to* me. To read someone else’s mail is to eavesdrop on a private conversation.

However, this is not the way we read the Bible.

Christians who read say, Ephesians, are not eavesdroppers on someone else’s conversation…

Søren Kierkegaard was keenly aware that readers of the Bible stand before the living God. He observed, ‘It is I to whom it is speaking; it is I about whom it is speaking.’

To read the Bible as if it were addressed to someone else, therefore, is to succumb to third-person Christianity, in which the words and actions of God concern them, not us. By way of contrast, biblical interpretation for Kierkegaard, like discourse itself, is irreducibly personal.

“According to (the Reformer John) Calvin, biblical statements do more than describe states of affairs (of bygone eras); they often place the reader in situations that demand a response. In informing us, the Bible also questions us — it places us before God, renders us accountable to God. To read Scripture for its divine address to us is to approach a holy place; it is to climb Sinai with Moses to meet God.”

Of course, I agree that the Bible is ultimately about Christ and God’s love for us through him (e.g. John 5:39). My point here is to simply help us understand that God’s Word is not some “form letter”, but is extremely personal.

The German theologian/martyr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, said,

“When you read the Bible, you must think that here and now God is speaking to me.”

About Bonhoeffer, one of his students shared,

“He taught us that the Bible goes directly into your life, to where your problems are.”

There is much more to share, but I thought this might offer you some food-for-thought when reading your Bible, which is God’s ‘love letter’ written to you, and about you.

Sola Scriptura, nw

Excerpts from ‘Mere Christian Hermeneutics’ by Kevin Vanhoozer (Ph.D., Cambridge).