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This is the sixth in a series of articles on Bible reading.
The parting of the Red Sea. David and Goliath. Daniel in the lion's den. Jonah and the big fish. The birth of Jesus. The parable of the Good Samaritan. The Lord's Prayer. The parable of the prodigal son. The Crucifixion. The events of the first Easter morning.
Even if you don't read the Bible regularly, some parts of the Bible are very familiar. Maybe too familiar.
When you read a familiar Bible passage or hear it read, your brain may go on auto-pilot. The passage may have little to no impact on you. After all, you've read it, or heard it, so many times.
But you can get new insight into and fresh inspiration from even the most familiar passages. Here are three ways to do that.
1. Dig into the context.
The old adage in real estate is that the three most important features of your home are location, location, and location.
Similarly, for many Bible passages, context is critically important. A key to getting more out of these passages is to dig into the context.
Take the parable of the prodigal son. Today, it's easy to see the father in the story as a wonderful guy. But when Jesus told the story, many people in his audience would have been shocked and appalled at the father's behavior.
When the younger son demands his inheritance, he is treating the father as if the father were dead. An upstanding Jewish father would have disciplined and even disowned the son for his incredible disrespect. Instead, the father gives the younger son his inheritance without uttering a word.
After the son squanders that inheritance with non-Jews, he knows that his father's community will hold a Kezazah (cutting off) ceremony and shun the son for the rest of his life. If the son somehow manages to get past the community leaders and make it home, his father will never accept him back into the family. Having nowhere else to go, the son reluctantly sets off to beg to be taken on as a servant.
Meanwhile, the father, rather than focusing on his household, has been scanning the horizon for his wayward son. When he spots that son a long way off, the father runs to meet him. In Jesus's day, a middle-aged Jewish father never ran. Never. He always walked in a slow, dignified manner. To run, he would have to take the front edge of his robes in his hands, as a teenager would, and show his legs in what was considered a humiliating posture.
After debasing himself by running to his worthless son, the father does the unthinkable: he restores the prodigal as a son and has a celebration to welcome him back into the family.
Jesus's audience would have been upset and even angry with the father. When they figured out that the father was a representation of our Heavenly Father, they would have faced a stark choice: reject the teachings of Jesus or rethink everything they thought they knew about God.
2. Imagine you are there.
When I was a volunteer youth leader, my primary job was to teach a Bible lesson at every meeting. One December, I was teaching on the Christmas story from Luke 2. I knew that the youth had heard the story many times, so I looked for a fresh angle on it. One simple phrase stood out: the shepherds were "terrified."
Why? To answer that question, I imagined being one of them.
There we are, all by ourselves on a lonely hill outside a small town. No lights, except the moon and stars. Deadly quiet. Same as every other night.
Out of nowhere, an angel appears, right in the middle of us, with "the glory of the Lord" shining all around him. The light is not a soft glow. It is intensely, unimaginably bright. It is blinding. We can't see anything.
And then it's not just one angel. There are thousands of them. Everywhere. The still night is shattered with booming praises to God.
Then, in a flash, they all disappear.
How would I react?
The shepherds responded by heading for Bethlehem to "see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about." I suspect that they didn't stroll to the town, chatting on the way. They probably ran. I certainly would have. I wouldn't want to risk the angels coming back for an encore.
Imagining that you are there can breathe new life into almost any familiar Bible passage.
3. Consult with an expert.
Sometimes, a single word or phrase in a familiar passage just doesn't make sense.
For Pastor Bruce Wilkinson, it was the phrase "cuts off" in the first part of John 15, a familiar passage where Jesus tells his disciples that he is the vine, they are the branches, and God is the gardener. In many translations, such as the NIV, verse 2 reads as follows: "He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit."
Every branch in Jesus is a follower of his, a Christian. Some Bible teachers interpret this verse to mean that, if a Christian bears no fruit, then he may not be a Christian after all. He may not be saved. What if you don't produce fruit for a week? A month? A year? How long until God cuts you off?
Wilkinson wasn't comfortable with his understanding of the passage until he met a man who owned a large vineyard. As they sat over coffee, the man explained to Wilkinson that new branches have a natural tendency to trail down and grow along the ground. There, those branches don't bear fruit because their leaves get coated in dust and, when it rains, they get muddy and mildewed. Left on the ground, branches become sick and useless.
Wilkinson asked the man what he does with a sick and useless branch. "Cut it off and throw it away?"
"Oh, no!" the man replied. "The branch is much too valuable for that. We go through the vineyard with a bucket of water looking for those branches. We lift them up and wash them off. Then we wrap them around the trellis or tie them up. Pretty soon they're thriving."
After the conversation, Wilkinson realized that the Greek word airo in the passage never means "cuts off," as the NIV translation says, or "takes away," as some other translations say. The word should be translated as "takes up" or "lifts up." When a branch falls into the dirt, the gardener, God, doesn't throw it away or abandon it. Instead, He lifts it up, cleans it off, and helps it flourish again. God takes whatever steps are necessary to restore the branch.
Want new life from a familiar Bible passage? It's there . . . with a little extra effort on your part.
Check out previous articles in the series:
· Why We Struggle to Read the Bible Regularly
· Developing a Daily Bible Reading Habit
· What to Read during a 3-Month Bible Challenge
· Enhance Your Bible Reading with The Bible Project
 | Chris Bolinger is the author of three men’s devotionals – 52 Weeks of Strength for Men, Daily Strength for Men, and Fuerzas para Cada Día para el Hombre – and the co-host of the Throwing Mountains podcast. He splits his time between northeast Ohio and southwest Florida. Against the advice of medical professionals, he remains a die-hard fan of Cleveland pro sports teams. Find him at mensdevotionals.com. Learn More » |
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