thought exercise on Taking the Bible Literally

While in seminary I did some research and editing work for a missiology professor, and I came across a story of a missionary who took Jesus’s illustration of sheep and goats quite literally when worki...

My brother, who attended a Bible College during a smart-alecky phase in his life, enjoyed shocking groups of believers by sharing his “life verse.” After listening to others quote pious phrases from P...

A little girl from Minneapolis reunited with her family after Sunday school looked upset. “I’m not going back!” she declared assertively. Surprised, her mother asked, “Why not?” The girl frowned and r...

A successful Irish boxer was converted and became a preacher. He happened to be in a new town setting up his evangelistic tent when a couple of tough thugs noticed what he was doing. Knowing nothing o...

Isaiah 58 tells us that the Lord wants us to share our bread with the hungry, bring the homeless poor into our homes, share our clothing with those who need some and not hide ourselves from the rest o...

The Old Testament portrays the world as it is, no holds barred. In its pages you will find passionate stories of love and hate, blood-chilling stories of rape and dismemberment, matter-of-fact account...

What does it look like to incarnate the gospel in our lives? Dawn Husnick, whom Scot McKnight describes as having had some “tough years with alcohol, failed personal relationships, and depression, fou...

In her book, Grateful: The Subversive Practice of Giving Thanks , Diana Butler Bass provides an insightful reflection on how Zaccheaus rose to become chief tax collector of Jericho:  Since Zacchaeu...

With the exception of some of the Proverbs, the Bible does not contain isolated sayings. I should be wary about dipping into it at random and extracting individual verses without any regard for their ...

Dr. William Evans, who pastored College Church from 1906–1909, was an unusually accomplished man. He had the entire King James Version of the Bible memorized as well as the New Testament of the Americ...

Have you ever found yourself reading the Bible and you came across a scene that is horrific, filled with awful violence or scheming swindlers or ethical blunders, and you find yourself unsure what to ...

My brother, who attended a Bible College during a smart-alecky phase in his life, enjoyed shocking groups of believers by sharing his “life verse.” After listening to others quote pious phrases from P...

Rather than translating the culture, then, we need to try to enter the culture. When people want to study the Bible seriously, one of the steps they take is to learn the language. As I teach language ...

Thomas Merton’s words about the Bible in general apply to the Old Testament in particular:  There is, in a word, nothing comfortable about the Bible — until we manage to get so used to it that we ...

There’s a story that used to make the rounds about the German theologian Paul Tillich. Tillich’s theology was considered dangerous by many Christians in the U.S. Supposedly one time after delivering a...

Reading the Bible without applying it to your life can be downright dangerous. On August 3, 1996, Melvin Hitchens, sat on his front porch and read the Bible. After his Bible reading, this 66 year old ...

How may readers … do harm to themselves? If … they read the Scriptures without sincere prayer and the purpose to obey God, but only to get knowledge, to make a show, and to exercise their curiosity u...

We like to think of the Bible possessively—my Bible, a rare heritage, a holy treasure, a spiritual heirloom. And well we should. The Bible is fresh and speaks to each of us as God’s revelation of hims...

Martin Luther said that every Christian ought to read the Bible from cover to cover every year. But, likening the Bible to a forest, he also said that reading the Bible doesn’t become really enjoyable...

Christians feed on Scripture. Holy Scripture nurtures the holy community as food nurtures the human body. Christians don’t simply learn or study or use Scripture; we assimilate it, take it into our li...

The Bible is like a vast geographical basin in which tributary streams feed into the currents of a parent river on its course to the ocean. The riverbanks are interspersed with openings where the trib...

Many people these days feel an absence in their lives, expressed as an acute desire for “something more,” a spiritual home, a community of faith. But when they try to read the Bible they end up throwi...

In Book Eight of Confessions , St. Augustine recounts how, in a state of deep inner turmoil, he “heard from a nearby house a voice, as of a boy or girl, I know not which, chanting repeatedly, ‘Ta...

God speaks the decisive word that puts us on the way, the road. The path of life. The Hebrew word for Bible is Miqra, a noun formed from the verb “to call” qara. The Bible is not a book to carry aroun...

Jesus Christ was prone to making comments which seem to support an almost infinite variety of exegesis. A remark like ‘Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesars and ‘unto God the things that are ...

Last week, an atheist came up to me and asked how I could believe in a God who made parents eat their children.  Naturally, I was a little confused. A lot of people have odd ideas about God, but ...

When the Reformers broke with Rome and claimed the view that the Bible was to be the supreme authority of the church (sola Scriptura), they were very careful to define basic principles of interpretati...

The goal is not for us to get through the Scriptures. The goal is to get the Scriptures through us. Some churches give people the idea that the only way to transformation is knowledge. There is an as...

Søren Kierkegaard offers two suggestions for the reader who tackles difficult portions of the Bible. First, read it like a love letter, he says. As you struggle with language, culture, and other barri...

The people God used to record his words were themselves uncommonly moved by them. They said the Word of God is honey in my mouth (Ezekiel 3:3)  spiritual food for the hungry (Job 23:12)  dwel...