The task sounds simple enough, but we often make assumptions about how the Bible is to be read that simply aren’t correct. You would not read a letter to from David Cameron1 to Barrack Obama and assume that David Cameron was referring to you (yourself) every time he used the pronoun “you.” In a letter to Barrack Obama, the word “you” refers to Barrack Obama. This is “duh” inspiring and yawn-worthy to most of us; yet for many of us it is common to read Paul’s letter to the Galatians or Jeremiah’s prophecy to Judah as if it were directly addressed to twenty-first century Americans like ourselves.
Perhaps, then, the most important thing we need to realize is that although the Bible is that—although the Bible contains helpful information for us—it was not written directly to us. We play the role of eavesdroppers; we are listening in on a conversation which began long before we were born. Our goal, then, is to try to read the Bible like the original audience would have. We seek to find the message to that audience and then find out what that message implies for us.
There are many ways to accomplish this. One is to simply read the introductory notes in your Bible to whatever book you happen to be reading. Just that quick step can be helpful. There are, however, many more things you can do to gain a better understanding of how the original audience would have understood something. I’ve written a lot on this subject and will be posting it over time. Check out the tag “hermeneutics” for more information on this subject.
- David Cameron, for those wondering, is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (at the time of this writing).↵
