Bible 101 - Where to even begin?

All of worship is based in scripture... but what is scripture? What is the Bible and why does it matter? How do you even begin to study such a monumental text? Join Pastor Katie, Keith, and David as they begin this new 101 series, Bible 101. 

Learn more about St. John Lutheran Church at stjohnchurchmars.org or follow us on Facebook.

Scripture quotations from the COMMON ENGLISH BIBLE. © Copyright 2011 COMMON ENGLISH BIBLE. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:04

So welcome. We have just finished off our Worship 101 series, and since we are still in the summer season, we thought we would tackle another major 101 series. And so here on Fastets of Faith, for the next few weeks, we are diving into the 101 of the Bible. Now, this is a massive, massive topic, and we are certainly not going to include everything there is to know about the Bible in the next four to five weeks. We are going super high level, just hopefully to kind of introduce you to what is the Bible, how it is organized, where it came from, who's writing it, all those questions, so that hopefully you can, as our listeners, hear our conversations and maybe start to develop the questions that you have of how you want to dive in deeper and explore the Bible more on your own. As always, you are more than welcome to reach out to St. John Lutheran Church and ask us if you have questions that you want us to cover or if there's resources you want us to suggest to you, anything like that. But as we get our conversation started, I want to start by reading the Bible. This is coming from a book by the name of 2 Timothy, the third chapter beginning at the 16th verse. We can talk about that stuff later of how that works, but for now, just listen. Every scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for showing mistakes, for correcting, and for training character, so that the person who belongs to God can be equipped to do everything that is good. So that's just two verses out of the entirety of the Bible. And there's obviously so much richness here. But this is 101. We are pretending like we are talking to people who have never even cracked a Bible open. So, gentlemen, Keith, David, what is the Bible?

SPEAKER_00 2:09

Well, you you um kind of answered my first question with uh that quote from 2 Timothy because I was gonna say, why do we need the Bible? What's in the Bible? Why should we study the Bible? Why should we look at the Bible? What is it? You know? It's a book, right? Many books, but it's a big book. It's a big, big book with lots and lots of other little books in it. Right.

SPEAKER_02 2:30

Right. I mean, the Bible is um frequently when you go into the bookstore, you see a book on the shelf that's called the Bible, capital T, capital B. But within that Bible, there are 66 smaller, what we call books or scrolls. And actually, that number, depending on your context, might shift a little bit. If we have Catholic listeners, um, you'll notice that your number is higher than that. Um we can we'll talk about that a little bit later in the series. But it is a book of books, is one way to put it. It's an entire bookshelf in one book. Um, and we read it because this is the story of God. This is the story of God's people, this is the story of God's love for us, and this is how it has been captured for us as the faith was beginning back in ancient times before they were really necessarily even counting the years, and then it's the story of Jesus, who is God's word incarnate, and how uh his ministry looked as he was walking around the earth, and then the impact of that experience on the people around him. And so the scripture that we have, it's thousands of years old, even the newest part is almost 2,000 years old. And yet, when we read these scriptures, because it is the Word of God, because it is God's love story for us, as um we were talking about before we started recording, it is still new, it is still speaking, it is still living, it is still breathing into us the story of what it is for God to love us and what it is for us to wrestle with what it is to be God's people.

SPEAKER_01 4:08

So the Bible, I said my comment a little tongue-in-cheek, is not a book, it is a collection of books. It's almost like its own bookshelf. So, yes, it's a book, and we call it the Bible, but you could take any one of the texts, any one of the individual 66 books, and read it from start to finish in its own self-encapsulated context, not excluding the other 65, but there is a there is a point to that to that to that book. So let's uh maybe pick John, the Gospel of John. Everybody sees that at a football game. John 3.16, what does it mean? We're not gonna talk about it right now, but the point is it comes from the Gospel of John. So you can read that book, which is a smaller book in the larger book called the Bible, from beginning to end and say, Oh, okay, I see that there's a beginning and an end. And then you could generally do the same thing to or with the other 65 books or scrolls with a defined beginning and end. And you you may not see the name Jesus in every single one, but when you knit those together, you should start to see the tapestry, right? Each one of the books on their own does not tell the whole story. You need all 66 to tell the whole story and how they interface with one another. So when I hear, you know, pastor, when you say words like, well, it lives and breathes and it and it moves, and you know, it has different meanings depending on the person receiving the message, and even in some cases, the person receiving the message, what time of day or what season of life they're in, it matters because it can it can it can it can it can influence and involve different parts of the human psyche. And so reading it through that lens or reading it through the lens of this is the beginning, started at page one, and then going all the way to the end, if you read it like a book, you're you're going to miss the that that imagery, that tapestry, that that breathing.

SPEAKER_00 6:28

So I know you said it's uh literally thousands of years old. Um does that mean that for the sake of the listener, that we have to study history before to understand it? I mean, if it's been around for thousands of years and it's supposed to be, as we're told, the inspired word of God. Who wrote it and and where did it come from and what what were some of the origins of it?

SPEAKER_02 6:48

Right, exactly. So um, when you pull it off the shelf, there's a lot of study Bibles out there that are really excellent that give, at the beginning of each of these little scrolls or books, um, a little summary of the historical context that's happening at the time that this particular part of the story is taking place. And that's a great way to kind of start to get a sense of what's happening here because we do need to have that historical context. We do need to understand customs and culture, and also to pick up on a lot of the humor that's in the Bible, you need to kind of know how people spoke and the inside jokes that they were tossing around. Um, so and that is all helped then by reading it in community. We're not designed to be alone in any sense of the word, and as we engage in God's word, we're not designed to engage in God's word alone. And so when we read scripture, we're reading it in community with scholars, we're reading it in community with other believers, we're reading it in community with the church teachings, we're reading it in a community to help us kind of process all of this to help bring some of those concepts of historical context and authorship and genre and all of that stuff down into our reading at that moment so that we can hopefully then get a bit more of a deeper connection to the words, and it's not just words on a page, but it's it's it has a context.

SPEAKER_00 8:13

So one of my relatives uh just became a Christian about a year and a half ago, and when he and I were discussing this, uh he wanted to learn about the Bible, and he said, Where should I start? And I really didn't have a good answer. It's like it's so huge, and it covers so many things, and and so many things are interrelated. I mean, where would you suggest a new person, a new create uh Christian start reading the Bible? I mean, start at Genesis or start with the New Testament? I mean, where?

SPEAKER_02 8:41

I would actually recommend not starting with Genesis. Right. Um, because Genesis is full of challenging texts, it's also full of texts that can be a little boring and full of context-rich texts that are hard to understand without having some of that context. So as a Christian, I would start with one of the Gospels. Right. Um my favorite. Well, actually, I can't say my favorite because it keeps jumping around a little bit, but I would probably do Matthew, Mark, or Luke. I would not do John, because John has a little bit more uh esoterical language. Um, but Luke is really great and readable, uh, Mark is really great and readable. Start with one of those. Um, and then especially if you have a good study Bible, sometimes there's footnotes that will reference around to other scriptures that can help you kind of bounce around a little bit. Yeah. Um, because like we were talking about before we began our recording, um, a lot of what we call the Old Testament or the Hebrew scriptures, Christians don't know a lot about. Um, we're not very well versed in them just because we don't talk about them a lot, and so they can be harder to read on your own. Whereas uh starting with a gospel, starting with kind of the basic Jesus story, getting into the letters that comprise the rest of the New Testament, those are easier. Um the psalms are actually really beautiful. They're in the Hebrew scriptures, the Old Testament. Um, and because they're songs, they have songs for every season of life. There's laments and thanksgiving and praise, and and there are going to be some context clues that you miss out on, but they can still help tell that story of God's love for every season of life.

SPEAKER_00 10:24

Sure. I mean, obviously, people that haven't been to church in a very long time, they go to a funeral. What's the first thing they ask for is Psalm 23. You know, because that has a comfort to them, that it's a familiarity to it. And and yeah, but I mean there are other Bible passages that have learned over the years, you know, that give me comfort too, like the Beatitudes, for example, you know, or something like that.

SPEAKER_02 10:45

And I will say, as people read the Bible uh and they learn more about it, it is amazing how frequently themes and imageries and um topics and stories of the Bible are feeding into pop culture and feeding into current-day movies and things like that. Like you watch movies and it's like, oh, that's the story of so-and-so from the Bible. Um, so it does impact a lot of Western culture, even if not explicitly. And so the more we study the Bible, the more we start to get these references that are all around us that we might have missed otherwise.

SPEAKER_01 11:22

I think another key point is you mentioned it earlier, is where wherever you start, whether it's I I I would agree at probably one of the gospels, um do so with a friend. Somebody else, right? Uh uh a colleague, whatever. I it's if you open up the Bible, if you're not very familiar with it, and you just start reading, you'll gain knowledge, um, as uh however that is imparted to you via the Holy Spirit. But your but the your eyes are not gonna be fully opened. You have to tease out the the understanding, right, the language with with somebody else. And and and it doesn't have to be a scholar, it doesn't have to be a pastor, you don't have to necessarily sit down with you know somebody like you, pastor, and and have a conversation about, oh, well, what does Luke mean in this, you know, in this section? Um you could just have a conversation. Like you could have a conversation about the text that we read this morning, or this morning, and and you know, at the opening. I think that's where the power and the movement in the in the life of the Bible comes into play. It's you know, two or more people speaking about it and then allowing the Holy Spirit to influence that that conversation accordingly. Some of the smartest things I've said come from group groups, like group discussions where I'm like, oh, I can't believe I said that. Well, I didn't say that. That was you know, God putting words in my mouth, just making making sense, right? Making me make sense.

SPEAKER_02 12:55

And I think the other perk of reading it in community is when we read things within a group of people, we frequently read it out loud. Um, and scripture is meant to be heard as much as it is meant to be read. Uh, in its original context, very few people were reading. And so these were texts that would be told. They were stories that would be told. It was later on that they got put into writing so that they could be, you know, mailed, for lack of a better word, mailed across the different cities to kind of invite others into the conversation. So speaking it out loud, speaking it slowly, reading it several times through, those are all great tactics to help get into some of the richness of this, especially in conversation with others. And I think the other important note to this kind of getting started with reading the Bible is picking a good translation. Um, if you go on to like an online Bible verse lookup thing, you will find out that there are hundreds upon hundreds of translations, and some of them are more readable than others, some of them um have different leanings that they try to do with the readings. Um, because whenever you make a translation choice, you're always putting some interpretive lens on it. And so the translation choice that you choose will also kind of lead you down different interpretations of how to hear the scripture. And so here at St. John, we tend to lean on what's called the NRSV UE, which is the new revised standard version, the updated edition. They just came out with that a couple years ago. Um and when they update it, that's something that always gets people a little tripped up. They're not willy-nilly going through saying, we don't like this word, we're gonna change it. It's because even though it's thousands of years old, we're still learning about the language context as we're finding more and more um inscriptions and writings from that time period, where we're learning more through archaeology, and so we're able to make better translation choices.

SPEAKER_00 14:59

And language is is a very um livable, I mean, it always evolves.

SPEAKER_02 15:04

It does.

SPEAKER_00 15:04

You know, I mean, we're not speaking the same English that we spoke a hundred years ago. Exactly. You know, so we have to update the translations so that it speaks to today's people. Yeah, and it'll happen again a hundred years from now.

SPEAKER_02 15:16

Yeah. And the NRSV UE, it tries to kind of keep that balance of sticking really close to the original languages while also using today's language. But there's another translation that we use a lot. Um, it's called the C E B. The um Common The Common English Bible. I stutter I stuttered because when I was growing up, there was a C E V, which was the contemporary English version. Um that's been out of print for a bit now. Makes me feel old. So this one is the But the Common English Bible.

SPEAKER_00 15:47

Or is it Contemporary English Bible?

SPEAKER_02 15:48

No, it's common.

SPEAKER_00 15:49

It is? Okay, sorry.

SPEAKER_02 15:51

I have one next to me, so I'm looking at it as a cheat sheet.

SPEAKER_00 15:54

There you go.

SPEAKER_02 15:54

But uh the Common English Bible is written for uh just more readability, and so it's if you're gonna do deep, deep Bible study, it's a good way to kind of get some tones and vibes uh because it's a great translation, but it it focuses more on using that common language that we use today because it's just maybe 10 years old and it's translation.

SPEAKER_01 16:17

So I'm envisioning so translation, but that that has been a uh that had been a bit of a sticking point for me in the past. Well, what does this word actually mean? So I'd look at it, I so as we were as I was preparing mentally for this podcast, I was thinking, ooh, we need to talk about translations and and why does it say certain things? So I had an example. So I'm thinking, okay, we're from Southwest PA, Pittsburgh. So Moses in the burning jagger bush, right? So we're gonna write that in the Bible 2,000 years ago. We're gonna go back in time and write that in the Bible, right? What does it what is a jagger bush? Right? So that may make us laugh here in Southwest PA at this moment in time, but 2,000 years from now, well, what the heck is a jagger bush? Right. And how do you define that? What translation in, I don't know, space alien or whatever we're gonna cling on, whatever we're gonna talk 2,000 years from now, how are how are we gonna translate that? And what was the contextual meaning of that term? And that's where the translations come in into play. And that's just one simple word, not even a not even trying to convey, without even trying to convey a feeling. Don't even get me started on six, seven, right? Like if you what how do you convey that message? And I'm sure that there's tons and tons of imagery like that, language imagery that we have no common words for, right? Some of these languages have have died. And and I thought you were gonna go with Ebenezer.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

Or Ebenezer. Yeah, there you go. Which is in the Bible either, though. What is Ebenezer? It's not a name, it's right.

SPEAKER_01 17:56

It's a rock.

SPEAKER_00 17:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:57

And here you go. I mean, okay, so it's a rock. Why not just say rock?

SPEAKER_00 18:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:00

So it's not, well, it's not just a rock, it is a rock signifying God's presence and God's love in this space, and it's it's and so it had a bigger context around it. And so you can't just put rock on it because that flattens it. And and in the scriptures, actually, that happens sometimes where there is a word in Greek or Hebrew, because that's most of the original languages, uh, most of the Bibles originally in Hebrew or Greek, there are these words that convey these emotions and these images, and then when we translate them into English, they're just flat. Um, and that's some, you're just if you're reading it on your own, if you're reading it um at home, a lot of them you're just gonna miss. And that's where I always encourage people get into a Bible study. Do get in where you've got pastors who are trained and studying in this all the time and going back to Greek and Hebrew regularly so that they can kind of help tease out some of those spaces. Um, as a selfless plug, our Bible study is on Zoom always, and you are all more than welcome to join us in our Bible studies on Zoom from wherever you are. Um check out our website for the upcoming schedule.

SPEAKER_01 19:09

If if we bring a uh a new Christian or somebody that is that that is not very, very familiar with the Bible into a setting with a pastor, I can I I feel like that could be a little bit intimidating for that individual.

SPEAKER_00 19:29

Well, if geeks like you and me are there, yeah.

unknown 19:32

Yeah, I mean right.

SPEAKER_01 19:33

So how do we keep it we have to be gentle? Yeah, how do we keep it gentle without going so deep down the rabbit hole?

SPEAKER_00 19:40

I mean, and there's there's a time and place for it. Well, and and very honestly, I mean, at one session that was on Wednesdays, I mean, we did have one or two people that it was pretty over their head. I mean, they were really at the basic level and they felt like they really didn't understand what was going on, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:56

And that's where I would always encourage um, ask questions. Stop the conversation. Don't be afraid to just jump in and say, hold up, you made a reference I don't get. Explain that to me. Because I'm gonna go out on the limb. And speaking from our context at least, I feel fairly confident that if anyone at any point in a Bible study said, I'm lost, the conversation would stop, would rewind, and catch them up.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

Um you've seen it in our faces too.

unknown 20:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:28

Sometimes I do that too. I get uh little excited. Everybody's just burning holes in their paper, they don't want to look up and say, I don't get this.

SPEAKER_02 20:37

Absolutely. I've been called out more than once of saying, you are going too fast, too far. And it's like, thank you. Stop, remember my audience. Um, and I think that's the biggest thing about reading the Bible is acknowledge the fact that even people who study it, like pastors for a living, we're still learning constantly. There's still a lot we don't know because there's just so much to know. So if you're stepping into a Bible study with someone who has a brand new Bible who hasn't even opened it before in their life, you are welcome in that space because you are on a learning journey with everyone else in that room. They might have other experiences, but you with your fresh eyes will see things that people in that room have maybe glossed over their whole lives. And so that's where it's helpful when Bible studies can include people who are brand new Christians and also people who are, you know, super nerdy and want to get into the Greek because it's fun. Um having both those conversations at the table is a beautiful thing. Um to how to help people with the 101 stuff. Every now and then I try to offer some sort of Bible 101 Sunday school intro to Lutheran theology kind of stuff so that people can maybe learn some of the lingo to help feel a little more comfortable. Um so ask your pastor if that kind of stuff's around too.

SPEAKER_01 21:56

And I think the the one of the most beautiful things about the the Bible is that it is not a it's not a gate. There's you can have just uh you can have just as an impactful um uh interpretation, right, or meaning on your life, but even if you even if you are just a b, you know, quote, just a beginner. The the message of Jesus died on a cross for my for my sins, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure that out. Like there's not, it doesn't, I mean, yes, it goes way deeper than that, but it also doesn't. Right? I mean, little kids get that. Okay, that's the beauty of the Bible, right? It's it an iceberg is an iceberg, no matter if you're looking at the the tip of the iceberg or all the stuff underneath of it, it's still an iceberg. It's still, it's all, it's all the same thing.

SPEAKER_02 22:50

That's a beautiful imagery. I like that.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

I was just you beat me to it. I just came up with that.

SPEAKER_02 22:54

So before we dig any more into this conversation, because this conversation is, I think, wonderful and helpful. I think it's helpful to people who are just curious about the Bible for the first time, but I found it also helpful to me as someone who is regularly studying and digging into scripture. So before we get in any further, I'm looking at the time, and guys, we are out of time. So we're gonna put a pin in this conversation for now. And listeners, come back next week because we're gonna pick up right where we left off. Um, and actually, we're gonna keep recording, and you can join us in that conversation next week because we don't want to cut any of this conversation out. We just want to keep on going. And we hope you'll join us next week as we continue to kind of dig into what is the Bible and why does it matter?