In “Reading the Bible Critically—Part 1,” I stressed the importance of paying careful attention when we read Scripture. We sometimes inadvertently lack the focus required to grasp its meaning. The antidote to that syndrome: Be a serious reader of the Bible! But what does that mean? Someone might say, “I want to understand the Bible, but being ‘serious’ doesn’t sound like fun. I want to enjoy reading the Bible, and so I don’t want to take it too seriously. I just want to know what it says.” Well, that’s where the dilemma starts: “Knowing what the Bible says means knowing what the Bible says.” I don’t intend for that to be taken as some cheesy cliché, but it is, in fact, what oftentimes lies at the heart of the issue. People want to understand the Bible, but they fail to realize what it takes to get that understanding. Now, I’m not […]

WHO WANTS TO BE CRITICAL? The word “critical” often has a negative connotation in people’s minds. To be “critical” can mean “to criticize severely and unfavorably, to be excessively judgmental, to be inclined to find fault.” But the word “critical” also carries a positive connotation, meaning “to exercise careful evaluation and skillful judgment of a matter.” If you take your car into the mechanic because there is a strange noise happening in the engine, and they tell you that they’re going to do a “critical diagnostic test,” that’s a good thing because they’re going to look very carefully at the results of the tests to try to determine what’s wrong. It is this sort of careful investigation and attention to detail that we mean with the phrase “reading the Bible critically.” It’s about not just reading the Bible on a superficial level but developing a keen sense for how to […]