Hello

Does our loving, heavenly Father speak to us through our Bibles today?

Yes. He most certainly does.

Our loving Father can speak to us by any means he chooses, and he certainly speaks to us through the writings contained in our Bibles.  But that doesn’t mean he always has something to say to us through every word or passage we find there.  There is no evidence that our loving Father authorized every word in our Bibles.  Indeed Jesus made it clear that the law of Moses, found in the first few books of the Old Testament, was not always the same as God’s law (Matthew 19:7-8).

The books of the Bible were written by human beings like you and me, but human beings who spoke languages that were very different to our languages, and lived in societies that were very different to our societies.  This is important for us to remember as we listen for our loving Father’s voice speaking to us as we read our Bibles.

Differences in language.

When we try to understand our Bibles and listen to what our loving Father is saying to us through their pages, we must remember that they were written by people whose languages were very different to ours.  The people who wrote the various books of our bibles expressed themselves in ways that were very different to our ways of expressing ourselves.  Fortunately for us we have experts who have studied those languages and who do their best to translate the words and phrases found in those ancient writings into modern languages so that, today, we can get an understanding of what the biblical authors were trying to say.  However, we must remember that these experts are human beings, which means they can make mistakes.  Also, translation is not, and never will be, an exact science.  So, the words and phrases we read in our bibles are not exactly the message the biblical author intended to get across, they are human experts’ understanding of the message the biblical author intended to get across.

Differences in culture

Those of us who have had the privilege of visiting foreign countries know that it is not just the other people’s language, but also their ways of doing things and even their ways of thinking, that can be very different to our own. The people in these countries aren’t that different to us. They have ambitions and desires just like we do. They fall in love just like we do.  They love their children just like we do.  But their culture, the way they behave and expect others to behave, is not like ours.  For example, it may be polite in another culture to remove your shoes before entering a house.  For a westerner it may not be important to do this and it is difficult for us to understand that this simple act is very important to the family you are visiting.  It is an insult to them not to remove your shoes.  It is embarrassing for them.  Their culture dictates the way they behave, just as ours does.  The same is true of the cultures in which the various books of our Bible were written.

Let’s take one writer as an example.  The apostle Paul said many things that speak to us, even though he was writing nearly 2000 years ago in a very different culture to ours.  He was a devout, sincere follower of Jesus and we find many of the things he said useful and encouraging and very relevant to our own walk with God.  There is no question that God can and does speak to us through some of the things Paul wrote.  However, if we believe that God has something important to say to us through every word of Paul’s teachings, then we have to wrestle, for example, with the precise meaning of his directions as regards the roles, clothing and appearance of men and women found in his letters (for example: 1 Corinthians 11:1-16).  People in many cultures today would not find Paul’s directions particularly problematic because they are not much different to the behaviors expected in their own cultures, but they are certainly problematic for many of us who live in Western cultures.  However, if we accept that these are letters written by a devout follower of Jesus to his brothers and sisters in a culture where the behaviors expected of men and women were very different to our own, then we are liberated from the task of trying to apply teachings and rules from that culture to our lives and we can focus on the many excellent things Paul says that are useful for us to consider.

If we believe that every word of the Bible is applicable to us today, then we have to try to work out what God is saying to us through each and every passage.  If, however, we accept that the Bible is what it appears to be – the work of devout, sincere people writing long ago and in very different situations – then we are freed from the responsibility of trying to work out how we should apply ancient and, sometimes, very difficult passages to our lives in the 21st Century.  We can, we should, and we must trust the Holy Spirit to speak to our hearts through the words of our beloved sisters and brothers recorded in our Bibles, but we do not need to try to find messages from God in every verse.

Let’s pray that our loving Father will guide us into his truth as we read our Bibles.

May he bless us and keep us safe.

Jesus is Lord.

Peter O

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