For me, I just want the forecast. When I ask
Angie if it is supposed to rain, she’ll take a few minutes to analyze the data.
She’ll say, “Well…there’s nothing on the radar, but oh…the forecast says we’ll
have rain this afternoon.” And then she tries to figure out why the professional
meteorologists forecast rain. In the process, I get a little impatient and tell
her, “Just tell me the bottom line: what’s the forecast.”
As important as weather forecasting is, it is
not nearly as important studying the Bible. Bible students should learn how to read the Bible for themselves,
much like people learn how to forecast weather. While we might well depend
entirely on expert meteorologists for the forecast, we should not rely entirely
on the expert Bible teacher or preacher. We should all be personally committed
to acquiring the skills for reading the Bible for all its worth.
While it is true that a person can get the gist of the
Bible without any specialized knowledge at all, Bible students miss a lot if
they never bother to acquire specialized Bible study skills. The more reading skills
a person acquires, the more the person gets out of the Bible. Many a bad interpretation
of a given text arises simply because the reader doesn’t know the cultural
context, or the author’s rhetorical devices, or how to see interpretive clues
in the words of the biblical text. Impoverished are those who rely solely on the
pastor or teacher to interpret the Bible for them.
For this reason, your pastor deems it wise and
appropriate to teach principles and skills of biblical interpretation. Some
might prefer the pastor to skip those kinds of lessons, especially those lessons
that require more critical thinking and patience. We are not, however, dealing
with something inconsequential such as weather forecasting; we are dealing with
God’s Word, and this calls for special effort in learning how to get the most
out of our Bible reading.
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