five experiences that have helped me understand the Bible better

Though I haven’t been in a formal Bible classroom for seven years, I will always call myself a Bible student. As a disciple of Christ, I am learning that His teaching can happen through anything and anyone, at any time, and anywhere; while I feel immensely blessed to have had the short year of intensive Bible scholarship that I did, the greater challenge at times has been to remain in that seated position at His feet no matter where I am in life. To, like Mary in Luke 10, find space to listen to His Word even as regular life goes on buzzing around me.

Reflecting on this recently, I’ve been amazed by how so many of my life experiences have lent a richness to my study of the Bible and knowledge of God that I couldn’t have gained in a classroom. God’s work is constant, and often goes unnoticed in the moment, but I’m amazed by how He has worked through some of my most mundane or seemingly-unrelated experiences to build me into the disciple He wants me to be. I wanted to share some of the experiences that I think have impacted me the most, in hopes of encouraging you to reflect on your own.

1 / GROWING UP ON A FARM

I didn’t know, while I was living the first eighteen years of my life on a farm in eastern Washington, that God was teaching me some valuable things I’d take with me in learning how to study the Bible and understand His character—but now I can hardly imagine how different my perspective on God’s Word would be without this background. The Bible was written largely about an ancient, agricultural, hill-country people. Their lives were a struggle of survival, dependent on weather and crops and harvests and animals; in particular, they had to depend on one another, because it took each member of the family doing his or her part to keep them all alive. By comparison, my farm life was downright cushy, but I did get to taste what it is to be mutually dependent on each other, on creatures, and on the earth; I can understand fairly easily the countless agricultural metaphors the Bible uses to describe God, His work, and His wrath. Although there is still a huge chasm in understanding to overcome between my own culture and that of the ancient Biblical author, I think it would be that much wider if I had grown up on a postage stamp yard in the American suburbs instead.

2 / MY YEARS RAISING SHEEP

For about a decade when we were still living at home, my sister and I raised a small flock of Suffolk-Hampshire sheep together as 4-H projects. Nothing has informed my understanding of human nature and God’s relationship with His people quite as colorfully as my experience with sheep, which are, of course, one of the most-used illustrations in the Bible—from the ancient sacrificial system to Psalm 23 to Christ Himself, the “Lamb who was Slain.” When I read the passages in Scripture that compare God’s people with sheep, I know exactly which traits inspire them: chiefly, helplessness and fear. Humans and sheep have in common a total lack of meaningful ability to control their circumstances and protect themselves, which leads to a constant baseline instinct of fear, and frequently inspires them to make very unwise choices.

This has helped me to understand that God doesn’t look on me with contempt for my sinfulness and distrust, but with compassion for it. He knows that, deep down, my lack of faith has its roots in fear, and as the Good Shepherd, He wants to rescue me from the dire consequences of the sinful choices I’ve made out of fear and call me gently into the safety of His fold. If I know anything about dealing with sheep, it’s that responding with aggression and anger to their already-precarious state of mind will inevitably cause them to scatter in panic and flee. It breaks their trust and makes me, the one who was supposed to shepherd and protect them, into a predator and a threat. Thankfully, God’s shepherding of my own fearful heart is patient and perfect.

3 / ENGLISH LITERATURE CLASS

When I was a junior in high school, I enrolled in a college-level literature class that was taught by Mrs. Kruse, locally famous for her quality teaching and standard of excellence. I read short stories and books from a range of literary greats, such as D. H. Lawrence, James Joyce, Leo Tolstoy, William Shakespeare, Jack London, Geoffrey Chaucer, and Herman Hesse—and then was expected to write analytical persuasive essays on various aspects of each work in under an hour. Far more than learning the content of a handful of famous stories, this class taught me how to think critically and quickly, how to ask the right questions, and how to search carefully for and articulate the answers. I learned how to read the invisible concepts behind the visible words on the page, how to connect ideas from one person’s story to a larger universal truth, and how to see a work as both a whole and its parts at the same time. I find I am constantly called on to use these same skills when I study the Bible, which is a literary masterpiece all its own, a highly complex work that is anchored in a far different context from my own and yet speaks to truth that remains absolute regardless of what changes in the world around it.

4 / SEEING THE HOLY LAND

Before I went to Israel the first time, others who had already been there told me how standing in the very places it all happened would bring to life my experience of the Bible. I believed them, but I couldn’t fully grasp how right they were. Seven years and two tours of Israel later, it’s hard to clearly recall what it was like to read the Bible before I could see and smell and taste and touch it in my memory. I have seen the Valley of Elah where David slew Goliath. I remember the caves above Ein Gedi where he hid from Saul. I’ve stood on the ground where Paul departed Israel for Rome, never to return, and I’ve touched the bedrock of Calvary. When I read about Jesus calming the storm, I can smell the wind over the Sea of Galilee, and when He preaches the Beatitudes I can envision the crowd on the hillside. Traveling in Israel made the Bible more than words and stories and characters—it is familiar and colorful and alive.

5 / MARRIAGE

I knew, in theory, all about the “mystery” of marriage as a reflection of Christ and the Church long before I ever got married. Actually being married, however, has pretty much exploded everything I “knew” in theory—in hard but necessary ways. Nothing else has shown me so clearly how insidiously sin has distorted all of God’s good gifts. Woven into my entire understanding of Ephesians 5 was a fallen worldview straight from the curse of Genesis 3, tainting God’s beautiful picture of selfless love and submission working together to bring Him glory with ugly hidden undercurrents of oppression, self-protection, and distrust. But as my husband and I both do the work to unlearn these patterns, I am rediscovering the beauty in God’s original design for humanity in Genesis 1 and 2. He created incredible goodness, and He is in the midst of an incredible redemption plan for all that goodness—which He has invited you and me to be part of, married or not! The story of the Bible isn’t just something to read and study, it’s also something we have active roles in as God’s children, looking ahead to when all that has been defiled by sin is made new and glorious.

Marriage has also given me a special appreciation for the relentlessness of God’s love for His people, even and especially when they have repeatedly failed or betrayed Him. I’ve lived the reality of being failed by and then forgiving the very person who vowed his commitment to me; I have also been the one to fail him and be forgiven. Through it all, the marriage covenant stands firm, a stalwart reminder that so, too, does God’s covenant love for us—regardless of how poorly we treat Him sometimes.

BONUS / HAVING A BABY (TBD)

So, I have not actually had a baby yet, but I have spent the last 5+ months carrying one, so I am currently very aware of all the birth and parent-child language God uses in the Bible! Stay tuned—I have a feeling this one is going to rock my world. (Baby girl is expected September 2020!)

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Your turn—what are some of the unexpected or everyday things you’ve experienced that God might be using (or want to use) to help you know Him more? Your list will likely look a lot different from mine, but at the same time, it’s probably exactly the list He knows you need. God is teaching us constantly if we have the heart to learn, whether we ever step into a Bible classroom or not.

God is not afraid

I’ve learned a lot about life and people throughout the current pandemic, as I’m sure most of us have. But the one big thing that I keep noticing again and again is that fear invariably outworks itself in the form of control.

I’ve observed this in my own life before: the need to force all my unruly ducks into a row somehow because of my anxiety about some issue, or life in general. Over-exercising, under-eating, or rabidly purging belongings out of my house are some of the ways it shows—all of them poorly disguised attempts to control something.

I’m seeing it in just about all of us now.

In fear, some of us try to control the narrative we take in about the virus: we will only hear the parts that serve our desired and carefully curated point of view, and find ourselves “experts” or news articles to silence the rest.

In fear, some of us try to control the behavior of those around us: we will mock and shame people who are making different choices about social distancing than ourselves, or those who feel differently about the measures taken by our governing authorities.

In fear, some of us try to control our minute-by-minute experience of the extra time we have at home: we will keep to a rigorous schedule, strive after endless self-improvement, and attempt to force Covid-19 to serve our purposes.

All of these are understandable to me. It’s comforting to feel like we have the upper hand on our unseen threat. It’s comforting when other people’s choices align with our own. It’s comforting when the “experts” agree with us. In these we find a sense of security—albeit an artificial one.

And something else has become more understandable to me: The question, “Why would God let ____?”

I’m no stranger to this question; I’ve asked it plenty of times myself—but I have struggled to understand why it’s the question that so often stands between people and God. Those who reject God often seem to use some form of this question and its unsatisfactory answers as their justification for doing so. And it makes sense now.

Because if we were God, we would control everything we possibly could. Our basic state as human beings involves some level of fear. This, I believe, is the reason the Bible so often refers to us as sheep: not because we are fundamentally idiots, but because we are fundamentally terrified, knowing full well our own helplessness, and it leads us to make some fundamentally idiotic choices. So if we were God, we would have stomped down Satan before he even had a thought to rebel. We would have created compliant robots who would never dream of eating the forbidden fruit. We would have set ourselves up as the tyrannical dictators of an unthinking population—it is the only way we could avoid feeling threatened.

But God is not afraid.

God is not afraid, therefore God doesn’t have the same innate need to control that you and I do. He is not like us. In His basic state, He is utterly sufficient by Himself; the angelic legions could abandon Him and the entire world could reject Him and He is still enough. He is relational, yes, but He is also Three in One, so even His relational nature can be satisfied without us. He did not create anything because He needed a power trip—He created it all because He wanted to, and He has given His Creation the gift of choosing what they want, too.

Why would God let only some people be saved? Because only some people choose Him, and He is okay with that. God is not afraid.

Why would God let something bad happen to someone good? Because we don’t all live in robotic bubbles, unaffected by the hurtful choices of those around us or before us, and He is okay with that. God is not afraid.

Why would God let evil exist in the first place? Because He invites us to know Him for who He is—and an important part of His character is His omnipotence. His power isn’t threatened by any opposing force, even one that costs Him dearly. God is not afraid.

And would we want Him any other way? When we acknowledge our own powerlessness, it becomes all the more soothing to know that we have a God who is both utterly powerful and utterly fearless. He doesn’t need to squelch every little threat with overbearing pseudo-control because He has real power, and He is entirely unthreatened.

All of our little controlling behaviors in light of the current world are normal and understandable. But they’re also unnecessary and can become destructive. If our God is unafraid, what have we to fear? What threat does a different viewpoint or a flexible schedule or even a novel virus hold? Our treasure is not in the opinions of others or in the achievements of this world or in life itself—it’s in Him. And He’s not afraid.

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Want to learn more about who God is?

The best place to go is to the Word. The Bible is the story of who God is, and who God is changes everything for you and me.

To that end, I have a couple resources that may help you get started in your journey through the Bible:

• The Bible180 Challenge is an opportunity to read through the Bible in 180 days, according to a thorough chronological schedule. You get a day of rest each week as well as an email offering accountability, support, and the very best study resources I’ve found to help you understand what you read. You can also use the Bible180 Challenge Journal to help you focus, stay on track, and build good study habits!

• Bedrock: A Foundation for Independent Biblical Study is a comprehensive textbook/workbook that will teach you how to dig DEEP into each of the seven types of Biblical literature. It’s a great next step for anyone who feels ready to surpass the typical milk of sermons and Bible studies, and desires to learn how to serve themselves on the meat. Find it on Amazon.

bedrock

Two years ago I began to write, at long last, the book that had been waiting patiently inside my head since Bible school. Forty-five thousand words, dozens of rewrites, two cover designs, and three different formats later, it is finally complete.

Bedrock: A Foundation for Independent Biblical Study is now available on Amazon.

What is it? It’s a textbook and a workbook wrapped into one. It’s a journey through each of the seven types of Biblical literature using both concrete steps and Spirit-led study. It’s dense with practical instruction, but brightened with color and peppered with activities. It is a book for those who want to unearth the bedrock truth of who God is, because who God is changes everything about who we know ourselves to be and how we see our circumstances.

Bedrock is comprised of eight modules:

• Module One: What is the Bible?

• Module Two: The Study of Narrative

• Module Three: The Study of Law

• Module Four: The Study of Wisdom

• Module Five: The Study of Poetry

• Module Six: The Study of Lament

• Module Seven: The Study of Prophecy

• Module Eight: The Study of Epistle

The first module is designed to address some of the common preconceptions and blind spots of a would-be Bible student living in the postmodern Western world. From there, each of the seven remaining modules acts as a guide through a particular passage, with the goal of teaching a replicable study process that can be taken to any other passage of Scripture within that genre. In Module Two, for example, the student will thoroughly understand and break down the story of Gideon in Judges 6-8, but the same steps can be used to explore any other passage of narrative literature.

I wrote this book to be a little bit like Bible school for those who have never been to Bible school. To help you, no matter who you are or how much background you have with Scripture, independently discover and understand the timeless truths of the Bible as the Word of God. Bedrock is an opportunity to step back from the theological minutiae and academic semantics that can so easily distract us from truly knowing God’s heart and instead, take in the whole, sweeping vista of the Bible as a panoramic view of who God is and what He has done across human history.

This book is not an exhaustive work on the topic of the Bible or its interpretation—it’s just one of many resources that exist to help you understand what the Bible is and how to approach it for personal study. It is not a technical or academic book: In fact, it was purposely written to be the opposite, and to welcome believers of all backgrounds into a deeper knowledge of God’s Word. None of the terms or definitions in this book should be taken as scholarly or absolute; they are simply the best way I know how to use the everyday English language to communicate the vital concepts of independent Biblical study.

All that being said, it is a hefty course of study. It is thorough and detailed and will reward those who can give it the time and thought it demands. The beauty of it is that you can take it at whatever pace you wish; you can do it on your own or in a group; you can supplement it with other resources or just use it on its own.

Ultimately, I wrote this book because God put it on my heart, and because I believe He has a vision for how it can be used to help His people know Him more. If you’d like to see it for yourself, click here.