When you look through the New Testament, certain books are named for their recipients.

Ephesians was written to the church as Ephesus. Corinthians was written to the church in Corinth.

And in those letters, we find Paul talking about problems very specific to that church. It’s not systematic theology, talking generally about faith or scripture. But specific advice and encouragement for that specific church.

We obviously can gain a lot from these letters, but 21st century America is not the intended audience.

But sometimes we act like it is. If that’s the case, should we rename the Bible? If we’re it’s intended audience, lets call it “Americians: Letters to an American Christian”.

I say that in jest, I’m not advocating renaming our Bible. But oftentimes that’s our attitude of scripture.

  • When are constantly framing Genesis in the creation/evolution debate.
  • The Kings of the Old Testament help guide us on who to vote for President.
  • Paul’s talk about sex and gender was written for our culture’s same sex marriage debate.
  • Revelation tells us about attack helicopters or how the UN is going to invade Israel.

We are a pretty self centered culture, so is it any wonder that we naturally take a self centered view of scripture?

Clues for Context

If you read through Judges, the Samuels and Kings, every so often you’ll come across a phrase like “and it’s been that way to this day”, “or it’s still that way”.

If you take the time to journey to that location, I’m 99.99% sure it’s not that way.

Why then do they say it is? Because when the book was written, it was that way. It was true at time of authorship.

But things change, things that were true then aren’t true today.

These are clues scattered throughout the Bible that tell us it’s an ancient book, written in the style of it’s day and written to an ancient people.

We underestimate how important those truths are in understanding the Bible.

Timeless Bible?

In saying all this, I want to acknowledge the Bible is a life giving book. It contains timeless truths for living a Godly life.

But only if you approach it the right way. If you come to the Bible with your assumptions and beliefs, the Bible just becomes a book justifying whatever you already believe.

There’s very little truth gained from that.

But if we do the hard work of asking the Bible what questions it’s trying to answer. How an ancient Israelite might have interpreted this? Once we treat the Bible with respect and reverence, it can start speaking truth into our lives.

If we assume the Bible was written for us, to answer our questions, we’ll keep getting the Bible wrong. That’s not the Bible’s fault, it’s your fault.

Lets put aside our pride, commit to humbly searching the scriptures, and it will start to be the tranformative book it was intended for.