The Bible Was Not Written to You

The bible was written for us. It is filled with stories and wisdom that have great implications for our lives. But sometimes we forget that the bible wasn’t written to us. We casually read the bible like a mirror asking: what does this passage mean to me? Most christians are all guilty of this at some level... including me. It is human nature to want things to be about us.

Each book was written individually for a particular implied audience. When Paul wrote Corinthians he wrote it with the church of Corinth in mind. The author of Luke and Acts wrote to Theophilous. In no way did the authors of the bible books write with us in mind, or ever expect for us to read it.

When we pull a scripture verse out of context we risk re-authoring the text. We risk making the scripture say and mean whatever is good for us. When we do this we fail to interpret the bible. We fail to allow the bible change us.

What does it look like to assume the role of the implied audience? To use our imagination and read the scripture from someone else's shoes? To try and understand/interpret the bible from the point of view of whom it was really written to? Not to abuse the scriptures to simply meet our current needs, but to allow the scriptures to speak for themselves and have implications into our own lives. What does it mean to avoid extracting the principles that we think apply to our life and beginning to allow transformation to happen organically?

As christians, we are all guilty of making the bible say what we want, and the good news is God still chooses to work through us. I just think we should learn to be more careful not to speak for God, and learn how to best let God speak to us.