A good strategy for Bible reading

      There is something that I like to do when I read the Bible, which is to look for actual “good news” that is contained within verses and stories that come across as having a different function, like as a warning, or instructions, or even some kind of bad news. It is a fun and happy thing to discover a side to scary verses that makes you realize how much everything can be in our favor, even when it seems like we might get in trouble, or have our lives ruined by various problems.  To give a few examples, I might look at a verse like “You will give an account for every idle word,” which to me, one of the more extreme Judgement Day warnings.  But I think it could really be some of the best news, which is that God is going to let us tell our side of any story, explaining our every motive and reason behind things we have done as suffering people, possibly in a therapeutic court system filled with the love of Jesus Christ.  It can also be seen as a promise of a debriefing session where God will take all the time necessary to comfort us about things that either went wrong or that we did not understand, or to let us explain such contexts where people brought out the worst in us and only added to the sacrifices we made all along. It is good news after all.  Another verse like that to me could be the verse where God instructs us to say when we get a reward for our obedience on any level at any time, that we were just mere servants doing what was expected.  That seems strict, and to me, you could see this and think that you are not going to get much credit for a lot of work and faithfulness. But really, what it could mean is that the blessings of heaven are so great that we will not be able to help but say that anything right we ever did was truly the least that could be offered in comparison to the gain.  And would we really need to vigilantly keep that plan in mind as we live and die, to rehearse our speech and constantly brace ourselves for an encounter with a holy and almighty God?  I think that it is more likely for that to be the probable automatic reaction from the good heart in our soul that could only ever be provided by God and that will not fail to react in the right way.  

      Finally, one last verse that obviously is one of the scary verses is the verse “they will lie down in torment.” Well it doesn’t get worse than that, except that lying down is exactly what I want to do every time I am in torment.  It is a sign of grace and a consolation for the worst of violators.  So we can know that indeed there is a hell and the bad people won’t get away with anything, but that some kind of mercy may be built in to literally every aspect of creation, even in the far-most realms where people have been cast out and have forfeited everything for reasons that no one would argue with.

      That kind of reading can be done with any section of the Bible, and can be a nice thing to look for along the way, beyond just being thankful for the usual salvation, but to see those blessings expanded into an all-encompassing reality where there ultimately will be nothing to lament, regret, or even fear.

Another fun strategy for Bible reading

This post is like that other post but has a different kind of thing to look for in readings of Bible verses and stories, which has to do with just practical truth that comes to light in stories that seem and really are about other topics.  I don’t know how incidental some of the information would be, but I think that God and Jesus consciously and deliberately provided helpful and basic knowledge about survival and wise living all throughout stories and descriptions that seemed like they were about other spiritual topics.  One example I have noticed before is in the series of stories Jesus tells about someone looking for a coin, someone looking for a lost sheep, and the story about the lost son. The order of those stories becomes an illustration of what should be prioritized and valued, with money being the least and human life being generally the most important.  That is not the main point of the stories, but it is there in the context.  Another example that comes to mind seems so stupid but is contained within Jesus’s sermon on the mount when he tells people they are the light of the world and the salt of the earth.  I really think that as great as those statements are, and truly some of the happiest verses, it could also just be a reminder to use actual salt for various purposes. It could literally be an advertisement for salt, in case individuals or whole cultures have not thought to make use of that cooking resource.  That sounds stupid, but that is exactly what I am saying about the practical knowledge in otherwise shocking or important stories. One more extreme example might have to do with the time that Jesus was doing some stuff and told his disciples about the location of a donkey that they could untie and use. It might have been for palm Sunday. I think that even though it was an example of Jesus’s special supernatural life that was unfolding in a certain unprecedented and unrepeatable way, he was also revealing how some spiritual gifts can work, much like another time when he told Peter or someone else that they could find a fish with a coin in its mouth from another location. Jesus could see stuff, and even though it was because he was the son of God, I think that people who want to do those kinds of things can learn how, and Jesus was making it known that people can see stuff in other locations if they have certain abilities given to them by God, or acquired through some kind of obedience or work of the Holy Spirit. I decided to go ahead and use an example that seems kind of unbelievable in addition to Jesus just saying “please pass the salt.” But the main thing I am saying is that the amount of that helpful and seemingly incidental knowledge in the Bible is amazing and can be very fun to read about and focus on sometimes instead of the more obvious purposes of stories and facts.