Sometimes our Bible reading can leave us profoundly stumped and not for the right reasons. In the first part of this series, we talked about biblical application, that applying what the Bible says is believing what the Bible says. In this second part, we will expand upon that idea and notice that the Bible is our access to understanding the real world and as such we should think less about applying what God says to our lives, and more about applying our lives to what God says.
Sometimes our Bible reading confuses us because we don’t know why we read what we just read. We might say, “Why is this in the Bible?” Biblical accounts such as Jacob telling his twelve sons what will happen to them in the last days (Genesis 49), the Benjamites’ treatment of the Levite’s concubine (Judges 19), or Daniel’s vision of four strange beasts (Daniel 7) can leave Christians confused, and asking the question, “How is this helpful for my daily walk with Christ?” Well, if you are a Christian who has asked that question, let me assure you that these Bible stories are helpful for your daily walk with Christ because they are more than just stories — they accurately depict the real world. We need to rethink our view of what the Scriptures are.
The Real World
The Bible is not a reference book; it is a book comprised of various genres such as narrative, poetry, prophecy, law, parable, wisdom, apocalypse, and epistle. And all of these diverse genres work together in order to tell a story, the story of God’s sovereign work of redemption throughout history achieved by Jesus Christ, the God-man. This story begins with the creation and ends with the new creation (Genesis 1-2; Revelation 21-22). But this is not a story like a fairy tale is a story. The Bible is the very word of God (2 Tim 3:16; 2 Pet 1:19-21), and God cannot lie (Num 23:19; Tit 1:2; Heb 6:18). God only speaks truth, because He is the Truth (Ps 119:160; Jn 14:6-7), which means that the Scriptures themselves are true — they are God’s word after all. The implication of all of this is that the Bible is the “real world;” by this, we simply mean that the presentation of reality in the Bible is not merely a presentation as you might have in a history book or when your dad tells you a funny story from his past. The Bible is God’s presentation of what happened, what is happening, and what will happen. The One who created all things, sustains all things, and knows all things has spoken. God is not giving us one option for a worldview out of many; in the Bible, He shows us what is true and how things actually are. The Bible is our access to the real world.
The Bible is not just a story of past and future; God teaches us things about our present reality in the Scriptures. He teaches us that He is ultimately in control of world history (Prov 19:21; Dan 2:20-23); that we humans are not good by nature, we are evil, and our desires are naturally disordered (Jer 17:9; Rom 3:9-19; 5:12); that there is a spiritual war happening all around us (2 Kgs 6:15-17; Dan 10:13; Eph 6:10-13); that the Holy Spirit is truly in us who have been redeemed (Rom 8:26; 1 Cor 2:9-13; Eph 1:13-14), and we could go on. The point is that a naturalist view of reality is fundamentally wrong, but the truth of reality is made plain in God’s word. Our natural understanding of God, ourselves, and the world can be wildly incorrect; our perception of reality can be so distorted that we are no longer seeing the real world. But in the Scriptures, we have the sovereign Creator giving us an accurate account of how things were, how things are, and how things will be. God’s word corrects our perception of things; we need Him and His word.
This view of God’s word, as the purest presentation of reality, has implications for our daily Bible reading. It turns us away from reading God’s word as some kind of self-help guide and turns us toward reading God’s word as our access to truth, as our access to reality. The revelation of real world in the Bible is not infinite, God has limited His Scriptures. This means that He specifically chose what to reveal to us, His people (Deut 29:29; Rom 11:33). So those seemingly strange stories serve a purpose; God has specifically included those stories for you. Paul makes this point in 1 Corinthians 10 after talking about the Israelites’ unfaithfulness in the wilderness. He ends his recap of their failings by saying, “Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have arrived” (1 Cor 10:11). What is written in God’s word is for you.
We need to hear what God says in the Bible, believe what He says, and live in light of what He says. God’s word presents truth, it presents reality, it presents the real world. Let us live in the real world! Our understanding of reality can so often be influenced by our emotions, the current controlling narratives, the traditions of our culture, the “experts,” and our experiences, but God’s word cuts through all of that. He shows us what is important, namely what we should be thinking about. It removes our focus from our self-centered and disordered desires, and transfers our thinking to God, His plan, and His ways. Through the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit removes the cataracts in our eyes and allows us to see what is actually important. May we be people who read and think upon God’s word, because in it we see the real world.
Postscript:
After reading this you possibly wanted to know exactly why Genesis 49, Judges 19, and Daniel 7 are in the Bible. Sure, they are part of the Bible, so they are a part of the real world, but how are they specifically important for me as a Christian? What do they teach? This is a great question, and we could devote a lot of time answering it, but let me briefly summarize the main idea God is communicating to us in these passages. Genesis 49 gives us hope for the eternal reign of Christ, the Lion of Judah. Judges 19 shows us that Israel was as bad as Sodom and Gomorrah without the perfectly righteous King to lead them. And Daniel 7 teaches us that God is in control of world history. Ultimately the Christ, the Son of Man, will completely defeat evil and rule over all. These are things to know and believe because they are true; they are part of the real world.
Bibliography:
Michael B. Shepherd, The Textual World of the Bible, pp. 1-2
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