You're listening to Tim Bulkeley's
5 minute Bible
The five-step Bible program part 1 Introduction
Understanding even quite difficult Bible passages in just five steps
By the way, a warning note, this is the first-ever and possibly the only ever
five minute Bible with no actual Bible
At Carey in order to help beginning students to
understand the Bible more effectively we've begun to use
Duval and Hayes little book Journey into God's Word, in the book
they present a simple four or five step process
it's five for the Old Testament, and four for the New, but I'm an extremist so I'm
going to make it five steps for both Testaments
that's simpler too. And I think it's worth spreading further
though I've changed the wording slightly. Sttep 1:
is to ask yourself: what did the passage mean?
What did it mean back then, for its first
hearers and readers? What did it mean for the people of Israel?
What did it mean for the early church? This is a step in which a Bible Dictionary
and even maybe a commentary, might help you.
Though it's remarkable how much you can do with just a little imagination
and a little knowledge. Reading the introduction to the book
in a Bible that's got introductions or a Study Bible is not a bad idea for a start
Sep 2 is to ask yourself:
What's different? Hhow does my world
differ from the world back then? In ways that are relevant to this passage of course!
Because if we notice those differences
then we're going to be more effective in applying the passage today
and we'll avoid the very common mistake of
attempting to jump the bitch between us and them and so
misunderstanding the passage completely.
Step 3: Is to ask yourself: What does this passage say
about theology? "What," you said to yourself,
"I don't do theology! I'm just a..." No, no, no!
Theology is to talk about God.
All talk about God is theology.
and the Bible is God's book
it's the book of God, it's about God
So, Step 3 is to ask: What does this passage
say about theology, in the light
what we said it meant to the people who first heard it?
What does it say about God and God's relationship to the world and to us?
Next comes step 4:
What difference, you ask yourself, does it make that we read this passage in
AD not BC? Most often this means
thinking about how Jesus fulfills the passage
how he fills it out to fully. If you want more about that I've got a podcast or two
on the subject which you can
listen to, and then
finally you get to the end step 5
What does it mean
now? You take that theological principle that you noticed at
step 3: and you process it through
you're noticing of the difference it makes that we read it AD not BC
you process it through how Jesus fulfils its and
you process it through what you noticed about the differences between then and
now
and out that processing you say
So that's what it means now! You see it's a very simple process
but if you miss out just one of the steps you risk getting derailed
and all too often we want to jump
to the meaning of the passage from having to read it without thinking
about it all
You can't do that! The Bible was written
long long ago and far far away from most of us
jumping straight to the meaning is
a sure and nearly certain way of ensuring that what you get from the
Bible
is a meaning that you put there and not the meaning
that God put there
God took the couple to work with loads and loads of people long long ago
to give us the Bible, doesn't make sense to spend a little bit of time and effort
working out God's message in the scripture?
So, remember the 4 or 5 step process
What did it mean, back then? What's different between then and now?
What does it say about theology?
(About God and God's relationship with the world with us.)
What difference does it make to us that we read it
after Jesus AD not BC? How does Jesus fulfil this passage? Because Jesus
fulfils
all of Scripture. And then, and only then
So, what does it mean
for me now? Do try the five-step process
In the next podcast, in this series, I'm going to try it on
a really difficult passage and we'll see how it works
Bye for now