Better Ways to Read the Bible - The Literalism Lens

We like to think that we can just pick up the bible and read it, and we’re going to understand what it means—God will show us The Truth of that scripture and it will give us wisdom for the day. But the reality is, the bible wasn’t written for us, in the 21st century—we read scripture over the shoulders of those who originally received it. We don’t instinctively understand the contexts and cultures of the biblical texts, and we don’t natively speak Hebrew or Greek or Aramaic. Which means that when we read scripture, we bring with us a set of lenses—a set of assumptions that we filter the scripture through, attempting to make meaning out of an ancient text. There’s a 21st century lens, and then lenses for our personal experiences, what we’ve been taught about scripture and life, our questions and doubts, what we fear, what we hope to be true—all of these are like that “1 or 2” “3 or 4” of the eye doctor—they all change the way we understand scripture. It’s tempting to think, “Well, I’ll just take off all the lenses I have and then I can see clearly.” But there is no neutral or unfiltered way of reading scripture. What we can do, is recognize and name the lenses we have—take stock of the assumptions we bring to scripture—and ask ourselves, “Is this lens helpful or harmful?”