What is the Bible:

We believe the Bible to be the inspired word of God, the final authority for faith and life, his personal self-revelation to us that all points to the person and work of Jesus Christ who has redeemed us from sin and death. 

How is God’s personal self-revelation given to us?

God’s story of redemption is given to us through the 66 Books of the Old and New Testament. Within which, we find creation narratives, poems, songs, wisdom literature, letters, teachings, prayers, stories of people’s experiences – both suffering and triumph, and laws. Due to the variety of types of writing, we cannot read the whole thing as a manual, but rather have to be attentive to the genre. It is helpful to ask, is this narrative, poetry, or discourse?

Overview of the Story of Redemption.

Creation

(Gen 1-2)
This story starts with its main character. God. You may have heard people call Him Father. That is because he relates to us as our Father, but he is also wondrous, and holy, and the creator of all things. So, in the beginning, God, holy and perfect, created the heavens and the earth to be good and used for His glory. All of creation was meant to reflect His divine intent for it. Mankind (males and females) was created with equality and freedom to show off who God is as well as reproduce those who would reflect their creator. They were also given the authority to reign under the rule of God on Planet Earth. But most of all, they were born with a relationship with the God of the universe.

Fall

(Gen 3, Rom 5)
Man and woman were given a central place in God’s creation to be caretakers and rulers as co-equal partners with different functions on earth. Although, (this is where it goes wrong) man rebelled against God. Adam put aside the truth of God and replaced it with his own, and through him sin entered the world. The relationship that Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, had with God was severed. Plus due to this, the Lord God who is just and righteous had to bring judgment upon their rebellion, He announced the corruption that followed their disobedience to His word. They were sent away from the perfect presence of God and went on living under the rule of sin in their lives, in need of saving. Just as we are today. Although the story doesn’t end here, for their fall and the fall of creation through them was left with a promise of redemption. Redemption that would come through the seed of the woman at some future time.

Redemption

(John 1:1-18, 1 Cor 15:1-4, 2 Cor 5:18-21; Eph 1:1-14)

Humanity, living in sin is unable to be in relationship with God, the very creator, and giver of life. So God the Father, even though we had rebelled against Him, out of his great love sent Jesus Christ the 2nd person of the Godhead to die on the cross for our sins. Because of Adam’s sin, we were supposed to spend eternity separated from God in Hell under His wrath paying for our sins. Instead, Jesus Christ was sent by God to die for our sins having God’s wrath poured out on Him on the cross in our place. Remember, God is just, and so there must be a payment for sin, all the sins we have ever committed. If there wasn’t God would no longer be just, and therefore he would no longer be good. This is why Jesus died in our place. Now if any of us repent of our sin and trust by faith that His finished work on the cross and His resurrection from the dead as the payment for our sin, we are saved. By Jesus’ death for us, the relationship lost through Adam will be restored through repentance and belief in Jesus Christ as the substitution for our sin. Jesus died in your place, he paid the debt you owed. Based not on your merit, or your abilities, your character or your works, but based on the works of Christ upon the cross and God’s grace in saving us.

Glorification

(Revelation 19-22)
Now, we await the day when Jesus Christ our King, Lord, and Saviour will return. When He does He will judge those who have not placed their faith in Him and reward those who have placed their faith in Him with eternal life. Those who know Him as Lord and Saviour will spend eternity with Him in an unbreakable relationship because of His sacrifice for their sins. Therefore, whereas the 1st Adam failed, the 2nd and last Adam Jesus Christ is the eternal victor, in Him, our story is defined, and in Him, we find hope, peace, and comfort.

How do I get started?

As Christians that believe that the Bible is the Word of God, it would be complacent, if not negligent to not read it for ourselves as a daily practice.  It is, after all, a wonderful privilege to spend time getting to know our God and to be able to enjoy his presence. Knowing all of this, can at times feel overwhelming when we come to reading the Bible. It is a big book and can be hard to understand. That being said, in Matthew 4:4 Jesus quoting scripture states that “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Jesus makes this huge claim that man requires the words of God to truly live. It is worth us taking the time to delve into the depths of scripture because it is the self revelation of our living God that gives us life!

So how then do we study it? In Luke 24, after Jesus’ resurrection, we see this story of two of his disciples walking to a town called Emmaus. On their way they encounter Jesus, although they do not recognize Him, he starts to teach them about scripture. In fact, in verse 27 it says, “And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning Himself.” Jesus took the time to take these two disciples through the scriptures and pointed out how they all point to Him. We today use this lens to frame our study: that all scripture is gospel-centered!

Starting out using REAP

To assist you in getting started, we are going to use this acrostic to help you to ask the right questions of God’s Word: REAP.

R – Read – Everything starts with going to the source. We are to prayerfully have a reading habit in our life. This means that we are to aim to treat the word as the life source that it is and read it often. Not every time we read the Word do we need to study it. So, it’s okay to just read it as a book, in fact this will set you up to study it better as the more you read the more you will know it. That being said, it is also very important to read it with an analytical eye… this is to study it. A healthy believer’s habit may be this – ‘to be reading the Bible every day, and to be studying it most days.’ So the question is how can you read the Bible more often? You may use tools such as the Read Scripture app, or another Bible reading plan to help you do this. (It is also not recommended that you treat the Bible as a giant ‘verse of the day’ catalogue, but as a book!)

E – Examine – After you have read it take the time to examine it in detail. A few things to remember as you do so. Firstly, it’s okay to be confused or have doubts! When these occur take the time to think it through and take the questions to the right place. Secondly it is important to remember that all scripture points to Jesus, so make sure you bring Him into your study. True study leads to awe and worship! 

With this in mind, how do you Examine? You ask questions! Imagine you are stepping into another culture and it is your job to observe it, learn it and ponder it. You are going to ask questions, read other books about it and try to understand the why behind the what. This is the same with the Bible! Remember it’s not a drive through, the bible is made to be in your life every day and change you every day. Before you go through and ask some questions of the text take a moment to summarise what has happened in your reading. You can do this by paraphrasing or by writing what you think happened. Here are a few questions to get you started that you can ask as you read through again.

• Who? – Who wrote it, who was reading it?
• What? – What is happening, what’s the problem, what’s the truth communicated, what is the book trying to communicate?
• When? – When did it happen in time, in the book (as a whole and as a sub book)?
• Where? – Where was the writer, where was the reader?
• Why? – Why is the author writing this, what’s important in it?

These can be answered by using a Study Bible or accessing a resource like the Bible Project. Keep in mind that these above questions are not all that you may ask or may not apply to the text that you are studying. There may be more that become evident as you go. The idea is to stop and think about what you are reading. Your next step is to ask some questions about what the text means (timeless truths).

Ask gospel questions to help interpret.

1. What does the text teach about God?
2. What does the text teach about man?
3. What does this text teach about who Jesus is?
4. What does this text teach me? (about following God)
5. What does this text teach us about the urgency of eternity?

Once you have used these questions to go deeper into scripture we can then progress to the next stage. Just remember that at no point so far are we applying the text to you…because it is all about Jesus.

A – Apply – Since we have pulled out some gospel truth it is now logical to see how it causes us to change. Here are a few questions you can ask to help it change you!

• How does this text apply to my life at this time?
• What sin do I need to repent from?
• What tendency to unbelief do I have?
• What truths do I need to believe?
• What commands do I need to obey?
• What principle needs to change the way I think/talk?
• What relationship does this affect/do I need to act on?

Again, these are not the definitive questions to ask but are enough to get you going!

P – Pray – This is where we bring our application into our talk with God. We can reflect, repent or work through some doubts with our loving God! Try to apply what you have learnt in your prayer or even pray the scripture. This can be extremely fruitful especially if you have been challenged or have been moved to worship through the text.

Do it in Community

Finally, remember that we aren’t meant to do this all alone. Although reading scripture should be a part of our daily personal routine, seek opportunities to study and read the Word together with your church family. House Churches are a great place to start, or grab some friends and study a book of the Bible together. 

There is no need to be an expert, and we can all support one-another as we grow and learn together.