by Jerry Senn
Is it to be read like any other book?
In some ways the answer is “yes.” In the Bible a verb is a verb and a noun is a noun, just as in any other book. It doesn’t take on some magic which changes the basic literary patterns of interpretation, even though it is surely inspired and infallible.
In approaching Scripture, we should pray that God will assist us to overcome our prejudices. Getting our “hearts right” is vital to hear what God is saying. “But mystical flashes are … not … helpful in the basic work of interpretation. Even worse is the so-called spiritual method of ‘Luckydipping.’“
R C Sproul describes this method of study as “a method of Bible study in which a person prays for divine guidance and then lets the Bible fall open to wherever it happens to open. Then, with eyes shut the person ‘dips’ his/her finger to the page and gets his answer from God wherever the finger lands on the page. I remember a Christian girl who came to me in a state of ecstasy in her senior year of college. She was experiencing the throes of ‘senior panic’ as she was nearing graduation with no prospect of marriage in sight. She had been praying diligently for a husband and finally resorted to luckdipping for an answer from God. With this method her finger fell on Zechariah 9:9: “… He is just and endowed with salvation, humble, and mounted on a donkey, even a colt, the foal of a donkey.”
Of course, this is not a sound way to use the Bible. I don’t think either Zechariah or the Holy Spirit had this in mind when those words were written. Even if she immediately located a prospect for marriage, it would have had nothing to do with where her finger fell on the page.
Therefore, reading and studying the Bible should employ the same skills and thoughtful concern we use in reading history, literature, narrative, law, or prophecy. Its overall message leads to assurance of our salvation from sin as we respond to the grace and mercy expressed in Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross.
Of the billions of books ever written, no other book can do this! It is God’s message for lost mankind of every age, race, gender and culture.
“The Bible will keep you from sin,
Or sin will keep you from the Bible.”