Finish this statement by Jesus: Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you _______.
Chances are pretty good you know the last word there is rest. Here’s the thing I was thinking about today, though, when I read that verse. How many of us, even if we know that Jesus said rest at the end of that sentence, walk around with the subconscious belief that he instead said something like trouble, or pain, or punishment?
Far too many of us.
Memorize
I’ve got to be joking, right? You thought your memorization days were over when you finally go through your times tables, didn’t you? Well, not if you want to do something to bring your understanding of the Bible to the next level.
I’ll put it out there right from the jump—of all the things you could do to help your ability to read, understand, and respond to the Bible, memorizing it will demand the most from you. It takes hard work to memorize a verse, and even more to memorize 20, but that hard work pays off big time not only once you get that section memorized, but as you memorize.
I love purpose statements. I love them because I really don’t like guessing about someone’s motivation. It’s an uncomfortable place to be in. If I’m reading something someone wrote or listing to someone give a talk, I don’t want to be left wondering why they wrote what they wrote or said the things they said. I think this is partly why I like John’s gospel so much.
As the apostle John was drawing his gospel to a close, he thought it would be a good idea to make clear why he wrote it in the first place—to remove the mystery, if there was any.
You’d be hard-pressed to find a more intimidating book for the average person than the Bible.
I have two sitting next to me right now. The first is an English Standard Version (ESV), single column edition containing 1,488 pages, in something like 7 or 8-point font. The second is a New International (NIV), double column edition containing 1,302 pages, in something like 8 or 9-point font.
The Christmas story we’ll tell and celebrate this week is the same story that’s been told for the past two-thousand years. Nothing has changed about it. And because nothing has changed, there’s an inherent danger presented to us—boredom.
You might be bored with that story right now. Even thinking ahead to going to a church service, listening to the same songs, hearing the same passage or passages of Scripture being read might be enough to make you wish you could just fast-forward through all that same old, same old.
The regular habit of reading the Bible doesn’t sound strange to us, because it’s a part of who we are. But if we zoom out a little, and take stock of the fact that we regularly read a book made up of a coherent collection of writings, of which the newest is nearly 2,000-years old, we can start to see how this would seem strange to a lot of people.
If you’re going to hate, hate like God.
In preparation for 2025’s Exploring the Bible seminar on Reading, Understanding, and Responding to the BibleI was reading in the psalms and struck—as I have been in the past, but haven’t given as much time to it—by the way the psalmists talk about God hating not just things (like sin), but people. In particular, I was struck by this verse: “You hate all who do wrong.” (Ps 5:5, NIV)
I think, for most of us, the answer is obvious: we want an understandable translation that is faithful to the original textual witnesses.
A Bible translation is not helpful or useful if it can’t be read and understood. Nor is a Bible translation helpful or useful if it veers away from what the original authors of Scripture actually wrote. We want something that can be understood when we read it, and something that doesn’t make us wonder where it came from.
Theological disputes are not something unique to our time, or even the time of our ancient relatives.
Reaching all the way back to the first century we can find disagreements about important theological matters.
Jesus had his arguments with the Pharisees and Sadducees, not to mention those with the religious leaders of his day. Paul had to deal with controversies with church members as they were still learning what it meant to live in this new kingdom with its new covenant. And John felt pushback from those who insisted that although Jesus may have been God (there were definitely some who thought he wasn’t), he surely wasn’t a human being.
Just before talking about the common practices of giving, praying, and fasting, Jesus gives his hearers this warning: “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven” (Mt 6:1, NIV).
There are at least two things to make note of with that statement.