How a Christian Reads the Bible

Sometimes the Bible irritates me. It doesn’t always say what I expect it to say. More to the point, it doesn’t always say what I want it to say. Take the book of Psalms for example. Frequently the Psalmists say things I could never say. I want to pull these writers aside and offer a little friendly counsel on how they might improve their inspired writing, especially on verses like these:

Psalm 7:8   The LORD judges the peoples; judge me, O LORD, according to my righteousness and according to the integrity that is in me.

Psalm 18:37   I pursued my enemies and overtook them, and did not turn back till they were consumed.

The first sample is too self-confident for my experience. The second is too vindictive for my conscience. So what do we do with verses like these? Ignore them? Explain them away? No. We should read them in light of the gospel. Here’s what I mean.

We need to remember that the book of Psalms is part of what the New Testament writers often call “the Law.” That designation doesn’t mean it no longer applies to us. It just means that when we feel convicted or confused by it, we need to remember how the Law is supposed to function in our life, namely, to lead us to Christ.

To say it a different way, all of these verses that sound so far out of reach for us actually are… and are not. They are out of reach for us in ourselves, but they are not out of reach if we are in Christ. Jesus could actually say these things and mean them. He could honestly take verses like these on His own lips and talk to God that way!

This is one of the most important insights I’ve learned about how to read the Bible. The Bible is a book about Jesus before it’s a book about me, and I must read it all through Him. In other words, the right way to read the Bible is with a heart informed and shaped by the gospel, a heart of repentance and faith—repentance for not being like this and faith that, thankfully, He is.