Foursquare Pastor Daniel Brown offers useful tips for approaching God’s Word.

All of us have encountered verses and statements in the Bible that confuse or alarm us because they seem to be saying something that sounds so unlike the Lord, so different than how we have experienced Him in our personal life. When that happens, what can we do to at least begin to look at those passages from a more helpful perspective?

Here are a few suggestions for better understanding the Bible:

1. Relax in the assurance that what you do not understand now, you will understand in the future. Don’t get “stuck” on something that you do not fully understand. Just keep reading, and focus on verses that make obvious sense to you today.
2. Read the Bible in light of God’s goodness, kindness and graciousness. Any understanding that paints God in a different light is an incomplete or an inaccurate interpretation.
3. Everything in the Scriptures, if understood correctly, will “build you up”—encouraging and strengthening you—and add to your awareness of all the spiritual resources and provisions the Lord gives as your inheritance (Acts 20:32)
4. Be sure to read the passage in its full context—looking at what has happened before, and what transpires afterwards; those bookends explain a lot.
5. Be careful to catch all the details of the text; what the Bible actually does and does not say is often quite different from what we infer or imagine it says.
6. Look at the cross-references; they will take you to similar or parallel passages elsewhere in the Bible. The whole Bible is the best lens through which to look at any portion of the whole.
7. Get the literal story firmly in your mind before you start drawing conclusions or trying to generalize from a single episode. What happened in one historic situation does not necessarily imply anything about the future situations.
8. Maintain a posture of humility. There may be things that you cannot understand about what God does/says; His plans and activities are often too deep or too high for us to grasp with our limited human brain (Psalm 92:5; Isaiah 55:8-9). Count on the fact that God knows more, loves more and does more that we could ever fully realize.

Image: Aaron Burden

In addition to these specific suggestions, it is hugely helpful to simply pray, asking Jesus to give you the understanding and awareness you need for your walk with Him today. As obvious as it sounds, remember that we cannot learn/know everything at once, right away. We grow in our spiritual understanding; a steady diet of Bible reading will absolutely guarantee that you will digest all the spiritual nutrients you need for a healthy life.

Lastly, train your heart to echo David’s prayer, as he was trying to understand spiritual matters: “Make me know Your ways, O Lord, teach me Your paths; lead me in Your truth and teach me for You are the God of my salvation” (Psalm 25:4-5).

Originally from www.coastlands.org, used with permission of the author.

Herbert W. Bateman IV, ed., Four Views on the Warning Passages in Hebrews (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2007), 480 pages, ISBN 9780825421327.

Probably every Christian has read one of the warning passages in Hebrews and wondered whether they have rejected God’s grace to the point of no return. The confusion that results partly explains the wide variety of views held by theologians on these Scriptures.

In response to the dual concerns of theological and pastoral praxis, the authors wrote this volume. The preface explains its formal origin, “This book is a collection of papers initially presented to the Hebrews Study Group during the fifty-sixth annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society (November 17-19, 2004).” Each of the four authors is a recognized scholar on the Book of Hebrews. Two are Arminians and two are Calvinists.

This work is another in a spate of books on a range of subjects looked at from three to four different points of views. Various publishers have ventured into this area of publishing.¹ Of course, these books are all co-authored by respected scholars in their fields. For the average reader who is theologically untrained, however, they may be left in a state of confusion. Even for scholars, it is sometimes difficult to reach a conclusion on these matters. One difference in this book, as a friend pointed out to me, is its narrow focus. Most of the books that constitute this genre address major subjects like predestination, the Lord’s Supper, or the relationship of the Old Testament law to the New Testament believer, etc. This manuscript specifically examines a few debated passages from the Book of Hebrews.

Herbert W. Bateman IV, the general editor, opens with a lengthy introduction to these warning passages. In his essay, he claims that all the presenters in the book believe those warned in Hebrews were genuine Christians.² To this reviewer, his chapter seems superfluous. For example while filled with information including copious footnotes, it contains little the actual authors do not cover themselves in their respective chapters.

Grant R. Osborne (representing the classical Arminian view) believes the warning passages teach that apostasy can occur and when it does it is unpardonable.³ Calvinists view the threatened discipline as the loss of rewards (or loss of fellowship with God according to others of their camp), but not in any case the loss of salvation. While Arminians view the threatened discipline as the lost of salvation, most of them believe Christians who backslide can still repent in this life and renew their salvation by the grace of God. Other Arminians believe Christians cannot only backslide but apostatize to the point of not being able (or desirous) ever to repent. Osborne adopts this latter position. He does not believe one can repent if he or she commits apostasy.