You and the Bible: "Do you Understand what you are Reading?" (Free Book Inside!)

“Phillip ran over and heard [an Ethiopian Eunuch] reading from the prophet Isaiah. Philip asked, ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ The man replied, ‘How can I, unless someone instructs me?’ And he urged Philip to come up into the carriage and sit with him… So beginning with this same Scripture, Philip told him the Good News about Jesus” (Acts 8:30-31, 35NLT, bracket mine).

Do you understand what you are reading? Although Phillip “the evangelist” of the Bible initially directed this probing question to a well-educated man from Ethiopia, it is a question that confronts us as contemporary Bible readers as well. The question acknowledges a reality that we know all too well: At times and in places, the Bible can be difficult to understand. So our desire to read God’s Word lives in tension with the frustration we may feel when we do.

These frustrations often cause the most important book we could ever read to go unread. And as our Bibles sit on the shelf collecting dust, we do without the incredible insights and the enduring comfort God desperately want to share with us.

Fortunately this dilemma has a solution – as this book has attempted to show, the major obstacles that stand in the way of our Bible reading can be diminished. When we appreciate the unique heritage of the Bible – its divine and human sides – we find it easier to engage when Scripture challenges us to believe the unbelievable and to do the unthinkable. When we remember that while the Bible generally moves forward in time from the Book of Genesis through the Book of Revelation – but that it also circles back to repeat and emphasize “big ideas” that God longs to share with us – we’ll better able to follow the overall story line of Scripture. When we observe changes in genre and put our minds in concert with those particular styles of writing, we will be rewarded with more satisfying experience. And when we appreciate the historical, cultural, or geographical context of each passage, we find deepened insights into God’s Word.

Do you understand what you are reading? We may never understand everything – but we will understand much more when we ask and answer the questions posed in this book: What is the Bible? What is God talking about? How is God speaking? What is going on behind the scenes? What are they doing? Where am I?

We pray that God will bless as you follow these questions down the path to deeper understanding of His Word

[“Conclusion” by John A. Beck from Understanding Your Bible, published by Barbour Publishing, Inc. 2011, page 145-147. Bible quotation from New Living Translation (NLT) is mine.]

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

February 2013 Free Books

I’m giving away ONLY 5 copies of “Understand Your Bible” by John A. Beck. You are welcome to get a copy of this book for yourself. Simple, do these 2 things:

1.     Comment below “Rich, give me one copy___(Your name). I want to Understand the Bible more and thus, I want to know this God of the Bible”

2.     And E-mail me at Motivates4life@hotmail.com or send message to my Facebook your real name, phone no. and your postal address. Thank you.