Two Bible Reading Paradigms
Do you have trouble taking the Bible seriously?
There is a common reason for this. It has to do with our point of view.
A point of view is another way of saying paradigm.
Yesterday I wrote about how the most effective lies are subtle. They are believable for the most part because we want them to be true or everyone around us seems to have bought in. The result is we stop thinking and just go along.
Over the next few days I want to slowly walk through the first lie — The Big Daddy that started them all.
But before we can do this it is important to first see the passage within the appropriate paradigm. It really boils down to a choice between two options. Think of them as two pairs of glasses.
The first most common pair is our favorite. We wear it all the time, so let me warn you. It is very easy to slip this set back on at any time, even though we are trying to look through the other pair.
Let’s call this first pair The Secular-World-View Glasses or World Glasses for short.
The second pair let’s call The God-is-Real Glasses or God Glasses for short.
When we are wearing the World Glasses we see things mostly through the lens of what we have been taught, what smart people have told us is true. If you are quick to want to know what scholars think about some challenging biblical passage before you try to figure it out yourself you may be wearing this pair of glasses for the most part. If this is the case then it may be stunting your spiritual growth.
When we put on God Glasses we suspend our disbelief. It’s not that we mindlessly accept things to be true that make no sense, it’s that we don’t dismiss things as false immediately and are willing to suspend judgement. This provides us an opportunity to see the world through the eyes of One who tells us He is real and created everything AND it allows us to read the Bible in a completely different way.
Let me show you with one verse today and we will take it further over the next few days.
Here is today’s verse.
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made.
Genesis 3:1a (ESV)
A serpent is a snake. We have all seen them. We think we know what they are. Then we read the next statement. This particular snake “was more crafty than any other beast of the field.”
This makes no sense at all through the World Glasses and this then sets us up to be able to dismiss or discount what comes next.
But now let’s look through the God Glasses.
We accept that there once was a creature called a serpent who “was more crafty than any other beast of the field.” We don’t tie him to looking like a snake and in fact if you read a little further you find God changes his appearance. In addition what is to say that animals back then were very different than the animals we see around us today? We weren’t there. We don’t know. But at least we don’t have to conclude that it’s all just a silly story and therefore untrue.
Let’s now take it one step further. Let’s think about the word crafty. We now have a picture to go with it. To be crafty is to act like a poisonous snake on the hunt.
Finally, the serpent theme travels through the Bible. Here is just one example.
Then Moses answered, “But behold, they will not believe me or listen to my voice, for they will say, ‘The LORD did not appear to you.’”
The LORD said to him, “What is that in your hand?”
He said, “A staff.”
And he said, “Throw it on the ground.”
So he threw it on the ground, and it became a serpent, and Moses ran from it.
But the LORD said to Moses, “Put out your hand and catch it by the tail”—so he put out his hand and caught it, and it became a staff in his hand— “that they may believe that the LORD, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.”
Exodus 4:1-5 (ESV)
What do we learn from this? For one thing, God can turn a stick into a serpent and a serpent into a stick.
When you wear God Glasses anything is possible. There is more here than meets the skeptical eye.