Reading Scripture with Christ at the Center
When it comes to reading the Bible there is one thing that I hear more than anything else. People have trouble understanding some parts of the Bible. I believe that a significant part of this is rooted in the way that we view the Bible. Rethinking how we view the Bible is an important first step for knowing how to understand it and apply it.
When I was younger, I read the Bible looking for things I could do. I saw the Bible as a big book that was filled with stories and rules that were telling me how to live. In a sense, this is true. God's word shows us how to live, but I was approaching it completely from the wrong perspective.
The Sufficiency of Christ
We live in a world that is obsessed with the next big thing. When I was young if you had shown me a lineup of people sleeping in the streets in an urban area, I would have assumed that the cause of this was homelessness. Now, you would have to wonder if perhaps it was a group of people waiting for the next big electronic device to be released. Many of us want to have the next iteration of a device so badly that extreme measures are taken to ensure the device is acquired. All of this obsession for the next big thing and chances are that the people waiting in line may in fact have a similar device with them that works just fine. It is easy for the newest version of our precious devices to convince us that what we have is not sufficient for what we need for it to do. Our thinking can be overcome with ways that we can afford the upgrade until we get that new electronic marvel.