Making It Understandable

So I recently got this brand new Chronological Study Bible and I've really been enjoying it as I read through the Old Testament. One of the things I really enjoy about this Bible is that it spends a lot of time focusing on history, archeology, and facts about the culture at the time. So many times when we read the Bible we try to figure out what it means to us, which I think is important, first instead of taking time to try and understand what it meant to the people it was written to originally. It is really fascinating to learn all about how brilliant God was in communicating His truth to the people. He chose to take things from the surrounding culture and tweak it to teach them a better way, He didn't come up with abstract things people had no fimiliarity with but chose to take things that pagan cultures had and so how He was better.

Let me give you an example. In Leviticus 16 on the Day of Atonement God instituted the ritual of the scapegoat. In this ritual the priest would place his hands on the scapegoat and confess the sins of the people. The scapegoat was then sent into the wilderness symbolizing the removal of the peoples sins. The interesting thing is this ritual wasn't unique to Israel, both Anatolia and Mesopotamia attempted to appease angry gods by using animals to carry away a plague or other evil suffering. In the Hittite ritual the king even places his hands on the animal. The difference God brought to Israel's ritual was that a second animal was used to be sacrificed to Him as a sin offering.

So what does this teach us about today? I think it shows us the a couple things. First, I believe it is extremely important to understand what the Biblical message was to its original readers, you need to understand what God was trying to say to His people. Second, I believe it shows us that God approves of us using the common things of culture to bring His message. To many people today get really upset and accuse preachers of mixing "the world" into their messages but we see that God didn't have any problems taking the things of this world and showing how He is better and that people understand the message quicker when they can relate it to what they experience in life.