I had a friend some time ago who loved to argue the Bible, and whenever we got to a certain point, he would say Well, the Bible says what it means and it means what it says. Of course, he usually fell back on that statement when his point was weak. And he didn’t really believe it—not the way he intended it to be taken—because he was kind of suggesting that when it suited him the Bible was to be taken literally, and when it didn’t suit him then it didn’t necessarily have to be. But in fact we all interpret the Bible as we read it, and that is exactly what God intends for us to do. Now I will admit it is not always that simple, but you are allowed to bring common sense to the table and ask yourself how Jesus intended us to take his meaning? I will give you an example.

I used to teach Bible in college, and I often enjoyed dropping a pop quiz on the students. One of my questions, which was related to the assignment that was to be read that particular day was Cite the scripture from today’s reading that shows Jesus did not always intend us to take him literally. Now, you don’t have the reading assignment they did. But if you have read the New Testament, can you think of something Jesus said that should easily demonstrate that he doesn’t always intend you to take him literally? Well, here’s the answer I was looking for from the class, and you might be surprised how many of them missed it, even though they had just read it, theoretically, in the past few days.

And if your right eye causes you to offend, pluck it out, and cast it from you: for it is better for you that one of your members should perish, and not that your whole body should be cast into hell. And if your right hand causes you to offend, cut it off, and cast it from you: for it is better for you that one of your members should perish, and not that your whole body should be cast into hell.

Now most sound-minded people reading that passage will know immediately that if my right hand does something wrong, it was not at the volition of the hand. My hand does not have its own brain. If you got caught shoplifting there’s no point in blaming your hand. Everybody knows that it was your brain that gave you the instructions and it is your head that should be cut off (but of course not). And here is a useful lesson to take with you: Anytime a passage of scripture seems to turn off into the absurd, it is figurative and not be taken literally. The absurdity illustrates it. Now, did Jesus say what he meant and did he mean what he said? Well, yes, but maybe he didn’t say what you thought he said.

The Book of Acts sits in a pivotal position in the New Testament. The early Church fathers tended to speak of the New Testament in terms of Gospels and Epistles, but Acts fits in a different category altogether. The Gospels anticipate the Church, while the Epistles presuppose the church. Only Acts tells the story of the propagation of the faith and the development of the church.

There is a surprising amount of detail in the book, much of which the casual reader will pass over without even noticing. But candidates for advanced degrees in biblical studies have to write about something, and so they mine the pages of the book looking for clues like an English detective.

You may have noticed, for example, that there are passages in Acts where Luke is present as participant and observer, while in other places he is not. These are called the we passages. Luke was not present or a witness to many of the events he records. It poses no problem, because he was obviously very close to Paul and gleaned the stories from him (sometimes, no doubt, in long conversations while shipboard). Let’s take, for example, the narrative of a journey in Acts 16.

The Gospel according to John is a very special book. If you ask me to explain why, I would have a hard time telling you. It is the fourth Gospel, but some scholars think it may have been written first. Actually, there is no hard data on this. So you can safely read the four Gospels and decide for yourself. In fact, that is probably a useful exercise for a Bible reader. It will cause you to pay more careful attention to the details—and that is a good thing.

This Gospel was written by a very real person, universally recognized as the Apostle John, the author of the three Epistles of John, and his other familiar work: the Book of Revelation. Years ago, when I was studying New Testament Greek, my final exam was to translate 1st John. It was a curious experience. I had to do the translation without referring to lexicon or Bible. The hardest part was not simply repeating the familiar King James version

After having done that, when I next read the Gospel of John, it was startling to recognize the same style—even in English. You can’t always identify a writer’s style, but you can quickly spot differences that make it clear who did not write it. One of the more striking things about John’s Gospel is the prologue. If you read the prologue of Luke’s Gospel and then read John, the difference is really quite dramatic. So let’s begin with John 1:1.

We take the reading of histories for granted, and it is hard to realize that most people haven’t got a clue what it takes to actually write a history. People call Herodotus the Father of History. He composed his writings in the fifth-century BC, and is considered the first historian in the true sense of the word. His work consisted of istoriai (enquiries)—which you don’t have to be a linguist to recognize as the origin of our word history.

When we come to the New Testament, we encounter the first Christian historian. His name is Luke, and his work consists of the Gospel that bears his name and the Book of Acts. He is the only one of the Gospels to deal with the very beginnings of the faith. He alone set out to provide a continuous record, and this affects the order of events as he records them.

It is curious that it never occurred to these fellows to sign their work. I think there may be two reason why they didn’t title their work in their own name. One, they didn’t think that they were the important thing. Christ was the focus. Two, everyone knew who wrote it—the signature was superfluous. In Luke’s case there was another reason. He was obviously known by the person the work was written for. It is not an anonymous document. It is quite personal. For example, let’s listen to the way Luke starts this account.

Among the earliest Christians, Mark did not command the attention of the Fathers. According to Everett Harrison, they placed Matthew and Luke in the most prominent positions. But Harrison also notes that in modern times Mark has surged to the fore, the place of chief consideration, among the first three Gospels.

I think there are two factors at work here. For one, the early Fathers found a lot more meat in Luke and Matthew than they found in Mark. And after all, Matthew was an apostle and Mark was not. But there is another reason. A rule of scholarship is publish or perish, and in this quest scholars sometimes find things that were never really lost.

The earliest historical recognition of Mark comes from one Papias, who was Bishop of Hierapolis and wrote right after the turn of the first century. Let’s begin by reading what he quotes the enigmatic John the Presbyter as saying about the origins of the Gospel of Mark.

When I was a lot younger, I was associated with a church that was, hands down, the most Bible-reading group of people I have ever known. With all of the faults of that generation and its leadership, they had a passion for the Bible. And if I may say so, if it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t be here doing what I am doing.

And here we are, in a generation where Bible study doesn’t seem to be valued like it once was. All the great leaders of our founding and succeeding generations were Bible reading men, even when the Bible was honored in the breach.

The Bible was variously interpreted, but it was nevertheless the final authority for belief and practice. Now, something entirely different seems to be that authority. What seems singularly unfortunate is the obvious fact that even Christians no longer read the Bible regularly. Where have we gone astray? And what can we do about it?

When you pick up the Bible to begin reading the New Testament, you will commonly start with Matthew. It may come as a surprise to you to learn that the Gospel itself makes no claim as to authorship. But all the early Christian traditions ascribe it to Matthew. As we can see in Matthew 9, this is the man who was a tax collector before becoming a disciple of Jesus.

Many scholars think that Matthew had Mark’s writings in hand when he wrote his account, but I don’t think so. I think what he had was the oral gospel that the church had been repeating for 30 years. And it is altogether probable that he did not even know Mark had written a gospel.

It is hard for us in the 20th century to understand the role and power of memorization in first-century Jewish culture. And Matthew surely wrote from within that culture. You can feel it as you read it. This is evident in what is, to me, one of the greatest passages in Matthew—one that dominates the book in many ways and comes down to the basics of the way a man of God should live. It is the Sermon on the Mount.

There is little to learn from the order in which the books of the New Testament are presented in the Bibles we have today. There is no evidence that there is an inspired order. And there is little understanding to be gained from a chronological order—even if we could be certain of it. Why?

There are two reasons in particular. The four gospels are intended each to stand alone as independent witnesses. They do not depend on one another to tell the story. Therefore, while their dates may be of importance to scholars, they offer us little regarding meaning. And when folks like us sit down to read the Bible, our primary question is, What does it mean?

The rest of the books, mainly epistles, are incidental. That is to say they arose out of local and temporal necessity—they were provoked by events. If, for example, the Corinthian church had not been such a pain in the neck, or if Paul had been present in Corinth when the problems arose, the letters would probably never have been written. So each of the books of the New Testament has its own story to tell, its own testimony to offer. But that raises another question, commonly called the Synoptic Problem.