Brian's Blog: The Bible – Try Reading It Again for the First Time.

In the late 80s and early 90s one of the leading cereal companies, Kelloggs, initiated a new marketing approach to revive sales of its oldest flake cereal, Corn Flakes. The tag line was this: Kelloggs’ Corn Flakes. Taste them again for the first time!

Click on this link and watch their 30 second spot that aired during the 1992 Super Bowl: https://adage.com/videos/kelloggs-corn-flakes-taste-corn-flakes/1090

The 30 second spots in this ad campaign follow the same script regardless of the actor. They comment on how boring the cereal looks because “it’s just flakes”. There are no nuts, no fruit, no marshmallows, nothing but simple flakes. But then they taste the cereal and are immediately impressed with its simplicity.

Corn Flakes had been around a long time and probably almost every American had eaten them, but they were completing against a lot of cereals that specialized in adding nuts, fruit, marshmallows, frosting, etc. Kelloggs reverted to selling simplicity, honesty and integrity to convince people that Corn Flakes didn’t need to be dressed up. If people would taste them again, for the first time, they would be reminded of how good they were.

When it comes to the Bible, lots of ministries have tried to dress it up, spin it, add things to it because they perceive that people think the Bible is boring. It’s so old—in fact, it is ancient—and thus how could it possibly be interesting to the “average” member or seeker? Church leaders are convinced they have to add nuts, fruit, marshmallows and/or frosting to the Bible in order to awaken interest in it. They buy into the idea that people want to taste the flakes and are only interested in the creative additions. I’ve personally witnessed pastors apologizing for reading from the Bible anything longer than a verse or two and, at times, even stating that this will be boring. The presentation of biblical texts is often paraphrased passages used as prooftexts or as jumping off points from which to present more interesting, more relevant material. Members and guests alike at worship services are encouraged to repeat or memorize one-liners that summarize the preacher’s main point but are seldom encouraged to reread and further deliberate on the biblical text itself.

In contrast, I am convinced that those of us who teach the Bible, need to read more of the biblical text publicly as Timothy was encouraged to do: “Until I arrive, give attention to the public reading of scripture, to exhorting, to teaching” (1 Timothy 4:13, emphasis is mine). And then we need to call people to actually read the biblical texts and to do so, as much as possible, from a fresh perspective—that is, as if they were reading them for the first time. I have heard many Christians state, in one way or another, that reading the biblical texts is “boring.” It has lost its freshness and its power to speak to our hearts and our lives. There are many reasons for that, but mainly I believe it is because our perspective on the biblical texts leads to a very restrictive interpretation that limits what the Bible teaches to things we already know.

Recently, I’ve been listening to the recorded lectures by Dr. Dale B. Martin of Yale University as he taught an introductory course to the New Testament. In the first lecture he challenges his students to “attempt to scrape our brains clean of what we think we know about the New Testament and try to approach it from the outside, as something new and strange.” But his challenge goes deeper than most Christians would agree to, as he explains how he approaches his teaching “from a self-consciously secular, non-confessional point of view. That means approaching the New Testament not as “scripture” but simply as ancient documents produced by the movement that eventually became Christianity.” In his accompanying textbook (published by Yale University in 2012), Martin writes, “Therefore, readers are urged to leave behind their preconceived notions of the New Testament and read it as if they had never heard of it before. This involves understanding the historical context of the New Testament and imagining how it might appear to an ancient person.” He champions the “historical-critical” approach to the New Testament which “anchors ‘the meaning’ of the text in its ancient context: what the original authors ‘intended’ or the original readers likely ‘understood.’” I truly am convinced that without an understanding of what the biblical texts meant in their original contexts, to their original hearers/readers, then we limit what we can learn from these amazing creative texts.

But to read the biblical texts from a fresh perspective, as if we are reading them for the first time, is quite a challenging task, for any and all of us who have been reading/hearing these texts for many years. I am convinced, as well, that the historical-critical method is the best way to get not only a fresh perspective but an accurate perspective. As one of my New Testament professors wrote, “The search for what the writings meant should be an indispensable part in the spiritual search for what they are taken to mean today” (Thomas R. Hatina). By going back to trying to understand what the original author’s intent might have been and what these writings would have meant to the original hearers/readers, one can gain many fresh perspectives and one’s excitement and enthusiasm for reading and reflecting on these texts can be reinitiated.

If you’ve read this far, then I’m thinking you are interested in reading the Bible again for the first time! To that end, I highly recommend Dr. Martin’s lectures and textbook. Here are the links you will need:

· Audio: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/introduction-to-new-testament-history-literature-audio/id341652017