I’ve pointed out our need to study the Bible rather than simply reading it. Being exposed to the content of the Bible in bits and pieces can be of some benefit depending on which bits and pieces you read. Some ideas can be conveyed in a sentence and the meaning can be acquired by reading that sentence; at least they can be understood to a certain extent when they are read in isolation. Take for example the commandment “You shall not kill.” That seems to be self-explanatory. We read it and recognize it as one of the Ten Commandments that Moses received from God on the mountain. When I say “we” I’m referring to the average American. Even though we are becoming more and more diverse, America still has strong Christian roots, which means that something as fundamental as the Ten Commandments is still recognizable whether we believe the Bible or not.

Most people believe that expression to be valid; we shouldn’t kill other people. It’s not something confined to Christian belief; it’s a principle that transcends religion and is recognized as fundamental to organized society. Order can’t be maintained among large groups of people living in close proximity to each other if their disputes with each other are resolved by murder. It would be chaos if that were allowed. But as a commandment from God it acts to express an affirmation of the nature of men and women as beings who have been created in the image of God. The commandment is not directed at our treatment of animals. So we can infer something about God and ourselves when we read this piece of scripture in isolation.

However things can get more complicated when we read other bits of the Bible that appear to allow for the killing of human beings. The first king of Israel, Saul, was directed by God to do just that in his warfare with the Amalekites; in fact he wasn’t supposed to leave anyone of the peoples alive including women and children. (1 Samuel 15) How are you going to reconcile “You shall not kill” with that? My response is to say that you’re going to reconcile it by not merely reading the Bible, but by studying it.

One of the basic things we need to do when studying the Bible is to get a handle on what kind of a document you’re reading. This is to say again that the Bible is not really a book as we usually use the term. It’s a collection of writings written over a long period of time. What holds it together is that all the writings in the Bible are about the same thing; they’re all about God. He is the source of all things and that includes all of us. This means that everything in the Bible pertains to the Lord’s actions and reveals something about who He is and what He’s about. However that doesn’t mean that all the documents function in the same way. Some tell us stories about the Lord’s actions. Some give us information about the people He has worked with to establish His purposes. Some are songs and poems that express feelings people have had in their dealings with God. And some of it is correspondence between people who share a common belief in the Lord. What’s helpful for a proper study of the scriptures is to identify what kind of document you’re reading and evaluate it on that basis.

An example of this is Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. When we pick up the Bible and open it to this document it’s immediately apparent that this is correspondence, specifically between a man named Paul and a group of people who lived in a city called Corinth. This is stated in the first lines of the text. But who are these people? Paul identifies himself as an apostle which means he has been engaging in the task of planting new churches where none exist. We can learn more about Paul by reading about him in other writings in the Bible such as the Acts of the Apostles. We can also learn some things about the Corinthians in that writing as well, but there are some specific things that Paul says about these people in this letter that are of note. First of all he identifies them as a church using the term ecclesia. He further states that they are saints, meaning holy ones, who call on the name of the Lord. (1 Corinthians 1) In chapters 12-14 Paul indicates that they were exhibiting manifestations of the Holy Spirit such as speaking in tongues and prophecy. These were real Christians, people who had received forgiveness of sins and new life in Christ, and the presence of the Holy Spirit was evident as well.

That being the case, how can we account for some of the behavior being exhibited within this church? Early on in the letter Paul takes issue with the divisiveness of the congregation in which people were making distinctions among themselves based on who had baptized them. (Chapters 1-3)  Later on he was compelled to state that going to a prostitute amounted to joining a member of Christ with that prostitute, inferring that such activity was taking place by men in the church. (Chapter 6) In his instructions concerning the Lord’s Supper, Paul was prompted to indicate that factious behavior and drunkenness were inappropriate when engaging this activity. (Chapter 11) There were even those within the congregation that denied that Jesus had risen from the dead! (Chapter 15) How do we make sense of this? How can real Christians, filled with the Holy Spirit, embrace such notions?

In answering this question it helps to have some knowledge of the environment in which this church functioned. Corinth was located within the Roman Empire. It was located in southern Greece in a strategic place where trade routes over land and sea traversed the city. It was known for extensive idol worship that employed the use of prostitutes. Greco-Roman social structure functioned through patron-client relationships, and prestige within the culture was often based on what teachers provided your education and what kind of connections you had among the movers and shakers of the society. It was also the case that the understanding of the afterlife was informed by ancient Greek philosophy that only affirmed the immortality of the soul.

It isn’t necessarily the case that you need to know all of that in order to gain something from reading this letter.  The gist of it is apparent. We need to forsake divisive, factious behavior. Engagement in sexual activity outside of the marriage bond is prohibited. Partaking of the Lord’s Supper is a solemn occasion of remembrance and affirmation of the sacrificial death of Jesus. And the resurrection of Jesus from the dead is an event that is essential for our salvation and one that has been affirmed by eyewitnesses.

However, in addition to its comments on essential beliefs and appropriate behavior, this letter also provides us with an example of how the Gospel can be distorted by members of the church who are being unduly influenced by the surrounding culture. And this is where an understanding of the background can help us. These Corinthian people were genuine believers affirming the basic message of the Gospel and exhibiting signs of the indwelling Holy Spirit, and yet they continued to be influenced by the social norms and reigning philosophies of the day. It was Paul’s effort to disengage them from that influence and to expand their understanding of the Gospel, to the extent that the revelation of the Gospel would work to replace the foundations of their thinking regarding themselves and the world around them.

So what? You may ask. The residents of Corinth were an ancient people who believed a lot of strange things that are far removed from the modern world we live in. We know how things work. We know about gravity. We know about atomic structure. We know about molecules and viruses. We know about social justice or the lack thereof. We know about a lot of things, and, as Christians, we know about Jesus and the cross and the resurrection. How does this apply to us?

My answer to that is that we—meaning modern Christians—tend to compartmentalize our understanding of things, to separate our knowledge base into various categories. Hard science is separated from politics which is separated from religion etc. The only time we coordinate our religious beliefs with other spheres of knowledge is when there is obvious conflict such as contentions regarding human origins or the role of government in regulating private conduct.  However, the Bible indicates that Christian faith is not merely an acknowledgment of the existence of God and His protocol for the afterlife; it’s a call to a relationship with God that redefines our understanding of everything. True Christians are called not only to believe in God, they are called to walk with God, to abide in Him, to recognize His sovereignty in all our affairs, to look to Him for understanding in everything pertaining to our lives. (John 15)

How this plays out is determined through an investigation that we all need to engage. The starting point is to allow our understanding of ourselves and the world around us to be illuminated by the Lord through His indwelling Spirit and a close examination of His Word. Paul challenged the Corinthians to examine some of their foundational beliefs about themselves and their culture. We need to be inspired by that challenge and look closely at our own world and its influence in our lives, allowing our walk with God to inform every facet of our lives. What does it mean to be a human being? The Bible tells us some things; hard science tells us some things; political philosophy tells us some things and psychology tells us some things as well. The question is: how do they fit together? Is the Bible taking precedent, or is it only being consulted with regard to religious questions? Do we have an American Dilemma in which the culture has undermined our understanding of the Gospel and impugned our walk with God? Our approach to walking with God needs to be carefully and prayerfully considered. We need to be willing to give the Lord access to every facet of our lives, allowing His light to inform not only our conduct but also the way we understand everything pertaining to our existence.