file: /pub/resources/text/taize: bible-hi.txt
---------------------------------------------


[This short reflection is taken from the summer edition of the "Letter
from Taize"]

How can I deepen my understanding of the Bible?

This question is a vital one for those who have been touched by the Word
of God, for example during a week spent in Taize', and who would like to
continue their searching at home.

Before looking elsewhere for methods or advice, let us see whether the
Bible itself tells us how it wishes to be understood.

A valuable indication is given by the first conclusion of the Gospel
according to Saint John: "Jesus worked many other signs...which are not
written in this book. But these have been written that you may believe
that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may
have life in his name" (John 20,30-31).

In this text, it is obvious that the gospelsDand this is true for the
Bible as a wholeDdoes not want to communicate a detached, speculative
knowledge concerning the realities of God, but an understanding that
leads to an act of faith. The Scriptures are not there to satisfy our
curiosity, for example by offering us detailed descriptions of life
after death. Nor is their purpose to furnish us with abstract answers to
all our questions, for instance about the reason for human suffering.

The knowledge of God that the Bible offers us remains fragmentary
("...many other signs which are not written..."). But it is fully
sufficient to achieve its essential objective: it brings us into contact
with the person of Jesus Christ, so that we can discover the authentic
face of God (John 1,18; 14,9) and enter into a relationship with the one
Jesus calls "Father." In other words, the Bible can only be understood
in an interpersonal context. It is less like a scientific textbook or a
literary work than like a personal conversation. It is not by chance
that most of the books of the New Testament are letters, written to
create or to reinforce bonds of communion.

It has sometimes been said, and with reason, that the Bible can be
compared to a letter we have received from a close friend in a language
in which we are not fluent. It contains things that may seem strange or
incomprehensible to us. But since we know that the writer of the letter
loves us, we are not at all offended or scandalized by what we do not
understand; we simply attribute it to our lack of familiarity with our
friend's language. We focus on what we do understand, what is in
conformity with the friend we are familiar with.

Similarly, when we find a passage or an expression in the Bible which
seems to us curious, or even shocking, the only fruitful attitude is to
say to ourselves that we are undoubtedly misunderstanding its true or
full significance, and to start from what is clearer in order to
understand what is more obscure.

But where do we find "what is clearer"? Is there a centre around which
everything else can find its place? A Christian leader, writing to Jews
who had become disciples of Christ, gives us the answer: "God, who spoke
in times past at many times and in many different ways to our ancestors
by the prophets,...has spoken to us by his Son" (Heb 1,1-2).

The life of Jesus, recapitulated in his "passover" from death to
Eternity's life (John 13,1; Eph 2,4-7; Col 2,9), reveals to us the
ultimate secrets of God's identity. New light is shed on what was
previously partial or ambiguous: "And beginning with Moses and with all
the Prophets, [the Risen Christ] interpreted for them in all the
Scriptures the things referring to himself... He opened their minds that
they might understand the Scriptures" (Luke 24,27.45). Starting from
this centre, like a source of light radiating outward, the rest of the
Bible is illuminated.

Those who wish to deepen their understanding of the Bible's message,
then, would do well to begin their reading of the Bible by one of the
four gospels, following the principle of explaining what is more obscure
by what is clearer, the periphery by the centre. Moving on to the other
writings of the New Testament, they will better grasp the significance
of Christ's coming and its consequences for the life of his disciples.
And they will quickly make another discovery: to understand well the
life of Jesus, it has to be situated in the context of the ongoing
relationship between the God of Israel and the people God chose in order
to reveal his identity to the world. In other words, if it is true that
the life of Jesus, viewed in the light of his resurrection, provides the
key to the deepest comprehension of the Old Testament, it is equally
true that a greater understanding of the latter enables us better to
grasp the significance of the former.

Because the different parts of the Bible have this complex
interrelationship, the process of comprehension resembles a spiral
rather than a straight line. It is like a journey through a foreign
country, where at first nothing is familiar. But the further one goes,
the more one learns how to see correctly. And each time one goes back to
texts that have already been read, their understanding is deepened by
everything that has been discovered in the meantime.

Far from being a mere collection of books, the Bible is a gateway to the
world of God: the unfamiliarity or "culture shock" that we experience is
not just a question of different cultures and historical periods; it is
the experience of people pulled out of their routines and set on the
road by the eternal Newness of God. It cannot be emphasized enough that,
even if a certain amount of historical or linguistic information can be
useful, the Scriptures want above all to enable us to encounter a living
Being, a Source of life, in order then to discover this same Reality in
the concrete circumstances of our daily lives and to respond to his
call.

[ To subscribe to the monthly devotional known as the "Johannine Hours"
send a mail to: listserv@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de with a line in the message
body SUBSCRIBE TAIZE-L or write to info@taize.fr ]