Four Wrong Ways to Study the New Testament | Revolutionary Bible Study

So, the second wrong way began to emerge in studying the New Testament. The words of Paul are still in a completely pagan arrangement, that is, by length. Then, in 1455, the printing press was invented. By the year 1500, nobody was handwriting books; they were being printed. Then came the Reformation and the second wrong way to study the New Testament. Now, in 1556, someone, a printer, decided to add little numbers to each sentence so that we could find the sentences. So, the sentences ceased to exist, and it was called… their name was “verses”. By the way, ironically, this gentleman’s name was also Stephanas. 1205 and 1556. We have, first, the chapters, then the numbers, the printing press, and the Reformation.

Now we have a flood of theological, philosophical interpretations of Paul’s letters, always stand-alone, because they’re always arranged exactly the way they’re arranged in your New Testament. Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, then 1 Thessalonians, then 2 Thessalonians, then 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, and then Philemon.

What a mess. What an absolutely chaotic mess. Now I’m going to add a personal word here. In the book that you have read or are about to read (Revolutionary Bible Study), I use the term chaotic and bizarre, and even the word insane, in addressing the crazy way those 16 letters are arranged. Not so much that they’re arranged that way, but that it has taken 1,800 years without anybody saying, “Let’s stop this madness and arrange those letters in their proper way.”

Forgive me if those words sound strong to you. I have been reading my New Testament chronologically for over four decades, and I am awed, shocked, and bewildered that we would let such chaos reign, and what could be the key to a whole new dimension of understanding the New Testament.

Well, what happened during the Reformation was the same thing that had happened previously, except on a massive scale. We now have printing presses. Anyone who could pay for a printer and could sit down and write a treatise could immediately become popular because he had some philosophical view of one of Paul’s letters.

The entire European continent and the British Isles were drenched with new writings that did not conform to the Roman Catholic Church. So, we now have two theologies growing up, the Roman Catholic and the Protestant, but they’re all philosophical, theological, and they’re treating Paul’s letters, every one of them, as standalones. You cannot find a book anywhere else in the Reformation period that once addresses context, not a single sentence ever written about the proper order of Paul’s letters, nor of the enormous radical change that takes place when you put them together, and they stand up and say, “We have a story to tell.” So, the second wrong way to read the New Testament is very much like the first one, except it’s a Protestant view, very argumentative, and still basically Greek in its mentality.

Now we come to the evangelical era, when we are told constantly to get into the Bible and understand the New Testament and be faithful to it. Now I’m going to make a rash, radical statement that I wish you would not quote me on, because it’s a great statement to take out of context.

I don’t care how many times you’ve read the New Testament in the order it’s arranged; you cannot possibly understand what it is saying. Memorize it in the original language, Greek, learn to say it in Greek, but as long as those letters are arranged in the chaotic order that they are in, certain things will not emerge. And therefore, you are denied access to a large part of the understanding of the New Testament.

By the way, I am not speaking theologically. I’m speaking of the discovery of the first-century church’s practice. I’m speaking of the emergence of the story, the story of what happened in the first century that has always been denied us. And in a few minutes, I will address the matter of a model, M-O-D-E-L, which we’ve never even thought of.

Maybe you’re used to the term. If you’ve studied evolution and creationists, each of them demands that the other one produce a model, because everything took place somewhere in the primordial era. Astronomers, mathematicians, and anyone who has to do with physics and science always demand, “Give us a model.” And we have never had a model of the first century.

Rather, instead, we have built what the church is by gathering together verses at our whim, at our capricious grasp, and we’re saying, that’s how it was in the first century. But it’s all verses. It is all human conjecture, whereas the story itself awaits us. The story is clear, and it radically changes everything.

Well, I’m going to tell you now about the third wrong way to read the New Testament, and this is the first time I have ever heard anyone tell us about this way. It’s a shameful way. It’s an embarrassing way to study the New Testament. It’s the kind of thing you would want to hide under a rock or keep under the bed, so nobody discovers what it is, and yet it is universally the most practiced way of studying the New Testament. It has no name, so I’ll describe it. It’s you, and you open the book of Romans and Corinthians, and then Ephesians or Colossians, and it doesn’t make any sense to you, but the writings are beautiful, and every once in a while, you find this beautiful sentence, now called a verse. It’s got a little number on it, and you grab your pen, and you underline, and you think, wow, that’s so beautiful. That is so beautiful. “Love conquers all things.” “Love is faithful.” “Love endures.” Romans 8: “Neither things past nor present nor anything created shall separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.”