Whose Mail?

Reading Someone Else’s Mail

Green (2007) states, “The twenty-first-century reader in the United States, then, is cast in the unenviable position of reading someone else’s mail” (51).  Schenck (2009) adds, “The literal meaning of Deuteronomy or Romans or 1 Thessalonians requires us to recognize that none of the books of the Bible were strictly written to us” (p. 3).  We are reading someone else’s mail when we read the books of the Bible because each book of the Bible had an original audience, an audience different from us.  We are not being true to the scriptures if do not recognize this truth. 

Fee and Douglas (2003) assert, “To make this text mean something God did not intend is to abuse the text, not use it” (p. 25).  Determining the world of the original audience and the meaning that the scripture had for them is a necessary step to reading the Bible as Christian Scripture, because it prevents us from abusing the Scriptures.  This discovery cannot, however, be the end of the process. 

                                                          Reading Our Own Mail                 

The various books of the bible were written to someone other than us, and yet, “Because the Bible is God’s Word, it has eternal relevance” (Fee & Stuart, 2003, p. 21).  After we have determined who the original audience of scripture was and what God’s original message was for them we can, and indeed should, seek to determine what God is saying to us through the scripture.  Mulholland (2000) posits, “The Word of God that encountered the writers and to which they wrote, also addresses us” (43).  We must realize that scripture is for us, even if it was not originally to us. 

God’s revelation is alive and well.  The same scriptures that transformed the lives of its original readers and hearers still seeks to transform Christ’s followers today.  We must recognize that the books of the bible had an original intended audience, but we must also recognize that the Word of God is intended to speak to us, to transform us, today.

Fee, G.D and Stuart, D. (2003).  How to read the Bible for all its worth (3^rd Ed).  Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.   

Green, J.B. (2007).  Seized by truth: Reading the Bible as Scripture.  Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press. 

Mulholland Jr., M.R. (2000). Shaped by the Word: The power of Scripture in spiritual formation (2^nd ed.). Nashville. TN: Upper Room Books.

Schenck, K. (2009). Brief guide to Biblical interpretation. (2^nd ed.). Marion, IN: Triangle Publishing