Asking better questions

One area that a missional approach to ministry has made the greatest impact is in how I read and teach the Bible. My ministry tradition, both in church and on the college campus, encouraged diligent study of the Bible, something I am very grateful for. But the methods I learned for scripture study seem narrow to me now and in need of rethinking. I remember attending a breakout session during a conference for college students called “Deep Sea Fishing: How to Go Deeper in God’s Word.” The session concentrated on asking three questions of scripture in order to hear God better through his word. Those questions were: What does it say? What does it mean? How does it apply (to me)? I put the last part of the application question in parentheses because it wasn’t part of the actual question, but implicit in the entire method was the sole end being personal application: “what does it mean for me?” I’ve become convinced lately that coming to God’s word with myself as the primary focus encourages the mindset that life is about me and therefore that God’s design for the Bible is to act like an instruction manual to help me live better or be happier. Better questions can be asked of God’s word to focus his people upon Him and his activities in the world.

This is where a missional approach to scripture has revolutionized the way I interact with Living Word. As Darryl Guder points out, “Our engagement with the Bible is always defined by the questions we bring to it” (Treasure in Clay Jars, p. 69). Therefore if we ask better questions, (i.e. questions that get at the heart of God and his mission on earth) the answers we find should transform us into the kind of people, individually and communally, that are in tune with the Spirit’s working among us. My greatest critique of the “me-centered” Bible study model mentioned above is that it makes it possible to be a diligent student of scripture and yet miss entirely what God is up to throughout the canon. In that sense we are reading the Bible without ever allowing it to read us. The result is Christian who struggles to see God in her story, rather than seeing her life as an extension of God’s story to the world, a kingdom of which she is a participant and a benefactor. In such a time as this when so many feel disconnected and alienated, a missional approach to reading the Bible is an attractive one in deed.

So what are the better questions to ask in order to read the Bible Missionally? The Gospel and Our Culture Network has put together a helpful list of questions to be used in group study that I have been using lately to engage scripture. They are as follows:

How does this text read us and our world?
How does this text evangelize us with good news?
How does this text convert us in personal and corporate life?
How does this text send us and equip our witness?
How does this text orient us to the coming reign of God?