r set eyes on the Savior himself.
When Jesus tells a parable, it would be childish to think he was talking about a specific person he knew. When the evangelists or writers of the epistles use a metaphor or a simile, it would be childish to think they had meant it literally. One remains responsible for knowing what can and is known about how and why the documents that make up the Old and New Testament collections were written. Why did Paul give this specific piece of advice to his friends in Corinth? Did he mean that advice to be a law for Christians for all time? These are questions that adult Bible students must ask and attempt to answer. To fail to study the Scriptures in this sort of mature way is to risk appearing foolish to non-believers and so to lose a chance to witness our faith to them.
Further, approaching Bible studies in this mature manner will spark and hold the interest of adults far better than an approach of merely reading the Biblical text and speculating about it. Adults would not attempt to interpret a law book or a book of medical advice by guessing at what it meant; so why would they do so with the Bible, which surely deals with even more important matters? Helping adults realize that they have not only the right but the duty to do further background reading in such areas as ancient history or linguistic studies in order to understand the Bible better will draw them into the process. The great Protestant Christian tradition is based on the premise that every person has the right to interpret the Scriptures for himself or herself, but pastors also have a duty to ensure that they will have the resources to carry out such an interpretation in a well-informed manner. Society is too full of sad examples of what can happen when peopleÆs speculations about the difficult passages of, say, the Revelation to John are allowed to grow wild.
Libraries are filled with books that could be resources for Bible ...