Reading the Bible

How should we read the Bible? With the mind of the early Church.

I have been studying and reading the Bible for a long time. So have many other people. So what’s different about me? I read and explain the Bible through the lens of the early Church. Most people today sincerely believe they are reading the Bible “objectively,” or interpreting it as Christians in the past have understood it. But no one can understand the Bible correctly with a modern spirit and mentality.

The theological methodology and conclusions in Western Christianity is the result of developments that occurred in Western Europe during the Middle Ages, the Reformation and the Age of Enlightenment. But the authors of the New Testament did not have that mentality or worldview. They did not rely on rational analysis to arrive at theological truth. They had the mind of the early Church, the mind of Christ. The Orthodox Church has preserved the mind of the early Church and the ancient Christian approach to the Scriptures. The Orthodox never had a Reformation. They never had a pope. They were never involved in the religious disputes between Protestants and Catholics. Instead, Orthodox Christianity simply continued as it always had - preserving the theology, teachings, attitudes, worldview, and spirituality of the early Church unchanged.

Catholics and Protestants assume that the Orthodox are basically Catholics without the pope. Ironically, Catholics and Protestants are more similar to each other since they share the same foundational ideas, even though their conclusions differ. Both Catholic and Protestant theology is based the same presumptions and process that developed in medieval Western Europe. But the Church was Eastern before it was Western. It was Greek before it was Latin. Eastern Christianity offers a different approach to Scripture and theology, one that predates the negative developments in the Catholic Church that eventually resulted in the Reformation. The Orthodox Church never adopted the changes that occurred in the medieval West, changes that distorted fundamental Christian beliefs about God and humanity, sin and salvation. Instead, Orthodox Christianity consistently and faithfully preserved the way of life and thought of the ancient Church.

How to read the Bible? With the mind of the early Church. That’s what my books and podcasts are all about.