Thoughts from an article, "How to Read the Bible"

Here is an excerpt from an article on the Resurgence Blog..."How to Read the Bible"

Find the entire article here.

There are two ways to read the Bible. We can read it as law and threat, or we can read it as promise and assurance.

The deepest message of the Bible is the grace of God for sinners. The Bible presents itself this way. The laws and commands and examples and warnings are all there. Let’s revere them. But we can read them with this as our foremost thought: “Jesus obeyed it all. He died for all my failure. And now he is changing my heart. I can read this page of the Bible with hope in his grace.”

My thoughts pertaining to this right now...

I was chatting with some people last night and we were talking about implications of the passage in James 5 that states "Woe to you rich"... I am very glad I found this article because it confirms my thought that, yes, that statement sounds very weighty and possibly condemning the rich....

HOWEVER, when viewed from the standpoint of God's grace and Jesus's life, I know that I can read this passage with a promise that God is changing my heart on the use of my money VS. I am a horrible person because I am well-off compared to the rest of the world.

As my friend Jodi Smith put it, there are righteous rich and unrighteous rich, and there are righteous poor and unrighteous poor. God places us all in different economic categories, so no matter what category we are in, or think we are in, we must always be aware of how we use the resources He has given us, and be open for a change of heart on the issue! Let me know what you think!