How to Read Bible Stories Better
If you have an idea to change the world, wrap it up in the best story you can come up with. Maybe that’s why so much of the Bible comes to us in stories. It’s not just important that we read the Bible. How we read the Bible is a critical skill we must hone and craft and get better at. It takes a particular skill to reading Bible stories, and just like with any skill, we can get better at it with some focused practice.
There is creative artistry to the stories in the Bible. A really great story unfolds like the board game Mousetrap you might have played as a kid. You add one disjointed piece to another, all the while wondering to yourself, “How does that work?” And then, when the tension has reached the point you just can’t stand it, but still, you least expect it, the storyteller pulls the release and all these disparate pieces fall together and everything makes perfect sense. Suddenly, you can’t imagine it happening any other way.
Much like the “browse” section of your favorite streaming service, the Bible is made up of a wide variety of genres. But we can initially separate various books of the Bible into two categories—prose and poetry. Poetry would include Psalms, Job, Proverbs, most of the prophets. Prose, or stories, would be most of Genesis, portions of Exodus, the historical books of the Old Testament, the Gospels, and Acts. One big clue to what you’re reading is how your English translation formats the text: Is it in paragraph form? That’s prose. Is it stylized in stanzas? That’s poetry.
Storytelling is art. It can be easy to forget, but everything you ever learned in English class about characters, theme, setting, and all the rest applies to the stories in the Bible. Here are just a few things to slow down and pay attention to as you exercise your Bible reading muscles.
Naming in Bible stories
Notice the characters in the story. Pay attention to how the narrator refers to each character because this can be a key to understanding what the big idea in the story might be. Do they have a name? Are they simply given a generic label, like “a man”? Or identified by an ethnic group (like, “Samaritan woman”)? Are they identified by their relationship to somebody else (like, “the wife of Uriah”)?
The stories in John 3 and 4 are one illustration of this. In chapter 3, Jesus has a conversation with the Pharisee Nicodemus. In chapter 4, he talks with a Samaritan woman who has had five husbands (and it’s probably generous to call them “husbands”). Why does the storyteller name one of these characters and not the other? One reason might be the extraordinary contrast the storyteller is making between these two scenes. Nicodemus is important by every cultural standard of the audience. The woman is every bit the opposite. She doesn’t even get a name.
The familiar story of David and Bathsheba in 2 Samuel 11 is another. The storyteller calls her by name only once in the story. Otherwise, she is called “the woman” or “the wife of Uriah.” It suggests that maybe this story is more about David and Uriah than it is David and Bathsheba. (This story in 2 Samuel 11 is such a masterfully crafted story in all the ways the author unfolds the drama, piece by little piece, in both what’s said and left unsaid.)
Dialogue in Bible stories
What do the characters actually say? Watch for those quotation marks. A storyteller has a couple of options with characters. They can tell you what their characters are saying, doing, and feeling. Or they can show you directly. A storyteller may even explain the scenario and then have a character speak in contradiction, highlighting the limited perspective of that character.
Notice in Matthew 12 how the Pharisees challenge Jesus with a question: “Does the law permit a person to work by healing on the Sabbath?” And then notice how Jesus responds, “Yes, the law permits a person to do good on the Sabbath.” The Pharisees ask about healing. Jesus says it’s lawful to do good. In fact, he really rubs their noses in it as the storyteller continues, “[Jesus] healed all the sick among them.” It’s a radically subversive lesson on what Sabbath is for, and it’s all in the details of the dialogue, what the characters are saying back and forth.
Watch for the punchline in Bible stories
Every good story has a setup and a punchline, the building of tension followed by release. This is true of Bible stories, too. Where does it land? This is especially true for the parables of Jesus. The most important piece to understand its meaning is the punchline.
Consider the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10. We start with a Torah teacher quizzing Jesus about the way to eternal life. He follows this with a clarifying question about neighborliness. Jesus tells the story and closes with the question, “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor?”The teacher responds, “The one who had mercy.” And then Jesus drops the mic: “Go and do likewise.” A neighbor is one who shows mercy. Sometimes it’s helpful to start at the end and work backward
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Context in Bible stories
For many of us, our exposure to the Bible stories is in Sunday sermons or a Sunday school class—a small snippet at a time, separated from the larger context. But this isn’t at all how these stories were intended. The Gospels, for instance, are each a complete story from chapter 1 to the end. Each individual scene builds on the last, layer upon layer.
Consider how the story you’re reading links with the preceding ones. For instance, in Mark 8 Jesus asks the disciples who the people say that he is. They respond with John the Baptist or Elijah. Jesus presses further: What do you say? And Peter responds with the Messiah. Jesus then predicts his death and resurrection, and Peter starts to argue at that. Jesus puts him in his place and goes on to say that to follow him means you deny yourself and take up your cross.
What happens just before this? Jesus heals a blind man, but in a curious way. Jesus spits on the man’s eyes and says, “Can you see anything now?” And the guys responds that he sees trees walking around. Jesus touches his eyes and his sight is completely restored. Why didn’t it work the first time? Perhaps the storyteller uses this story to set up our expectations for the rest of this section about how Peter and the disciples are like this blind man, touched once and seeing Jesus only halfway to the truth, and a second touch is coming.
Activate your curiosity
Have a posture of discovery. Be ready to ask one more question. If we’ve spent a lot of time in church, we can easily find ourselves bored from overexposure. It’s a dangerous place to find our reaction to these stories as, “I’ve already heard that.” With a little bit of patience and intentional curiosity, we can find ourselves turned inside-out and upside-down with fresh perspectives.
Here are a handful of questions you might experiment with:
Who are the characters in this story?
What questions are asked directly by the characters? Are those questions directly answered by another person or the action?
What questions does this story provoke in me?
Does this situation echo an earlier scene in this book or another story in the Bible?
What might it be like to imagine yourself as one or more of the characters in the story?
How does this story fit in the whole of this section or book? What would be missing if it wasn’t there?
One more thing…
Last week my 5-year-old saw my Hebrew/Greek interlinear Bible sitting on the kitchen table. Ever so nonchalantly, she opened it up and started talking about Jesus. My wife, who witnessed this from the next room, says it was absolutely adorable.
And my daughter is on the right track. In the midst of our study and our close reading, we don’t lose sight of who these stories are ultimately about.
In seminary, I had a professor in a particularly technical Bible class who one day, as he opened class, prayed: May our study be like a game of Operation, that as we cut open and dissect the text, we would find ourselves surprised and shocked by its life-giving electricity.
May we always find ourselves surprised by the God that we find in these stories.
If you want to go deeper, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth by Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart is great for understanding the different genres of the Bible. The Art of Biblical Narrative by Robert Alter will inspire you to learn Hebrew. Elements of Biblical Exegesis by Michael Gorman has helpful, practical tips for paying closer attention as you read. And Story by Robert McKee is a classic on how to tell a good story.