Continuing Our Discussion
This post continues our conversation on our expectations for engaging the Bible.
So far, we’ve discussed:
This post presents what I believe are the most popular expectations people have for their biblical engagement experience. All three contain an underlying truth, but they also have significant oversights.
Clarifying Statements
In this post, I am NOT saying that having these expectations prohibit you from hearing from God through the Bible.
Instead, I am presenting what I believe are some of the biggest road blocks people have when it comes to getting more out of the Bible.
The Importance of Evaluating our Expectations
Our expectations can be deeply personal because they reflect our past experiences and hopeful desires. Sometimes people get defensive when their expectations are confronted.
However, if we want to ‘get more’ we have to be willing to examine where we are and why we are there. That process includes examining our expectations.
With that said, I want to preface this conversation with the following insights about expectations from Troy Watson’s book Get a Hold of Yourself: Embracing Authenticity in a Complicated World. Watson poignantly explains how our expectations affect us. While his chapter on expectations focusses on expectations in general, there are many parallels to our biblical engagement experience:1
- “Left unexamined, our expectations can wreak havoc in our lives. They have tremendous power over us. They can motivate us or demoralize us, lift us or crush us.”
- “When our expectations are unattainable, we’re like prisoners in a cage of our own design.”
- “Over my twenty-seven years of pastoring, I’ve observed many Christians refuse to acknowledge surprising revelations that contradict their theology. They choose to ignore, dismiss, or deny a shocking insight, because it challenges the status quo of their worldview…”
‘Getting more’ begins with a courageous examination of the status quo.
The following expectations do cage us in a certain way. They cause us to focus on one aspect of God or the Bible as if it is the only aspect. Thus, we end up looking at the Bible with tunnel vision, and we ultimately miss out on the rich depth of the Scriptures.
3 Common Expectations of the Bible within Christianity
1. Supernatural-Only
One of the most common expectations I observe is formed from the supernatural quality of the Bible.
It is as follows: the Bible is a supernatural book, so my Bibleing experience – the way I understand the text, the way I feel it penetrate my heart and impact my life – should also feel supernatural, not natural.
Underlying Truth Behind this Expectation This expectation takes the supernatural quality of the Bible seriously – which is good!
Oversight of this Expectation Those with this expectation elevate the supernatural quality of the Bible at the expense of its natural quality. This creates a false ‘either/or’ expectation for the Bible. The Bible isn’t only supernatural. Thinking of it as such and expecting it to only ‘feel’ that way creates an expectation for your biblical engagement that will actually result in overwhelm.
Furthermore, this expectation raises unanswerable questions.
What should this supernatural experience feel like?
How do you know if you’ve had it?
When should you start feeling it – as soon as you open the text? After a certain amount of time within the text? When you close the text?
Are there similar experiences that mimic this supernatural experience but actually mislead you into thinking you’ve experienced the supernatural? How would you know?
How Do I Get More if this is My Expectation? The solution is to embrace the natural quality of the Bible just as firmly as you do the supernatural. God communicates to us both supernaturally and naturally through the Bible. In fact, we experience the supernatural quality through the natural process of engaging written communication – which is what the Bible is.
2. The Bible Reads Me
Another expectation I observe is the idea that the Bible exists to make us realize how we need to be transformed and then works to produce that transformation in us. It works in close association with the “supernatural-only” expectation.
It is as follows: the Bible is a supernatural book, and it is so different from all other books that I’m not the one doing the reading; I don’t read the Bible, the Bible reads me; the deepest and ultimate purpose for engaging the Bible is for it to transform me, and I should feel that transformation while I’m engaging the Bible.
Underlying Truth Behind this Expectation This expectation takes seriously the belief that God’s word changes and transforms us– which is good! God’s word does transform us, but this transformation is not a work of magic.
Oversight of this Expectation I believe this expectation stunts us so that we receive less from the Bible than what God reveals through it. There are two reasons why I believe this.
First, over time, this expectation causes us to value and practice meditating on the Bible significantly more than reading or studying. All three engagement types work together, and all three help us notice different things within the text. From what I have noticed, people with this expectation drift into an anthropocentric faith more easily than those who have a balanced rhythm of biblical engagement.
Second, God’s word does transform us; that is part of His intention behind ‘special revelation’. However, our transformation runs through knowing God – who He is, what He’s like, what He’s doing, and how He’s doing it – and loving Him for it.
We are made in Gods’ image. We get a clearer understanding of who we are by seeing God more clearly. We see God more clearly when He is the object / pursuit of our biblical engagement. If you have the expectation that the ultimate purpose of engaging the Bible is so that the Bible can read / interpret you, then you are shrinking the scope of what the Bible offers. Roughly 0% of the Bible is directly about you as an individual. The Bible is about the following:
- Creation
- Fall
- Salvation history
- New Creation
Expecting to experience the Bible pointing back to you decreases your ability to understand the passages that are intended to reveal something about God and His interaction(s) with creation. We want to see and comprehend what the Bible is primarily about because this will eventually result in better understanding God and, by extension, ourselves.
How Do I Get More if this is My Expectation? The solution is multi-layered. First, you need to recognize the Bible as having both natural and supernatural qualities. We are supposed to engage God’s word as humans. God brings the supernatural to the natural. This will allow you to peacefully embrace the idea of God revealing things to you in His word in a very ordinary way.
Second, focus on hearing the primary message of the Bible. The Bible is primarily focused on explaining God’s plan for salvation history and the human experience within it. This pertains to you by extension because you are part of humanity, but the depths of the biblical message lie outside of how the Bible can speak to your immediate circumstances today.
3. PRACTICAL APPLICATION IS KEY
This expectation causes people to twist themselves into knots in order to understand the value of what they’re reading in the Bible. It is one of the main causes of biblical engagement paralysis.
It is as follows: faith without works is dead, and faith is all about transformation; therefore, I need to apply the truths of the Bible to my life so that I am living in accordance with God’s truths.
Underlying Truth Behind this Expectation This expectation correctly recognizes the need to embody what we believe – which is good!
Oversight of this Expectation This expectation underhandedly communicates that the message and meaning of the Bible is only valuable to the extent it can be applied to our lives. Those with this expectation struggle to find meaning in the biblical message unless they can identify clear action steps. The fear is that a conceptual truth within the Bible might lead to knowledge without a direct and obvious action step associated with it (which we all know is bad because transformation is key). Thus, a practical application must be made abundantly clear so that we know we are doing something in response to the message we’ve heard – a.k.a. we can observe and measure that we are being transformed.
The problem is that much of the depth and richness within the Bible is not ‘practical applicational’. Take John 1:1 for example, “In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”. This is a conceptual truth. Your ‘action step’ is either believing or disbelieving it. It is a propositional truth claim that points to the deep mystery of who God is. This is a concept we need to know and meditate on deeply, not merely brush past it to find our practical action step.
How Do I Get More if this is My Expectation? Develop a love for the practice of meditating on Scripture. There is an entire genre within the Bible called “wisdom literature,” and it is there for a reason. God wants us to absorb and dwell on Him and creation with our minds. Many concepts within the Bible need to be digested by our minds. Once digested, these concepts nourish us from the inside. They become truths that we embody as a way of life, which will impact our individual actions.
Conclusion
Confronting our expectations can be uncomfortable. But we must go through this exercise if we want to get more out of the Bible. Expectations frame our experiences. They have the ability to cage us in or set us free. It is up to us how we respond when we receive new information about our expectations.
Will we become defensive and entrench ourselves in our current way of thinking?
Or will we pursue God with courage, knowing that we won’t get everything right the first time and that we need help identifying our blind spots?
It may make you feel vulnerable now, but I promise you that working through your expectations now sets you up for experiencing more in the Bible down the road.
Happy Bibleing!
Footnotes
- Troy Watson and Betty Pries, Get a Hold of Yourself: Embracing Authenticity in a Complicated World (Harrisonburg, VA: Herald Press, 2025), chap. 2, “Expectations.” This ebook omits page numbers. ↩︎
Leave a Reply