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# Two ways to read the Bible
- URL: https://www.dashhouse.com/200731two-ways-to-read-the-bible-html/
- Published: 2007-03-01T05:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2022-08-15T15:32:58.000Z
- Author: Darryl Dash
- Tags: Hermeneutics, Homiletics, theocentric, #DashHouseCom, #wp

[Tim Keller](http://www.redeemer2.com/themovement/issues/2004/feb/advancingthegospel%5F3%5Fpg2.html?ref=dashhouse.com) writes:

> Ed Clowney points out that if we ever tell a particular Bible story without putting it into the overall main Bible story (about Christ), we actually change the meaning of the particular event for us. It becomes a moralistic exhortation to 'try harder' rather than a call to live by faith in the work of Christ. There is, in the end, only two ways to read the Bible: is it basically about me or basically about Jesus? In other words, is it basically about what I must do, or basically about what he has done? Example: If I read David and Goliath as basically giving me an example, then the story is really about me. I must summons up the faith and courage to fight the giants in my life. But if I read David and Goliath as basically showing me salvation through Jesus, then the story is really about him. Until I see that Jesus fought the real giants (sin, law, death) for me, I will never have the courage to be able to fight ordinary giants in life (suffering, disappointment, failure, criticism, hardship). The Bible is not a collection of "Aesop's Fables", it is not a book of virtues. It is a story about how God saves us. Any exposition of a text that does not 'get to Christ' but just 'explains Biblical principles' will be a 'synagogue sermon' that merely exhorts people to exert their wills to live according to a particular pattern. Instead of the life-giving gospel, the sermon offers just one more ethical paradigm to crush the listeners.