It is easy to become confused, even disillusioned, by different and sometimes conflicting messages that people claim to be from a Bible written by inspired authors and therefore accurate and trustworthy.
This can occur if something is read into a text that was not there for the original recipients. A helpful quote from Fee & Stuart’s book is “A text cannot mean what it never meant”. For this reason, a considered approach is used to better understand the message for those who first heard it.
The fact that the Bible is ancient literature, written thousands of years ago, presents a challenge. People communicated differently in ancient times and had different “thought patterns” which were conditioned by the culture of the day . For example they used literature such as proverbs, Hebrew poetry, prophetic oracles, parables and apocalypse. In other words, God communicated with people, to some extent, on their terms literary-wise and in cultural forms familiar to the target audience.
Fortunately for us today, there are many excellent resources, such as good commentaries, dictionaries and translations, that can help. Some of these have been used to create brief, “to-the-point” and relevant topics for participants to access from this website.
The discussion questions that are provided for each topic are designed to assist the group focus on understanding the intended message.
The interpretative approach adopted by BibleOnWeb is fully explained in an information session prior to someone joining a group and is described in this article. Other approaches are not part of group discussions.